Human Rights In Danger

The United States has just been fingered by Amnesty International as being at the forefront of the decline in Human Rights worldwide. This is all supposedly caused by our War on Terror and our imprisonment of terrorists at Guantanomo Bay. BEcause we are such a powerful country, we set the trend for governmental action around the globe, meaning that since we have "violated" so many people's human rights, the rest of the world has followed suit.

"The USA as the unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power sets the tone for governmental behavior worldwide," Secretary General Irene Khan said in the foreword to Amnesty International's 2005 annual report.

"When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity," she said.

This is all well and good but, I highly doubt that many countries are following our lead. More, likely, if we have become such fascists, then we are following the lead of most other countries. Many European nations, including France, have far less concern over human rights. They provide fewer rights for police searches and seizures, as well as arrests, and they limit freedom of speech and freedom of the press much more than we'll ever do.

"The detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has become the gulag of our times, entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law," Khan said.

She also noted Washington's attempts to circumvent its own ban on the use of torture.

"The U.S. government has gone to great lengths to restrict the application of the Geneva Convention and to 're-define' torture," she said, citing the secret detention of suspects and the practice of handing some over to countries where torture was not outlawed.

Oh boy! The detainees in Gitmo are not U.S. citizens, therefore are not applicable to be protected by the Constitution, even though they are being given fair and impartial trials, as well as legal counsel, which is far more than they should get. Also, as enemy combatants, they can held as long as the war lasts or as long as they need to be held. Hey, they'd do the same, if not much worse to our citizens and soldiers. The article also makes mention of the Abu Ghraib scandal. It states that those responsible are despicable human beings [I agree- Ed.] and that they are indicative of more acts of this nature. WHAT? In every group there are bound to be a few bad apples. Those responsible for Abu Ghraib are them. It was an isolated incident, get over it already. The article then goes on to condemn the United Nations for its lack of resolve to fight for those whose rights are violated. But hey, the UN having a lack of will power and resolve to act, what else is new?

I have also found an interesting post on Clarity & Resolve. It deals with the destruction of bibles in Saudi Arabia and the ban on all Christian paraphenalia. How come when Newsweak publishes a fake story about flushing a Koran, the Islamofascists want to kill us, but when the countries in the Middle East make it their policy to outlaw Christianity or Judaism, we sit idly by and let them get away with it?