The President Insults the spirit of the Geneva Convention
The hypocrite's crime is that he bears false witness against himself.
What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of
vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all vices
except this one.
-- Lionel Trilling
George Bush in his weekly radio broadcast says the torture of prisonsers
at Abu Ghraib prison was the fault of a "small number of American
servicemen and women." It is quickly becoming obvious that the involvement
was more than just the "small number of Americans" that the Bushies would
like us and Muslims to believe.
When investigative journalist Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker first
released the information, which was known by the Pentagon for a year and
has been raised on numerable occasions by human rights groups and ignored
by this right-wing administration.
George Bush said:
"These individuals had been given the responsibility of overseeing
Iraqis in American custody, and doing so in a decent and humane
manner, consistent with US law and the Geneva Conventions (on the
rules of war)."
Except the U.S. has problems with the Geneva Conventions and has been
regularly accused of violating those Conventions.
Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld has been asked if he intends to
resign and there is a growing movement in congress to have him go. It
should go higher than that. Rumsfeld is covering for his boss. George Bush
certainly knew that abuses were being perpetrated against prisoners
because that information has been public since the start of these actions.
Kim Petersen of Dissident Voice writes:
"Where does Mr. Rumsfeld get off pontificating about
Geneva Conventions? This is the same man who rejected POW status, as
mandated by the Geneva Conventions, for Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters
captured in Afghanistan. Instead they were called "illegal
combatants," a term without legal standing, and they were claimed not
to be subject to the Geneva Conventions. The International Red Cross
insisted that all were to be accorded POW status." [Kim Petersen - "US
Hypocrisy and the Geneva Conventions" Dissident Voice - March 24, 2003]
"Apparently the Geneva Conventions have not been rigorously adhered to
in the case of the captured fighters in Afghanistan. The treatment of
these captives is of concern. Reports of abuse such as sensory
deprivation, shackling of feet, trimming of beards, and segregation
have emerged. Even torture from US CIA interrogation centers is
alleged. Quotes from officials on torture ranged from "'If you don't
violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't
doing your job,'" and "'our guys may kick them around a little bit,'"
to "'pain control is a very subjective thing.'" Sometimes the captive
is turned over to a third country that is not so squeamish about the
use of torture to extract information...."
The U.S. has regularly been a party to massacres of enemy prisoners and
these issues have been covered over during periods of high intensity
conflict. Only recently since the more Americans are questioning our
involvement in Iraq and the admission that there are no weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq - except for the ones the U.S. has introduced into the
area and there was no real connection betwenn Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
There have been U.S. mistreatment of prisoners in Afghanistan and abuse
has resulted in death and there has been abuses carried out by the
military in Guantanamo, where prisoners are in limbo without any legal
status or access to legal representation and during the war in Afghanistan
there was the massacre of POWS which was reported and hardly commented on.
Perhaps it is time to revisit that violation of the Geneva Accords?
"On December 1 the last of some 80 survivors of the US-British-Northern
Alliance assault on the Qala-i-Janghi prison fortress outside
Mazar-i-Sharif emerged from their underground hideouts and surrendered
to their assailants. For six days, beginning Sunday, November 25,
American and British special forces joined with troops loyal to
Northern Alliance General Rashid Dostum in a massive and one-sided
attack on 400 to 800 non-Afghan Taliban who had surrendered the
previous day in Kunduz. The US, Britain and Northern Alliance
justified their slaughter of the prisoners, most of whom were killed
in two days of American air strikes, on the grounds that the Taliban
captives had staged an uprising."
[http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/dec2001/pows-d07.shtml
The Geneva Convention and the US massacre of POWs in Afghanistan
- 7 Dec 2001 - World Socialist Web Site]
"But news footage of American and Northern Alliance troops firing down
on the POWs from the heights of the fortress walls, and fields
littered with the corpses of dead and mutilated prisoners, provided
clear evidence of a massacre. Even as the extermination of pockets of
survivors continued, demands were being raised by human rights
organizations for an investigation into violations of the Geneva
Convention and other international laws of war." (WSWS)
"Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called for an inquiry
into the events at the Qala-i-Janghi fortress, and were joined by Mary
Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights."
(WSWS)
However it was the United States and George W. Bush who now brings up
violations of the Geneva Convention who refused and rejected ALL appeals
to the massacre at Qala-i-Janghi fortress. What happened to the media
then? The media was Gung Ho for the war after 9/11 and apparently suffered
from mass memory loss and loss of conscience. Now it finds it shocking
that prisoners are being abused in Iraq. How Ironic..
Hank Roth
http://pnews.org/
---
/ o o \ PNEWS Topic Specific Portals (Vortals)
===OO=====OO=================================================
http://pnews.org/vortal/ New World disOrder and Myth Busters
http://g0lem.net/vortal/ Insane Planet and Wacko World
http://g0lem.net/portal/ Bad-Ass Truth and TheGolemsPortal
http://pnews.org/portal/ Naked Truth and PNEWS Portal
=============================================================
\_/ \_/
