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Un-American?

11 May 2004, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
By Sayeed A Chaudhury, Gulshan, Dhaka
11 May 2004, 18:00 PM
. PHOTO: AFP
What are these Americans--Bush, Rumsfeld, the Generals, et eltalking about when they say that the activities depicted in the despicable photos showing criminal mistreatment of the Iraqi prisoners are not American behaviour but Un-American? These are typically American acts as borne out by the facts right down the ages. It started with their treatment of Native Americans, their only crime being they were not white; their black countrymen, their only crime being they were black; the American Muslims in recent days, their only crime being they were Muslims; and James Yee of Chinese descent, and only yesterday Brandon Mayfield, who is a white American--and you know what? They are converted Muslims!

Believe me, these are all typically American behaviour, as is the incarceration of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay held there without recourse to judicial rights. They say these people are not held on American soil, therefore they do not come under American law. But then the Americans haven't signed on to the International Criminal Court, so the Guantanamo prisoners are in a legal limbo, a virtual dark hole. The US intentionally did not sign on to this Court because it wanted to be free from any internationally imposed justice, after committing war crimes and similar misdeeds.

So, Bush and the others, please get off that high horse and the self-made moral pedestal, and stop acting as if the Americans are any better than others. Because in spite of all the power and wealth, you have failed yourselves and the world. What a pity!

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