If any American needs confirmation of the decline of the United States' status around the world, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's trip to Europe last week was confirmation enough.
The secretary spent most of her time telling our allies the United States does not torture prisoners of war, nor does the United States condone torture of captives by nations that might be U.S. allies. The fact that the top American diplomat had to explain to the world that the United States "does not torture" suggests the nation's image is so badly tarnished that it may never shine again as the world's beacon of decency and civility.
As one commentator put it, the United States was the "gold standard" of prisoner of war treatment. U.S. diplomats were on the front lines of establishing the Geneva Conventions after World War I. America spoke with earned moral authority when presidents:
- Condemned Japanese treatment of POWs in such outrages as the Bataan Death March and the slaughter of civilians during the rape of Nanking;
- Condemned the Nazis when the horrors of the concentration camps were exposed;
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- Condemned the North Vietnamese for torturing American soldiers and fliers (Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., among them) who had been captured and brought to the "Hanoi Hilton";
- Criticized the Soviet Union's Gulag prison system, where for decades both Soviet citizens and perceived foreign enemies of the state disappeared;
- Regularly reminded the world that Fidel Castro's Cuba maintains a system of prisons in which torture is a routine tool;
- Went to war against a brutal regime in Iraq in part because Saddam and his minions tortured and murdered people they classified as enemies of the state or prisoners of war.
The United States has always set the standard for humane treatment of POWs and other combatants. Our conduct matched our rhetoric.
Now we have the sorry spectacle of the Secretary of State trying to convince allies - in some of the most convoluted diplomatic language they've ever tried to decipher - that the United States still has the highest standards when it comes to treatment of prisoners, detainees, whatever the administration calls them these days. Confirmed stories of prisoner abuse at the hands of U.S. authorities at prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Iraq test the secretary's credibility.
Evidence that the nation has fallen far regarding humane treatment of POWs can be found in the U.S. Senate where Sen. McCain has proposed legislation banning prisoner torture and redefinding treatment of prisoners of war and other combatants in U.S. custody. The legislation has broad support in Congress, but is opposed by the Bush administration.
Secretary Rice acquitted herself well during her European trip. She is among the most capable and charismatic members of the administration. She's brilliant and articulate. But even Rice can't explain away prisoner abuses by a country that prides itself on setting the highest standard for treatment of POWs.
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Forum editorials represent the opinion of Forum management and the newspaper's Editorial Board.
