A Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly report on US rendition practices is putting the Bush administration on the defensive.
The council's report, released June 7, examines US efforts to counter radical Islamic terrorism, specifically the use of the Guantanamo military base as a prison camp for suspected extremists, as well as the widespread use of renditions in order to gain added insight into the global Islamic militant network.
The main author of the report, Dick Marty, takes the Bush administration to task for creating a new legal doctrine to justify dubious American practices, writing: "This legal approach is utterly alien to the European tradition and sensibility, and is clearly contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." The Guantanamo facility, Marty alleged, was operating outside the recognized bounds of international law and the Geneva Convention governing the treatment of POWs.
"These people [Guantanamo detainees] have been arrested in unknown circumstances, handed over by foreign authorities without any extradition procedure being followed, or illegally abducted in various countries by United States special services," the report states. "They are considered enemy combatants, according to a new definition introduced by the American administration." In implementing the new legal doctrine, the United States has sanctioned the widespread use of torture, "disappearances" and arbitrary detention in order to obtain information, the report says. "The absence of human rights guarantees and the introduction of "enhanced interrogation techniques" have led ... to detainees being subjected to torture," it states.
The report goes on to suggest that the Bush administration's use of allegedly unsound means to confront the Islamic terrorist threat may cause the United States to lose its moral authority as an advocate of democratic values, and thus may be eroding US national security rather than enhancing it.
"This is a sharp reminder of the great democratic tradition of the United States and its exemplary commitment to human rights. The United States is, and remains, a deeply democratic country. Indeed, criticisms of some of the current administration's decisions also reflect a concern that a country which unquestionably serves as an example to the rest of the world is committing what we consider to be mistakes that not only violate fundamental principles, but also constitute a counterproductive anti-terrorism strategy," the report asserts.
US officials have sought to dismiss the report, saying that it contains no hard facts about alleged US abuses. "We're certainly disappointed in the tone and the content of it [the report]," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told journalists June 7. "There seems to be this sort of tone in the report ... that there is something inherently bad or illegal about intelligence activities. It couldn't be further from the truth." McCormack went on to hint that the report may be exaggerating the extent of the CIA's rendition program. "There are many, many US Government flights every single day around the world that involve a whole variety of different purposes from transporting US Government employees around the world to other things. So there's nothing inherently sinister about any of these activities."
Meanwhile, human rights groups lauded the report. "Amnesty International continues to urge [the US] Congress to establish an independent commission to fully investigate the US government's use of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in the
Editor's note:
Havilah Hoffman is an editorial assistant for EurasiaNet in New York.
