This report from The Heritage Foundation, a hawkish research instutute in the United States, lists as many as 54 countries now identified with the “coalition of the willing.” As a result, I’ve updated the paper detailing human rights issues in most of these countries. Version 3.0 of “Human rights issues in the coalition of the willing” is now online.
Welcome Rwanda, Uganda, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and other bastions of democracy and freedom!
The invasion of Iraq has begun.
I’d thought it might be interesting to examine the human rights records of the countries who have aligned themselves with the “Coalition of the Willing.” Of the 30 countries in support of the invasion, only three — Estonia, Denmark and the Netherlands — have not been cited by either Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch for human rights abuses.
Among the other 27 (not all of whom are democracies), there is a litany of human rights abuse, some of it on par with what happens in Iraq. Although there are few countries that can approach Iraq in terms of sheer brutality, it should be noted that these 27countries sometimes come close.
You can view the document here. Feel free to link to it or steal it and paste it on your own site.
From September 1, 1949
by W.H. Auden
All I have is a voice
To undo the unfolded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky :
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone ;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police ;
We must love one another or die.
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies ;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic flashes of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages :
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
[via Poems about War]
Rachel Corrie 1979-2003
Scoop: Rachel Corrie in her own words
Rachel Corrie was a 23 year old American student who was killed by a bulldozer as she tried to stop the demolition of some Palestinian houses in the Gaza Strip.
This is from an email she sent her parents in February, just after she arrived in the Middle East.
“Today as I walked on top of the rubble where homes once stood, Egyptian soldiers called to me from the other side of the border, “Go! Go!” because a tank was coming. Followed by waving and “what’s your name?”. There is something disturbing about this friendly curiosity. It reminded me of how much, to some degree, we are all kids curious about other kids: Egyptian kids shouting at strange women wandering into the path of tanks. Palestinian kids shot from the tanks when they peak out from behind walls to see what’s going on. International kids standing in front of tanks with banners. Israeli kids in the tanks anonymously, occasionally shouting– and also occasionally waving–many forced to be here, many just aggressive, shooting into the houses as we wander away”.