Well, the human rights lawyers who bring these cases to court are, as one told me, "frustrated but ever-hopeful."
It is that ever-hopeful quality that is now pressing ACLU lawyers to try yet another legal step. Denied their day in court by US Federal Judges, three Afghans and three Iraqis who say they were tortured while held by the American military at detention centers in Iraq and Afghanistan have filed a petition against the US with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IAHCR).
The men were part of a group who in 2005 sued then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and three senior military officials in federal court for torture and abuse. That case was summarily dismissed on immunity grounds before reaching the merits.
The current petition is equivalent to an international legal complaint. It asks the commission, which is an independent human rights body of the Organization of American States, to conduct a full investigation into the human rights violations and seeks an apology on behalf of the six men from the US government.
The ACLU claims that between 2003 and 2004, the men were detained in U.S.-run detention facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq, where they were subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment including severe and repeated beatings, cutting with knives, sexual humiliation and assault, mock executions and prolonged restraint in excruciating positions the petition charges. None of the men were ever charged with a crime.
"I think that I and the many others who suffered unfairly at the hands of the American government deserve justice," said petitioner Ali Hussein, an Iraqi who was a 17-year-old high school student when he was detained and abused by American soldiers. "We want America to admit that what happened to us was wrong and should never be allowed to happen again to anyone anywhere."
Hussein, who is now a law student, was shot in the neck and back before being arrested. He said that military personnel refused to provide him medical care for several hours, and when the bullets were eventually removed the procedure was done without anesthetic. He was then denied food, water and pain medication for almost two days after he was shot.
The petition states, "The US government's own reports document that the torture and inhumane treatment that Petitioners were subjected to was not aberrational; on the contrary, it was widespread and systemic throughout the US-run detention facilities in the two countries. These same reports also document that the torture and inhumane treatment of detainees were the direct result of policies and practices promulgated and implemented at the highest levels of the US government.
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