by Paul Craig Roberts<\/p>\n
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has just released its report,\u00a0 \u201cExtreme Measures: Abused\u00a0 Children Detained As National Security Threats.\u201d\u00a0 http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/report\/2016\/07\/28\/extreme-measures\/abuses-against-children-detained-national-security-threats \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n From my reading of the report, Israel and the US are the two worst abusers.\u00a0 Boko Haram is a distant third.<\/p>\n Which country is the worst abuser, Israel or the US?\u00a0 Taking into account that the US is responsible for the violence in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria that has resulted in torture and detention, if we include these victims in the American total, then the US is the Number One torturer of children. As it is unlikely that Israel could get away with abuse of Palestinian children without Washington\u2019s support, we can add Israel\u2019s abuses to Washington\u2019s total.<\/p>\n Guantanamo Bay is a great distance away from Washington\u2019s wars against Muslims in Afghanistan, North Africa and the Middle East.\u00a0 Yet even at Guantanamo, where the only violence is the violence that the US military inflicts on detainees, the US government tortured children, according to the Human Rights Watch report.<\/p>\n What kind of military tortures children?\u00a0 The only answer that I can come up with is a military that has no self-respect.<\/p>\n What kind of US government would pay two US psychologists $81 million to help the CIA devise torture techniques? http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2014\/12\/09\/cia-torture-contractors_n_6296758.html<\/a> \u00a0Only a lawless government with no respect for US law and international law.<\/p>\n Think back to the torture memos written by US Department of Justice (sic) officials John\u00a0 C. Yoo and Jay S. Bybee. These memos justifying the US government\u2019s torture of detainees despite the prohibition of torture by both US statutory law and international law to which the US is a signatory have been denounced by civil libertarians as the work of legal incompetents or criminals or both.\u00a0 Yet, John Yoo is a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, and for his service to the White House torturers Jay Bybee was appointed a US federal judge to the second highest court.\u00a0 If Hitlery becomes president, Bybee and Yoo could end up on the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n The positions held by Yoo and Bybee tell the world all that is needed to know that the United States is a lawless entity and that this lawlessness is accepted by America\u2019s legal, political, and educational institutions and by the American people.<\/p>\n What self-respecting parent would send a son or daughter to study law at a university that hosts a \u201clegal scholar\u201d who discounts law in behalf of torture?<\/p>\n If you were a judge on the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals and a torturer was appointed to the court, would you welcome the criminal or resign in protest against a government that has no respect for its own laws?<\/p>\n How many NSA officials have resigned over illegal spying on the American people?<\/p>\n How many FBI officials have resigned over false flag frame-ups of \u201cterrorists?\u201d<\/p>\n When the Democratic National Committee can hire Americans for $50 per night to fill up the empty seats at the Democratic convention, what does that tell you about the price of American integrity?http:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/news\/2016-07-28\/did-dnc-hire-actors-below-minimum-wage-work-convention<\/a><\/p>\n Do you remember the 775 Guantanamo detainees described by the US Secretary of Defense and the Vice President of the US as the most dangerous, most violent men on earth?\u00a0 We will never know how many of these detainees were tortured in an effort to elicit a confession in support of the government\u2019s unfounded claims, but nine of them died in custody.\u00a0 We do know that despite torture and the assurances from the highest officials that the detainees were dangerous and violent, as of July 12, 2016, 90 percent of the detainees have been released without charges.\u00a0 Only 76 remain, and apparently there is no evidence that can be used to charge them.\u00a0 Apparently, they are being held only in order to save the US government from being 100 percent wrong. Being 90 percent wrong is close enough for government work.\u00a0 \u00a0 See:http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_Guantanamo_Bay_detainees<\/a>\u00a0 and\u00a0http:\/\/projects.nytimes.com\/guantanamo\/detainees <\/a><\/p>\n Do you remember those photos of the torture of the Abu Ghraib prisoners?\u00a0 As horrifying as the photos are, they are the mild part.\u00a0 Others photos were not released.\u00a0 The photos reveal more than torture.\u00a0 The photos reveal the extreme pleasure that the US soldiers got from torturing the prisoners.\u00a0 They were having the time of their life abusing other humans!<\/p>\n Some feminists have excused the female soldier, one of the several grunts punished while the higher officials responsible went scot free, with the rationale that she was only getting back at the male gender for the abuses she, as a female, had suffered from men.<\/p>\n The Abu Ghraib photos required silencing.\u00a0 Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the senior American commander in Iraq, appointed Major General Antonio Taguba to compile a report based on an investigation of the torture.\u00a0 All Gen. Taguba had to do was to explain away the torture and be promoted from 2-star to 3-star general.<\/p>\n If that is what Sanchez intended, he chose the wrong man.\u00a0 Gen. Taguba filed an honest report, finding:<\/p>\n \u201cThat between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility (BCCF), numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force (372nd Military Police Company, 320th Military Police Battalion, 800th MP Brigade), in Tier (section) 1-A of the Abu Ghraib Prison (BCCF). The allegations of abuse were substantiated by detailed witness statements (ANNEX 26) and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence\u2026In addition to the aforementioned crimes, there were also abuses committed by members of the 325th MI Battalion, 205th MI Brigade, and Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center (JIDC).\u201d Instead of becoming a 3-star general with lucrative consulting opportunities and board memberships at the end of his military career, Taguba was sent into retirement.<\/p>\n Seymour Hersh\u2019s report on \u201cThe General\u2019s Report\u201d shows a US military whose leaders, both military and civilian, are devoid of integrity. http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2007\/06\/25\/the-generals-report<\/a><\/p>\n If we contrast the fate of Gen. Taguba, who took the US Military Code seriously, with the mindlessness of Fox \u201cNews\u201d and its incoherent insouciant Medal of Honor winner, Dakota Meyer, who is displayed on need, we can see how integrity was lost to ignorance and propaganda.<\/p>\n
\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Taguba_Report<\/a><\/p>\n