Abu Ghraib, where murder, rape and torture passes as a sanctioned pastime, is merely the latest chapter in George W Bush’s history of shocking treatment of prisoners that for much of his political career has contravened many human rights conventions. As governor of Texas Bush executed record numbers – 152 in total. Bush sent one man to his death without advice from his local embassy, a requirement of the US-approved Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Bush, with that characteristic dim witted, drawl rationalized: “Texas did not sign the Vienna Convention, so why should we be subject to it?”

The governor also contravened the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child by executing juvenile offenders. Pakistan, Iran, Yemen and Saudi Arabia are the only other places that kill children.

Moreover, Bushie wasn’t averse to sanctioning a bit of torture while in charge of Texas, involving dogs again. In September 1996, guards at the Brazoria County jail in Texas staged a drug raid on inmates that was videotaped for training purposes.

The tape showed several inmates forced to strip and lie on the ground. A police dog attacked several prisoners; the tape clearly showed one being bitten on the leg. Guards prodded prisoners with stun guns and forced them to crawl along the ground. Then they dragged injured inmates face down back to their cells.

Conditions inside Texan jails were among the worst in North America during his tenure. Overcrowding, temperatures in excess of 100 degrees Fahrenheit in summer, violence, rape and extortion were and still are commonplace.

Now as president, Bush has the honour of looking after two million prisoners ­ the highest percentage of citizens behind bars in the world. ‘Axis of evil’ member, Iran, for instance, has three times less prisoners per capita than the US.

There is more prison dirt that Bush will not want airing too. The incarceration of around 760 illegal immigrants, predominantly Muslim, after September 11 on the pretence of immigration violations. Amnesty International has described how the prisoners have endured “a pattern of physical and verbal abuse by some corrections officers” and a denial of “basic human rights”.

In an open letter to the president this month Amnesty International reminded him how on 26 June last year, the UN’s International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, he said that “the United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example”.

Guantanomo is a dark hidden corner where all kinds of outrages have been committed by the US military.

The US has imprisoned approximately 1,000 people in Afghanistan. Last month in Yemen, Amnesty International spoke with another former Guantánamo prisoner, Walid al-Qadasi. He recalled his time in a secret detention facility in Kabul, interrogated by US agents. He said that the first night of interrogation had been coined by the prisoners as “the black night”.

He told Amnesty International that: “They cut our clothes with scissors, left us naked and took photos of us, before they gave us Afghan clothes to wear. They then handcuffed our hands behind our backs, blindfolded us and started interrogating us…They threatened me with death, accusing me of belonging to al-Qa’ida. They put us in an underground cell measuring approximately two metres by three metres. There were ten of us in the cell. We spent three months in the cell… During the three month period in the cell, we were not allowed outside into the open air.”

He alleged that the detainees were subjected to sleep deprivation, including by the use of loud music.

25 Iraqi and Afghan war detainees have died in American custody in the past 17 months according to the Pentagon. This excerpt from the diary of Staff Sergeant Ivan L. Frederick concerns a death in custody of an Iraqi prisoner in Abu Ghraib: “They stressed him out so bad that the man passed away. They put his body in a body bag and packed him in ice for approximately 24 hours in the shower… The next day the medics came in and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake IV in his arm and took him away.” Frederick stated that the prisoner had never been recorded in the prison system “and therefore never had a number”.

A recent New York Times editorial noted on the subject of prisoner treatment: “It is troubling that the worst abuses at Abu Ghraib apparently occurred after Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, then in charge of the Guantánamo detention center, recommended changes in interrogation procedures for detainees in Iraq. General Miller is the same official the Bush administration has now put in charge of detentions and interrogations in Iraq.”

What exactly is Donnie Rumsfeld doing at Abu Ghraib?

Our revolutionary intelligence department reveals all with this stunning phone intercept on a call placed from Iraq to Washington:

[transcript begins]

Ricardo (probably Sanchez):...If he comes home from a hard day’s work and finds a bunch of torturers doin’ a bunch of torturer shit in his jails, ain’t no tellin’ what he’s apt to do.

Mr X (as yet unidentified): Let us speak of the unspeakable.

Ricardo: Possibility exists, but unlikely.

Mr X: Why possible but unlikely?

Ricardo: ‘Cause if push met shove, you know I’ll take care of business. But push ain’t never gonna meet shove. Because You’re gonna solve this shit for us. You’re gonna take our asses outta the cold and bring it inside where it’s warm. ‘Cause if I gotta get into it with Washington about their boss over your boys, I’m gonna have bad feelings.

Mr X: I’ve grasped that, Ricardo. All I’m doin’ is contemplating the “ifs”.

Ricardo: I don’t wanna hear about no motherf**kin’ “ifs”. What I wanna hear from your ass is: “you ain’t got no problems, Ricardo. I’m on the motherf**ker. Go back in there, chill them niggers out and wait for the cavalry, which should be comin’ directly.”

Mr X: You ain’t got no problems, Ricardo. I’m on the motherf**ker. Go back in there, chill them niggers out and wait for The Wolf, who should be comin’ directly.

Ricardo: You sendin’ The Wolf?

Mr X: Feel better?

Ricardo: Shit Negro, that’s all you had to say.

[transcipt ends]

What must the US secretary of defence be saying to his subordinates at the torture prison of Abu Ghraib where he has made a flying mission as the hatchet, fix-it man?

“What do you mean you only use 80 volts,” a blathering, sweating Rumsfeld yells, “D.O.D. regulations stipulate a minimum of 1,000 volts to gather information, I can’t believe just how careless you guys are.”

“Sir, we’ve got the situation under control,” the newly installed commander of the prison whimpers. “All incriminating evidence has been cleared away. We’ve cleaned the place out. No easy task though. Long term residents here said the place was more bloody than under Saddam, but we put ‘em to work and they’ve scrubbed the area down.”

“Good. We’re taking a lot of heat for this back home. I need to know one thing from you General,” Rumsfeld asks sternly, “are there any prisoners still being tortured in this prison.”

“Well …”

“Yes or no,” Rumsfeld blares.

“Err… well … maybe one or two are coming in for, how do you put it, special interrogation.”

“Great, show me the wires,” Rumsfeld beams, a picture of happiness. “I always wanted to fry one of these here A-rabs.”

Or something like that... :)