America’s Anti-China Human Rights Hype

By Josef Gregory Mahoney

As U.S. President Joe Biden and his Secretary of State Anthony Blinken attempt to rebrand post-Donald Trump America through new policies and narratives at home and abroad， the topic of “human rights” has become， once again， a focal point of Washingtons propaganda. China should welcome this discussion and join it robustly.

A dark history

From what pedestal does the U.S. preach and point？ Which president in American history had clean hands？ Which president did not preside over a nation with systemic abuse of its own people， especially the poor， women and minorities？ Which have avoided war and aggression？

The U.S. came into being through genocide against Native Americans， shady deals with despots that more than doubled the nations size， aggressive wars against Mexico and Spain， and invasions and suppressions as the U.S. went global at the end of the 19th century， reaching further from its shores， including into the Pacific， with violent takeovers of the Philippines and a number of strategically located islands that fueled increasing instability in Asia， stimulating in no small part Japans aggressive responses.

It is part of the U.S. political imaginary to forget the past， largely， with each new administration， to remember only in a cursory way the mistakes that others made without fully taking responsibility for them. This allows the U.S. to perpetually renew itself， to turn the pages of history without ever actually reading or understanding what has been done， how one page leads to another， and how so many of the pages say largely the same things.

For example， Trump excoriated his predecessors， George W. Bush and Barack Obama， for their crimes in international affairs， from the formers invasion of Iraq under false pretenses （which included baldfaced lies with fake “intelligence” to the UN Security Council that directly sparked ongoing human rights travesties throughout the Middle East）， to the latters continued drone wars and disastrous meddling in Libya， Syria， Ukraine and beyond.

Then Trump proceeded to write his own place in history. He doubled down on the U.S. prison in Guantanamo， a site of torture， and not only promoted people previously involved with Bushs torture policies， but explicitly promoted torture and said the U.S. should have done worse.

He also ordered the assassination via drone of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani， who was then visiting Iraq， killing several Iraqi leaders in the same attack. While he justified it as preventing violence， there are credible accounts of him admitting privately that he did it to appease conservatives in the Senate who were then considering his fate in his first impeachment trial. The trial， it should be recalled， centered on whether his own meddling in Ukraine was self-serving and not merely for the national good.