Torture's Our Business ... And Business is Good

Who could forget President Bush's repeated invocations of liberty, freedom, and human rights in his second inauguration speech? It warmed the cockles of the heart to hear our beloved President wax poetic about the grand ideals for which America stands. It chills the soul to contrast Bush's lofty rhetoric with the awful truth perpetuated by our government.

The truth is, our government condones, promotes and even celebrates torture.

Promotes and celebrates? Indeed. Take, for example, the recent appointments of Alberto Gonzales and John Negroponte to the respective positions of Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence. It is by now well-known that Gonzales commissioned and signed off on what are colloquially known as the torture memos. In those memos, the Justice Department, at the behest of and now headed by Gonzales, bent over backwards to justify and “legalize” America's use of torture in Bush's war on terror, free of the “quaint” shackles of the Geneva Conventions.

As a result of the policies engendered by the torture memos, and with Gonzlaes’ imprimatur, torture was widely employed in such places as Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and Bagram air base in Afghanistan. The United States’ use of torture in Abu Ghraib even led, in part, to Human Rights Watch to declare that the U.S. “eroded” global human rights in 2004. Gonzales' subsequent denunciation of torture and the torture memos came too late, coming as it did after his policies were put into practice. Not only did Gonzales' denunciation come too late, it smacked of political insincerity, particularly since Gonzales' assiduously avoided defining what he meant by torture. You can't denounce what you refuse to define.

Accordingly, Gonzales was appointed Attorney General of the United States.

John Negroponte has an even darker past. From 1981 to 1985, Negroponte was U.S. ambassador to Honduras. At the time, Honduras had become a central front in President Reagan's proxy war against communism in Central America. Before even arriving in Honduras, Negroponte was briefed on the Honduran government's use of “extralegal tactics,” including abduction and murder, to quash dissent. In fact, Negroponte was appointed ambassador to Honduras after the previous ambassador, Jack Binns, was removed as punishment for his crime of reporting human rights abuses in Honduras.

In his time as ambassador to Honduras, Negroponte never committed such indiscretions. Despite overwhelming daily evidence of institutionalized abductions, assassinations, and torture, Negroponte in particular, and the Reagan administration in general, denied that Honduras was anything but a haven for democratic ideals and respect for human rights. Negroponte maintained this deadly lie despite being rebuked by Honduran Congressman Efrain Diaz Arrivillaga for the U.S. government's refusal to take a stand against the Honduran government's murderous repression. As early as 1982, Negroponte was even presented with evidence of abductions, executions, and torture by an aid at the embassy, Rick Chidester, who was preparing the embassy's annual human rights report. While Chidester included descriptions of the abductions and executions in the draft report, the final report presented to the U.S. Congress was cleansed of such unpleasantness.

To this day, Negroponte denies any knowledge of anything untoward occurring on his watch in Honduras. According to Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archive, Negroponte maintains his denial in the face of declassified documents which show that he ran Honduras on behalf of the Reagan administration. Those same documents show that Negroponte quashed reports from the embassy on human rights abuses committed by the Honduran military. Most disturbingly, Negroponte worked closely with General Gustavo Alvarez, a graduate of the U.S. Army's School of the Americas and head of the CIA-trained Battalion 3-16, a secret Honduran death squad.

For his loyal service, Negroponte was promoted to ambassador to the United Nations, ambassador to Iraq, and, most recently, Director of National Intelligence.

Aside from the disturbing tales of Gonzales and Negroponte, there is additional evidence of the United States' policy of embracing torture. Currently, the Bush administration is working to prevent U.S. pilots who were captured and tortured during the 1991 Gulf War from recovering damages from Iraq. Seventeen U.S. pilots sued Iraq for monetary and punitive damages and were awarded nearly $1 billion by a federal judge in 2003. In swooped the Bush administration, arguing that the lawsuit and the judgment should be dismissed on the grounds that the U.S. occupation of Iraq voided the plaintiffs' claims. Why? The Bush administration does not want to establish a legal precedent whereby its once and future torture victims can use federal law to sue the United States for damages.

Simultaneously, the Bush administration strenuously opposes the International Criminal Court, as well as the International Court of Justice. The proffered reason for Bush's opposition to both courts is that it would subject American soldiers and officials to punitive and frivolous litigation. In truth, however, the Bush administration is more concerned with legitimate lawsuits than hypothetical frivolous suits. It has reason to. In 1986 the ICJ entered judgment against the United States for engaging in and supporting military and paramilitary attacks against Nicaragua during Reagan's Contra war. The United States refuses to acknowledge the judgment or jurisdiction of the ICJ. Similarly, the U.S. does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC and, as evidenced by the U.S. position regarding Sudan, does everything in its power to subvert the court.

Our government, while paying lip service to freedom and human rights, brazenly promotes the subversion of those very ideals. While pretending to champion human dignity and the rule of law, our government subverts international law and promotes those responsible for inhumane practices and policies that can only be described as evil.

As shameful and horrific as the barbarism of the our government is, our silent complicity is worse. We sit on our hands and look away as our government debases, tortures, and murders in our name. For how long?

Remember Afghanistan?

Does anyone remember Afghanistan, the first stop in Bush's “War On Terror” world tour? It wouldn't be at all surprising if no one did since only Newsweek, the Associated Press, and the Washington Post have full-time reporters in the country. With hundreds of reporters on the ground in Iraq, we hear daily about the successes and failures there, the atrocities committed there by insurgents and U.S. forces alike, as well as constant prognostications about the future of Iraq and its people. When it comes to Afghanistan, however, the home of Al-Qaeda, we hear almost nothing.

Pity. There is a lot to be heard.

This week, a report released by the U.N. Development Program raises significant concerns about the future stability of Afghanistan. While the report notes Afghanistan's improving economy and education, the report concludes that Afghanistan is teetering on the brink of chaos and could easily return to being a terrorist haven. In addition to the world's worst education system, Afghanistan has some of the world's worst rates of life expectancy (44.5 years), deaths of mothers during pregnancy (1 every 30 minutes), child mortality (20% under the age of 5), and adult literacy (28.7%). Currently, tens of thousands of homeless Afghans are struggling to survive the bitter winter. Hundreds have already died from exposure and disease.

Apparently, the abject suffering of the people purportedly liberated by the United States isn't worthy of mention on the nightly news.

While Afghanistan's democratic elections did manage to receive the fleeting attention of the American media, democracy isn't exactly flourishing there. The fact is, President Hamid Karzai's elected government has little influence outside of Kabul, the nation's capital. As before the elections, the remote, rural areas of Afghanistan remain under the control of warlords and remnants of the Taliban. These local power structures compete with and undermine Afghanistan's fledgling centralized government.

Further undermining Afghanistan's stability is its burgeoning drug trade. According to the International Monetary Fund, Afghanistan's opium trade is responsible for nearly 90% of the world's opium supply, generates about $2.8 billion in revenue, equals approximately 60% of Afghanistan's non-drug gross domestic product, and directly employs more than 10% of the population. Such enormous profits have led to the corruption of senior government officials and will only further weaken the already-fragile central government. Furthermore, drug economies fund terrorism and invariably plunge narco-states like Colombia into violent conflict and civil instability. There is no reason to think Afghanistan will be any different.

In sum, the dire conditions in which Afghans live, as well as the limited influence of the central government, makes them vulnerable to terrorist groups and warlords, who, enriched by the opium trade, can easily raise and sustain armies from impoverished populations by offering people food, shelter, and security. Should Afghanistan regress to a state of civil war it would again become a haven for terrorism. Nonetheless, despite the very real possibility of history repeating itself in Afghanistan, neither the government nor the media appear to be paying any attention.

Another story demanding more attention is that U.S. forces have tortured and abused prisoners as well as civilians in Afghanistan. Earlier this month, when U.N. human rights inspector Cherif Bassiouni reported incidences of torture and mistreatment by U.S. forces, the U.S. military flatly denied the allegations and claimed its prison conditions in Afghanistan were “humane”. Less than a week later, photos surfaced of U.S. soldiers torturing detainees in Afghanistan by subjecting them to mock executions. Likewise, Army Special Forces kicked and beat Afghan villagers to such a degree that Army psy-ops officers who witnessed the barbarism were compelled to report it. The U.S. now concedes that these examples of torture and abuse occurred without provocation and violated Army regulations as well as the Geneva Conventions. How humane.

One recent development in Afghanistan that has received some domestic attention is Senator John McCain's call for “permanent bases” in Afghanistan for U.S. military forces. Overlooked, however, is the irony of McCain's statement. The U.S. once waged a proxy war in Afghanistan to halt the expansion of the Soviet Union. Now, decades later, the U.S. intends to claim Afghanistan as its own. Who will halt our expansion? Other than ourselves, no one. However, as long as Americans continue to swallow government illusions regurgitated by the mainstream media, U.S. hegemony will continue unabated.

Despite the recent occurrences in Afghanistan, the American “news” media frets over Queen Elizabeth's snubbing of Charles and Camilla and questions the possibility of Michael Jackson receiving a fair trial. America should be terrified that “The Daily Show,” a self-declared fake news program, offers better analysis and more information than the so-called real news broadcasts on NBC, CBS, CNN, or FOX. It should be. Sadly, it is not.

The United States' Hypocritical Nuclear Policy

With all of the recent talk about North Korea's not-so-surprising admission that it possesses nuclear weapons, as well as Iran's refusal to cease its pursuit of nuclear technology, it is worth considering the United States’ own policy. That policy, such as it is, basically boils down to this: the U.S. and its proxies (e.g., Israel) may possess nuclear weapons. Everybody else is a global threat.

Speaking of global threats, the U.S. twice used nuclear weapons in 1945, in the Japanese cities Nagasaki and Hiroshima, resulting in tens of thousands of civilian deaths and innumerable injuries, both immediate and gradual. No other nation, terrorist organization, or individual has proven itself as deadly and dangerous as the United States, the world's only nuclear aggressor.

It is estimated that as of January 2005 the U.S. has approximately 5,300 nuclear warheads stockpiled, as well as nearly 5,000 additional warheads maintained in inactive status. The U.S. has over 2,000 strategic warheads ready for rapid deployment. The U.S. Energy Department is working on the development of a nuclear “bunker buster,” officially known as the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. The Energy Department has also initiated an “Advanced Concepts” research program whereby it is exploring new kinds of nuclear weapons technologies, specifically a low-yield (less than 5 kilotons) “mini-nuke.” Such research was made possible when, at the request of the Bush administration, Congress in 2004 repealed a 1994 law that prohibited development of any low-yield weapons. To date, approximately $16.8 million has already been spent on bunker-buster research with an additional $8.5 million currently requested in Bush's budget.

As reflected by the foregoing, as well as in its Nuclear Posture Review of 2001, the United States endeavors to make nuclear weapons more “usable” and envisions an enlarged range of circumstances in which they could be used, including against non-nuclear attacks or threats. Indeed, despite the fact that the State Department declared in 2003 that the U.S. does not target any countries with nuclear weapons, the U.S. has repeatedly reserved the right to preemptively use nuclear and conventional weapons against nations or groups threatening to use of weapons of mass destruction.

As with any do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do policy, the United States’ policy of researching and developing new nuclear weapons and technologies undermines its credibility when it advocates nonproliferation and condemns “rogue states” for pursuing their own nuclear technologies. Further undermining U.S. credibility is the Bush administration's arrogant rejection of and withdrawal from numerous nonproliferation treaties. For instance, the United States rejected the Enforcement Protocol of the Biological Weapons Convention which would have established a formal regime to ensure that nations lived up to their commitment to destroy and not produce, stockpile, or transfer biological weapons. Bush's rationale for rejecting it -- Iran supported it.

Likewise, in 2001 Bush withdrew the U.S. from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, declaring that it hindered the ability of the U.S. to develop new weapons. That was the point, after all.

In 2004, the Bush administration voiced its opposition to and rejection of inspections and verification as part of the Fissile Materials Cutoff Treaty. According to the Bush administration, it opposes inspections and verification on the premise that the FMCT cannot be “effectively verifiable.” This opposition to the FMCT puts the U.S. at odds with Australia, Canada, and Japan.

Additionally, Bush has refused to submit the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to the Senate for ratification or to categorically commit to halting all future tests. Without U.S. ratification of the CTBT, the treaty cannot enter into force. Nonetheless, Bush has said, in no uncertain terms, that he will not submit the CTBT to the Senate and that the U.S. may resume nuclear testing. Evidencing this intent to resume nuclear testing, Bush's Nuclear Posture Review calls for reducing the time frame for conducting tests from 3 years to 18 or even 12 months of a Presidential decision to do so. Congress has approved funds for this time reduction.

Most recently, the U.S. has been trying to remove Mohammed El Baradei as head of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency. Why? Not because El Baradei is ineffective. Rather, the U.S. wants El Baradei gone because he questioned U.S. intelligence on Iraq (he was right) and is critical of U.S. refusal to deal with Iran diplomatically. However, all 15 nations approached by the U.S., including Britain, Canada, and Australia, refused to back El Baradei's ouster. Indeed, a majority of the IAEA board asked El Baradei to serve for another five years.

Would the world be safer if North Korea or Iran did not have nuclear weapons? Certainly. It would be safer still if the U.S. adopted a coherent and sincere nuclear policy that led by example. However, as long as the U.S. pursues newer and “better” nuclear weapons while simultaneously undermining international efforts at nonproliferation, it will only enhance rather than diminish the nuclear threat.

The Boogeyman and Social Security

President Bush devoted a large portion of his State of the Union address to describing the gloomy future of Social Security. Currently, he is gallivanting around the country in something reminiscent of a medicine show, doing his best to scare people into thinking Social Security is in "crisis" and will be "bankrupt" by the time younger workers begin to retire. He preaches before a background of charts and graphs, dripping red ink, showing Social Security in a kamikaze-like nosedive. He even goes so far as to admonish the young not to look at the charts, fearing that the images are too grisly for such tender youth. Then, after scaring everyone out of their wits, Bush declares that the only way to "save" Social Security and prevent future retirees from living on the streets in abject poverty is through personal savings accounts.

Is the future of Social Security really so dire? Economists far more knowledgeable than I don't seem to think so. In fact, according to the folks at Dollars and Sense magazine and the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Social Security, while far from perfect, is in much better condition than Bush would have us believe. As with the Boogeyman lurking under the bed, turn on the lights and things aren't so scary.

First, some background. The Old Age Survivors and Disability Insurance Program, commonly known as Social Security, was enacted in the 1930's as part of FDR's New deal. Social Security is an insurance program that protects workers and their families from the income losses that come with retirement, disability, or death. It is a "pay as you go" system, whereby taxes paid by today's workers are not set aside to pay future benefits, but instead go to pay the benefits of current Social Security recipients.

As originally designed, Social Security supplemented pensions provided by the private sector. Since the 1960's, however, corporations have systematically eliminated pension systems so that today only 16% of all private-sector workers are covered by pensions. Thus, as a direct result of corporate efforts to maximize the bottom line, Social Security is now the primary source of retirement income for nearly two-thirds of America's retirees. Private-sector pensions have been replaced by defined-contribution savings plans such as 401(k)'s and 403(b)'s, which provide some retirement income but no protection from "longevity risk" (living too long). Unlike Social Security, which pays retirement benefits until death, once the savings of a defined-contribution plan are exhausted, that's it.

Social Security is not limited to retirement benefits. While 70% of Social Security funds do go to retirees, 15% go to disabled workers, and 15% go to workers' survivors. Thus, unlike Bush's personal savings accounts, Social Security shares risk across the entire workforce to ensure that all workers and their families are protected from the hardships of retirement, disability, and death. By contrast, Bush's plan would enable high-wage workers to profit from private retirement investment without contributing to the protection of lower-wage workers from their disproportionate risks of disability and death. Furthermore, Social Security, which spends less than 0.6 cents out of every dollar in benefits paid on administrative costs, is far more efficient than personal accounts. Under Bush's proposed system, 5 cents of every dollar would go to administrative costs.

But wait, you say. The Social Security Administration and Congressional Budget Office predict that the Social Security trust fund will be bankrupt by 2042 or 2052, respectively. Numbers don't lie, right? Maybe not. However, flawed assumptions can only lead to flawed conclusions.

For example, the SSA bases its projections on a forecast of only 1.6% annual labor productivity growth. The CBO projects 1.9% growth. However, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, between 1947 and 2003 productivity rates in the non-farm sector improved an average 2.3% annually. After adjusting 0.2% for the difference between productivity growth and the growth of the economy as a whole, economy-wide productivity is still 2.1% since World War II. Indeed, in no 20-year period, including the Great Depression, has the U.S. economy grown as slowly as projected by either the SSA or the CBO. Therefore, each year the economy grows faster than projected, the "zero balance" date moves farther into the future. This fact is borne out by a review of the SSA's past predictions for Social Security's bankruptcy. In 1996, the zero balance date was 2030; in 2000 it was extended to 2036; today that date is 2042. See a pattern?

Additionally, opponents of Social Security obsess over the concept of a "demographic imperative," to wit: in 1960, there were 5.1 workers per retiree, but in 1998 there were only 3.4 and by 2030 there will only be 2.1. According to opponents, this demographic decline in workers per retiree will result in insufficient funds to pay Social Security retirement benefits. Hard to argue with that. Again, however, the premise is flawed.

Social Security is not limited to retirement benefits but pays disability and death benefits, as well. Thus, it is the overall dependency ratio (the number of workers relative to all non-workers, not just retirees) that determines the future solvency of Social Security. In the 1960's, there were 1.05 workers for each Social Security dependent. In 2030, there will be 1.27 workers per dependent - more than in the past. Compounding the larger number of workers per dependents is the fact that average worker productivity over the past 50 years has increased approximately 2% annually, adjusted for inflation. Thus, real worker output doubles every 36 and is projected to continue to do so, meaning that workers in 2040 will be twice as productive as today. Such numbers don't add up to Social Security's bankruptcy.

Speaking of bankruptcy, the term "bankruptcy" implies that Social Security will cease to exist. However, even if the trust fund should be depleted, it will not mean that Social Security will simply turn off the lights and go out of business. Rather, it will merely revert to a purely "pay as you go system," as it was before 1984, and continue to pay current benefits with current tax revenues. Under such a worst-case scenario, workers' taxes would need to increase by only about 2%, and not until 2030.

To meet its unfunded obligations over the next 75 years, the Social Security trust fund needs $3.7 trillion. Equaling about 1.89% of taxable payroll and about 0.7% of GDP over the same period, $3.7 trillion is no small sum. However, it is far less than the 2% of GDP that Bush's 2001 to 2003 tax cuts will cost over the next 75 years if they are made permanent. Indeed, the CBO-projected shortfall for Social Security is only 0.4% of GDP, less than the 0.6% Bush's tax cuts will cost for the richest 1% of taxpayers alone. Indeed, Bush's tax cuts are disturbingly reminiscent of Reagan's cuts in the 1980's. Reagan's cuts created the largest government deficits up to that point, the slowest GDP growth rate aside from the Great Depression, interest rates four times higher than the historic average, and contributed to Congress raising payroll taxes in 1984 to pay for Social Security.

Perhaps this is the real reason Bush is so adamant about "fixing" Social Security with personal accounts: he needs to pay for his tax cuts. That and a near-religious opposition to government assistance to anyone other than the rich and powerful.

Ensuring the Future of the War on Terror

It's official. The war in Iraq was not a mere diversion from the War on Terror, as Senator Kerry repeatedly alleged during the 2004 presidential campaign. As it turns out, President Bush was right - the war in Iraq is an integral part of the overall War on Terror. Thanks to the Iraq invasion, Iraq is now the new training ground for "professionalized" terrorists. These newly-trained professional terrorists will return home to share and implement their new skills. In other words, by invading Iraq, the United States has helped to ensure the future of the War on Terror. How incredibly prescient of President Bush and company.

As reported in the Washington Post on January 14, 2005, the National Intelligence Council, the think tank of the CIA, issued its new report on long-term global trends, entitled "Mapping the Global Future." As part of its report, the NIC concluded that Al-Qaida will eventually be replaced "by the dispersion of experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq." Currently, Iraq provides "recruitment training grounds, technical skills and language proficiency for a new class of terrorists who are 'professionalized' and for whom political violence becomes an end in itself."

According to the NIC, there has been a "revival of Muslim identity" that "will create a framework for the spread of radical Islamic ideology." The source of this revival? A "deepening solidarity among Muslims caught up in national or regional separatist struggles, such as Palestine, Chechnya,, Iraq, Kashmir, Mindanao, or southern Thailand." This solidarity "emerged in response to government repression, corruption, and ineffectiveness." As we already know, Islamists also seem to resent the presence of the American military in or near such holy places as Mecca and Najaf.

Muslims take exception to the desecration of their holy lands and the oppression and killing of fellow Muslims? Go figure.

Did anyone ever stop to think that the powers-that-be (political, religious, jihadist or otherwise) in the Middle East might view the incursion by the United States and its western ideals into the region similarly to how the United States viewed the rise of Communism in East Asia and Indochina? Might those in the Middle East be similarly concerned about a "domino effect" in the region, but instead of Communism it is American hegemony causing the dominoes to fall? Is it so inconceivable that the people of the Middle East might not cotton to the idea of the region being transformed into a springboard for American militarism or happy hunting grounds for American corporate interests?

Maybe, just maybe, the people of the Middle East, much like the people of Latin America in the 1980s, see right through the transparent hypocrisy of the United States. Maybe they can't or won't buy the feigned sincerity of the United States when it purports to "liberate" the Iraqi people from the rule of the tyrant that the United States propped up and supported for decades. Maybe they suspect that, like Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein simply outlived his usefulness to the United States.

Whatever their reasons, radical Islamists are drawn to Iraq like a magnet, to paraphrase NIC Chairman Robert L. Hutchins. Those jihadists who survive the Iraq conflict will, according to David B. Low, national intelligence officer for transnational threats, "go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries." How comforting.

This seems a far cry from the rosy scenario President Bush painted a month before the invasion of Iraq. At that time, Bush assured the nation that "a free Iraq can be a source of hope for all the Middle East." Bush further declared, "Instead of threatening its neighbors and harboring terrorists, Iraq can be an example of progress and prosperity in a region that needs both."

Let us consider America's extreme makeover of Iraq.

Before the invasion, Iraq's government was secular and any ties it allegedly had to jihadist terrorists were tenuous at best. There is no credible evidence that Iraq ever served as a haven for terrorists, much less as a training ground.

After the invasion, it can hardly be said that Iraq is "free" - not so long as it remains under foreign military occupation and innocent civilians continue to be killed in appalling numbers. Likewise, no one can honestly say that Iraq is a source of hope to the Middle East, at least not in the sense that President Bush surely intended. Whatever hope it does offer is to jihadists, terrorists, and insurgents who see every American casualty as a victory. Iraq offers hope to those caught up in the revival and spread of radical Islamist ideology. It offers hope to everyone determined to strike a blow at what much of the world views as the gravest danger to global security - the United States.

So President Bush was slightly off in his rosy predictions about Iraq. To err is human. What's more important is just how right President Bush was about Iraq being part and parcel of the overall War on Terror. Thanks to America's invasion and occupation of Iraq, there is now a whole new source for jihadist terrorists bent on America's destruction. Thanks to Iraq, the future of the War on Terror is that much more guaranteed.

See? Kerry really was just fear-mongering.

Still Playing Cute with the Law

As the graphic images of torture, degradation, and abuse at Abu Ghraib slowly fade from America's collective consciousness and as scapegoats are prosecuted while those who created legal loopholes justifying torture are promoted to the President's Cabinet, it is worth noting that very little has actually changed. The U.S. and its proxies still engage in torture and abuse as part of the global war on terror. At the same time, the White House, Congress, and U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement agencies continue, in the words of Senator Lindsey Graham, “playing cute with the law.”

Senator Graham’s comments were directed toward Alberto Gonzales during the confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee concerning Gonzales’ nomination to Attorney General. During those hearings, as was widely reported, Gonzales denounced the use of torture and performed heroic feats of logic to distance himself from the now-infamous “torture memos.” While it may have been refreshing to some to hear Gonzales condemn the use of torture, less refreshing was his refusal to define torture itself. As a result, by means of a semantic shell game, Gonzales and the White House can continue to authorize “aggressive” interrogation techniques while simultaneously decrying torture. How cute.

Nonetheless, on February 7, 2005, the Human Rights Commission of the arbitrarily irrelevant United Nations decried the treatment of prisoners in Afghanistan at the hands of foreign coalition forces. As in Iraq, the vast majority of foreign troops in Afghanistan are from the U.S. and the U.S. is the only foreign force with detention facilities. According to the Commission, foreign troops, in “a very unusual practice,” have assumed the authority to arrest and detain people, without legal process, and then proceed to mistreat and even torture them.

Cherif Bassiouni, the Commission's independent expert on human rights in Afghanistan and a professor of law at DePaul University, alleged on February 7 that hundreds of detainees are being illegally detained because they were arrested as combatants and therefore are prisoners of war. With the “war” in Afghanistan over and the Taliban defeated, the Third Geneva Convention mandates the detainees’ release “without delay.” Rejecting allegations of any impropriety, spokesman for coalition forces in Afghanistan, Major Mark McCann explained, “We don't arrest people, we detain individuals during the course of combat operations.” (Emphasis mine) Furthermore, according to Major McCann, the U.S. is “abiding by the spirit of the Geneva Convention.” Considering the fact that the U.S. admitted in December that eight prisoners died in Afghanistan while in U.S. custody (including four known cases of murder or manslaughter), maybe it ought to be abiding by the letter of the Conventions. In other words, maybe it ought to stop playing cute with the Geneva Conventions.

Also on February 7, eleven detainees alleged they were abused by U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Pakistan before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The detainees’ allegations include beatings with chains, sexual humiliation, electrocution, and sodomy with foreign objects. All eleven detainees are from Kuwait and claim they were coerced into falsely confessing to being members of either the Taliban or al-Qaida. According to Pentagon spokesman Major Michael Shavers, the allegations of torture by the eleven men “fit the standard operating procedure in al-Qaida training manuals.” Nonetheless, despite years’ of detention, none of the eleven men have been charged with anything.

Major Shavers’ protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, the detainees’ allegations of torture and abuse are supported by a July 29, 2004 report by an FBI agent regarding his observations at Guantanamo.

According to the agent, detainees were chained to the floor in the fetal position without food or water and were usually left in their own urine and excrement for 24 hours or more; detainees were subjected to extreme heat and cold, on one occasion causing one detainee to literally rip the hair from his head; and at least one detainee was chained to the floor in an “unbearably hot" cell and subjected to extremely loud rap music for more than a day. In a report dated July 12, 2004, another FBI agent observed treatment "that was not only aggressive, but personally very upsetting.” Likewise, in a report dated December 5, 2003, an FBI agent reported Department of Defense interrogators posing as FBI agents while torturing inmates at Guantanamo. According to the agent, the use of torture “produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature” and “destroyed any chance of prosecuting” the detainees. The agent noted that if a tortured detainee were ever released from Guantanamo and his story made public, “DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done by the ‘FBI’ interrogators.” Talk about cute.

Speaking of Guantanamo, on February 4, 2005, six United Nations human rights experts, including Bassiouni, issued a statement of “continued concern” regarding U.S. treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. In their statement, the six experts described recent U.S. efforts (at the behest of the U.S. Supreme Court) to bring practices at Guantanamo into compliance with both U.S. and international law as “insufficient to dispel the serious concerns.” The “serious concerns” include: the questionable legal basis for the continued detention of prisoners more than 18 months after the end of the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq; the uncertainty regarding the remaining duration of the prisoners' detention; the unknown number of detainees at Guantanamo, creating an environment conducive to the unacknowledged transfer of inmates to other unknown, usually secret, detention facilities; and the fact that most detainees still have no access to legal counsel and are still not presented with evidence providing the basis for their detention.

In the meantime, Alberto Gonzales, the White House's solicitor of the “torture memos,” was confirmed as Attorney General. He was confirmed despite the revelation during the confirmation hearings that he and the White House exempted the CIA and other non-military personnel from prohibitions against torture. Indeed, at the White House's behest, in December congressional leaders abandoned a measure that would have imposed new restrictions on the use of “extreme interrogation measures” by intelligence officers at the CIA and elsewhere. Similarly, Michael Chertoff, the White House's nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security, reportedly advised the CIA on the legality of coercive interrogation methods. As reported by the New York Times, Chertoff apparently advised CIA officials that they would not be prosecuted for making a detainee believe he was about to drown. While Chertoff denies such reports, he cannot deny that as a federal judge he held that an individual who was beaten with canes, kicked in the face, forced to confess to crimes and renounce his political affiliation to escape death was not tortured. Like Gonzales, Chertoff is sure to be confirmed.

Thus, in America, the self-declared protector of the rule of law, at least as far as torture is concerned, the beat (or beatings) goes on. Ain't it cute.

Ending Tyranny Through Hypocrisy

In his inauguration speech this past week, President Bush referred repeatedly to America's policy of and dedication to ending tyranny and oppression through the promotion of freedom and liberty. Sounds nice. If only it were true.

According to President Bush, the United States will not ignore those living under oppression, nor excuse their oppressors. The United States (the corporate-governmental institution), however, has ignored the oppressed and excused the oppressors. It continues to do so even today.

Take Iraq, for example. Despite knowing that Iraq sponsored groups on the State Department's terrorist list, in 1982 the Regan administration removed Iraq from the state terrorism sponsorship list. As a result, Iraq became eligible for U.S. dual-use and military technology. By the end of 1983, the U.S. became aware of Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iran and recognized that Iraq could use civilian helicopters to deploy such weapons. With that knowledge in hand, in 1983 the U.S. approved the sale of 60 Hughes and 10 Bell helicopters to Iraq. In 1988, Iraq used U.S. helicopters to spray chemical weapons on Kurds in Halabja. Up until the day before Iraq invaded Kuwait, the U.S. continued to approve millions of dollars of dual-use advanced technology sales to Iraq.

Only after Iraq became the focus of U.S. ire did the U.S. feign disgust and horror at Iraq's use of chemical weapons, particularly on its own people. Only after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 and found no weapons of mass destruction did it condemn Iraq's oppressive regime.

Israel is another fine example. The wanton killings of Israeli citizens by Palestinian terrorists is widely reported. Equally horrific, though far less publicized, is the fact that in 2003 alone the Israeli army killed approximately 600 Palestinians, including more than 100 children. As reported by Amnesty International, most of those deaths were the result of reckless shooting, shelling, and bombing by Israeli forces in residential areas. Approximately 90 Palestinians were killed in extrajudicial executions, including more than 50 uninvolved bystanders, 9 of whom were children. Moreover, Israeli soldiers continue to use Palestinians as "human shields" during military operations.

Despite these acts of oppression and tyranny, and despite concerns of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, Israel continues to be the primary recipient of U.S. military aid.

Indeed, even members of President Bush's much-lauded "Coalition of the Willing" are guilty of oppression and tyranny. Amnesty International reports that in 2003, Uzbekistan detained at least 6,000 political prisoners, including women, holding them in cruel and inhuman conditions. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on torture reported on a visit to Uzbekistan in 2002 where he received numerous testimonies of systematic torture and abusive treatment. The Special Rapporteur concluded that torture and ill-treatment were condoned by Uzbek authorities.

Following the lead of the U.S., Pakistan in 2003 arbitrarily detained more than 500 people and handed them over to U.S. authorities as suspected members of al-Qaida or the Taliban. Hundreds more people were arrested and deported, all in furtherance of the U.S.-led "war on terrorism." Moreover, at least 631 Pakistani women and girls were murdered in "honor killings" in just the first 8 months of 2003.

Egypt has detained thousands of suspected supporters of banned Islamist groups without charge or trial. Many of the detainees have been held for years. In the first 6 months of 2003, Egypt arrested and detained hundreds of people, including lawyers, journalists, members of parliament, students, and academics for demonstrating against the invasion of Iraq. Some were held for several weeks in "administrative detention" (i.e., without charge), and many alleged being tortured and abused. Amnesty International described torture in Egypt as systematic and employed in detention facilities throughout the country. Several people have died in Egyptian custody under circumstances suggesting torture or abuse.

Of course, the most direct evidence of U.S. hypocrisy about ending tyranny and fostering freedom are the actions of the U.S. itself.

Removing the Rose-Colored Glasses

Today, February 2, 2005, President Bush is to address the American people and inform them on the State of the Union. It is widely assumed, and even advertised by the White House, that Bush will devote much of his speech to the alleged success of the alleged elections in Iraq. Bush is expected to use the recent elections as justification for his decision to invade Iraq. A classic case of the ends justifying the means.

If the past few days are any indication, the American public and news media will swallow Bush's claims hook, line, and sinker. Little in the way of critical analysis has occurred or is likely to occur in the mainstream media regarding the elections in Iraq or the repercussions thereof. If such an analysis were undertaken, the picture from Iraq would be far less rosy.

What no one from Washington or the fawning American news media is acknowledging is that Iraqis did not risk their lives to legitimize the U.S. invasion and occupation of their country; they risked life and limb to end the occupation and rid Iraq of U.S. presence. Of course, that will never happen. Bush is not refusing to provide a timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq not simply because it "plays into the enemy's hands," as claimed by Dan Barlett. Bush refuses to do so because the U.S. has no real intention of leaving Iraq. There are already four permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq with more being built. One does not build permanent military bases for a temporary occupation.

Further evidence of U.S. intent to remain in Iraq indefinitely was reported by Antonia Juhasz of Foreign Policy in Focus, the current interim Iraqi Finance Minister, Abdel Mahdi, told the National Press Club on December 22, 2004, that Iraq intends to amend its oil laws to allow complete privatization of Iraq's oil industry. Not coincidentally, Adbel Mahdi ran in the elections on the ticket of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIR), the leading Shiite political party in Iraq and considered the front-runner in the elections. The SCIR belongs to the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) party, a large tent created to consolidate the Shiite vote. As such, the UIA includes the Iraqi National Council (INC). The INC is led by Ahmed Chalabi, the source of much of the false information used by the Bush administration to justify its invasion of Iraq in the first place. The UIA garnered the endorsement, so to speak, of the Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani who issued a fatwa instructing Shiites to vote or burn in hell.

Connecting the dots, Ms. Juhasz sets out the following reasonable and rather compelling scenario: the Bush administration struck a deal the SCIR, guaranteeing SCIR's political power in exchange for Iraqi oil. As explained by Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies, Bush & Co. could strike such a deal because the U.S.-imposed Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) remains the law in Iraq regardless of the recent elections. The TAL cannot be amended without a super-majority of the newly-elected Iraqi National Assembly plus a unanimous agreement by the presidency council. The likelihood of either requirement being fulfilled is near zero given the range of constituencies which must be satisfied (not to mention the animosity between the Kurds and the Shia, the two factions likely to garner the most power from the elections).

All of this naturally leads to questions regarding the legitimacy of the elections in Iraq. Sure, everyone by now has heard that Iraq's Sunni population, who largely boycotted the elections, have declared the elections illegitimate. They may have a point. As explained by Ms. Bennis, the Iraqi elections were illegitimate as they were held under conditions of a hostile foreign military occupation, in violation of the Hague Convention of 1907, to which the U.S. is a signatory. The Hague Convention prohibits an occupying power from instituting any permanent changes to the government of the occupied territory. Despite such prohibitions, the elections in Iraq were conducted pursuant to an electoral law and overseen by an electoral commission created and imposed by the U.S., an occupying power. The elections took place under such violent circumstances that voters could not learn the names of candidates and were subjected to shoot-to-kill curfews.

According to criteria identified by the U.S.-based Carter Center (founded by former President Jimmy Carter and with experience monitoring elections world-wide for more than a decade), the Iraqi elections were illegitimate. According to the Carter Center, the criteria for legitimate elections include voters' ability to vote in a free and secure environment, candidates' ability to have access to voters for campaigning, a freely chosen and independent election commission, and voters' ability to vote free of fear and intimidation. The elections in Iraq failed to meet any of these criteria.

But hey, none of this matters because Bush and his cronies have declared the elections a success and Iraq is now a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. Who would dare to challenge such a declaration? Apparently, at least in the U.S., virtually no one.