World Suffers When U.S. Makes War

• Rights group says Israel, United States worst abusers of human beings on the planet.

By Paul Craig Roberts —

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has just released its report, “Extreme Measures: Abuses Against Children Detained as National Security Threats.” From my reading of the report, Israel and the United States are the two worst abusers. Boko Haram is a distant third.

Which country is the worst abuser, Israel or the U.S.? Taking into account that the U.S. is responsible for the violence in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria that has resulted in torture and detention, if we include these victims in the American total, then the U.S. is the No. 1 torturer of children. As it is unlikely that Israel could get away with abuse of Palestinian children without D.C.’s support, we can add Israel’s abuses to Washington’s total.

Guantanamo Bay is a great distance away from Washington’s wars against Muslims in Afghanistan, North Africa, and the Middle East. Yet even at Guantanamo, where the only violence is the violence that the U.S. military inflicts on detainees, the U.S. government tortured children, according to the Human Rights Watch report.

What kind of military tortures children? The only answer that I can come up with is a military that has no self-respect.

What kind of U.S. government would pay two U.S. psychologists $81 million to help the Central Intelligence Agency devise torture techniques?

Only a lawless government with no respect for U.S. law and international law.

Think back to the torture memos written by Department of Justice officials John Choon Yoo and Jay Scott Bybee. These memos justifying the U.S. government’s torture of detainees despite the prohibition of torture by both U.S. statutory law and international law to which the U.S. is a signatory have been denounced by civil libertarians as the work of legal incompetents or criminals or both. Yet Yoo is a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, and for his service to the White House torturers Bybee was appointed a federal judge to the second highest court. If Hillary Clinton becomes president, Bybee and Yoo could end up on the Supreme Court.

The positions held by Yoo and Bybee tell the world all that is needed to know that the U.S. is a lawless entity and that this lawlessness is accepted by America’s legal, political, and educational institutions and by the American people.

Do you remember the 775 Guantanamo detainees described by the secretary of defense and the vice president as the most dangerous, most violent men on Earth? We will never know how many of these detainees were tortured in an effort to elicit a confession in support of the government’s unfounded claims, but nine of them died in custody.

We do know that despite torture and the assurances from the highest officials that the detainees were dangerous and violent, as of July 12, 90% of the detainees have been released without charges. Only 76 remain, and apparently there is no evidence that can be used to charge them. Apparently, they are being held only in order to save the U.S. government from being 100% wrong. Being 90% wrong is close enough for government work.

Do you remember those photos of the torture of the Abu Ghraib prisoners? As horrifying as the photos are, they are the mild part. Other photos were not released. The photos reveal more than torture. The photos reveal the extreme  pleasure that the U.S. soldiers got from torturing the prisoners. They were having the time of their lives abusing other humans.

The Abu Ghraib photos required silencing. Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the senior American commander in Iraq, appointed Major General Antonio Taguba to compile a report based on an investigation of the torture. All Taguba had to do was to explain away the torture and be promoted from two-star to three-star general.

If that is what Sanchez intended, he chose the wrong man. Taguba filed an honest report:

That between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility (BCCF), numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force (372nd Military Police Company, 320th Military Police Battalion, 800th MP Brigade), in Tier (section) 1-A of the Abu Ghraib Prison (BCCF). The allegations of abuse were substantiated by detailed witness statements (ANNEX 26) and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence. . . . In addition to the aforementioned crimes, there were also abuses committed by members of the 325th MI Battalion, 205th MI Brigade, and Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center (JIDC).

Instead of becoming a three-star general with lucrative consulting opportunities and board memberships at the end of his military career, Taguba was sent into retirement.

In the past 15 years, the U.S. “beacon of hope” has destroyed in whole or part seven countries—Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, and Syria. The beacon of hope has overthrown representative governments in Honduras, Ukraine, Egypt, Argentina, and Brazil, installing in their place crooks, and is working hard to overthrow the elected governments in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. The extraordinary range of death and suffering for which “the beacon of hope” is responsible is unprecedented.

As if this is not enough, “the beacon of hope” is now recklessly and irresponsibly threatening two nuclear powers—Russia and China—with military encirclement justified with the most blatant and transparent lies. We hear the propaganda 24-7. Is it hopeful to convince two nuclear powers that the U.S. is preparing to attack?

Emigrate While You Still Can! Learn More . . .

It is Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, who says he doesn’t want conflict with Russia and sees little point to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Yet, the “liberal” media doesn’t miss an opportunity to demonize Trump, just as the presstitutes demonize the peace-seeker, Vladimir Putin.

The presstitutes are screaming: “Give us Hillary and more war!” Feminists want Hillary for war on the glass ceiling. The neoconservatives want Hillary in order for them to achieve their ideology of world hegemony. The military-security complex and Wall Street want Hillary for profits.

Why is it Trump, the candidate who says he wants to avoid dangerous conflict with nuclear powers, who is being demonized?

Paul Craig Roberts was assistant secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of The Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for BusinessWeek, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are How AMERICA Was LOST: From 9/11 to the Police/Warfare State and The NEOCONSERVATIVE THREAT to WORLD ORDER: Washington’s Perilous War for Hegemony.