We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 April 2010
This article examines the human rights claims made by the George W. Bush Administrations of their post 9/11 foreign and security policy. Two common scholastic explanations of this narrative are evaluated: (i) that human rights constitute, at least in part, independent foreign policy goals and; (ii) that the human rights claims of policymakers can be dismissed as hypocritical rhetoric. The article informs and progresses this debate by revisiting the works of the early twentieth century political culture theorists Gabriel Almond, Graham Wallas and Edward Bernays. The article details the consistent use of a human rights narrative by administration officials as a technique of political discipline. The article identifies five linguistic mechanisms through which this technique of discipline was made manifest in practice. The article thereby explains how a human rights narrative was employed as an instrument to inculcate, rather than describe, reality.
1 See for example John Shattuck, Freedom on Fire: Human Rights Wars and America's Response, (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2003); Mel Gurtov, Superpower on Crusade: The Bush Doctrine in US Foreign Policy (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2006); Alexander Moens, The Foreign Policy of George W. Bush (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004); Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2003) and Robert Kagan and William Kristol, ‘Why we went to war’, Weekly Standard (20 October 2003), p. 5.
2 George Bush, ‘Proclamation on human rights observances’ (9 December 2001). See also George Bush, ‘Importance of democracy in Middle East’ (4 February 2004); Lorne Craner, ‘Remarks to the Heritage Foundation’ (31 October 2001) and Paula Dobriansky, ‘Speech at the Heritage Foundation’ (21 December 2001).
3 See especially George Bush, ‘Address to the nation’ (7 October 2001) and George Bush, ‘US humanitarian aid to Afghanistan’ (11 October 2002).
4 George Bush, ‘Address at MacDill air base’ (26 March 2003). See also George Bush, ‘State of the union address’ (20 January 2004); George Bush, ‘President Bush's message to the Iraqi people’ (10 April 2003); George Bush, ‘President outlines steps to help Iraq achieve democracy and freedom’ (24 May 2004); Colin Powell, ‘Speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual policy conference’ (30 March 2003) and Bush, ‘Importance of democracy in Middle East’.
5 Richard Armitage, ‘Allies, friends and partners on every page’, US Foreign Policy Agenda, 7:4 (2002), pp. 10–13; Powell, ‘Speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual policy conference’; Paula Dobriansky, ‘Democracy promotion’, Foreign Affairs, 82:3 (2003), pp. 141–5 and Lorne Craner, ‘A comprehensive human rights strategy’ (29 January 2004).
6 For a useful discussion on methodological reasoning see Steve Smith, ‘US democracy promotion’, in Michael Cox, John Ikenberry and Takashi Inoguchi (eds), American Democracy Promotion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 63–82.
7 Illustrating the extent to which linguistic appeals to freedom can invert reality, the words ‘arbeit macht frei’ (freedom through work) greeted victims entering the concentration camps built by the National Socialist government of Germany to implement the final solution to the Jewish question.
8 Institute for American Values, ‘What we're fighting for’, {http://www.americanvalues.org/html/wwff.html} accessed 12 January 2003. See also William Burke-White, ‘Human rights and national security: The strategic correlation’, Harvard Human Rights Journal, 17:1 (2004), pp. 249–80 at 249 and Jennifer Windsor, ‘Promoting Democratization Can Combat Terrorism’, Washington Quarterly, 26:3 (2003), pp. 43–58 at 52.
9 Lawrence Freedman, ‘The age of liberal wars’, Review of International Studies, 31:sp. iss. (2005), pp. 92–107 at 94; Michael Mazarr, ‘George W. Bush, idealist’, International Affairs, 79:3 (2003), pp. 503–22 at 506; Colin Dueck, ‘Ideas and alternatives in American grand strategy, 2000–2004’, Review of International Studies, 30:3 (2004), pp. 511–35 at 534–5 and G. John Ikenberry, ‘Liberalism and empire: Logics of order in the American unipolar age’, Review of International Studies, 30:4 (2004), pp. 609–30 at 630.
10 For details of the absence of Iraqi WMD see Charles Duelfer, Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's WMD (30 September 2004), {http://news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs/iraq/cia93004wmdrpt.html}.
11 Peter Dombrowski and Rodger Payne, ‘Global debate and the limits of the Bush doctrine’, International Studies Perspectives, 4:4 (2003), pp. 395–408 at 395. See also Mohammed Nuruzzaman, ‘Beyond the realist theories: Neo-conservative realism and the American invasion of Iraq’, International Studies Perspectives, 7:3 (2006), pp. 239–53 at 252.
12 Mark Drumbl, ‘Self-defense and the use of force: Breaking the rules, making the rules or both?’, International Studies Perspectives, 4:4 (2003), pp. 409–31 at 424.
13 For articulate expositions of this argument see Michael Ignatieff, ‘The Burden’, New York Times Magazine (5 January 2003) and Judith Lichtenberg, ‘Pre-emption and exceptionalism in US foreign policy’, in Thomas Weiss, Margaret Crahan and John Goering (eds), Wars on Terrorism and Iraq: Human Rights, Unilateralism and US Foreign Policy (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 61–73.
14 26 September 2002, noted in Mary Kaldor, ‘American Power’, International Affairs, 79:1 (2003), pp. 1–22 at 15.
15 For an informed review of this debate see Bruce Russett, ‘Bushwhacking the democratic peace’, International Studies Perspectives, 6:4 (2005), pp. 395–408.
16 See for example Rosemary Foot, ‘Bush, China and human rights’, Survival, 45:2 (2003), pp. 167–86 at 173.; Richard Lebow, ‘Ethics and interests’, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, 3:2 (2002), pp. 25–33; Mary Kaldor, ‘American power: From compellance to cosmopolitanism?’, International Affairs, 79:1 (2003), pp. 1–22 and Institute for American Values, ‘What we're fighting for’.
17 Daryl Glaser, ‘Does hypocrisy matter? The case of US foreign policy’, Review of International Studies, 32:2 (2006), pp. 251–68.
18 Glaser, ‘Does hypocrisy matter? p. 259.
19 Ibid., p. 259.
20 George Bush, ‘Bush-Gore presidential debate’, (3 October 2000) and George Bush, ‘Bush-Gore presidential debate’ (11 October 2000).
21 Condoleezza Rice, ‘Promoting the national interest’, Foreign Affairs, 79:1 (2000), p. 63.
22 For details see Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Holding the Line: A Critique of the Department of State's Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices (Washington D.C.: Human Rights First, 2003), p. 19 and Human Rights Watch, US State Department Criticism of Stress and Duress Interrogation Around the World (16 April 2003), {http://www.hrw.org}.
23 In December 2002. See Leila Zerrougui et al., Report of the Chairperson of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, UN Commission on Human Rights, E/CN.4/2006/120 (15 February 2006), p. 25 and Human Rights First, The Case Against Rumsfeld, {http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/us_law/etn/lawsuit/PDF/rums-timeline-022805.pdf}, accessed 30 March 2005.
24 Antonio Taguba, Hearing Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade (March 2004), {http://www.agonist.org/annex/taguba.htm}.
25 International Committee of the Red Cross, Report on the Treatment by Coalition Forces of Prisoners of War and Other Protected Persons by the Geneva Conventions in Iraq During Arrest, Internment and Interrogation (February 2004), p. 3.
26 Editorial, ‘New charges of abuse surface’, Washington Times (3 July 2005), p. A7.
27 David Forsythe, ‘The US and international criminal justice’, Human Rights Quarterly, 24:4 (2002), pp. 974–91 at 980. See also Kenneth Roth, ‘The fight against terrorism’, in Weiss et al., (eds), Wars on Terrorism and Iraq, pp. 113–31 at 122.
28 See National Security Council, National Security Strategy, Washington D.C. (2002), p. 31. The purpose of the ICC is to prosecute people accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity or crimes of genocide in cases where the domestic state is unwilling or unable to prosecute.
29 The so-called ‘Hague Invasion Act’: See Roth, ‘The fight against terrorism’, p. 123; see also Julie Mertus, ‘The new US human rights policy’, International Studies Perspectives, 4:4 (2003), pp. 371–84 at 380 and Jules Lobel and Michael Ratner, ‘International law’, in John Feffer (ed.), Power Trip: US Unilateralism and Global Strategy After September 11 (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003), pp. 75–85 at 78.
30 Glaser, ‘Does hypocrisy matter?’, p. 267.
31 Gabriel Almond, The American People and Foreign Policy (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1950), p. 53 and Graham Wallas, Human Nature in Politics (London: Constable and Company, 1908), p. 86.
32 Edward Bernays, Propaganda (New York: Horace Liveright, 1928), p. 71.
33 Wallas, Human Nature in Politics, p. 87.
34 Almond, The American People and Foreign Policy, p. 232.
35 Craner, ‘Remarks to the Heritage Foundation’.
36 Shirin Tahir-Kheli, ‘Remarks to the 57th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights’ (21 March 2001).
37 Dobriansky, ‘Democracy promotion’, p. 142.
38 Paula Dobriansky, ‘Testimony before the International Operations and Terrorism Subcommittee’ (24 May 2001).
39 George Bush, ‘A proclamation’ (10 December 2004).
40 That slavery was an integral economic institution until the passing of the thirteenth amendment in 1865 was exemplified by the quantifying of slaves as three fifths of a person for the purpose of calculating the representation and taxation of each State in the Union.
41 Robert Jackson, ‘Human rights and democracy’ (22 April 2004).
42 Bush, ‘US humanitarian aid to Afghanistan’.
43 Barry Allen, ‘Foucault and modern political philosophy’, in Jeremy Moss (ed.), The Later Foucault (London: Sage, 1998), pp. 164–98 at 174.
44 Quoted in Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (London: Simon and Schuster, 2004), p. 131.
45 See Ray Eldon Hiebert, ‘Public relations and propaganda in framing the Iraq War’, Public Relations Review, 29:3 (2003), pp. 243–55 at 246.
46 Vince Vitto, Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication, 2004, {http://www.publicdiplomacy.org/37.htm}, p. 1.
47 Vitto, Report, pp. 2–4.
48 George Bush, ‘Address to the nation’ (11 September 2001).
49 George Bush, ‘State of the union address’ (23 January 2007).
50 In particular US support for the governments of Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia. See for example Osama bin Laden, ‘Interview’, Guardian (8 October 2001), {http://www.guardian.co.uk}.
51 See especially George Bush, ‘President Bush outlines Iraqi threat’ (7 October 2002).
52 George Bush, ‘President Bush discusses Iraq report’ (7 October 2004).
53 Quoted in Dobriansky, ‘Testimony’.
54 CNN, ‘US loses UN rights seat’ (4 May 2001), {http://www.cnn.worldnews}.
55 Dobriansky, ‘Testimony’.
56 Department of Justice Working Group, Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism: Assessment of Legal, Historical, Policy and Operational Considerations (6 March 2003), p. 4, leaked to Wall Street Journal (June 2004).
57 George Bush, ‘President Bush meets with President Torrijos’ (7 November 2005).
58 See for example Dana Priest and Robin Wright, ‘Cheney fights for detainee policy’, Washington Post (7 November 2005), p. A01 and Jonathan Weisman, ‘Senators agree on detainee rights’, Washington Post (15 November 2005), p. A01.
59 Senate: 90–9, House: 308–122.
60 15 December 2005, quoted in Eric Schmitt, ‘President backs McCain measure on inmate abuse’, New York Times (16 December 2005), {http://www.nytimes.com}.
61 Deborah Madsen, American Exceptionalism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), pp. 1–2 and Benjamin Barber, ‘Imperialism or interdependence?’, Security Dialogue, 35:2 (2004), pp. 237–42 at 239.
62 George Bush, ‘Graduation speech at West Point’ (1 June 2002).
63 Craner, ‘Remarks to the Heritage Foundation’.
64 For a discussion on how the proclaimed aims of the Iraq War shifted between security and liberation see Lichtenberg, ‘Pre-emption and exceptionalism in US foreign policy’, p. 70.
65 See White House, Tales of Saddam's Brutality (29 September 2003), {http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20030929-14.html}; Department of State Office of International Information Programs, Focus on Human Rights in Saddam's Iraq: The Violent Coercion and Repression of the Iraqi People (2003), {http:/www.usembassy.it/pdf/other/iraqfocus1.pdf#search=%22The%20Violent%20Coercion%20and%20Repression%20of%20the%20Iraqi%20People%22}; Lorne Craner, ‘Country reports on human rights practices for 2003’ (10 March 2004); George Bush, ‘President Bush thanks military’ (14 August 2003) and George Bush, ‘Moment of Truth for World on Iraq’ (16 March 2003).
66 Bush, ‘State of the union address’ (2004).
67 For details of this support see William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower (London: Zed Books, 2002), pp. 121–2.
68 George Bush, ‘State of the union address’ (29 January 2002).
69 US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Report on the US Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq (9 July 2004), {http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2004_rpt/ssci_concl.pdf}, p. 93 and 97.
70 George Bush, quoted in Philip Shenon and Christopher Marquis, ‘Panel finds no Qaeda-Iraq tie’, New York Times (17 June 2004), {http://www.nytimes.com}.
71 Quoted in Suzanne Goldenberg, ‘Bush allies admit war blunders’, Guardian (6 October 2004), {http://www.guardian.co.uk}.
72 Quoted in Andrew Buncombe, ‘White House misled world over Saddam’, Independent (17 June 2004), {http://www.independent.co.uk}.
73 Quoted in Glenn Kessler and Jim VandeHei, ‘Misleading assertions cover Iraq War and voting records’, Washington Post (6 October 2004), {http://www.washingtonpost.com}.
74 Steven Kull, Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War (Maryland: University of Maryland, 2003); Dana Milbank and Claudia Deana, ‘Hussein link to 9/11 lingers in many minds’, Washington Post (6 September 2003), {http://www.washingtonpost.com} and Glenn Kessler and Jim VandeHei, ‘Misleading assertions cover Iraq War and voting records’, Washington Post (6 October 2004}, p. A15.
75 Human Rights Watch, Saudi Arabia: New Evidence of Torture,{http://www.hrw.org/} accessed 3 April 2002; Amnesty International, Amnesty International Annual Report (2004), {http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/index-eng}; Michael Klare, ‘Corporations, national security and war profiteering’, Multinational Monitor, 22:11 (2001), {http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2001/01/nov01interviewklare.html} and Christopher Joyner, ‘US foreign policy, democracy and the Islamic world’, in David Forsythe (ed.), The US and Human Rights (Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), pp. 246–70 at 264.
76 See Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire (New York: Metropolitan Book, 2003).
77 Michael Klare, ‘Blood for oil’, in Leo Panitch and Colin Leys (eds), Socialist Register 2004: The New Imperial Challenge (London: Merlin Press, 2003), pp. 166–86 at 171; Roth, ‘The fight against terrorism’, p. 115 and Stephen Zunes, ‘Middle East’, in Feffer (ed.), Power Trip, pp. 128–38 at 136.
78 National Security Council, US of America National Security Strategy, Washington D.C., 2006, p. 2.
79 See Thomas Carothers, ‘Democracy promotion’, Foreign Affairs, 82:3 (2003), pp. 141–5 at 144.
80 Michel Foucault, Ethics: Subjectivity and the Truth (New York: New Press, 1994), p. 167.
81 For a detailed exposition of this pattern, see Jan Hancock, Human Rights and US Foreign Policy (London: Routledge, 2007).
82 John Laughland, ‘Human rights and the rule of law’, in David Chandler (ed.), Rethinking Human Rights (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 38–56 at 46.
83 See in particular George Bush, ‘Remarks by the President on the Global War on Terror’ (6 September 2006).
84 Craner, ‘Remarks to the Heritage Foundation’.
85 Bush, ‘Remarks by the President on the Global War on Terror’.
86 The right to challenge the basis of detention in front of a properly constituted court.
87 Including it is thought, Uzbekistan, Jordan, Syria, Morocco and Egypt. See Human Rights Watch, 2005 World Report, {http://www.hrw.org/wr2k5}.
88 In CIA run secret detention facilities in Poland and Romania 2003–2005. See Dick Marty, Secret Detentions and Illegal Transfers of Detainees Involving Council of Europe Member States: Second Report, Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights (7 June 2007), pp. 4–5 and 52–3.
89 Dana Priest and Dan Eggen, ‘Terror suspect alleges torture’, Washington Post (6 January 2005), p. A01.
90 Bush, ‘Remarks by the President on the Global War on Terror’.
91 See Amnesty International, An Appeal to President George W. Bush on the Occasion of His Re-Inauguration (2005), {http://www.amnestyusa.org}.
92 See Dana Priest, ‘CIA holds terror suspects in secret prisons’, Washington Post (2 November 2005), p. A01.
93 The President's Power as Commander in Chief to Transfer Captive Terrorists to the Control and Custody of Foreign Nations, memo (13 March 2002).
94 For details see James Risen, David Johnston and Neil Lewis, ‘Harsh CIA methods cited in top Qaeda interrogations’, New York Times (13 May 2004), {http://www.nytimes.com}.
95 See Marty, Secret Detentions, p. 50.
96 See especially Bush, ‘Proclamation on human rights observances’.
97 Bush, ‘President Bush discusses importance of democracy in Middle East’.
98 Tony Evans, ‘Citizenship and human rights in the age of globalisation’, Alternatives, 25:3 (2000), pp. 415–38.
