C-Span Video of Statement by AI President William Schultz.
During a statement on the release of it's annual report, Amnesty International President William Schultz called for the investigation, arrest, detention and prosecution of senior U.S. Officials - either by an Special Prosecutor or by foreign government prosecutors - who authored and authorized policies which lead to inhumane treatment and torture of persons held at Guantanemo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram Air Force Base. "The Government investigation must climb all the way to the top...", stated Schultz. Quoting former Secretary of State Colin Powell he went on to point out that permitting Torture by U.S. personnel "undermines the moral authority" and can allow such techniques to "spread like a virus" thruout the world.
Amnesty International then offered a "Hit List" of high level U.S. officials whose actions have directly lead to torture.
Donald Rumsfeld: For approving a Sept 2002 Memorandum that permitted unlawful torture techniques such as stress positions, prolonged isolation, stripping and the use of dogs at Guantanemo Bay.
William Haynes - Department of Defense General Counsel : Who wrote that Memo.
Douglas Fife : Who was listed in the Sept 2002 Memo as concurring with it's conclusions.
Maj General Geoffrey Miller - Commander of Joint Task Force at Guantanemo : Whose subordinates used some of those same torture techniques (as approved by the Haynes Memo), and was then sent to Iraq where he recommended that prison guards - "soften up" detainees for interrogation.
George Tenet - former CIA Director : Whose organization kept "Ghost Detainees" off registration logs and hid them from members of the Red Cross, and whose operatives reportedly used such techniques as water-boarding, suffocation, stress positions and incommunicado detention.
Roberto Gonzales - Attorney General and former White House Council: Who called the Geneva Conventions "quaint and obsolete" in a Jan 2002 memo, and requested the "Bybee Memo" which fueled the atrocities at Abu Ghraib.
Lt General Ricardo Sanchez - former commander of U.S. Forces in Iraq and his deputee: Who failed to ensure proper oversight at Abu Ghraib.
Capt. Carolyn Wood : Who oversaw interrogation operations at Bagram AFB in Afghanistan, which permitted the use of dogs, sensory deprovation and stress positions.
George W. Bush - President : Whose Administration has repeatedly justified it's interrogation policies as legitimate, under the Presidents powers as Commander-in-Chief, and President Bush also signed a Feb 2002 Memo stating that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to al-Qaeda or Taliban detainees, and that their humane treatment should be contigent upon "Military Neccesity" - which clearly set the stage for the tragic use of torture by U.S. forces.
Amnesty International on National security and the ‘war on terror’
President Bush’s refusal to apply the Geneva Conventions to those captured during the international armed conflict in Afghanistan and transferred to the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was challenged by a judicial decision in November. The ruling resulted in the suspension of trials by military commission in Guantánamo, and the government immediately lodged an appeal. The US administration’s treatment of detainees in the “war on terror” continued to display a marked ambivalence to the opinion of expert bodies such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and even of its own highest judicial body. Six months after the Supreme Court ruled that the federal courts had jurisdiction over the Guantánamo detainees, none had appeared in court. Detainees reportedly considered of high intelligence value remained in secret detention in undisclosed locations. In some cases their situation amounted to “disappearance”.
The “war on terror” and the “war on drugs” increasingly merged, and dominated US relations with Latin America and the Caribbean. Following the US elections in November, the Bush administration encouraged governments in the region to give a greater role to the military in public order and internal security operations. The blurring of military and police roles resulted in governments such as those in Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Paraguay deploying military forces to deal with crime and social unrest.
The US doubled the ceiling on the number of US personnel deployed in Colombia in counter-insurgency and counter-narcotics operations. The Colombian government in turn persisted in redefining the country’s 40-year internal conflict as part of the international “war on terror”.
The blatant disregard for international human rights and humanitarian law in the “war on terror” continued to make a mockery of President George Bush’s claims that the USA was the global champion of human rights. Images of detainees in US custody tortured in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq shocked the world. War crimes in Iraq, and mounting evidence of the torture and ill-treatment of detainees in US custody in other countries, sent an unequivocal message to the world that human rights may be sacrificed ostensibly in the name of security.
Click for more details from Amnesty International Report on the USA.
Vyan
http://vyan.blogspot.com
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