The case of Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani woman who was likely tortured in U.S. custody, underscores the depravity of the current defects in our approach to intelligence gathering.  Even the best intentioned of torturers should be educated about the value of information obtained through such methods.  A victim of torture will tell his torturers anything they want to hear, eventually, but rarely tell the truth.  They are merely desperate to make their suffering end.

Mas below

The US military is back in the cross-hairs of human rights organizations.  The issue in question is our detention of children, their treatment in custody, judicial review, and access by international monitors. Today, the issue will come up for review by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

On May 22, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child will meet in Geneva to review US compliance with the international treaty banning the use of child soldiers, which requires states to help with the recovery and reintegration of such children under their control.

Source: Human Rights Watch

Although Iraq is supposedly a sovereign country, US forces still seem to be playing a major role in arresting and detaining Iraqi citizens, including children.  

Yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she would move to strip fast-track language from the Colombia FTA requiring the Congress to vote on the pact within 90 legislative days. Today, the measure to do just that was approved by a vote of 224 to 195. While there is no question that the Democrats have repeatedly failed, for instance, to stand up to the Bush Administration when it comes to withdrawing our troops from Iraq, today's vote to "kill" (for now) the Colombia free trade agreement is the latest sign that the House Democrats are finally - after long last - finding their collective spine. While some rightly worry that this is simply paving the way for the agreement’s approval in a lame-duck session of Congress following the fall elections, it's worth exploring where Pelosi’s gambit may lead vis-a-vis the presidential campaign.

(Cross-posted at OpenLeft)

This diary is cross-posted at my blog, where you'll find links to the full Philly Gay News interview and Wiki entries cited.

As I wrote this missive, I couldn’t help but think wistfully just how bizarre it is that a case like this would even be a story in 21st Century America. Less than a decade ago, a story about a judge not allowing a lawsuit alleging torture would be a huge story; not the other way around. These are indeed strange days in America.

Such as they are...

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge James Robertson denied U.S. Defense Department contractor, CACI International Inc.’s motion to dismiss a civil lawsuit on behalf of more that 200 Iraqis who at one time were detained at the infamous Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq. The plaintiffs allege CACI interrogators took part in abusive techniques that could constitute torture, and that the company should be held liable for harm inflicted on detainees.

This could turn out to be the first case in a civilian court to dispense accountability for the egregious abuses back in 2003.

Alabama jurors have decided that Drummond, an American coal company, is not responsible for the assassination of three Colombian union leaders at a Colombian mine in 2001. Charges stated that the American coal giant hired right-wing paramilitary gunmen to kill employees and union leaders. The case was seen as a test of an 18th century law which allows foreigners to hold American firms responsible in US courts for misconduct abroad. 15 similar cases of human rights abuses are currently pending in US courts against the actions of US corporations overseas.

Just fifteen "similar" cases?  That seems awfully low. But worse than that, we see a strange and increasingly dangerous situation evolving when it comes to corporations and the relative valuation of their rights versus human rights.   Lots of comfortable folks may think human rights are someone else's problem.  But if you're human... you might not be right.

Does this sound like Guantanamo? It's not - it's Iran and this is what has happened to four Iranian-American citizens who were in Iran on either personal or professional business.

Hold your shock:

This diary just reports on a the tally of thosee killed in the West Bank and Gaza, plus human rights violations, in the quiet (or silenced) war that Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) carries out against Palestinians.

Weekly Report of Human Rights Violations
PCHR, 10 September 2006

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Escalate Attacks on Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) for one week, August 31, 2006 to September 6, 2006.

Republicans, following last week's landmark Supreme Court Hamdan decision, have been searching for ways of enabling the administration around the decision. Apparently for Republicans, might makes right, the ends justify the means, and the obligation to uphold global standards of human rights is something to be flung out the window, when such standards prove inconvenient. And in looking at the GOP's base, we find, amongst the rabid reactions to events, evidence of a willingness, by a majority of Republicans, to justify torture as official policy.

Well, everything is turbo-charged in America, yes? It's the American way - dream big, work hard, live fast, fight mean.

And here we've lived up to our national expectations: In less than three years, we've managed to set up a puppet government that surpasses Saddam's record on human rights violations, at least according to former Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi.

LONDON, Nov 26 Reuters- Abuse of human rights in Iraq is as bad now as it was under Saddam Hussein, if not worse, former prime minister Iyad Allawi said in an interview published on Sunday.

"People are doing the same as (in) Saddam Hussein's time and worse. It is an appropriate comparison," Allawi told British newspaper The Observer.

What took Hussein decades to perfect, we brought to fruition in record time.