[11:00 AM] Amnesty International just released its annual report and parts of it are highly critical of the precedents that U.S. actions have set since September 11. The introduction of the report expresses "growing concern towards the end of the year that governments were introducing draconian measures curtailing human rights and civil liberties. For example, the US authorities introduced legislation which enables the government to detain indefinitely foreign nationals facing deportation orders and to establish 'military commissions', which lack fundamental guarantees for fair trial, to try foreign nationals." Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke responded to some of the criticism (she noted that she hadn't read the report yet) saying "in terms of treatment of the detainees, they continue to get excellent care. They continue to get culturally appropriate food. They continue to get excellent medical treatment. They continue to get the right to worship as they want, which is not something, at least the last time I checked, the Taliban and the Al Qaeda wanted others to have."
Here we go again with the Donald Rumsfeld moral relativism. The response to questions concerning the status of the detainees is answered by a description of how well they are being treated. And perhaps the most egregious part is the caveat that "they're being treated better than the Taliban treated people in Afghanistan." True, but irrelevant.
In January, when the first prisoners arrived in Cuba, Donald Rumsfeld said "I do not feel even the slightest concern over theirtreatment. They are being treated vastly better than they treated anybody else." But responses like this always come as answers to questions about the legal status of the prisoners. Sure concerns over whether the detainees will receive prisoner of war status are important for how they are physically treated, but also for their legal rights. These continual comments about how much the prisoners enjoy Fruit Loops and the fact that they never would have had Fruit Loops in Afghanistan intentionally ignore the legal issue. And this is not to say that I agree with all the arguments on either side concerning how to classify the prisoners. But to respond to these questions with statements of how well the prisoners are being fed is arrogant and has negative implications (as Amnesty notes) when other countries follow suit by eroding civil liberties in their own countries.
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posted 11:01 AM
Here we go again with the Donald Rumsfeld moral relativism. The response to questions concerning the status of the detainees is answered by a description of how well they are being treated. And perhaps the most egregious part is the caveat that "they're being treated better than the Taliban treated people in Afghanistan." True, but irrelevant.
In January, when the first prisoners arrived in Cuba, Donald Rumsfeld said "I do not feel even the slightest concern over theirtreatment. They are being treated vastly better than they treated anybody else." But responses like this always come as answers to questions about the legal status of the prisoners. Sure concerns over whether the detainees will receive prisoner of war status are important for how they are physically treated, but also for their legal rights. These continual comments about how much the prisoners enjoy Fruit Loops and the fact that they never would have had Fruit Loops in Afghanistan intentionally ignore the legal issue. And this is not to say that I agree with all the arguments on either side concerning how to classify the prisoners. But to respond to these questions with statements of how well the prisoners are being fed is arrogant and has negative implications (as Amnesty notes) when other countries follow suit by eroding civil liberties in their own countries.
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