Do as we say, not as we do

The International Herald Tribune for July 5 considers the fact that

[t]he costs of the war in Iraq have been counted in dollars spent and lives lost. But with the handover of limited sovereignty complete, some diplomats, academics and human rights groups speak of a less tangible price, not just in Iraq but far beyond its borders.

The war and prisoner abuse - combined with the detentions at the U.S. base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and the tough terms of the Patriot Act - have eroded the moral leadership that Washington has pursued without embarrassment for years, they say.

For example:

- In Malaysia, opposition to an internal security law was vocally supported by Western governments,

believing that the law calling for detention without trial was anachronistic in the fast-modernizing country.

Now, Musa Hitam, a former deputy prime minister of Malaysia, who lead a lonely campaign to abolish the law, refers to

an "embarrassed silence" from Western diplomats, especially from the United States, which once described the law as draconian....

"Leadership by example," Musa says, "is in tatters now, as far as the U.S. is concerned."

- Human rights workers note that China, Russia, and Egypt also have argued that if the US approves of detention without trial, how can their own internal dissidents complain when they do likewise?

- They also argue that

the United States has at times muffled its message on rights; they claim that it has toned down criticisms of places like Thailand and Uzbekistan, partners in the Iraq coalition, as well as Israel. [I would add Pakistan to that list.]

- Last year, when then-President Charles Taylor of Liberia arrested critical journalists, he called them "enemy combatants."

"Many people now critical are people who were great admirers of our principles and values," said John Esposito, former director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington.

"Abu Ghraib in particular has seriously undermined our ability to preach to the world," he said. "There's a question about how much moral authority is even left."

It's a testament to the power of the image of the United States around the world that even after all we had done over the years, after all the wrongs we had committed, abetted, supported, tolerated, or passively allowed, that we were still able to stand with moral authority in the eyes of others, that on the eve of September 11, indeed even on the eve of Gulf War II, we were still able to pull ourselves up, say "this is wrong," and have others listen.

No more.

Maybe that's not a bad thing. As long as they remember that it's not all that we are, maybe having the rest of the world cast aside an imaginary US and see us realistically, as every bit as self-centered as any other state, every bit as willing as others (and more willing than some) to run from the risks of freedom to the security of control when the pressure is on, every bit as capable of selfishness and cruelty as anyone else - maybe that can be liberating, empowering, all the cliches.

But still, it's kind of sad. It's a nice feeling to be able to think that you represent something good in the world, even when you know it's at best only partly true, not only for your own sense of pride and your ego, but also for the knowledge that such an image can at times be used to resist oppression, to drive justice, that you in some hard-to-explain way embody hope.

No more.

Just another thing we've thrown away since 9/11. Well, they say it did changed "everything."