U.S. Rights Record Blasted

[Tab]

After giving the United States a taste of its own diplomatic medicine, Belarus has withdrawn a draft UN General Assembly resolution attacking Washington on its human rights record.

Belarus, smarting over a draft resolution co-sponsored by the United States criticizing the conduct of its parliamentary elections in October, drafted its own human rights critique pointing out controversies over recent U.S. elections and U.S. rights abuses under the Patriot Act.

"Our main goal was only to show that any country in the world may be accused like this," said Alej Ivanou, the deputy UN ambassador from Belarus.

Ivanou said Belarus presented the resolution, which he believed to be the first such UN human rights complaint leveled against the United States, to make a point for less powerful nations.

He said there had been positive reaction to the Belarus resolution, which was withdrawn Tuesday, and that other countries had been interested in joining in the tilt against the United States. "About six delegates asked me to put them in as co-sponsors," he said.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/11/18/015.html

I give up. I'm going to bed.

- Tab

[NYC Liberal]

1. How about war crimes?

100,000 innocent people killed. But we're 'Murka! No harm done!

[mpanno]

2. That's because the United States

never really does anything wrong.... no rights are in jeopardy... we have total freedom....

ok... sarcasm off I'm going to bed and cry.

[RyomaSakamoto]

3. Bush and America just said FUCK THE WORLD! We made TORTURE LEGAL!

and made the guy who AUTHORIZED it head of JUSTICE!



MONSTER OF A LAWYER

Nominee for Attorney General Even Worse Than Ashcroft

NEW YORK--In "Survival at Auschwitz," Primo Levi recalled that, after their most sadistic guard had been transferred away, he and his fellow death camp inmates were terrified. True, the man was a murderer. But the prisoners had studied his habits, learned how to avoid his wrath. What if his replacement turned out to be even meaner?

No matter how bad they are, things can always get worse. Little did the citizens of Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Iraq (news - web sites), abused by horrific regimes, realize that their "liberation" would usher in a grim "Mad Max" era of chaos and looting by AK47-toting teenagers. Now political entropy, a staple characteristic of overseas Bushism, is manifesting itself as second-term political appointments here at home.

Faithful readers will note that I never joined the four-year-long chorus of catcalls against outgoing attorney general John Ashcroft (news - web sites). It's true that he used the sweeping prosecutorial powers granted him under the USA Patriot Act to arrest more than 5,000 people, none of whom have ever been convicted of anything, and that he held them without letting them see a lawyer. Ashcroft was also a central figure in what wags are beginning to call the Bushiban--loopy Christianists in Bush's inner circle. In November 2001, while Brooklynites were still dusting the pulverized corpses of their fellow citizens off their window ledges, Ashcroft spent over 8,000 tax dollars on a curtain to cover the bare-breasted Spirit of Justice statue at the Justice Department (news - web sites). The statue, marble boob exposed, hadn't attracted attention since its installation in 1936. Still, Ashcroft wasn't unusually evil.

Dick Cheney (news - web sites) is a breathtakingly corrupt politician, trading American and Iraqi lives for his personal profit. Compared to ordinary warmongers, Donald Rumsfeld is exceptionally gleeful and callous about the people who die every time he shoots off an email. John Ashcroft, on the other hand, was nothing more than another conservative nut. His mass detentions and arbitrary prosecutions were the inevitable result of the Patriot Act--a heinous attack on American freedom for which Bush and Congress are solely to blame. Janet Reno (news - web sites), given Ashcroft's freedom to abuse personal liberties, would have behaved similarly.

Alberto Gonzales, on the other hand, possesses one of the most twisted minds the American legal system has ever produced.

more...
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=127&ncid=742&e=7&u=/ucru/20041118/cm_ucru/monsterofalawyer

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. I'm so ashamed...

Not my Country! ;(

[NYC Liberal]

5. Also, an article via Dkos today:

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2004/11/15/europe/print.html">Welcome to the new cold war

The new EU constitution, currently being considered by the member states, is an unwieldy, jargon-laden document that runs to 265 pages in English (and even more in Spanish and French). It should also serve as an inspiration to progressives around the world. It bars capital punishment in all 25 nations and defines such things as universal healthcare, child care, paid annual leave, parental leave, housing for the poor, and equal treatment for gays and lesbians as fundamental human rights. Most of these are still hotly contested questions in the United States; as Rifkin says, this document all by itself makes the European Union the world leader in the human rights debate. It is the first governing document that aspires to universality, "with rights and responsibilities that encompass the totality of human existence on Earth."

[bhikkhu]

7. Now Hiring - "World leader in human rights"

Former leader awol

[VegasWolf]

6. The UN is complaining more about our elections than Kerry is.

[VegasWolf]

8. Wait, we have a rights record?

[LynnTheDem]

9. When wil bush and the 51% just be honest about what USA now is.

A fascist military dictatorship that condones torture up to & including murder of anyone bush says deserves to be tortured or murdered, no proof of any wrongdoing or of anything else required.

And when will that 51% realize this means there is NO DIFFERENCE between bush & Saddam Hussein...bush & Pinochet...bush & Hitler...

This is what the 51% want, they WANT bush-god to point & declare who lives & who dies, so why won't they just openly admit what they, bush & America have become?