US on human rights: Laugh yourself to death

[Clara T]

US on human rights: Laugh yourself to death

It's that time of year for the US State Department's annual comedy classic, the "Country Reports" on human rights. Funnily enough, Iran is now among the worst offenders, along with Cuba, home to the US's own Guantanamo Bay prison for those not charged with any crime. But Iraq - great news - has seen a significant improvement, Abu Ghraib and Shi'ite death squads notwithstanding. Rib-tickling stuff - especially, no doubt, for US captives who have been "rendered" for torture.

Report by Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - Releasing the latest edition of its annual human-rights "Country Reports", the US State Department on Wednesday named Iran and China as among the world's "most systematic human-rights violators" in 2005, along with North Korea, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Cuba and Belarus.In a 16-page introduction, the report also singled out the human-rights performances of Syria, Sudan, Nepal, Russia and Venezuela as particularly problematic through the year, even as it praised what it called "major progress" in Iraq, as well as advances in Afghanistan, Colombia, Ukraine, Lebanon, Burundi and Liberia.

"In Iraq 2005 was a year of major progress for democracy, democratic rights and freedom," according to the introduction, citing the "steady growth of NGOs and other civil-society associations that promote human rights", as well as the holding of two elections and one constitutional plebiscite.

<snip>

As in the past, this year's edition does not address rights conditions in the United States or in US-controlled facilities overseas, such as detention centers at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba and in Afghanistan where Washington has been holding suspects in its "war on terror" in conditions that some human-rights monitors, including several UN special rapporteurs, have said amount to "torture".

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC10Ak02.html

[Canuckistanian]

1. Doesn't have quite the same "authority", does it?

Nobody in the world going to give this report any credence.

This is a farce.

[Erika]

2. China's annual report on human rights

named us as a major violator. Don't you love the respect and warm fuzzies W has instilled among countries?

The detente, the rapport, etc.

[deb98126]

3. How do you go on after your human rights have been violated?

How do you go on when your human rights have been violated by the country known internationally as a beacon of democracy and civility? If anyone knows how please tell me, because I am struggling everyday.
First, you walk around in a state of shock, a state of disbelief. You don't eat or sleep well, you constantly look over your shoulder. You struggle daily with anger and emotional exhaustion. People listen to your experience sympathetically, including family. They express their condolences. But how can they understand?
On August 3, 2004 I was kidnapped, forcibly hospitalized, forcibly sedated and psychologically tortured under the direction of the FBI in Atlanta, Georgia.
I want to recount what happened to me in the hope that if anyone else has had a similar experience, they will come forward. Also, I am seeking support from any human right's attorneys, investigative journalists or activists who may be able to advise me as to how to pursue justice. I know you may read the following account and decide that compared to the human rights violations, suffering and genocide of people all over the world, my experience was minor. I wasn't beaten or physically tortured. I wasn't deported and my family wasn't murdered. I have read accounts of human rights atrocities that occur around the world, and I admit, I have read them with horror, yet remained inactive in the human rights struggle. I realize that in some ways, this is complicity. However, I must come forward.
You can read a true account of my experience at:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/03/1806390.php

America, wake up! If this could happen to me, it could happen to anybody. Race, class, color doesn't matter anymore; the intelligence agencies of the Bush administration are violating human rights at will on a daily basis in the name of "terrorism prevention" and we are all at risk!
Deborah

[northofdenali]

5. deb, that sounds pretty horrific.

You are right - it can happen to anyone, and it horrifys me that the US is at the forefront of violations, because we were "a beacon of hope" for so long.

Use of psychiatric hospitaliztion against dissenters isn't new here in the US, though. During the Watergate scandal, IIRC, then-Attorney General John Mitchell's wife, Martha, was also hospitalized against her will. Many, many people believe, as I do, that this was because she was willing to "talk".

RE: Human rights attorneys. Check in with the Southern Poverty Law Center based in Montgomery, Alabama http://www.splcenter.org/ - founded by Morris Dees, they are adamant civil rights advocates and may be able to direct you to assistance in your area. If nothing else, check out their website for some heartening stories.

[deb98126]

6. Thank you, NOD

I have sent them a letter along with ACLU, Amnesty International, National Lawyers Guild, and several others. Just waiting to hear back from them.

Deborah

[stillcool]

4. Steve Kangas said it best when he wrote....

CIA operations follow the same recurring script. First, American business interests abroad are threatened by a popular or democratically elected leader. The people support their leader because he intends to conduct land reform, strengthen unions, redistribute wealth, nationalize foreign-owned industry, and regulate business to protect workers, consumers and the environment. So, on behalf of American business, and often with their help, the CIA mobilizes the opposition. First it identifies right-wing groups within the country (usually the military), and offers them a deal: "We'll put you in power if you maintain a favorable business climate for us." The Agency then hires, trains and works with them to overthrow the existing government (usually a democracy). It uses every trick in the book: propaganda, stuffed ballot boxes, purchased elections, extortion, blackmail, sexual intrigue, false stories about opponents in the local media, infiltration and disruption of opposing political parties, kidnapping, beating, torture, intimidation, economic sabotage, death squads and even assassination. These efforts culminate in a military coup, which installs a right-wing dictator. The CIA trains the dictator’s security apparatus to crack down on the traditional enemies of big business, using interrogation, torture and murder. The victims are said to be "communists," but almost always they are just peasants, liberals, moderates, labor union leaders, political opponents and advocates of free speech and democracy. Widespread human rights abuses follow.

This scenario has been repeated so many times that the CIA actually teaches it in a special school, the notorious "School of the Americas." (It opened in Panama but later moved to Fort Benning, Georgia.) Critics have nicknamed it the "School of the Dictators" and "School of the Assassins." Here, the CIA trains Latin American military officers how to conduct coups, including the use of interrogation, torture and murder.

The Association for Responsible Dissent estimates that by 1987, 6 million people had died as a result of CIA covert operations. (2) Former State Department official William Blum correctly calls this an "American Holocaust."

http://www.aliveness.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.html
By Steve Kangas

Steve Kangas was found dead on the 39th floor at 11:30 PM on February 8 1999. In the bathroom of the offices of Richard Mellon Scaife, 2000 miles from home, -- in Pittsburgh PA. Shot (twice?) in the head.

http://www.psnw.com/~bashford/ka-matre.html

[Clara T]

7. The Origins of the Overclass

The Origins of the Overclass

By Steve Kangas

The wealthy have always used many methods to accumulate wealth, but it was not until the mid-1970s that these methods coalesced into a superbly organized, cohesive and efficient machine. After 1975, it became greater than the sum of its parts, a smooth flowing organization of advocacy groups, lobbyists, think tanks, conservative foundations, and PR firms that hurtled the richest 1 percent into the stratosphere.

The origins of this machine, interestingly enough, can be traced back to the CIA. This is not to say the machine is a formal CIA operation, complete with code name and signed documents. (Although such evidence may yet surface — and previously unthinkable domestic operations such as MK-ULTRA, CHAOS and MOCKINGBIRD show this to be a distinct possibility.) But what we do know already indicts the CIA strongly enough. Its principle creators were Irving Kristol, Paul Weyrich, William Simon, Richard Mellon Scaife, Frank Shakespeare, William F. Buckley, Jr., the Rockefeller family, and more. Almost all the machine's creators had CIA backgrounds.

During the 1970s, these men would take the propaganda and operational techniques they had learned in the Cold War and apply them to the Class War. Therefore it is no surprise that the American version of the machine bears an uncanny resemblance to the foreign versions designed to fight communism. The CIA's expert and comprehensive organization of the business class would succeed beyond their wildest dreams. In 1975, the richest 1 percent owned 22 percent of America’s wealth. By 1992, they would nearly double that, to 42 percent — the highest level of inequality in the 20th century.

How did this alliance start? The CIA has always recruited the nation’s elite: millionaire businessmen, Wall Street brokers, members of the national news media, and Ivy League scholars. During World War II, General "Wild Bill" Donovan became chief of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA. Donovan recruited so exclusively from the nation’s rich and powerful that members eventually came to joke that "OSS" stood for "Oh, so social!"
http://www.aliveness.com/kangaroo/L-overclass.html