The US did not ratify the UN Convention against Torture

[alfredo]

So we may not be able to send bush to Hague for his Rendition policy. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

I don't think a Republican congress would ratify this treaty, but I think it would be a good idea to openly push them on the issue. This page was updated Jan 25, 1997, but I doubt the US status has changed.


The UN Convention
http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html

countries signing on and those who haven't
http://www.hrweb.org/legal/catsigs.html

[madeline_con]

1. A little technicality...

that gives them lots of wiggle room. How covenient!

[alfredo]

5. Should we bring this up at Daily Kos

It might gets some eyes there that will miss it here.

[madeline_con]

11. By all means...

the more who know, the better.

[alfredo]

14. I will have to do it in the morning. I am too tired.

I am making mistakes.

[shraby]

2. We did sign the Geneva Conventions though

and it became a part of our constitution. No wiggle room there.

[alfredo]

3. We can go that route, but pushing ratification of the anti Torture

treaty could keep the pressure on the junta and their enablers in congress.

[Solly Mack]

4. The US has a federal law against torture (even outside the US)

http://www.torturers.net/law/ustorture.html

This law does cover torture outside the US

http://slate.msn.com/id/2100460/

[alfredo]

6. Thanks I think we need to push this torture angle again.

We can send your first link our congressmen.

[mcctatas]

7. Wasn't the excuse for not signing because it outlawed the executions of

people under 18 and the mentally retarted (or cognitavely disabled or developmentally disabled...whatever is least offensive). How could we possibly give up our rights to those lovely practices...they're not torture, they're good old amerikun values:wtf:

[alfredo]

9. a quick read didn't uncover anything

on the death penalty. I might have to read it again.

[Jack Rabbit]

8. Incorrect: The Senate ratified the treaty October 21, 1994

!!

[alfredo]

10. Can you post a link?

[Jack Rabbit]

12. Yep

Please click here and scroll down.

[alfredo]

13. Thank you! So the site I referenced is incorrect.

This means if bush has signed off on torture, he is in violation of US and international law. It appears he has because he has, at the least, done nothing to stop it.

[Jack Rabbit]

17. It sounds more like the Rome Statute for the ICC

Clinton signed it in his final days in the White House; it was not even submitted to the Senate because it faced certain rejection; Bush, who expresses particular contempt for it, "unsigned" it.

[alfredo]

18. Seems like bush was looking forward, knowing he would be

breaking international laws. So maybe we have premeditation.

[Jack Rabbit]

19. Actually, it is an imperial point of view

The neoconservatives and their predecessors are suspicious of international institutions like the UN or the ICC because they restrict American "freedom". Laws have a way of doing that. If one find someone messing with one's wife, the law restricts his freedom and says that he can't kill the sonovabitch over it. If one is in need of money, the law restricts one's freedom and says one must not rob a bank or mug a pedestrian in a dark alley.

Of course, the rationale is that we can't have a civilized society and permit people to settle their disputes like that. It is no different with nations. If we are to have a civilized world, then we need laws. If one nation is in need of petroleum, then that nation should buy it from one that produces it, not go to war to get it.

The neoconservatives think otherwise. A typical neoconservative has a mindset of a mafia don.

[alfredo]

21. You mean like this comment from the Big Neo Con?

"In the last couple of weeks, there's been too much psuedo-populism, almost too much conern and attention for, quote, the people... After all, we conservatives are on the side of the lords and barons.. We at the Weekly Standard are pulling up the drawbridge against the peasants." William Kristol Editor of the Weekly Standard

[Jack Rabbit]

22. Interesting statement

Do you have a link? I'd like to see the context.

I don't think I mean that. Kristol could very well be expressing a simple conservative point of view. There is an elitism inherent in the conservative philosophy that does not really contradict much traditional American political thought. A lot of that kind of thing is found in The Federalist Papers, for example.

[alfredo]

23. I think it came from the Washington Post. But here is a

link in PDF format. http://www.samfrancis.net/pdf/all1997.pdf He quotes Kristol on the second page. He doesn't quote the full text of what I posted, but enough to get the idea.

It seems to lend weight to you saying "Kristol could very well be expressing a simple conservative point of view."

Read the article. It's pretty good.

BTW, the author Sam Francis died in February of this year. He was with the Heritage Foundation.

[Jack Rabbit]

24. Thank you

This is an example of Kristol as a representative of the elitist right opposing a "populist" right.

Generally, when one blends populism with what is right wing, one gets a creepy kind of demagoguery. Think of the Terri Schiavo circus from last spring. This is the Christian right, the right wing of Pat Buchanan and Randall Terry.

On the other hand, there is now something called populist conservatism. In this sense, think of Kevin Phillips. Phillips, as many are aware, has a very low opinion of Bush, whom he regards as an elitist and whose defeat he urged last November. It is a conservatism designed to appeal to the masses and has more in common with some strains of liberalism than the appeal to bigotry we often find in the Christian right. While I don't agree with it, it is much more palatable. The stress is not on fear of gays or resentment of abortion, but on the benefits of low taxation, free enterprise and opportunity.

Kristol and most neoconservatives are elitists. Apart from how this applies to foreign policy, they would argue that the best political structure is the one that encourages the best people to govern. They believe in a social hierarchy based on wealth, making the assumption that accumulation of wealth has to do with personal talent. There's no pretense of democracy, unless they say they're spreading it to the Middle East. Given that what they are really spreading is global free market capitalism in which elites in the global north reaps the benefits of the wealth of the global south in a semi-colonial arrangement in which the north maintains control either through debt (as in Argentina) or direct military force (as in Iraq).

Obviously, I am expressing my social democratic prejudice about Kristol's ideas. If one wants to say something positive about it, one could assert that aristocratic theories of government, such as those of Leo Strauss which are favored by Kristol and other neoconservatives, find their roots is Plato's Republic. Of course, Plato's ideal rulers were philosopher-kings; a philosopher, in Plato's theory, could not be a tyrant. Nevertheless, there has been no instance in human history where a philosopher-king, such as Marcus Aurelius or St. Louis, was anything more than a transient accident of an authoritarian system. More often, the elites simply govern to protect their own wealth and power, thus becoming tyrants rather than philosophers.

[alfredo]

25. We used to call the "Cloth Coat Republicans." There was a show of

humility. They didn't flaunt their wealth. That is gone now that the imperialist have taken control.


It really seems that the Straussians have played the Theocrats. Are the Theocrats going to wake up to the fact that they are being manipulated by the Straussians?

[Jack Rabbit]

27. I think that is the Democrats' best hope

Let's drop that ugly term theocrat. These are evangelical Christians. Many of these people work for firms like WalMart and would benefit from a single-payer health plan, encouragement of organized labor, and a strong and solvent social security system. The trick will be to persuade enough of them to put aside their social prejudices and vote their pocketbooks that will turn some red states blue. They aren't comfortable with gay rights or abortion; on the other hand, if there really is a Democrat who would ban the Bible, they should let me know who he is and I'll vote against him, too.

[alfredo]

29. When I use the term Theocrats I am talking of people like Dobson

and Robertson, not the rank and file Evangelicals. Not all republicans are Straussians, just as not all Evangelicals are Theocrats. It's these leaders like Pat Robertson who thought they could take over the Republican party then enforce theocratic rule on the US. these leaders were useful idiots to the Straussians.

Yes, you are right that economic issues should sway the red state voter and Evangelicals. Dean was right to say that good jobs, health care, education are moral issues.

I think we are one economic crisis or one terrorist attack away from a complete flip in the power structure in Washington.

[Jack Rabbit]

30. I'm not worried about people like Dobson or Robertson

They're just self-important blowhards. The rank-and-file evangelical will vote his pocketbook before Bush puts him in the poorhouse and no wealthy TV minister will stop him.

[alfredo]

31. The thing is, they didn't this last election. They voted social issues

and the war(s). They voted against their own best economic interests.

[sandnsea]

15. Universal Declaration of Human Rights

I think one of the versions of UN Reform passed recently, this is what I wrote on it on June 16:

The United Nations Reform Act of 2005 was introduced in the House by Rob Bishop of Utah, as well as a similar bill by Henry Hyde which was hailed by the American Conservative Union. The legislation covers a variety of issues from withholding UN dues to terrorism to the IAEA and more. It also lays out Human Rights requirements for member countries:

a) Statement of Policy- It shall be the policy of the United States to use its voice, vote, and influence at the United Nations to ensure that a credible and respectable Human Rights Council or other human rights body is established within the United Nations whose participating Member States uphold the values embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
(b) Human Rights Reforms at the United Nations- The President shall direct the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations to ensure that the following human rights reforms have been adopted by the United Nations:
(1) A Member State that fails to uphold the values embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights shall be ineligible for membership on any United Nations human rights body.
(2) A Member State shall be ineligible for membership on any United Nations human rights body if such Member State is--
(A) subject to sanctions by the Security Council; or
(B) under a Security Council-mandated investigation for human rights abuses.

Just what sorts of values does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights embody?

Article 5.
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6.
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Article 7.
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
Article 10.
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
Article 11.
(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.

LINKS:
http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=1092

[alfredo]

16. I will get back to this in the morning. Too late to be reading

this


Thanks. I will see

[mrfrapp]

20. Does it matter?

I would find it odd that someone couldn't be prosecuted under international law simply because they don't agree with that law. I don't like half the laws I'm subjected to in my country but it would be a poor defence to rely on my disagreement with them.

I don't suppose Milosovic thinks he did anything wrong but he's still in the Hague. Similarly for Hussein. Any crimes he's accused of weren't illegal in Iraq at the time, simply by definition. This doesn't stop him from being held accountable for them though.

[alfredo]

26. What matters is a show of opposition to the Junta. We need to shine

a light on these thugs.

[Jack Rabbit]

28. Exactly

We're not going to ask the permission of a tyrant to submit to international laws and conventions. Wars of aggression are illegal and Iraq was a war of aggression, pure and simple. Torture and humiliating treatment and punishment are illegal, and that is what is going on in Bush's offshore gulags.

Bush is no different that Saddam or Slobo. If he orders people tortured, he should be called on it and if the problem is serious enough, he should be prosecuted for it.

[alfredo]

32. I think pressure will mount from our allies.

I don't think they will put up with it for much longer.