According to Amnesty International, anyway:
In releasing its 2006 annual report, the human rights watchdog condemned countries such as the United States, China and Russia for focusing on narrowly defined interests, diluting efforts to solve conflicts elsewhere — such as Sudan’s Darfur region.
“There is no doubt that it (the war on terror) has given a new lease on life to old-fashioned repression,” Irene Khan, Amnesty International’s secretary general, told a news conference.
“(The United States) has basically mortgaged its moral authority on the streets of Fallujah and Baghdad — and lost moral authority to speak on this issue,” Khan told AP Television News in regard to Darfur.
Right. How dare a nation focus on “narrowly defined interests”? After all, look at all the US has gotten out of installing democratic governments in Afghanistan and Iraq- cheap oil, riches, and world-wide adoration. Oh, wait, scratch that. American “narrowly defined interests” sure haven’t seemed to benefit any actual Americans, except those who haven’t been killed by terrorist attacks since 9/11.
New lease on life to old-fashioned repression? Well, you don’t have Saddam, Mullah Omar, or a Syrian-imposed rule of Lebanon to kick around anymore.
The US no longer has moral authority to speak about Darfur? Who does, the UN?
Darfur suffers from violence- this much is reported. Why? As a portion of Sudan, the Sudanese Islamist leadership incites the violence against non-Arab, non-Muslims. Sudan, you know, the former home of Osama Bin Laden, is ruled by like-minded folk- you don’t see any mention of the Religion of Peace in the coverage of Darfur, do you- here’s the most the AP and Amnesty can bring themselves to do:
Many of the atrocities are blamed on the so-called Janjaweed, a disparate group of Arab militiamen allegedly backed by the Sudanese government.
Atrocities are blamed on a ‘disparate group’ ‘allegedly backed’.
Back to Iraq:
“Guantanamo prison camp is an aberration under international law,” Khan told AP. “It places people outside the rule of law. And it sends a message to other regimes around the world — like Egypt or China — that they too can ignore human rights. They too can lock people up in the name of national security.”
Yes, heaven knows Egypt and China follow U.S. practices on human rights religiously. Those poor countries with no sovereignty would be following the law if not for that pesky George W. Bush.
Amnesty appealed for a change of strategy in Iraq, which it described as having sunk into “a vortex of sectarian violence.”
“When the powerful are too arrogant to review and reassess their strategies, the heaviest price is paid by the poor and powerless — in this case ordinary Iraqi women, men and children,” Khan said in a statement.
My goodness! Sectarian strife! How terrible! It was better under Saddam where there was no strife, just the murder of hundreds of thousands of Shia and Kurds.
And that vortex thing is just too scary for words. Hold me!