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Amnesty Condemns US for War on Terror Torture
The United States has manifestly failed to uphold obligations to reject torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading behavior in the "war on terror" launched after Sept. 11, 2001, Amnesty International said in a report to be released today. The human rights group condemned the US administration's response to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington as one which had resulted in its own "iconography of torture, cruelty and degradation." "The war mentality the government has adopted has not been matched with a commitment to the laws of war and it has discarded fundamental human rights principles along the way," it said in a report. Amnesty's report — "Human dignity denied: Torture and accountability in the 'war on terror'" — accused Washington of stepping onto a "well-trodden path of violating basic rights in the name of national security or 'military necessity'." At best, Washington was guilty of setting conditions for torture and cruel treatment by lowering safeguards and failing to respond adequately to allegations of abuse, it said.
I thought I was beyond having my breath taken away by this sort of mind-boggling hypocrisy, but I guess I'm not as cynical as I thought I was. It comes on the day the enemy has kidnapped a Japanese man and threatens to cut his head off, two days after the enemy cold-bloodedly massacred 50 rookie policemen. It's less than a week after the enemy fired an antitank missile at an Israeli school bus, and three weeks after the enemy boomed a hotel in Sinai. I'd ask what's wrong with these people, but I already know. And it's damned discouraging.

Posted by: Fred 2004-10-27
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=47046