Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 16, 2010

Early in his presidency, Barack Obama created a minor diplomatic problem by returning a bronze bust of Churchill that had been lent to President George W. Bush. The White House declined a British offer to keep the bust for a few more years.

Obama?s ambivalence toward Churchill may have something to do with Churchill?s role in suppressing the Mau-Mau insurrection against British rule in Kenya.

The means used to put down that bloody and horrific uprising included arrest, detention, and torture without trial. Among the victims of official mistreatment ? which included daily whippings -- was Hussein Onyango Obama, the President's grandfather, who at the time was a cook in the British Army.

Civil liberties commentator Glenn Greenwald points out the irony that Mr. Obama?s government behaves in similar fashion ? detaining suspects without trial, countenancing torture of detainees, and even conducting targeted assassinations. It would have been better to keep the Churchill bust and let the Brits take back their imperial foreign policy.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.