So, which one do we want to take on next?? Do you think the ‘coalition’ would last if we started picking them off too? Also, notice this little gem:
Around this time each year, the State Department produces a remarkable document detailing the human rights practices and problems of almost every country in the world. Dispensing with the niceties of diplomatic language, the report looks at friend and foe alike with candid scrutiny.
Among the nations that come in for criticism are several members of President George W. Bush’s “coalition of the willing” for the invasion of Iraq - embarrassing company in a campaign whose aims include liberating the Iraqi people from dictatorship.
Uzbekistan routinely tortures detainees and some have died in custody. Eritrea has ended freedom of the press and restricts religious freedom. Azerbaijan arbitrarily detains dissidents and rigs elections. Significant violations are noted in such other coalition members as Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Georgia, Macedonia, Rwanda, Uganda and Ethiopia. In all seven, the overall human rights situation was rated as poor.
Of course, the “axis of evil” also rightly comes in for plenty of scorn. The White House’s main security concern has been these countries’ weapons programs and alleged links to terrorism. But Iraq, North Korea and Iran also victimize their own people. Baghdad has ordered executions without trial, political murders, torture and deadly persecution of Shiite Muslims. North Korea is an absolute dictatorship with detention camps, torture and harsh prison conditions, including deliberate starvation. Iran, relatively better, is still horrific, with arbitrary arrests, disappearances and sadistic punishments like stoning and flogging.
Several other governments deserve dishonorable mention. Burma is responsible for punitive rape by soldiers, forced relocation of ethnic minorities, forced labor and conscription of children. Turkmenistan’s self-glorifying autocrat models his repressive rule on Stalin’s.
China is much freer than before. But its sheer size makes it the world’s No. 1 quantitative violator of human rights. Beijing executed more than 3,000 people last year, many without due process. It uses torture, forced confessions, imprisonment in psychiatric hospitals and lengthy detentions with no right to communicate with family members or lawyers.
The report cites several countries for withholding sleep and food to extract confessions, techniques some have charged American authorities with using in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. These methods are correctly listed under the heading of “Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment.” Washington should reject them and should refuse to hand over prisoners to countries that routinely use torture. The rights report must become a tool not just for documenting abuses, but also for combating them.