Now here's something interesting...

By now, most of you have seen this story on Barack Obama's grandfather, which notes he was savagely tortured by British thugs during the fight for Kenyan independence:

Hussein Onyango Obama, Mr Obama's paternal grandfather, became involved in the Kenyan independence movement while working as a cook for a British army officer after the war. He was arrested in 1949 and jailed for two years in a high-security prison where, according to his family, he was subjected to horrific violence to extract information about the growing insurgency.

"The African warders were instructed by the white soldiers to whip him every morning and evening till he confessed," said Sarah Onyango, Hussein Onyango's third wife, the woman Mr Obama refers to as "Granny Sarah".

Mrs Onyango, 87, described how "white soldiers" visited the prison every two or three days to carry out "disciplinary action" on the inmates suspected of subversive activities.

"He said they would sometimes squeeze his testicles with parallel metallic rods. They also pierced his nails and buttocks with a sharp pin, with his hands and legs tied together with his head facing down," she said The alleged torture was said to have left Mr Onyango permanently scarred, and bitterly antiBritish. "That was the time we realised that the British were actually not friends but, instead, enemies," Mrs Onyango said. "My husband had worked so diligently for them, only to be arrested and detained."

Brutal stuff. And yet the subhed for the story reads:

The President-elect's relatives have told how the family was a victim of the Mau Mau revolt.

Yes, yes. If those Kenyans hadn't decided to fight for self-rule, we wouldn't have had to torture them. Seriously, I'm sure it was a mistake. If a weird one.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2008/12/now-here-apos-s-something-interesting/6369/