Of Human Bondage

From IBD:
Posted 2/17/2006

Human Rights: A new U.N. report says the U.S. should close down the detention facilities at Guantanamo because of the torture that goes on there. That's not nice to say about Christina Aguilera.

The United Nations, which has let such champions of human rights and civil liberties as Sudan, Cuba and Saudi Arabia sit on its Human Rights Commission while doing next to nothing about genocide in Darfur and thuggery in Zimbabwe, to cite just two examples, has produced yet another anti-U.S. report mainly regurgitating old charges that terrorists captured in our war on terror and detained at Gitmo are subjected to torture.

The report's findings are based in part on interviews with former detainees, reports in the media and talks with lawyers — objective sources all. Among abusive interrogation techniques alleged: use of dogs, exposure to "extreme" temperatures, sleep deprivation for days at a time and prolonged isolation.

"Such treatment amounts to torture," says the report, which urges the U.S. "to refrain from any practice amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

Oh, yeah, and al-Qaida prisoners have a right to an attorney. "The persons held at Guantanamo Bay are entitled to challenge the legality of their detention before a legal body," says the report. "That right is currently being violated."

First, this is a prison camp, not a summer camp. The 490 or so detainees now housed at Gitmo were captured on foreign battlefields trying to kill Americans or plotting to do so. They did not wear uniforms, fight in organized units or obey the rules of war as the Geneva Convention requires in order to be covered by its provisions.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, when asked about the report between questions about Dick Cheney's hunting trip, said: "It's a discredit to the U.N. when a team like this goes about rushing to report something when they haven't even looked at the facts. All they have done is look at the allegations."

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the U.N. report "clearly suffers from their unwillingness to take us up on our offer to (visit) Guantanamo to observe firsthand the operation."

The U.N. panel that produced the report was invited to send a team to Gitmo last November, but it refused to go after being told detainees couldn't be interviewed.

There's a reason for that. Detainees lie, and have been instructed by al-Qaida to do so. An al-Qaida handbook captured in a raid by British authorities on a terrorist cell in Manchester, England, advises: "Prior to executing an operation, the commander should instruct his soldiers on what to say if they are captured."

The manual states "brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by state security before the judge. Complain of mistreatment while in prison."

Time magazine whined in a recent issue that "torture" techniques used at Guantanamo in the interrogation of detainee Mohammed al-Qahtani included playing music by pop diva Christina Aguilera and having his "personal space" invaded by the physical presence of a woman.

Al-Qahtani is the so-called 20th hijacker of 9-11. Among the other "torture" techniques said to have been used in his interrogation was a display of photos of the burning towers, the incinerated bodies and the deaths of 2,973 Americans.

It might not be a bad idea if Kofi Annan and his brethren were forced to look at them again as well.