So Bush says the U.S. is the MORAL LEADER of the world, but the rest of the world

[whistle]

...doesn't think we are and makes no bones about telling us we are not!

<snip>
Published on Friday, May 4, 2007 by Inter Press Service
Rights: US ‘Moral Authority’ Rests on Big Stick
by Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS - When the 192-member U.N. General Assembly meets in mid-May to elect 14 new members to the 47-nation Geneva-based Human Rights Council (HRC), the United States will be conspicuous by its absence and missing from the ballot.

Justifying its decision, Washington says it will skip the elections because the HRC has lost its “credibility” for focusing primarily on one country — Israel — and ignoring “human rights abusers” such as Myanmar (Burma), Iran, Zimbabwe and North Korea.

But U.N. diplomats, human rights activists and legal experts point out that the administration of President George W. Bush has no legitimate right to sit in judgment over the transgressions of others while its own “abusive behaviour” is not under scrutiny by any international body.

“The United States does not have a shred of moral authority left; its only authority is the big stick,” Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, told IPS.

He argued that the U.S. claim it is staying away from the elections because the Council has lost its credibility is “bogus”.

“It is the United States that has lost its credibility, and that is why it would never be elected. Ask almost anyone in the world whether the U.S. engages in torture — sadly the answer will be affirmative,” he added.

When the United States ran for a seat back in May 2001, it was ousted from the former 53-member U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since its creation in 1947.

<MORE>

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/04/955/

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Our reputation in the world is in tatters

thanks to Bush.

[whistle]

4. Like the book from the late 1950s "The Ugly American" by William Lederer and

...Eugene Burdick which was made into a movie a few years later starring Marlon Brando. It showed Americans as being perceived abroad as arrogant, demeaning and unthoughtful. Two generations later George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have taken the realities of ugly Americanism to the lowest levels of evil here at home and around the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugly_American

[mrcheerful]

2. We are the worlds leader in being hypocrites as far as morals are concerned

its like trying to define family values, it depends on who's family one is talking about. Come on, look at the leaders of the moral majority, they see nothing wrong with stealing billions of dollars from the old and desperate among us. Then turn around and accuse the poor of being lazy shiftless people who don't want to get off their sofa's to work and give them more money. Fucking hypocrites run rampant in the US.

[rucky]

3. Now it's official...

we're a rogue nation, among the ranks of Burma and North Korea.

Maybe we can lead our own coalition of human rights abusers?

I've always wanted to live overseas at one point in my life, and now I feel I need to (while I'm still not on the no-fly list) - just to experience what it's like to live in a civilized civilization.

[spanone]

5. bu$h* is high on power and fucking over the democrats....no basis of reality

[liberal renegade]

6. What planet does this silly motherfucker live on?

[Californian Dreamer]

7. Oh I don't know about that

I think he makes a fine moral example.

Of what not to be.