Mumbling Again

Teaching Democracy

One of the doctrines of the Bush administration is to spread democracy abroad. In his second inaugural speech Bush says, "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world." This ideal is nothing new to American foreign policy. In our recent history President Regan demanded, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Indeed, Robert Kagan in his Washington Post column points out:

"The great struggle of the epoch [is] between liberty and despotism," James Madison asserted in 1823, and Americans from the founders onward have viewed the world in terms of that struggle.

Although a more hawkish stance on these issues has emerged in the post 9/11 world, these ideas are nothing new. And although I personally disagree with a policy of preemption, I'm proud and inspired by how far Iraq has come in light of the recent and successful elections.

However, we are the most successful model of democracy in the world and other nations look to us for example. This begs the question: What are we teaching the world about democracy through our actions?

It's currently estimated that we are holding 680 people at Guantanamo Bay. These detainees are being held incommunicado, without representation or charge, and for an indefinite duration. This policy goes against one of the most important principals of our own democratic society, and the arguments against it have been brought all the way to the highest U.S. courts. The U.S. Navy's Judge Advocate General and other lawyers filed an argument to the Supreme Court in 2003 stating:

The lives of American military forces may well be endangered by the United States' failure to grant foreign prisoners in its custody the same rights that the United States insists be accorded to American prisoners held by foreigners.

However the policy of detainment remains unchanged, and the situation is worsening. Christophe Girod of the International Red Cross said, "The open-endedness of the situation and its impact on the mental health of the population has become a major problem." Recently, NPR reported that the U.S. Military confirms there have been at least 23 attempted suicides by detainees at Guantanamo Bay in 2003.

If we want to win the hearts and minds of people who are skeptical of American power, we need to take a serious look at how our actions are perceived around the world. Granting the detainees in Guantanamo some civil rights and due process would be a good start.