The War of Lists: U.S. vs. Russia

Dear Mr. President,
My mother always said that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Who the heck decided to make public a list of 18 Russian human rights violators while turning a blind eye to America’s? What self-righteous hypocrisy! What about the perpetrators of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or the drone attacks, extra-judicial assassinations and indefinite detentions? Of course Russia came right back with a list of their own. Among the violators on their list are Addington and Yoo, architects of torture, and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller and Rear Admiral Jeffrey Harbeson, commanders of Guantanamo. I was disappointed though, that the Russians didn’t include top dog perps like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz, but people at the top are rarely held accountable (“looking forward, not backward”) unless they’re from a country that can’t defend itself—like chickens in a barnyard picking on the weakest one. You don’t have to look far for an example of an American human rights violation: Guantanamo is an ongoing atrocity and in the news today. Remember your vow to close it? You campaigned on that in 2008 but after resistance from the warhawks in Congress you threw in the towel, shut down the office tasked with closing it and left 166 men, more than half of them cleared for release years ago, in a purgatory of indefinite detention without legal recourse. That’s a violation of human rights, Mr. President, and between your abandonment of them and the recent reign of terror instituted by the new guy in charge of the Marine guard, Maj. Geoffrey Cameron, at least 130 of the 166 prisoners have resorted to the only recourse they have left, a hunger strike. Some have been force-fed, a painful procedure the UN classifies as torture, and in spite of the military’s efforts to hide what’s going on, reports have trickled out that the thermostats have been turned down to intense cold, that prisoners are put on dog leashes when moved from place to place, that photographs and personal items have been confiscated, and yesterday, guards used modified shotgun shells with rubber pellets and bean bag projectiles against prisoners with broom and mop handles resisting their being moved to isolated cells, all in an effort to break the strike. These are all violations of human rights and you have done nothing to stop it. You have abandoned and betrayed these 166 men, you have abandoned and betrayed justice. One more blot on your long list of human rights violations.