Bitten in the ass...

Abu Ghraib, Gitmo scandals leave no room for U.S. to talk of human rights: Khatami

DAKAR (IRNA) -- President Mohammad Khatami rejected Saturday U.S. charges of human rights violations in Iran, denouncing Washington's own record in abusing prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba.

"Of all the people entitled to speak about human rights, we don't regard the Americans as having the right to talk about the respect for human rights in Iran," he told reporters here.

The United States was quoted Thursday as having expressed 'grave concern' over the human rights situation in Iran and potential court action against 2003 Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi. Khatami said, "I believe the Americans' claims of human rights violations in Iran are lies and they had better stand accountable for their own crimes in Iraq's Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons."

Thanks to the policies promulgated by the Bush administration with regards to prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and Afghanistan, we have lost the moral high-ground. By denying prisoners from the Taliban and Al Qaeda, detained in GTMO and elsewhere, protection under the Geneva Conventions the Administration has abandoned the ideals for which generations of Americans have fought and died for. The Adminsitration has also acted contrary to both US and international law in this arena.

The end result now is that a nation with a miserable record on human rights, such as Iran...or China...or Myanmar...or North Korea can tell the US to pound sand with impunity. The decision to torture prisoners was made at the highest levels in the Administration, even to the Oval Office. The architect of those policies, Alberto Gonzalez, now stands to be the next Attorney General of the US. If he is confirmed in that office, America will lose what moral authority it has left, and we will all bear a measure of guilt for the policies he was instrumental in developing and the President allowed to be implemented. Most of us stood by passively and allowed this to happen. The scandal that should have bright down an administration was shuffled quietly into the background, and was not even an issue during the campaign, though it should have been.

So, when do we take a stand? If not now, when? If we let Alberto Gonzales become the next AG, how can we ever erase the shame he and the Bush administration have brought on this nation...For the first time in our history, our government sanctions torture, and makes a mockery of the values of "freedom and democracy" that Dubbyuh claims to be delivering to Iraq and throughout the Middle East. Write, e-mail, call, or camp out in, the office of your senators...let your voices be heard.