Al Jazeera.Net ( Qatar) : "Bush's torture legacy haunts the US"

Bush's torture legacy haunts the US

 By Mark LeVine

Some human rights groups want Obama to investigate top Bush administration officials [GETTY]

Somewhere in the borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Bowe Bergdahl, a US soldier, is being held captive by the Taliban.

The threat of execution hangs over him if the US does not agree to the still unspecified demands of his captors.
 
Bergdahl is the first US soldier captured in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion and the circumstances of his capture, which occurred around July 1 outside a US military base in Helmand Province, remain unclear.
 
But in the wake of years of revelations of abuses by US personnel of Iraqis in Abu Ghraib, and of alleged Taliban or al-Qaeda detainees elsewhere, the spectre of US troops in enemy hands is disturbing because of the possibility that they could face copy-cat treatment.

This is even more troubling when factoring in that US methods involved the use of water-boarding and numerous other "enhanced" interrogation techniques. 
 
So far, it appears that private Berghdal has been unharmed and his Taliban captors have said they would treat him "with dignity."

It is difficult to determine at this point whether the Taliban position is in response to the shift in rhetoric under the Obama administration or as a propaganda counterpoint to the documented mistreatment of detainees under the previous Bush administration.

The recently issued Taliban "code of conduct" calling for minimising suicide bombings and civilian casualties suggests that it is part of a larger pattern to change the movement's image both in the region and globally.
 
However, US military officials have condemned the release of a video depicting Berghdal in captivity as propaganda that is "exploiting the soldier in violation of international law"

"Nation of Laws"

Bergdahl was captured by the Taliban on July 1

Yet even as it condemns such practises, the Obama administration is struggling to come to grips with the many consequences of Bush-era detention and interrogation policies which will continue to impact the experiences of US forces on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to major human rights organisations, Obama's record on this issue remains disappointingly mixed.
 
On the one hand, Obama's first actions upon taking office were to announce his intention to close Guantanamo Bay, and end water-boarding and other clearly cruel and degrading forms of interrogation.

These actions were part of a larger attempt to improve the US image in the Muslim world and convince friends and enemies alike that the US is once again a "nation of laws".
 
All sides to a conflict are obligated to obey international law,...................
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http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/07/2009729.....


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