U.S. prepares to face UN on torture as Amnesty report blasts 'war crimes'

[Roland99]

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/As_U.S._prepares_to_face_U.N._0428.html

As the United States prepares a team of 30 to defend its record on torture before a U.N. committee, Amnesty International has made public a report blasting the United States for failing to take appropriate steps to eradicate use of torture at U.S. detention sites around the world, RAW STORY has learned.

U.S. compliance with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment will be the topic of May 5 and 8 U.N. hearings in Geneva.

The United States last appeared before the Committee Against Torture in May, 2000. Amnesty claims that practices criticized by the Committee six years ago -- such as the use of electro-shock weapons and excessively harsh conditions in "super-maximum" security prisons -- have been used and exported by U.S. forces abroad.

The Amnesty report reviews several cases where U.S. detainees held in Afghanistan and Iraq have died as a result of torture. The group also lambasts U.S. use of electro-shock weapons, inhuman and degrading conditions of isolation in "super-max" security prisons and abuses against women in the prison system -- including sexual abuse by male guards, shackling while pregnant and even in labor.

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. This is why BushCo

has done everything they can to discredit and destroy the UN. They knew there would be war crimes.

[enough]

2. Yes. (nt)

[Roland99]

3. And why he didn't want US troops subject to the ICC

[AndyTiedye]

5. We Have To Send Bush There After We Impeach Him

[AndyTiedye]

4. I Think Amnesty International Just Won Themselves Another Donation

:kick: and Reccomend

[leveymg]

6. In the long run, this is what's going to lead to the most jail time for

members of this Administration. See,

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/2/24/13644/9576
WHY PARDONS WON'T MATTER: The Convention Against Torture
by leveymg
Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 10:06:43 AM PDT
Even here at DKos, few of us really understand how high the stakes truly are for members of the Administration to keep control over Congress, the White House, the federal courts, and ultimately, the military. In the starkest possible terms, many ranking officials are facing the near-certainty of long periods of imprisonment even if Bush grants a presidential pardon to everyone.

They are playing for keeps, and may never allow a peaceful transfer of power. Let me tell you why.

leveymg's diary :: ::
THE UN CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE AND THE U.S. TORTURE ACT OF 2000

In 1987, the United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT) came into force. The United States Senate ratified the CAT in 1994 and President Clinton signed the Torture Act of 2000. 18 U.S.C. §§ 2340, 2340A, and 2340B. That law provides domestic teeth with enabling legislation that penalizes anyone convicted of ordering, inciting, assisting or committing torture forbidden by the treaty. That felony statute provides for 20 years imprisonment for a U.S. person committing a torture crime, with the potential death penalty if the act results in death of the victim. American military personnel are subject to similiar measure under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. See, http://en.wikipedia.org/.... ; also, see, http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/....

The CAT treaty binds all 140 signatory states to arrest and try at the Hague anyone who violates the torture convention if the state in which the offense took place is either unable or unwilling to do so. There are no exceptions for perpetrators who have received pardons or amnesties from their own governments. It matters not at all whether this Administration refuses to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice at the Hague. It is now clear that U.S. officials have committed offenses under the convention, as well as other crimes against humanity, and a trial cannot be prevented except by force.

SNIP

[Jack Rabbit]

7. Amnesty International: Invisible in Plain Sight

From Amnesty International USA
Spring Issue, 2006

Invisible in Plain Sight: CIA Torture Techniques Go Mainstream
By Alfred McCoy

Just before Christmas last, President Bush and Senator John McCain appeared in the Oval Office to announce an historic ban on torture by any U.S. agency, anywhere in the world. Looking straight into the cameras, the president declared with a steely gaze that this landmark legislation would make it "clear to the world that this government does not torture" . . . .

Then came that dramatic December 15th handshake between Bush and McCain, a veritable media mirage that concealed furious back-room maneuvering by the White House to undercut the amendment. A coalition of rights groups, including Amnesty International, had resisted the executive’s effort to punch loopholes in the torture ban but, in the end, the White House prevailed. With the help of key senate conservatives, the Bush administration succeeded in twisting what began as an unequivocal ban on torture into a legitimization of three controversial legal doctrines that the administration had originally used to justify torture right after 9/11.

In an apparent compromise gesture, McCain himself inserted the first major loophole: a legal defense for accused CIA interrogators that echoes the administration’s notorious August 2002 torture memo allowing any agents criminally charged to claim that they "did not know that the practices were unlawful."

Next, the administration effectively neutralized the McCain ban with Senator Lindsey Graham's amendment stipulating that Guantanamo Bay detainees cannot invoke U.S. law to challenge their imprisonment. Complaining that detainees were filing trivial lawsuits over the quality of their food, Graham’s amendment thereby attempted to nullify the Supreme Court decision in Rasul v. Bush that had allowed detainees to pursue habeas corpus appeals in U.S. courts. In sum, McCain’s original amendment banned torture, but Graham’s later amendment, as finally approved by the Senate, removed any means for enforcement. For a mess of bipartisan pottage, Congress thus bartered away this nation's constitutional birthright of habeas corpus, a foundational legal protection born, ironically, of the British Parliament's long struggle to ban royal torture writs by the infamous Court of Star Chamber.

Read more.

Alfred McCoy is professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,

[Stinky The Clown]

8. PLEEEEEEEZE let this path lead to ........

this place .... just a short train ride from either Amsterdam or Rotterdam ......



Den Haag

[HuffleClaw]

9. "The heaviest sentence imposed on anyone to date for a torture-related...

...death while in U.S. custody is five months,"

hmmmm


yes, i can sure see why they are suddenly reverting to their old days of screaming about the UN's irrelevence and credibility.

[Roland99]

10. Well, since the right loves the death penalty so much.....

:evilgrin: