Sijn Abu and The Geneva Convention.
George W. Bush’s rhetoric on his ‘commitment to worldwide elimination of torture and leading the fight by example’ is both absurd and quite apart – by a very long chalk – from the sadistic and inhumane treatment of prisoners by his very own soldiers. A Gallup conducted by CNN/USA Today poll, reported 45% of United States citizens were willing to “torture known terrorists if they knew details about future terrorist attacks in the United States (6 November 2001). Would this poll suggest that 45% of American citizens approving the human suffering depicted in the photographs below? The photographs do however confirm the reputation of those in centre of power considering themselves exempt from observing international laws. This is quite apart from US’s citizens by a very long chalk.
Photographs above, GNU Free Documentation License. NA/PHOTOS Photo source: undisclosed Location: Outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq Caption: Detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison lay naked and bound to each other on the walkway in front of other detainees in these undated photo.
The pictorial accounts below, evidently need no narrative, except expressing an all time low of the foreign policy of the United States. The ‘Day of Infamy’ speech, i.e.,”a day which will live in infamy”, delivered by Pressident D. Roosevelt to the Senate and House of Representatives (8 December, 1941); could arguably apply to the endemic atrocious acts of physical, psychological, rape, torture, sodomy, sexual humiliation, and killing of prisoners, in the US’s prison systems, viz., Sijn Abu Ghuraib, 20-miles west of Bagdãd, in al-ʿIrāq.
The ultimate responsibility for these breaches of the Geneva Convention (Arts. 3, 13, 14, and 17) lies with George W. Bush, the then President and Commander-in-chief of the Army (Articles II, sec. 2, ls. 409-11. ‘Constitution of The United States of America’ 17 September, 1787.), and in such capacity would have had the events in the prisons under his watch, for which he was ultimately responsible. The images above bear testimony to a despotic head of state – it is said that the ‘fish rots from the head down’ – who in earlier times were indicted, with accomplices, to stand trial at The International Criminal Court. These events will inevitably leave an indelible tarnish on the US’s reputation home and abroad.
