The Human Rights Hypocrisy

Dear Mr. President,

The State Department report on Global Human Rights for 2012 sees little progress (NYT, April 20, p. A3). It decries the crackdown on activists by Russia and Iran, is troubled by China’s enforced disappearances, and found the number of journalists in prison had more than quadrupled since 2011. But no mention of the top 5 executioners in the world—Iraq, Iran, China, Saudi Arabia and… the U.S. That’s buried in another story on page A4. We rarely hear of our own violations of human rights—the Abu Ghraibs, the extraordinary renditions, the torture of prisoners. Silence too, on the CIA’s “double-tapping”—secondary strikes against first responders to a drone attack. We have the highest incarceration rate in the world and that also seems a violation of human rights—or at least human decency. We can no longer distinguish our police from our soldiers—they look and act alike in camo, full battle gear, flak jackets, helmets, assault rifles, trained and ready to kill. Police tactics are military tactics, demonstrated in the crackdown on Occupy movements—especially in New York and Oakland—and protests like UC Davis (the pepper spray video) and UC Berkeley (the indiscriminate beating of protesters including a 70 year old former U.S. poet laureate and his wife). No mention either, Mr. President, of the Yemeni reporter, Abdulelah Hider Shaea, who revealed the CIA’s secret drone war in Yemen and was thrown in prison, accused of ties to Al Qaeda, but after pressure by journalists, then-dictator Saleh agreed to release him until you personally intervened; 2 years later Shaea remains in prison. At the State Department’s briefing last week, reporters asked Usra Zeya, an undersecretary, about treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo. She replied, “We hold ourselves to the same standards by which we assess others.” Really? Where in the report does it mention forced feeding of prisoners on a hunger strike—the UN calls that torture. Or their indefinite detention without charges? Where in the report is Bradley Manning’s name? Imprisoned 3 years without trial, a year under conditions of torture. Our willingness to trample human rights is reflected in Sen. Lindsey Graham’s call for the 19 year old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing—shot in the head, neck, arms and hand by police—to be treated as an enemy combatant with all legal rights suspended. We have a long and sordid history of human rights violations and an equally long history of willful ignorance and denial.

WATERTOWN, MA - APRIL 19: SWAT teams searched homes along Winsor Avenue in Watertown while searching for one of the two suspects in the terrorist bombing of the 117th Boston Marathon earlier this week. (Photo by Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe via Getty Images) / Aram Boghosian/Boston Globe/ Getty