GWB calls latest report from Amnesty International “absurd” and pushes for John Bolton’s confirmation as US Ambassador to the UN, among other things, during a press conference. (Related piece here.)

Let’s address the torture thing first.

(from the AP piece)

Answering questions for 51 minutes in the sun-splashed Rose Garden, Bush said his policies in Iraq, Iran and North Korea were working. He denounced as “absurd” a report by the human rights group Amnesty International that compared the U.S. treatment of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to a Soviet-era gulag.

Here’s an excerpt from Human Rights Watch’s April 19th advisement regarding Guantanamo detainees…

More than three years after the first detainees were brought to Guant�namo, the U.S. government continues to detain nearly 550 people indefinitely without charge or trial and without applying the Geneva Conventions. There is growing evidence that detainees at Guant�namo have suffered torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, in violation of the conventions as well as human rights treaties that the U.S. government has ratified.

Accounts by U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents who witnessed detainee abuse�including forcing chained detainees to sit in their own excrement�have recently emerged. Former Guant�namo detainees have described the use of painful stress positions, prolonged solitary confinement, the use of military dogs to threaten detainees, threats of torture and death, and prolonged exposure to extremes of heat, cold, and noise. The International Committee of the Red Cross reportedly told the U.S. government in a confidential report that some abuses of detainees were �tantamount to torture.�

And here’s Amnesty International’s 2005 report. From the “Americas” section (emphasis mine)…

The blatant disregard for international human rights and humanitarian law in the �war on terror� continued to make a mockery of President George Bush�s claims that the USA was the global champion of human rights. Images of detainees in US custody tortured in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq shocked the world. War crimes in Iraq, and mounting evidence of the torture and ill-treatment of detainees in US custody in other countries, sent an unequivocal message to the world that human rights may be sacrificed ostensibly in the name of security.

President Bush�s refusal to apply the Geneva Conventions to those captured during the international armed conflict in Afghanistan and transferred to the US naval base at Guant�namo Bay, Cuba, was challenged by a judicial decision in November. The ruling resulted in the suspension of trials by military commission in Guant�namo, and the government immediately lodged an appeal. The US administration�s treatment of detainees in the �war on terror� continued to display a marked ambivalence to the opinion of expert bodies such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and even of its own highest judicial body. Six months after the Supreme Court ruled that the federal courts had jurisdiction over the Guant�namo detainees, none had appeared in court. Detainees reportedly considered of high intelligence value remained in secret detention in undisclosed locations. In some cases their situation amounted to �disappearance�.

Pretty messy, no? Perhaps the Bush needs to haul himself down to Guantanamo and see what’s happening with his own eyes? Maybe Dick Cheney could go with him.

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And now for John Bolton…

(from AP article)

[GWB] indirectly criticized GOP Senate leaders for the delay in Bolton’s confirmation vote, which Democrats united to force.

“I was disappointed that once again the leadership there in the Senate didn’t give him an up-or-down vote,” Bush said.

And from the Reuters piece…

He accused Senate Democrats of stalling Bolton’s nomination, rejected their demands for more documents about him…

And in this AP article…

Yale classmates of Bolton’s wrote to senators to oppose the nomination.

The 76 signers include cartoonist Garry Trudeau, who lampooned Bolton in his “Doonesbury” strip in May. Others were fellow members of the Class of 1970 who participated in a 35th reunion over the Memorial Day weekend.

“We are embarrassed and ashamed that the Bush administration has nominated someone so manifestly unsuited to represent our country at the United Nations,” the Yale classmates wrote.

“As his classmates, we do not believe that Mr. Bolton has exhibited the values of civility, light and truth which our shared institution represents.”

Bush also attended Yale and graduated in 1968.

Most Senate Democrats and at least one Republican, Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, oppose Bolton on grounds that he may have mishandled government intelligence, mistreated subordinates or misled the Senate committee reviewing his nomination. He has long been a critic of the United Nations.

Ah, but if you’re a Bushite–or if you’re Bush himself–stuff like that is golden!

Foreign Policy in Focus has a good write-up of the fella in question, as does Wikipedia. Did I mention he’s a PNAC (Project for a New American Century) signee? And that PNAC’s signees are people one would classify as “neo-conservative”?

“So what?” you may be asking.

Well, why on earth would someone want a fella whose current favourite hobby seems to be lambasting the UN as this country’s ambassador to it? Wouldn’t it make more sense to have someone as an ambassador who would like to help make it better and would want to work with the other ambassadors and all that?

On the other hand, the Centre for American Progress did have one acknowledgement for the guy…

Yet, Bolton�s hostility towards the UN, together with his considerable experience dealing with the body during his tenure as undersecretary on such things as Iran�s nuclear ambitions and Security Council 1540, might make him the perfect candidate for the job in an administration that refuses to recognize the importance of global cooperation for achieving our national security goals: to slay the beast, you have to know the beast.

Personally, I don’t want this fella anywhere near the UN. I’ll take the “heart was two-and-a-half sizes too small” Grinch over John Bolton!

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In other news, the Trial of the 21st Century (and I’m not referring to Michael Jackson, thankyouverymuch) may begin in a couple of months.

And I’m sure you’ve heard about the Deep Throat revelation by now.