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G4EBT > POETRY 06.11.07 13:25l 144 Lines 5819 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 336992G4EBT
Read: GUEST
Subj: Re: G4EBT Eloquence of Rumskull
Path: DB0FHN<DB0FOR<DB0MRW<DB0ERF<DB0FBB<DB0IUZ<DB0GOS<ON0AR<GB7FCR
Sent: 071106/1039Z @:GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU #:50043 [Blackpool] FBB-7.03a $:336992G4
From: G4EBT@GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU
To : POETRY@WW
Human rights, law and politics - read or delete as desired.
Warren, KB2VXA wrote:-
>If you hadn't attributed the "poetry" to Da Rumpot I'd have
>thought you were quoting Geedubya DaBush, the Decider Monkey.
Don't get me started!
How long have you got?
I really ought not to make fun of a man who has brought America to its
knees, and who countless millions (including it has to be said, millions
of Americans), believe is responsible for high crimes.
He says America doesn't torture people - it simply uses "enhanced
interrogation techniques". That term has an interesting pedigree -
it's exactly that which the Nazis used ("verscharfte vernehmung")
when, in 1948 the United States prosecuted it as a war crime.
(It became known as the "third degree").
It left no marks, and included hypothermia, stress positions, and
long-time sleep deprivation - all the techniques America uses today, and
which Bush, Cheney and his cronies say, with a straight face, do not
amount to "cruel inhumane and degrading treatment" under the Geneva
Convention.
In the 1948 trials the victims of the Nazis were not in uniform - they
were part of the Norwegian insurgency against the German occupation. The
Nazis argued - just as Bush and Cheney et al argue today, that this put
them beyond the Geneva Convention as "unlawful combatants".
It didn't in 1948, and and it still doesn't.
And just as Bush and Cheney have argued, the Nazi defendants argued that
most of the victims did not suffer failure of a major organ, permanent
disablement or death, so it didn't amount to torture.
This is almost verbatim what John Choo said - the Bush administration's
house lawyer, who is now ensconced in Washington's "think tank" - the
American Institute.
But in the 1948 trials, the US-run court rightly rejected this argument.
It said that all detainees - including those out of uniform, were
protected by the Geneva Convention, as indeed they are. They didn't have
full PoW status, but neither could they be abused.
The US-run court also relied upon the plain meaning of the term
"torture" as defined under US and international law. I quote:
"The court found it decisive that the defendants [the Nazis] had inflicted
serious physical and mental suffering on their victims, and [the court]
did not finds sufficient reason for the mitigation of the punishment...
End quote.
Those on trial were executed.
The definition of torture remains the same now as it was then, and as was
reinforced by the UN Convention on 26 June 1987...the infliction of severe
mental or physical pain or suffering with intent to procure intelligence".
In 1948, the Americans rejected the Nazi's play on words, yet those are
the same words that today, the Bush administration are using to support
torture in Guantanamo and elsewhere.
This is one area of international law which is very clear.
There is an absolute right to not be subjected to torture, defined as
"cruel, inhumane unusual or degrading treatment". It doesn't matter
whether
a person is a criminal, a warrior combatant, an unlawful combatant or an
Al Quada terrorist.
The other side of the coin is that American soldiers and contractors are
entitled to the same protection. They won't get it from Al Quada, but then
they're terrorists - we're supposed to be the good guys who respect the
rule of law.
It seems to me - as I'm sure it will to millions of Americans, that Bush
has got the country into a dreadful fix and no-one quite knows what to do
about it.
The banking system is in turmoil - the sub-prime crisis makes bankers look
reckless and stupid. The dollar has been devalued against almost all the
world currencies, partly due to little confidence in the dollar and party
due to the oil crisis.
The Bush administration has been responsible for huge deficits on external
accounts, and the price of gold has almost trebled since Bush came into
office.
People rush for gold when war looms.
The 9/11 terrorists were Saudis, and much al quada funding come from Saudi
Arabia. But Saudi Arabia (not a democracy, with an appalling human rights
record) has half the world's oil. So we try to stay friends - what else
can we do? We're literally "over a barrel". (An oil barrel).
Pakistan is in turmoil - Bush can huff and puff as much as he
likes. The US depends on Pakistan for access into Afghanistan.
Turkey is invading Iraq as the Iraqis and Americans haven't been able to
defeat the PKK. Turkey in an ally, the US need to stay on the right side
of Turkey as a route into Iraq, and needs to over-fly its airspace.
Bush says he's going to get tough on Iran, and many think he's going
through the preparatory stages of a nuclear strike (or as he would say,
"nuke-u-lar").
If Iran closes the Straits of Hormus, the oil markets will go into spasm,
panic would set in and the world economy would go into a tailspin. It
would harm Iran, but nothing like it would the rest of the world, and
America most of all.
I won't even mention where China and Russia stand on all of this.
One day, America will come back - the America which defends human rights,
that would never torture detainees, that never used torture in defeating
Nazism or communism or any other "ism". The America that used to lead the
world in barring inhumane and barbaric treatment, and bringing
perpertators to justice.
It won't be the rest of the world who'll put a stop to this nonsense - it
will be the American people. Not while this guys in office, maybe not when
he's gone, maybe not in my lifetime, but one day, for sure.
I'll lighten up in the next bull with some "Bushisims".
Best wishes
David, G4EBT @ GB7FCR
Cottingham, East Yorkshire.
Message timed: 10:32 on 2007-Nov-06
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