Science Talk

Akneigh Wombuster · Guest

As your White House war criminal confronts deserved protest riots in
South America, CHINA issues clear criticism of our ruined nation's
HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD. (It's reported that the numerous Bush masks and
effigies are better-looking than your actual "president.")

Cowering in a TV studio in Sao Paolo, Bush intimated that he didn't
give a crap about the massive protests against him and his
administration's craven foreign policy and its perceived abandonment
of Latin America during the Iraq War.

"It happens quite frequently when I travel around the world," Bush
stammered, according to The Washington Post [Mar. 9, A14].

"I understand people's concern about war. Nobody likes war. But I've
had to make the decisions I've made in order to not only secure our
people but to deal with threats and to help people be free."

No word today from the Iraqis and Afghans on whether they're enjoying
being free, or even whether or not they dislike war.

And the tens of thousands of protesters Bush is seeing and will
encounter during his 6-day trip through Latin America seem to be
speaking volumes about whether being "secure" somehow also vaguely
includes "people" in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico.

But China, flexing its military and economic muscle, obviously has no
qualms about heaping scorn upon Bush and his "United" States and the
mess America has made of itself the past six years under its happy
war criminal.

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"Beijing Hits Back at U.S. for Raising Rights Concerns"

"In Rebuttal of State Dept. Report, China Points to Iraq, Guantanamo
Abuse Cases"

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, March 9, 2007; A16

BEIJING, March 8 -- Responding to U.S. complaints, China charged
Thursday that the Bush administration has no standing to criticize
other countries on human rights because its own record is full of
blemishes at home and abroad.

The Chinese accusation, in a retort to the State Department's annual
human rights report issued Tuesday, called particular attention to
what it said were abuses committed by U.S. soldiers and intelligence
agents in Afghanistan and Iraq and at the prison at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba.

The Chinese also underlined what they described as increased
willingness by Washington to spy on its own citizens by monitoring
telephone calls, computer connections and travels.

"As in previous years, the State Department pointed the finger at
human rights conditions in more than 190 countries and regions,
including China, but avoided touching on the human rights situation in
the United States," the government said in a report issued by Premier
Wen Jiabao's office.

"We urge the U.S. government to acknowledge its own human rights
problems and stop interfering in other countries' internal affairs
under the pretext of human rights."

The Chinese response to U.S. human rights concerns has become a
fixture over the last eight years. In the first years, it centered on
Beijing's contention that human rights should be defined to include
social and economic improvements, such as health care and education,
where the Chinese government can point to rapid progress. These
arguments were raised again this year, with charges that racial
minorities, women and children suffer disadvantages in the United
States.

But more recently, the tone of the response has sharpened to reflect
increasing reports of U.S. abuses against foreigners suspected of
connections to terrorism. These include accusations of kidnapping,
torture and imprisonment without legal recourse -- the same abuses
often raised by the United States with Chinese authorities.

The latest U.S. official to raise human rights concerns in Beijing was
Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte, who visited here over
the weekend. In his last job, as President Bush's intelligence
coordinator, Negroponte oversaw the Central Intelligence Agency, whose
employees are heavily involved in the detentions and interrogations
that have come under sharp criticism from human rights organizations.

The Chinese government raised similar criticisms in its report.

"The United States has a flagrant record of violating the Geneva
Convention in systematically abusing prisoners during the Iraqi War
and the War in Afghanistan," it said, adding later: "A Human Rights
Watch report in July 2006 said torture and other abuses against
detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq were authorized and routine."

The Chinese statement was based largely on reports from U.S.
newspapers and international human rights organizations. But it made
clear that the United Nations was the source of particular criticism
of a new U.S. law, the U.S. Military Commissions Act, which governs
how much force may by used in interrogating terrorism suspects.

The Chinese noted that Martin Sheinin, U.N. special rapporteur on the
promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, had
earlier observed that parts of the act contradict the Geneva
Conventions, as well as the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/08/AR2007030800747.html