•Written by William T. Dowell• ••Monday•, 16 •February• 2009 14:48•
Hardly anyone questions that the administration of former President George W. Bush stretched the definition of the law in his post 9/11 war against terror. The policy shift was aptly expressed by former vice-president Dick Cheney when he announced in the words of Darth Vader that the administration was “going to explore the dark side.” A 213-page report entitled “Assessing Damage, Urging Action,” which has just been released by the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists, goes beyond the effect that former Bush administration policies had on US law and examines their impact on the rule of law in the rest of the world (the report is available on line at www.icj.org). An 8-member panel of respected jurists, headed by former Irish president, Mary Robinson, studied the impact of the war against terror on some 40 countries.
The report’s theme is that the former administration’s eagerness to circumvent human rights has set the tone for much of the rest of the world. Just as the lack of regulation of the US financial markets triggered a global financial meltdown, the former administration’s readiness to overlook laws intended to protect its own citizens has encouraged other countries to ignore or water down their own citizen’s legal protections.
In short, when the USA sneezes, the rest of the world does indeed catch cold.
The report’s conclusion is that the damage has been considerable. Not only have repressive dictatorships used Washington’s reasoning to justify their own repression, but liberal democracies have also joined in rolling back legal protection of the individual. In the process, many of the anti-terror tactics have been hastily adopted without paying proper attention to the historical record of other anti-terrorism campaigns, particularly in places like Latin America, where ham-handed police tactics, including torture, detention with out due process and assassination, often produced disastrous results.
It is a military axiom that terrorism relies on the target taking defensive actions which will ultimately cause more damage to the victim than the terrorist act itself. The report suggests that that may have been the ultimate effect of the so-called war on terror.
Instead of defeating terrorism, which the report acknowledges is a real threat, the report contends that the former administration’s erroneous policies have actually created the conditions for expanding terrorism.
While the new administration of Barack Obama may feel tempted to overlook past excesses in order to reunite the country after the political divisiveness of the last eight years, the report stresses that it is critically important now to make a reassessment now of where the world stands on human rights and the rule of law. The erroneous legal arguments created by the war on terror need to be clearly identified and rejected before they become established precedents that can be used to justify future abuses.
The jurists’ report is being presented in London today(February 17) and will be the subject of a presentation in Washington, DC, on February 27.
Set as favorite
Bookmark
Email this
Comments (0)
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Write comment
