Global Lens Focused on U.S. Torture and Detention Policies (ACLU)

[struggle4progress]

ACLU Seeks to Hold U.S. Government to Universal Standards of Human Rights

GENEVA - The American Civil Liberties Union today called for immediate action by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to address the abuse and torture of prisoners by the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq, and at other U.S.-controlled detention centers.

A delegation of attorneys from the ACLU arrived in Geneva this week to attend the 61st meeting of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. The ACLU delegation seeks to bring issues of torture and detention, racial profiling, and the exploitation of migrant domestic workers to the Commission’s attention. <snip>

Through litigation under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, the ACLU has obtained more than 30,000 documents concerning the detention, mistreatment and confinement of prisoners apprehended by the U.S. after September 11, 2001. The documents, which reinforce previous reports and testimonies, establish beyond any doubt that prisoners under U.S. control are being abused and even tortured. The documents also show that the abuse and torture of prisoners is not irregular or isolated but rather widespread and systemic.

The documents are online at www.aclu.org/torturefoia <snip>

http://www.aclu.org/International/International.cfm?ID=17910&c=36

[teryang]

1. US operators were killing prisoners from the outset

...in Afghanistan. It was plainly apparent from descriptions of interogations conducted by Americans and the conditions of corpses left behind, with bullet holes in their heads and their hands zip tied behind their backs. Our ally there the Butcher Dostrum began his reign with an assassination and cemented it with the slaughter of hundreds of prisoners in the presence of American advisors.

Commentary on the "law of war" by combat veteran and former Judge Advocate General of the Army Nardotti on television news was squashed early in the Iraq war.

The policy objective was clear from the outset in many public pronouncements by Commissar Cheney who kept saying American intelligence wasn't "dirty enough."

Chickenhawk neo-cons in the justice department and in the rarefied Secretariat level of the Pentagon above the uniformed level fell all over themselves in undermining decades of legal precedent and policy in the law of armed confrontation. They were opposed by the uniformed Judge Advocates to no avail.

This is a criminal regime.

[struggle4progress]

2. Yes.

:cry:

[LibertyorDeath]

3. Thanks for this

[Pooka Fey]

4. Nominated and Kicked.

[oxbow]

5. they need photo evidence to make people care

they should be doing everything in their power to get some more photos of prisoner abuse that haven't been leaked yet. Those in the gov.'s possession are supposedly many times worse than those from the Abu Ghraib scandal. The whole reason that incident, or Terri Schiavo, Jon Benet Ramsey and many other media firestorms have been as big as they were is because of PICTURES. They could put a human face on this tragedy, and get real public support behind these efforts. The Freedom of info act should cover photos and videos too IIRC

[ixion]

6. any war criminal should be judged before the ICC

if there is truly any justice in the world, the entire corrupt and criminal maladmin will wind up in a cell in the Hague.