If international awards for hypocrisy were to be given, Britain and the United States would give challengers a tough time. Given their foreign policies and conduct in occupied lands, American and British leaders would be declared indisputable winners every year.
George Bush and Gordon Brown have been shouting from rooftops that human rights are being crushed in Burma. Both are clamouring to end the military rule in the country. Anti-Burma protests are being supported and the UN is being exploited in order to bring Senior General Than Shwe to his knees.
Both self-styled guardians-in-chief of the world are repeating threats to impose more curbs on the secretive state and its reclusive leaders. India and China are also being urged to use their influence to further the cause of Aung San Suu Kyi.
But when it comes to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, the American and British leaders change the rules of the game. Bush and Brown have a silent understanding over the issues pertaining to these four countries for obvious reasons. Both move goalposts at will.
When Washington wanted to contain the anti-US tide in Pakistan, a military ruler was fine in Islamabad. He was declared a close US ally and his “frontline state” was showered with billions for the unwavering support to the US war on terror (read state terrorism). But Gen. Musharraf’s counterpart in Yangon is not acceptable to the US. Why?
Before launching a vile attack on Iraq, George Bush and his war cabinet shrugged off the UN’s approval and pooh-poohed the world body by saying “we don’t need anyone’s permission to safeguard Americans.” But when it came to tame Myanmar’s junta, UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari was sent to Yangon by the first flight. Is the blood of Burmese thicker than that of the Iraqis? Saddam was put on notice to leave Iraq or face the blitz, but no such warning to Gen. Shwe. Why?
Since America is the godfather of Israel, it is a must for the Americans to ensure that nobody in the Zionist state’s neighbourhood goes nuclear. Israel’s Dimona can remain off-limits even for the IAEA but the use of nuclear energy by the Mideast countries for peaceful purposes is not acceptable to the US. Why?
Since the inception of ‘regime change’ game, over a million Iraqi civilians and tens of thousands of Afghan men, women and children have perished in savage bombings by the US and its allies. Blackhawks and B52s have been brazenly used to strafe civilian areas. Hair-raising human rights violations have been reported in Iraq. Abu Ghraib prisoners were subjected to humiliating torture in April 2004. Frederick, the ringleader, at his court-martial in Baghdad in October 2004, admitted placing the wires in the hooded detainee’s hands; forcing another, naked detainee to masturbate while soldiers photographed him; jumping and stomping on a pile of seven detainees accused of rioting; and punching a detainee in the chest so hard he needed medical attention. Ferocious dogs were let loose on detainees to ‘soften’ them.
And for all that, Fredrick got a slap on the wrist. The highest-ranking US soldier convicted of the heinous crime was paroled after serving about three years of an eight-year sentence. Just three years for savaging detainees? Why?
When war crimes were being committed by the American “liberators” during Donald Rumsfeld’s era, his clarification was: “Stuff happens.” Emboldened by the green light given by Rummy, they gunned down 17 civilians, including women, children at Haditha. US marines went on a killing spree after one of their comrades died in a roadside bombing. None of the marines originally accused of carrying out the killings is likely to face murder charges, after a recommendation from the investigating officer that the last remaining suspect be charged with a lesser offence. Why?
In Mahmoudiyah in March of 2006, five US soldiers raped 14-year-old Iraqi girl Abeer Qasim Hamza and then murdered her, her father, her mother and her seven-year-old sister. See this heart-breaking tragedy in the backdrop of the unprovoked killing of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, at the hands of trigger-happy London police. The culprits in both crimes haven’t been given exemplary punishment. Why?
More recently, US private security firm Blackwater shot 13 Iraqis dead in Baghdad. Blackwater guards, who act with impunity, have been involved in 195 shooting incidents in Iraq from the start of 2005 until September, an average of 1.4 a week. Have they been booked and told to get out of Iraq immediately? No. Why?
George Bush, at least, should desist from talking about freedom, democracy and liberty of the Burmese, because America’s own record of such things is much less-than-satisfactory in Afghanistan and Iraq. The talk of human rights only turns Bush and Brown into a laughing stock.
[The writer can be reached at [email protected]]