As America speaks out on human rights violations worldwide and attempts to “spread democracy,” the States is becoming the culprit of the very violations it so often condemns.
As detainees say goodbye to Gitmo, first-hand accounts of the atrocities they experienced at the hands of America are surfacing. According to investigative reporter Jason Leopold, “It’s one of the issues that no one seems to want to mention.”Even if that’s the case, detainees are coming forward to describe what they endured and expose the hypocrisy of America and Leopold says “What’s really important is this isn’t going away.”The US, says Leopold, are “Vilifying other countries, other governments for human rights abuses…in many cases the same types of human rights violations” that America itself is guilty of.“I can’t tell you how many press releases I’ve read from the State Department in the past three months talking about sanctions and human rights abuses that match exactly what the Bush administration had done to detainees,” he says. The Obama administration isn’t being any different, and as America fails to hold itself accountable, others are crying “hypocrite.” “I think other countries are looking at us at being hypocritical,” he says. “They don’t really believe the rhetoric coming out of President Obama’s mouth and that goes for Secretary of State Hilary Clinton as well."And why isn’t America stepping up for their own atrocities? “Apologizing would perhaps be accepting some sort of complicit,” says Leopold. “It would be acknowledging that detainees have in fact been tortured.”And that, he says, “is something we know that this administration has refused to do.”