US HAS DOUBLE STANDARD AT HOME AND ABROAD
by Ivan Eland
AntiWar
Oct 18 2007
The Bush administration is attempting to soothe the Turkish
government’s apoplectic reaction to the House Foreign Affairs
Committee’s label of "genocide" on Turkey’s slaughter of 1.5 million
Armenians, which occurred almost a century ago. The administration
fears that an enraged Turkish ally, already threatening to invade
northern Iraq in order to suppress armed Turkish Kurd rebels seeking
refuge there, will also cut off U.S. access to Turkish air bases
and roads used to resupply U.S. forces in Iraq. The administration
essentially wants to allow the Turks to continue to deny a historical
fact that preceded even the existence of the current Turkish system
of government.
Similarly, the United States has never been too enthusiastic about
criticizing Japan’s denial of having used Chinese and South Korean
women as sex slaves (so-called "comfort women") during World War II.
More generally, the United States never really says too much when the
current Japanese government regularly tries to whitewash in school
textbooks the atrocious conduct of the Imperial Japanese regime before
and during World War II. Again, a principal ally who does not face
up to important historical facts is not reproved.
Yet the administration is still repeatedly bringing up Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s December 2005 denial of the historical
fact of the Jewish Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis.
That’s because the U.S. government chooses to get along a lot less
with the Iranian government than it does with the governments of Turkey
and Japan; because Israel, Iran’s nemesis, is a U.S. ally; and because
the administration can win points with its domestic Israel lobby.
In the same vein, the administration is supposed to be supporting the
expansion of democracy overseas – that’s why the United States invaded
Iraq, right? – but does so only in less friendly countries, not close
allies. The United States has pressured weaker Arab countries near
Israel to hold elections and make democratic reforms (for example,
among the Palestinians and Lebanese), but it has not pressured Israel
to remove the second-class citizenship of the Arab population living
within its borders. The administration has aided opposition forces in
Iran, even though the groups don’t want the support, while making only
halfhearted attempts to democratize its autocratic allies in Pakistan,
Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Of course, the United States doesn’t really
need to coddle despotic regimes just to win their lukewarm support
for the "war on terror," their promise not to attack Israel, or their
agreement to pump oil, which their own economic interest would cause
them to sell on the world market anyway. But neither does it need to
meddle in the internal affairs of adversaries, such as Syria and Iran.
But if the United States were to have the same standard for
all countries – both friend and foe – and join the international
community in identifying and strongly condemning all documented cases
of genocide, other war crimes, and repressive behavior, then perhaps
there would be a chance that history might not be repeated.
First though, the United States needs to clean up its own act. Other
countries may have acted terribly in the past, but U.S. citizens should
not be blinded to the sins of their own government. Since World War II,
in terms of numbers of military adventures, the United States has been
the most aggressive country in the world. And many such interventions
cannot be blamed on the need to combat international communism. Even
after the United States’ major foe – the Soviet Union – collapsed, the
U.S. expanded its informal empire and stepped up military activities
across the globe. The United States bombed Serbia and Kosovo; invaded
Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq (twice); and intervened in Somalia,
Haiti, and Bosnia.
Furthermore, the United States has kidnapped people and illegally
rendered them to secret prisons in countries where torture is
perpetrated, or simply had the CIA or U.S. military do the honors.
These prisoners have been denied both the rights of prisoners of war
and the rights of the accused that the U.S. Constitution guarantees
– for example, their right to challenge detention using a writ of
habeas corpus. It’s likely that a substantial portion of these inmates
are innocent.
If the United States is going to criticize other countries’ behavior,
both historical and current, it should eliminate the double standard
at home and abroad and clean up its own act first.
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