American hypocrisy towards torture

I've been pretty busy as of late but I really wanted to write abt the issue of US torture.

I guess the US is the only one who has the right to commit torture and brutal policing tactics. Recently, an article in the New York Times reported that "American officials have warned Iraqi leaders that they might have to curtail aid to the Interior Ministry police because of a United States law that prohibits the financing of foreign security forces that commit 'gross violations of human rights' and are not brought to justice" because of their complicity in torture and killings of Iraqi civillians.

This comes at a time when the Bush Administration pushed through a detainee bill that would loosen the right of habeas corpus, the tenets of the Geneva Convention, and restrictions on torture. Specifically, as the New York time points out, the bill paves the way for more use of America torture by doing the following:

"The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate a half-century of international precedent by allowing Mr. Bush to decide on his own what abusive interrogation methods he considered permissible. And his decision could stay secret — there’s no requirement that this list be published.

Coerced Evidence: Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge considered it reliable — already a contradiction in terms — and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses.

Offenses: The definition of torture is unacceptably narrow, a virtual reprise of the deeply cynical memos the administration produced after 9/11. Rape and sexual assault are defined in a retrograde way that covers only forced or coerced activity, and not other forms of nonconsensual sex. The bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture."

Also, the "Constitution in Crisis," a report by the House Judiciary Committee Minority Staff describes in detail the systematic use of brutal torture tactics in Iraq by the US Military and CIA. Yet the Department of Justice has done little to prosecute those perpetrating these acts. Accord to the report, there are "numerous instances of torture that are capable of being punished within the jurisdiction of the Justice Department" under the Military Jursidiction Act but only one such case has resulted in an official indictment and no one has been convicted. Even at the infamous Abu Ghraib, where "numerous" detainee deaths have occurred "as a result of torture and other legal violations" no member of the military has received a sentence of more than 3 years in prison.

These US torture techniques in Iraq had tacit approval from Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. He approved, in the "Haynes action memo," methods including "removal of detainee clothing, use of hoods and dogs"; Category III tactics like the "use of scenarios designed to convince the detainee that death or severely painful consequences for him and/or his family are imminent," and the "use of a wet towel and dripping water to induce the misperception of suffocation." All these are violations of the Geneva Convention by inflicting mental harm.

Yet as Naomi Klein writes, embracing torture techniques is nothing new for America. The US- run School of America, first located in Panama but now in Fort Benning, Georgia, instructed Latin American military and police officers in torture techniques akin to those that have been publicized in Guantanamo Bay: and Abu Ghraib including "early morning capture to maximize shock, immediate hooding and blindfolding, forced nudity, sensory deprivation, sensory overload, sleep and food "manipulation," humiliation, extreme temperatures, isolation, stress positions." Even Clinton's Intelligence Oversight Board in 1996 "admitted that US-produced training materials condoned 'execution of guerrillas, extortion, physical abuse, coercion and false imprisonment.' " Thus the difference between then and now in terms of American torture, is the Bush administration relative openness about it.

Thus how can we expect the Iraqi interior ministry to stop torture and kill Iraqi civilians when we are just as complicit?