The United States has thrown more dirt on its own face after its
soldiers' abuse of Iraqi prisoners disgusted the world.
On Wednesday, an American helicopter fired on a wedding party in
a remote village near the Syrian border, killing at least 40 Iraqi
civilians. The attack was launched after guests engaged in the
tradition of firing guns in the air in celebration.
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, a US military spokesman,
insisted the celebrants were suspected "foreign fighters".
A deliberately delayed release of a report flaunting what the
United States has done in "promoting and protecting human rights
and democracy" around the world cannot help save face for the
planet's self-appointed preacher of human rights.
In the document, entitled Supporting Human Rights and Democracy:
The US Record 2003-2004, the United States has tried to sell the
world a distorted picture of America's championing of human
rights.
In the report, 101 countries with "problematic human rights
records" are "lucky" enough to get pointers from their US
"instructors."
Richard L. Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State, said on May 17
when the report was released that his country holds itself to a
higher standard, both at home and abroad.
"We must create a constructive legacy, one that promotes and
protects human rights and democracy around the world," Armitage
said.
A true higher standard means a role model with modesty.
But the United States has always had different gauges for itself
and others.
The report says the United States provided support to Iraqi
media, training journalists to fulfill the functions of
information, education and oversight that characterize a
professional and independent press. The United States also,
according to the report, funded media outlets that reported news in
a fair and unbiased fashion.
Also, the report finds fault with some countries for restricting
freedom of media.
Seemingly, the contrast should have built up the United States.
However, what they did to the media in Iraq showed a true picture
of the Americans' hidden agenda.
They demanded the al-Jazeera news team leave Fallujah as one of
the conditions for reaching a settlement to the bloody standoff in
the besieged western Baghdad town on April 9.
A correspondent for the Qatar-based station -- speaking live
from Fallujah -- had warned that day against a "humanitarian
crisis" in the town if US soldiers did not end their attack on the
densely populated areas.
Known for its quality programs, professionalism and
independence, al-Jazeera is the most-watched channel in the Arab
world.
On April 8, 2003, US forces launched a missile strike against
the al-Jazeera office in Baghdad, killing one reporter.
The network officials charged the missile attack was deliberate,
recalling that another office had been hit in November 2001 during
the US-led assault on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
The point is that when the voices are not for the United States,
they are supposed to be the enemy.
Still, the extent of civilian casualties in Iraq during and
since the war remains a sensitive subject.
According to the British newspaper Independent, some
10,000 civilians had been killed by January.
Neither the British nor US forces have any difficulty in
announcing swiftly that they have killed a fairly exact number of
"enemy" or "insurgents."
So far, no such figures on the Iraqi civilian casualties have
come out.
General Tommy Franks of US Central Command last year said, "we
don't do body counts."
But they do it for their own soldiers.
The report sets a high goal in Iraq, claiming that a US-led
coalition has ended the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and
is supporting the establishment of a democratic, pluralist
government.
With US President George W. Bush declaring on May 1, 2003 the
termination of major hostilities in Iraq, democracy is still a big
question mark. Basic infrastructure is in ruins, and security is a
luxury.
Ken Livingstone, the London mayor, said the images of torture by
US forces and the worsening security situation are not short-term
aberrations -- they are the outcome of flawed policy.
The core of what is happening is that without lawful
international support, neither the international community nor the
Iraqi population will regard US and British troops as a legitimate
force.
Livingstone warned that initiating attacks in civilian areas
with limited information, only to curtail or abandon them, was a
policy bound to leave the militants strengthened.
The stories of abuse of Iraqi prisoners by the US forces did not
come as a surprise.
In January 2002, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld publicly
declared that hundreds of people detained by US at Guantanamo Bay
"do not have any rights" under the Geneva Conventions.
That was patently untrue. At the very least, all those arrested
in the war zone were entitled under the Conventions to a formal
hearing to determine whether they were prisoners of war or unlawful
combatants. No such hearings were held, but then Rumsfeld made
clear that US observance of the Conventions was now optional.
Prisoners, he said, would be treated "for the most part" in "a
manner that is reasonably consistent" with the Conventions, which,
the secretary breezily suggested, was outdated.
But this redefinition is itself a breach of article 4 of the
Geneva Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of
War, under which people detained as suspected members of a militia
or a volunteer corps must be regarded as prisoners of war.
Even if there is doubt about how such people should be
classified, article 5 insists they "shall enjoy the protection of
the present convention until such time as their status has been
determined by a competent tribunal". But when lawyers representing
16 of them demanded a court hearing, the US court of appeals ruled
that since Guantanamo Bay is not sovereign US territory, the men
have no constitutional rights.
If the US government sticks to that logic, the captured fighters
in Afghanistan are not subject to the Geneva Conventions because
they are not "prisoners of war" but "unlawful combatants." The same
claim could be made, with rather more justice, by the Iraqis
holding US soldiers who illegally invaded their country.
When five US prisoners held by Iraqis were mistreated in Iraq,
the United States cried foul.
The United States should look in the mirror for the dirt on its
own face before teaching others how to wash.
(China Daily May 24, 2004)
