US tortures Afghan, presumed innocent, to death

woiyo wrote:

Many of the people bitching on this thread come from a region much closer to the problem. Yet, those govt's closer to the problem have really done NOTHING in the past 20 years to resolve some of the issues related to that region.

That is not to defend the actions of the US AFTER the accomplishment of our missions in Afgan and Iraq. I just find it curious.

In a way it's good to see that nobody would defend those actions. Yet I don't understand what that has to do with geographical distance from Afghanistan or Iraq.
Basically, it can be summed up in six little words: You break it, you own it.

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Right, OE. In today's supersonic world the concept of geographic proximity is pretty meaningless anyway.

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Quote:

Cheney offended by Amnesty criticism

Tuesday, May 31, 2005 Posted: 0913 GMT

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday he was offended by Amnesty International's condemnation of the United States for what it called "serious human rights violations" at Guantanamo Bay.

"For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously," he said in an interview that aired Monday night on CNN's "Larry King Live."

In Cheney's world (and in who else's?), merely suggesting that "somehow" the US could be violating human rights somewhere apparently makes one ridiculous. In Cheney's world, the US apparently by definition can't be a violator of human rights. Never mind testimonies from Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo. Human rights violations is something others do.

Rolling Eyes

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Thing is, the US is NOT. Some Americans are.

The Netherlands is known to be a pot-smoking, whore infested place, but I do not assume you to partake of either and I'm sure most of your country men and women would also be offended to branded as such.

What has happened is an exception, not a rule. When organizations like AI, ICRC and others try to brand the US as something we are not, you will just have to deal with it. War makes bad things happen and creates situations that would otherwise not occur.

By labeling the US as a violator of human rights, you are placing them in the same league as N. Korea, Laos, Mozambique, Sudan and others where Human Rights are being violated as a rule.

The US and Britain are two of the brightest beacons in the world for freedom and rights. These organizations wish to throw mud on them because they know it will bring attention to their groups and liberal organizations that happen to agree with them right now will start funneling money to them in support of their anti-administration policy.

It sickens me to think that people believe the events in Abu Ghraib are the rule of conduct for our armed forces, but that's what propaganda does to you.

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McGentrix wrote:

Thing is, the US is NOT. Some Americans are.

Some Americans, who are wearing US uniforms and violate those human rights in the course of doing their job as US soldiers (however erroneously).

And thats where your parallel with the whoring Dutch runs into the ground.

The fact that American soldiers have committed human rights violations, while on duty, in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo means that, yes, the US there, in that case, was a human rights violator.

Pointing that out doesnt imply anything whatsoever about "most of your country men and women". State Not Equal

People.

McGentrix wrote:

By labeling the US as a violator of human rights, you are placing them in the same league as N. Korea, Laos, Mozambique, Sudan and others where Human Rights are being violated as a rule.

Wrong. Oddly, by calling the US a violator of human rights in a report about Guantanamo, as Amnesty International did, you are saying nothing much more than that, well: the US violates human rights in Guantanamo.

The indignant rhetorics about how somehow an affront to all Americans is implied is a red herring.

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mcg, if someone stole something that person would be a thief. If someone else has stolen a lot of things that person would be a thief.

The US allegedly violated the rights of those it held in custody. If true then we a violator of human rights.

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nimh, didn't mean to basically say the same.

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McGentrix

Its really not all that hard. Let me give you an example.

The Netherlands deserted the Bosnian Muslims of Srebrenica, thousands of whom were subsequently murdered.

Now this is a statement one can agree or disagree with (did the Dutch soldiers who guarded the "safe area" of Srebrenica have any choice, when they allowed the Serbs in? Did they act callously, or were they themselves the victims of callous policies of the international authorities in Bosnia?).

But I should think it's pretty bloody clear that the statement does not purport to say anything about "most of my country men and women".

I think it should also be pretty straightforward that if someone at the time had called "Srebrenica" a crime, and submitted that "The Netherlands is violating human rights", he therewith would not have been "placing Holland in the same league as North Korea".

All that is just silliness - and there's a whiff of fakeness about the pomposity of such indignant protestations.

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Amnesty's chief goes head-to-head with a White House lawyer about Guantanamo, war crimes, and the word 'gulag.'

Quote:

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I believe Cheney said the statement was absurd, not the organization.

This goes back to what I am saying. The US polices itself on these actions. We hardly need an organization like AI to point them out for us like so many other nations.

Can someone plaes point out a Human Rights violation that took place as a result of US policy that wasn't already under investigation by the US before the media or organizations like AI brought it to our attention?

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I already did on the AI thread.

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Neither of your posts in the AI thread points out a Human Rights violation that took place as a result of US policy that wasn't already under investigation by the US before the media or organizations like AI brought it to our attention?

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Here is the post. (don't know how to link to it)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote:

Yea, I know, McG, military official are just so quick to apply swift justice.

http://207.44.245.159/article8252.htm

Quote:
The Army reports cited "credible information" that four military interrogators assaulted Mr. Dilawar and another Afghan prisoner with "kicks to the groin and leg, shoving or slamming him into walls/table, forcing the detainee to maintain painful, contorted body positions during interview and forcing water into his mouth until he could not breathe."

American military officials in Afghanistan initially said the deaths of Mr. Habibullah, in an isolation cell on Dec. 4, 2002, and Mr. Dilawar, in another such cell six days later, were from natural causes.

Lt. Gen. Daniel K. McNeill, the American commander of allied forces in Afghanistan at the time, denied then that prisoners had been chained to the ceiling or that conditions at Bagram endangered the lives of prisoners.

But after an investigation by The New York Times, the Army acknowledged that the deaths were homicides. Last fall, Army investigators implicated 28 soldiers and reservists and recommended that they face criminal charges, including negligent homicide.

But so far only Private Brand, a military policeman from the 377th Military Police Company, an Army Reserve unit based in Cincinnati, and Sgt. James P. Boland, from the same unit, have been charged.

The charges against Sergeant Boland for assault and other crimes were announced last summer, and those against Private Brand are spelled out in Army charge sheets from hearings on Jan. 4 and Feb. 3 in Fort Bliss, Tex.

It was only after the NYT investigated the deaths that they admitted the deaths were homicides. Before they were "natural causes."

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Yes I read that. Whose reports do you think they read? The whole story revolves around the US investigation and the findings of those investigations.

The fact that the NYT had the story before the investigation had concluded matters little.

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OK, McGentrix, if that is how you want to read it.

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Let's look at the first sentence as I believe it makes it rather clear...

Quote:

Two Afghan prisoners who died in American custody in Afghanistan in December 2002 were chained to the ceiling, kicked and beaten by American soldiers in sustained assaults that caused their deaths, according to Army criminal investigative reports that have not yet been made public.

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McG, all the first sentence means is that the investigated report from the army was not yet made public at the time the article was written.

It did not say that the NYT read the army's report; it said it investigated and then the army changed their story.

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McGentrix wrote:

IThis goes back to what I am saying. The US polices itself on these actions. We hardly need an organization like AI to point them out for us like so many other nations.

Thats not actually what you were saying in your post above at all. You were saying, quite literally, that calling the US a human rights violator in Guantanamo, as AI did, was tantamount to branding "most of your country men and women" as human rights violators and placing the US "in the same league as N. Korea".

Both assertions are of course ridiculous - and the blast of indignation that accompanies such all too commonplace "attack is the best defence"-type rhetorical outbursts mostly serves to distract from the actual human rights violations pointed out in reports like AI's.

Smearing the messenger is another tactic to serve the same goal, and it makes even such a venerable, ueber-impartisan organisation like the Red Cross just an attention-craving purveyor of "anti-administration policy".

It would be pathetic, really, if the practice didn't reach right up to the Veep.

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I disagree nimh. Too many people are not as discerning as many of the posters here on A2K. They see the reports and decide that the US must all be like that. They believe as I have stated. Can you deny the lower side of the bell curve?

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Lol - AI only discusses the worst side of ANY country. The US, Australia, Great Britain, Saudi Arabia, North Korea......ALL countries.

That is its mission - to uncover the human rights injustices.

I guess McG is saying it should pack up and go home, cos the US won't tolerate criticism?

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US tortures Afghan, presumed innocent, to death

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