UN Blasts White House on Waterboarding

AP via SFGate ^ | 2/6/8 | BRADLEY S. KLAPPER, Associated Press Writer

[SmithL]

GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- The United Nations' torture investigator criticized the White House Wednesday for defending the use of waterboarding and urged the U.S. to give up its defense of "unjustifiable" interrogation methods.

The comments from Manfred Nowak, the U.N.'s special rapporteur on torture, came a day after the Bush administration acknowledged publicly for the first time that waterboarding was used by U.S. government questioners on three terror suspects.

Testifying before Congress, CIA Director Michael Hayden said the suspects were waterboarded in 2002 and 2003.

"This is absolutely unacceptable under international human rights law," Nowak said. "Time has come that the government will actually acknowledge that they did something wrong and not continue trying to justify what is unjustifiable."

The White House on Wednesday defended the use of waterboarding, saying it is legal — not torture as critics argue — and has saved American lives.

[NEMDF]

I suppose if we would just burn their bodies and hang them from a bridge somewhere it would be okay, though.

[Digital Sniper]

Okay, okay...no more waterboarding.

I propose we force-feed ice cream to the terrorists. If brain freeze won't work, nothing will.

[MNJohnnie]

Can we bomb them yet?

[Dilbert San Diego]

Did the U.N. ever condemn the tactics of hijacking airliners and using them to crash into buildings?

[Digital Sniper]

I suppose if we would just burn their bodies and hang them from a bridge somewhere it would be okay, though.

Only if you're an Islamist chanting "death to America"!

[K-oneTexas]

Maybe AQ is the private military force of the UN. So we must treat them right. Remember the UN wants tax dollars out of all member nations, majority from USA, to stand up and deploy their own force.

[JDickeson75]

I can tell you this much, a little water up the nose is allot better then what I would do.

[Brian S. Fitzgerald]

Where does McCaine lie on waterboarding?

[gitmogrunt]

http://groundzero.nyc.ny.us/photos/

[boomop1]

But they will rape women and children in the Congo and elswhere.

[Tut]

Maybe the U.N. can critisize when they stop raping little girls they were suppose to protect.

[bikerman]

Whine and snivel maybe we should just behead like they do.

[RightWhale]

UN has a lot to worry about, but they should be aware we haven’t waterboarded anybody this week. It’s not like it’s an everyday thing.

[muawiyah]

Waterboarding is still not torture, but the UN is bellyaching about 3 guys in 200 years?

They beat that many Philippino housekeepers to death in Saudi on an average day ~ and the rest of those places are evern worse.

[JoanVarga]

We'll comply with the UN's Human Rights Commission when its own members do.

-Joan

[pennboricua]

UN get the hell out of my country and take John Maccain with you!

[Tut]

I was thinking about this story.

The U.N. Sex Scandal

LAST MONTH A CLASSIFIED UNITED Nations report prompted Secretary General Kofi Annan to admit that U.N. peacekeepers and staff have sexually abused or exploited war refugees in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The worst of the 150 or so allegations of misconduct--some of them captured on videotape--include pedophilia, rape, and prostitution. While a U.N. investigation into the scandal continues, the organization has just suspended two more peacekeepers in neighboring Burundi over similar charges. The revelations come three years after another U.N. report found "widespread" evidence of sexual abuse of West African refugees.

"The issue with the U.N. is that peacekeeping operations unfortunately seem to be doing the same thing that other militaries do," Gita Sahgal of Amnesty International told the Christian Science Monitor. "Even the guardians have to be guarded." That's not far off the mark. Various U.N. reports and interviews with humanitarian groups suggest that international peacekeeping missions are creating a predatory sexual culture among vulnerable refugees--from relief workers who demand sexual favors in exchange for food to U.N. troops who rape women at gunpoint.

Allegations of sexual abuse or misconduct by U.N. staff stretch back at least a decade, to operations in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea. A 2001 report, released by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Save the Children, found that sexual violence against refugees in West Africa was endemic (though some of its findings were denied by a subsequent U.N. team). A year later a coalition of religious organizations sent a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell urging the United States to send more human rights monitors into Congo. The U.N. then introduced a "code of conduct" to help prevent future abuses, including prohibitions against sexual activity between staff and children and the exchange of money or food for sex.

It now appears, however, that little has changed on the ground. The U.N. Mission in Congo (MONUC) employs about 10,800 peacekeepers from 50 countries, in addition to many civilian staff. Yet there is no independent oversight of U.N. operations in its refugee camps. For that matter, none of the international agencies in the country has U.N. authority to protect the civil rights of internal refugees. Almost a year after the MONUC office in Kindu sent a memo in August 2003 to its headquarters in Kinshasa, detailing suspicions of sexual exploitation, the London Independent discovered action still hadn't been taken.

"We recognize that sexual exploitation and abuse is a problem in some missions," said Jane Holl Lute, a U.N. assistant secretary general, at a recent press conference. "It's obvious that the measures we've had in place have not been adequate." Relief organizations and human rights groups agree, describing as "urgent" the need to protect young girls from U.N. militia and staff. As Patrick Barbier, of Doctors Without Borders, told one newspaper: "It is clear that the necessary steps to protect the displaced population from violence and sexual exploitation have not been followed."

the rest of the story here ---> http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/081zxelz.asp

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

I, Dr. Bogus Q. Pachysandra, declare a fatwa on the UN, for just being the UN!

[ElectricStrawberry]

Kick ‘em off of U.S. soil.