Hungarian Prophecy

The irony of having the US Department of State issue reports on the status of human rights in other nations at a time when this nation is rightfully accused of serious violations of the human rights of the citizens of other nations through extraordinary rendition and 'secret prisons' is rather stark. One newspaper, Hungary's Index published a rather earthy editorial on the hypocrisy of the US with regards to human rights just as Secretary of State Rice landed in Europe.

Each year, the U.S. State Department issues a report on Hungary that measures our respect for human rights, and how we're proceeding on our road to democracy. Basically, it's about whether we're behaving ourselves. Anyone can see it on the Embassy's homepage. I'm reading it now, and it's making my blood boil. I know I should be ashamed, but I'm thinking: Why don't you report on your mother, you Yankee peasant! America has no moral basis for this.

We mostly uphold human rights, the report says, but there are still some problems. For example, in some cases the police use unnecessary violence, despite the law against torture: hitting, kicking, even nightstick beatings; state-assigned lawyers do substandard work. Then there are prison conditions. So the Hungarians should work toward due process for everyone, protecting the innocent, good-natured police and comfortable prisons.

...But let's also point out that Hungary does not keep concentration camps on its territory or on that of any other state. It does not build secret torture chambers in which people are kicked around without any charges against them.

Concentration camps (and lets drop this phony expression "secret prison"; they're secret because they're really concentration camps) are the ultimate in state crookedness. Not only do they beat and kick, but the sadistic personnel there do whatever they want, and it's a not a matter of substandard legal defense, but no legal defense. People can be thrown in there without charge or trial, and there are no footprints leading out. These are neither prisoners of war nor convicts, because if they were, they'd have rights. They are not people but livestock. They can't be innocent, because then they wouldn't be there, so if they're there they're beaten until they admit to being spies or saboteurs.

...Placing concentration camps in Europe is a level of brashness that not even the Soviet Union achieved. This matter of outsourcing gulags could be a watershed in European-American relations: do we forgive this, because we've seen concentration camps before, or do we make a worldwide scandal for exactly that reason? It looks like these camps are within Eastern Europe's comfort zone.

One is reminded of any number of past terrorist states. It may seem harsh, but history shows that if a set of institutions is built where anyone can be annihilated by those in power, then the machine guns are already waiting in the wings, and they're going to go off. If you're not with us, you're against us. Who said American democracy is permanent and unbreakable? [Emphasis added]

Come February, when the State Department presents the 2005 report to Congress, I hope at least some members of congress are ashamed of the hypocrisy, ashamed at what we have become.