RightConservative

Atrocities: Real and Imagined
By: Doug Hagin
RightConservative.com 05-30-05

Recently Amnesty International declared the United States a violator of human rights. They labeled the detention center in Guantanamo Bay Cuba, a modern day gulag. Amnesty Secretary General Irene Khan declared that nowhere has "the assault on fundamental values that is shaking the human rights world been more damaging. In addition, she blasted efforts by the U.S. administration to weaken the absolute ban on torture."

Newsweek, of course has done its share of America bashing by running with stories of American soldiers abusing the Quran. The stories, as we know proved to be false, and Newsweek retracted their story. The rest of the media has, however, continued leading their headlines and broadcasts with more accusations of Quran desecration.

Likewise, the International Red Cross took the United States to task for alleged prisoner abuses in Iraq. The daughter of Saddam Hussein has called the photos of her father inhumane and questioned why her father was not being treated like a human being and the father of three daughters. Even that bastion of civil liberties and human rights, North Korea bashed the United States over what they called violations of the human rights of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

So obviously, this has been a bad time for public relations for the Bush administration and for the military. Of course, most of the bad press has been based on false retracted news stories, the testimony of terrorists, overreaction from left-wing groups that always enjoy bashing America, and the rantings of North Korean Communists. Therefore, as usual, the ones pointing fingers at us are hardly angels themselves.

Overall, the various charges leveled at American forces have fallen well short of believability. The facts are very clear. The examples of abuse, atrocities, and torture which have been given as proof of how evil America is have fallen far, far short of doing anything of the sort. The behavior of our troops, and the treatment of prisoners we hold, is not anywhere near justifying the criticisms cast upon them.

The real problem here is the extreme double standard these groups and the mainstream American media use to judge America's military. There is no doubt American troops ought to be held to a higher standard of conduct than terrorists are. That is not the issue though. America is consistently held to an impossible standard rather than a higher standard.



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Billo_Really

Does this fall short as well...

Soon after those repulsive images of US military police torturing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib shocked the world, President Bush indicated that torture will not be tolerated and those responsible will be held accountable. But we all know, now, that the Abu Ghraib debacle is not simply the case of a few bad apples; it is the result of a policy of condoning abuse and official implementation of ill treatment practices, [euphemistically labeled stress and duress] in the course of military interrogations, and, to this day, failing to fully repudiate these crimes. Furthermore, the extent of torture and ill treatment by U.S. military forces will not be know until thorough, impartial and independent investigations have been completed and effective monitoring practices are in place in all detention facilities.

What we have learned in the past several months about US officials condoning torture and/or ill treatment is truly extraordinary.

At a May 11, 2004 hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, a list of interrogation techniques used by the U.S. Army in detention facilities in Iraq was released that includes food, sleep and sensory deprivation, stress positions, and isolated confinement.
The following day at a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said he personally approved guidelines for interrogation techniques. Both he and General Richard B. Meyers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated that interrogation methods used by U.S. interrogators in Iraq and elsewhere were in compliance with the Geneva Conventions.
And just yesterday, a December 2002 Pentagon document was released in which Secretary Rumsfeld reportedly approved the use of death threats, removal of clothing, the presence of dogs, prolonged positioning, hooding, isolation, marathon (20 hour) interrogations, forced grooming, and yelling in military interrogations, and apparently water-boarding was neither, approved nor excluded as a future possible method.
You see, there is a connection between those terrible photographs and recent attempts to justify ill treatment in the war against terrorism. The photographs are the product of official authorization of abuse. In fact, the Abu Ghraib pictures of naked men in piles and military police making lewd poses in font naked men, or a naked, hooded man standing on a platform with wires dangling from his wrists, were, at one time, approved methods of interrogation. Although the methods of ill treatment approved in December 2002 were reportedly recinded in April 2003, current interrogation methods have not been released to the pubic.

The line that U.S officials have crossed is nothing less that the absolute prohibition against torture and ill treatment. The truth is that there is no legal distinction between torture and ill treatment. They are part of a spectrum of abuses and that is why they are equally prohibited by the Geneva Conventions, the UN Convention Against Torture, and American statutes. Moreover, The Geneva Conventions strictly prohibit any form of coercion among prisoners of war or insurgents as does U.S. military field manuals such as the Army's Field Manual FM 34-52 of September 1992

It's convenient to trash the source so you don't have to deal with the issue. "Well, its the terrorists...Amnesty International...an Op-Ed..." How convenient! So I know you want to trash my source, so here it is...

Testimony before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus
By Vincent Iacopino, M.D., Ph.D.
Physicians for Human Rights and
The Center for Victims of Torture

June 23, 2004

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"With neocons, it just goes to show, when the
bar is low enough, you can never be too wrong!"

galenrox

Alright, make of this what you will. My buddy Dave has a bunch of friends in the army (he spent his teenage years in various reform schools, and so a lot of his school mates ended up enlisting). One of these friends has been sent to Gitmo on several occassions. According to this guy, not only is there torture going on, there's straight up murder. Apparently there are people dying there everyday from beatings, starvation, and just poor living conditions. Something tells me that this doesn't qualify as "interrogation". But since no one is notified of their detention, there's no accountability awaiting those who kill these people, because there's not any non-classified proof that they were there in the first place.

Another source has said that the military has known where Osama Bin Laden is since September 12th, 2001, but shooting him requires an executive order, which has never been granted. It's apparently gotten to the point that he's not even intimidated by members of the US military anymore.

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Billo_Really

I agree with what you said. Although I'm a little sketchy on your point.

galenrox

Don't really have a point, just putting it out there.

Billo_Really

Does it bother you that it is Americans that are doing this? It bothers the crap out of me. When people tell me I hate the flag, I think, "Hey, I don't like saying this kind of $hit at all" Its not how I was raised.

galenrox

Of course it bothers me. I believe that it's flat out unAmerican! We're supposed to represent a dream, we're supposed to be a model for other nations to look at to see how to do the right thing, and when we do **** like this, it just makes my blood ****ing boil. It pisses me off to the point that steam shoots out of my ears that these ****ing cowards are so damn afraid of getting hurt that they're willing to sacrifice America to protect themselves, and that is something that I cannot and will never ****ing accept.

Simon W. Moon

So, Eric, do you post these by hand? Or do you use a spambot macro?

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Billo_Really

Who's Eric?