Zakaria asked HRC about Bill's mission and some of the criticism he and the Obama administration have gotten from the Right. For example, The Washington Post was quick to provide former UN ambassador John Bolton a forum to voice his frothing-at-the-mouth lunacy. HRC fittingly laughed quite hardily at the mere mention by Zakaria of Bolton's opinion.
But what she said next pretty much erased that warm feeling when we're all in on a joke that is a frighteningly militaristic former Bushie. She proceeded to explain why we have to stand up to a country like North Korea that imprisons people on baseless, ethically/legally dubious charges all the while keeping them in areas of the world where human rights inspectors can't reach. Sound familiar? Here is the Bolton mention, then HRC's irony-saturated quote, courtesy of Think Progress:
Clinton: We’ve done this so many times before. We’ve had former presidents do it. We’ve had sitting members of Congress do it. It is something that, you know, it is absolutely not rewarding them. It is not in any way responding to specific demands.
It is a recognition that certain countries that I think are kind of beyond the pale the rule of law hold people and subject them to long prison terms that are absolutely unfair and unwarranted.
She's done this before. I understand that, of course, she has to say this. But where's the accountability on the part of our own place in the annals of human rights abuses, via Guantanamo Bay, Bagram, numerous CIA black sites (which, we are told, are now abolished, but who knows), etc.? How can anyone in the administration say with a straight face that other countries are woefully crossing the line in their treatment of prisoners when we are openly advocating harsh indefinite detention policies and military commissions that undercut our own legal system, supposedly the most fair and just in the world?
This is beyond contempt, not only for the rest of the world and their "banana republic" codes of conduct, but also for the American public. This is what's done in our name, and they bank on us either giving them a pass in the name of "national security" or they hope we're too dumb or distracted to figure out what kind of unlawful, insidious policies we advocate in the U.S.
And what does the mainstream media do? Nothing at all. This, like so many other issues, has been made into a partisan "food fight," in NBC chief political correspondent Chuck Todd's words. The MM refuse to call what we have done torture, but are quick to classify the slightest such activity as brutal and horrid and illegal when it happens somewhere else. They are willingly, openly blowing this. It's their job to point this out. I mean, what if CNN or some such network decided to run with this for the majority of every hour during a normal day? Is that what it would take for us to notice. They'd undoubtedly blow that too, since CNN and the like only know how to throw a Democrat and a Republican out there to yell at each other for 5 minutes, then call it a draw no matter how incoherent torture apologists are.
What is it going to take to stop, or at least slow, this runaway train? Regular U.S. citizens, that's who. We have to voice our grievances and hold them accountable at the ballot box, at the very least. I mean, that's all we've got now that both parties are in on this thanks to Obama's turn. He ran on a new era, but I'm having trouble finding the continual justification of heinous human rights policies as any kind of difference from the pure hell that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney unleashed on the world. And you think the world isn't taking notice of what we're giving a pass to? How long can we seriously denounce others and use our clout as a protector of personal justice when we have set such a putrid example for all to see?
No comments:
Post a Comment