[Winstonm]

Quote

March 13 (Bloomberg) -- Russia said the U.S. State Department's ``latest opus'' on human rights reflects the double standards of a country that uses the issue as a foreign policy tool while failing to examine its own actions.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement it rejects criticism of Russia's human rights record from a country that ``has in effect legalized torture, uses capital punishment on minors and denies responsibility for war crimes and human rights violations in Iraq and Afghanistan.''

Quote

BEIJING (AFP) — China on Thursday accused the United States of human rights hypocrisy, as it branded the US invasion of Iraq the "greatest humanitarian disaster" of the modern world.

In an annual response to Washington's criticism of China's human rights record, the Chinese government labelled the United States arrogant, and highlighted what it said were widespread US failures at home and abroad.

"(America's) arrogant critique on the human rights of other countries are always accompanied by a deliberate ignoring of serious human rights problems on its own territory," said the report, released by the state Xinhua news agency.

"This was not only inconsistent with universally recognised norms of international relations, but also exposed the double standards and downright hypocrisy of the United States on the human rights issue, and inevitably impaired its international image."

Well, so much for U.S. moral authority.

[barmar]

Is there any government that doesn't have a similar double standard. I think that every government thinks that they're right, regardless of what the rest of the world thinks. The Nazis didn't think themselves evil, they sincerely believed that the Aryan race was pure and that they were doing the world a favor by exterminating the Jews.

I think that the US government could respond to these allegations by pointing out that we're at war, and sometimes rights have to be trampled for the sake of security, whereas the complaints we've made about China have been regarding their actions against their own people in normal circumstances.

[matmat]

barmar, on Mar 16 2008, 08:30 PM, said:

I think that the US government could respond to these allegations by pointing out that we're at war, and sometimes rights have to be trampled for the sake of security, whereas the complaints we've made about China have been regarding their actions against their own people in normal circumstances.

let's try not to encourage China to go to war, please.

[PassedOut]

barmar, on Mar 16 2008, 08:30 PM, said:

I think that the US government could respond to these allegations by pointing out that we're at war, and sometimes rights have to be trampled for the sake of security...

And is the war to which you refer the one we started in Iraq "at a time of our choosing" or the never-ending war on global terrorism?

Of course, even the "war on drugs" has been used to the same ends.

[Winstonm]

Quote

I think that the US government could respond to these allegations by pointing out that we're at war, and sometimes rights have to be trampled for the sake of security

It is interesting that Noam Chomskey wrote about this same concept in a piece titled "We own the world" - that U.S. actions are always presented as justified, which can only be right if we own the world and therefore have the right to do as we wish anywhere.

What circular logic it is to claim to be at war as justification for abuses - when there was no legitimate justification for the war in the first place and the U.S. was the aggressor.

Surely, this argument can only be valid if "We own the world."

Others seem to argue with this sentiment - they have the audacity to believe they own parts of the world themselves - like their own countries.

[blackshoe]

barmar, on Mar 16 2008, 08:30 PM, said:

I think that the US government could respond to these allegations by pointing out that we're at war, and sometimes rights have to be trampled for the sake of security, whereas the complaints we've made about China have been regarding their actions against their own people in normal circumstances.

1. The power to declare war rests with Congress. To the best of my knowledge, Congress has not done so.

2. You assert that "sometimes rights have to be trampled". Prove it. Just for starters, the writers of the Constitution were smart people. If they felt this assertion to be true, they could well have written it into the Constitution. Why didn't they?

China points out — and they do have a point — that there's a certain amount of "pot, kettle, black" here.

[kenberg]

If the point is that we are not as pure as we present ourselves, I agree. If the point is that there is no difference between the US and Russia as far as civil liberties are concerned, I disagree. True, I have met a family that moved from the US to Russia in the thirties as a matter of principle. I guess they are content enough there, but this one family is the only one I have ever heard of, it was very long ago, and it was during the Great Depression when the promise of the Worker's Paradise seemed more alluring. On the other hand, I know quite a large number of people who have moved from Russia to the US. In fact, I just now got back from a banquet in honor of one of them. Stories were told of his time in Russia. "Not perfect" is not the same thing as "no different from Russia".

[dicklont]

kenberg, on Mar 16 2008, 11:45 PM, said:

"Not perfect" is not the same thing as "no different from Russia".

The point with human rights is that they must apply for every individual.
If one peron is tortured in the USA (and surely there are more) what should he/she do with the information that many more are tortured somewhere else.

In the USA human rights are not defended enough by the current president, which is a shame.

[luke warm]

Winstonm, on Mar 16 2008, 11:07 PM, said:

What circular logic it is to claim to be at war as justification for abuses - when there was no legitimate justification for the war in the first place and the U.S. was the aggressor.

according to whom? it's not that i necessarily disagree with you, you understand, it's that i'm interested in your authority for making such a statement

[kenberg]

dicklont, on Mar 17 2008, 01:40 AM, said:

kenberg, on Mar 16 2008, 11:45 PM, said:

"Not perfect" is not the same thing as "no different from Russia".

The point with human rights is that they must apply for every individual.
If one peron is tortured in the USA (and surely there are more) what should he/she do with the information that many more are tortured somewhere else.

In the USA human rights are not defended enough by the current president, which is a shame.

With this point I agree. It wasn't/isn't clear to me that this point matches the point of the original post. There we have Russian and Chinese statements, presumably quoted with approval, suggesting that there is some sort of equivalence. I think we could go a little easy on taking these statements at face value.


Let's call last night's honoree Misha, since that's his name. After finishing his graduate work in mathematics at Moscow State it was decided (not by Misha) that he would work at the government bureau of Economics (whatever its actual title was). His task was to show that the standard of living in the Soviet Union was higher than the standard of living in the US. As he explained this to me "I had a wife, I had a child, we had to eat. So I showed that the standard of living was higher in the Soviet Union than in the United States."

He and his family emigrated to the US, despite the lower standard of living that we all suffer under here. Sacrifices must be made, I suppose.

I look forward to having a president who renounces torture and means it. There are many other problems in serious need of attention. Paying any attention to Russian press releases is not useful however.

[PassedOut]

kenberg, on Mar 17 2008, 07:52 AM, said:

There we have Russian and Chinese statements, presumably quoted with approval, suggesting that there is some sort of equivalence.

Clearly we are still better off than Russia and China in regard to human rights. However, we are worse off than Americans used to be, and are moving in the wrong direction.

And our actions in the world have allowed Russia and China to make some headway with the statements they've made.

Over the long haul, our best strategy is to be the very best country we can be. That includes maintaining an uncompromising stand for human rights at home and wherever we have influence. It also means refusing to support oppressive regimes, however helpful they might seem to be to our country in the short run.

That does not mean it is our job to dispose of oppressive regimes ourselves. But we should not prop them up with either money or weapons.

[barmar]

OK, so our human rights record isn't untainted. Does that mean we can't point out the deficiencies in other countries? Does one have to be a saint before one can complain about others?

I know the Bible preaches "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone", but that's impractical. Everyone is a sinner, so this leaves no one to judge others. But judgement needs to be passed, so we have to live with some hypocracy.

[TimG]

barmar, on Mar 17 2008, 01:52 PM, said:

Everyone is a sinner

What's this thing you call a "sinner"?

[luke warm]

TimG, on Mar 17 2008, 02:54 PM, said:

barmar, on Mar 17 2008, 01:52 PM, said:

Everyone is a sinner

What's this thing you call a "sinner"?

one who 'misses the mark' of whatever ethical standards one has

[finally17]

kenberg, on Mar 16 2008, 11:45 PM, said:

True, I have met a family that moved from the US to Russia in the thirties as a matter of principle.

Were they thrown in prison for support of a government that opposed Stalin? I'm reading The Gulag Archipelago, and from what Solzhenitsyin says, this response would not at all have been surprising.

More to the point, I get people's frustration with the current government and our actions in recent years. But comparisons to China or Russia of any point in the last 75-100 years (or comparisons coming from those governments) are just stupid, short-sighted, ridiculous, ignorant of history, forgetful of the literally millions that were killed by those governments, etc etc etc.

If you want to have a discussion of US human rights issues, that's fine, but for my piece, keep China and Russia out of it or it's just not a discussion worth having.

[Winstonm]

luke warm, on Mar 17 2008, 05:18 AM, said:

Winstonm, on Mar 16 2008, 11:07 PM, said:

What circular logic it is to claim to be at war as justification for abuses - when there was no legitimate justification for the war in the first place and the U.S. was the aggressor.

according to whom? it's not that i necessarily disagree with you, you understand, it's that i'm interested in your authority for making such a statement

Quote

These consist in planning, preparing, initiating, or waging of war of aggression. After WORLD WAR II, the International Military Tribunal at Nurnberg (composed of one each American, British, French, and Russian judge) tried top leaders of Adolf HITLER's Germany, and the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, at Tokyo (composed of one judge each from Australia, Canada, pre-Communist China, France, Great Britain, India, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, the USSR, and the United States), tried top leaders of Japan. Both tribunals stated in their judgments that to unleash a war of aggression "is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime.

The concept that aggression is a crime is intimately connected with the distinction between "just and "unjust war. "Unjust war means, in essence, aggressive war, and includes especially aggression made in violation of a solemn pledge (treaty) not to attack. The distinction between just and unjust war goes back for more than 2,000 years. It has been insisted upon, for example, by Roman statesmen and jurists in antiquity; by the two most influential "doctors of the Catholic Church, St. Augustine in the 5th century and St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century; by the father of the modern law of nations, Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), and other famous Dutch jurists; and by Spanish scholastics and French and German thinkers of the age of enlightenment. Approximate precedents for the proposition that "crimes against peace are punishable also exist. Thus, the Senate of Rome requested the extradition for trial of Hannibal for inciting nations to make war upon Rome, and of Brutulus Papius of Samnium for attacking Rome in breach of treaty. (Both committed suicide.) In 1474, Sir Peter of Hagenbach, governor of Breisach, was tried by a court composed of Austrian and Swiss judges and executed for having waged a terroristic war.

No WMD. No connection to al-Qaeda. Bush himself recently said, "The decision to remove Sadam was the right one then and will be the right one forever."

Note the reason given now to start the war - to remove Sadam.

If Russia were to invade the U.S. to remove Bush, would that O.K., too?

[Winstonm]

Quote

However, we are worse off than Americans used to be, and are moving in the wrong direction.

This is the whole point of providing the Chinese and Russian quotes. Not that long ago - 20 years? - these points would have been laughable.

But now there is some degree of truth in their claims - they can no longer simply be brushed aside with disdain.

Leading the world must be done through example.

[finally17]

Winstonm, on Mar 17 2008, 07:38 PM, said:

But now there is some degree of truth in their claims - they can no longer simply be brushed aside with disdain.

I completely disagree. The source of the claims makes them laughable. Our actions can bring us to a state in which we have absolutely no legitimate stake in the discussion, and these governments reached that state long ago, and haven't left it.

[Winstonm]

finally17, on Mar 17 2008, 08:16 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Mar 17 2008, 07:38 PM, said:

But now there is some degree of truth in their claims - they can no longer simply be brushed aside with disdain.

I completely disagree. The source of the claims makes them laughable. Our actions can bring us to a state in which we have absolutely no legitimate stake in the discussion, and these governments reached that state long ago, and haven't left it.

I'd hate to wake you from your nap, but it's not 1958 anymore - Mao and Nikita are dead and the cold war is over. China is a "favored nation" as a trading partner, and Russia is capitalist.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve keeps socializing the bank losses here in the U.S.

On second thought, never mind. Go back to sleep.

[finally17]

I'm sorry you think that the fact that injustice no longer happens on the scale it once did changes anything.