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At the 1964 Republican National Convention, Barry Goldwater declared "extremism in defense of liberty is no vice," and he was criticized by many who said the statement did not reflect American values.

"Extremism in the name of security is no vice" may well be the operating philosophy for which the Bush administration is remembered. There is a growing list of U.S. government actions, both domestic and abroad, that show abuse of law and blatant indifference to human rights - all in the name of security.

These actions shape America's image abroad and undermine our strategic objectives.

American courts already are under way with what is likely to be decades of judicial revisiting of Bush administration decisions pertaining to detention, interrogation, torture and eavesdropping.

Even a conservative Supreme Court is speaking clearly about the rule of law. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in June's Boumediene decision, holding that detainees at Guantanamo have the right to habeas corpus: "The law and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times. Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law."

It will take time to repair the damage done to America's image abroad. The perception of any country is shaped by a series of events that create a general image. These events are cast as human interest stories by the foreign media, including those in countries where a central U.S. foreign policy objective is to promote democracy and human rights.

In the past, America was held up as the model of democratic practice. That our government has been taking shortcuts in the name of security is not lost on foreign observers. The July 24 Economist notes: "America's claim to be a beacon of freedom in a dark world has been dimmed by Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and the flouting of the Geneva Conventions amid the panicky 'unipolar' posturing in the aftermath of September 11."

America set a high standard for due process protections that require the state to strictly follow certain procedures to protect the accused. Recently released Department of Justice memos drafted to provide legal cover for "waterboarding" as an interrogation tool undercut this reputation. So does the U.S. government's misuse of the material witness statute.

More than 70 individuals have been held in terrorism investigations under the federal material witness law since the 9/11 attacks, according to a report by Human Rights Watch. Material witness laws are meant to ensure that people with important information do not disappear before testifying. But the U.S. government deliberately used the law to secure the indefinite incarceration of those it wanted to investigate as possible terrorism suspects.

In these cases, people held as material witnesses in terrorism investigations were often not called to testify against others. They lack constitutional protections, such as the requirement that criminal suspects in custody be informed of their Miranda rights. Moreover, they are often held for long periods in the same harsh conditions as those formally charged with very serious crimes.

American credibility as a standard setter in human rights suffered a major setback with reports that the CIA ran secret prisons in Eastern Europe to interrogate terrorism suspects using brutal methods that international agreements define as torture. It's illegal for the U.S. government to hold prisoners in isolation in secret prisons in the U.S. The CIA's internment practices are likewise illegal under the laws of all the new democracies of Eastern Europe.

Indeed, the State Department publishes an annual "Human Rights Report" to inhibit in foreign lands just the kind of prisoner abuse that was alleged. The Japan Times warned soon after America occupied Afghanistan that the "war against extremism was fought on behalf of fundamental values, such as respect for human rights and the rule of law. The U.S. decision to deny its detainees the protections afforded them by international law undermines both of these bedrock principles."

These and other government actions showing blatant disregard for the law have reshaped America's global image. During the 1990s, views of the U.S. were generally positive. A 1999 State Department survey showed that favorable views of the U.S. were held by 83 percent of respondents in Britain, 77 percent in Morocco, 75 percent in Indonesia and 62 percent in Turkey. The 2008 BBC World Service poll across 34 countries found that only 32 percent of respondents said the U.S. is having a positive influence in the world.

Right after 9/11, the U.S. benefited from global solidarity. Today it is largely alone, disliked and mistrusted, with worldwide consensus that in the key area of human rights and the rule of law, the U.S. disgraced itself. An editorial that ran several months after 9/11 in the Czech Republic's Prague Post warned of this: "Ironically, it is America's enduring respect for personal freedom that makes it a world leader and the envy of terrorist brigands. American laws work remarkably well despite their flaws - and millions have left their homelands to enjoy the fruits of an open society. It is easy in these leaden days to suggest that federal rules must be overhauled to ensure that the guilty are rooted out and punished. Too easy. The bylaws of the United States do not exist in splendid isolation. They are models worthy of imitation."

Mark Brzezinski was the director of Southeast European and Russian/Eurasian affairs at the National Security Council at the White House. Currently he is a partner in the D.C. office of the law firm McGuireWoods, where he manages the international practice. He is a member of Atlantic Community's advisory board.

Lanny A. Breuer is a partner in the D.C. office of the law firm Covington & Burling, where he co-chairs the White Collar Defense and Investigations practice group.

This article was originally published in the Washington Times on August 28th and is republished here with Dr Brzezinski's kind permission.

Related materials from the Atlantic Community:

• Christine Otsver: A Common US-EU Strategy of Democracy Promotion is Feasible
• Wess Mitchell: How America Should Respond to Resurgent Russia
  
• Valentine Anatolevich Akishkin: The Shadow of Serious Transformation in US Foreign Policy

September 4, 2008

Donald Stadler, Self-employed, Diamond Contributor (1052)

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I like this comment! What's this?

Yada, yada, yar.

"Right after 9/11, the U.S. benefited from global solidarity"

For how long, a week or two? And in whqat material ways did the US 'benefit' from this supposed global 'solidarity'. What I was seeing from Europe at the time is 'We'll vote to invoke Clause 5, but it's unthinkable that you (or we, especially we) can actually DO anything. You must take your deserved chastisement in humility and do nothing to forestall this happening again".

A few exceptions, not many. It was ballocks then and it's ballocks now.

September 4, 2008

Marek Swierczynski, journalist at TVN24, Diamond Contributor (1102)

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It's somehow a pity that the US is not a major global oir and gas exporter. Imagine how could it be if it was: it could have waged wars on its own territory and beyond - with no serious repercussions from its partners, it could have killed its own citizens and foreign citizens (even in world's major cities!) in great numbers with no calls for interantional criminal court to be installed to bring justice, it could have sponsored international terrorism and proliferate lethal technologies to rogue states and still be friends to many peace-and-democracy-and-human-rights-loving nations in Europe. Hey, Don, let's drill down Alaska!!!

Tags: | why Russia is our beloved friend but not the US |

September 4, 2008

Donald Stadler, Self-employed, Diamond Contributor (1052)

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Indeed, Marek, that lack is lamentable. Though I might phrase your statement more widely: "It's a pity that the US is not the US" - being a major energy supplier is mrely the latest symptom of an ailment which has been afflicting the body politic for at least 50 years if not longer....

September 4, 2008

Donald Stadler, Self-employed, Diamond Contributor (1052)

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Pardon moi, let me rephrase: "It's a pity that the US is the US - otherwise anything could be forgiven". Let me give offer a particularly piquant example.

Abu Ghraib is the site of a prison in Iraq where some stupid yobs of United States soldiers tormented some Iraqi pisoners. Due to this it is an international symbol of the excesses of our Facist dictatorship more compelling than Bergen Belsen.

Abu Ghraib was also the site of some earlier unfortunateness, being the site from which one SH (remember him) sent a great many of his slaves to premature meeting with Allah, apparently usually in rather gruesome ways. But this is a mere pecadillo compared with the enormity perpetrated by the Nazi scum of the US - scarcely mentioned at the time or later, so it is not mentioned. To do so would be to take the focus off the true evil - the unsanctioned amusements of some yobs who once were US soldiers and are now criminals residing in military prisons.

September 5, 2008

Patrick Edwin Moran, Wake Forest University, Platinum Contributor (207)

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It may take severe consequences to bring the majority of U.S. citizens to a clearer understanding of how the nation must pay, in the long run, for ignorance, fear, and selfishness. Some individuals already know from experience abroad the constant fear occasioned by living in a state that is haunted by its secret police, throttled by its lack of human rights, etc., but few have those experiences and fewer care to speak openly about them. How the educational level of the U.S. citizenry can be raised to a safe level without paying Experience its traditional high tuition fee is a pressing question. Can our school systems teach the lessons in objective ways that do not fall to claims that the schools are teaching values? Or must we lose the protections of our Bill of Rights to begin to truly appreciate them?

Too often, I believe, individuals may have the intellectual grounding to fight back against the inroads of authoritarianism, the seeds of fascism, and the hubris of all those who would presume to force others to follow some preferred set of beliefs, but fail to take action because the costs of such a battle are high. I suspect that individuals frequently rationalize their passivity by convincing themselves that the actions of people with irrational beliefs cannot be influential enough to really matter. As someone once said, "Any man can stomp a skunk, but you sure as hell hate to be the one to have to do it."

Tags: | US | human rights | civil rights |

September 9, 2008

Lior Petek, University of St. Gallen, Platinum Contributor (216)

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I completely agree with Mr. Swierczynski's and Mr. Stadler's comments. As I have commented on an other article whether the policies of the US are good or bad is all a matter of perception. And this said, perception is not always guided by the desire to be correct, but instead often by the desire to feel comfortable (in social psychology the former perception is termed "cognitive" and the latter "motivational"). In this respect I want to add to Mr. Swierczynski's and Mr. Stadler's analysis my own hypothesis: I think that especially in Europe the critical attitude versus the US policies and the bad image it suffers from results from the motivational factor of augmenting one's self-esteem. After all, the US was founded on the claim of being the "New Israel" and "New Jerusalem", respectively, in opposition to the perceived immoral European power politics. This is why I guess Europeans embrace wholeheartedly every alleged US misconduct and - if one really exists - blow it out of proportion (as Mr. Stadler has rightfully pointed out) as this gives them the comfortable feeling of an enhanced self-esteem by allegedly being morally superior.

November 5, 2008

Joseph Stephan Patac, Global Risk Management Company, (5)

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Dear Mr. Stadler..

to compare Abu Ghraib with Bergen Belsen abomination on itself and is lacking any kind of decency, respect and sensibility about the facts "Of the final Solution" (referring to the entire jewry of europe), the reason and goal it was build for, as numerous similar "institutions" in nazi-germany and nazi-occupied territory and last but not least the millions of victims murdered there in kind of a "industrial way". (generally known as Holocaust and Genocide)

Abu Ghraib was never either build nor operated as a final mass-annihilation camp, planned, constructed and industrially operated by the ruling goverment and regime.

I agree with you that "some" people where killed and/ or tortured there either by Iraqui regimes or foreign occupation armies. But its not only to finger point at the USA but as well to England and all the "smart" and "good" european countries.
Perhaps you only way too fast forgot about the yugoslavian conflict in front of our doors and the mass killings and rapings cared out by differnt parties.
And especially not to forget the abuse of womens and girls, as well as the girl trafficking by some Nato and european KFOR soldiers.
(the girl trafficking is a still a ongoing case only covered under the big european carpet of policies of unknowing innocence)

May you recall also "the outstanding scandal" about the CIA operated flights caring kidnapped "could be or would be or maybe were terorrists" for "interrogations" including some motivations by torture. But, it where european countries whom agreed and allowed the overfly rights, yes.. the same states that pointed with their "innocent" fingers in direction to the USA when it became public. Referring espescially to Switzerland which gained already expertise and experience from the past two world wars, outpointing not only the overspilled trains crossing switzerland maintaining human supplies for places as BERGEN BELSEN.

There is a neverending number of occasions where the european states policies were, to stay patient waiting positions, gaining time to analize in which way they may could gain some own profit out of the case.

Perhaps it is "new" for you commentators, but every state around the globe works exactely the same way, similar interests and policies, with more or less success according to the states capabillities. It is quite hypocritic only to point out the american policies, interests, motivations.and global activities especially when other states (europe) dont have the guts to join in american activities but eager to prostitute themselves for getting a share on their own of the gainings and leftovers. (There are Lions and there are Hyenas)

To put it simple and easy: The Winner and Successor has always right and the Looser left standing small. (Ever heard of any tribunal or critics against a winner?)

..and dear Mr. Petek,,
i dearly hope for you, that over the heat of the debate you may have overseen Mr. Stadlers outrageous comparison between Abu Ghraib and BERGEN BELSEN

November 5, 2008

Donald Stadler, Self-employed, Diamond Contributor (1052)

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Dear Mr. Patac,

The 'Lynddie England' version if Abu Ghraib has been more widely pubicized and denounced than either Bergen Belen or Saddam's Abu Ghraib in today's popular press. Therefore it must be worse, do you not agree?

Of course by the same measure G-bay was worse rhan Auschwitz.

Whether or not these are actual facts (they are not) matters not. The medium is the message, and scathing denunciations of the US accompanied by a striking dearth of recognition that any other human evil does or can exist is a feature of the age.

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