Accountability for American Torture?

This week Human Right Watch (link) published a study severely criticizing torture and enhanced interrogation methods (being now?) used by agents and officials of the United States of America.

Despite substantial pressure, American public outcry, and worldwide condemnation, U.S. Government torture and the perpetrators have largely evaded the criminal justice system. Lack of accountability may be the biggest crime.

Each branch of the U.S. Government, in both former & present administrations, thus share guilt for repeated and severe human rights violations extending to murder. The Bush gang, and the Obama crowd, each pose before a US flag smeared with blood; each tramples on his or her solemn oath to uphold the law.

Read the report:

Human Rights Watch (2015) No More Excuses: A Roadmap to Justice for CIA Torture. (1 Dec 2015)

Government torture is Wrong! Speak out against torturers!

Radical Religious Rightists

Jen Sorensen (link) highlights America's inflation of crazy incidents:

Reacting to the attack on Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs

US Military? Wasted Money?

The US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction published a shocking quarterly report (30 Oct., link) on American operations in distant Afghanistan.

My main sense of shock comes from:
1) amazement the USA is still entrenched in Afghanistan & elsewhere, wasting lives & money
2) as if uncertain capitalists, the auditors claim surprise & doubt: do contractors cheat Uncle Sam?

US Special Inspector General John Sopko, seems almost to parrot Louis Renault - the opportunist officer of film Casablanca - when interviewed by the BBC:
"It's an outrageous waste of money that raises suspicions that there is something more there than just stupidity. There may be fraud. There may be corruption"

Similar suggestions of corruption arose against Halliburton in Iraq (link). But the company's still going strong. Militarism is Big Business!

Are regular Americans fleeced like sheep? Sure. Already in 2011 a government audit found US contractor fraud in Afghanistan & Iraq cost US$31 billion up to to perhaps $60 billion (report p.68; news comment here). But overt fraud is only part of our wasted spending. I'm happy to argue all spending was not only wasted, but worse: counterproductive. We arrogantly waste money building hatred & continuing enmity, in which untold thousands of innocents are killed or maimed: their people, our people, most are simply people.

Japan ink ?

Perhaps Japan's greatest tourist attractions are the many hot springs, especially open-air baths in the mountains, beautiful countryside, or overlooking the ocean.

Sadly, for many visitors the public baths & hot springs are forbidden. Not because the Japanese officially dislike foreigners, but because hot spring spas, public bathing facilities and even beaches are often off-limits to anyone tattooed.

This means U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy cannot try these delights (with a butterfly tattoo on her right arm). Japan can't use their onsen for international summit meetings, as Canada's new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with his Haida raven tattoo will be excluded (along with British PM David Cameron's wife Samantha and her dolphin)

Many Olympic sports stars will disappointingly be shut-out from using hot springs if Japan is allowed to host the 2020 Olympics. (Hosting remains in doubt due to public opposition, lax construction, and atomic radiation hazards).

Some say tattoos are criminal symbols, but often criminals have no tattoo, while many non-criminals are inked. More to blame is Japan's forced homogeneity, prohibiting variation. Why else would supposedly populist Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto victimize all tattooed municipal employees? (link) Hashimoto sought to push such people from public sector work - perhaps over a tiny sea turtle. By condemning slight differences, Japanese authorities create both irrational fears and a non-innovative society raised solely to labor and die.