At 00:05 13-1-02 -0500, John Giorgis wrote: > >>JDG - Who thinks that if the US treatment of these prisoners is violating > >>human rights, then we should hold a party - because clearly all the serious > >>human rights abuses in the world have been solved. > > > >Very bad taste, John. Your statement suggests you believe human rights > >abuses come in two categories: serious ones, and ones that are not > >serious. :-( > >Yes, Jeroen I absolutely believe that.
That is frightening. I can accept that you would believe that some violations are worse than others (I would actually agree with you on that), but I find it scary when people believe some human rights violations are not serious. >Let us consider the following human rights that are possibly at issue here: >1) The right of a prisoner, who was trained to crash airplanes into >buildings, to not be shackled, restrained, and/or hooded during a 20 hour >flight on an airplane. >2) The right of a prisoner, who was trained to crash airplanes into >buildings, and who also attempts to resist peaceable transport to trial on >a 20-hour airplane flight, to not be sedated. How do you know that those prisoners were trained to crash airplanes into buildings? Can you quote a source on that, or a source that says all AQ and Taliban members received that kind of training? >*If* these are violations of human rights From Amnesty International's letter to Donald Rumsfeld: The UN Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment states that: "The term `cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment' should be interpreted so as to extend the widest possible protection against abuses, whether physical or mental, including the holding of a detained or imprisoned person in conditions which deprive him, temporarily or permanently, of the use of any of his natural senses, such as sight or hearing, or his awareness of place and the passing of time". I would think that this qualifies as convincing evidence of human rights abuses in this matter. >these are violations of >human rights of the most minor and insignificant sort. And therefore they should not be condemned? Let's say one of your neighbours gets murdered, and an other neighbour's car is stolen. We will all agree that both are crimes, but that the first one is significantly more severe than the second one. Just because the car theft is a relatively minor and insignificant crime, should your local police force only handle the murder case, and ignore the car theft? >Whatever resources >Amnesty International devoted to these violations would almost surely have >had a greater net effect on the well-being of humanity had those resources >been directed towards the human rights abuses of at least a dozen other >countries. So, if other countries violate human rights, then we should protest, but if the US violates human rights we should ignore it? Even if those violations are relatively minor compared to violations in some other countries? Jeroen _________________________________________________________________________ Wonderful World of Brin-L Website: http://www.Brin-L.com Tom's Photo Gallery: http://tom.vanbaardwijk.com
