U.S. Accused of Overlooking Rights Violations

This recent article in "The New York Times", by Helene Cooper discusses some interesting and disturbing allegations made by the advocacy group Human Rights Watch, in regards to the Bush administration. The organizations report states that our current government has been promoting democracy by endorsing elections in countries such as, Kenya, Nigeria, and Pakistan, yet at the same time neglecting human rights violations. In the case of Pakistan, President Pervez Musharraf, a major Bush ally, removed members of the independent judiciary, and placed them under arrest. He then proceeded to place his own allies on the Pakistani Supreme Court to assure his presidency. This also raises questions about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto who was expected to be his rival in the coming election. There is also speculation about the Bush administration allowing the Kenyan government to believe they could "rig" the December elections, as a result of Nigeria's 2007 election. Head of the Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth believes it is all too easy for these autocratic governments to fake democracy, while denying their citizens basic democratic human freedoms (free speech, assembly, freedom of press, etc). Roth says, “Western governments insist on elections and [simply] leave it at." I believe this article is hugely relevant to our study of national government. These are important issues of foreign policy. News from Africa and the Middle East is almost entirely filtered and extremely overlooked. I believe that our government at times is not entirely legitimate, and articles like this one can shed some light on how our government interacts with foreign nations, and what democracy truly means to our government.