RantingProfs points out that the ICRC broke its long tradition of neutrality to take a slap at the US:
According to their own standards and procedures, the ICRC, the International Committe of the Red Cross, is very clear that after meeting with authorities in charge of a detention facility, their report on that facility will remain strictly confidential, as this nifty PR brochure about their work in Afghanistan (PDF) clearly states.
The ICRC as a neutral organization enters into a cofidential dialogue on these subjects with the authorities in charge. The organization does not speak in public about the conditions in the places of detention.
So how is it that the Wall Street Journal, according to AP, got a hold of the report, a copy that's apparently circulating widely, since NBC not only reported on its conclusions tonight, but msnbc has the full report posted on its web site tonight?
I know a lot of people think its time to "let the sunshine in" as far as classified documents go on this one, but lets remember that the ICRC has a long tradition of neutrality. And that tradition is enacted in part through its discretion -- in other words, they keep their mouths shut. That's also part of the way they protect prisoners they speak with, and part of the way they can get those most vulnerable of witnesses to speak freely. Someone just spat on those traditions. Why should any prisoner ever feel free to speak the truth to them again?
Meanwhile, it is because of their tradition of neutrality -- and silence -- that the ICRC alone among NGOs has so-called "legal personality," as if it were a state. And under international law has the right to refuse to testify in international tribunals, if doing so would endanger those who bore witness to it.
If they're going to go leaking reports whenever they feel like it, then they will (with reason) lose the trust built up over decades, the trust of states, the trust of prisoners. There are, believe it, plenty of reports in their files of abuses far, far worse than anything they've got on us. But somebody felt like giving the US a good slap. So they let this one go while keeping the report on the nut jobs holding the entire population of Burma in virtual slavery locked up good and tight in the file cabinet. So there's way for people to make the comparison.
Why should any American ever trust them again?
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