Washington Uses Human Rights as 'Stage Prop'

Russia, China, Thailand, Singapore, and other countries have criticized the United States on its attitude of double standards toward human rights. Recently, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, there has been an uproar of anti-U.S. demonstrations, condemning the the comments the U.S. has made about the Sri Lankan human rights situation and saying that the U.S. criticizes where it sees fit.

Sri Lanka underwent a 30-year civil war and after its conclusion in 2009, it has managed to maintain a steady level of development. With a desire to stir up trouble and make others bend to its will, Washington brazenly accused Sri Lanka of “serious human rights violations,” asking relevant United Nations organizations to open an investigation. The human rights situation of the U.S. itself is not up to standard, but it [still] has the conceit to openly criticize other countries that don’t accept and carry out “the U.S. standard” as their own standard, frequently giving “the protection of human rights” as a reason for accusations. This demonstrates Washington’s use of human rights as a strategic “stage prop.”

In Washington, you can see hot dog stands on every street, showing that Americans, especially District of Columbia residents, love hot dogs. Aside from being inexpensive and easily prepared, each stand provides many different condiments for customers to add in order to suit their tastes. Street hot dogs undergo the addition of condiments, allowing the original product to be altered to suit each customer’s taste.

There is an important observation to note from these stands, where they’ve gotten used to eating a certain condiment according to their tastes, changing something at will to how they like it. Up until now, including its solemn stance on human rights, Washington has also become a “hot dog stand,” imposing its own “elite” attitude on others, to the point where human rights becomes whatever Washington deems it to be, and it pressures others to blindly accept its style of “human rights.”

The U.S. Has Ignored the Lives of Americans for the Sake of Oil

At the beginning of this century, the U.S. military used “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction,” and “for the prosperity of the Iraqi people and democracy,” among other statements, as an excuse — these statements being “condiments” to Washington’s “elite” attitude in order to carry out a large-scale invasion of Iraq for oil benefits. Washington ignored the human right to life of 2 million innocent civilians and sent them on to the afterlife for the sake of oil.

Along the same lines, in the span of almost 10 years the U.S. military has used “for the improvement of U.S. and Pakistani relations” as an excuse to fly drones into Pakistan over 400 times, resulting in thousands of innocent civilians forfeiting their lives. The White House monitors situations around the world on a large scale, even going as far as listening in to the communications of the officials of other countries. All these situations equal an infringement on human rights.

The biggest violator is the U.S. president, who uses the people’s level of support as “fuel” to initiate war. The U.S. has started countless wars without probable cause in many places across the world. Initiating war requires a reason. With its “elite” attitude Washington fabricates excuses as it pleases, without concrete evidence of human rights violations.

At the end of the last century, the excuse for starting the war in Kosovo was “human rights.” The result of this was the violent death of hundreds of thousands of peaceful citizens by U.S. military bombs in previously untouched Yugoslavia. In the 21st century today, the U.S. wants to “guide” Crimea out of Russia’s control, using the protection of the people as an excuse. This gives U.S. actions under the guise of “human rights” a bad name. Washington carries out this kind of “only officials can start actions” logic in order to gain control under the label of “human rights protection.”

Depriving ‘Communication Privileges’ at Will

According to the interpretation of the relevant U.N. organizations, human rights entrusted to humanity are basic rights, such as education, communication and employment; all should enjoy equal access to these to basic human rights. However, when it comes to online territorial rights, armed with technological superiority, the U.S. froze all Iraqi domain name requests and data and “deleted” them from the Internet at will at the end of 2003.

In 2004, it used hackers again to freeze the Libyan Internet. In 2009, it unexpectedly “commissioned” Microsoft to cut MSN communication services in Cuba, Iran, Syria, Sudan and North Korea. In 2010, it shut out three Middle Eastern television stations, giving their “anti-US” attitude as a reason. Having said this, disregarding the right of developing nations to basic communication is a blatant “communications sanction.”

Domestically in the US

Domestically in the United States, there can be found countless examples of racism, discrimination and bullying toward minorities; the police detain Muslims and African-Americas at will, with no direct evidence, frequently labeling them as “terrorists,” and violently persecute them. Every year, there are at least thousands of African- and Muslim-Americans who are beaten up, even killed, with groundless charges, but the Washington “elite” choose to ignore these incidents. At the same time, a Caucasian can smoke marijuana without needing to worry about repercussions, whereas an African-American would be arrested. The conviction rate of African-Americas in the U.S. is many times higher than that of Caucasians. This demonstrates that the human rights situation of minorities in the U.S. is under attack, and the U.S. is a country with only basic human rights.