Well, it's been a while since I posted anything on this site, basically because I thought the whole tone of the place was descending into stupidity.
Imagine how pleased I was to see a twentysome page thread about politics. At last - people who have opinions worth stating.
Or maybe not. Twenty one pages of reasonably interesting stuff, but barely a word on the human rights record of the Bush administration.
Despite the fact I'm not an American, I'm still appalled at the way the Bush administration has basically torn up the Geneva Convention, used the legal system to work out just how far they could push "abuse" before it turns into torture, create the Kafkaesque nightmare of Guantanamo and the other various detention facilities round the planet, allow evidence obtained under duress to be admissible, practice "extraordinary rendition" and a host of other abuses I neither have the time or the inclination to mention here, (for the simple reason that most people won't believe it or will find some hysterical justification for all of this). And as if that weren't enough, how come the American government refuses to sign up to any international laws that might result in their troops being held accountable for any war crimes they commit ?
And as for the complicity of the UK government in all of this, well it's a crying shame. One of our most senior judges recently decided that evidence obtained under torture was admissible in UK courts, putting our legal system back some 500 years.
I had no problem at all with the overthrowing of the Taliban regime, and if Saddam Hussein had been toppled for purely humanitarian reasons then I would have been the first to applaud.
But as is now transparently obvious to all but the most feeble minded, the level of threat that Iraq presented to the western world was of a very low order indeed. The country was already crippled by economic sanctions which managed to a) prevent the persual of WMD programmes and b) increase the hardship suffered by the poor bastards who constitute the masses in Iraq. There was already a no-fly zone enforced over the entirety of Iraq. And is it me, or do the words "Oil for food programme" contain just a small hint as to what it was really all about ? And who went and armed the Hussein dictatorship in the first place ?
This war was fought to finish Daddy Bush's business, and that business is oil. Just look at the business interests of the senior figures of the Bush administration. And ask yourself this : did they go in without UN approval or adequate planning for the aftermath because the situation was so desperate, or because they knew they could just go do it anyway and basically didn't give a shit ? Was it about people or was it about oil ?
And if anyone's thinking I'm some sort of heretic for daring to suggest that America would ever indulge in human rights violations then type some of the following phrases into Google and do a little digging:
Dianna Ortiz, Guatemala, Phoenix program, KUBARK manual, Mamdouh Habib, DEF camps, Morganthau plan, Moazzam Begg, "Detention in Afghanistan and Guantanamo" document, school of the Americas.
That should do you for starters. And while you're at it, why not do some digging into just how much WMD the USA and UK have ? And why not investigate just how long it's going to be before America is due to run out of fossil fuel while you're there ?
Anyway, it's not like human rights abuses are a new fad for American governments, it's just that Bush & co. are so much more blatant about it than previous administrations. It doesn't matter who you vote for, Bush or Kerry - it's not going to make a lick of difference as far as human rights go. So long as the intelligence agencies and armaments industries have any say in it then nothing will change, be the enemy the reds under the bed, the yellow peril or indeed Islam.
Still never mind, there's plenty of new friends for America on the political scene - I see that Uzbekistan is now a valued ally. Now there's a place with human rights issues that even George W. Bush can envy. This is a country that doesn't fool around. If they want someone tortured they'll do it themselves, rather than "outsourcing" to places like Syria or Egypt.
Still, never mind. So long as taxes stay low enough and cable is relatively inexpensive, then who gives a fuck about human rights eh ?
