Let the story in AP breaking news about the Amnesty International Annual Report speak for itself:
“Guantanamo has become the gulag of our time,” Amnesty Secretary General Irene Khan said as the London-based group launched its annual report. Amnesty International called for the camp to be closed.
The annual report accused the United States of shirking its responsibility to set the bar for human rights protections and said Washington has instead created a new lexicon for abuse and torture.
“Attempts to dilute the absolute ban on torture through new policies and quasi-management speak, such as ‘environmental manipulation, stress positions and sensory manipulation,’ was one of the most damaging assaults on global values.”
Let the US response mentioned in the same AP story stand as their answer and rebuttal of these damning criticisms:
I have nothing to add to what Amnesty says in its introduction:
Despite the near-universal outrage generated by the photographs coming out of Abu Ghraib, and the evidence suggesting that such practices are being applied to other prisoners held by the USA in Afghanistan, Guantánamo and elsewhere, neither the US administration nor the US Congress has called for a full and independent investigation.
Instead, the US government has gone to great lengths to restrict the application of the Geneva Conventions and to “re-define” torture. It has sought to justify the use of coercive interrogation techniques, the practice of holding “ghost detainees” (people in unacknowledged incommunicado detention) and the “rendering” or handing over of prisoners to third countries known to practise torture. The detention facility at Guantánamo Bay has become the gulag of our times, entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law. Trials by military commissions have made a mockery of justice and due process.
The USA, as the unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power, sets the tone for governmental behaviour worldwide. When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity and audacity. From Israel to Uzbekistan, Egypt to Nepal, governments have openly defied human rights and international humanitarian law in the name of national security and “counter-terrorism”.
Sixty years ago, out of the ashes of the Second World War, a new world order came into being, putting respect for human rights alongside peace, security and development as the primary objectives of the UN. Today, the UN appears unable and unwilling to hold its member states to account.
It is not just what the US does that is of concern. It fuels the abuses of others across the world.
Yes, this really is so, this really is the freedom that Bush has let reign. The freedom to kill and torture by other countries under the shadow of what America is doing.
I remember when the UK and France, with the connivance of Israel, jointly invaded Egypt to try and seize control of the Suez canal. Under the shadow of this illegal action, the Soviet Union went in and crushed the people of Hungary and their uprising.
What is happening now is on a far greater scale. We are committing illegal actions. By our illegal actions, we encourage others to follow suit.
Not all the Karl Roves and Karen Hugheses in the world can spin this story any other way.