Bush UN speech: Selective enforcement of human rights.
George Bush's UN speech today was a model in selective enforcement of human rights. While he said all the right things and hit on all the right notes, he did not address the inconvenient fact that he is one of the worst human rights violators in US history or that he supports dictators who are engaged in similar such violations.
For instance, he did not mention the poor record of his administration in Iraq or Afghanistan or Guantanamo, or the poor human rights records of such allies as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan. Instead, the New Morality of the Bush administration was on full display, where morality is always for the other person and not for one's self. Bush showed himself to be one of those elites who considered himself to be above normal restrictions on morality that was merely for the herd to follow.
The concern that he showed for places like Cuba or Burma was all fake. Instead, like the dictators of Orwell's 1984, he simply used them to change the subject given that his own violations of human rights were out there for anyone to see. And most human rights groups were not impressed by Bush's speeches:
Bush didn't mention the U.S. prisons in Afghanistan or at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. practice of holding detainees for years without legal charges or access to lawyers, or the CIA's "rendition" kidnappings of suspects abroad, all issues of concern to human rights activists around the world.
"At first read, it's little more than an exercise in hypocrisy. His words about human rights ring hollow because his credibility is nonexistent," said Curt Goering, the deputy executive director of Amnesty International USA. "The gap between the rhetoric and the actual record is stunning. I can't help but believe many people in the audience were thinking, 'What was this man thinking?' "
Human Rights Watch:
"I believe the president should be championing human rights at the U.N., but he's lost his authority and credibility as a world leader because of his policies on rendition and Guantanamo," said Tom Malinowski, the advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "His remarks would be more effective if the U.S. was practicing what it's preaching."
Center for Strategic and International Studies:
Linda Jamison, who analyzes the U.N. for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a center-right research center in Washington, said Bush's speech offered little in terms of outreach or specifics.
"He gave us U.N. 101 if it were a college course," Jamison said. "We need U.S.-U.N. 201. He skimmed it."
And the latter remark summed it all. His treatment of the UN implied that they did not know the first thing about human rights and that he had come to tell them the basics. His speech did not serve to win hearts or change minds. Instead, it simply showed the kind of contempt for the UN that he and the right of the right-wingers share. The only time that he feels impelled to use it is when he needs its legitimacy. He showed the same kind of contempt for the UN that he showed when Colin Powell lied to the UN to justify the upcoming invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Obamathon
