Back in February there were groans of dismay among civil-liberties activists when Hillary Clinton, in one of her early pronouncements as secretary of state, suggested that America had more important things to discuss with China than human rights. “Our pressing on those [human-rights] issues can’t interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate-change crisis and the security crisis,” she said.
But on March 31st the Obama administration did something very concrete to correct any impression that diplomatic lobbying for liberty was too big a luxury in a world with other woes on its mind. In a bid to redeem a body which sceptics had called irredeemable, it announced its intention to seek one of the 47 seats on the United Nations Human Rights Council.
National debt is not divorced from promotion of human rights. The U.S. (and to a lesser extent Great Britain) is so beholden to countries that have poor human rights record that it has severely compromised its ability to advocate for justice. Mr Obama bowing to the Saudi king is a prime example.
The debtor is the slave, and the lender is the master. The slave is in no position to chide the master. Mr Obama and Mr Brown will only make it worse with their reckless spending. China, Russia, and the Gulf nations have little respect for the profligate west.
Well put, and in a nutshell, Robroy. Contrary to Economist spin, the U.S. bid for a seat on the 47-seat UN Human Rights Council hardly offsets the reality that those, on whom we could once turn up the human rights heat, are now in position to pull our economic plug.
And: even if the U.S. obtains a seat on the council, do the third world leanings of the President suggest that America will stand up to the assertiveness, say, of the “Islamic bloc?” So eager is he to please others that in his address to the Islamic world, for example, he labeled the projected closure of Guantanamo a good will gesture!