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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: steve harris who wrote (188166)	5/8/2004 1:30:51 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573850

Iraq Scandal Opens U.S. to Charges of Double Standards Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, May 7 (IPS) - According to a joke circulating in Washington political circles, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's notorious torture chamber in the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad -- once held up as a symbol of barbarity -- was never shut down. A signboard outside the prison chamber now reads: "Under New Management". U.S. management, that is. <font color=red>The extent of the U.S. administration's embarrassment following the publication of photos showing torture and abuse of Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib is evident in the fact that Washington has postponed the release of the State Department's annual report on human rights abuses worldwide. The official reasons for the eleventh hour postponement have not been disclosed. <font color=black> The report usually takes aim at virtually every country, most in the developing world, for human rights excesses while excluding U.S. abuses from its pages. The question now being asked is: can Washington afford to take a holier-than-thou attitude when it beats up the rest of the world every year in the annual report? Even the 'New York Times' admitted in its editorial Friday that ''the United States has been humiliated to a point where government officials could not release this year's international human rights report this week for fear of being scoffed at by the rest of the world.'' "Internationally, there is little U.S. credibility on human rights issues," says Phyllis Bennis of the Institute of Policy Studies in Washington. She attributes the lack of U.S. credibility to two primary factors: "the blatantly political motives of human rights criticisms (largely ignoring abuses in U.S. "client states" like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and especially protecting Israel from the consequences of its human rights violations), and because of U.S. denials in the past of its own human rights abuses". The harrowing images of US soldiers brutalising and humiliating Iraqi prisoners -- aired worldwide starting last week -- have triggered outrage not only in the Middle East but throughout the world. The photographs and television images include those of young Iraqis stripped naked and forced to pile up in a pyramid formation, while U.S. soldiers grin at the hideous spectacle. According to published reports, Iraqi detainees were also beaten up, tortured, threatened with rape and victimised by ferocious guard dogs. Dead bodies are now being exhumed in Iraq to ascertain the cause of death at the hands of soldiers or interrogators from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The United States, which actively participates in an annual ritual of ''bashing'' countries like Iran, Cuba, Syria, North Korea, Sudan and Myanmar at the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva and at the General Assembly sessions in New York, has lost its moral authority to point an accusing finger at miscreants when it has problems in its own backyard, say diplomats from developing nations. Although the commission holds its major session only once a year, the U.N.'s Third Committee and the General Assembly also take up the question of human rights violations in individual countries every year, from September through December. Since usually no western nations are singled out for attack, these year-end U.N. resolutions have been described as exercises in ''Third-World bashing.'' But the release of the torture photographs, Bennis told IPS, ''may have the effect of evening the score a bit if, for example, the U.N. Human Rights Commission decides to launch an investigation of its own''. At its annual sessions last month, the commission abandoned a proposal to probe abuses in Iraq, primarily because of U.S. pressure. Still, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva is expected to present a report on Iraq to the commission May 31. Acting High Commissioner Bertrand Ramacharan, who expressed disappointment over the commission's inability to adopt a resolution on Iraq last month, has already written to Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, members of the Iraqi Governing Council and foreign ministers of countries participating in the U.S.-led coalition forces in the occupied nation, asking them to provide information relevant to the inquiry. Ramacharan and his team have also expressed their willingness to go to Iraq to probe abuses. But it is very likely Washington will reject this request. Speaking to U.N. reporters last week, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the photos had ''stunned every American. It showed acts that are despicable,'' he added. President George W Bush, who publicly apologised for the growing scandal, went on Arabic television networks this week to say he was ''appalled'' by the abuses. Bush was momentarily taken aback when an Arab interviewer told him many Arabs believe his administration is no better than the government of former President Saddam Hussein. ''(Human rights) violations by the United States, such as the torture scandal in Iraq, have global repercussions,'' says Roger Normand, executive director of the Centre for Economic and Social Rights. ipsnews.net