sulawesigirl4
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
I'm aware that bringing this topic up is likely to lead to some mudslinging, but I feel so strongly about it that I feel that I must at least draw attention to it. Having grown up in a country where a militarized government was allowed to run rough-shod over human rights, I am distinctly unhappy with the direction that it appears the US, my passport country, is headed. I'm referring specifically to the treatment of prisoners held in the so-called "war against terrorism". The article I am posting is just one of many, but I thought I'd put it out to kick off some discussion.
excerpts
First off, I would like to make the point that regardless of one's feelings as to what should be done to those who are actually guilty of terrorist activities which directly lead to loss of life, most of the prisoners have NOT even been tried, but are still being subjected to cruel and inhumane holding conditions. Secondly, I feel that if we truly believe in liberty and in the value of human life, then it follows that we cannot have different standards for different humans. If we are willing to discard fair treatment in the name of vengeance or even protection, we play God (assuming that we can definitively predict the future actions of a free-will human agent) and that seems to me to be not only arrogant but dangerous. Part of what has made America great in the past is its championing of such principles as "innocent until proven guilty" and the right to a fair trial. I don't feel like it's morally right to stand by and watch these be taken away by a government that seems to have a dangerously narrow view of the world.
I think that a quote by Benjamin Franklin about sums up what I feel. "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security"
excerpts
The human cost of the 21st century's first war is already enormous. In addition to those who have died, staggering numbers have been detained around the world in violation of their human rights and international law. Paul Vallely investigates their fate, and asks whether this suspension of due process in the name of defending democracy can ever be justified.
Privately, the Americans admit that torture, or something very like it, is going on at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, where they are holding an unknown number of suspected terrorists.
Al-Qa'ida and Taliban prisoners inside this secret CIA interrogation centre - in a cluster of metal shipping-containers protected by a triple layer of concertinaed wire - are subjected to a variety of practices. They are kept standing or kneeling for hours, in black hoods or spray-painted goggles. They are bound in awkward, painful positions. They are deprived of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights. They are sometimes beaten on capture, and painkillers are withheld.
...
What is perhaps most disturbing about all this is that the US officials who have leaked the information have not done so out of a need to expose something that they see as shameful. On the contrary, they have made it clear that they wanted the world to know what is going on because they feel it is justified.
No fewer than 10 serving US national- security officials - including several people who have been witnesses to the handling of prisoners - came forward to speak to The Washington Post, which has published the most graphic account of what is going on in Bagram, and in several other unnamed US interrogation centres across the world. "If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, one told the paper, "you probably aren't doing your job". He and the others involved are, in effect, saying: we are doing these things because we have to, and we want the world to know.
(rest of text can be found here at the Independent)
First off, I would like to make the point that regardless of one's feelings as to what should be done to those who are actually guilty of terrorist activities which directly lead to loss of life, most of the prisoners have NOT even been tried, but are still being subjected to cruel and inhumane holding conditions. Secondly, I feel that if we truly believe in liberty and in the value of human life, then it follows that we cannot have different standards for different humans. If we are willing to discard fair treatment in the name of vengeance or even protection, we play God (assuming that we can definitively predict the future actions of a free-will human agent) and that seems to me to be not only arrogant but dangerous. Part of what has made America great in the past is its championing of such principles as "innocent until proven guilty" and the right to a fair trial. I don't feel like it's morally right to stand by and watch these be taken away by a government that seems to have a dangerously narrow view of the world.
I think that a quote by Benjamin Franklin about sums up what I feel. "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security"