News stories worth sharing....

I'm still waiting to see what happens in the Jennifer Bier situation this morning. She is the Colorado Rape Counselor who the military issued an arrest warrant for on Friday. Her crime? Refusing to turn over confidential records of a rape victim so the defense could fish thru it to see if there was anything they could use to help Lieutenant Harding who is being tried for the rape of two cadets while at the Airforce Academy. Ms. Bier's attorney was going to go to court this morning to try to have the arrest warrant dropped. As I learn more I'll update.

There's been alot of talk about the US denying abuse of detainees in both Afghanistan and Gitmo, on that note, it's obvious if you report abuse you can pretty much kiss your job good bye.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Two years ago the commission asked UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to appoint an independent expert to develop a program to advise Afghanistan on human rights "and to seek and receive information about and report on the human rights situation in Afghanistan in an effort to prevent human rights violations."

Then came a one-year delay; evidently it was difficult to find an expert acceptable to the Americans, whose 18,000 troops remain the real power in Afghanistan. Finally, Annan selected DePaul law professor M. Cherif Bassiouni, who holds American and Egyptian citizenship. But Bassiouni's passport was not enough to shield him from Washington's pique.

During his 1-year term, Bassiouni traveled to Afghanistan twice, reviewed voluminous documents, and met with Afghan and international human-rights groups, officials of governments and UN agencies, and alleged victims.

He delivered two extensive reports, one to the UN General Assembly in October and a second to the commission this March. Both were sharply critical of the human-rights situation in Afghanistan--including alleged violations by U.S. forces, such as arbitrary arrests, unlawful detentions, and torture and murder of prisoners.

In April the commission held its annual meeting in Geneva. A consensus statement for the commission embraced, in general terms, most of Bassiouni's findings and recommendations.

But the statement omitted any mention of U.S. violations.

And the commission--reportedly under pressure from the U.S. ambassador in Geneva--decided it no longer needed an independent expert to monitor human rights in Afghanistan. Not only was Bassiouni in effect fired, but no one replaced him.

In addition, unlike the UN, an Afghan commission has no jurisdiction to investigate violations committed by U.S. military forces. Visiting Washington last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai pleaded with President Bush to turn over Afghan prisoners to Afghan control. He was rebuffed.

And there lies the real explanation for Bassiouni's firing: his reporting of alleged abuses by U.S. forces (which he diplomatically calls "coalition" forces, even though they are nearly all Americans).

Coalition forces, he says, should be role models for the Afghans. When they instead run roughshod over human rights, they "create a dangerous and negative political environment that threatens the success of the peace process and overall national reconstruction."

Reports of serious violations by coalition forces include "forced entry into homes, arrest and detention . . . without legal authority or judicial review . . . forced nudity, hooding and sensory deprivation, sleep and food deprivation, forced squatting and standing for long periods of time in stress positions, sexual abuse, beatings, torture, and use of force resulting in death."

These allegations are difficult to confirm, Bassiouni admits, because the U.S. refused his requests to inspect military prisons, holds prisoners in field installations not visited by the Red Cross, and has classified last year's internal Pentagon investigation by Brig. Gen. Charles Jacoby.

But enough internal Pentagon reports have been leaked to the media to substantiate key allegations, and in October, an Army task force found probable cause to indict at least 27 guards and interrogators. To date, only seven have been charged, and none tried--for crimes involving deaths of prisoners more than 2 1/2 years ago.

In Bassiouni's words, "[T]he Coalition forces' practice of placing themselves above and beyond the reach of the law must come to an end."

There is more at the link, and I've written in the past of some of the abuse mentioned by the CIC. To continue to pretend that abuse has not happened only increases the speculation that this is not random soldiers not following orders but something much more disturbing. The military needs to act now, before the speculation leads to even more anti-american feeling in the Middle East.