| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
26 May 2004 03:28:06 AM |
| Object: |
OT: Now Bush must rise to De Mello's challenge |
Now Bush must rise to De Mello's challenge
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1224702,00.html
It is not enough for the US president to regret abuse of Iraqi
detainees. The world needs to know there is no more to come
Salim Lone
Wednesday May 26, 2004
The Guardian
President Bush's major Iraq policy address on Monday night seemed a
recitation of earlier themes, but towards the end there was something
new: Abu Ghraib prison was to be razed. There was "disgraceful conduct
[there] by a few American troops who dishonoured our country and
disregarded our values". Antennas went up to hear more about how the
president might address continuing revelations of US torture and
bestial treatment of Iraqis that have shredded American standing
around the world. There was nothing.
Salim Lone
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=18510aff.0403220158.13fcd96a%40posting.google.com
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Now Bush must rise to De Mello's challenge |
30 May 2004 08:11:02 AM |
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On 26 May 2004 01:28:06 -0700, (maff), Message ID:
<18510aff.0405260028.792295a8@posting.google.com> wrote in alt.atheism;
Now Bush must rise to De Mello's challenge
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1224702,00.html
Now Bush must rise to De Mello's challenge
Salim Lone It is not enough for the US president to regret abuse of
Iraqi detainees. The world needs to know there is no more to come
Wednesday May 26, 2004
The Guardian
P resident Bush's major Iraq policy address on Monday night seemed a
recitation of earlier themes, but towards the end there was something
new: Abu Ghraib prison was to be razed. There was "disgraceful conduct
[there] by a few American troops who dishonoured our country and
disregarded our values". Antennas went up to hear more about how the
president might address continuing revelations of US torture and bestial
treatment of Iraqis that have shredded American standing around the
world. There was nothing.
The speech was, of course, laced with repeated denunciations of the
inhumanity of Iraqis fighting the occupation. They are "brutal", they
show "contempt for all the rules of warfare and the bounds of civilised
behaviour". But clearly the period of US penitence over the abuse is now
well past; it is once again only the "enemy" who is brutal.
For a while, though, it had been wondrous for Arabs and Muslims to
behold the workings of a free society trying to get to the truth. But
this is dwarfed by the deeds that spawned it. And the seismic
repercussions we are witnessing flow from the fact that, for Arabs and
Muslims, these pictures came not as revelations but as confirmation of a
perceived western desire to crush them. Since 9/11, some prominent
Americans have discussed legalising torture, and, within Iraq, US
commanders have made sure Iraqis understand that US gloves are off. When
one senior military official was asked if seeming support for insurgents
was a problem, he explained that "with a heavy dose of fear and violence
and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince people that we
are here to help."
Western commentators have pointed out that the sexual torture US troops
inflicted on Iraqi prisoners is particularly odious in Arab culture.
This is obviously true, but far too much has been made of it. How
different would US outrage be if Saddam Hussein's army had inflicted
this terror on American prisoners? Remember how loudly US defence
secretary Donald Rumsfeld protested that Al-Jazeera's broadcasting of
two US PoWs being questioned violated the Geneva conventions.
Those of us who were in Iraq this time last year, including the late
Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN secretary general's first envoy to Iraq,
heard terrible stories about prisoner mistreatment during
interrogations. Abu Ghraib, the living symbol of Saddam Hussein's
terrors, had become the same under the "liberators". On Arabic language
television, one regularly saw heartbreaking scenes of women at Abu
Ghraib pleading in vain with US officials about the whereabouts of their
husbands, brothers or sons. The insurgents attacked Abu Ghraib more
regularly than any other occupation target, no doubt to win popular
sympathy.
Sergio was courageous enough to forcefully take up the Iraqi
prisoner-abuse issue, all the way to the UN security council. He had
visited Abu Ghraib, he told the council, and raised with the US
ambassador Paul Bremer his "concerns regarding searches, arrests, the
treatment of detainees, duration of preventive detention, and access by
family members and lawyers". He said he had expressed to Mr Bremer "the
imperative need for the coalition forces to demonstrate exemplary
compliance with international humanitarian and human rights law.
Anything less must not prevail in today's Iraq."
It is sad to see that, instead, we were left with a US that points to
the unspeakable atrocity of Michael Berg's beheading and Saddam
Hussein's torture chambers to counteract its own revelations of torture
and killing.
Iraq has now effectively been lost to the US; the damage from being so
grossly exposed about its commitment to Iraqi freedoms and human rights
cannot be overcome. The US has also suffered severe setbacks over
Fallujah and Muqtada al-Sadr. It will now only be able to stay on in
Iraq through the use of progressively greater violence against ever
larger numbers of Iraqis. The only way for the US to avoid greater
disaster in Iraq is to lower its ambitions and engage with the UN
security council to fashion a political solution.
To prevent further major damage to its image beyond Iraq, the US must
vigorously pursue genuine accountability from those at the highest level
for the abuse and deaths; the apologies initially offered are now seen
to have been entirely pro forma. Mr Rumsfeld, more concerned to show
solidarity with US troops, did not even deign to apologise to Iraqi
detainees when he flew in to Abu Ghraib.
Much more importantly, the US should declare that the pursuit of human
rights will once again be its pre-eminent principle in guiding its
global alliances, and that it will from now on follow the letter and the
spirit of the Geneva conventions for all prisoners taken in any war. And
from the position of the enormous strength it carries, it should reach
out to the world as a political and moral leader committed to improving
humanity's lot.
Nothing less will save it from the international isolation and the road
to ruin that it is inexorably heading towards, under the neoconservative
agenda's contempt for global norms and international cooperation.
Salim Lone was director of communications for the UN mission in Baghdad
headed by the late Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was among 17 people
killed in a bomb attack on August 19 2003
salimlone@msn.com
(c) 2004 Guardian Newspapers
Stoney
"Designated Rascal and Rapscallion
and
SCAMPERMEISTER!"
When in doubt, SCAMPER about!
When things are fair, SCAMPER everywhere!
When things are rough, can't SCAMPER enough!
/end humour alert
alt.atheism military veteran #11
{so much for the 'no atheists in foxholes' rubbish}
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