The report was written by five self-described human rights investigators with academic, scientific, or legal backgrounds, operating on behalf of the discredited UN Commission on Human Rights – whose members include such serial human rights abusers as Sudan and Zimbabwe. Their spokesperson, Leila Zerrougui, has a history of bashing the United States for phantom human rights violations. Three years ago, she accused our own judicial system – the finest in the world – of displaying “blatant discrimination” without presenting the slightest shred of supporting evidence. Presumably, Zerrougui does not think she needs to collect any credible evidence for her bald assertions because of her own experience as a judge from that that well-known bastion of civil liberties, Algeria.

Zerrougui’s shameless group of experts followed the same type of path in preparing their Guantanamo report. They relied principally on the self-serving statements of ex-detainees and detainees’ lawyers. They refused the invitation of the U.S. government to visit the Guantanamo facility first-hand. “We have never agreed to have a supervised meeting or visit a place where we cannot have full access to all detainees,” Zerrougui explained to the press. Of course, they did just that when they chose to proceed with a visit to China under restrictions imposed by the Chinese government. The predictable result was a gentle slap on the wrist.

Despite China’s infamous record of widespread repression of its own people as a matter of state policy, there was nothing in the UN’s human rights report on China comparable to the UN experts’ findings against the United States government. They actually want American taxpayers to pay compensation to the poor ‘tortured’ souls who were incarcerated on suspicion of engaging, or conspiring to engage, in terrorist acts directed against us. And these apologists for the detainees, whom they have taken under their wing, go further than just going after our money. They want President Bush and his Cabinet’s necks as well. Their report recommends, as a reprisal for the practices they allege were committed against the detainees, that “all persons found to have perpetrated, ordered, tolerated or condoned such practices, up to the highest level of military and political command, are brought to justice” (their euphemism for bringing President Bush and company before the kangaroo International Criminal Court for 'crimes against humanity'). (Emphasis added.)

Along the way, the authors of the UN report try to buttress their legal arguments against the United States government with vague references to “norms of customary international law,” treaties that the U.S. either did not sign or signed with express reservations (as it was entitled to do), and the Prisoner of War provisions of the Geneva Convention (which do not apply to suspected terrorists). Terrorists deliberately target innocent civilians in violation of the most elementary laws of war. They set off bombs, impersonate civilians or police, hide among civilians, and use mosques as terrorist sanctuaries. At the same time, the terrorists mock the “infidel UN laws” these naïve human rights activists are invoking to protect the terrorists themselves.

The armchair investigators showed how irrational they can be when they cited the fact that the American military does not allow its detainees to starve themselves to death as an example of human rights violations. Only in the tortured minds of the UN’s handpicked experts is keeping a prisoner alive torture, but the UN states this “United States policy is inconsistent with the principle of individual autonomy.” Exactly what principle are they referring to? Should a prisoner have complete freedom to kill himself by starvation or otherwise while in custody as a basic human right? Apparently so according to the UN’s experts on the subject!

Contrary to the UN experts’ claims, the U.S. has been steadily processing detainees at Guantanamo Bay and has released dozens of former detainees, some of whom have used their new found “autonomy” to return to jihad and plan more terrorist acts against innocent civilians. One need not look further than the released prisoners’ own words to bear this out. Had they done so, they might have come upon this quote from one such “autonomous” ex-detainee:

“I was quite upset when I heard the news (of my father's death) but I will sacrifice anything for Islam,” one released prisoner has been quoted as saying. He and a group of other jihadis released by the Punjab government after keeping them imprisoned for nine months after their return from Guantanamo resolved to “go for jihad again.”

Since the United Nations cannot even reach a consensus definition of what the word “terrorism” means, it is not the appropriate vehicle for telling Americans how to treat its perpetrators. Al-Qaeda declared war on the United States twice during the 1990’s and have followed up with devastating effect. Their leadership and allies continue to threaten more attacks against us to this day. Yet the clueless authors of the UN report on Guantanamo say that we are the guilty parties for actually believing that we are in a global armed conflict.

Unlike Zerrougui’s home country of Algeria, we do have an independent, fully functioning judiciary. The Supreme Court has assumed jurisdiction over the issue of enemy combatant detainees’ rights and will presumably decide what is appropriate under our Constitution, not under the “norms of customary international law.”