Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth:
“I’m
sorry to report that the global defense of human rights has been
profoundly compromised by the Bush administration’s policy level
decisions to flout some of the most basic human rights norms out of a
misguided sense that is the best way to fight against terrorism. It’s
long
been understood that the Bush administration’s torture and inhumane
treatment
could not be blamed on a handful of low level soldiers on the night
shift. At
minimum, we understand until now, that policy decisions taken at the
top had
created an atmosphere of tolerance for abuse. And among those policy
decisions
that one could cite would be, for example, is the Bush Administration’s
ripping of the Geneva Convention with respect to Guantanamo, its
extraordinarily narrow definition of torture to the point that most
forms of
abuse are not considered torture.”