The Schizoid Realpolitik of The British National Security State.

The Gibson Enquiry will prove merely be another cover up of the scale of the collusion between the British government under Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Milliband and the CIA and Gaddafi regime in the use of torture as part of the "war on terror". Hence this,

Kim Howells, former Labour foreign minister and chairman of the intelligence and security committee (ISC) of MPs and peers tasked with monitoring the activities of MI5 and MI6, told the BBC he was "absolutely satisfied there was no involvement in the illegal rendition of detainees".

Obviously, there was no "involvement" in that government ministers were not directly involved in the transporting of detainees to places where they were tortured, as this is what the CIA, in fact, did. That does not mean MI6 were not involved in supporting that policy all along and 'knew nothing' or ministers did not too.

The Orwellian nature of this growing "national security state" more generally is clear. MI6 exists not so much to protect British citizens from terrorism but to play a dirty covert war in which the 'war on terror" could be used as a pretext to advance British geopolitical interests and control over oil.

For a start there is the issue of whether Abdul Hakim Belhaj, leader of the Islamist Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) was ever aligned to Al Qaida plots in Britain and the USA or whether he was merely an enemy of Gaddafi that the British government was committed to buttressing.

It is an absurdity that in 2009 the British security services were involved in having the SAS train Gaddafi's troops to counter the very Islamists who now in 2011 are rebranded as heroic rebels fighting tyranny and whose military contribution to toppling Gaddafi was backed by Britain.

This either means that the LIFG were not a particular threat after 2004 when Blair affected a rapprochement with Gaddafi in order to advance BP's interests there and sell arms, or that they were and somehow have had a change of heart and are committed to democracy in Libya.

Interestingly at the beginning of 2009, the then Foreign Secretary David Miliband proclaimed the 'war on terror' was no longer a useful phrase and just months later the SAS were sent in to help combat the Islamists who are now supposed to be allies in the war against Gaddafi's dictatorship (with it's history of supporting terror).

Belhadj was not part of Al Qaida's brand of' global jihad but connected only to Islamists in Afghanistan whose ideology is more akin to the Taliban alongside which he fought with until capture by the US ( after previously having been part of the mujahadeen in the 1980 against the Soviet Union ).

So Belhadj went from ally of the US and Britain against the Communists to the enemy under the Taliban during the 'war of terror' and has become an asset once more now that he was willing to aid the removal of Gaddafi and is a major leader of the military council of the NTC.

Such shoddy realpolitik by the US and UK and the collusion in dirty tactics shows the only consistency in Anglo-US geopolitical interests concerning oil and gas supplies in a way that is both ruthless and ineffective in ensuring British security.

Even weirder is the fact that Belhadj, who is already treated with suspicion by the other NTC rebels, owes his life, when released from death row in 2010, to none other than-Saif Gaddafi. The dictator's son, who disappeared as Tripoli fell, then re-emerged proclaiming his radical Islamist credentials.

The liberals will escape or be killed...We will do it together... Libya will look like Saudi Arabia, like Iran. So what?”

If the transition fails to be effective, then the radical Islamists being frozen out of the process might have no reason not to ally with remnant Gaddafi forces. Unless, the West starts to reduce dependence upon oil and the US/UK stop playing these power games, the result will always be blowback.

And this is what is supposed to be known as the operations of British "intelligence".