The Foreign Service Journal, December 2004

Bush administration has refused to use that term to describe the events at Abu Ghraib, but the International Committee for the Red Cross has said that the actions of American soldiers there were “tantamount to torture,” cit- ing prisoner humiliation, threats of imminent execution and forced use of hoods. One can conclude with some degree of confidence that Chinese officials enjoyed seeing America figuratively knocked off its human rights pedestal after long years of nagging China for its rights abuses, including prisoner torture. The world learned of the Abu Ghraib wrongdoing on April 28, two months after the 2004 edition of the rights report was released — and a week before the scheduled release of a State Department report outlining American efforts to ease rights conditions in 101 countries. With the blot on America’s reputation peaking as the release date approached, the administration decid- ed that delay was the best option. On May 17, 12 days late, the State Department released the study, titled “Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2003- 2004.” “The Abu Ghraib scandal was a cloud that was obscuring what we try to do,” Craner said in unveiling the report. “And we want to punch through the cloud and to say we’re not going to give up on democracy and human rights promotion.” He asked: “Who would be better off if we self-consciously turned inward and ignored human rights abuses elsewhere — in places like Burma and Zimbabwe and Belarus?” The May report highlights the length and breadth of U.S. human rights efforts around the world. Some exam- ples are the establishment of a school in East Africa to enhance the leadership skills of politically active women, and the founding of the first independent printing press in Kyrgyzstan. U.S. funding, according to the study, also has created halfway houses for former child soldiers in Colombia so that they can have normal lives. Diplomatic Fallout Not surprisingly, critics saw the Abu Ghraib scandal as an opportunity to score points at America’s expense. A reporter from the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television network implau- sibly suggested during an interview with Pres. Bush that Abu Ghraib showed that, in terms of human rights, there was no difference between an Iraq governed by Saddam Hussein and one run by the United States. When an envoy from one large dictatorship suggested during a meeting with Craner that Abu Ghraib was an image-staining event for the United States, Craner respond- ed by saying, “We’re trying to shut it down. In your country, leaders have sanctioned it [prisoner abuse] for decades.” And when the United States inveighed against Sudan’s election earlier this year to a seat on the U.N. Commission for Human Rights, a Sudanese diplomat, Omar Bashir Manis, said it was ironic for Washington to raise objections in light of the “atrocities” committed by American forces at Abu Ghraib. Election to a seat for Sudan “is not at all dif- ferent” from the United States itself winning a seat, said Manis, whose government is blamed for the uprooting of 1.2 million Sudanese in the Darfur region. Most serious observers would dismiss Manis’ suggestions of moral equivalency between the United States and Sudan on human rights. But the allegations are still damaging, giving foreign governments a handy riposte when confronted by U.S. allegations of rights abuses. Officials admit that it is impossible to say whether Abu Ghraib made coun- tries feel they could safely brush aside U.S. pressures to stop torturing pris- oners, arresting dissidents or curbing independent media outlets. Still, as Craner sees it, the public reaction overseas was far more muted than expected. “I really thought it (Abu Ghraib) was going to do us in, [so] I was kind of surprised,” he said in an interview after leaving the State Department in August. Craner acknowledged that he was concerned about pos- sible post-Abu Ghraib fallout when the administration decided in July to suspend aid funds to Uzbekistan, partly because of prisoner torture. In light of the scandal, the sanc- tion against the terror war ally may have looked hypocritical, Craner said. But in the end, he was unaware of anyone even raising the issue. Craner believes that foreign audiences were impressed that there was no attempt in Washington to sweep Abu Ghraib under the rug. He mentioned, in particular, the sight of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld being hauled before a congressional committee for hours of grilling. Broadening the Human Rights Agenda President Bush has surprised many with his ambitious human rights agenda. At times, he has evoked memories of President John F. Kennedy. “The advance of freedom is the calling of our time; it is the calling of our country,” Bush said in a November 2003 speech announcing “a for- D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 49 Abu Ghraib posed a special challenge for Lorne Craner, who headed State’s human rights bureau from 2001 until this past August.