AMERICAN FASCISM 3

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are two agencies that enjoy a highly respected international reputation for their work in shedding light on the dark corners of the human community. They have worked for years to call attention to inhumane treatment of prisoners and unfair restrictions to the rights of citizens around the world.

Now they have joined forces with several other agencies including several from Great Britain in announcing that the United States of America (North America, that is) is secretly holding 39 prisoners the U.S. suspects of terrorism.

Six British and U.S. human rights groups compiled the report that calls on the U.S. to disclose the identities, fate and whereabouts of all detainees.
• Read the report at the Amnesty International Web site.
• And/or the PBS report from All Things Considered, June 7, 2007 below:

A coalition of human rights groups on Thursday released the names of 39 terrorism suspects it believes are being secretly held by the United States.

The names of what the coalition calls "ghost" detainees were published in a 21-page paper, "Off the Record: U.S. Responsibility for Enforced Disappearance in the 'War on Terror,' " that was compiled by six British and U.S. human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Detainees on the list include two men named in the Sept. 11 commission report as al-Qaida operatives. Another is a man who was named one of the FBI's most wanted terrorists and was confirmed by U.S. officials to have been seized in 2005 in Pakistan.

The report says details about the detainees were gleaned from information from former detainees and government and military officials, who asked not to be identified. The report was posted on Amnesty International's Web site Thursday.
"For many of them, for most of them, we at least know their full names and we normally know when they've been arrested, and then we have different details about where they've been held or who has seen them," said Anne Fitzgerald, a senior adviser for Amnesty International. "What we don't know for any of them is what's happened to them and where they are now."

According to the report, those who are being detained are from many different countries, including Egypt, Kenya, Libya, Morocco, Pakistan and Spain. The report also says the detainees are believed to have been seized in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan, then transferred to secret U.S. detention facilities.
CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said: "There's a lot of myth outside government when it comes to the CIA and the fight against terror. The plain truth is that we act in strict accord with American law, and that our counter-terror initiatives — which are subject to careful review and oversight — have been very effective in disrupting plots and saving lives."

The report calls on the U.S. government to disclose the identities, fate and whereabouts of all detainees, and to put a permanent end to the CIA's secret detention and interrogation programs.

President Bush last year acknowledged the existence of secret detention centers, but he said the prisons were empty. Fitzgerald said she doubts that is still the case. Asked about the report Thursday, State Department spokesman Tom Casey would go no further than what President Bush said last year.

"In terms of the issues that are raised there, again, I think the president made clear in his remarks in September 2006 what kind of programs we were operating and the terms and conditions of them. And I really just don't have anything to add to that," Casey said.

NPR's Rob Gifford and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

In another notable story, the Italian Constitutional Court begins a trial-in-absentia of 25 American CIA agents and a U.S. Air Force Colonel today for the abduction of a suspected terrorist from Italy.

The Italian government has tried to block the court’s effort, but it is going forward. Of course, no Americans will appear at the trial, nor will the U.S. ever officially recognize the right of the court to try Americans, but the process will hold the U.S. practice of “extraordinary rendition” up to the light of day.

It would be more appropriate and more widely reported if the matter were taken to an International Court, but that would take government action by Italy, whose leaders are more concerned about their relationship with Washington, D.C. than the rights of the people on its streets. It wouldn’t change anything in the U.S. where the government will not recognize the right of any court to try U.S. officials for anything.

Nor would it bring the story to wide publication by the American press. As discussed here yesterday, this story offers too much opportunity for criticism of American policies for our press to give it much circulation.

So, the Italian court can go ahead and come to any conclusions it wishes, and their decision will have little or no impact here at all. No individual found guilty there will ever be extradited to serve a sentence for kidnapping or torture of the prisoner kidnapped, no government official here will be held responsible for violations of Italian law, and, most definitely, no policy will change in the U.S. where kidnapping and torture are considered okay as long as the victim is probably a terrorist and preferably a Muslim.

But make no mistake – a government that maintains policies that allow kidnapping and torture of foreign citizens is a government that is only a step or two from applying the same policies to its own citizens, and is certainly guilty of breaches of the laws of other countries and the violation of human social mores.

Mr. Bush on Tuesday said that the world should not tolerate rogue nations trying to impose their ideology on other nations. Was he looking in the mirror when he said that or does he really believe that the U.S. has the right to do what he condemns in others?

A government that stifles discontent, dissent and even subversive and terroristic behavior through kidnapping, extraordinary rendition and torture is not a government that the American people should support, but the population, by and large, seems unable to see the danger in allowing their government to act this way,
but as Edmund Burke said, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Many citizens feel that this behavior is all right because terrorism is a special case, but those kidnapped are suspected, not convicted of terrorism. Finally, we must consider our responsibilities under treaties and international law. Here is what the Amnesty International report has to say about that, "Enforced disappearances involve violations of treaties binding on the United States, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. They also violate international humanitarian law."

If one man's rights are in danger, all men's rights are in danger.

Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR