The Bush administration is desperately
trying to keep the full story from emerging. But there is no longer any
doubt that prisoners seized by the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan and
elsewhere have been killed, tortured, sexually humiliated and otherwise
grotesquely abused. These atrocities have been carried out in an
atmosphere in which administration officials have routinely behaved as
though they were above the law, and thus accountable to no one. People
have been rounded up, stripped, shackled, beaten, incarcerated and in
some cases killed, without being offered even the semblance of due
process. No charges. No lawyers. No appeals. Arkan Mohammed Ali is a
26-year-old Iraqi who was detained by the U.S. military for nearly a
year at various locations, including the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.
According to a lawsuit filed against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
Mr. Ali was at times beaten into unconsciousness during interrogations.
He was stabbed, shocked with an electrical device, urinated on and kept
locked - hooded and naked - in a wooden, coffinlike box. He said he was
told by his captors that soldiers could kill detainees with impunity...
The primary aim of the lawsuit is quite simply to re-establish the rule
of law. "It's that fundamental idea that nobody is above the law," said
Michael Posner, executive director of Human Rights First. "The
violations here were created by policies that deliberately undermined
the rule of law. That needs to be challenged." [more]
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