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2005 Amnesty Report vs. Bush Administration

  
 
ibis the being
21:37 / 06.06.05
I was kind of hoping someone a little less overworked and addled would start this thread, but I'm just dying to discuss this issue so here I go.

In Amnesty International's Annual Report for 2005, there is notable focus on reported human rights violations at Guantanamo Bay, and the United States' apparent unwillingness to conduct thorough investigations into allegations of torture there. Amnesty states that there should be an independent investigation launched by the US that will look into what exactly is going on at Gitmo and exactly how far up accountability should go. They assert that it's not credible to claim each confirmed incident of abuse is the result of individual rogue soldiers, and believe that there is evidence that torture has been condoned from the top (ie Sect of Defense) on down. If no such independent is conducted, Amnesty writes, other countries have an obligation to step in and investigate the US government for violations of Internatl law and the Geneva Conventions.

The report has gotten a lot of press not only for these serious statements about the US govt, but mainly, unfortunately, for the controversial use of the phrase "gulag of our times" in reference to Gitmo. I would love to avoid going too far down that tangent if at all possible (?).

President Bush publicly stated that the report is "absurd," and Rumsfeld called it "irresponsible." In related news, the Pentagon at first flatly denied allegations of Quran desecration at Guantanamo, while the Administration pressured Newsweek to retract their story on such abuses. Then, last Friday night, the Pentagon admitted to several incidents of Quran desecration at Gitmo - the Friday night release being a strategy to have the story covered by the least-read paper in the country (the Saturday papers).

Then today when Bush told China to atone for human rights abuses in their country, China retorted that basically the US should look to the plank in its own eye (sorry, my Google-fu is weakening, can someone else find that story?). Clearly US credibility is at an unprecedented low. How long can Bush and Co. go on promoting democracy and flatly refusing to participate in transparency at its own detention camps? Any thoughts?
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
00:25 / 07.06.05
I was about to start a thread on this myself, but was obviously beaten to it...

...for the controversial use of the phrase "gulag of our times" in reference to Gitmo. I would love to avoid going too far down that tangent if at all possible (?).

Unfortunately, this tangent is important when you consider that Amnest International has lost a good deal of credibility with this one statement, and rightly so in my opinion. Guantanamo is very far from a gulag. It's a shithole if you have to stay there, but gulag it is not. That was plain exaggeration in a report that was supposed to be unbiased (sort of similar to what happens on this very board. If you're blasting Bush and his buddies, you can exaggerate or maybe not check the facts thoroughly and no one will complain because no one gives a shit if Bush is getting an undeserved bum deal. Everyone gets a fair deal, even the assholes, remember guys?).

Granted, it was later said to be a metaphorical statement, but that's kinda lame. "Gulag" is a term that holds with it a very definite image/taste, not unlike the word "holocaust".

Anyway. That's as far as I'll go on that, if that's what you want. As far as desecration of the Quran, from what I've heard, it's mainly incidents of someone kicking it around or "accidentally" spilling water (or, apparently, urine) on it. That's pretty light desecration. I could think of hundreds of worse ideas, and think it should be banned only because it seems to really piss off other Muslims, and the resulting loss of life outweighs whatever information gained from such half-assed "human rights violations" as kicking a holy book (or "accidentally" spilling urine on it).

All in all, Guantanamo is for the most part adhering to the Geneva Convention's guidelines on how to treat unlawful combatants, or so I've heard experts say. But if you listen to gov't folk talk about this, you may notice that while they go into great detail about the Geneva Convention and it's rules for unlawful combatants, they kinda skip over the descriptions of what an unlawful combatant is and why the Guatanamo crowd are considered "unlawful", and move right on to how the prisoners have more in terms of due process than P.O.W.'s did in WWII. This is only natural. They don't want everyone trying to get the prisoners upgraded to lawful combatants (which I suspect is much easier than they would like us to think) because then no one can interrogate them lawfully.

I'm not sure if it's a strawman created by folks defending Guatanamo, but Republicans in support of the prison camp claim that many people are calling for the prisoners to have full due process rights and be considered criminals (since they can't be condidered soldiers), which means trials and lawyers and all that. I think this is a terrible idea, personally.

I'm thinking maybe the geneva convention is getting kind of outdated and needs some freshening up.

How long can Bush and Co. go on promoting democracy and flatly refusing to participate in transparency at its own detention camps? Any thoughts?

For as long as they want, probably. A big enough public outcry from the U.S. might put a stop to it, but I doubt that's in the near future.

I think what it may boil down to is whether or not you feel human rights violations are worth the information gained. It's a tough call, especially since none of us know what the U.S. has learned or how valuable it is.
 
 
lord henry strikes back
07:22 / 07.06.05
I have not read the report yet, but I'm just about to do so. One point I do want to raise though. Something we have learnt in the UK over the past couple of years is that you have to be very careful when calling for 'independent investigations'. First the government get to set the remit. Then they get to choose who will carry out the investigation. Even if the initial outline looks good the appointed investigator gets to interpret this brief however they see fit.

What we learnt from the Butler and Hutton is that if this game is played well you can get any result that you want. Furthermore, once an investigation has been carried out (however dubious it might be) the governmemt have got a big stick with which to defend themself from later attacks. These kinds of investigations have got to be done very carefully or you run the risk of strengthening the governmemnts position.
 
 
Nobody's girl
10:27 / 07.06.05
Guantanamo is very far from a gulag.

Why? Dictionary.com defines a gulag as "A place or situation of great suffering and hardship, likened to the atmosphere in a prison system or a forced labor camp." Sounds like Guantanamo to me. Channel 4 recently had a series of programmes on torture one of which was called "The Guantanmo Guidebook" in which some of the milder "interrogation techniques" used at Guantanamo were performed on volunteers. Here's a link to one of the participants accounts, a self-described "plucky Oxford undergraduate finalist in philosophy and politics" who had firm beliefs that these "interrogation techniques" were sometimes necessary. Before his experience, that is.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
10:48 / 07.06.05
Even though it may or may not be technically correct to call Guantanamo a Gulag- and I think it is correct, though seemingly (hopefully) on a smaller scale than the soviet ones (not that that makes much difference in terms of ethics)- I think it was a bad choice of language, simply because it gives the Right a stick to beat the report with. It's a deeply emotional word, after all.
 
 
alejandrodelloco
15:56 / 07.06.05
I like how Rumsfeld said that Amnesty International has no credibility, even though he cited them for his case against saddam. hmm.
 
 
ibis the being
11:52 / 08.06.05
The main reason I wanted to avoid talking too much about "gulag" is because it distracts. I don't know if it was put into the report to draw publicity, or if it was just a poor word choice, or what - but saying that Amnesty lost credibility because of it goes a little too far. One hyberbolic sentence in the context of all the work they've done and do around the world... just has to be put into perspective. Incidentally, I heard a man call into a NPR talk show and say he was at one of the gulags and did not disagree with the characterization. Anyhooo....

That's pretty light desecration. I could think of hundreds of worse ideas, and think it should be banned only because it seems to really piss off other Muslims, and the resulting loss of life outweighs whatever information gained from such half-assed "human rights violations" as kicking a holy book (or "accidentally" spilling urine on it).

Look, a violation is a violation is a violation. We're not talking about whether US troops are "too mean," or something similarly vague. We're talking about transgressions of international law as well as US policy. You can't just willy-nilly say, well, we're going to make exceptions to those laws & treaties we signed because these are really bad people. If you (we, the US) want to argue that detained suspected terrorists should be held to a lower standard of treatment, than that can be done in the context of changing existing laws, but not just implemented illegally.

That is to say, to me the chief issue right now is not whether torture is wrong or "worth it" (though I personally believe it's abhorrent), the issue is whether the US is brazenly breaking laws and refusing to acknowledge it. Which from all accounts except for their own they seem to be doing. This is causing heavy damage to US credibility and reputation at precisely the time that we're attempting to foist democracy on every non-democratic nation in the world. At the very least, even if you want to argue that the Most Powerful Nation in the World has a right to torture and kill anyone they choose, it's an embarrassingly bad strategy in the War on Terror.

I'm not sure if it's a strawman created by folks defending Guatanamo, but Republicans in support of the prison camp claim that many people are calling for the prisoners to have full due process rights and be considered criminals (since they can't be condidered soldiers), which means trials and lawyers and all that. I think this is a terrible idea, personally.

This is absolutely a straw man. In fact I heard this allegation leveled during a radio debate between someone from a conservative weekly and a spokesman for Amnesty International, and it was flatly denied. No one is saying detainees at Gitmo should be given full due process as criminals, what they're basically saying as far as that goes is there should be some sort of process by which it's determined why the detainees are there and whether they should be released or held as POWs. Right now, the US is rounding up every questionable person and dumping them in Guantanamo, and hey maybe no one there is innocent, but you can't just make that assumption out of hand, particularly when you're going to go on to torture those people. I think it's fairly obvious what that kind of process resembles, and if not a gulag, then some sort of concentration camp.

Amnesty also takes issue with the fact that the US routinely ships "detainees" off to countries where they can be tortured legally.

Related news - Former Pres Carter declares Gitmo should be closed.
 
 
FinderWolf
20:30 / 08.06.05
I think the word "gulag" is a tiny bit excessive as well, given the difference in the scale of the famous gulag as opposed to Guantanmo, but I still hate the Bush admin. and Rumsfeld.

Bush just said he's open to discussions about possibly closing the camp at Guantanamo, presumably due to mounting criticism. Even while the White House spokesman says nothing was done wrong there. *sigh*
 
 
alejandrodelloco
01:32 / 09.06.05
This is interesting.
 
 
Evil Scientist
10:47 / 09.06.05
I'd call Guantanamo a gulag, but I don't think it was very wise of A.I. to use that term in their document. That kind of thing gets jumped on very quickly by the neocons and their tame media. Use of a loaded word like that allows the US to deflect the meat of the document by criticising one sentance of it.
 
 
Slim
01:39 / 10.06.05
The phrase, "of our time," clearly indicates that they're not describing Gitmo as "a" gulag but "the" Soviet gulag. I'm far from a neocon but I rolled my eyes when I heard that statement.
 
 
ibis the being
18:19 / 10.06.05
Oh well, so much for getting past the gulag comment and discussing the issue at large.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
19:41 / 13.06.05
Sorry, my bad.

Look, a violation is a violation is a violation.

I disagree. Even in daily life, there are infractions you are more than willing to commit for the greater good, or even just for expediency's sake. I would argue that a violation of a human body is far more significant than the violation of a book, holy or otherwise.

If you (we, the US) want to argue that detained suspected terrorists should be held to a lower standard of treatment, than that can be done in the context of changing existing laws, but not just implemented illegally.

But I don't think there are any existing laws that can properly cover something like the current War on Terror. Seems to me like folks are picking and choosing legal paradigms from a collection of international laws, and it ends up with the U.S. choosing one set of rules and everybody else choosing another.

Obviously, the U.S. thinks that the alleged human rights violations are worth whatever information they are getting or think they will get in the future. And they are more than capable of keeping the prison operating, despite public outcry. Unless, maybe, that outcry is from the american public saying "I don't care what the price will be. Even if it's another attack, this can't continue."

What is most unsettling for me is that no one but the U.S. knows what kind or even how much information the U.S. is recieving from the prisoners, or how bad the "torture" really is, or for that matter, how the War on Terror is going, generally speaking. Naturally this information is classified and not for us anyway, but for all we know, Al Queda might be severely handicapped and nowhere near close to being able to mount another attack on the U.S.

Honestly, I don't see how we'll ever really know when this war is truly over.
 
 
ibis the being
21:05 / 13.06.05
I would argue that a violation of a human body is far more significant than the violation of a book, holy or otherwise.

I'm not talking about "violation" in the abstract or general sense. I'm talking about violations of law. I think we can at least agree that there are such things as "legal" and "illegal" - ? If not then this discussion was over before it began.

But I don't think there are any existing laws that can properly cover something like the current War on Terror.

Okay, this is a basic talking point for the Right & of Bush himself. But let's back up and examine the assumptions that 1) the "War on Terror" is somehow qualitatively different from the usual sort of hot war, and 2) the war in Iraq, while part of the War on Terror, is not also a war in the more specific, usual sense of a hot war.

On number 1 we're in a pretty complex gray area that's perhaps better suited to a Head Shop discussion, but at the very least I would posit that framing an ongoing, super-long term endeavor like ridding the world of terrorism as a War, but one not subject to the rules of war, is quite an alarming idea.

Number 2 is even more dangerous, because conceivably almost any military conflict we enter in the future could be thrust under the umbrella of War on Terror and thus not subject to any international or national rules of war. So we've basically exempted ourselves from rules in any kind of war, conflict, attack, military investigation, what have you.... Call me crazy but I'm assuming there are some very practical and important reasons why we have rules of war at all.

Obviously, the U.S. thinks that the alleged human rights violations are worth whatever information they are getting or think they will get in the future.

Fine - again, we can debate whether torture has merits and that's being done here - but the point is, "torture first ask questions later" is just never a good policy. The primary question is not whether guilty terrorists are being tortured and giving up valuable information, but whether innocent people are being scooped up in these big security sweeps and no one's ever asking whether they should all even be at Guantanamo, never mind whether, say, sexually humiliating them might save some lives.
 
 
FinderWolf
16:47 / 14.06.05
>> but the point is, "torture first ask questions later" is just never a good policy.

Unless you're Jack Bauer (from the TV show 24).

Just kidding; but I feel that to be honest, there will be some instances where torture is necessary when you're dealing with terrorists. If you had a scenario where you could have prevented 9/11 by torturing a guy for a few hours til he coughed up info, I can't imagine that the gov't wouldn't torture him a bit. Of course, the slippery slope is how do you know when you're torturing someone with Really Big Information and when you're torturing some poor sod who has no information? Outside of cool TV spy shows, that line is very hard to detect.
 
 
w1rebaby
17:52 / 14.06.05
And that's the whole point, isn't it - the administration hype up the fear knowing that people will refer to fictional situations when they're judging it, with their assumptions of omnicompetent heroic protagonists. Very few people in the West commentating on the matter have actually experienced state intimidation/interrogation/torture in reality, and the argument runs along the lines of

(a) "If you knew somebody knew where there was a bomb that was going to explode and kill innocent people, it would be okay to torture them to find out where, right? So we're okay here. Because we're secret agents, just like on TV."

(b) "and we're not even really torturing anybody, this is just liberal nonsense, it's just Christina Aguilera and Korans and frat boy pranks" (sound of context being kicked under carpet)

I saw in today's Metro a piece about Aguilera music being used for sleep deprivation that mentioned "torture" in inverted commas in the headline, as if sleep deprivation by pop music might actually just be a bit of a laugh.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
19:09 / 14.06.05
Acceptable to torture someone...to stop 9-11"

But that's impossible. I can see it works as an idea, and I'm not trying to be cleverer-than-thou- but the "One Vital Peice Of Information From one Guy" scenario just doesn't ring true.

Terrorists are wise to torture, they are wise to people deserting. No one person in a terrorist ring knows every detail about any given activity. Certainly, no one person is allowed to know enough that they could jeapordise it.
 
 
ibis the being
19:48 / 14.06.05
And that's the whole point, isn't it - the administration hype up the fear knowing that people will refer to fictional situations when they're judging it, with their assumptions of omnicompetent heroic protagonists.

So true, and I would think this is one of the reasons we have things like Geneva Conventions and rules of war - precisely because there are no omnicompetent heroic protagonists in real life, in real war.

Terrorists are wise to torture, they are wise to people deserting. No one person in a terrorist ring knows every detail about any given activity. Certainly, no one person is allowed to know enough that they could jeapordise it.

Once again, so true. And that's not to say that all interrogation is pointless, but only to say that hypotheticals like "what if you could stop 9/11" are fallacious scenarios designed to exploit human emotion.
 
 
Evil Scientist
07:45 / 15.06.05
I was watching Fox News a few days ago and there was a US government chappy arguing that the prisoners in GB are actually treated very well. That they're well fed, and seemed genuinely surprised that anyone felt they were being badly treated.

He didn't seem to be aware that the big criticism a lot of people have of GB is that the prisoners are in a limbo. Even if no torture is taking place there, the fact that they're being held indefinitely with no legal counsel or actual charges is unacceptable.
 
 
Slim
14:25 / 17.06.05

There's an interesting DOD release detailing the kind of info they get from interrogation (or torture, depending on your view) methods.
 
 
unheimlich manoeuvre
15:31 / 17.06.05
from the news release. I'm unimpressed.

The Department of Defense remains committed to the unequivocal standard of humane treatment for all detainees, and Kahtani’s interrogation plan was guided by that strict standard. The very fact that an interrogation log exists is evidence his interrogation proceeded according to a very detailed plan, which was conducted by trained professionals in a controlled environment, with active supervision and oversight.

This is pretty meaningless. Rest assured the interrorgaters are trained professionals.

When there have been credible allegations of abuse they are investigated aggressively and individuals are held accountable for their actions.

They are being *questioned* by military personnel and contractors who are either ordered by their superiors or obliged by their contractual obligations. Their employers or superiors should be held responsible.

Guantanamo is also a facility under constant external oversight and supervision. The department works closely with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and representatives visit detainees in our charge at their discretion. There have been 187 members of Congress and congressional staff who have visited Guantanamo to include 11 Senators, 77 Representatives and 99 Congressional staff members. There have also been some 400 media visits consisting of more than 1,000 national and international journalists.

Reuters 17th June 2005
A confidential ICRC memorandum which appeared in the New York Times last November accused the U.S. military of tactics "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay -- an accusation rejected by the Pentagon.

The Department of Defense does not wish to hold detainees longer than necessary and effective processes are in place to regularly review the status of enemy combatants.

BBC news 10 October, 2003
A top Red Cross official has broken with tradition by publicly attacking conditions at the US military base on Cuba where al-Qaeda suspects are being held.

Christophe Girod - the senior Red Cross official in Washington - said it was unacceptable that the 600 detainees should be held indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay without legal safeguards.

The Red Cross is the only organisation with access to the detainees.

His criticism came as a group of American former judges, diplomats and military officers called on the US Supreme Court to examine the legality of holding the foreign nationals for almost two years, without trial, charge or access to lawyers.

Mr Girod said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was making the unusually blunt public statement because of a lack of action after previous private contacts with American officials.

"One cannot keep these detainees in this pattern, this situation, indefinitely," he said during a visit to the US naval base where the Taleban and al-Qaeda suspects are being held.
 
 
Slim
20:05 / 17.06.05
I agree that the sections concerning interrogation techniques were rather dicey. I posted it to show that it appears interrogation/torture isn't worthless when it comes to extracting information from a suspect.
 
 
Slim
21:07 / 17.06.05
I should add that my previous post doesn't mean that I support or decry the current methods of interrogation and/or torture. I just wanted to comment that it appears that it might not be as futile as some believe it to be.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
18:25 / 19.06.05
I'm not talking about "violation" in the abstract or general sense. I'm talking about violations of law. I think we can at least agree that there are such things as "legal" and "illegal" - ?

Well, obviously. But are you really arguing that a broken law is a broken law, and that regardless of the severity of the "crime" it needs to be punished? As I noted earlier, there are plenty of infractions that people (including yourself, I'd wager) that people commit over the course of a year. Hell, a single day. Traffic laws, for instance, which are there for our safety, and are ignored constantly.

My point is, there is a whole lot of space between breaking the law and hurting someone and breaking the law and hurting a book.

On number 1 we're in a pretty complex gray area that's perhaps better suited to a Head Shop discussion, but at the very least I would posit that framing an ongoing, super-long term endeavor like ridding the world of terrorism as a War, but one not subject to the rules of war, is quite an alarming idea.

Actually, I've heard just about everybody say that this is a very different war, certainly different from any that the U.S. has fought in. I don't think that's even a debate, really. And no one is saying that the offensive isn't subject to rules of war. Even the U.S. agrees that a code of conduct is necessary. The issue is wether or not the U.S. has to agree with everyone else on what, exactly, that code is.

Number 2 is even more dangerous, because conceivably almost any military conflict we enter in the future could be thrust under the umbrella of War on Terror and thus not subject to any international or national rules of war. So we've basically exempted ourselves from rules in any kind of war, conflict, attack, military investigation, what have you.... Call me crazy but I'm assuming there are some very practical and important reasons why we have rules of war at all.

Well, by now, it's old news that Saddam had very little or nothing to do with Al Queda. And I doubt that "almost any military conflict we enter in the future" could be thrown under the War on Terror, unless its offensives against nations that are suspected of funding terrorism. Any conflict with China or North Korea would more than likely be placed under "fighting for Democracy", which the U.S. has been all about for quite some time now.

And you're not crazy. Just unable (apparently) to take a step back from it all.
 
  
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