US exceptionalism carried too far?
Thursday, June 23, 2005
This morning on NPR, the UN High Commissioner on Torture said in a BBC interview that he and his commission had first requested an inspecition tour of Guantanamo Bay in January 2004. In preliminary talks with US officials from the State Department and Pentagon in Geneva, he got the impression that they would be invited to make this visit. In June of 2004 they were still being encouraged by their contacts in Geneva. As of June 2005, eighteen months later, no invitation has been forthcoming.
It is difficult not to conclude that this secretive Administration continues to consider itself superior to and exempt from international standards of “cruel and inhumane treatment.” What other conclusion can be drawn?
Is this what we want to celebrate about ourselves, this Fourth of July?
