George Bush and his gang of thugs

For the first time in almost 20 years of visits to Manhattan, I found myself developing, if not a full blown passion, then definitely a crush on the city and a renewed faith in the ingenuity and courage of New Yorkers and other Americans who are refusing to let George Bush and his gang of thugs have it all their own way.

There are a number of lawsuits pending against Donald Rumsfeld, the bullish Secretary of Defence, in charging him with responsibility for the torture, rape and murder of civilians in Abu Ghraib prison. One law suit in particular is beginning to gather publicity and momentum. It has been lodged by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Human Rights First, the latter a New York-based organisation of human rights lawyers headed by Mike Posner. Posner has a distinguished reputation in the areas of political asylum law, international justice and refugee protection. His name is know in Ireland because he has been consulted by a number of civil liberties organisations North and South in relation to policing controversies such as the Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson investigations. But the aspect of the ACLU/ Human Rights First case that is fuelling animated discussion in US political circles are the names of the other co-petitioners representing several of the detainees who were tortured. They are retired Rear Admiral John D. Hutson and Brigadier General James Cullen.

Hutson, is the former Judge Advocate General of the US Navy, a position he rose to in 1997. He is a tall, elegant man who carries himself with military bearing and who speaks slowly giving great consideration to everything he says. When discussing his reasons for so publicly opposing the Republican administration, one hears a man who is pausing not for effect, but because he is struggling to make sense of a US government that has profoundly betrayed values and ideals which he holds most dear.

At a gathering off Park Avenue, hosted by the Carnegie Foundation, Admiral Hutson and Mike Posner informed their audience of the scale of their concerns about US sanctioned torture of non-American prisoners held in the "War Against Terror". Pentagon figures admit to eleven thousand people in US detention, 108 deaths in US Defence custody and 28 criminal homicides. Posner explained that the US have over twenty secret detention facilities in Iraq, Pakistan, Jordan and Afghanistan for holding "ghost detainees". No Red Cross personnel are ever permitted access to any of these centres or the captives they hold. In addition to the secret detention centres, the policy of "rendering prisoners" to countries where torture is fully acceptable has resulted in hundreds of detainees being sent to Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait and Uzbekistan. These allied countries conduct the dirty work of torturing US detainees without US defence personnel having to get their own hands dirty.

Posner pointed out that in declaring a "global war on terror", Bush had established a new paradigm whereby in continually re-iterating that the world had never faced a threat like this before could justify "an all rules are off" approach to every element of engagement.

Hutson was especially outraged by the erosion of the chain of command within the military which allowed senior officers right up to the Commander-in- Chief, Bush and Defence Secretary Rumsfeld to eschew any accountability for the behaviour of military personnel in Abu Ghraib. Hutson warned that for the first time in many decades the US Defence Forces field manual was about to be revised and although it could benefit from revision on a number of aspects, he pointed out that it currently has at least ten sections which relate to the prohibition of maltreatment of prisoners and detainees. The strong suspicion was that the revised edition would be absent of those sections.

The audience at that meeting in New York last week included an ex-US ambassador to Ireland, a number of other retired senior military personnel including a US Marine General, several US jurists and a number of major philanthropists. The torture of human beings in their name has evidently offended more than just left wing America, it has incensed those who hold privilege. In his closing remarks, Rear Admiral John Hutson quoted Thomas Jefferson and in doing so spoke for many in his audience: "I tremble for my country when I recall that God is just."