High court judge yesterday delivered a stinging attack on America

[Andre II]

Judge's anger at US torture

Stinging comments come as America dismisses UN report on Guantánamo

Richard Norton-Taylor and Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Friday February 17, 2006
The Guardian

A high court judge yesterday delivered a stinging attack on America, saying its idea of what constituted torture was out of step with that of "most civilised nations".

The criticism, directed at the Bush administration's approach to human rights, was made by Mr Justice Collins during a hearing over the refusal by ministers to request the release of three British residents held at Guantánamo Bay.

The judge said: "America's idea of what is torture is not the same as ours and does not appear to coincide with that of most civilised nations." He made his comments, he said, after learning of the UN report that said Guantánamo should be shut down without delay because torture was still being carried out there.
The report, by five inspectors for the UN human rights commissioner, refers to shackling, hooding and forcing detainees to wear earphones and goggles. In particular, it refers to interrogation techniques and excessive violence used to forcefeed prisoners on hunger strike. Based on interviews with detainees' lawyers, former inmates and written exchanges with US officials, it calls on the US to put the 490 inmates on trial or release them.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,1711833,00.html

[melody]

1. The problem of primate rhetoric

This isn't "America's" ideas -- this is Bush's ideas. He is supported by a minority of the US public -- fewer people than those who support him abroad, particularly in Europe.

Unfortunately, this kind of rhetoric (particularly from a familial nation) only intesifies the isolation of individual Americans and bolsters George Bush... which is probably the point.

[kenny blankenship]

4. the problem is that, unless our whole system is a hollowed out fraud

then the American people voted for this man twice --prefering him over very competent and accomplished rival candidates, much more accomplished and qualified than he was. Furthermore, if the American people are opposed to Bush's idea of torture and its acceptable use, then they have been very slow to say so and to show the world that they dissent from Bush's tyranny. There is certainly a minority, at least, of opinion that is against our system of secret prisons, against the torture used there, and opposed to the supposed right claimed by Bush to throw whomever he designates an "enemy combatant" into that system. But there are minorities of opinion to be in every country on any subject at all times.
What Americans have to understand is that just as the policies of the Tehran government (which obviously enjoy popular support in Iran) are seen by most Americans as the character and face of the Iranian people, the rest of the world has little choice but to see the policies of George Bush as the face and character of America. Especially if we don't stop him. What else do they have to go on? America claims to be a democracy, and the political party which holds power in both houses of our legislature (obviously enjoying majority support throughout the country) shows little divisions either within itself or from the Bush administration on the use of torture, or the practice of "disappearing" people, and the general committment to endless war in Iraq and elsewhere the region. The so-called opposition party holds no power, and when it does express itself, it has been 90% in agreement with all the aims and methods Bush has pursued. What are outsiders supposed to think? From outside you see mainly that Bush is doing previously unthinkable things--destroying the U.N. and the international order of law created after WWII, invading countries in the oilrich region of the world, "disappearing" people he deems enemies of the state, torturing people, and lying about all of it as he goes. And you as an outsider ALSO see that the political system in this country is allowing him to do it--it's enabling him. Always more money is voted for these projects of his, never are there any consequences. His ministers appear before Congress and simply say "this is how it is" and they aren't even required to give their testimony under oath. It all has to do with distance. You are inside America, you see differences of opinion. But if you're on the outside and feeling the pressure from America--as all countries do now--those internal differences are necessarily flattened out. The differences that may be present don't look that pronounced, and they rarely come to your attention. Small expressions of dissent are inaudible over a distance, even if they are common.

Since the American system supposedly reflects the will of the American people, and what the government does over the long run presumably occurs and continues with the consent of the governed, this is simply the will of the American people as it appears to the world. And while not wanting to share in the guilt, I don't see how they're wrong about this. (Unless of course our system is a hollowed out fraud, and we are actually ruled by a dictatorship concealing itself behind the antique mask of a simulated democracy.)

Take the extreme case: if you are a conquered occupied people and I and my family are colonists who've voluntarily taken possession of a part of your land, can you really AFFORD to pay minute attention to how I might differ from my government's hostile perhaps genocidal policies? Don't you have a more pressing concern-namely ejecting me and saving your country? In fighting Nazi aggression, could the rest of the world exert themselves to figure out just how many Germans really backed the Fuhrer's project of world domination, or whether they just liked parades? They had a more pressing concern--resisting and overcoming Nazi aggression. From the point of view of those outside, all Germans were bad, unless they fled Germany voluntarily before the war, or otherwise separated themselves from Hitler and Nazism.

[melody]

6. Our system is a hollowed-out fraud - we are ruled by Diebold

I think the evidence is more than abundant. The illusion of our democracy must fade for anything of value to happen.

[democrank]

2. Bush`s "spreadin` freedom" crap

rings a bit hollow after reading all the torture revelations. This country should be deeply ashamed.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

3. Bush is spreading fascism. nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. And the British Attorney General said US tribunals are not fair trials

Asked in a radio interview about the Guantánamo Bay detainees, Britain's attorney general, Lord Peter Goldsmith, said Friday that he believed "that the way one needs to deal with allegations that people have been involved in criminal activity — and that includes terrorist activity — is fair trial."

But he said he did not view the military tribunals proposed by the United States for some of the estimated 500 Guantánamo Bay detainees as "a fair trial by standards we would accept."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/18/international/europe/18gitmo.html

Goldsmith is a personal friend of Blair's, and the man who rolled over for the American view that the Iraqi invasion had legal justification. Even he is saying publicly that the Guantanamo system is fucked up.