The United Nations has released a new report on accountability for human rights abuses by the United States, focusing mostly on transgressions during the Bush administration's so-called war on terror. In a word, accountability in the U.S. has been "deplorable."
The May 26, 2009, report by Australian law professor Philip Alston, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, does praise the United States for establishing compensation payments for civilians accidentally killed by U.S. forces in the heat of battle. But Alston quickly adds the following: "However, there have been chronic and deplorable accountability failures with respect to policies, practice and conduct that resulted in alleged unlawful killings -- including possible war crimes -- in the United States' international operations."
A summary from the report follows below. But the body of the document doesn't pull any punches either.
U.N. calls U.S. human rights record "deplorable"
The world's leading Palestinian writer, Raja Shehadeh, has been on a mission to save his most...
A documentary examining the Israeli military systems behind the mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza...
An Israeli reservist has said that army officers treat Gaza’s entire population of two million Palestinians...
An eight-year-old Palestinian girl, whose age was confirmed by al-Shifa hospital, was killed alongside her father...
