-By Warner Todd Huston
By now, we are all familiar with the specious European efforts to bring President Bush up on charges of “crimes against humanity” because of the authorized torture he and his administration supposedly instituted. Oh, the Euros are in high dudgeon over their assumed sense of moral superiority in their claims against the evil, evil America. Despite the rapidly improving situation in Iraq, the calls to throw our national leaders into some Euroweenie calaboose have surged unabated. Yet, as these same hypocrites have been funding a supporting torture (not to mention financing the exportation of terrorism) for decades and now there is another report that points this little hypocritical fact out for all the world to see.
On July 29, The Guardian newspaper reported that two “leading human rights groups” are reporting that the Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah routinely capture and torture members of each others organizations as well as Palestinians not known to be affiliated with any group.
Al-Haq, an independent Palestinian human rights group, said yesterday that more than 1,000 people have been detained by each side within the past year. An estimated 20%-30% of the detainees suffered torture, including severe beatings and being tied up in painful positions, said Al-Haq director Shawan Jabarin, citing sworn statements from 150 detainees. It said mistreatment had led to three deaths in Gaza and one in the West Bank.
Another human right group, Human Rights Watch, concurs that torture “is dramatically up.”
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch makes similar allegations in a 113-page report due out tomorrow. “The use of torture is dramatically up,” said Fred Abrahams, a senior researcher for the group. The report found detainees in Gaza were held for shorter periods than those in the West Bank but the abuse was more intense.
And what is the response to this torture by the vaunted “international community”? They want to throw money at the Palestinians.
“The international community has pledged $8bn [£4bn] to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and that gives them a heavy responsibility to make sure the security forces don’t use torture and respect human rights,” said Abrahams.
And what about the Brits? Those ninnies that are so sure that George W. Bush is a “criminal.” They are following suit with the rest of the hypocrites by throwing money at the problem. “Gordon Brown announced a multimillion-pound increase in aid to the PA security forces during his visit to the region last week. The bulk of Britain’s aid goes to the Palestinian civil police and the Presidential Guard…”
Now, let us look at a “report” from the same paper, the Guardian, from July 18 of this year penned by John McQuaid. “The evidence is mounting that top US officials – including President George Bush, vice-president Dick Cheney and former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld – committed war crimes by authorising the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” – ie torture,” McQuaid asserted then. His prescription is for “Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld” should face an “indictment from abroad” like former Chilean strongman Agusto Pinochet did.
Yes, the self-proclaimed “more civilized” International community is all about sending Bushhitler to jail with all their self-righteousness they can muster. Yet, the claim of torture against American officials is thin if not utterly unproven. On the other hand, the torture and abuse that Palestinians are suffering at each other’s hands is not vague or unproven. Worse, it is fully accepted as fact by those very same hypocrites after President Bush.
So, where are these international busy bodies clucking their tongues at America while their tax money from their OWN governments is going to fund this very torture and abuse?
Where are the calls to bring Gordon Brown up on charges of torture? After all, he is funding it. Where are calls to bring the French and Germans up on charges of “crimes against humanity”? They are sending billions of dollars to the Palestinians and that money is being used to buy weapons, pay associates all of which and who are going to employ torture, provable, known torture.
But, all this goes to prove one point. The Europeans don’t care about torture. Their only interest is in heaping hate and opprobrium on the U.S.A. That is all they care about. The rest is only a tool to be used to attack America.
Hypocrites one and all.
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston