Bush denies basic human rights
Here's another attempt by the Bush administration to deny basic human rights to people:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/26/politics/26detain.html?hp&ex=1098849600&en=625cd03fa770bac7&ei=5094&partner=homepage
The Bush administration isn't concerned with what's right or wrong, only what they can get away with. They have no concern for basic human rights. This type of reasoning is no better than that of Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosovich, or Adolf Hitler.
posted by LeRoy at 10:05 AM
11 Comments:
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The story is about how the U.S. has "transported as many as a dozen detainees out of Iraq for interrogation purposes in the past six months." This is the extent of the violations of the protections of the Geneva Conventions. The article does not say that the "Bush administration is denying basic human rights to people." It does not say that the detainees are being tortured.
In order to show that the Bush administration is denying Basic Human Rights to people, we first have to define what we mean by Basic Human Rights and then we have to prove that the prisoners in Guantánamo Bay are being denied those rights.
However, the issue brings up some interesting questions.
What are conditions like for detainees in Guantánamo Bay? I don't claim to know.
Should the protections of the Geneva Conventions be extended to terrorist? The protections of the Geneva Conventions were meant for combatants fighting on behalf of a recognized nation/country and the civilian population. Terrorist are neither. Can a terrorist claim that he is fighting on behalf of any country that can vouch for his assertion? Is a terrorist a civilian?
What about the Miranda Rights? In order to apply the Miranda Rights, a terrorist needs to be arrested on U.S. soil first. However, if he's here illegally, he can be deported.
I do not believe that there are laws, national or international, that deal specifically with terrorists. We have been trying to apply the laws that currently exist. But as the two previous paragraphs try to demonstrate, it isn't that cut and dry. We may need laws specifically for terrorist. Only then can the claim be made that the reasoning for how the situation is being handled is wrong; only then can the comparison to Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosovich, or Adolf Hitler be attempted.
-j
The Geneva Convention defines what are meant by basic human rights, and I don't see the difference between fighting a country and fighting terrorists, at least not with respect to how prisoners should be treated. The Geneva Convention may not have been written with exactly this situation in mind, but the principles behind it still apply.
There is one argument for not applying the Geneva Convention rules to terrorists, and that is that the terrorists haven't agreed to abide by them so why should we afford the terrorists that courtesy. However, just because the terrorists may be willing to descend to that kind of behavior doesn't mean that we should. Also, I haven't heard the Bush Administration put that argument forward. Then general impression that I get is that the Bush Administration really just wants a blank check to do whatever they want. They consider the Geneva Convention to be an annoying restriction, and they're just trying to find ways to get around it.
This article may not mention specific instances of torture, but that doesn't mean they don't occur. We've seen lots of examples of it in other areas, such as Abu Graib, and there have been other allegations as well.
As far as Guantanamo Bay, the Bush administration tried to argue that since the prisoners weren't being held on U.S. soil, they should be able to do whatever they wanted with them. The prisoners weren't being given lawyers or anyone to argue on their behalf, they weren't being accused of a crime, and they weren't given trials. When the Supreme Court tried to say that this wasn't right, the Bush administration told them to mind their own business. The Bush administration also tried to prevent Amnesty Internation and the Red Cross from being able to see the prisoners or see how they were being held. They eventually bowed to public pressure to allow this, but even then these groups were only allowed in certain areas, with advanced notice, and only under escort. As far as I'm concerned, that type of access is meaningless. It's just the kind of access that Saddam Hussein tried to give the weapons inspectors. This article does say that the U.S. isn't saying where it took several of the prisoners. It kind of goes without saying that these prisoners haven't been visited by Amnesty International or the Red Cross.
Joe, I'm sure you're familiar with the saying in the software world that if it hasn't been tested, it doesn't work. I think the same thing applies here. If you haven't verified that the prisoners are being treated humanely, and if the government is actively trying to prevent you from verifying it, then they're probably not being treated humanely.
You mentioned that, according to this article, the only violation of the Geneva Convention is that the prisoners are being moved to another country. You make it sound as if this one little thing isn't really a big deal. I have a couple of comments about this. First, that's how rights are taken away from you, one little bit at a time. Second, if it isn't such a big deal, then why is the Bush administration trying so hard to be able to do it? What benefit are they getting from it?
Finally, yes I do think Bush is similar to Sadam, Milosevich and Hitler. I think the country he is in is different, and that's why we're seeing different results, but the man is the same. Some people argue that the difference is that Hitler, Sadam and Milosevich all killed people in their own countries, while Bush is only killing people in other countries. However, I heard on CSPAN last night that Bush ordered the killing of 150 death row inmates during his 5 years as Governor of Texas, far more than any other Governor in the U.S.. I also saw his face during the debates with Al Gore during the 2000 election when someone asked him about these killings. His first response was one of immense pride at all of the criminals they'd killed in Texas. When the questioner expressed some shock at the response and mentioned that the taking of a human life was a serious thing, Bush's face changed to one of sincere concern, and he said that he took it very seriously. It was scary how fast his face changed. Shortly after that debate, a neighbor of mine, who is republic, said that he just didn't trust Al Gore. I asked him if he'd seen the debate, and he said that he hadn't. I think he was just repeating the gibberesh he'd heard on Rush Limbaugh, or some other republican talk show.
The Bush administration has also tried to argue that it should be able to imprison U.S. citizens without due process of law. All it has to do is claim that these people are enemy combatants.
Bush has only one solution to every problem: kill people. And if that doesn't work, try killing more people.
The difference between a criminal prisoner and a prisoner of war is that prisoners of war don't get lawyers. Terrorist captured in Iraq have not broken any U.S. laws on U.S. soil so they are not criminal prisoners and therefore they are not entitled to a lawyer.
-j
The post shows that this issue is very complicated. It talks about Terrorist captured on Iraqi soil, the conditions of prisoners in Cuba, the Geneva Convention, torture in Abu Graib, Bush's real intentions, Americans losing their rights, Saddam, Milosevich and Hitler.
Would you consider focusing on one issue at a time? A few possible choices are:
1. Should terrorist be treated as Prisoners of war, U.S. criminals, or should we create a new classification? Should the classification depend on where they are captured or under what conditions they are captured?
2. Israel has been dealing with terrorist far longer than we have. What can we learn from them?
3. What are the provision in the Geneva Conventions? I believe we have an idea of what is in there but do we really know or are we just guessing?
4. Can we surmise Bush's real intentions?
5. The impact terrorist have had on American liberties?
6. How many similarities are there between Bush and Saddam, Milosevich and Hitler?
-j
Oh, I forgot, another issue discussed in the post is the death sentence. We can discuss the benefits and problems with such a policy.
-j
Why do you think that Hitler, the Nazi whose evil regime was responsible for the slaughter of millions of people during the Holocaust, is a fitting and *credible* expression of criticism of President Bush and his policies? Your lack of discretion cheapens the level of politicial discourse in America and on this blog.
The comparison of Bush to Hitler diminishes the reality of what happened during the Holocaust, and your comparison cheapens the memory of a horrific crime.
Okay. First, Joe, you're right, Bush has not committed ethnic cleansing like Hitler and Milosevich. I don't think Saddam has committed ethnic cleansing. His gassing of the Kurds was to quell an uprising, not to wipe out the whole culture. Most of his torturing and killing was done to maintain his power base. However, in all three of these cases (Hitler, Milosevich and Saddam), they were willing to kill vast numbers of people to solve what they saw as problems.
In Hitler's case, I think he honestly believed that the Jews were destroying Germany's economy. To him, killing off all of the Jews was a justifiable way to save the country. He also saw all of the people who disagreed with him as a danger to his country, so he had no problem in forming "Hitler's Youth" to intimidate, rough up, and sometimes kill, those who spoke out against him.
I think Saddam is a little better than Hitler because saw the problem more accurately. Hitler was wrong about the Jews destroying Germany's economy, but Saddam was right about the Kurds staging an uprising, or about many people being opposed to his rule. However, in both cases, their main 'tool' to fix a problem was to kill people.
In that respect, I think Bush is the same way. I don't mean to imply that what he is doing is as bad as what happened under Hitler, but I do think that the main difference that we're seeing between Bush and Hitler is due to the environment that they find themselves in, not in the men themselves; our freedom of the press and our right to vote puts Bush on a much tighter leash than Hitler was as far as what he can get away with.
You may think that I am cheapening the memory of a horrific crime, but to ignore the possibility that such a crime could happen again, and in this country, is naive, and a waste of a hard learned lesson.
Ok, so the leader of any country that goes to war against any other country (presumably to solve some problem) is comprable to Hitler. Is that what you're saying?
-j
Or are you saying that if a leader "sees the problem accurately" that he is not as bad as Hitler for going to war?
Now, terrorists are killing innocent people all around the world. That's a fact. So anyone going to war against terrorists must be better than Saddam and Hitler because:
1. They see the problem accurately.
2. They are not killing people to secure their power base.
You cannot argue that the war with Iraq is wrong because:
1. Bush only went to war to enrich himself. You have no proof to substantiate that accusation. You merely have circumstantial evidence and this country is based on innocent until proven guilty.
2. It doesn't advance our war on terror. Since the war with Iraq, terrorists from all over the world have gone to Iraq to kill American soldiers and innocent civilians (Iraqi and otherwise). Think: beheadings. It makes me feel ethically uneasy thinking that Iraqi soil is being used for the purpose of attracting terrorist (keeping them away from U.S. soil) and that Iraqis are bearing the consequences. Especially since maybe the reason that terrorists have not struck U.S. soil since 9-11 is due to Homeland Security. In other words, maybe Homeland Security was enough to deter terrorists thus making a war with Iraq unnecessary in the war against terror. But the war against Afghanistan certainly hurt the terrorists. BTW, just to be clear, I'm not saying that we went to war with Iraq to advance our war on terror. I also don't claim to know Bush's intentions. I think the reason for going to war with Iraq should have been to get rid of a very bad man. But I doubt you can get Americans to go to war for that reason.
3. There were no weapons of mass destruction, everyone knew it. There was no way (short of war) to prove (or disprove) the existence of WMDs. How do we prove (or disprove) the existence of WMDs? The only way that I know of proving that there were WMDs is to go in there and look for them. But Saddam was not abiding by the U.N. resolution so inspections were useless. The only way to inspect Iraq was to force Saddam to allow the inspections. The only way to force Saddam was to go to war. The deadly potential for the existence of WMDs was enough to warrant war. If we had not gone to war and Saddam did have WMDs and he gave them to terrorists who then used them on innocent people around the world, it would have been disasterous. What's worse, the current death toll due to the war or the potential death toll due to WMDs?
Anyway, maligning Bush due to hind sight is wrong. No one is able to read someone else's mind. For all you know Bush did the best he could with the information he had. In order to prove otherwise, you would have to launch an investigation yourself. Listening to news sound bytes from people that have an agenda is not conclusive evidence. If Bush had had the benefit of hind sight, he may not have gone to war with Iraq.
Also, bitching about Bush due to hind sight is useless. Our time would be better served by trying to come up with possible solutions for those things you think need fixing. In other words, pick a policy, state what's wrong with it and propose a posible solution.
Comparing Bush to Hitler and telling people to vote democratic is an emotional argument and does not use logic.
An emotional argument goes like this: This [insert hated object] is [insert something that evokes a negative emotion]. Instead [insert loved object] is [insert something that evokes a positive emotion].
example: This president Bush is no better than Hitler. Instead Kerry is more sympathetic towards people.
A logical argument states the problem and offers a possible solution.
A logical argument goes like this: This [insert problem here] is a problem because [insert reason]. Instead we should [insert proposed solution] because [insert reason].
example: This policy of killing insurgents in Iraq is a problem because colateral damage makes us look bad around the world. Instead we should hand the whole thing over to the U.N. and let them deal with it because they think they can do a better job.
I guess the question is, do you want to fix the problem or just bitch about it? Saying that Bush is the problem and that Kerry is the solution is not a logical argument; it is an emotional argument that may just get Kerry into office... and then we wont have anything to write about. ;)
-j
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