Stating the obvious
Human Rights Watch, an organisation dedicated to the protection of human rights worldwide, issued its annual report yesterday, covering over 60 countries. The report picks out two main areas of concern – the situation in Dafur, and the behaviour of the USA in Abu Ghraib in particular and in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo in general.
As Human Rights Watch says,
...the U.S. government’s systematic use of coercive interrogation has weakened a pillar of international human rights law — the requirement that governments should never subject detainees to torture or other mistreatment, even in the face of war or other serious threat. Yet in fighting terrorism, the U.S. government has treated this cornerstone obligation as a matter of choice, not duty.You’d have thought that was obvious, but George W. Bush seems to be completely blind to the issue, which in my mind makes his administration one of the most destructive in the last 60 years of world history.
By ignoring human rights standards in its reaction to September 11, the Bush administration has made it easier for governments around the world to cite the U.S. example as an excuse to ignore human rights. Egypt has defended a decision to renew its problematic “emergency law” by referring to U.S. anti-terror legislation. The Malaysian government justifies detention without trial by invoking Guantánamo. Russia cites Abu Ghraib to blame abuses in Chechnya solely on low-level soldiers. Cuba now claims the Bush administration had “no moral authority to accuse” it of human rights violations.
“Governments facing human rights pressure from the United States now find it easy to turn the tables,” said Roth (Executive Director of Human Rights Watch). “Washington can’t very well uphold principles that it violates itself.”
Update (2005-01-15):
Only 2 days after this report, a second report Mapping the Global Future has been issued – this time by the National Intelligence Council, the official research arm of the US intelligence community – which claims that Iraq has become “a magnet for international terrorist activity” and that contrary to Bush’s pre-war claim that Saddam had close links with Al Quaida, “radical Islamic terrorists only moved in amid the post-war chaos”.
One finds oneself wondering whether Bush is a cynical liar, using the American public’s fears for his political gain, or a gullible fool. Either way, it is extremely unsettling to see him firmly in the saddle of the world’s most powerful nation.