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| Human Rights Day December 10, 1950 Eleanor Roosevelt (left) Marian Anderson (right) |
U.S. global war on terror continues in violation of law, human rights
Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett
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| Brennan Center on Counter-terrorism law |
Brennan Center was looking toward a new and corrective era and they wrote this. The U.S. President “has asserted that he is above our laws and has simply flouted those with which he disagreed. … He has subjected American citizens to warrantless wiretapping in violation of our law and Constitution and has cast aside the Geneva Conventions. This pattern of ignoring the law must end with the next President. For this to occur, we must first understand how it came about.
“On the eve of a new Administration,
many voices are calling for an accounting of the abuses that have been
documented in the course of the ‘war on terror,’ while others suggest that the
election of a new President ushers in a new era in which we do not need to look
back.
“A critical issue of our time is how
the rule of law and the requirements of our Constitution should inform our
response to the ‘terrorist’ threat we face at home and abroad. To answer this
question, we must understand what our response has been and the successes and
failures of our policies.”
A year earlier, on Human Rights Day, then-UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights, Louise Arbour, wrote this. “In today’s growing divisions between
the rich and the poor, the powerful and the vulnerable, the technologically
advanced and the illiterate, the aggressors and the victims, the relevance of
the Declaration of Human Rights and the universality of the enshrined rights
need to be loudly reaffirmed.”  |
| Eleanor Roosevelt with Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 |
“The Universal Declaration and its core values — inherent human
dignity, justice, non-discrimination, equality, fairness and universality —
apply to everyone, everywhere, always.”
Despite laws domestic and global and despite their clear articulation,
super-powered lawlessness continued and spread far and wide.
Virus of lawlessness, human rights abuse
U.S. “global war on terror”
In 2009 the New Internationalist Magazine reported, “While many state
agencies torture and kill people who stand in their way, these agencies now increasingly
use counterterrorism as a justification.
“With the United States, the world’s remaining superpower, rebranding
torture (which is absolutely prohibited under international law) as a form of
interrogation, and holding suspects without trial for years or hauling them
before unfair military commissions, human rights have taken a beating.”
Hotspots conveniently U.S.-allied committing rights violations, the New
Internationalist reports attributing 2009 human rights organization data:
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| Afghanistan Pakistan |
Pakistan:
Inter-Services Intelligence agency responsible for numerous ‘disappearances’
with the Government admitting to 1,102 people disappeared in Baluchistan
province alone. The problem was exacerbated by bounty offered by the CIA for
terror suspects. CIA-sanctioned drones targeted to blow up terrorists have
caused many civilian casualties both in Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
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| Africa South Asia's Gulf States |
Egypt: widespread
torture by State Security Investigation officials and police; trials by
military courts; 1,500 people detained without charge according to official
figures: 10,000 according to other sources. Egypt is the second largest
recipient of U.S. aid.
Iraq: in 2008, U.S.
forces held 15,500 people (despite the release of 13,000 earlier that year)
without charge or trial for security purposes, and the Iraqi authorities held
at least 26,000.
Israel: hundreds of
Palestinians (including children) detained in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories, many held incommunicado for long periods. Most released without
charge but trials are held before military courts. Also uses aerial drones,
which have killed civilians.
Jordan: thousands
held under suspicion of being ‘a danger to society’
Morocco/Western
Sahara: over 1,000 Islamist suspects held since 2006; torture is routine; Legacy
of enforced disappearances.
Saudi Arabia:
barbaric punishments for vague ‘offences’; 2,000 detained in secrecy on
security grounds; United States and
Britain praise and promise to learn from a Saudi ‘re-education’ program that
keeps suspects detained without charge or trial.
Syria: arbitrary and
incommunicado detention widespread for people suspected of the slightest
involvement in terrorist activity. Some 17,000 disappeared people, mainly
Islamists, remain untraced.
A few within U.S. government challenged this impunity in lawlessness.
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| New Internationalist Magazine image |
Yesterday, U.S. Representative Alcee Hastings reminded the Congress of the
United States that what throwing billions at counterterrorism has accomplished in
the past decade is a deepening breach of legal and human rights protections
under domestic and international laws.
“We tell the American public that we are fighting overseas in order to
protect our freedoms,” Congressman Hastings said, “but we pass legislation that
undermines those very same freedoms here at home.
“We tell the rest of the world to emulate our democratic traditions and
our rule of law, but we disregard those values in a mad rush to find out who
can pretend to be the toughest on terrorism.
“We will not defeat terrorism by using the military to lock up innocent
people for the rest of their lives on the mere suspicion of wrongdoing.
We will not defeat terrorism by claiming the entire world as a battlefield.
We will not defeat terrorism by claiming the entire world as a battlefield.
“We will not defeat terrorism by replacing our rule of law with
reckless, uncontrolled, and unaccountable powers.
Hundreds of thousands of people have died and many more have been
wounded in two U.S. wars, Hastings recalled, and he U.S. has engaged in
military action in numerous other countries since September 11, 2001. The
United States has “spent more than a trillion dollars. Osama bin Laden is dead,
and Obama administration officials have declared that al-Qaeda is ‘operationally
ineffective.’”
The United States should therefore “take this opportunity, this moment
in our history,” he challenged, “to seriously and carefully deliberate our
nation’s counterterrorism efforts.
“We ought to consider which polices are effective and which, in the
end, only create more anti-American sentiment.
“We ought to consider which policies align with our national values and
which undermine them.
“We ought to consider whether we should continue using the full thrust
of United States Armed Forces in country after country or whether a more
nuanced approach might better serve our needs.
“…The legislation before us [The National Defense Authorization Act]
does not attempt to answer these questions.…
It commits us to drive even further down the road of fear.
It commits us to more war and more wasteful spending.
It commits us to ceding our freedoms and liberties on the mere suspicion of wrongdoing.
“The legislation establishes an authority for open-ended war anywhere in
the world, and against anyone.
“It commits us to seeing a ‘terrorist’ in anyone whoever criticizes the
United States in any country, including this one.
“The lack of definitions as to what constitutes ‘substantial support’
and ‘associated forces’ of al-Qaeda and the Taliban mean that anyone could be
accused of terrorism.
“While this measure includes an exemption for U.S. citizens, it does
not protect them from indefinite detention. In one fell swoop, we have set up a
situation where American citizens could have their 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th
amendment rights violated on mere suspicions. This legislation goes too far.…
“We spend billions of dollars every year on counterterrorism, but we
weaken those efforts by tossing aside our own system of justice.”
Sources and notes
http://www.brennancenter.org/page/-/pull%20quotes/investigating.pull.2.png
Statement by High Commissioner Louise Arbour on the occasion of Human
Rights Day December 10, 2007
New Internationalist Magazine
http://www.newint.org/features/2009/11/01/427-08-war-on-terror.jpg
http://www.newint.org/features/2009/11/01/world-of-counterterrorism/
Congressman Alcee L. Hastings serves as Senior Member of the House
Rules Committee, Ranking Democratic Member of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, and
Democratic Chairman of the Florida Delegation.
“Hastings Blasts Passage of National Defense Authorization Act — (Washington,
D.C.), Today, Congressman Alcee L. Hastings (D-Miramar) made the following
statement blasting the passage of the Conference Report for H.R. 1540, the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. The measure passed the
House by a vote of 283-136” — December
14, 2011, http://www.alceehastings.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1039:december-14-2011-hastings-blasts-passage-of-national-defense-authorization-act&catid=72:2011-press-releases&Itemid=
Congressman Alcee Hastings
U.S. Representative Alcee Lamar Hastings has been a member of the U.S.
Congress since 1993. Before entering the Congress, he was a United States
District Judge for the Southern District of Florida (1979-1989), a judge of the
circuit court of Broward County, Florida (1977-1979), and a lawyer in private
practice.
Representative Hastings took his academic credentials at Howard
University School of Law (Washington, D.C.) and Florida Agricultural and Mechanical
University (Tallahassee, Florida (1963)) Juris Doctor; Fisk University (Nashville,
Tennessee) Baccalaureate. Hastings was born September 5, 1936 in Altamonte Springs, Seminole
County, Florida.
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