While Joe Biden has vowed to “press” Moscow on human rights issues in Geneva, he may be given a dose of his own medicine one day given Washington’s record of human rights abuses both at home and abroad, according to economist and author Dr. Paul Craig Roberts.
President Joe Biden has vowed to bring up human rights issues during an upcoming meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on 16 June in Geneva. Commenting on the American president’s remarks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted on 31 May that Russia views no topics as taboo and is ready to discuss issues including the prosecution of Americans charged with orchestrating the January 6 riots and the human rights of US opposition activists.
Not Everything in the US Garden is Rosy
The Biden administration’s attempts to weaponise human rights against Russia may backfire on the White House, according to Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, an American economist and former assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy under President Ronald Reagan.
“In mass violations of human rights, we have President Bill Clinton’s destruction of Serbia, George W. Bush’s destruction of Iraq, Barack Obama’s destruction of Libya and attempted destruction of Syria, Washington’s protection of Israel’s violation of Palestinians’ human rights, Washington’s bombings of Pakistan. The list goes on and on. Reformist governments in Latin America are overthrown,” he says.
When it comes to the US, the situation does not look better; currently, conservative observers are expressing growing concerns about the prosecution of Trump rally participants referred to as “armed insurrectionists” by the US mainstream press and Democratic politicians.
One of them, Richard Barnett, 60 – who posed for the cameras with his feet on Nancy Pelosi’s desk – was ordered to remain behind bars in a DC jail, along with dozens of other Capitol protesters, “with no chance to make bail even though he has no criminal record and faces no violent charges,” according to Julie Kelly, a political commentator at American Greatness. Barnett spent almost four months in jail before a federal judge released him in April 2021.
Speaking to Kelly, Barnett and another 6 January defendant, Jacob Lang, complained that they and other detainees were “abused mentally, physically, socially, emotionally, legally, and spiritually.” Some defendants were severely beaten while the detainees’ attempts to practice their religion were mocked by “nasty and insulting” jailers, according to Barnett’s account of events.
While painting all the 6 January demonstrators with the same brush, Democratic policy-makers and MSM remain tight-lipped about the trigger behind the riot, i.e. suspicions over alleged election irregularities and voter fraud, according to Dr. Roberts. The former Reagan official believes that the 2020 election with its last-minute voting rule changes in swing states and abuse of authority by some governors and secretaries of state was nothing short of “a coup against democracy” and “a human rights violation.”
