Human Rights
John McCain, the recently passed U.S Senator from Arizona, is praised by many media outlets and human rights organizations as a champion of humanitarianism and “human rights.” One might expect, in this highly polarized time of media warfare, that it would be conservative news media praising McCain and more liberal leaning sources casting aspersions upon his character. I think it’s worth paying attention to the differences of rhetoric and ideology when conservative and liberal news media report on contentious topics. However, what is of note about this situation is that there’s a nearly unanimous bi-partisan agreement that John McCain was indeed a champion of human rights.
Because it seems like there’s such an obvious agreement, let’s take a moment to dig in and figure out what it is about McCain’s life that demonstrates his commitment to human rights.
- “John McCain, a Maverick We Can Learn From” (New York Times, Nicholas Kristof, 8/25/18)
- “John McCain, America’s Revolutionary Conscience” (Bloomberg, Eli Lake, 8/28/18)
We could certainly drum up more articles saying nearly the same thing, but this is a good place to start.
These two articles signal McCain’s commitment to human rights in the form of his position on torture. As Kristof’s NYT opinion piece explains, while seeking the GOP nomination in 2007–08 he came out strong against the use of torture, even when it was a justifiable policy among the republican leadership and constituency.
Further, Lake’s article in Bloomberg paints a more complicated picture of McCain’s position on human rights. Lake says,
He was a defender of human rights. Sometimes it is presented in a less flattering way: He simply loved war.
McCain believed in human rights and knew force was sometimes necessary to defend them. But his beliefs were grounded in a more straightforward impulse: patriotism. McCain’s support for Syrians, Iraqis, Bosnians, Kosovars, Ukrainians, Georgians, Burmese and free Russians was very American.
Based on these two excerpts, you can begin getting an idea about why John McCain is beloved. He’s a politician that seeks to preserve the rule of law, especially when it approaches uncomfortable ethical spaces. Opposing torture is a good look.
However, the claim over McCain’s legacy isn’t just having a good look, the claim, instead, that he was a champion of human rights. Here’s the rub: if being a champion of human rights is tantamount to opposing torture, then it’s a title not worth much. Opposing torture is great, don’t get me wrong, but is opposing torture while also supporting numerous military interventions across the globe.
In his political career, McCain supported military intervention in:
-Syria
- Iraq
- Afghanistan
- Libya
- Kosovo
- Nigeria
- Bosnia
- North Korea
- Iran
- Russia
- Sudan
- Mali
- China
(https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/john-mccain-world-attack-map-syria/)
The question that emerges is: can you support many military interventions, campaigns that will surely cost the lives of innocence with unclear political motives, while still being a champion of human rights? For me, this is a hard sell. Human rights are political rights granted by political institutions won in hard fought fights by the people of those countries. Waging war in itself cannot recognize the right of humans for self-determination unless it is a war that liberates people from despotism.
These forms of preemptive military strikes are what the Media Theorist and Philosopher, Jean Baudrillard, call terror against terror — they’re a nihilistic effort grasping at the straws of a failing hegemonic world order. The defense of human rights means more than making a political spectacle against torture. Human rights require love for others, respect, dignity and the freedom of all people from terror.
