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International Herald Tribune – July 5, 2004 U.S. is seen losing its moral authority By Thomas Fuller and Brian Knowlton The costs of the war in Iraq have been counted in dollars spent and lives lost. But with the handover of limited sovereignty complete, some diplomats, academics and human rights groups speak of a less tangible price, not just in Iraq but far beyond its borders. The war and prisoner abuse - combined with the detentions at the U.S. base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and the tough terms of the Patriot Act - have eroded the moral leadership that Washington has pursued without embarrassment for years, they say. "It's caused incredible harm to our position in the world," said Felix Rohatyn, the financier and former U.S. ambassador to France, referring specifically to the prison abuse scandal. "I'm a refugee," said Rohatyn, who went to the United States six decades ago, fleeing Nazi-occupied France. "I know what America stood for when I came here. "That's not the way we are looked at now." Musa Hitam, a former deputy prime minister of Malaysia, cited the case of his country as an example of diminished U.S. moral authority. When Musa led a lonely campaign four years ago to abolish a tough internal security law in Malaysia, Western governments vocally supported him, believing that the law calling for detention without trial was anachronistic in the fast-modernizing country. Today, in a world fearful of terrorism and divided by events in Iraq, the outside calls to drop the internal security act have been reduced to a whisper, according to Musa. He said he sensed an "embarrassed silence" from Western diplomats, especially from the United States, which once described the law as draconian and denounced its use against Anwar Ibrahim, a top politician who fell out of favor and remains in a Malaysian prison, where he was beaten, notoriously, by a chief of police. "What we were alleged to have done is chicken feed, is nothing, compared to what the U.S. administration has done," Musa said in an interview. "Leadership by example is in tatters now, as far as the U.S. is concerned." American officials acknowledge the damage - Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke of "a terrible impact" on America's image of the prisoner abuse scandal - but they cite the larger U.S. record and they promise to redress the problem through a fair, forthright and tough-minded response. What matters now, U.S. officials have said, is how Americans react, and are seen to react. "Watch how a democracy deals with wrongdoing and with scandal," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on May 7, testifying before Congress on the Abu Ghraib scandal. By contrast, human rights workers note that in some places the United States has become a different type of role model: Some governments now cite the Patriot Act or the Guantánamo experience to justify crackdowns or extrajudicial detentions. The government in Malaysia has done so in defense of its internal-security act, said Zainah Anwar, a women's rights activist there. "They say: 'Even the United States believes in detention without trial. If the democratic, developed, civilized West can have such a law, why are you clamoring to repeal the law?'" Zainah said. Politicians in China, Russia and Egypt have employed similar language, rights workers say. Alex Arriaga, an Amnesty International USA spokeswoman, noted that when Charles Taylor, then president of Liberia, last year detained journalists who had criticized his rule, he labeled them "enemy combatants," the U.S. term for Guantánamo detainees. "Governments are clearly citing the war on terror to legitimize their repressive practices," Arriaga said. "We have seen a proliferation of what we would consider to be very repressive legislation." Opinion polls and large street demonstrations show the anger millions of people abroad have felt toward the United States, its president or its actions in Iraq. Less clear is how deep and lasting is the harm. "Many people now critical are people who were great admirers of our principles and values," said John Esposito, former director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington. "Abu Ghraib in particular has seriously undermined our ability to preach to the world," he said. "There's a question about how much moral authority is even left." There have been tangible consequences. The United States obtained a unanimous United Nations endorsement for its Iraq transition plan, but then suffered a stinging setback. The Security Council refused to grant the extension of immunity for U.S. troops in Iraq that Washington wanted; some council members explicitly cited Abu Ghraib. Partly because of the prison scandal, the U.S. State Department delayed by nearly two weeks the scheduled May 5 release of a report on its promotion of human rights and democracy abroad. Diplomats and rights workers say that in many parts of the world, anger and distrust have grown more evident among intellectuals, elites and political pacesetters - many of whom once sought inspiration from the United States. Rights advocates assert that the United States has at times muffled its message on rights; they claim that it has toned down criticisms of places like Thailand and Uzbekistan, partners in the Iraq coalition, as well as Israel. U.S. officials deny this. In Kenya, the United States found itself in an uncomfortable controversy. It strongly backed antiterrorism legislation proposed by the government. But democracy advocates, who had successfully fought against one-man, one-party rule, said the legislation could bring new oppression, particularly of Muslims. |