The sanctimonious hypocrisy is almost too much to bear #Cuba
by digby
I wrote a post over at Salon yesterday about the insane hypocrisy of all these critics of Cuba’s human rights policies while defending American human rights abuses … in Cuba!
Marco Rubio:
The Cuban people — like all those oppressed around the world — they look to America to stand up for these rights, to live up to our commitment to the God-given right of every person, to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”
These were very stirring words to be sure. But you have to wonder if any of these people have the slightest bit of self-awareness. Do they have any idea how hollow their words sound when just a week ago they were condemning our own government for releasing a report that documented America’s own human rights abuses? It’s absolutely true that the most notorious prison camp on the planet is in Cuba — but it’s run by the U.S. government. Guantánamo Bay is still open for business and its practices are still condemned the world over for its mistreatment of prisoners. And Ted Cruz’s lugubrious hand-wringing over the Cuban government holding people without due process would certainly be a lot more convincing if Americans hadn’t been holding innocent people for years in Cuba with no hope of ever leaving.
The layers of hypocrisy and inconsistency and immorality in American society run so deep at this point that we might just as well speak gibberish and call it English. It’s hard enough to hear anyone go about talking up American exceptionalism and touting out moral authority as the shining city on a hill, but to have the utter chutzpah to call out another country’s human rights abuses when we have been committing torture in that country is just too much.
Just stop, I beg you. Admit that we are the world’s only superpower and we’ll do whatever we think is necessary by any means necessary and we don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of us. Bring it. That’s who we are now, and everyone in the world knows it except for the American people who believe that if we do it must also be “good.”
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