Credibility Coming Home to Roost

Many of us who were openly critical of the war did so not only because of our general pre-dispostion against power, but also because we knew what the practical consequences of putting American troops into an Arab country under questionable pretenses meant. In the past few days the Bush administration has certainly felt the powerful consequences of that choice.

Iraqi prisoners being abused certainly has consequences in settling that dispute, but what impact does it have world-wide? Especially since our credibility is already shot among many in the Europe and the developing world because we haven't found any weapons of mass destruction. So when Sudan wins a seat on a UN committee to deal with human rights issues how much weight does our, correct, decision to walk out of the committee carry? Answer - none. We look no better than Sudan to many people, and frankly that's a shame. It's not because our government is some paradigm. It obviously isn't. But when a tyrannical, murderous regime thumbs their nose at us and points to our abuses in Iraq, and those accusations ring true with many folks in the Arab world things are out of whack.

The UN is not a useful forum, and this decision to elect Sudan has little real consequence for the world. However, we are obviously better than the Sudanese government. When the contrast between the U.S. and a country like Sudan can be obscured by the abuses we've committed in Iraq, it's a shame for freedom and our struggle for liberty.