Why is the USA afraid?

The USA is constantly lecturing the world about the need to uphold and enforce International Laws and Conventions but yet it is frightened of submitting itself to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). To the point that it has been threatening countries into signing up bilateral treaties or face sanctions, so that their soldiers would not be handed over to the ICJ under any circumstances. What is it that the USA is afraid of?

 

Surely, a nation that is always proclaiming itself as the upholder of human rights and justice should be the first to endorse such an institution? We are constantly told about the virtue of the upright GI-Joes in the mainstream media, not to mention all those Hollywood blockbusters depicting the inherent goodness of the Americans, always saving the world from the clutches of evil foreign terrorists. Hence the USA should have nothing to fear! . On the other hand perhaps we are witnessing the fear of a guilty mind. Since the US forces did fire and kill journalists, Al-Jazeera was hit in Afghanistan and in Iraq. US soldiers did resort to summery execution in Mazazr-e-Sherif as self-evident from the pictures of dead prisoners whose hands were tied behind their backs. The US forces also needlessly massacred the retreating civilians and soldiers after they had left Kuwait and was on the road to Basra. They also buried many hundreds and thousands of Iraqi soldiers under the sand that makes Saddam’s mass graves look like a picnic. Recently the US forced have admitted that they shot and killed civilians indiscriminately. The world witnessed the use of cluster bombs and JDAMS on built up civilian areas, the use of Depleted Uranium that has left long-term damage in the region. This is just a small snapshot of the recent US track record in the Middle east, so what about other regions like Korea, Sudan, Libya, Vietnam, South and Central America!

 

Likewise we are witnessing America’s fear of putting on trial those who are incarcerated in Guantananmo-bay. People have been held in these cages like animals, which includes children and a few have been tortured to death. Now she is in the verge of holding secret trials, denying the defendants the right to have independent legal representation, using dubious testimonies and hearsay. Prisoners have been given the Hobson’s choice, either confesses to get 20 years or face the death penalty upon conviction. All this sounds exactly like the torture chambers and military courts of Hitler or Stalin. Had this been any Arab country meeting out this sort of treatment to the US citizens there would have been an outcry, not just against the perpetrators but the entire Arab/Islamic civilization would have been on trial. Daniel Pipes in USA and Robert Kilroy-Silk in the U! K would have delivered their usual diatribe with the prime time coverage from the mass media. Evangelists like Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson would have been given the implicit green light to abuse the Prophet of Islam as they have been doing since 9/11.

 

So the question is why is the USA so frightened that it is behaving in a manner exactly like those who it accuses of in violating basic human rights values? Is this not one of the reasons why USA justified the war to the rest of world? Or could it be that what I am saying simply tantamount to the old cliché, “the emperor has no clothes”.

The writer is a Graduate in Chemistry from London University and Technical Director. He contributed above article to Media Monitors Network (MMN) from the United Kingdom.