Light reading for the coffee table
In the newly-released Administration of Torture, ACLU attorneys Amrit Singh (scion of Manmohan) and Jameel Jaffer show that the U.S. tortures widely — not just a couple of bad apples at Abu Ghraib, but rather widespread prisoner abuse in Guantánamo, Afghanistan and Iraq.
… the documents reveal that senior officials endorsed the abuse of prisoners as a matter of policy — sometimes by tolerating it, sometimes by encouraging it, and sometimes by expressly authorizing it… [ACLU]
The ACLU also found that an Army investigator reported Rumsfeld was “personally involved” in overseeing the interrogation of a Guantanamo prisoner Mohammed al Qahtani. The prisoner was forced to parade naked in front of female interrogators wearing women’s underwear on his head and was led around on a leash while being forced to perform dog tricks. [Leftist site]
I’m trying to imagine Jenna Bush travelling to Assam and indicting the Indian government’s treatment of separatists. And I’m failing miserably.
Here’s an NPR interview with Singh about the issues raised in the book. Here’s Singh discussing the torture photos from Abu Ghraib (NSFW, at 1:05).
Singh is a graduate of Cambridge University, Oxford University, and Yale Law School… Jaffer is a graduate of Williams College, Cambridge University, and Harvard Law School. [Link]
Jaffer was born in a small town in the Ontario province of Canada and went to Williams College, where he majored in math and English. He worked as an investment banker for Lehman Brothers, attended Cambridge University and then… Harvard Law School…
… Jaffer landed an associate job… doing corporate work and some pro bono work for the ACLU. Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks the ACLU was trying to get a handle on what the Bush administration was doing in terms of homeland security…
“I found the work so compelling that when jobs starting coming up [at the ACLU], I took one” … Jaffer and ACLU attorney Amrit Singh [argued[ ACLU v. Dept. of Defense...... Jaffer's office is neat, with photographs taken by him in India and the Middle East hanging on the walls, and a squash racquet tossed in the corner. [Link]
on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007, 2:06 pm in Issues, Law, Literature, Politics › 
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True. But I also have trouble imagining Manmohan Singh’s daughter (serious kudos to her, and taking nothing away from her work and achievements) travelling to Assam or Punjab and indicting the Indian govt’s abuses there either. The Indian legal system is of course a hell of a lot more frustrating to work through and the unwanted publicity she’d have received for being who she was are probably good reasons not to do it, and perhaps it’s unfair to pick her as an example.
Yet it’s always a bit sad, to me (caveats, pragmatism, global citizenship and all else considered), when we Indians unleash our moral energies elsewhere and not to do some soul-searching and work for change in our own country (and here I speak for those who are born and brought up in India and move elsewhere later; I do, of course, expect those of Indian parentage in the US to work as US citizens).
A connected issue that always bothers me is the way in which many Indians voice morally outrage about Guantanamo and yet we put up with abuses that are as bad or worse for our own terrorism detainees.
What a specious reasoning!!
Plus - why would one want to compare US standing with India? - has US stooped that low?
Its like - I smell shit all the time - but some one else eats it., So I am better off.
Even if Jenna, whose family I despise, did travel to India to highlight abuses, the Manmohan-Sonia government, unlike the Americans, would be summoning Mulford and make allusions to how they couldn’t “guarantee her safety”…and how….”this is for jenna betis own good”..etc
ps, i too wonder, whether ms.singh has looked or will ever look into her father’s machinery, which is crushing innocents in kashmir and elsewhere.
Arent these international human rights organizations and moral police supposed to keep track of how prisoners should be treated ?Arent there general guidelines as to how to humanly interrogate prisoners? it is a sad state of affairs..