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Credibility Squandered

By TChris, Section Terror Detainees
Posted on Thu Mar 09, 2006 at 06:26:48 PM EST
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by TChris

Apart from the legal and moral objections to detainee abuse, the need to maintain credibility should have deterred the administration from mistreating prisoners. China announced today that it isn't interested in lectures on human rights from a government that wiretaps its citizens and detains uncharged prisoners indefinitely.

The Chinese government's report, issued a day after the State Department slammed China for "numerous and serious" human rights abuses, attacked the United States for failing its citizens.

And China isn't alone.

After years of criticism from Washington, China, European and Middle Eastern countries have denounced the Bush administration over human rights abuses. They allege inhumane treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay detention center, abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and U.S. abductions of terror suspects from Europe.

Criticisms of China are well deserved, but as Prof. Richard Baum argues, "the moral high ground has left the U.S. side."

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    Credibility Squandered | 9 comments (9 topical)
    Re: Credibility Squandered (none / 0) (#1)
    by Al on Thu Mar 09, 2006 at 07:02:45 PM EST
    Add to this the open letter from 250 doctors in The Lancet denouncing the practice of force feeding prisoners in Guantanamo: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4790742.stm
    "We urge the US government to ensure that detainees are assessed by independent physicians and that techniques such as force-feeding and restraint chairs are abandoned," the letter said. The doctors said the World Medical Association - a world body representing physicians, including those in the US - specifically prohibited force-feeding. Detainees at the camp have said hunger-strikers were strapped into chairs and force-fed through tubes inserted in their noses.


    Re: Credibility Squandered (none / 0) (#2)
    by BigTex on Thu Mar 09, 2006 at 08:08:50 PM EST
    The refusals to listen to criticism are nothing more than self serving actions. Not that we are any better as of late, but merit of the claim lies with it's existance, not with the messenger. Moral relativism to the extreme. Just shows that in the current contest fo who is the bigger hypocrite, they are by far.

    Re: Credibility Squandered (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Mar 10, 2006 at 12:46:32 AM EST
    Tex:
    The refusals to listen to criticism are nothing more than self serving actions.
    I hope you'll remind us of this point the next time there is a discussion of the President turning a deaf ear to his critics, a style of public discourse he seems to have perfected.

    Re: Credibility Squandered (none / 0) (#4)
    by Edger on Fri Mar 10, 2006 at 01:48:44 AM EST
    The squandering started in November 2000. It was complete by November 2004. Credibility Squandered or The Adventures of Shrub Baby

    Re: Credibility Squandered (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Mar 10, 2006 at 06:24:15 AM EST
    Nah, it was complete by 12/00. Maybe 1/25/01. The evil empire struck. The resistance has been fighting back ever since.

    Re: Credibility Squandered (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Mar 10, 2006 at 08:49:59 AM EST
    If my increasingly fuzzy memory isn't misleading me, I've lived to see Pravda worrying about the erosion of free-speech rights in the US. I'm wondering if I'll live to see the Chinese government expressing its concern for human rights in the US too. Kind regards, Dog, etc.

    Re: Credibility Squandered (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Mar 10, 2006 at 08:50:59 AM EST
    Forgive me. Typo. *I had been* wondering. Sigh. Kind regards, Dog, etc.

    Re: Credibility Squandered (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Mar 10, 2006 at 09:09:22 AM EST
    It will probably take a minimum of 50 years to rectify the damage to our reputation and image this illegitimate trash administration has inflicted on us and the World. Assuming, of course, we're all still around to get that chance.

    Re: Credibility Squandered (none / 0) (#9)
    by jimakaPPJ on Fri Mar 10, 2006 at 09:12:07 AM EST
    Big Tex writes:
    Not that we are any better as of late, but merit of the claim lies with it's existance, not with the messenger.
    Well, there have been trials and people put in jail. Now this may be a minor point to some of you, but I would think quite major to those in prison. BTW - I haven't seen this done in China, etc and et al.

    Credibility Squandered | 9 comments (9 topical)