"The right way"

"The right way"

by digby




Remember Trump's talks with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte?

The Intercept obtained a transcript of the call and is publishing it in full. On the call, Trump enthusiastically endorsed Duterte’s murderous “drug war” and repeatedly addressed the possibility of a U.S. nuclear strike on North Korea.







Then he invited him to the White House.

Recall his earlier talk, referred to in the first exchange, in which Trump told Duterte that he was dealing with the drug problem "the right way." Duterte was engaging in mass extra-judicial killings at the time. When they met, they hit it off grandly:

A spokesman for Duterte said there was no mention at all of human rights or extrajudicial killings during their conversation.

The meeting between the two presidents was one of the most anticipated at the summit of East and Southeast Asian leaders in Manila, with human rights groups pressing Trump to take a tough line on Duterte over his bloody war on drugs, in which thousands of people have been killed.

“The conversation focused on ISIS (Islamic State), illegal drugs, and trade,” said White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders. “Human rights briefly came up in the context of the Philippines’ fight against illegal drugs.”

Duterte’s spokesman, Harry Roque, told a news conference the Philippine president had explained his antidrug policy at length to Trump, who “seemed to be appreciative of his efforts.”

“There was no mention of human rights, no mention of extralegal killings,” he said.

That picture above is a current illustration of jails in the Philippines:

For some inmates of the Manila City Jail, making the bed means mopping up sludgy puddles, unfolding a square of cardboard on the tile floor and lying down to sleep in a small, windowless bathroom, wedged in among six men and a toilet.

On one recent night at the jail, in Dorm 5, the air was thick and putrid with the sweat of 518 men crowded into a space meant for 170.

The inmates were cupped into each other, limbs draped over a neighbor’s waist or knee, feet tucked against someone else’s head, too tightly packed to toss and turn in the sweltering heat.

Since President Rodrigo Duterte’s violent antidrug campaign began in 2016, Philippine jails have become increasingly more packed, propelling the overall prison system to the top of the World Prison Brief’s list of the most overcrowded incarceration systems in the world.

In the Manila City Jail, sleep is the most precious commodity.

If an inmate has money, he can buy a spot in a “kubol,” a small, improvised cubicle shared by two or more men, separated from the crowds with plywood walls and a curtain.

Otherwise, it’s the floor, or perhaps a bathroom, or on a stairway fashioned from two-by-fours; if an inmate falls off one of those steps, he takes everyone below with him.

Trump admires him a lot.


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