Thanks for the link, Debbie Downer.
:(
There is a book to be written about how the Bush admin gutted any sense of international human rights laws being anything except a weapon for the west to use against the 3rd world.
Rudy Giuliani recently said that there are no rules in war. I think this is the new Republican position.
If you want to feel better, join me in supporting the Center for Constitutional Rights. Every time I get their newsletter I'm happy to read about their wins and grateful they're out there fighting the long, long, long good fight.
The NY Times story on this Saturday (one of a series) was very good: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/world/cia-torture-guantanamo-bay.html?_r=0
I think it's probably not a coincidence that Hawsawi is finally getting the surgery the week that piece runs--his lawyers & human rights groups had been trying unsuccessfully for months. Here's something I wrote along similar lines: https://www.justsecurity.org/31762/medical-complicity-cia-torture/
Trumpists will support a hell of a lot more horrible things than what Trump has proposed
This is underappreciated, I think. Look at how Trump apologized for bragging about sexual assault. Really, he's just another politically correct politician -- a TINO, tyrant in name only.
Let it not be forgotten that Obama is as guilty as anyone of covering up the atrocities.
Read the comments to the article linked in the OP. Not surprising, but depressing.
The war crimes are absolutely terrible. If it's any consolation, this:
Since then, he said, he has had "to manually reinsert parts of his anal cavity" to defecate.
is a really common symptom of pregnancy-level hemorrhoids that tons of people deal with for the rest of their lives. It shouldn't carry the shock-value that you might think it does.
next in that NY Times series http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/world/cia-torture-abuses-detainee.html
11: I'm going to instead say that it should carry shock value, and that we should correspondingly be more terrified of childbirth.
Isn't 11 typically brought up when pointing out that forcing people to give birth against their will is a comparable human rights violation? Which it is, although it's a hell of a lot more (creepily) normalized than torture, even in today's world.
A long time ago here, in some abortion-rights conversation, I brought up that it makes sense to conceptualize the right to abortion as a right to self-defense; it's not as if a fetus makes use of your body for nine months and then returns it undamaged, there are permanent consequences that are in a reasonable number of cases significant injuries. This got more pushback than I expected.
15: I need another reason to feel guilty about my mother?
When was the last time you called?
The same outcome can be differently shocking depending on whether you chose it or whether it was forced on you. If you choose to get someone's name tattooed on you, that's one thing - if they tattoo you against your will it's another. The difference is particularly important when the process is painful and the outcome gross.
I remember it being mentioned, even officially stated, that everyone they flew in or out of Guantanamo or other camps was routinely given an enema, but no reason for this (or contents) was ever given and I for one always assumed it was deliberate medical abuse. And people thought I was some kind of crazy extremist.