Watching the Lateline [1] feature on the torture memos last night, I wondered how Mick Keelty was going to fare. On top of his other counterterrorism muck-ups, there was more to come. Keelty admitted years ago that he'd dismissed Mamdou Habib's claims of torture as a deceptive fantasy.

As mentioned here before, the United Nations Human Rights Council has evidence proving that Australian operatives were interviewing Aussie War On Terror prisoners at the places where they were being tortured. The evidence was submitted in early February.

In some ways I feel sorry for Keelty. His claims that invading Iraq would result in more terrorism in Australia went down badly with the Howard Government, resulting in photos of John and Mick shaking hands cropping up all over the place. I felt at the time that an honest and proud man had been conquered, but since then? The AFP's assistance in rounding up and deporting Halliburton activist Scott Parkin was a travesty, as was the treatment of Mahommed Haneef. Then, this year, came Keelty's defence of AFP response to the murder at Sydney airport, when Mick said his boys had done a great job answering a 000 call for help.

The torture stuff, though, has been the one really bugging me., and hopefully it's been bugging Mick. Australia's been involved in Guantanamo-based torture programs. We even took one man, David Hicks, home after his torture claims were about to come out in a trial. Then we locked him up again.

As I say, watching how the remnants of the Bush Administration are squirming in their attempts to escape accountability for authorising such brutal treatment of detainees (except for Dick Cheney, who is having his usual gloat) and arguing that they believed their actions to be legal, I was wondering how Mick Keelty would fare when the Australian participation in these atrocities finally reaches the media.

Hearing of Keelty's resignation from his AFP job today came as no surprise at all. Downer, Ruddock and Howard are long-gone, ASIO chief O'Sullivan has moved on. It would seem that the last head left to place on a chopping block was Mick's. In such circumstances, discretion would certainly be the better part of valour.