Human Rights Watch has just released its report, Extreme Measures: Abused Children Detained As National Security Threats.
During U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. forces apprehended and detained thousands of boys suspected of participating in armed activities. In Iraq alone, the U.S. confirmed that between 2003 and 2008, it detained at least 2,400 children.
Institute for Political Economy blogger Paul Craig Roberts recalls the torture memos written by Department of Justice officials: "The positions held by [Berkeley Law professor John] Yoo and [U.S. federal judge Jay] Bybee tell the world all that is needed to know that the United States is a lawless entity and that this lawlessness is accepted by America's legal, political, and educational institutions and by the American people." (Many of us remember Yoo's argument that there is no law that could prevent the President from ordering the torture of a child of a suspect in custody - including by crushing that child's testicles.)
"What self-respecting parent would send a son or daughter to study law at a university that hosts a 'legal scholar' who discounts law in behalf of torture?" asks Roberts. We think not one who recognizes that no country or government is above the law of human decency.