HUMAN RIGHTS: People who live in glass houses

[wubbathompson]

HUMAN RIGHTS: People who live in glass houses

Arabs who express outrage over America's treatment of Iraqi prisoners should re-examine their own brutal tactics.


Revulsion at the revelations of prisoner abuse by American forces in Iraq has spread faster than hot sand in the dry desert wind. No one has expressed the outrage with more horror than the American people. No one, that is, except the leaders of the Arab world.

Both Americans and Arabs are fully justified in their disgust. Yet the reactions of some Arab leaders might qualify as humorous if the deeds of the jailers were not so sickening and their consequences so disastrous. Indeed, some of those expressing shock and horror at the very thought of prisoner mistreatment are governments whose use of torture is routine in countries where human rights organizations have repeatedly reported the torture of prisoners is "endemic" and "widespread."

Should the United States be held to a higher standard? You bet. This is one case where the double standard is justified because the United States entered Iraq on a mission deliberately hued with high moral goals.

And yet when dictatorships that have stayed in power for decades declare themselves shocked - shocked! - at the mere idea that a prisoner might be mistreated, there is little question that the outrage is little more than a hollow pantomime. The charade by these suddenly incensed regimes follows a familiar script: Find someone outside the regime to blame and turn the populations' attention away from the problems at home, thereby turning domestic rage away from the oppressive regime.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/Editorial+/+Commentary/533757E733E562C686256E8E0037614F?OpenDocument&Headline=HUMAN+RIGHTS%3A+People+who+live+in+glass+houses

I love how Repukes side step the real issues with moral equivocation.

[2Design]

1. Exuse me Didn't we bomb Falluah for days because of their retailation of u

After we have been torturing these people for years, they turn around an fight back in their own country by going after some contractors ....that we have no idea what they may have done....

Our reaction of bombing to bits one city. Not allowing civilians to leave if they were male. Sniper fire into ambulances. Sniper fire to anyone who moved during the siege.....

Was that a little over reaction on our part?
How about going and bombing the hell out of Iraq after we feed them WMD and chemical weapons for years so Sadaam could gas his people.
Were they having an over reaction to us giving their dictator the gas and Weapons that were used against them?????????

Just because the govenment calls them an enemy does not make it so. Our government continues to create monsters around the world by supplying them with guns.

Right now we are in Africa, training people to fight.... The only economy and jobs our government seems to be willing to fight for is one of war mongering.

[Tellurian]

2. BUSH=Saddam..

The people on both sides are expressing horror at their leaders.

[htuttle]

3. Too bad they don't take the analysis one step further

How, exactly, is it that all those 'dictatorships' (actually, there are more monarchies in the Middle East than secular dictatorships) manage to hold onto power?

When the US 'liberated' Kuwait, it put a monarchy back into power. If the Saudi monarchy is threatened from within, you can bet that US military forces will back the King and his brides up.

And then there's Pakistan, whom we put under sanctions due to a military coup overthrowing their democracy -- at least until it became more convenient to deal with Pervez instead of that disagreeable Ms. Bhutto. Gen. Musharraf is now a 'key ally', according to Bush.

Or Egypt, second only to Israel in the region as far as the amount of US tax dollars sent as foreign aid. Or all the petro-sheikdoms, long-time faithful servents of the Seven Sisters.

Once again, Americans seem confused by the consequences of their actions.

[markses]

4. UPSHOT: US under Bush about the same as third world Arab

dictatorship...:eyes:

Glass houses, indeed.

Wubba wubba wubba - You can do better, no?