The US IS Different…

Not to pile on the Euston Manifesto boys (although they heartily deserve it), but this needs some extra attention:

The violation of basic human rights standards at Abu Ghraib, at Guantanamo, and by the practice of “rendition”, must be roundly condemned for what it is: a departure from universal principles, for the establishment of which the democratic countries themselves, and in particular the United States of America, bear the greater part of the historical credit. But we reject the double standards by which too many on the Left today treat as the worst violations of human rights those perpetrated by the democracies, while being either silent or more muted about infractions that outstrip these by far. This tendency has reached the point that officials speaking for Amnesty International, an organization which commands enormous, worldwide respect because of its invaluable work over several decades, can now make grotesque public comparison of Guantanamo with the Gulag, can assert that the legislative measures taken by the US and other liberal democracies in the War on Terror constitute a greater attack on human rights principles and values than anything we have seen in the last 50 years, and be defended for doing so by certain left and liberal voices.

This paragraph could have been downloaded from any given right wing blog over the last three years. Of course Abu Ghraib was bad (if we are allowing that it happened, and isn’t just some kind of fiction), but Saddam Hussein/Iran/Hu Jintao/Soviet Russia was much, much worse, so quit yer bitching. There are two responses to this. Matt has the first covered:

Both the American and Iranian governments torture people. But as an American, there’s very little I can do about Iranian policy. I can write blog posts condemning it, which will accomplish nothing except bolster my own sense of self-righteousness. As regards American policy, I can vote for candidates who are likely to halt or limit the torturing, and I can attempt to persuade my fellow citizens to do the same. Is it so crazy to focus on the latter more than the former?

Quite right.

The second response is to note that there really is a difference between the US government engaging in torture and Saddam Hussein engaging in torture, and that the former, for international human rights law and practice, is much, much worse. China, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea are all dictatorships whose governments employ or employed various degrees of tyrannical means, including torture, in order to remain in power. They are not, however, considered role models for compliance with international human rights. No one points to China as a model for emulation in respect for human dignity. Although we can quibble as to the degree to which “freedom is on the march” and democracy is replacing autocracy, I think it’s fair to say that China and Iran are not typically understood as representing the wave of the future. In other words, we expect that autocratic states will maintain torture regimes, we decry it, and we hope that international law, NGOs, and international regimes will put pressure on these states to modify and reform their policies. To a considerable degree we are rewarded in these expectations; the international human rights community can be said to have significant successes in reducing human rights violations in countries around the world, including South America, Russia, and China.

The United States, however, IS a model for human rights emulation. When states and governments look at the international system for a set of appropriate behaviors, they look first at the United States, then at the advanced European democracies and Japan. The United States is deeply identified with the international human rights regime that it took pains to construct in the post-war years and has maintained, with more or less success, since then. Thus, when the United States engages in torture, extra-legal detention, and murder of prisoners, it matters. A lot. In fact, it matters a lot more than what happens in Tehran or Pyongyang. If the United States can ignore human rights practice in dealing with those it declares its enemies, then any country can.

This is why the US deserves the criticism it receives on this point. We have the right to expect better from the United States, and, indeed, if we value human rights then we NEED to expect better from the United States. If the US doesn’t take human rights law seriously, then no one will.