BS: Amnesty Condemns US Prisoner Torture

Subject: BS: Amnesty Condems US Prisoner Torture
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Oct 04 - 09:01 PM

There are precious few US news outlets carrying this story. It was just listed as "no longer available" when I clicked on the US Reuters site through Google News.

Here is the Reuters UK story.

Here is an excerpt of the story:

"LONDON (Reuters) - The United States has manifestly failed to uphold obligations to reject torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading behaviour in the "war on terror" launched after September 11, 2001, Amnesty International says.

The human rights group condemned the U.S. administration's response to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington as one which had resulted in its own "iconography of torture, cruelty and degradation".

"The war mentality the government has adopted has not been matched with a commitment to the laws of war and it has discarded fundamental human rights principles along the way," it said in a report on Wednesday."

Amnesty is also demanding that BOTH candidates should publicly should commit to working to prevent any torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees in US custody. They should also undertake to establish an independent commission of inquiry into all the USA's interrogation and detention policies, Amnesty International said today as it released a new 200-page report on the issue of torture and ill-treatment by US forces in the "war on terror".

Of course, neither candidate has or will, which truly makes the US giants in the eyes of the world, regardless of who wins.

Subject: RE: BS: Amnesty Condems US Prisoner Torture
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Oct 04 - 09:04 PM

Hey, Bush oughtta be empeached fir this one... The Supreme Court has even told Bush and Co. to knock it off but Bush and Co. have flicked their collective noses at the Court that but them in office...

Go figure? Now that's no way to say "Thankee"...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Amnesty Condems US Prisoner Torture
From: Once Famous
Date: 28 Oct 04 - 05:55 PM

condems or condoms?

Subject: RE: BS: Amnesty Condemns US Prisoner Torture
From: grumpy al
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 04:06 PM

Has nobody told those in charge, of the torture prisons, that torture does not work. You might get the answer you want to hear but it is not necessarily the truth. The Nazis found that out over sixty years ago but thankfully to late to do any good or I may have been typing this in german.

Subject: RE: BS: Amnesty Condemns US Prisoner Torture
From: freda underhill
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 07:44 PM

there is no excuse for torture. any former of coercion is the worst form of corruption and inept investigation.

The men are being supported by the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights and their case will be heard in a federal court in Washington if it proceeds. The action is being brought under the Alien Tort Claims Act, Geneva Conventions, and Religious Freedom Restoration Act, according to a statement from the Centre for Constitutional Rights. They alleged that they were beaten, stripped, shackled and deprived of sleep during their detention at the camp, where around 600 terrorist suspects have been kept isolated their families and lawyers. It was alleged that guards tried to force the men to give up Islam, injected them with unidentified drugs and threatened to set dogs on them.

The men from Tipton said they eventually gave false confessions that they appeared in a video with Osama bin Laden and Mohammed Atta, the September 11 chief hijacker, despite the fact that they could prove they were in Britain when the film was made.

Subject: RE: BS: Amnesty Condemns US Prisoner Torture
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 08:03 PM

It seems doubtful to me that obtaining accurate information from captuves is really what fuels this kind of treatment. It seems much more likely that it is a matter of complying with expectations from above, and of being seen as supplying stuff that can be used as if it was information.

If prisoners under torture give names of perfectly innocent people, who are then imprisoned and gven the same treatment, that is just as useful from that point of view as if the information was accurate. It is producing results which can be recorded - number of people detained and imprisoned and interrogated. Guilt or innocence makes no real difference. It's the same methodology that underpinned witchcraft trials.

When prisoners are released without any kind of charge, there is no penalty imposed on the people responsible for imprisoning them, or on the interrogators who came up with the duff information that led to them being seized.

Subject: RE: BS: Amnesty Condemns US Prisoner Torture
From: dianavan
Date: 30 Oct 04 - 02:22 PM

freda - I hope it does proceed. Keep us posted.

d

Subject: RE: BS: Amnesty Condemns US Prisoner Torture
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Oct 04 - 05:28 PM

This shows that not only does the Bush administration and the Rumsfeld Pentagon not give a shit about human rights for people of other countries, it also shows that they don't give a shit about the human rights of people serving in the US military. The Geneva convention rules about torture were adopted more to protect our own forces than the people with whom we are fighting. The Bush administration's flagrant disregard for the Geneva convention shows that they don't care one bit what happens to US citizens serving in the military who might be captured by the other side.

Subject: RE: BS: Amnesty Condemns US Prisoner Torture
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Oct 04 - 05:32 PM

I should rephrase that. The US's motivation in being a part of the Geneva convention was to protect our own people, not the people fighting on the other side. Enlightened self-interest.