"You’re not saying that private security contracters who commit unlawful killings shouldn’t be prosecuted, are you?"
Your name says 'vanishing liberty', but you sound more like a vanishing troll. Better yet, just vanish.
Posted on 06/30/2008 5:42:21 PM PDT by Coffee200am
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 30 (IPS) - After a two-week fact-finding tour of U.S. prison and detention facilities, a UN human rights investigator has blasted the administration of President George W. Bush for a rash of shortcomings in the country's flawed justice system and continued violations of the rule of law.
Philip Alston, United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, addresses a press conference concerning his findings during a country-wide visit to the United States © UN / Devra BerkowitzPhilip Alston, United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, addresses a press conference concerning his findings during a country-wide visit to the United States © UN / Devra Berkowitz Unleashing a stinging barrage of attacks, Professor Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary, and arbitrary executions, singles out the existence of racism in the application of the death penalty in the United States, and the lack of transparency in the deaths of prisoners in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility housing suspected terrorists.
Alston, a professor at the New York University School of Law and an outspoken critic of human rights abuses worldwide, also complains about the non-availability of information on civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the refusal of the U.S. Justice Department to prosecute private security contractors who commit unlawful killings.
During his 14-day tour of the United States at the invitation of the administration, he met with federal and state officials, judges, and civil society groups in Alabama; New York; Texas; and Washington, DC.
Alston was particularly critical of the state of Texas, which has refused to review the cases of foreign nationals on death row, most of whom had been deprived of the right to consular assistance from their home countries.
He specifically chose to visit Alabama "because it has the highest per capita rate of executions in the United States, and Texas because it has the largest number of executions and prisoners on death row."
Still, 129 individuals waiting on death row have been exonerated across the United States since 1973, and the number continues to grow.
"Indeed, while I was in Texas, the conviction of yet another person on death row was overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeals," Alston said.
While in this case DNA testing ultimately prevented the execution of an innocent man, Alston said, others may have been less fortunate.
"In Texas, I met a range of officials and others who acknowledged that innocent people might have been executed," he said, adding the problem is that a criminal justice system with recognized flaws that the government refuses to address will always be capable of mistakes.
"When I raised this issue with federal and state government officials, I was met with indifference or flat denial," said Alston, who noted that many officials wrote off the results of studies showing racial disparity as being biased because the officials believed they were written by researchers with anti-death penalty views.
"Given what is at stake, there is a need for governments at both the state and federal levels to revisit systematically the concerns about continuing racial disparities," Alston said.
Meanwhile, to date, just six of the "enemy combatants" detained at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba have been charged with capital offences under the Military Commissions Act (MCA). They are being tried before military commissions on war crimes charges, and if convicted, face the death penalty.
According to Alston, the United States has an obligation to provide fair trials that afford all essential judicial guarantees.
"The fundamental principles of a fair trial may never be derogated from. But the text of the MCA, which provides the rules which govern the trials, and the experiences of those with whom I met during my mission involved in the trial process to date, indicate clearly that these trials utterly fail to meet the basic due process standards required for a fair trial under international humanitarian and human rights law," he added.
There have been five reported deaths of detainees at Guantanamo Bay in 2006-07. Four were classified as suicides, and one was attributed to cancer.
In the custodial environment, Alston said, a state has a heightened duty and capacity to ensure and respect the right to life. As a result, there is a rebuttable presumption of state responsibility whether through acts of commission or omission in cases of custodial death.
The state has an obligation to investigate the deaths, and publicly report on the findings and the evidence upon which the findings are based. "But the Department of Defense has provided little public information about the causes or circumstance of any of these deaths," he said.
While it has been reported that autopsies were conducted in each case, the results have not been made public or even provided to the families of the deceased men, he added.
It was also reported that the Naval Criminal Investigative Services is conducting investigations into each of the deaths. But over two years since the first deaths, no results of investigations have been released.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, where the U.S. military is considered an occupying power, Alston points to a string of human rights abuses and violations of the rule of law. He said the "troublingly opaque character of the U.S. military justice system is well illustrated by a case described to me by witnesses and investigators when I visited Afghanistan."
On Mar. 4, 2007, U.S. Marines responded to a suicide attack on their convoy, in which one soldier was wounded, by killing 19 people and wounding many others in the space of a 10-mile retreat.
"I asked the regional commander in Afghanistan what follow-up had occurred. He could not tell me and explained that his unit had just arrived in Afghanistan and that accountability for incidents involving the previous unit was its responsibility and that it had taken all the relevant files when it left the country," Alston said.
In fact, a Court of Inquiry into the incident proceeded in North Carolina. "Shortly after I returned from Afghanistan, the U.S. military released a short statement on this incident indicating that the commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Central Command had conducted a thorough review of the report of a Court of Inquiry and had determined that the soldiers had acted appropriately and in accordance with the rules of engagement and tactics, techniques, and procedures in place at the time in response to a complex attack."
Unsurprisingly, he said, this conclusive and unsubstantiated response to such a serious incident was met with dismay in Afghanistan.
"Afghans and Americans have a right to ask on what basis this conclusion was reached," Alston said. "But all of the documents produced by the Court of Inquiry have remained classified. The record of proceedings has not been released. The 12,000-page report of the Court of Inquiry including recommendations and factual findings has not been released."
The U.S. government has even disregarded the existing regulation stating that the convening authority should ensure that an executive summary of the report be made public in order to inform government officials, the legislative branch, the media, and the next of kin of the victims of the investigation's findings and recommendations.
"Whether or not the decision not to initiate courts-martial was justified, the manner in which the military justice system has operated in this case is entirely inconsistent with principles of public accountability and transparency," Alston declared.
Regarding killings by private security contractors, Alston said: "It's the (U.S.) Department of Justice's job to prosecute private security contractors who commit unlawful killings, but it has done next to nothing."
"Oy Alson! Go stick your head up a dead bear's bum, ya plonker!"
Why we allow dag's like this fella into the country, is beyond me. Total waste of time and money.
"You’re not saying that private security contracters who commit unlawful killings shouldn’t be prosecuted, are you?"
Your name says 'vanishing liberty', but you sound more like a vanishing troll. Better yet, just vanish.
While in this case DNA testing ultimately prevented the execution of an innocent man, Alston said, others may have been less fortunate.
"In Texas, I met a range of officials and others who acknowledged that innocent people might have been executed," he said, adding the problem is that a criminal justice system with recognized flaws that the government refuses to address will always be capable of mistakes.
"When I raised this issue with federal and state government officials, I was met with indifference or flat denial," said Alston, who noted that many officials wrote off the results of studies showing racial disparity as being biased because the officials believed they were written by researchers with anti-death penalty views...
I'm voting for indiffernce.
I like Ron White's explanation on the Texas death penalty.
While in this case DNA testing ultimately prevented the execution of an innocent man, Alston said, others may have been less fortunate.
"In Texas, I met a range of officials and others who acknowledged that innocent people might have been executed," he said, adding the problem is that a criminal justice system with recognized flaws that the government refuses to address will always be capable of mistakes.
"When I raised this issue with federal and state government officials, I was met with indifference or flat denial," said Alston, who noted that many officials wrote off the results of studies showing racial disparity as being biased because the officials believed they were written by researchers with anti-death penalty views...
I'm voting for indiffernce.
I like Ron White's explanation on the Texas death penalty.
Hey Phil, Phuk you.
I hear the UN likes the Zimbabwe example.
Machete first, trial later, hang the corpse.
Wow. We needed this goofball during the *Crinton administration - eh?
Any criticism from a UN nutjob is a badge of honor.
“Cool”?
IIRC, blacks are executed at a lesser rate than their murder rate would imply if there were no racism against whites.
Yes, his mind was made up from reading the leftist list that was given to him.
And yes, where are the investigations of Cuba, Sudan, North Korea, Iran, UN Peacekeepers in Africa?
UN—OUT Useless no-goods
Damned straight, and WELL said!
Because we hope he stops by Rahway State and makes a love connection with one of the Scared Straight guys.
Worldwide? Really? A UN "expert" on human rights abuses worldwide. Well, he was certainly concerned about Darfur. In 2005, he said:
The following joint statement was issued today in Geneva by 15 human rights experts: Emmanuel Akwei Addo, Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in the Sudan; Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions...(et al)..."“We are gravely concerned about the ongoing violations of human rights and humanitarian law in the Darfur region of Sudan, many of which constitute serious crimes under international law, and we call upon the international community to take effective measures to end the violations on a basis of utmost urgency. The conflict in Darfur, which Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called 'little short of hell on earth', has already taken an untold number of civilian lives and is estimated to have caused the forced internal displacement of 1.8 million persons, as well as forcing more than 200,000 persons to flee across the border to neighbouring Chad. Despite efforts by the international community to commit troops and assistance to the region, the violence continues virtually unabated in a context of wholesale impunity, and the threat of famine is looming.
The violations in Darfur have been staggering in scale and harrowing in nature. Extrajudicial executions, rape and other forms of sexual violence, torture, enforced disappearances, scorching of villages and forced displacement of civilians have taken place in a widespread and systematic manner and continue on a daily basis. "
It goes on at some length. So two years later, what does the sanctimonious Alston tell us about what happened in Darfur? I hope you're sitting down. This:
The Darfur Commission as a Model for Future Responses to Crisis Situations - PHILIP ALSTON - New York University - School of Law - Journal of International Criminal Justice, Vol. 3, Issue 3, pp. 600-607, 2005
A "model" indeed? Well, heaven knows the UN got the job done there...well, all right, people are still dying but they got some dynamite reports out of it. In one of which our boy finally comes to criticize Sudan, but not, oh, my no, not the UN:
UN Rebukes Sudan Over Human Rights Abuses in Darfur
In short, our boy is long on talk and very, very short on results. Well, no results at all, to be accurate.
So what of this investigation? It isn't just the U.S. being investigated, it is?
The 27 states that have so far [Sept, 2007] failed to agree to visits range from Security Council members, such as China, Russia and the United States, to countries like El Salvador, Kenya, Thailand, Israel, Uzbekistan and Venezuela. “The fact that 90 percent of countries identified as warranting a country visit have failed to cooperate with the system — and that the (Human Rights) Council has done nothing in response — is a major indictment of the system,” said Philip Alston, the U.N. special rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions. SOURCE
Well, that was an entire year ago and Alston did just apologize for that accusation, didn't he? Uh, no, he didn't.
Here is a perfect example of everything that is utterly wrong with the UN - a self-righteous professional poseur who cannot seem to differentiate between the massacre of half a million people in Darfur and the situation he found, or failed to be presented evidence for, in the United States. The only constant is the UN, beyond criticism itself and useful only insofar as it functions to blur the distinction between mass murder and suspect prison practice. This is not moral righteousness, it is moral failure, cowardice, incompetence, and a level of pure hypocrisy that is absoutely breathtaking.
Absolutely!
Anybody who can't laugh at a pantload like Alston desperately needs a vacation.
50 million aborted babies in America were not guilty of anything more than being an “inconvenience”.
“Your name says ‘vanishing liberty’, but you sound more like a vanishing troll. Better yet, just vanish.”
America stands for freedom and justice. It has always been a beacon of liberty for the world. This is a good thing, isn’t it? It is not patriotic to support American contractors who kill unlawfully; it is against everything America stands for. That’s why I asked the question. I’m sure you don’t feel that way.
The death penalty for the guilty is fine. The death penalty for those who are not guilty is not fine. Many found guilty of murder have been released years later when DNA tests or other evidence proved they were not guilty. It does no good for the victims when the state executes innocent people. It merely closes the file forever, leaving the actual killers free to kill some more. Is this an unreasonable point of view?
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