Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Making Guantanamo look good...

According to the AP, the UN's special expert on torture is examining allegations that the U.S. is maintaining "undeclared holding areas", possibly including navy ships in international waters.

If there's anything at all to this story, it's the most frightening human-rights news to come out of Bush's reign - and that takes some doing. While Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib were nothing short of appalling, and extraordinary rendering as a policy should never have happened, at least the results of those programs were relatively capable of monitoring.

But using navy ships which, due to their military purposes, presumably don't take kindly to surveillance and have the means to repel any attempt, while at the same time being able to move anywhere in the world at will? The only evidence available now is from people claiming to be detained on such ships, and we know how much the administration cares about the word of people it suspects (or suspected) of terrorist involvement. And barring serious leaks from within the military, there's really no way to substantiate the claim.

Of course, it's a pretty much an impossible claim to disprove too, so we'll likely never be sure whether anything has happened unless (a) it is true, and (b) someone leaks information to that effect. The best ammunition against an accusation like this would be enough credibility for the world to believe a denial. Let's just say that's not present on the facts.

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