Last week the United States State department released its annual report on the state of human rights around the world, but as Haaretz notes - [the] U.S. has lost its moral right to preach.

… the State Department, which authored the report, represents a state that tramples human rights more than most others. The policeman of the world is naked, especially after Sept. 11, 2001, when security in the United States became - as it is in Israel - a supreme value above all others. In the United States, exactly as in Israel, human rights have become a nuisance, an obstacle to security.

According to the organization Human Rights Watch, the United States arrested about 1,000 people after the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, crassly violating their legal rights. A country that is holding 660 Afghan detainees at Guantanamo without trial and depriving them of basic rights is in no position to criticize administrative detentions carried out by other countries. A country that is holding members of the Iraqi political leadership in detention without trial, far from view, is in no position to complain about the conditions of detention in the prisons of other countries. And a country that is maintaining a tough military occupation regime in Iraq doesn’t have the right to fulminate against a different occupation regime, however cruel it may be, in the Palestinian territories.

Just possibly, if the United States (courtesy of it’s current president and administration) had a bit more credibility on the world stage, the reports it issued would also have more credibility - - that’s obviously not the case.

(The content of this post came from an older pMachine incarnation of stageleft with a different hosting company - comments, if any, didn’t make it into the rebuild)