ABSTRACT
Human rights have long been central to U.S. self-image.1 The Declaration of Independence’s proclamation of “inalienable rights” is, in fact, an assertion that certain rights are neither granted by government nor subject to removal by government. And from the beginning, U.S. foreign policy has been concerned with projecting a positive image of U.S. national identity and values. As Arthur Schlesinger observed, “Americans have agreed since 1776 that the United States must be a beacon of human rights to an unregenerate world. The question has always been how the U.S. would execute this mission.”2 It would be wrong to assert that U.S. foreign policy has only recently assumed an interest in human rights-that interest has been there all along. What is new is the frequency with which the United States has invoked human rights as rhetorical justification for its actions. The U.S. view of itself as a chief human rights proponent has remained strong, even as public exposures of U.S. complicity in torture and other grave human rights abuses have shaken the foreign policy establishment. Manipulating human rights rhetoric to suit its aims, the administration of President George W. Bush has sought to justify its repressive counterterrorism strategies in human rights terms. This chapter explains how this use of human rights rhetoric, although unique in many respects, is in fact an extension of well-established patterns in American human rights foreign policy established in prior administrations.
