On USA being human rights guardian for the world: "it’s like asking Dracula to guard the blood bank"

[dajoki]

What They’re Saying: The International Community on the U.S.
POSTED: Thursday, March 13, 2008
FROM BLOG: The Seminal :: Independent Media And Politics - Hailing from all over the globe, our writers bring you thoughtful commentary on current events.
The following blog post is from an independent writer and is not connected with Reuters News. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not endorsed by Reuters.com.
http://www.reuters.com/article/blogBurst/topNews?type=topNews&w1=B7ovpm21IaDoL40ZFnNfGe&w2=B9KobpniDQffCOR77fHrDXw&src=blogBurst_topNews&bbPostId=Cz4LaGYSO8cAmCz8ig70FWHdXJCz1pP1crdj8nZBEE6tWXHobsJ&bbParentWidgetId=B9KobpniDQffCOR77fHrDXw

The Chinese Government released a scathing report today, pushing back on U.S. criticisms of the country’s human rights record which were revealed in the State Department’s annual survey of human rights. The BBC has the story.

The Chinese report cites rising violent crime in the US as posing a serious threat to the lives, liberty and personal security of its people.

The foreign ministry said the US should stop posing as a rights watchdog and concentrate on its own problems.

“Stop exercising double standards on human rights issues and wrongly meddling in the internal affairs of other countries,” said ministry spokesman Qin Gang.

Sudan also rejected the criticism from the State Department

Sudan accused the United States of hypocrisy over the rights report, citing Guantanamo Bay, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq and the suppression of “racial and religious minorities and the Muslims” in the United States as examples of U.S. abuses.

And so did Russia.

The ministry said the report reflected the “double standards” of a country it claimed uses human rights as a “foreign policy tool” while balking at scrutiny of its own actions.

“How else can one explain that the United States — which has essentially legalized torture, applies capital punishment to minors, denies responsibility for war crimes and massive human rights violations in Iraq and Afghanistan, refuses to join a series of treaties in the sphere of human rights — distortedly comments on the situation in other countries?” it said.

Mozambique:

A real defender of human rights, Amnesty International, earlier this year described Guantanamo Bay as “a symbol of injustice and abuse. Secret detentions, torture, rendition and indefinite detention without charge flout basic human rights principles and jeopardize rather than promote security”.

But not a whisper of this is allowed into the US State Department reports. In those reports, the United States’ own human rights abuses are always exempt from criticism. They are not acknowledged to exist - the United States is the one country in the world which has no chapter in the report.

Fiji:

“USA should tell Fiji how it intends to deal with gross human rights violations committed by itself in Iraq, while it destroys that country.

“And please, let Fiji people know whether any weapons of mass destruction have been found,” Shameem said.

“As for Guantanamo Bay - when is that house of horrors going to be closed down and every inmate get due process?

“No one wants the USA to be the guardian of human rights for the rest of the world - it’s like asking Dracula to guard the blood bank,” she said.

The foreign minister of France, Bernard Kouchner, offered an equally bleak assessment. His comments were focused on the image of the United States internationally.

Asked whether the United States could repair the damage it has suffered to its reputation during the Bush presidency and especially since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Kouchner replied, “It will never be as it was before.”

“I think the magic is over,” he continued, in what amounted to a sober assessment from one of the strongest supporters in France of the United States.

This article in the Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/13/usa.georgebush a British newspaper, compares the United States in 2008 to Czechoslovakia in 1975.

Czechoslovakia, 1975: Free healthcare available to all citizens.

US, 2008: 47 million Americans (16% of the population) have no health insurance. Another 16 million are “underinsured”.

Czechoslovakia, 1975: Torture, though not officially sanctioned, has become a covert tool of state policy.

US, 2008: Torture officially sanctioned.

Amazingly, all of these articles came out in the last 24 hours. Fortunately, our long national nightmare is almost http://www.bbspot.com/News/2005/01/bush_countdown.html over.
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Can the US today really compare with Czechoslovakia in 1975?
Tim Dowling The Guardian
Thursday March 13 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/13/usa.georgebush

Nine-times Wimbledon champion Martina Navratilova has retaken Czech citizenship, which she lost when she defected from the former Czechoslovakia as an 18-year-old. Although she intends to retain her US citizenship, last year she told a Czech newspaper that she was now as ashamed of George Bush's America as she once was of the communist regime of her homeland. "The thing is, we elected Bush," she said. "That is worse! Against that, nobody chose a communist government in Czechoslovakia."

Strong words, but can one really compare the Czechoslovakia of 1975 with the United States of today?...MORE

[Hugabear]

1. US: one of the worst human rights violators in the world

We've got 10% of our entire population behind bars. Thanks to the "war on drugs", we've thrown those in jail who need help the most. We place them in an environment where they're subjected to brutal conditions. Then, once they're out of prison, we treat them like pariah, and they wind up caught in a vicious circle.

And that's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

[dajoki]

5. Just the tip...

and if we knew EVERYTHING, I for one would be pulling out what hair I have remaining!!:argh:

[LSparkle]

2. Hmm ... kind of makes Rev. Wright sound like he's making sense

We have an inflated, delusional view of ourselves in the world. We need to face
what we really are, yet those who dare speak the truth are clubbed into silence.

[Juche]

3. Bush

William Schulz, head of AI chapter in the US stated in 2005 that the world needs to arrest Bush & cheney if they step into foreign territory and it can be proven they are tied to human rights abuses (which they can).

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0526-03.htm


Pretty bad when a head of amnesty international calls for your arrest. But like Kissinger, I'm sure they'll walk away scot free. And the dems sure as hell won't prosecute them. So we may be looking at a world where Bush & Cheney get to screw off the next 20 years, living off of speech payments and their gov. pensions.

[dajoki]

4. It would be perfect...

''If those investigations support prosecution, the governments should arrest any official who enters their territory and begin legal proceedings against them,'' he added. ''The apparent high-level architects of torture should think twice before planning their next vacation to places like Acapulco or the French Riviera because they may find themselves under arrest as (former Chilean dictator) Augusto Pinochet famously did in London in 1998.''

<<snip>>

''A wall of secrecy is protecting those who masterminded and developed the U.S. torture policy,'' Schulz said. ''Unless those who drew the blueprint for torture, approved it, and ordered it implemented are held accountable, the United States' once-proud reputation as an exemplar of human rights will remain in tatters.''