Bush report on human rights. Look in the mirror.

Dear President Bush:

I read with astonishment the findings of the State Department's report on human rights, which calls attention to abuses by the Iraqi Government. Your policies and actions in regard to human rights, juxtaposed against
this report, represent the height of hypocrisy. While you point the finger at other countries' human rights violations, you are engaged in similar, if not as egregious, activities.

You send individuals to the very countries cited for torture (Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia) in secrecy, with no due process. You have held a US citizen in detention for almost three years without bringing any charges. You are holding hundreds of foreigners at Guantanamo as virtual prisoners of war with little to no evidence that they were in fact involved in terrorist activities.

I want the United States to take an extremely aggressive stand on the war on terror. Yet your arrogant disregard for the values of our country are doing irreparable harm to my country's ability to push for human rights around the world, and are bringing into question the very meaning of being an American. Meanwhile, your obsession with Iraq has left our homeland dangerously unprotected, as evidenced by the recent report on port security.

Court after court have repudiated your belief that the United States can flout the Constitution as you prosecute the war on terror. Yet, oblivious to why your actions are so repugnant, you continue on.

I urge you to reflect on what it means to protect the values of the United States that you insist you are fighting for. You should call for an immediate end to extraordinary rendition, lack of due process and
interrogation techniques that rely on torture. And, you should hold those who have propagated these practices to account, including your Secretary of Defense and newly appointed Attorney General. It is a disgrace to the
reputation of the United States that you would even consider including these two men in your administration, let alone cite them for their service to the nation.