posted November 08, 2005 12:36 PM            

The directive, provided by the Defense Department, pulls together for the first time all of its existing policies and memos covering the interrogation of detainees taken in the war against terrorism. It comes as Congress is considering a ban on the inhumane treatment of U.S. prisoners and Democrats have launched a long-shot effort to create a commission to investigate abuse.

While the policy maps out broad requirements for humane treatment and for reporting any violations, it is just the first step in the development of a new Army manual that would more precisely detail which interrogation techniques are acceptable and which are not.

The only specific prohibition in the directive says that dogs used by any government agency "shall not be used as part of an interrogations approach or to harass, intimidate threaten or coerce a detainee for interrogations purposes."

Investigations into detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib facility in Iraq found that unmuzzled dogs were used to intimidate inmates.

The new policy governs the treatment of any detainee under Defense Department control. It leaves open the possibility that prisoners in DOD facilities, such as Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, could at times be considered under the control of another agency — such as the Central Intelligence Agency — and therefore would not be subject to the directive's policies.

posted November 18, 2005 11:46 AM            

"Since the Americans have not accepted the minimum requirements for such a visit, we must cancel," Manfred Nowak, the UN envoy in charge of investigating torture allegations around the world, told AFP in Vienna.

"It would have created a disastrous precedent."

The trip had been planned for December 6.

Earlier in Geneva, the five experts, including Nowak, issued a statement in which they said deeply regretted a US rejection of private interviews with the prisoners during the scheduled visit.

They had given Washington until midnight Thursday (2300 GMT) to accept the interviews, among other requirements.

"It means there will be no visit this year for the report we are preparing, but naturally we are totally prepared to go to Guantanamo in the future if the Americans assure us of their full cooperation," Nowak said.

The December 6 date had been set after more than three years of discussions between US authorities and the UN amid claims of human rights breaches at the prison.

"Under the circumstances, we will not be travelling to Guantanamo," the UN statement in Geneva said, because "doing so would undermine the principles" of UN human rights fact-finding missions.

"It is particularly disappointing that the United States government, which has consistently declared its commitment to the principles of independence and objectivity of the fact-finding mechanisms, was not in a position to accept these terms."

The United States on Tuesday refused the UN human rights monitors' demand for an unconditional inspection of the Guantanamo camp which they had said was standard practice for a "credible, objective and fair assessment."

The US State Department said Washington was open to international inspectors but criticised the way the UN experts had piled up public pressure for access to detainees.

The United States provided regular access to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and had consulted with governments following the cases of their nationals detained at the base, and this was enough, the State Department said.

The UN experts maintain that the ICRC's monitoring is very different.

The ICRC as a matter of policy does not make its findings on humanitarian conditions of detention public in order to preserve its access to prisons that might otherwise be closed to them.

In contrast, the UN experts are mandated to investigate allegations of human rights breaches and report publicly to the UN General Assembly and the world body's top watchdog, the Human Rights Commission.

The US government has been sharply criticized for conditions at Guantanamo, where 520 detainees are held without trial and where some have gone on hunger strikes.

Most of those held there were captured after a US-led offensive toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in late 2001.

The United States has declared the detainees as illegal enemy combatants who are not protected by the Geneva Conventions.

The UN monitors, who began talks with Washington in 2002 about a visit to Guantanamo, had already reluctantly agreed to limit the inspection to a single day instead of three and to send three investigators instead of five.

Even without a visit, they still intend to write a report on conditions at the prison based on eyewitness accounts from released detainees, meetings with lawyers and information from human rights groups.

As well as Nowak, the experts are Leandro Despouy, UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers; Paul Hunt, of the world body's health watchdog; Asma Jahangir, an expert on freedom of religion; and Leila Zerrougui, who examines claims of abitrary detention.

posted November 18, 2005 12:49 PM            

Tell these meddlers that if they are really looking for human rights abuses, they should start their searches in Sudan, Cuba, North Korea, China, Vietnam, Iran, Syria and Burma. You know, all the nations swooned over by radical leftists.

But mainly, just tell the UN to F-off. The UN hasn't earned the right to criticize any nation over alleged human rights abuses. Let's see, this is the same UN which stood by with Peace Keeping troops on the ground...under the direct control of Kofi Annan.... while about a million Rwandans were butchered. This is the same UN still standing by while non Muslims are being systematically driven off the land, herded into UN conclaves, starved, raped and slaughtered in Sudan. This is the same UN running prostitution and porno rings with young girls forced into prostitution in nations where UN Peace Keepers are supposedly keeping the peace. This is the same UN where so called Peace Keepers are trading food for sex with young girls and women who are attempting to keep themselves and their children from starving. This is the same UN where UN Peace Keepers rape young girls...and get away with it without prosecution.

While you're at it, tell the utterly corrupt UN there will be a demolition crew at the UN Building Monday morning to level the building which houses some of the most corrupt and utterly useless parasites on earth...to make way for something useful. Call it progress.

posted November 19, 2005 08:53 PM            

It's interesting how you like to dissociate with the UN when we've been there, and been a part of it throughout.

Who was Kofi Annan under when he lead the peacekeepers in Rwanda? What country was part of that body that managed him?

What is the UN's position on Sudan? Check out the news?

With regard to the prostitution, why is the US sitting idly by allowing this to happen. We've had a huge investigation of Oil For Food. Why not investigate these charges, which go back to prior to the Oil for Food uproar?

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posted November 21, 2005 10:56 AM            

Sure, I know who Kofi Annan reported to when he was in charge of UN Peace Keeping forces...at a time when he stood by corruptly and uselessly and didn't keep the peace in Rwanda..which resulted in the slaughter of about a million (1,000,000) Rwandan citizens. I also know who the US president happened to be...none other than Commander Corruption himself...ummm Bill Clinton. And for a job well done in Rwanda, Kofi was pushed forward for the SEC General of the UN position by none other than......Commander Corruption.

I also know who the UN SEC General happened to be whom Annan was presumed to have reported too...none other than Boutros Boutros-By-Golly.

Interesting to be sure, however I knew you would attempt to find some way to exonerate the UN and blame the United States, which is what radical leftists do, first, last and always.

posted November 21, 2005 12:00 PM            

Trying to put in the perspective that we're merely one nation of many is convenient as well considering that we're the most powerful member, and how Bush illustrated that we can take it upon ourselves to enforce the UN's mandates.

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posted November 21, 2005 01:02 PM            

Bush and coalition partners enforced the ball-less UN's Resolution 687 and 1441. At the UN, no matter how powerful a nation, militarily, economically or politically, the US has one vote in the General Assembly and one Vote in the UN Security Council...with a veto...like other permanent Security Council members.

The day to day operation of the UN is in the hands of bureaucrats...like Kofi Annan...who stood by while about a million Rwanda citizens were slaughtered. Kofi Annan who stood by while porn rings and prostitution rings were being run in his Peace Keeping operations. Kofi Annan who stood by while the Oil for Food Program was being systematically looted by Saddam...with UN participation...to the detriment of Iraqi citizens and one could certainly draw the conclusion that was a gigantic human rights abuse. So again, save your BS that the US is personally responsibility for those abuses.

Bush is doing something about the UN. Something radical leftists just hate. Bolton is there now attempting to reform the body and if that fails then you will see a move to form other bodies to deal with what has heretofore been the responsibility of the UN.

Were it me, there would be no waiting. I've seen quite enough corruption and genocide condoned by the UN. Time to dissolve it, demolish the building and frog march those useless and corrupt bureaucrats to the nearest airport for an American paid trip back where they came from. That would be a good days work...and long overdue.

Having skated on their responsibility to enforce their own Resolutions...16 of them or so...regarding Saddam Hussein and Iraq, the UN has no proper role in determining the status of illegal combatants held anywhere by the US or by other coalition partners, captured on battlefields where there were no UN forces involved.

posted November 21, 2005 03:15 PM            

quote:

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So again, save your BS that the US is personally responsibility for those abuses.

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posted November 21, 2005 05:34 PM            

By Paul Hoskins
Mon Nov 21, 1:34 PM ET

DUBLIN (Reuters) - The Iraq war has weakened the moral authority of the United States and its allies to tackle the likes of China and Russia over their poor records on civil liberties, human rights campaigner Mary Robinson said on Monday.

Robinson, named by Time Magazine this year as one of the world's 100 most influential people, told Reuters that disregard for human rights by western democracies made it more difficult to promote them in countries where people enjoy less freedom.

"It's much harder now for President Bush in China to talk to China about human rights," the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in an interview. "Where's his credibility?"

U.S. President George W. Bush ended a visit to China on Monday. He pressed President Hu Jintao on trade and currency reforms and called for greater social and religious freedom but there were few signs China had offered any major concessions.

Robinson, a former Irish president, said new laws in the United States, Britain and Australia designed to reduce the risk of militant attacks had also curbed civil liberties.

"It has been a terrible tragedy of responding to acts of terrorism, that governments have forgotten what it is that they are really defending," she said.

Robinson cited Russia as another example where the weakening moral clout of these countries was having a knock-on effect.

"The checks and balances will kick in, more or less, in our democracies but the damage that's done is to other countries ... I think particularly of (Russia's) President Putin: he's no longer under any kind of scrutiny in relation to Chechnya."

Rights groups say government troops are behind numerous civilian killings, abductions and rapes in Chechnya where separatist rebels have been fighting federal forces for more than a decade.

WORSENING SITUATION

Robinson, now a Professor at Columbia University in New York, said the United States and its allies had lost influence over doubts about the Iraq war and issues like the holding of prisoners without trial at Guantanamo Bay.

The United States is holding more than 500 people at its Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba. Human rights activists have criticized jail conditions and the indefinite detention of suspects.

"The situation is simply getting worse. There's the ambivalence about torture and now we find that the Iraqis are torturing those that they have detained so some of the reason to justify this unjustifiable war on Iraq is also fading."

The Iraqi government has promised to investigate the discovery in a ministry bunker last week of 173 malnourished and in some cases badly beaten men and teenagers.

Robinson, a member of the International Commission of Jurists investigating how civil and political rights have been eroded since the September 11, 2001 attacks, said she noted growing public discontent over the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

"What I find living now in the United States is an encouraging, wide sense of some of the checks and balances kicking in ... In Congress you have, at last, a sense, of 'we were misled, we should have been more attentive."'

Democratic Representative John Murtha (news, bio, voting record) said on Sunday that he expected more people to come round to his views that U.S. troops should be withdrawn from 2006 and that the military occupation was making the situation in Iraq worse.

Robinson, in Dublin to launch a campaign against violence to women, said she hoped that what followed would be analysis of how Congress acquiesced so easily to a war where "the poor, beleaguered people of Iraq are not better off."

posted November 21, 2005 06:09 PM            

Better for Robinson to spend time correcting Irelands problems and to that end I say send Robinson back to Dublin. Oh yeah, and get Robinson off the public payroll...fast.

Of course, Robinson could visit China, North Vietnam, Sudan, Syria and Cuba. They need to hear that human rights story....I mean, those nations have lost their moral authority.

Hehe, introducing the bungling, incompetent Jimmy Carter into her rhetoric is a stroke of reverse genius.

You're not making headway here acoustic. Throwing leftists into the conversation who, like you, trash America doesn't sway me. Preaching to the choir isn't likely to cause any conversions either.

posted November 21, 2005 08:12 PM            

Hmmm, I'd tell Robinson not to get too carried away with making the Times 100 most influential list acoustic....so did Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi and Kim Jong Il. Not to mention Bush who is "most influential" and who may have made it necessary for Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi to receive his award posthumously

Yeah, I've been down on main street...watching the shakeup in the lying American media as their publications and news networks lose subscribers and viewers. Layoffs, firings and retirements.

Glad to see you still have your sense of humor I think you're going to need it.

posted November 21, 2005 08:24 PM              

quote:

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Sorry acoustic, I'm afraid Times Man of the year for 2000 and 2004---both Bush and the American Soldier in 2003(...)

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posted November 21, 2005 09:08 PM            

quote:

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Yeah, I've been down on main street...watching the shakeup in the lying American media as their publications and news networks lose subscribers and viewers. Layoffs, firings and retirements.

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Here I thought you were gone because every day there are new articles damning your party and this administration. Why just today Cheney was backpeddling on the Murtha incident:

quote:

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Later, Bush and other administration officials toned down their criticism, fearful of a backlash in support of Murtha. Bush on Sunday called Murtha "a fine man" and longtime supporter of the military. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051122/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq

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quote:

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McCain, Graham Warn GOP May Be in Trouble
Mon Nov 21, 4:55 PM ET

MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. - With the war in Iraq, higher energy costs and breakneck government spending, the GOP faces a tough round of congressional elections in 2006 unless things change, two key Republican senators warned during a campaign appearance. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051121/ap_on_go_co/senators_republicans

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quote:

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An ex-aide to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and partner to a powerful Republican lobbyist pleaded guilty to conspiracy on Monday under a deal in which he is cooperating with prosecutors probing alleged influence-buying involving the lobbyist and lawmakers. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051122/pl_nm/crime_lobbyist_dc

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quote:

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...
The implied critique of Bush frustrates some GOP strategists. Vin Weber, a former House member, says disunity among Republicans is "enormously dangerous" because it threatens the party's traditional advantage as the one voters trust most on national security. "To risk giving that up by splitting with the president over a central national security issue is really betting the family jewels," he says.

...
Hagel, like McCain a Vietnam veteran interested in the presidency, also objects to White House descriptions of war critics as reprehensible, irresponsible people playing politics. "For the administration to penalize or demonize those who question is not who we are as Americans," Hagel said last week. He said Vietnam was a tragedy partly because members of Congress did not challenge the administrations in power and suggested history has repeated itself with Iraq: "We let this unfold with very little questioning or oversight." http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/politiciansacrossspectrumstatetheircaseoniraq

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quote:

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BEIJING (AP) — After fiercely defending his Iraq policy across Asia, President Bush abruptly toned down his attack on war critics Sunday and said there was nothing unpatriotic about opposing his strategy. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-20-bush-war-debate_x.htm

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posted November 22, 2005 01:49 AM            

quote:

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Scanlon also admitted that as one means of accomplishing results for their clients, he, Lobbyist A, and others engaged in a pattern of bribery through which one or both of them offered and provided a stream of things of value to public officials, including trips, campaign contributions, meals and entertainment in exchange for agreements that public officials would use their official positions and influence to benefit the clients of Scanlon and Lobbyist A as well as Lobbyist A's businesses.

The plea agreement and a criminal information filed in court set forth one example of such conduct. Scanlon and Lobbyist A, together and separately, provided a stream of things of value to an official described as Representative No. 1 and members of his staff, including, but not limited to, a lavish trip to Scotland to play golf on world-famous courses, tickets to sporting events and other entertainment, regular meals at Lobbyist A's upscale restaurant, and campaign contributions for Representative No. 1, his political action committees and other political committees on behalf of Representative No. 1. At the same time, and in exchange for these things of value, Scanlon and Lobbyist A, together and separately, sought and received Representative No. 1's agreement to perform directly and through others a series of official acts, including but not limited to, agreements to support and pass legislation, agreements to place statements in the Congressional Record, meetings with Lobbyist A and Scanlon's clients, and advancing the application of a client of Lobbyist A for a license to install wireless telephone infrastructure in the House of Representatives.

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posted November 22, 2005 10:05 PM            

quote:

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That award's not given for greatness, jwhop, but for impact on the public mind.
You know that.

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Sure Proxi, I know that but I'm not the one who brought Time into the conversation...to bolster the so called credentials of Robinson. Still, Bush trumps Robinson, in every measurable category.

posted November 23, 2005 11:05 AM            

Identified in new court documents as "Representative No. 1," Republican Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record) of Ohio has become the poster boy in the Jack Abramoff bribery probe, a beneficiary of trips, tickets and campaign donations, allegedly in exchange for official acts.

Ney denies doing anything wrong, and he would hardly appear to be in the top tier of likely targets for Washington lobbyists.

He is chairman of the House Administration Committee. The panel's work is often mundane, but important to everyone on the Hill — from overseeing the distribution of office furniture to protecting the Capitol after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

As low-profile as his duties might seem to be, Ney appears to face serious legal problems, has a legal defense fund and has hired a well-known Washington defense attorney, Mark Tuohey, a former deputy in Independent Counsel Ken Starr's criminal investigation of the Clintons.

Ney's relationship with Abramoff could end up hurting him on the political front back home, where Democrats hope to mount a strong challenge to the six-term congressman. He won re-election by a 2-1 margin in 2004.

"There's absolutely no question we're going after this seat; I think we can take it," Susan Gwinn, the Athens County, Ohio, Democratic Party chairwoman, said Tuesday night.

"I would love to see a close race," said Democrat Roxanne Groff, who lost to Ney in a 1992 state Senate campaign.

Among the candidates are Chillicothe Mayor Joe Sulzer, a Vietnam veteran, running on a platform of returning ethics to Ney's eastern Ohio congressional district.

"Given what has come out, it seems very likely that Bob Ney would draw a strong opponent," said University of Akron political science professor John Green. "If one were tempted to run against Bob Ney, this would certainly be seen as the time."

The unwelcome notoriety Ney faces raises an intriguing question: Who else on Capitol Hill is in the prosecutors' gun-sights?

One man who may have some answers is Michael Scanlon, the former partner in Abramoff's lobbying firm. Scanlon, an ex-aide to Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, has become a government witness in the Abramoff investigation.

But for now, Ney is Exhibit A. Three full pages in the court papers in Scanlon's guilty plea Monday itemize things of value to Ney or his staff and official acts allegedly performed in return.

Ney has ready responses for all of them.

The congressman says he was misled by Abramoff about who was paying for a 2002 golf trip to Scotland. Ney said "I was told point blank" that a conservative policy group was footing the bill.

Ney said he backed a measure to help reopen an Indian-operated gambling casino in Texas after being assured by Abramoff that Sen. Christopher Dodd (news, bio, voting record), D-Conn., supported it. Dodd said neither Abramoff nor Scanlon ever contacted him about it.

When evidence emerged that Abramoff and Scanlon had collected $80 million for representing six American Indian tribes with casinos, Ney said, "You do something that is in good faith — how did I know what they were charging their clients? Why would I hurt anyone, especially an Indian tribe?"

Ney has interesting historical connections to another Ohio congressman, the late Rep. Wayne Hays, who chaired the same committee that Ney now heads.

Hays put his mistress on his payroll as his secretary, and when the arrangement was publicly disclosed, Hays was forced out of his chairmanship and eventually Congress.

Elected to the Ohio House, Hays then lost a bid for re-election to Ney.

posted November 28, 2005 06:47 PM            

A top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday that wrongheaded ideas for the handling of foreign detainees arose from White House and Pentagon officials who argued that "the president of the United States is all-powerful" and the Geneva Conventions irrelevant.

In an Associated Press interview, former Powell chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson also said President Bush was "too aloof, too distant from the details" of postwar planning. Underlings exploited Bush's detachment and made poor decisions, Wilkerson said.

Wilkerson blamed Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and like-minded aides. He said Cheney must have sincerely believed that Iraq could be a spawning ground for new terror assaults, because "otherwise I have to declare him a moron, an idiot or a nefarious bastard ."

On the question of detainees picked up in Afghanistan and other fronts in the war on terror, Wilkerson said Bush heard two sides of an impassioned argument within his administration. Abuse of prisoners, and even the deaths of some who had been interrogated in Afghanistan and elsewhere, have bruised the U.S. image abroad and undermined support for the Iraq war.

Cheney's office, Rumsfeld aides and others argued "that the president of the United States is all-powerful, that as commander in chief the president of the United States can do anything he damn well pleases," Wilkerson said.

On the other side were Powell, others at the State Department and top military brass, and occasionally Condoleezza Rice, who was then national security adviser, Wilkerson said.

Powell raised frequent and loud objections, his former aide said, once yelling into a telephone at Rumsfeld: "Donald, don't you understand what you are doing to our image?"

Wilkerson said Bush tried to work out a compromise in 2001 and 2002 that recognized that the war on terrorism was different from past wars and required greater flexibility in handling prisoners who don't belong to an enemy state or follow the rules themselves.

Bush's stated policy, which was heatedly criticized by civil liberties and legal groups at the time, was defensible, Wilkerson said. But it was undermined almost immediately in practice, he said.

In the field, the United States followed the policies of hard-liners who wanted essentially unchecked ability to detain and harshly interrogate prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, Wilkerson said.

Wilkerson, who left government with Powell in January, said he is now somewhat estranged from his former boss. He worked for Powell for 16 years. Wilkerson became a surprise critic of the Iraq war-planning effort and other administration decisions this fall, and he has said his Powell did not put him up to it.

On Iraq, Wilkerson said Powell may have had doubts about the extent of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein but was convinced by then-CIA Director George Tenet and others that the intelligence behind the push toward war was sound.

He said Powell now generally believes it was a good idea to remove Saddam from power but may not agree with either the timing or execution of the war.

"What he seems to be saying to me now is the president failed to discipline the process the way he should have and that the president is ultimately responsible for this whole mess," Wilkerson said.

Powell was widely regarded as a dove to Cheney's and Rumsfeld's hawks, but he made a forceful case for war before the United Nations Security Council in February 2003, a month before the invasion. At one point, he said Saddam possessed mobile labs to make weapons of mass destruction, but they have not been found.

Wilkerson said the CIA and other agencies allowed mishandled and bogus information to underpin that speech and the administration case for war.

He said he has almost, but not quite, concluded that Cheney and others in the administration deliberately ignored evidence of bad intelligence and looked only at what supported their case for war.

A newly declassified Defense Intelligence Agency document from February 2002 said that an al-Qaida military instructor was probably misleading his interrogators about training that the terror group's members received from Iraq on chemical, biological and radiological weapons. Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi reportedly recanted his statements in January 2004.

A presidential intelligence commission also has dissected how spy agencies handled an Iraqi refugee who was a German intelligence source. Code-named Curveball, this man, a leading source on Iraq's purported mobile biological weapons labs, was found to be a fabricator and alcoholic.

Wilkerson also said he did not disclose to Bob Woodward that administration critic Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, joining the growing list of past and current Bush administration officials who have denied being the Washington Post reporter's source.

posted November 28, 2005 07:59 PM            

Powell was sent to the State Dept. to get that mess straightened out...the mess which ensues when a department of the Executive Branch begins to think they call the shots..in this case, foreign policy. They work for Bush. They can resign if they find themselves in fundamental disagreement with US foreign policy. Powell failed and should have been fired.

Rice is there now and doing the job Powell was supposed to do and didn't.

Same situation at the CIA which now has Porter Goss, an ex CIA agent cleaning out the dead wood and straightening out the mess Tenet left.

It isn't difficult to find a back biting ex government official venting his spleen about a policy they disagree with..but they are not in charge, Bush is.

Too bad the State Dept is more concerned about what the French think....the French who were heavily involved in the Oil for Food Scandal at the UN...than they are about doing their jobs...which is to follow the instructions of the Chief Executive of the federal government, the President.

posted November 29, 2005 11:30 AM            

quote:

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The fact acoustic IS that the president does have broad powers to wage war once authorized by Congress to do so, does have the power to declare people out of uniform and out of their own country fighting on battle fields against US forces...illegal combatants, does have the power to detain them outside the US, does have the power to try them by a military tribunal, does have the power to not grant them prisoner of war status, does have the power to have them interrogated, even harshly.

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posted November 29, 2005 03:58 PM            

quote:

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Glad you're coming around to realizing the mistake it was to vote for him....acoustic

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Comments like this in response to what I posted is an example of the reason the radical left loses every argument.

posted November 29, 2005 05:42 PM            

I know you say you're middle of the road but no one who IS middle of the road bashes the US at every opportunity.