The Stain Of Abuse

Though the modus operandi of this administration is to lie, deny and decry, it looks as though some issues just won't go away. There is not a doubt in my mind that willful and reckless abuse has been committed by some of our interrogators and troops. But, as the world's sole super power, we've acted with impunity and thumbed our noses at the criticism behind our failure to comply with rules of war and the standard of decency we are supposed to be upholding as leaders of the free world.

"The abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan has become a stain on the reputation of the United States that doesn't appear to be fading with time.

New allegations of mistreatment continue to surface, for one thing. Trials of US personnel accused of abuse have kept the issue in the news, for another - not to mention Newsweek's now-discredited allegation that US interrogators desecrated the Koran.

And critics continue to charge that the US has yet to admit that instances of abuse were part of a pattern - and that prisoner abuse on the part of the nation that used to be called the leader of the free world has set a terrible example for others.

'How far from the moral high ground the US government has fallen,' said William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, upon the release Wednesday of his organization's annual report on human rights around the world.

The US has held hundreds of people without trial or even charges at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the US airbase at Bagram in Afghanistan, said the Amnesty International report. It has gone to great lengths to restrict the use of the Geneva Convention, and 'subcontracted torture,' in Amnesty International's phrase, by handing over detainees to allied nations where forceful interrogation is condoned.

'When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a license to others to commit abuse with impunity,' wrote Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan in a forward to the 2005 report."

Who knows. Things can and do change. Perhaps one day, somehow, someway Bush and his cronies can be held responsible for their despicable policies. Perhaps he'll end up in a cell with pictures of him in his underwear circulating the world.