The United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Let us be frank about it. This momentous event would never have taken place, if it were not for the active support and cooperation of the United States. Every American can justifiably feel proud of this fact. During the cold war years, the US earned enough reputation for its contribution in the field of human rights to claim the moral high ground.

The preamble to the Declaration, in whose drafting American jurists participated, was almost revolutionary. It proclaimed: "If man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, it is essential that human rights should be protected by the rule of law."

Articles 3, 9 and 10 of the Declaration reaffirmed "Rights such as life, liberty, and security of the person; freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile; right to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal."

Article 6 clearly stated: "Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law." Article 5 guaranteed: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." In its policy statements, the United States has always reaffirmed its adherence to these noble principles.

Regrettably, in recent years, there has been a growing gap between the American government's public discourses on human rights and its actions abroad. Under the Bush administration, America has systematically violated all these rights as a matter of policy. Under the all-purpose alibi: "Remember, these are terrorists," it has detained thousands of human beings indefinitely in secret or semi-secret detention camps like Guantanamo.

These prisoners have no legal status and therefore, they are non-persons. They cannot claim any rights to due process because they are held in prisons that are apparently outside the jurisdiction of American courts. They are "enemy combatants" and not prisoners of war. Therefore, they cannot seek any protection under the Geneva conventions. As the philosopher, Rafael Argullol put it succinctly in an article published in the Spanish daily El Pais (March 16, 2006): "Within Guantanamo, international law does not apply. It is a ghost prison, and so are the men held there." In other words, these people have become "living ghosts" in "ghost prisons."

According to the Human Rights Watch, the US continues to hold at least two dozen "ghost detainees" in undisclosed locations. These are individuals who have effectively been "disappeared." Again, according to HRW, the US refuses to disclose their fate or whereabouts, does not even acknowledge that they are being detained and has repeatedly rejected calls from the International Committee of the Red Cross for access.

Inside the United States, the situation is not much different. After 9/11, hundreds of non-US citizens of specific ethnic backgrounds were rounded up on alleged immigration violations and detained without charges. Some of them were tortured. Others were detained under material witness warrants. The objective was to keep them in prison incommunicado for an indefinite period so that investigations regarding their alleged terrorist background could continue without interference from lawyers and judges.

While interrogating captives in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Baghram and other secret detention centres, its military and civilian personnel have used all sorts of torture (including force-feeding hunger strikers) to obtain intelligence, which was often found to be useless. In a recent report, the New York-based group Human Rights First has denounced the death of nearly 100 prisoners under torture by US interrogators.

It has kidnapped suspects at home and abroad on flimsy evidence and then under the procedure of "extraordinary rendition" flown them to other countries for questioning under torture. It is ironical that some of these foreign torturers have been criticised strongly in the latest edition of the State Department's report on Human Rights violators.

Are the Americans aware of the changed status of their country from being a great defender of human rights to a systematic violator of these cherished values? If so, do they care about it?