Sunday, May 01, 2005

More on Bassiouni's Ouster

The New York Times ran a story yesterday on Cherif Bassiouni's removal from his U.N. position investigating the human rights situation in Afghanistan. Asked what he expected would happen in Afghan prisons now that there is no U.N. watchdog, Bassiouni said, "My guess is that torture will go down at the U.S. facilities, but what will go up is torture at the Afghan facilities. It's the usual shell game. The U.S. feels the heat, it tries to discontinue the practice itself, but it finds special forces in the Afghan Army to do its bidding."