Jamie

Weinstein

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June 16, 2008

With Anti-U.S. Propaganda, Amnesty International Mocks Itself

Amnesty International recently released its annual human rights report and, like past years, the international human rights organization has decided to focus its aim at the world's most troubling human rights abuser: The United States of America. 

"As the world's most powerful state, the USA sets the standard for government behavior globally," the introduction reads. "With breathtaking legal obfuscation, the U.S. administration has continued its efforts to weaken the absolute prohibition against torture and other ill-treatment."

The report's introduction – in which the United States is both the first country called out by name and the country to which the most space is devoted – goes on to blast the U.S. for "water-boarding," "secret detention and interrogation," Guantanamo Bay, military abuses in Iraq and even Blackwater contractors. And this is just the introduction.

If that weren't enough, the report continues to take on the U.S. juggernaut of terror by highlighting "the hollowness of the U.S. administration's call for democracy and freedom abroad . . ."

It is hard to imagine how a human rights organization charged with monitoring human rights on a global scale could justify focusing its harshest scorn on the United States. Despite its claim that the United States is "hollow" in its calls for democracy and freedom abroad, American soldiers continue to fight and die all across the globe for these very values. A little thanks from the people who write this report, as opposed to condemnation, would have been welcome. After all, the U.S. military has done much more to advance human rights globally than Amnesty International ever will.

After condemning the United States for not setting a positive human rights example, the report then turns to what must be the next worst human rights abuser – the European Union.

When it finishes sinking its teeth into the E.U. for a cornucopia of inanities, the report then ties the U.S. and the E.U. together and blames them for other countries' human rights violations.

“As the USA and the EU stumble on their human rights record, their ability to influence others declines,” the report states. “The most glaring example of their neutering on human rights was the case of Myanmar in 2007 . . . The USA and the EU condemned the actions in the strongest terms and tightened their trade and arms embargoes, but to little or no effect on the human rights situation on the ground."

Yes, of course. Had only the United States shut down its detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Burma's cruel military Junta would have seen the error of its ways, more Burmese monks would be alive today, and the world would be at peace. To Amnesty International, evidently, that is a perfectly reasonable conclusion.

An interesting theme appears to emerge at this point in the report. Western countries are to blame not only for their own supposed human rights violations, but also for the human rights abuses of other governments. One may initially take some comfort in the appearance that Amnesty International is, at least unintentionally, conceding that western countries are criticized more assiduously because they are the exemplars of the very standards Amnesty International uses to judge others. This potential interpretation is quickly put to rest. 

"Human rights are not western values – indeed, western governments have shown as much disdain for them as any other," the report states. Of course, this is objectively absurd. The truth of the matter is that the very standards by which Amnesty International criticizes nations are based on Western ideas. Amnesty International is not judging nations by the illiberal standards of Sharia.

It is precisely this bit of relativism that highlights one of Amnesty International's fatal flaws. It tries to be all things to all people. No country is better than another country when it comes to human rights. To prove this, let us kick western countries harder, even though they have far less reason to be criticized than non-western countries. If we don't do this, non-western countries may accuse us of favoritism. We couldn't have that.

But the United States, the countries of the European Union, Australia and Israel – all countries who could safely be called "western" in their orientation – are among the most humane in the world. Countries that completely reject and vociferously criticize the "west" and its values are among the most inhumane countries on the planet.

One would expect then that an organization that purports to stand up for human rights of people around the world would focus its aim on the globe's worst human rights abusers. After all, western countries have domestic human rights organizations who can speak up for any alleged abuse that occurs within their borders. 

In the free societies of the west, Amnesty International's work is largely irrelevant. In the non-western fear societies that dot the globe, Amnesty International could do a service by reporting and constantly publicizing the gross inhumanity that characterizes daily life in such countries as North Korea and Sudan, among many others. In some small way, they could give voice to the voiceless. There would be some honor in that.

But there is no honor for Amnesty International in the type of report they have produced. In not differentiating between free societies and fear societies, between countries where human rights violations are the exception and countries where human rights violations are the rule, Amnesty International has again mocked its legitimacy as a serious organization. Their 2008 Annual Human Rights Report is not a victory for human rights. It is a victory for the type of moral relativism that serves as cover for the very inhumanity that they are supposed to be standing up to.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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