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Abuse photos jeopardize US' moral authority

Has the US lost its moral authority? It's a provocative question on the lips of politicians, human rights activists and ordinary citizens worldwide as the Iraqi prisoner abuse affair exposes damning evidence against US troops.

Many wonder how the US -- embroiled in allegations that its soldiers brazenly contravened the Geneva Conventions -- can credibly challenge human rights violations in places such as Chechnya, Haiti or Sudan.

As the scandal unfolds, a debate is raging over the degree to which the US' reputation and role as a champion of morality around the world have been tarnished.

"It erodes the perception of the United States as a government with human rights as its political basis," said Aaron Rhodes, executive director of the Vienna-based International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights.

But the world shouldn't rush to judgment, and Washington deserves credit for acknowledging and condemning the abuses, Rhodes said Thursday.

"There probably isn't a single country in the world where you can't find human rights violations in prisons," he said.

"The problems in Iraq are serious, of course. But the willingness to acknowledge these abuses at the very highest levels of government is a positive example that reveals the nature of the system," Rhodes said.

Others insist the US has lost credibility on human rights.

In a stinging rebuke, Austrian opposition leader Alfred Gusenbauer called on European governments Thursday to unite in condemnation of the "barbaric" humiliation and abuse of Iraqi inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Europe, the Socialist Party chairman suggested, should supplant the US as an example by holding it firmly accountable for its "contempt for human beings."

By concealing early evidence of the abuse from the public, US leaders "placed themselves outside the bounds of international law, their own code of justice and their much-admired constitution," The Guardian newspaper of London admonished this week.

Britain, too, has been pulled into the double-standard fray, with some of its soldiers also implicated in the abuse of prisoners in Iraq.

At a press conference with visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶), British Prime Minister Tony Blair was asked if he still had the moral authority to criticize Chinese human rights abuses. He appeared exasperated and sidestepped the question.

The scandal unmasks the US as a hypocrite rather than a global defender of the downtrodden, contends a human rights scholar in China, which Washington repeatedly has rebuked for abuses.

Dong Yunhu, secretary-general of the China Society for Human Rights Studies, told the official Xinhua News Agency that the affair undermines the US "as the incarnation of human rights, often criticizing other countries' problems."

Some foreign leaders, unwilling to disqualify the US as a leading example of human rights and the rule of law, say they're still looking to the US as a role model.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, visiting Washington this week, pleaded with the administration of US President George W. Bush to restore the moral authority of the US by bringing to justice those involved.

"We need the United States," Fischer said, flanked by US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

"We need the moral leadership of the United States. It is important for the West, for all of us," Fischer said.

Americans also are questioning whether the country forfeited its right to condemn abuses abroad -- and, if it did, how it can reclaim the bully pulpit.

"We have to bring back the moral authority we once possessed in the world," Betty Bumpers, the wife of former Arkansas governor and US senator Dale Bumpers, told a luncheon held in her honor earlier this month.
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