The US has to explain why it kept quiet even when it was aware that some of its troops stationed in Iraq were involved in tortures and extrajudicial killings of innocent Iraqis. Likewise, the US has to answer why it turned a blind eye to the gross abuses and human rights violations by the Nouri-al-Maliki’s government. Such acts go against the stated US policies of zero tolerance when it comes to human rights violations.
The documents covering the period of four years of Maliki’s regime paints a grim picture of human rights and democracy in Iraq. Targeted assassinations, drive-by shootings, torture, executions and checkpoint killings, were definitely not what the Iraqis had hoped for and expected in the post-Saddam regime. What is more frustrating is that these acts were carried out by a regime supported by the US, which promised Iraqis democracy and liberty when it led a coalition-of-the-willing to remove Saddam Hussein from power in 2003.
Since the whole invasion of Iraq was based on the premise that post-Hussein Iraq would be democratic, the US as the leader of the coalition to topple Hussein has much to answer to the Iraqi people and the world. The failure to do so at the earliest would only make people in Iraq and elsewhere question the American commitments to human rights and democracy.
Now the onus is with the US government to mobilize all its resources to bring the culprits to book and appear sincere in its commitment to promote democracy and human rights in Iraq and elsewhere. If the US, a bastion of democracy is questioned, it will only help the tyrannical regimes get away with gross human rights violations.
Therefore, instead of shielding Maliki, and labeling WikiLeaks leaks “shameful”, the US has to make sure that the victims of Iraqi rights abuses are not denied justice. Only that would provide the US with any moral authority to denounce the human rights violations in other parts of the world.
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