inside the glass house

McCain moves to put US back on 'right' track
NEW YORK - The United States has always held the high moral ground on issues relating to human rights, rule of law, multi-party democracy and civil liberties. But most of these political concepts have recently been jettisoned in the name of fighting terrorism.

During the annual sessions of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva and the General Assembly in New York, the US never wavers in pointing an accusing finger at countries such as Cuba, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Myanmar and North Korea for human rights abuses.

Granted, some of them are habitual offenders. But what moral authority does the US have to put them on the dock when its own backyard is in a mess? Last week the New York Times reported that President Bush had secretly authorised the National Security Agency (NSA) to monitor international telephone calls and international email messages of thousands of Americans and others living in the US.

The criticism has been directed at not what it did, but on what it didn't. These wire taps were done without court-approved warrants which would be in violation of constitutional limits on legal searches. The executive order on illegal eavesdropping apparently covered not only US citizens but also legal residents, tourists and other foreigners.

The controversial USA Patriot Act, which was passed after the terrorist attacks on the US, has also come under severe criticism because of the extraordinary powers it gave the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), including the right to monitor the reading habits of library users and the type of books borrowed.

The humiliation and torture of Iraqi prisoners in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad and the ill-treatment of detainees in the Baghram air base in Afghanistan and the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay are considered very "un-American" by the country's long-cherished moral standards.

Senator John McCain, a presidential aspirant from the ruling Republican Party, has authored a piece of legislation that would ban "cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners in American custody."

McCain, who was tortured when he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam in the late 1960s, refused to back down despite strong opposition from President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Cheney, in particular, wanted the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) exempted so that, in effect, it would have the legitimate right to mistreat prisoners -- all in the name of fighting terrorism.

The sustained opposition to the proposed legislation by the Bush administration gave the unmistakable impression that it condoned the torture of prisoners and detainees.

Last week, in what was described as a "stinging defeat", Bush reversed his earlier stance and opted to support the McCain legislation. But he changed course only after some of his own Republican party members defected and sided with McCain.

"We've sent a message to the world that the United States is not like the terrorists," McCain said after the overwhelming support he received from Congress. "What we are is a nation that upholds values and standards of behaviour and treatment of all people, no matter how evil or bad they are."
Clearly, McCain's legislation was an attempt to restore America's moral high ground which had been at an all-time low.

And only last week, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour of Canada had implicitly blasted the Bush administration for running secret detention centres overseas without guaranteed safeguards.
She said that the international ban on torture "is becoming a casualty of the so-called war on terror." Without mincing words, Arbour also said it was "particularly insidious" that "governments are watering down the definition of torture, claiming that terrorism means established rules do not apply anymore."

Taking a dig at the US, she said: "An illegal interrogation technique remains illegal whatever new description a government might wish to give it."
Although she did not identify the US by name, it was obvious that the barbs were directed at Washington.

The controversial US ambassador to the UN John Bolton, obviously incensed by Arbour's comments, jumped in to place a gag on Arbour. He said it was "inappropriate and illegitimate for an international civil servant to second-guess the conduct that we've engaged in, in the war on terror, with nothing more as evidence than what she reads in the newspapers."

Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has recently been criticised for not standing by some of his senior officials under attack, rose to the occasion.
Asked to respond to Bolton's comments, Annan's spokesman said: "The Secretary-General has absolutely no disagreement with the statement she made, and he sees no reason to object to any of it."

Back to Columns