'Death Zone' Pictures. Jimmy Carter New York Times Op-Ed - A Cruel and Unusual Record, June 24, 2012. A Cruel and Unusual RecordBy Jimmy Carter June 24, 2012 Published by The New York Times.ATLANTA The United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.
Revelations that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation's violation of human rights has extended. This development began after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has been sanctioned and escalated by bipartisan executive and legislative actions, without dissent from the general public. America’s Shameful Human Rights Record. No accountability for torture. Washington, DC - Sometimes I think being American means never having to say you're sorry.
On Wednesday, May 2, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, a federal appeals court in San Francisco, unanimously dismissed a lawsuit against former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo by José Padilla, the US citizen picked up at O'Hare Airport and held in military custody as an "enemy combatant" for three and a half years, during which he says he was subject to physical and psychological abuse. As an official in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel from 2001 to 2003, Yoo wrote multiple memos designed to deny "enemy combatants" legal protections that might get in the way of our holding them incommunicado, depriving them of sleep, slamming them into walls, forcing them into painful stress positions, and waterboarding them.
The court dismissed the case before the truth of these allegations could be tested. 'Enemy combatant' The court offered no such reason for differentiation.