The Influences of US Double Standard in Human Rights on Present World
As a
Full Metal Jacket
Introduction
In terms of foreign policy, exceptionalism in the post-cold war era has created some troubling dilemmas:
First: the selection multilateralism as an option in foreign policy, not an
Obligation.
Second: it has second dilemma is that exceptionalism as a key concept in American cultural studies that means, "American exceptionalism has been historically referred to as the perception that the United States differs qualitatively from other developed nations, because of its unique origins, national credo, historical evolution, and distinctive political and religious institutions"1, as you know, may bread arrogance, because it been constantly repeated to the inhabitations of the US.
Third: is that exceptionalism may encourage the view that the ends are more important the means, which in turn many promote hypocrisy and double standards.
Lipset as an American exceptionalism expert has said: "In a country that stresses success above all , people are led to feel that the most important thing is to wine the game , regardless of the methods employed in doing so such as Guantanamo By and Abu- Guriab.
When "Amnesty International" in May 2005 access the us of " serious human rights violation " because of Guantanamo prison, vice- president Dick Cheney expressed his disbelief that the United states could be described as a violator of human rights, as though such a charge was simply unthinkable". (These cases is selected of class argument by Dr. Saeedeabadi)
After this summery , I want to start my main argument about US Double Standard policy in human rights especially after that president Bush took power in the Republican Party of the US. In this way, I want to describe the image of American pro- human rights in the media around the world. In fact, I want to present two different images of American political activities through warfare photographers that crystallize the reality of wars. My data in this analysis is the image of American soldier that embraces an wounded Iraqi child in the battlefield that is as American gift to Iraqi children.
Iraq Abuses as a End of American Narrative
Most of the Guantanamo prisoners were and also are deprived of their nature rights and the order and law of Geneva Conventions were not executed about them.
The Bush administration says that those men were all combatant, but has refused to treat them as the laws of require.
"Under the Geneva Conventions, combatants captured in an international conflict must be treated as prisoners of war unless and until a ‘‘competent tribunal determines that a specific prisoner is not entitled to that status. The U.S. government chose not to convene such tribunals for the Afghanistan war captives even though it has routinely convened them in past hostilities ".2
But, the United States said that no number of the Taliban group was entitled to POW and most experts in international law opposite with this claim and found it as a untenable speech.
And in other war that means Iraq war the United States insisted that no members of Al Qaeda deserved Geneva Conventions protection.
Some of these Guantanamo detainees were released but hundreds remain for long time and held without charges.
It seems good that is talked about three categories of Prisoners at Guantanamo are unlawfully and untenably detained:
"1. The first group is Taliban soldiers. In the war between Afghanistan and America, the Geneva Conventions permitted the United States to hold as prisoners without charges members of the Taliban government's armed forces. But that war ended in June when the Hamid Karzai government assumed power in Kabul. The laws of war do not permit the continued detention of those soldiers unless they are being prosecuted for war crimes or other offenses. They should be released and repatriated. 2. The second group consists of civilians who — according to news reports quoting unnamed U.S. intelligence officials — were mistakenly sent to Guantánamo. The laws of war permit the internment of civilians in a war only when such detention is imperative for security reasons. If there are indeed civilians at Guantánamo who have no connection to the Taliban or Al Qaeda and who are not being prosecuted, they too must be released. 3. At least some suspected Al Qaeda members apprehended far from Afghanistan may have been brought to Guantánamo. Six, for example, were picked up in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The laws of war do not apply to persons who were not captured on a battlefield and who have no direct connection to an armed conflict ".3
President George W. Bush has repeatedly said that the war against terrorism is a war of values. This speech has published by President Gorge W. Bush as starter of Middle East wars, in the time that all of people around the world observe the manifest breaking of human rights even rights of nonmillitaies and also without any anxiety and worry about is result.
"The mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers was an inevitable outcome of the United States' long-term exertion of hegemony and power politics in the world," said Dong Yunhu, vice-chairman and secretary-general of the China Society for Human Rights Studies.
"Human Rights" as an objective concept conflict with the principle of moral autonomy, and from an excuse and hegemony justification for oppression. Any oppression and interference to other people can be justified by claiming that it is necessary and useful to respect and establish certain rights and in other word , " Human Rights" even the other people don't want it. This is as a gift that it wasn't asked for that.
The things that west especially the United States thinks that is owner of them, similar to Democracy, Liberty and other things ; they are seen as a gift as I said , which the west must bring to the rest of the world that again named " threat" with out any logical reason.
In contrast with the policy - Double standard – that American governors and administration in different times confirm and follow them, it must be said universal human rights and sovereignty that is collected by way of military intervention or each kind of intervention which is a kind of intervention in countries internal affairs, are two separate issues. But this was and also is the standard view among foreign policy elites that it is possible to believe in universal human rights, but also in national sovereignty.
But it is clear to all that a justification of intervention does not logically follow from human rights, even if those rights are violated. The superpowers in the world use of various propaganda ; for example there is the assertion that military intervention is necessary in the face of clear human rights violations that is a kind of emotional propaganda. Some of the events are very clear and don't need to more than explanation; for instance, the children that were death because of ethnical disputes around the world for example in Bosnia , this is wrong and it doesn't need to read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that has said:
" Free and equal personhood: all human beings are born free and equal.
Equal dignity: free and equal in dignity, free and equal in dignity.
Equal creation or endowment: they are endowed with reason and conscience.
Equal brotherhood: a spirit of brotherhood.
Human agency: endowed with reason and conscience". (Ignatieff, 2001, 6)4 to know it is wrong.
Even, in one country will be observed some behaviors as the torture that it's automatically reason of intervention such as military intervention and each of these countries including the US owns that entitlement.
Each area needs to separate moral justification. I should add it that human rights interventionism is in any case historically recent.
"Human rights may be universal, but support for coercive enforcement of their norms will never be universal. Because interventions will lack full legitimacy, they will have to be limited and partial, and as a result, they will be only partially successful". (Ignatieff, 2001, 43)5
Conclusion
It must be said, in media age that world goes toward "dual-globalization" and that divides to two parts: one is real world and two is virtual worlds. The role of media as a tool of virtual world is very important and also, the role of cinema is more important too. Cinema with its instruments and opportunities justifies and also establishes an other invention that named: post- colonialism and in present time, all of the social scientists should study on this field around the world especially social scientists in third world. This method and way is best one to know American empire that grows more and more.
"American human rights policy in the last twenty years and in beginning of twenty-first century is increasingly distinctive and paradoxical: it is the product of a nation with a great national rights tradition that leads the world in denouncing the human rights violations of others but refuses to ratify key international rights convention itself. The most important resistance to the domestic application of international rights norms comes not from rogue states outside the western tradition or Islam Asian societies. It comes in fact; from within the heart of the western rights tradition itself, from a nation that, in linking rights to popular sovereignty, opposes international human rights oversight as an infringement on its democracy". (Ignatieff, 2001, 93)
Finally, I should say that world society especially super powers that in present day is only includes one country that means the United States of America needs to stop thinking of human rights as trumps and being thinking of them as a language that creates the basis for deliberation.
References
1. http:// en. Wikipedia.org /wiki/ exceptionalism
2. http://hrw.org/english/docs/2003/03/31/usint12996.htm
3. Ibid, p 2
4. Ignatieff Michael, human rights, Princeton university press (2006, the United States of America)
5. Ignatieff Michael, Ibid, p43
