We Are Still Torturing Humans

The United Nations has issued a report that highlights the many problems found with the way the Bush War Council is conducting their global adventure. Most of the details are nothing new to regular readers of the lefty blogosphere, but the fact that the U.N. is finally starting to beat some drums gives me hope that these abhorrent practices will end someday.

A draft United Nations report on the detainees at Guantanamo Bay concludes that the U.S. treatment of them violates their rights to physical and mental health and, in some cases, constitutes torture.

It also urges the United States to close the military prison in Cuba and bring the captives to trial on U.S. territory, charging that Washington's justification for the continued detention is a distortion of international law.

The report, compiled by five U.N. envoys who interviewed former prisoners, detainees' lawyers and families, and U.S. officials, is the product of an 18-month investigation ordered by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. The team did not have access to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

linkage - all emphasis mine

That final point is important when dealing with the White House Spin Machine. They love to claim that these instances of torture are fabrications from the detainees, and anyone who chooses to raise them are terrorist sympathizers.

Bullshit.

It is clear that the military's interrogation guidelines are uniform across the world. From Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo to the remote prisons in secret parts of the world, the United States government has sanctioned the illegal, immoral practice of physical, mental and spiritual torture. When will the outrage end?

To help the cause of peace, I recommend writing to your local newspapers and calling for the closure of Guantanamo. Explain how it is morally unacceptable for George Bush to sanction torture by keeping monsters like Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales on his short-list of trusted advisors. It doesn't take much of a stretch to see that they all feel they have the right to do these things.

[UPDATE] catnip gives a link to the Daily Telegraph story regarding the report. It's always good to read the international take on these issues, I'm highly suspicious of our media.

While American officials are prepared to concede that there are conflicting interpretations over how the laws governing international conflict should be applied, they are furious at the way the investigation was conducted, especially the evidence that the four "special rapporteurs" who compiled the report have used to reach their conclusions.

[snip]

The Bush administration also challenges whether it is the responsibility of a body such as the UN Human Rights Commission to investigate Guantanamo.