US Answers To UN On Torture
The US government has sent a delegation of 30 people to Geneva to respond to questions from the UN about alleged torture of detainees.
This's all well and good. It'll be great if the US honestly responds to the requests for information about secret prisons and who're being held and where. These are things many people have wanted to know ever since info about the secret prisons was first uncovered.
However, I'd like to know why the UN needs to do this. Why is Bushco answering these questions in Geneva and not Washington DC? Once the reports started appearing about secret prisons, rendition and kidnapping, Congress should have initiated inquiries. We should have cleaned up our own house and not forced the UN to get involved.
The US has defended its treatment of suspects detained in its "war on terror", telling a UN committee that it considers the use of torture as wrong.
US Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights Barry Lowenkron told the Committee Against Torture in Geneva that US law prohibited such practices.
Senior US officials are testifying before the committee for the first time since the 11 September 2001 attacks.
Rights groups accuse the US of flouting the UN Convention against Torture.
They say the US allows the torture and inhumane treatment of foreign terror suspects at their detention centres around the world, including Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
This's all well and good. It'll be great if the US honestly responds to the requests for information about secret prisons and who're being held and where. These are things many people have wanted to know ever since info about the secret prisons was first uncovered.
However, I'd like to know why the UN needs to do this. Why is Bushco answering these questions in Geneva and not Washington DC? Once the reports started appearing about secret prisons, rendition and kidnapping, Congress should have initiated inquiries. We should have cleaned up our own house and not forced the UN to get involved.
posted by SPIIDERWEB™ at 5/06/2006 08:21:00 PM
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2 Comments:
I'd like to know why the UN needs to do this. Why is Bushco answering these questions in Geneva and not Washington DC?
I believe that the answer is: public opinion. From the stats that I've collected on my blog, between one and two thirds Americans believe that torture can be justified (depending upon how the question is worded). A significant minority, if not a majority, support the policy.
As imperfect as it might be, the US is still a democracy, and the parliament still represents the will of the people. The Administration knows that the American people, for the most part, don't care if anonymous Afghan taxi-drivers get tortured to death. Look, there was no civil disobedience, no riots. A large proportion of Americans simply don't give a shit, and the policy reflects that.
I'm afraid you're right and it sickens me.
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