Outgoing US Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney, has defended the use of waterboarding and other "alternative interrogation techniques" approved by his office and has stated again that he believes that Guantanamo Bay should remain open until the war is over.
Cheney stated in an interview
I was aware of the programme, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do.
And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it.
The sheer arrogance of Dick Cheney here is unbelievable. Others have tried to bring war crimes charges against Dick Cheney and failed. Lets hope that in the new future, that Cheney can finally be sent to jail for the torturous techniques he authorised the CIA to use.
In another interview with a well known extremist right wing radio presenter, Rush Limbaugh, Cheney stated
Once you go out and capture a bunch of terrorists, as we did in Afghanistan and elsewhere, then you've got to have some place to put them.
If you bring them here to the US and put them in our local court system, then they are entitled to all kinds of rights that we extend only to American citizens. Remember, these are unlawful combatants.
Oh no.... heaven forbid we give other human beings on the face of this planet basic human rights!
They are not "unlawful combatants" or whatever term you want to come up with Dick, they are prisoners of war and are entitled under the Geneva Convention to a number of basic human rights that you and the rest of the Bush Administration have denied to them.
The people were protesting the fact that ordinary citizens of China could not contribute to a proposed human rights document that the Chinese authorities are in the middle of creating as we speak.
It is almost comical that these people have been arrested for expressing their human right to protest by a regime who has stated on a number of occasions that they are improving their human rights record.
China has done very little to improve their human rights record. They talked the talk during the 2008 Beijing Olympics and continued to suppress their civilians.
There has been enough talk coming out of China lately and very little action. I expect this human rights report that China delivers early next year to be noting but lies.
60 years ago to the day on December 10th, 1948, the world said "never again" to the atrocities of World War II and the "final solution" conducted by the Nazi's and universally agreed to creating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 1 All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 2 Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 3 Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person.
Article 4 No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Article 5 No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6 Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Article 7 All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
Article 8 Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
Article 9 No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Article 10 Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
Article 11
1. Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence. 2. No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.
Article 12 No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Article 13
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. 2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
Article 14
1. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. 2. This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Article 15
1. Everyone has the right to a nationality. 2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
Article 16
1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. 2. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. 3. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
Article 17
1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. 2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Article 18 Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 19 Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 20
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. 2. No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
Article 21
1. Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. 2. Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country. 3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
Article 22 Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
Article 23
1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. 2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. 3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. 4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Article 24 Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
Article 25
1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. 2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Article 26
1. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. 2. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. 3. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
Article 27
1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. 2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
Article 28 Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
Article 29
1. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. 2. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society. 3. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Article 30 Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
In September 2007, five private US contractors for Blackwater have been informed by the Federal Bureau of Investigations to surrender within 24 hours.
The men have been charged with firing on 17 innocent Iraqi civilians in Nisoor Square, in Iraq. These men are Evan Liberty, Donald Ball, Dustin Heard, Nick Slatten and Paul Slough.
Video footage courtesy of Al Jazeera
Blackwater at the time had complete immunity from prosecution from the US and Iraqi authorities and could do as they pleased.
When Barack Obama takes office on January 20, 2009, the world will be looking at him in order to clean up all the past indiscretions that the former Bush administration has committed. Reinstating fairness, restoring the US reputation globally, and listening and not telling countries what to do. The US and foreign contractors in Iraq should be subjected to Iraq law or should not be allowed to work in the country. The Iraq government should have complete sovereignty in their own country and can determine who and who should not work in their land. Obama needs to recognise that by allowing private contractors and private militias in foreign countries against the will of a sovereign country that the US is undermining the so called democracy that they are trying to introduce.
Blackwater and other private US backed militias around the world must leave Iraq if they are not willing to be subjected to the rule of law of a democratically elected sovereign government. Plain and simple.
Outgoing US Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney, has defended the use of waterboarding and other "alternative interrogation techniques" approved by his office and has stated again that he believes that Guantanamo Bay should remain open until the war is over.
Last week, China 
In September 2007, five private US contractors for Blackwater have been informed by the Federal Bureau of Investigations to 
