The UN-topia
My last TKL post before the site went down was a fairly caustic criticism of the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose members solemnly swear to uphold the highest standards of human rights, and whose members include Saudi Arabia, China, Pakistan, Tunisia, Cameroon, Vietnam, and Cuba, the only country that actually has gulags on the island of Cuba. All of these nations are classified as “not free” by Freedom House, and China, Vietnam, and Cuba are all infamous for the terror that occurs behind the barbed wire of their prison camps, hidden from the world by a screen of complete opacity. For the U.N. to have given its UNDA-prime imprimatur to this gang of torturers, tyrants, and cutthroats suggests that something other than a sincere concern for human rights unites these nations.
If you want links, you’ll have to wait for the return of TKL.
The latest word on Saudi Arabia, via Freedom House’s Nina Shea and the Washington Post, is
more evidence of Saudi mendacity when it claims to have purged its state-controlled textbooks of the propaganda of intolerance, hatred, and violence against non-believers.
Ironically, then, the UNHRC condemnation of Gitmo actually led me to look into the veracity of the claims on which it bases its conclusion, and the credibility and consistency of that body itself. I had originally wavered on the decision of the United States to spurn Council, but no longer. That body is so clearly lacking in consistency and credibility that it could raise completely legitimate issues and I’d pay little attention. While I’m troubled by the torturing of the definition of the word itself, I really can’t see what value Saudi Arabia, Cameroon, China, or Cuba can can add to the discussion. If prisoners at Gitmo were in fact beaten, that’s torture, and those who did it should be held accountable in the courts, as they were after Abu Ghraib. I make this caveat because I’ve seen, and could find, no direct credible evidence that does not rely on the accounts of suspected terrorists who are trained to fabricate such claims. If the worst of these claims are in fact true, they are still incomparably minute in both scale and severity to what goes on in the prisons of some of the Council’s member states. And if the standard is that that the abuse of one prisoner means that all must be released, I wonder what other nations would be subject to that stardard.
That is why calling for the closure of Gitmo is a patently diningenuous and stupid response. Close the place, and then what? Move them to another place? Release them? Have a look at just who we’re dealing with here:
Six prisoners were treated for “minor injuries” and none of the U.S. guards was seriously hurt after the fight pitting 10 inmates against 10 U.S. guards, the officials said. The fight ended only after guards blasted detainees five times with a 12 gauge shotgun shooting rubber balls and used a grenade launcher that shot a blunt rubber object, officials said.
While guards were putting down the fight, detainees in nearby cells began rioting, destroying cameras used to monitor them, fans, florescent lights and other property, officials said. …
“The detainees had slickened the floor of their block with feces, urine and soapy water in an attempt to trip the guards. They then assaulted the guards with broken light fixtures, fan blades and bits of metal,” said Navy Rear Adm. Harry Harris, who commands the Guantanamo facility.
The clash took place in Camp Four, a medium-security facility with communal living arrangements, Harris said.
I wonder how other nations would deal with men like this. We know Germany’s model, the Hague’s, and on the other extreme, Saudi Arabia’s. I can’t for the life of me see what unites those nations other than all would do things quite differently than the United States. By failing to even recognize and apply a consistent set of international standards, the U.N. is setting back, rather than advancing, the important goal of elevating human rights standards internationally.
The one legitimate criticism I’ve seen raised is that we ought to be bringing these people to tribunals promptly (followed, where justified, by sentences to death by hanging).