U.S. atrocities overseas
The millions of Ukrainian refugees are just the latest victims of the U.S.' global hegemony. The U.S. waged wars across the world after WWII, which not only caused the deaths of innocent civilians but also led to a large number of refugees, seriously affecting the economic development and social stability of affected countries and regions.
The so-called anti-terrorism wars launched by the U.S. in the past 20 years have claimed the lives of more than 929,000 people, showed a study published by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.
An investigative report by The New York Times in December 2021 revealed that American forces conducted more than 50,000 airstrikes in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, causing "thousands of civilian deaths."
Observers pointed out that the U.S. military had been concealing the number of casualties in the wars, and the actual numbers of civilian deaths were much higher than it had claimed.
The U.S. military often covers up or underplays its war crimes. In August 2021, 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children, were killed in a drone strike conducted by U.S. troops, before the troops withdrew from Kabul. The Pentagon later admitted the strike was a tragic mistake, but it noted that none of the military personnel involved will face any kind of punishment, reported the NYT.
At home, the U.S. creates "information cocoons" with its feigned power of speech to keep the American public unaware of human rights abuses and humanitarian disasters caused by its troops in overseas wars. In the Vietnam War, for instance, the U.S. military's inhumane use of a chemical weapon, the herbicide "Agent Orange," caused congenital lifelong diseases among local populations. But the U.S. government merely dubbed such diseases "the Vietnam syndrome."
At the same time, the U.S. has an appalling record of "producing refugees." Through the 20-year war in Afghanistan, for example, the UN refugee agency warned that some 6 million Afghans have been forcibly displaced from their homes. And nearly 23 million people, accounting for 55 percent of the country's population, are facing extreme hunger, including 3.2 million children under the age of 5.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' 2022 report, the Syrian war has resulted in Syrian refugees exceeding 610,000, making it the population with the highest need for resettlement.
The Global Times found that there are still 5.6 million Syrian refugees living in neighboring countries.
However, the NYT recently reported that fewer than 23,000 Syrian refugees have been admitted to the U.S. since 2016.
Analysts pointed out that the U.S. exports wars overseas, leading to economic decline and unrest in the invaded countries, further affecting the development of these countries and infringing on the rights of their people.
According to a December 2021 article on the UAE's Gulf Today website titled "How the U.S. ruined Iraq devastatingly," Iraq now has four times more people suffering from diarrheal diseases than before the war due to the damage caused by the U.S. bombing of local power plants and water treatment facilities. The lack of medicine and medical equipment has left the Iraqi healthcare system in crisis. In addition, inadequate food supplies and inflation have left Iraqis facing chronic hunger.
After the U.S. invasion, Syria's once-thriving tourism industry was decimated, threatening the future of a generation with increased poverty, lack of jobs, and reduced educational opportunities for children, observers noted.
The U.S. is also accustomed to using sanctions to willfully violate the right of nations to development and healthcare. Nicholas Mulder, assistant professor of history at Cornell University, previously commented on U.S. Foreign Policy website that, long ago, many Americans considered economic war against civilians an imperialist policy for the old world, but now that Washington is wielding the sanction stick with increasing frequency, sanctions have become an endless instrument of economic warfare.
Nailed in historical pillar of shame
The U.S.' overseas human rights records are notorious, and domestic human rights violations are not uncommon. Though the U.S. is the richest country in the world, at least 40 million Americans live in poverty. The U.S. is one of the most unequal society in the developed world, ranking 35th out of 37 OECD countries for poverty and inequality. The U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate in the developed world, and the youth poverty rate is the highest in the OECD countries.
The American Civil Liberties Union pointed out that not only does the U.S. not honor the United Nations Convention against Torture, but also selectively interprets it, leading to widespread torture and mistreatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Moreover, U.S. human rights issues have deep historical roots, as the U.S. has long had problems such as racial segregation and racial inequality.
In U.S. history, there was the genocide and massacre of Native Americans and U.S. law enforcement brutality has resulted in frequent cases of African American deaths.
To this day, the systematic racism is still evident in every corner of American society.
For a long time, international public opinion has widely criticized the global humanitarian crisis created by the U.S.. At the 46th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2021, the Syrian representative condemned the U.S. for evading its obligations under international law and for making excuses for its military aggression and threats to the unity and territorial integrity of other countries.
The U.S. not only violates the human rights of other countries but also uses human rights issues to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. The U.S.' double standards on human rights actually use human rights as a tool to safeguard its hegemony, analysts said. "Rather than pointing fingers at other countries, the U.S. should better reflect on its human rights violations."
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