RNA - The new magicians at the White House can tell the world to “look over there!”, but they cannot fool the international civil society into buying their latest ruse. For evidence, look no further than to the latest report by the United Nations Human Rights Committee. It excoriates the United States for its human rights violations. The report mentions 25 human rights issues where the US is failing, including Muslim ban, Guantanamo, NSA surveillance, accountability for human rights violations, drone strikes, racism in the prison system, as well as racial profiling, police violence, criminalization of the homeless, immigrants, and refugees.
Rather than being held accountable, the top-level government officials responsible for waging wars against the Muslim world and the subsequent global refugee crisis, rest comfortably and continue to defend their poor human rights records. They conceal evidence of torture and support for terrorist groups, mitigate evidence in CIA black sites, conduct surveillance on Muslim immigrants and refugees, build wall and use lethal force by Customs and Border Protection officers at the US-Mexico border, and hold over 2.4 million people (more than 60 percent are people of color) in jails and prisons, immigration detention centers, military prisons, civil commitment centers, and juvenile correctional facilities.
Nor is that all. War-party Washington has executed its perpetual War on Islam on the pretext of Global War on Terrorism. Just like its predecessors, the Trump White House “proudly” favors large-scale, conventional land invasions and occupations, as in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. It refuses to move away from such operations and embraces escalation of seemingly lighter tactics of irregular warfare to continue the perpetual War on Islam, while making it less visible to Americans. Extrajudicial killing and drone strikes are still the most notable methods, but the new executive order includes troop deployments, air strikes, cruise missile attacks, cyberwarfare, special operations, and proxy wars.
These tactics are meant to scare and control the American public and occupy Muslim lands forever. The CIA and the Pentagon regime are mandated to launch covert operations and drone attacks, which are also classified and unacknowledged by the Trump White House, particularly extrajudicial killings, legal justification for specific attacks, and the lack of accountability for the loss of civilian life resulting from such attacks and invasions. Even American and European citizens are fair game for the Muslim ban and the assassination program.
Tragic enough, the plight of Muslim immigrants and refugees as well as people of color and homeless people is rarely held up as a pressing human rights issue. The Trump White House continues to criminalize these people for everyday activities such as travelling, living, working, eating, sleeping, and going to particular areas. Such criminalization raises many concerns about discrimination and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
Releasing a silly report on human rights situation in Iran would make little difference here. The Trump White House has no intention to reverse these long-established policies. It refuses to elevate the suffering inflicted by US domestic and foreign policies to the realm of domestic human rights and international human rights.
To be spied on, unjustly banned and imprisoned, put in solitary confinement, indefinitely detained and tortured, killed by the state, racially and religiously profiled, deprived of a home and criminalized for being a refugee or immigrant is to have one's basic human rights violated and dignity as a human demolished.
A reminder why the Trump White House is in no position to preach Iran on human rights. Making people “look over there!” is a classic magician’s trick. The magician misdirects the audience’s attention, while palming a coin or putting a dove in a pocket. Misdirection is also used by the White House magicians far and wide in the realm of domestic and international human rights.
Instead of issuing politically-motivated reports against Iran, therefore, the Trump White House could allow Muslims and refugees in, demolish the Mexican wall, provide equal opportunities for immigrants and people of color, remove the systematic barriers that keep them from rejoining society, use public policies to invest in disenfranchised and marginalized communities, and allow them to move forward. It’s the only way to prove they are serious about human rights. It's certainly the only humane solution to a legacy of systematic racism and abuse that is yet to be properly addressed and resolved by the White-Supremacist authoritarian class on the Capitol Hill.
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