A Rare Moment When a UN Bureacrat Speaks Prophecy

The UN may be faulted for a legion of failed policies, Reasonable Nanny-statism/International individualism and corruption. The recent comments by UN high commisioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour can't be counted as one of them. The Washington Post has this story of a rare moment of prophecy from the beleagued UN.

The U.S.-led fight against terrorism is eroding the time-honored international prohibition of torture and other forms of cruel or degrading treatment of prisoners, the top U.N. human rights official said Wednesday in a statement commemorating Human Rights Day.

Louise Arbour, the high commissioner for human rights at the United Nations, presented the most forceful criticism to date of U.S. detention policies by a senior U.N. official, asserting that holding suspects incommunicado in itself amounts to torture.

She also expressed concern in a news conference with efforts by some U.S. policymakers to exempt CIA interrogators from elements of the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

(snip)

Arbour, a former Canadian Supreme Court justice, did not name the United States in her statement. But she criticized two elements of U.S. counterterrorism policy: the use of severe interrogation techniques -- which the CIA has authorized -- and the rendition, or transfer, of suspected terrorists to countries that have engaged in torture.

She also questioned the value of the U.S. practice of obtaining diplomatic assurances from governments that they will not torture such individuals. "There are many reasons to be skeptical about the value of those assurances," she said. "If there is no risk of torture in a particular case, they are unnecessary and redundant. If there is a risk, how effective are these assurances likely to be?"

Arbour said that "moves to water down or question the absolute ban on torture, as well as on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" are "particularly insidious." She added that "governments in a number of countries are claiming that established rules do not apply anymore: that we live in a changed world and that there is a 'new normal.' "

Hat tip to the Captain for this one.

Speaking of which, I need to part company with him on this one. Granted, The UN's hypocrisy on human rights issues makes laughable any protest they tend to make on the issue. And Captain Ed certainly has this part right:

Eighteen months after reporters and investigators began finding evidence of exploitation of refugees in almost every camp run by the UN, Arbour makes an odd choice by attacking the United States. UN-run refugee camps have turned into seraglios for UN staffers, with women and even little girls forced to give sexual favors to staffers and peackeepers alike in order to get food and medicine. It routinely selects countries like Libya and Cuba to sit on and lead its committees on Human Rights, akin to putting the inmates in charge of the asylum. In some sick and twisted way, it makes sense for Arbour to use the occasion of Human Rights Day to attack America rather than focus on all the ways the UN has promoted and allowed human-rights abuses over the past decade or more.

However, cogent as his analysis is, his critique is besides the point. The reason is simple.

The United States is supposed to be better than the corrupt and irrelevent Plutocracy at Turtle Bay. We're the ones that understand why freedom is truly the Almighty's gift to the world. We get that. The best way to destroy the islamofascists' jihad is to allow faithful muslims to govern their own lives. We understand this, whether the Reasonable mouth-foamers among us admit to it or not. If our controversial mission in Iraq is to have any lasting success in winning the GWOT, it must lead to a viable and democratic Iraqi state.

For that to happen, we the people of the United States, represented by those in our government and embodied by our security services, must preserve our credibility. Muslims must believe that we act on our belief in human rights. They will not take the considerable risk of investing themselves in the struggle for freedom if they do not trust Americans.

And how will they do that if we continue policies such as rendition and extreme interregation? How will the everyman of the muslim street trust us if we defy our own obligations and laws in order to pursue our interests, as compelling as they may be? How will we convince a devoutly religious people we have their best interests at heart if we can't demonstrate the integrity expected of any moral people?

We need to end those policies. They discredit us in the eyes of those who we hope to influence. But there's an even more important reason to do so than simply winning hearts and minds.

Rendition and flirtations with torture are not our way. We, as Americans, as people of good will, are better than that. Our grandfathers faces the horrors of Hitler's war machine. When Germany fell, the defeated armies of the Fatherland fled to American lines. Why? Our reputation for mercy and justice preceded us.

Yes, we're people as infected with original sin as everyone else. Yes, we've done things in war that we regret. Yes, even in World War II, we commited manifestly unjust acts in order to achieve victory. All these failings through into sharp relief just who we truly are. And what our path is.

And that path does not travel by the insidious utilitarianism of rendition and unorthodox interregation. For what will it profit us if we gain the whole of our civilization but lose our collective soul? Exactly what will we have saved?

If a hapless bureacrat of a corrupt and embarrassing international cabal can deliver the truth, we had better be wise enough to listen. We don't have to approve the messenger. It's the message that matters.