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Where Are the Good Americans?
By JEREMY BRECHER & BRENDAN SMITH
03/01/06 "The
Nation" -- -- Anyone who sees the photographs of the
victims of the Nazi concentration camps must wonder how human beings
could ever have allowed such things to happen. They must wonder how
people of good will could have stood by while their government
committed atrocities in their name. In the wake of that nightmarish
era, people often asked, "Where were the good Germans?"
After the publication of the long-suppressed pictures of Abu Ghraib
victims and the United Nations finding that torture and abuse are
still taking place at the US prison in Guantánamo Bay, America has
fashioned its own nightmare. We now must ask ourselves, "Where are
the good Americans?"
After an eighteen-month study, five independent experts appointed by
the UN Commission on Human Rights have just concluded that practices
currently conducted at the US prison in Guantánamo amount to
torture: excessive violence, force-feeding of hunger-striking
detainees and arbitrary detention of prisoners that violates their
right under international law to challenge the legality of their
captivity before an independent judicial body.
The Bush Administration has condemned the publication of the Abu
Ghraib photos and has rejected the UN report as "fundamentally
flawed." But Americans should be grateful that people in the rest of
the world are helping us discover what the Administration is trying
to conceal from its own citizens: It is conducting war crimes in our
name.
The UN report makes recommendations that are simple and obvious:
§ Immediately allow international inspection and supervision to
insure an end to force-feeding and special interrogation techniques
approved by the Defense Department but condemned under international
law.
§ Bring the detainees to trial or release them without delay.
§ Conduct an investigation by an independent authority of all
allegations of abuse to insure that all perpetrators of torture and
other crimes are brought to justice--even high-level military and
political officials.
§ Close the Guantánamo prison.
The demand to close Guantánamo was quickly seconded by UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan. And the European Union Parliament
voted 80 to 1 to ask the United States to close Guantánamo and give
every prisoner "a fair and public hearing by a competent,
independent, impartial tribunal" without delay.
The Bush Administration has placed the responsibility for prisoner
abuse in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere on a few "bad apples" in the
lowest ranks. But since the Nuremberg Tribunal of Nazi war
criminals, international law has maintained the principle of
"command responsibility," which makes top officials who ordered the
crimes or failed to prevent them accountable.
It's not just a question of international law. Administration
officials are well aware that the US War Crimes Act makes it a
serious crime for any American--including top government
officials--to commit any "grave breach" of the Geneva Conventions,
including "willful killing, torture, or inhuman treatment" of
detainees. Perhaps that has something to do with the
Administration's eagerness to discredit the UN report.
If President Bush won't halt the abuse of US captives, Congress
stands next in line for responsibility. Last December, it passed the
so-called McCain amendment, which supposedly abolished all torture
by US forces anywhere in the world. But the UN report makes clear
that torture is continuing at Guantánamo.
The law's sponsor, Senator John McCain, promised that Congress would
establish oversight over Guantánamo and other US prisons abroad to
assure enforcement. But where's Senator McCain now? If he really
wants to stop torture, why doesn't he fly to Guantánamo immediately
and make sure no one is being abused? Isn't that what McCain would
have wanted US senators to do when he was being tortured in a prison
cell in Vietnam?
If Congress won't act, then it is up to the people. We must make
every family dining table, every house of worship and every town
meeting a place to stand up and speak out.
Only then will those who come after us know where the "good
Americans" were.
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