How the US Weaponizes ‘Human Rights Concerns’

The coming Summit of the Americas shows how cynically America wraps its imperialism in cuddly fake compassion

Photo by bady abbas on Unsplash

In case you didn’t know, America doesn’t care about human rights — like, at all. It’s some twisted irony when the country that allows fourteen million children within its own borders to go without sufficient food can pretend it cares about innocent suffering. Sure, there are case studies where American geopolitical interests and being decent to humanity lined up, the nation did the right thing, people were helped, and lives were saved. That exists.

But in general, America is one of the world’s worst human rights abusers, domestically and especially in foreign policy. Most people in ‘the West’ — younger me included — think there are global institutions like the UN or International Criminal Court that are policing every nation equally, and that we’re all following the same set of rules.

I thought if America was breaking international law, surely that’d be brought to our attention and the responsible parties would have to face consequences.

Ignorance surely is bliss; our education system and media do their best to shield Americans from the cold dark reality of the nation’s history and foreign policy adventures.