Saturday, May 06, 2006

It's not an Elks convention

It's the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the convention we and other 'civilized' nations signed. It's the convention that countries like Serbia and Rwanda have been invited to. And now it's the convention to which the US has been invited.

We have more than twenty of our top officials in Geneva this week responding to fifty-nine questions relative to our conduct with regard to twelve articles of the convention. Most, but not all, of the questions concern our actions in the war of terror. One that does not cover the war on terror concerns the practice of shackling women in childbrith in some states.

Reports thus far indicate another session of parsing the meaning of words. The convention's conclusions about the legality - forget about morality - will be published later this month. What do you think they'll say?

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