by Natalie Cammarata
edited by Cristina Mutchler
My editorial would be about the fact that people around the world need to understand that Bush is the puppet of his own administration. He doesn't know anything about foreign policy, human rights, proper ways to communicate, or anything related to his position. Bush is the face of an administration that has pushed the country to a far-right wing approach on foreign policy, defense, and human rights--but he is only the face. Behind him lie the brains of the operation, for one Dick Cheney, who thought it would be a good idea to go into Iraq "to find" the terrorists from 9/11 when they weren't even in Iraq in the first place, and then eventually set up a torture prison. Mugabe is entirely right to charge the U.S. with being hypocritical, but world leaders can't blame America as much as they can blame this administration that happened to America. Defying human rights is not what any U.S. administration intended until now.
As far as wiretapping goes, the Bush administration is being hypocritical as well. You can't go around advocating for international human rights and then invade people's privacy by tapping international--and domestic-- calls for the supposed sake of the nation's security. It's pretty blatant hypocrisy and an unnecessary abuse of power.
I think that there are certainly nations that have done worse things to violate human rights by way of tyranny and violence, including Zimbabwe, Mexico, and Iraq. But the U.S. has never been a nation to violate human rights, which is why these charges against the Bush administration are so shocking to the world. We are the nation that fought against Britain's colonial rule and fought for our independence, and we have that image to maintain. After maintaining such a solid reputation for upholding human rights, for a country to regress and go backward by violating rights, it's more surprising than what other long-time dangerous and corrupt nations are doing.
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