More Photos; More War Crimes
By Mike Whitney
16 February, 2006
Countercurrents.org
To view more photos click hereSBS Dateline is planning to broadcast 60 previously unpublished photographs of the victims of American abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. Many of the disturbing pictures have already appeared on the internet; exposing the underlying principle of American foreign policy, domination through force.
The photographs illustrate in excruciating detail the commitment to physical coercion that the Bush administration has vigorously defended in its legal memoranda and justified in terms of its war on terrorism. The battered faces and hooded victims of American brutality attest to the shocking inhumanity of the present campaign.
This is the real face of the Bush’s global democratic crusade. The rest is just gibberish.
How can anyone look at these appalling photographs and fail to grasp the brutality and cynicism that animates the policy?
How can anyone listen to the glib palavering of the torturer-and-chief as he pontificates on a "culture of life" that protects the unborn, but leaves others naked and bound, in a pool of blood?
The hypocrisy is nearly as offensive as the savagery.
The photographs have emerged just as the United Nations is preparing to release a report on Guantanamo Bay. The report assails the Bush administration for its clear violations to human rights and international law. "It says that the US committed acts amounting to torture" and that, "the apparent attempts by the US administration to reinterpret certain interrogation techniques as 'not reaching the threshold of torture’ in the framework of the struggle against terrorism are of utmost concern".
The findings of the UN commission are significant in that they provide the foundation for future "war crimes and crimes against humanity" tribunals.
The report confirms the relevance of the United Nations as a legitimate moral authority in judging the aberrant behavior of the member states. While no one expects that punitive action will be taken against the Bush administration, the next logical step is for the group to press for censure at the UN Security Council, thus drawing international attention to the grave issue of human rights abuse.
We can only hope that the atrocious photographs of victims at Abu Ghraib will embolden the UN group to take whatever action is needed to deter the supporters of torture and abuse from continuing their monstrous behavior.
