In general, ideology is a system of beliefs, norms, and values that we believe in to find a yardstick for judging and measuring behavior. It may not be possible to imagine a coherent whole and common system in the political structure of the present world to derive a single and agreed upon political ideology. Having said that currently, if a hypothetical common ideology can be defined in the glossary of world governance, human rights will, without a doubt, be one of its cornerstones. It can be concluded that human rights are a common theme in the system of world governance and an acceptable criterion for assessing the legitimacy of various systems of governance throughout the world.
Given that the world’s governments are subject to public opinion and that their behavior towards their citizens and other nations is constantly under media's magnifying glass, resorting to the rhetoric of human rights and beating the drum of human rights is a necessity for any government. Both authoritarian and totalitarian governments, as well as governments that are genuinely elected by the popular votes of the people, try to design and propagate domestic and foreign policies and the implementation of relevant decisions in such a way so as to avoid reflecting the violation of the rights of citizens or ignoring the principles of independence and sovereignty of other nations.
The more power and influence a state exerts at the international level, the greater the expectation will be that it will have more respect for human rights and the rights of nations both in theory and practice. With this in mind, given the self-proclaimed mission of the United States in leading the world and Washington's domination over important international organizations and institutions - such as the United Nations - as well as its efforts to unify global ideology in order to prevent the formation of opposing and self-determining political trends, the US government seems to be one of the first political entities to scrutinize human rights issues, especially concerning other political systems in the world.
An overview of the actions of US administrations over a period of time reveals a stark contrast between the words and actions of US presidents on the issue of human rights. Ignorance of the right of nations to self-determination can be traced back to the United States' ongoing efforts to intervene directly and indirectly in regime change and the establishment of authoritarian and dependent governments. American statesmen have a long history of taking the most heinous acts against nations, such as military strikes and coups. The bitter irony is that US presidents, with the help of their intelligence agencies and executive apparatuses, have stripped nations of their sovereignty over their own land while chanting the most rambunctious human rights slogans and offering the loudest shouts of support for the nations. According to some studies, during the second half of the twentieth century (1946-2000), the United States led at least 81 overt and covert interferences in elections in other countries. [1] Another study shows that during the Cold War, the United States engaged in 64 covert and six overt attempts at regime change in various countries. [2]
Under the banner of regime change and in the form of coups, US intervention has played a significant role, historically and geographically, in the destiny of nations.
The coup against Lilia O'Callani - the last queen of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893 and the subsequent accession to the United States - attempts at coups against Cuba in 1933 and again in 1961, coups in 1953 against the government of Dr. Mossadegh in Iran, and coups in Chile in 1973[3] are only a few examples of the temporal and geographical diversity of US actions on coups and regime change around the world. The contradiction in American discourse about democracy and the participation of the people in the election of their rulers on the one hand, and the use of the most undemocratic methods of interfering in the affairs of nations, reveals the depth of hypocrisy and ambiguity of American statesmen.
There is ample evidence in the history of American foreign policy showing the contradiction that while they used to call for world peace and peaceful coexistence, coercive methods were used to impose mercenaries and affiliates of the US government. For example, during a speech to the US Congress in 1918, US President Woodrow Wilson introduced the Fourteen Points for maintaining world peace,[4] and on the other hand, American officials imposed governments on the nations of the world that not only did not tolerate dissent, but established a system of intimidation, and in some cases, murder. For instance, after the US-backed Augusto Pinochet staged a coup and a military government in Chile in 1973, whose rule was marked by the systematic suppression of all political dissent. The intimidation and assassination of Pinochet's government was to such an extent that scholars described his actions as "political genocide."[5] Regarding the number of victims of the brutal regime established by the American coup in Chile, various figures have been put forward, with some estimates putting the death toll on Pinochet's dictatorship at 30,000. [6]
The question can be asked whether a kind of political discourse can take shape in a coup d'état society and whether a political will, based on the will of the people and the provider of citizens' rights, will emerge from such discourse. And it is not difficult to answer this question since the main components in the formation of the coup reveal that the people and the government - in actions such as the coup - are on opposite and distant sides of the nation-state spectrum. The formation of a military government, the use of coercive and violent methods in seizing power, and the lack of participation - or weak participation - of the people in the transfer of power reveal the coup as being not an act of the will of the people or an act of concern for the cause of the rights of the nation. Furthermore, numerous cases of corruption, lack of accountability, and human rights abuses can be seen in the coup governments due to the foreign support for the coup government and the negligence of foreign powers towards the shortcomings and inefficiency of the puppet government. In this merit, we can refer to the US coup in Guatemala in 1954. Interestingly, it's unfortunate that in this coup - as in many other cases - the US government, through the CIA, ousted the government that came to power through democratic processes and replaced it with a military dictator. And US support for the coup government of Carlos Castillo Armas, his incompetence in running the country, and the emergence of his successor dictators under White House support - among other factors - led Guatemala to more than 30 years of civil war. According to a truth commission, the Guatemalan Army was trained and funded by the United States during the 36-year civil war in Guatemala, one of the most brutal armed conflicts in Central America in which it committed genocide. This report, which confirmed the years of torture, kidnapping, and execution of thousands of civilians in Guatemala's civil war, "estimated the death toll at more than 200,000". [7]
Now let us return to the beginning of the discussion. If we assume a relatively inclusive structure with common components in the political governance of the world and imagine it as the ruling ideology of the political world, human rights would be one of its main axes. The United States, which sees itself as the world leader, especially after the end of World War II, has always beaten the drum of human rights, democracy, and people's participation in political processes to not only persuade public opinion and control the media in the world but also to occupy a leading position in the structure of global governance. But the history of American foreign policy shows that it has acted in complete opposition to the claims of human rights and the right of nations to self-determination, especially in the face of independent states that are not in Washington's interests; and as a result, there is an undeniable contradiction between US declarative literature and implementation policies on human rights.
[1] . https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/sunday-review/russia-isnt-the-only-one-meddling-in-elections-we-do-it-too.html
[2] . O’Rourke, L.A. (2019). The Strategic Logic of Covert Regime Change: US-Backed Regime Change Campaigns during the Cold War. Security Studies, 29, 127 - 92.
[3] . https://www.history.com/news/us-overthrow-foreign-governments
[4] . Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopedia (2022, January 1). Fourteen Points. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/event/Fourteen-Points
[5] . David Erik Nelson (2019), Chile, Greenhaven Press, pp 92.
[6] . Easterly, W., Gatti, R., & Kurlat, S. (2006). Development, Democracy, and Mass Killings. Journal of Economic Growth, 11(2), 129–156
[7]. https://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/26/world/guatemalan-army-waged-genocide-new-report-finds.html
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