U.S. Human Rights Leadership Faulted

"Global support for the war on terrorism is diminishing partly because the United States too often neglects human rights in its conduct of the war," Human Rights Watch declares in a press release for their World Report 2003.

According to Kenneth Roth, executive director of HRW, "The United States is far from the world's worst human rights abuser. But Washington has so much power today that when it flouts human rights standards, it damages the human rights cause worldwide."

Amnesty International took a very similar stance in their report last year. Namely, defining the progress of human rights almost exclusively within the context of the "war on terror". It's a tactic I don't agree with, but I suppose that's their hook.