paul the hearing will come to watch out that rather the committee will come to what today's hearing is entitled city on the hill just another country if the title sounds somewhat provocative it was intended to be because i think it's important to call attention to what i see as a profound challenge to our nation and that is the decline of our image how we're perceived in the world today and how that translates into how we are regarded in terms of the promotion of human rights and democracy and i want to be very clear i do believe that the united states is still the city on the hill and if one has been observing the hearings conducted by the subcommittee and by other committees here in congress i think that it has become clear that not only are we aware of those issues but we are intent on we storing our claim moral authority and as an aside it should be noted that the term shining city on the hill was coined by a native of massachusetts john winthrop who i think the embassador knew in his youth but i do believe that we can and should serve as an example to the world of how democracy and respect for human rights does make a better life for all of a city on the hill was echoed most recently by president george w bush in his second inaugural address and i'll quote from the day of our founding we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights and dignity and matchless fat you across the general ration as we have proclaimed the imperative self government because no one is fit to be a master and no one deserves to be a slave answering these ideals is the mission that created our nation now is the urgent requirement of our nation's security and the calling of our time and on this particular occasion i might come as a surprise to my friend and colleague from california but i do agree with president bush on this one occasion advancing democracy and human rights around the world is good for america and it's not just simply about out that use but it is in our base national interests to promote human rights and democracy but we also have to recognize the facts we've held a series of hearings last year that confirmed that among both our adversaries and our allies the united states is viewed as hypocritical in our rhetoric about human rights and democracy because we are seen to be selective in their application that image is not simply the result of propaganda media bias it's that we don't necessarily always practice what we preach it's a result of specific actions by our government from torture at  to extraordinary rendition to turning a blind it's of the abuses of ruelas in ethiopia when they do our bidding in somalia and to ignore the repression of the chinese government because it benefits commercial interests to vice president cheney praising political developments regime and providing them with the author terry and government of egypt some two billion dollars annually in american assistance just this spring in remarks introducing the state department human right country reports then assistant secretary of state for democracy human rights and labor are apparently allied with the united states this lack of credibility as had numerous unfortunate results whether it's given the government of china  excuse to put out in your report on us human rights or the refusal by foreign intelligence services to cooperate with american counterterrorism  directed at americans and this is a consequence of the decline of how we have viewed in this world it impacts the cost and effect onus of military operations we the united states ability to align with other nations in pursuit of common policy objectives and dampened dampens foreign publics and for american businesses and services so the fact is that while americans may still see the city on the hill much of the world just sees us as another just another country cloaking our interests in empty rhetoric even worse we are seen as a threat to peace and security even by some of our allies i would note that one particular pol think there is anyone in the us congress decisions that happening that is beyond any reality but it ought to be a lesson and disturbing to us so today's hearing will reveal more of the inconsistencies between what we say and what we do and we'll explore ways to we store our image i believe that one course we can pursue is to begin holding ourselves accountable to the same standards that we hold other countries and to that end of introduce legislation considerable input into just like we do for every other country in the world with the state department's human rights report it would be a bi cameral bipartisan congressional commission with a significant staff that would systematically study whether the united states is fulfilling our commitments under a variety of international human rights treaties and it would report in yulee to the united states congress on its findings i think that is a positive step to let the rest of the world know that we're not afraid of self criticism where appropriate technology mistakes and redressing them that i would suggest is what historically has set us apart among the family of nations so i look forward to any comments that eyewitnesses may have on this particular initiative or any suggestions or actions that that they might propose so that the world will once more be assured that the united states of america is the city on a hill and not just any other country so before i thought as you started about the shining city on the hill that you might have been talking about ronald reagan i was disappointed when you went back further than that because it was ronald reagan who resurrected that concept how we have been prioritizing the human rights issue in these last seven years and i think he's correct in this assessment and i think this is ministration has been has a lot of talk about  there has not been the type of commitment to human rights that would engender the excitement and the imagination of young idealists throughout the world who should be looking to the united states instead of two forces like radical islam as a means of expressing their idealism and creating a better world but mr chairman i put what's going on today and the failures of this is ministration in perspective and i realize i lived through the clinton administration and realize that what was handed disadvantage secretary albright promoted our ties with the taleban it was fishel policy of this administration not to support anyone who was opposing the dollar bill on during the clinton years in fact it's clear to me as someone who studied what was going on in afghanistan that the creation of the taleban were obviously personified the worst possible human rights abuses in the muslim world  last administration actually was part of the trio the clinton administration the saudis and the pakistanis which created the taliban in afghanistan furthermore once the taliban that were in power the clinton administration did nothing to respond to attacks on our embassies which we knew were traced back to al qaeda operating out of a taliban controlled afghanistan or in the u s s cole  attack in fact the attacks on nine eleven i believe fall right on the shoulders of the decisions and policies that were put in place by bill clinton and madeleine albright in the years prior to this president becoming a chief executive  i remember requesting time and again as a senior member of the foreign affairs committee the documents relating to america's policy toward the dollar and they were kept from myself and from chairman gilman who was chairman of the committee at the time so we had an administration prior to this of ministration which helped create one of the world's worst human right again much earlier and we could should note that before tournaments where there was an evolution going on towards democracy that was very easily discernible after tournaments where when they slaughtered the democracy movement it has all been downhill in terms of human rights since that before tournaments where there was an excuse to be working in cooperation with the chinese communist dictatorship because it was becoming less of a dictatorship and it was becoming more open politically as well as economically that is not the case since tenement square and during the clinton administration over and over again we saw that instead of game and it was a deal with the people who believe in democracy in fact i remember very well that president clinton when running for reelection criticized his predecessor for not doing more after t square for human rights in china and then president clinton once in power actually when we were out of session one i remember this incident when we're out of session took it upon himself to he was providing permanent most favored nation status up until that moment we had to vote every year to get china most favored nation status and we had to redo the human rights records well under president clinton it became permanent most favored nation status this was a betrayal campaign pledges but also it was a high had a horrible impact not just politically but economically all of a sudden we threw all of these billion and more working people in china into a competitive world labor market with the people with the working people united states and it has had tremendously horrible economic impact as well as the fact that we have seen that not having a human rights oriented policy has of course and any of the any of the movement his job in trying to maintain the ideals that were set down by our founding fathers in terms of human rights liberty and justice i would say that his democratic predecessor left him  with a very bad situation that's not an excuse for what he's doing but it is certainly should be acknowledged that the failure of the administration was nothing but a building on the failures of the last administration and those ideals that we should share as americans and it will serve us well in dealing with the rest of the world if we would only hold true to those principles so thank you very much  service at tufts university which is a method massachusetts his career spans more than three decades of leadership and higher education it's a national diplomacy foreign policy and human rights most notably he served as the u s ambassador to prague in the czech republic and as assistant secretary of state for democracy human rights and labor he went to yale and got his magn masses with first class on as an international law from cambridge university resume and the next witness is can rock who is executive director of human rights watch a post that has held since one thousand nine hundred three human rights white rights watch investigates reports on and seeks to curb human rights abuses in some york he's also a graduate of yale law school and a brown university and he was drawn to the human rights cause in part by his father's experience fully nazi germany and one nine hundred thirty eight he began working human rights after the declaration of martial law in poland in one thousand nine hundred one and soon also became deeply engaged in fighting military repression in  issue far reaching issue it has to do not only with our foreign policy and human rights but very broadly with our national security and i think this is really as as much of a national security topic as as anything and i also want to with your permission i'm sure you would agree i want to dedicate what i say this morning to my mentor in many respects and friend of leader senator edward kennedy whose career has been monumental in so many directions and continues to be particularly for me in the field of human rights civil rights civil liberties over over many years and it's an honor to  our foreign policy today and it's we have economic and military assets that are really on paralleled but our influence and standing in the world are really at rock bottom i think at this point and one of the reasons for this is that the u s is seen by many people in many parts of the world to be a violator not a defender of human rights and we know this through a great deal of polling data that has been assembled and i cite some of it in my testimony in the article that's appended to the testimony for example a poll conducted last year by the b b c in eighteen countries on all continents showed that sixty seven percent disapproved of u s detention practices in guantanamo and abu ghraib another poll conducted in germany great britain poland and india found that majorities are pluralities believe that the u s has engaged in torture and violated international treaties a third poll conducted by the chicago council on foreign relations showed that majorities and thirteen countries most of which are traditional allies believe that the u s cannot be trusted to act responsibly in the world so there's really a globe perception i think of the gap between our values and the way we've acted on human rights and on the rule of law and i think this is severely eroded our influence and power in the world  a celebrated book by joseph nye teaches at harvard called soft power the means to success in world politics and it really analyzes a nation's ability to get what it wants through attraction rather coercion and that's really the essence in many ways of our human rights appeal city on the hill over many years two fundamental principles govern the exercise of power through attraction rather than  coercion and the human rights of first very simply as a banga law human rights are defined and protected by our constitution and by the international treaties that have been ratified and incorporated into our domestic law and if we are to project ourselves as championing human rights internationally we must at the very least adhere to the bill of rights and the human rights treaties we've ratified but by whatever we flaunt those basic requirements of international and domestic law not just what we want to do but what we're obligated to do such as the geneva conventions convention against torture the international covenant on civil and political rights the foreign intelligence surveillance act in some ways implements the fourth amendment to our constitution the government our government in the name in recent years of fighting terrorism has created what are in effect a series of law free zones and it's in ease zones that detainees have been abused thousands of foreigners have been held and indefinitely without being accorded the status that the geneva conventions should give them more hearings to determine that status and repressive regimes around the world have implicitly given a green light to crackdown on political dissidents and religious and ethnic minorities in their own countries so that's one guideline and a second basic guideline in addition to a bangle law for exercising the power of attraction by promoting human rights is simply to practice what we preach to try to bring in line our principles and our actions in a very basic sense and i think the u s loses credibility when we charge other countries with human rights violations that we've committed ourselves but it's now well documented that in recent years has pointed out the chairman the u s has engaged in some of the very practices that is criticized  annual state department country reports on human rights practices for example detainees in u s custody have been brutally abused and other abu ghraib and other prisons in iraq and afghanistan hundreds of prisoners have been held without charges and without access to court review and guantanamo and a vast warrantless electronic surveillance program has been conducted in apparent violation of federal law each of these practices similar to human rights violations that are condemned by the state department contrary reports and have been for some time now fortunately history i think shows that us standing in influence in the world can be restored when our values and our policies are generally brought into alignment over the last four decades state has exercised significant powers of attraction in our foreign policy by undertaking a series of major bipartisan human rights initiatives during five separate presidents three of home happened to be republican and two democratic think shows that the breadth of this potential bipartisan agreement president ford signed the he accords and that led to international recognition of the cause of human rights dissidents inside the soviet bloc president carter mobilized democratic governments to press for the release of political prisoners held by repressive regimes president reagan signed the convention against torture and persuaded the senate to ratify it president george h w bush joined with other governments in the organization for security and cooperation in europe to nurture the new democracies the post cold war world and president clinton work with nato and the un to implement the genocide convention and bring to an end the human rights catastrophe in the balkans so i think it's pretty clear that we can do it when we bring ourselves  to the will to do it and i think the congress in the next president should follow in the tradition of these major bipartisan achievements on human rights and i have six areas very briefly that i believe we can and should act right away to restore the international credibility of the united states on these issues first we should signal to the world that we stand for the rule of law and that we have here to our own laws is a very conservative recommendation over the last sixty years the united states has ratified and adopted as part of our domestic law nineteen international human rights treaties and conventions and in many cases such as the geneva conventions the international covenant on civil and political rights and the convention against torture the united states is deeply involved in drafting and promoting these treaties so we have a special obligation to see that they are enforced and for this reason i strongly endorse the bill mr chairman that you introduce week for that would create a bipartisan united states human rights commission to monitor compliance by the u s with all the international human rights treaties to which we are a party this commission would respond to the need for effective implementation and enforcement of human rights law by the and it would be patterned i think appropriately so after the congressional helsinki commission which has made far reaching contributions to human rights during and after the cold war by monitoring international compliance with the helsinki accords that gave legitimacy to the political and civil rights movement inside the countries of the former soviet bloc the one suggestion i would make on the bill is that i think it would be important to mandate that the reports that it is required that are required to be prepared be done jointly by the secretary of state and the attorney general who after all is responsible for enforcing all our international treaty obligations domestically my second recommendation is that the new president should take specific and immediate steps to rebuild u international credibility by doing the following the president should announce that the u s will close the detention center at guantanamo and transfer all detainees to the us or their home countries for trial restoring the policy of providing individualized status hearings done in the past to detainees would demonstrate compliance with international norms without restricting the government's capacity to conduct lawful interrogations and fully complying with the geneva convention also would not preclude the u s from trying detainees in military commissions with full due process of law my third recommendation may be a little bit controversial but i believe the president should announce that the s will take the lead in working with other countries to draft a comprehensive treaty defining in condemning acts of terrorism within the framework of international human rights law i think working toward a consensus with our allies on the global issue of terrorism would counter the claim that is often made which i it is a false claim that differences in cultural values religious beliefs political philosophies or different alleged justifiable ends make it impossible to define acts of terrorism as crimes against humanity they are crimes against humanity when committed on a broad scale and they should be defined as such terrorism treaty would also reinforce i believe the protection given to political speech under existing human rights law and i think would put the us in the lead where it belongs to be in the effort to counter terrorism within the framework of the rule of law my fourth recommendation mr chairman is that the president of the congress should make clear that the u s is prepared to strengthen the system of international human rights law to help create over the last six decades important treaties such as the convention to end discrimination against women have lingered for years in the senate and i think should now be ratified doing so will help restore u s leadership on human rights fifth i think the u s should support those seeking to promote the rule of law democracy and human rights in their own countries democracy and human rights activists are at the front lines of the international struggle against terrorism against genocide and even against nuclear proliferation but democracy and human rights can never be delivered through the barrel of a gun assistance to those who are working to build their own democratic societies must be carefully planned delivered within an international framework not just unilaterally sustained over time and based on an understanding of the unique circumstances and profound differences among cultures religions and societies finally the u s should join with other countries alliances and international organizations to reassert america's role and working to prevent or stop genocide and crimes against humanity stance of diplomatic and economic tools can be used to head off an impending genocide but international intervention under the un security council doctrine of the responsibility to protect should be invoked in situations like dar for when all other approaches have been exhausted so mr chairman i'm submitting for the record an article that sets forth my views on these issues in greater detail and let me say in conclusion that by recommitting the us to a foreign policy conducted within the framework of human rights in the rule of law i believe the president the congress of the american people can restore us moral examine some of the things that have gone wrong on some of the reasons why the united states is not in no longer regarded as a city on a hill and what we would need to do to restore that proper place for for the united states the comments i'm going to give this morning are they have to noon are based on the work of human rights watch researchers who you mentioned is determined that we operate about seventy countries around the world and we have people on the ground in essentially every country where there is a dictatorship or an of war and so they need a privilege of being able to report firsthand on on developments in many of the trouble spots really most of the trouble spots around the world and what i'd like to talk about today is the degradation of the concept of democracy a very market trend that we have seen in the in recent years and i highlight this because democracy is such an important really a defining value of the united states and one that i believe is key to american security and therefore should be of concern to all of us if we see it being cheapened which which we do the good news behind all of this is that everybody wants to be a democracy calling oneself as a democracy is really the key to a gym today the bad news is that dictators around the world are getting away with calling themselves democrats on the cheap and i suppose the disappointing news is that the established democracies the west including the united states are making it easy for them to get away with this downgrading of presiding over democracy as he uses blatant fraud and widespread violence to avoid recognizing the reality that he lost the most recent election and that the runoff is not even necessary we have a u s ally restore an independent judiciary ha's mubarak and egypt who has used detention widespread torture on the refusal to register opposition political parties all as a way of trying to constrain the scope of democracy that doesn't pose a threat to his persistent rule us ally mallards in our new prime minister of ethiopia who has gone so far as to use murder large scale murder as a way to maintain his grip on power as well as detaining nigeria figured he would do the same thing in kenya and proceeded to trigger large scale ethnic and political violence from which kenyans are just recovering and we see today senior generals who had the audacity to hold a staged referendum on a new constitution that would entrench military rule in burma at the same moment when when hundreds of thousands of his citizens were at risk of death through starvation and exposure to the psycho he was more important for him to have the charade that that pretended to legitimize his rule rather than go to the rescue of the burmese people i mean of course there's there's a lot of here putin who has very successfully shut down civil society constrain the press silence the duma and gradually diminished every competing center of influence so that he could proceed to designate his successor without offering any kind of genuine debate or choice to the russian people so this is this is the trend and i could get on fortunately go on for some time with other examples as well but i won't the question is you know why is this happening why is it on the one hand everybody wants to be democracy but why are they getting away with with these versions of democracy that they succeed in passing off on the rest of the world and i have to say that although the establish democracy of the west sometimes protests and certainly the reaction to  examples where where the west has been quite vigilant other times the west is much too likely to acquiesce in these kind of charade and what i highlighted in my written testimony and will run through briefly now in my world comments are a few of the reasons that i feel or have seen has led the established democracies to accept these lesser versions of democracy as the real thing first there has been a tendency in this is particularly pronounced in the united states to speak in terms of democracy as a substitute for the international human rights standards that make democracy meaning i don't have to tell you that there is no such thing as an international convention on democracy and democracy is still  fairly flexible concept and what gives democracy its meaning the respect for the basic human rights standards free speech freedom of the press right to due process the right to periodical actions these are all set forth in a treaty like the international covenant on civil rights but the united states is disinclined to talk about human rights the preferred term is just promote democracy and the reason for that is pretty  obvious the united states can can promote democracy without being called a hypocrite i'm nobody's going to question that the united states is a digger's democracy but when the united states government promotes human rights the hypocrisy flags go up very high that brings up you know embarrassing associations with one ton of no waterboarding secret cia detention facilities rendition military commissions and the like i recall a meeting i had a couple of years ago with the egyptian prime minister i was meeting with him to protest on the arrest and torture of a large number of terrorist suspects and when i brought up torture he looked to me and without skipping a beat said that's what bush said as if that was an answer now we all realize that that's a cheap answer but it's also a very effective way of deflecting pressure and since so much of promoting human rights is building pressure on abusive governments to change if they have that kind of cheap rhetorical flourish it makes our job much more difficult i want to see the united states to be able to speak proudly as a promoter of human rights i don't want to have to shy away from human rights because it brings up all sorts of embarrassing association and the failure to talk about human rights and instead to use the softer fuzzier concept of democracy standing alone has made it easier for these dictators to pass themselves off as democrats another factor behind the weak western response to this degradation of democracy has  been a false dichotomy that a number of dictators have very cleverly a stopwatch they like to pretend that you know if not them the deluge if not them you know that the islamists will take over or or or some feared f did this as well in pakistan you know if it's not him the islamists will take off now this is a false dichotomy because it is a very much a product of the limited political choices that the dictators themselves have made available to their people i do think we have to recognize that the most recent parliamentary elections where the muslim brotherhood chose to contest it tended to win and i think that it's fair to say that if we held a free election today in egypt the muslim brotherhood would win  that doesn't necessarily reflect the will of the egyptian people had been presented with a range of political choices mubarak is very cleverly shot down or refused to register a broad range of secular political parties and so if you happen to not like the egyptian dictatorship the only real option is the muslim brotherhood we would be much better off if the egyptian people had a range of vehicles to express their discontent my experience has been that when people are given an array sharif in the hope that it was going to be perceived as either him or the islamic and in that circumstance the islamic obviously grew in stature but when the pakistani people were given a choice the islamists barely registered in the polls and the p and the pakistan muslim league of know why sharif overwhelmingly won the election i mean it shows that when when people are given a range of political choices they will tend toward the moderate center we should not accept this false dichotomy that dictators put forward as the only way to hold up the extremists another factor is the tendency of this government to bank on the so called democrat rather than on democratic principle i suppose the most i'm notorious example of this was when president bush looked into the soul of latin or putin and saw somebody he could work with obviously not a very accurate reading of mr putin solved and that you know certainly made it easier for putin for many years to to gradually shut down competing centers of influence in russia on then belatedly the u s government began to protest that trend but putin had a head start of a good three years before anybody said anything of significance party that is certainly by inclination a friend of the united states a friend of the west a friend of human rights standards but by driving it into a sheriff's arms it is discrediting the p p p in the eyes of the pakistani people and doing i think a great disservice to america's long term interests in pakistan the final factor that i would highlight that is i think behind this disturbing degree of democracy around the world is the one mr chairman that you alluded to in your opening remarks and that is simply the inconsistency of the u s promotion of human rights standards it's very easy to talk about the lack of human rights in syria but what about egypt you know it's easy to talk about the problem of the islamic courts in somalia but what about the ethiopians who are indiscriminately bombing in madrid mogadishu you know it's easy to to attack the ayatollah is in iran but what about saudi arabia the world is not blind to this kind of double standard when they see the united states promoting human rights not as a matter of principle but as a matter of convenience it's these principles of much of their force and it makes the united states a much less powerful moral force on behalf of the values of this nation stands for so what are the policy changes that i would recommend as we look forward this is certainly a moment to reassess we will have a new administration and a new congress very soon so i do think it's it's it's that we should be looking at what we can do better to reverse this disturbing trend let me briefly outline five things that i think could be done first and here i very much echo marks the united states has to change its conduct at home so that it can speak about human rights while holding its head high if human rights is a topic that  engender shame and embarrassment on the united states is never going to be an effective promoter of human rights and what that means in athens is applying the army's interrogation rules to the cia as i know the congress tried to do but was not able to override the president's veto i mean shutting down animo and moving prisoners either repatriating them or prosecuting them in regular courts or regular courts martial in the united states not substituting a regime of preventive detention that would simply and finally it means ending rendition to countries that torture and not pretending that their diplomatic promises of of decent treatment are going to be abided by when the same governments routinely ignore their legal obligations not to torture a second i think it would be very useful for the united states government to dramatically signal its commitment to human rights i'm john i want a number of treaties that i would certainly endorse be ratified but let me highlight two things in particular that i think would send that kind of clear signal to the rest of the world one is to resign and then ratify the treaty for the international criminal court this is a treaty that that the united states has nothing to be afraid of if indeed we prosecute our own torturers our own work criminal obviously if we if we authorize torture and then do nothing about it that's a different matter but to signal that that is no longer what the us government stands for i think ratifying the i c c treaty would be the way the way to go similarly i think we need a a nine eleven style commission has a professionally staffed commission looking at what went wrong with bush counterterrorism policy and how we can avoid ever again descending into the depths of human rights abuse that that has so scarred that that policy over over the last several years third i want to see the u s government speak about democracy and human rights not democracy as a substitute for human rights i wan see a promoting democracy in the fullest meaning the term not a cheap inversion that reduces to constrained elections without the right to make democracy meaningful fourth mr chairman as you pointed out i want to see a consistent application of human rights and democratic standards there should not be a way out from from us human rights enforcement or promotion just because somebody has to be it happens to be an important ally of the united states and finally i think it's important that the united states build a long term perspective on what democracy promotion is about it's not about snap election it's not about two strange choices it's about building a vigorous civil society a range of political parties a genuine rule of law so that the people of the country when they do finally go to the polling stations have a choice and are in a position to express their will in a meaningful way that's the kind of democracy that i think is likely to be in the best interest of the united states that's not the kind of democracy where we are w constrained choices we're just as likely to elect enemies as we are to watch i think if these policy changes were acted we would be well on the way toward putting the united states back where it should be which is the city on the hill and one that through its soft power through its example through through practicing what it preaches it is a powerful force for human rights and democracy around the world thank you very much thank you mr on thank you both for your testimony i i do i'd like to just make an observation i think in terms of our policy does a visit human rights and democracy promotion missing an important ingredient in that is transparency and explanation of our behavior that can take many forms what concerns me about the behavior of ministration and the ranking member is correct we've seen both democratic and republican administrations through the years we've seen the deficiencies and the defects and the inconsistency transcend party lines but this particular administration has i think a cheat a level of secrecy that is profoundly disturbing to have a healthy democracy the more transparency the diplomatic pressure and says there was a hearing that we held concerning a canadian syrian national that was sent to syria as opposed to his request to go to the country where he had reside for the last twenty s which was canada it has been the resistance from the department of justice and from this administration for information is not only perplexing it is beyond anything i have ever witnessed we secured one letter from the then deputy attorney general that acknowledged that he was the vigil was sent to syria rather than canada and the letter stated this pursuant to his authority the attorney general rendering if you will for lack of a better term this individual to canada to canada would have been prejudicial to the united states without a more full import explanation of that statement i know that we have inflamed opinion public opinion in canada and we're oblivious to it here we don't you know the toronto papers don't get here the canadian broadcasting system is you know unless you have some sort of satellite it doesn't get here but it is of it's something that canadians are talking about and it's reflected in the decline of respect for this country in canada and yet there's no explanation my own and it goes to the issue of inconsistency but it also goes to the issue of people don't get the information out if you have an administration i don't care whether it's a republican administration  democratic administration if there is not more transparency then our own democracy suffers and stuff is profoundly and it's something i think that we all have to be cognizant of and concerned about and it ought to be part of any effort in terms of we storing confidence in in the genuine democratic witnesses for being here today earlier we had done a series of hearings that i know of been referred to about our standing in the world and you know the bad news was that it was among the lowest ever almost everywhere the good news if you dug into that polling was there was a genuine resit or of out there that about the idea of america and what we're about international cooperation and standing for the rule of law you know those kind of things are still out there that i think there was again back to the hypocrisy that people believe that's what america about but that's not what you're seeing in practice too often so i appreciate you all being here and really highlighting how we deal with this and address it and i want to start with the our our beliefs and human rights principles to be a part of that debate and to begin to incorporate that into those kind of agreements thank you  i think the fundamental i mean it's not by accident that my bureau when i was running it in the state department and it still has this name was the bureau of democracy human rights and labor and  issues of freedom of association and opportunities for labor groups in other countries to engage in the kind of protected activity that they can engage in in our country  is really part of a broader human rights agenda which i think resonates in the international covenant on civil and political rights and all of the freedoms and rights of association that go along with that so i think we need to build into all of these kinds of trade agreements and the colombia want to confess i'm not familiar with where that stands at the moment but we need to build in these in these  trading agreements and ways of opening up markets opportunities to to reinforce the rights that people should have in those countries with whom where engaging in this kind of open trade arrangement and you know i think there have been some voluntary agreements that have been entered into by various american  industries particularly the in the apparel industry has been involved in trying to reduce the amount of child labor for example i mean of course that also resonates in another dimension of human rights the international rights of the child produce the goods to be traded should also be free and freedom number one is that if you form a labor union you should that's the freedom that that issue in colombia now the congress i think quite properly has insisted that before the free trade agreement is to be adopted or accepted that the climbing government has to vigorously pursue and prosecute the authors of the massive number of murders of colombian trade unionists more trading is killed in clubby of than any place else in the world the pressure is working in that as you know i guess was just last week president uribe dramatically extradited to the united states fourteen paramilitary leaders whose paramilitary operations had been behind a good number of these murders and that's very good news and suddenly paramilitary leaders who might have been getting just a slap on the wrist you know maximum seven years and in very modest confinement in colombia suddenly are facing real time here in the united states so that's a positive step but it's not a reason to give up on the pressure one because still be the actual people who are committing these murders for the most part of not been prosecuted and we would like to see a real pattern of prosecutions before the free trade agreement is adopted i'm not the only way we're going to be able to signal to the murderers in colombia that you can't get away  killing trade unionists if they have the audacity to try to form a trade union that there will be a price to be paid i'm so the pressure is working but we need to keep the pressure on second there was something very odd about the timing of  we've been pushing for extradition for years and years and years and president uribe has resisted and suddenly he turned these fourteen over at a point where they had begun to cooperate with colombian prosecutors looking into the so called pa politics scandal that is the relationship between the paramilitaries and senior government officials and it was just what about a month ago that mario your the president's cousin and probably closest political confidant was arrested because of the ties with the paramilitary and suddenly in that context the paramilitaries who'd been cooperating are sent off to the united states so human rights watch has written to attorney general mukasey urging him to make sure that the administration's desire to get the free trade agreement passed does not stand in the way of ongoing cooperation between u s prosecutors and colombian prosecutors so that we can get to the bottom of the pair of politics our fear is that the administration is so eager to see the agreement through that it's going to make it difficult for the paramilitary leaders to continue to provide information that that may lead to higher within the colombian government we think it's very important that the congress reinforce that message and not just take this important gesture as being sufficient for ending the impunity that lies behind so many of these trade union workers thank you very much therefore i go to mr roboto i feel compelled to respond to the situation judicial system i have made no public announcement as to where i am on this particular issue of the free trade agreement but i feel compelled to acknowledge  a level of commitment that i have never seen before and at the same time i think you make a very good point mr up and i think we've got to be clear the fact that the extradition requests were wanted at this particular point in time does not preclude the department of justice from providing access to colombian authorities in terms of any investigations that they may they may wish to pursue and i can i i returned maybe several months ago where i was given access by the colombian introduce a distinction for for north america for for you know this is the united states we tend to think of prosecutors as just an arm of the executive so if the prosecutor is making progress we would applaud the attorney general  that's not the way works in latin america is not the way it works in colombia the physically it is essentially almost a quasi judicial body that operates independently of the executive and while there are who are quite bravely pursuing these incredibly dangerous cases this does not necessarily reflect the commitment of the government and indeed there been times when the government assisted in a way so while i completely agree with you that that the prosecutors are making progress our focus should be you know on whether the disagreement mr roth on his analysis of what has been going on in russia and the nature of mr putin's regime now i am open minded to that i would like and i would request now publicly that this committee holds a sub committee hearing specifically on russia to get to the heart of this matter because i hear all of these cliches and all of this broad strokes about painting mr putin an enemy of freedom and now a horrible and at the same rational condemnation of mr putin and i'd like to see what the specifics are of that let me note just for the record that i'm one of the few americans who during the cold war who actually engaged see the facts behind this attack on putin and i would be very happy to discuss them and open minded about it so that's first request i think when we're discussing human rights in general that we need to understand that human rights and the standards of human rights that we're talking about basically is something that we're that deals with non democratic governments and how they deal with those who would  bring in democratic elections and individual freedom to their societies in essence not that some say that's the whole scope of human rights but the largest portion of human rights concern is these non democratic countries and how they deal with those people who would bring democracy to their countries it is not basically about how democratic governments deal with those who use force or would use force to terrorize their populations into submission and perhaps into a change to a non democratic government basically i happen to believe that  in person which happens at times and as we've proven here in these hearings at times gets on justly mixed in with the with criminal terrorists and force and violence is used against him to try to extract information that he does not have or she does not have because it's an innocent person but that is a violation of that person's human rights i do not believe that when you have a terrorist as with criminals in the united states we execute murders in united states and that is not a vial human rights i know there are other people around the world would like to think it is i don't believe that it is not a violation of human rights to take a criminal who has raped a woman and put him in jail for a certain length of time so he cannot rape other women or deter others from conducting rape that is not a violation of those human rights that is force being used against an individual and if you have a terrorist and we are using force against that terrorist to extract information that will save the lives of hundreds or thousands of innocent people that i believe it's a travesty to make that as part of your human rights analysis as to whether we believe in human rights or not and i see a lot of that in the basis of the criticism of the united states of america not to say there isn't other criticism or we are actually taking the side of dictators taking the side of the chinese communist dictatorship in order to promote commercial interests we are not doing what we need to support the berm ease even before this i clone because they are human beings and their rights are being violated by a non democratic government and certainly the the manipulation of our of our government by the likes of musharraf and even to some degree mubarak but certainly musharraf is something that's very demonstrably so i made some points here i would like to suggest with the test one of the ambassador mr ambassador when you worked in the clinton administration you're not trying to tell us that this administration spends less on human rights or a national dhamma for democracy or the broadcasting or in the democracy fund that was spent during the clinton administration are you i have figures in front of me in real dollars this is ministrations outspent the time when you were part of the clinton administration by almost two to one well that's the interesting question mr chairman nowhere in my testimony did i claim nor do i now claim that  human rights policies of the united states which i think of fallen into severe disrepute around the world and you have agreed with that some of that property that that really has very little to do with the money that's expended in any particular area i think it's it's right and double that this administration has has spent money in the in what it claims to be the promotion of human rights but the whole thrust of my position and i believe yours is that unfortunately we've seen our reputation on these issues of human rights and the rule of law i would agree with that and and what the essence or saying here it's not what you know here we have a governmental facade set up in the name of human rights and it is not that we maintain this facade it's it's what the principles are of how we and our leaders and what  our commitment of our leaders are and i would certainly agree with what i've heard today i would say suggest that this president's commitment to human rights is on par with what we had under president clinton who dramatically undercut our efforts in the human rights community when he made permanent most favored nation status for china which was one of the greatest losses i would say  policy before secret policy of supporting the taliban before but i would suggest that this president has a stubborn streak and doesn't like criticism and i think that  he has been faced with a challenge he has been faced with the challenge of dealing with a war on terrorism that was part of the legacy left him by the last administration and but now we are in the fight and he that's one factor but he does not like as a person this is a personal failing of our president and that he doesn't he wants to do things in secret because he does not like criticism and for any stubborn and so i would suggest that that might be a personal failing that it has some effect on whether or not we can have the influence on how things are done because we know about them let me also note that rendition that we've heard about today and the chairman has given us a good example we had a hearing on it where the wrong man there was a an innocent man who was taken i think on the streets of italy and then sent to syria where he was tortured and we heard some evidence of some others have been picked up and sent to guantanamo eventually who may have been the innocent people we should readily unlike our president we should as a nation be readily willing to accept the fact and admit the fact that we are imperfect and make mistakes and that does not mean the goal is something you have to give up but you have to be willing to admit those mistakes to protect the rights of these particular individuals the rendition policy started under the clinton administration and in fact the person that we're talking  about and captured with the complete cooperation of the italian government this is the united states out on its own picking up this man and rendition that way this is cooperation among our democratic allies to violate the rights of a person when we do make a mistake and their rights are violated should admit it but we should also protect those human rights of all of those potential victims if we let a terrorist loose and he goes back and and bombs a railroad car filled with innocent people so please feel free to i made a couple points here in this drop i made a disagreement to disagree with you about mr putin and please feel free to comment responsibility for what happened on nine eleven and of course i don't sit here as an expert on that subject but i do feel compelled to refer to the nine eleven commission report which i think makes very clear human rights does fall at the feet of this administration now that's not say that the clinton administration didn't commit mistakes we all make mistakes quite rightly said we also need to admit mistakes but let me let me go to that to another topic that you raised which i really do find a little surprising which is the i think you said at one point that secretary albright promoted ties with the taliban and basically saw the taliban as as a potential ally of the united states well i can tell you that first of all the united states under the clinton administration condemned the taliban consistently publicly openly for one of the worst violators of human rights in the world certainly did this in the in the human rights report our foreign aid directed into taliban controlled areas of afghanistan well i mean that's what counts the words don't mean anything to people like the taliban but they noted that when they told us not to live or a certain amount of aid to the non taliban controlled areas they didn't get there and then we delivered aid to the taliban what was the real policy when i tried to find those answers during those years i would say for the last four years l i don't know whether we can get into a long discussion of what was going on with the taliban in the in the ninety's and in even the earlier period of course when we're talking about the effort to engage the soviets when they were occupying afghanistan a lot of history here to be sure but i want to just be very clear on one thing i'm sitting here from that era on human rights and i can tell you that consistently and repeatedly and through diplomatic encounters in many different places including europe and other places the united states was condemning in the strongest possible terms what the taliban was doing to human rights in  afghanistan so that's that's that's a very i think a very very important point you know on the on the question of secrecy and point that the chairman made about the great importance of transparency in  our policies and in our interactions i think this is a pervasive problem in the field of human rights i think where there is often human rights violations take place abroad and certainly in our own country under the cloak of secrecy it was it took enormous amount of effort to find out what was going on and some of the most abusive situations whether it was kuantan a moral and in the alps and certainly the policies that were adopted that suspended or at least pushed aside the geneva conventions and some of the other most basic human rights treaties that some of what we saw going on in in the two thousand to two thousand and three period even today in the washington post for the first time six years later there was a revelation that there were some very brave attorneys and  career attorneys in the department of justice and in the f b i who are who are making this very point that we can't do all this secret now you know i i would differ with you that there was secrecy in the clinton administration comparable to what we've seen today i don't as i just don't think that any objective criteria can can bear that for example was a rendition agreement with the made public i don't and i don't know about that so can honestly tell you a lot of very important thing about comparability ok i think it's pretty comparable and i'm comparability in the in the area of rendition which basically became a fairly standard practice during  we really don't have rules in this subcommittee it's a free flow but reply of in from every flow of information i get uneasy about any secret agreements with out particularly of of consequence that implicate the potential for hostilities without some tool from the congress whether it be under president clinton or the current administration a previous administration we're on the verge right now of discussions about a bilateral agreement between the united states and iraq which would remove all the which would in the un mandate leaving american troops in iraq in my opinion without the legal basis to be utilized in any combat operations whatsoever in this administration has no intention to come to this congress for authorization this is what i'm talking about in terms of seeker what concerns me is the role of congress in its constitutional bur and responsibility to be part of d's kind of decision in a way that reflects i think again our constitutional prerogatives but responsibility engagement that i have the seating and i can stay for somewhat longer and i want to honor the questions of the subcommittee but very directly in response to that i think illustrated mr chairman as i tried to in my opening remarks and and can do so again now why this bipartisan by cameral commission on human rights is so important i can't think of a single piece of legislation in the field of human rights that's more important than the one that you introduced and i hope of other members of the subcommittee will will look closely at it and ultimately co sponsor it because you know what it does is to create a very reasonable conservative model in the context of what was done in the helsinki commission of implementing and overseeing the obligations of the united states has and in the field of human rights and it will give this subcommittee or those members of it who are on this commission the kind of authority that the congress clearly has and that you now can assert by and acting this legislation so i very strongly in but that's essentially what we're talking about and i certainly agree with the chairman one hundred percent on the idea of transparency and secrecy and a free society it's contrary to our interests we should be able to us we believe in something let's stand up for it i will tell you that for four years because of my involvement in afghanistan earlier i had a personal tie to what was going on i was there in and out of that country trying to help the what later became the northern alliance i could not get your member of this committee any of the documents from the state department concerning our policy toward the taliban that was kept secret from the united states congress furthermore  ben gilman and some others helped organize meetings between them what was the northern alliance what became the northern alliance and the administration would hinder those meetings and and putting people together so i have to assume that there was a secret policy during the last administration that led as led to the other problems we have that not only just make a political point because i do agree with these criticisms of the current administration but it's led to say let's talk about some fundamental principles and the fundamental principles yes this is ministration is just cloaked in secrecy but the last administration was well and during the cold war we had a great  hold because you're going to stay and i want to give mr flake an opportunity to pose whatever questions thanks it'll be difficult to answer this without saying it's a compilation or all  needed to clearly the invasion of iraq itself is a big part of the problem in that many people feel that it was not done with security council authorization that whatever arguments of self defense might have been made turned out not to be justified by the evidence so that is a problem but that's a non human rights issues i'm not to dwell on and was that it was that recognized at the time or is that just kind of grown over time in a sense it doesn't matter if the question is  today what does it take to redeem america's reputation and that is a scar on my organization doesn't take a position on the war in iraq for or against it so i'm not going to do on iraq in terms of the human rights issues though i wouldn't say abu ghraib because  grave you know did look like behavior on the night and i would distinguish that from the use of abusive interrogation that was clearly authorized from the top the waterboarding the to th extensive exposure to heat or cold for long sleep deprivation stress positioning you know a number of things that were taken together i think often did amount to torture but even so amounted to a prohibited cruel inhuman degrading treatment so i would say that you know one whole area is just  the continued claim of the right to use a number of these techniques which is a big problem i think that could be ended if the army rules were applied across the board and if there were some genuine effort to explore what went wrong and ensure that it doesn't happen again  and to this day i don't understand why the administration doesn't have faith in the american justice system to bring them to a regular federal court or to a regular military court martial prosecute them and that way they can no longer say you know we are combatants or the way  i'm george washington i'm doing just what george washington used to say that in his combatant status review tribunal hearing because he's not being prosecuted as a criminal or he's being prosecuted only for the substandard military commissions but not a regular court so i think that there is an urgent need to shut down guantanamo insofar as people committed crimes prosecute them but otherwise let people go largely agree with ken's analysis i think that the two points to be stressed here is that there are symbols which have i mean when you're talking about international public opinion of the kind that's been pol and has demonstrated the kind of loss of a loss of stature on the part of the united states i think there are symbols that mean a great deal they may not necessarily be the only elements i would hesitate to put a label on these symbols as the most important ones but the biggest symbol is indeed guantanamo there's no doubt about it it's the symbol that that people see and i think it's grown over time it's become more of a symbol because it was and to some extent understandable that in the heat of battle and the crisis in afghanistan and the and all that was going on in that very early days even though clearly that were human rights violations that were occurring it was perhaps understandable that the united states would try to find some way of getting terrorists off the field of battle but as this is gone on and the policies have been essentially not only not but enhanced and we continue to have as we did all through last year debates about abuse of interrogation techniques waterboarding torture things of that nature the attorney general's unwillingness to to as torture as hearings i think that you know that's why the symbol has grown and there are many many other aspects of international public opinion is so negative certainly the war in iraq but you know that's that's a very large topic which is which i don't put specifically in the category of human rights so i you know i think what we've seen and this is why i the article earlier about what the justice department attorneys revealed in the inspector general's report published in the washington post today we shot ourselves in the foot in so many different ways we've tainted the evidence so that it's now not possible to to try people in the way that really they need to be tried in order to resolve this issue so there's almost no way out of it and that's part of why we see  the attorney general in his confirmation hearings kind of shying away from characterizing acts of interrogation that might constitute torture because he wants to sort of protect those who may have been involved in all of this so the evidence is tainted and we've made it increasingly difficult to get out of all this that's why i think the the world looks on at this catastrophic human rights problem that we created as a self induced problem of having created a situation where we have jeopardized a successful prosecution where we have no credibility left where military lawyers including i think it was colonel maurice that discussed the from his perspective the political influence that was being  that was implicated in decision making that forced him to resign that was recently supported by a decision by a navy captain sitting on a particular case that eliminated from any further involvement in the in the prosecution a general by the name of hartman who is responsible for these trials that's that's what we are witnessing and observing it is a disaster i intend to work with the ranking member to make an effort to go to guantanamo and to interview directly inmates that are incarcerated there after receiving the appropriate waivers of counsel have to begin to reconstruct if you will some semblance of what we are about in terms of our respect for the rule of law we have to make that effort hearing and there's quite a bit of evidence that the government has not usually you know computers or cell phones or you know surveillance testimony or evidence and the duty on the government is to make sure that it doesn't introduce any evidence that is derived directly or indirectly from the course of interrogation but there is quite a bit of independent evidence and to make a case of conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism or material support for terrorism let me ask you  to many of these cases initially there wasn't the kind of even cursory investigation and i just wonder and i think the number  here i don't know if it's accurate or not is there's some five hundred detainees that have already been released how can you make five hundred mistakes i'm with you on that completely i mean i've been seven hundred fifty people through guantanamo who were al speak the worst the worst and you're absolutely right five hundred of already been released now and of the two of the two hundred fifty who remain another ninety or so we're going to be released to yemen there's no claim that they should be just the administration's claim reduces to about one hundred twenty five hundred  fifty who they say are dangers are criminal and the question is what do you do with those people and also let us not forget what we're condemning the government actions here and that is that in  current situation where there are terrorists and since nine eleven there have been a number of acts around the world in which hundreds of people have lost their lives you know we always focus on nine eleven or realize three over three thousand americans but around the world we've seen in spain and then britain and elsewhere where hundreds of people have lost their lives from terrorist action directly relating to radical islamic terrorists and the job of  our authorities today is not a criminal justice job of proving that someone was engaged in this activity after the act is occurred what they're trying what we're trying to do now is be there's evidence of some kind otherwise we're just wasting our time and resources that may be engaged in a plot to conduct a terrorist activity now our children our families innocent people's lives are at stake this is not a criminal justice system in the initial action now what we do with those people who we were career correctly withdrew from society took into custody well that's another issue and how we should deal with them but certainly if you have some telephone conversation and we should hear the telephone conversations between people who are plotting to murder hundreds of civilians we should take them into custody before they conduct that terrorist operation and save those people's lives i mean when you talk about you want the people we've incarcerated since nine eleven let's remember some of them were actually guilty some of them were involved with terrorist plots and in fact we may have thwarted terrorist plots by good information from the i completely agree that it's important with terrorism not simply to to act after the fact but to try to prevent acts of terrorism and i know that the pentagon likes to say that of the five hundred people who've been released from guantanamo thirty six have returned in some way to terrorism now first of all that's a when you read the fine print you see some of them have just become california because we heard yesterday from professor and others simply is not accurate but even even if we were to take it generated a magnitude well beyond thirty six if you just look at terrorist recruiting sites they wave those u s abuses around her way to get the next generation of terrorists even if we can mr outsmart you even the former secretary of defense  at a moment at a moment of clarity indicated that he was of the opinion that there was possibly more terrorists being created of people who are out conducting these bombings our way of life their religious opinion is that the freedom that we find in the united states is contrary to what they believe that civilized society should be all about they believe it should be based on their religion these are religious fanatics and whether you find that in iraq the people music and all of a sudden they realize my gosh these are religious fanatics well the people who are conducting these raids on us and and on other western countries and killing all these people they're not being recruited because of  how we're exercising that we're against terrorism to get us because they believe that we are infidels and they do not believe that the type of freedom that we believe for men and women and individuals is consistent with what they believe god wants on this world so i'm sorry i don't and that is no excuse for ever doing anything wrong any pressure being used on an innocent person final comments indicated that and as i think you've heard me put forth the premise that it is understandable initially in the fog of  war and that it is i think except to detain to protect the country to do it in a vigorous and robust way but if there is no process that implicate a fair and equitable determination of the facts and that's the problem and it is clear that it did not happen in the case of guantanamo and those that are speaking out now involved with the combat status review tribunals and condemned it as a sham this is the problem we all are willing to protect our country and our national security at the same time it was a failure and i particularly laid it to the to the department of justice if they consulted with the then secretary around the in a way that has put a strain on our national a road our credibility and has put at risk hasn't helped us in terms of protecting ourselves and enhancing our relationships with and that we need this isn't just simply about our values and respecting human right it's about protecting us and we failed and we failed to have a process in place and now as mr ross indicates we have the f b i in a report by the inspector general of the department of justice that is absolutely appalling when the mr ross i'm sorry if i could use maybe a political analogy in this political season i think of the fight against terrorism as a fight for the swing vote and by that i mean there are lots of people with grievances out there  the vast majority are law abiding people who will never take up arms i'll never kill without medicine we don't really have to worry about that on the other side of the spectrum they are the osama bin laden's of the world they are confirmed terrorists we're never going to dissuade them all we can do is try to arrest them or stop in my view the fight against terrorism will be won or lost by the swing vote the people in the middle who have grievances and who could frankly go either way they could either try to pursue their grievances through  political means or they could resort to violence and terrorism and we need to be careful about what does it take to tip that swing vote in the lawful direction and my fear is that things like one ton of and course of way to understand the conventions is those are human rights in a war context and they make clear that you know we're past the era of total war there are certain things you can do even if you're fighting the soviet army you can't you can't people with the degree of due process that that convention and i think that the u s government's failure to abide by those basic war rules has heard off by losing that swing vote with the geneva conventions cover people who are not wearing uniforms and conducting terrorist activities on civilian populations yes the parts you're referring to that was would not yes sir geneva convention which deals with prisoners of war would not be applicable here because for the most i mean you know al qaeda is not going to be a prisoner of war they don't they don't wear uniforms they don't abide by and let us know that when when we say we when the taliban was driven out of afghanistan we had a few  people there it was driven out by the people of afghanistan themselves called the northern alliance but we did have a few people on the ground and one of our only casualties was when we decided  as is customary in afghanistan and that is when someone surrenders in afghanistan become a custom over two years that they not at that i'm trying to do something that will injure or hurt their captors because the afghans have never had the capability of maintaining prisons or prisoners over the centuries and so that was part of their custom and so once someone has surrendered to you you can rest assured afghan custom that they have surrendered and that you do not have to kill them or bind them up and of course the al qaeda fighters that were there in afghanistan didn't abide by the rules surprise surprise the one casualty we had is when our cia operative decided that they were going to be treated as afghans treat their prisoners which is very respectfully i might add and instead the al fighters who were captured with the afghans hid guns and weapons in their clothing and immediately when they had the chance they rushed forward and killed our this operative and many other i might say anti taleban afghans who are there now they can't even respect the laws and traditions of their own hosts they're not going to respect any of these laws and i don't believe that we have the obligation under the geneva convention to respect them as we would any soldier in the field who was wearing a uniform who had gone along with the norms of battle the laws of battle you're right it's a different set of rules the convention not the third geneva convention but things such as common article three apply regardless of whether you're a prisoner of war or regular detainees and the rules are quite basic you know for example you can't torture somebody or treat them inhumanely and what i worry about  i'm not under the illusion that if the us respects the conventions that suddenly al qaeda is going to do so or separately that's not the case at all but what i do worry about is that it's quite foreseeable that the united states could have adversaries who would respect the geneva convention if the u s had a record of doing so that could be north korea it could be china it could be iran but these are these are people who have uniformed soldiers this is not a terrorist operation you can't pick and choose if the if you ripped up mentions it's not there when you need them it's a gentleman you know i would point out the fact that it's many within the military particularly retired military names that are familiar to all americans that sent the letters to the congressional leadership imploring them to you know codified if you will in the in the field manuals because of concern about exactly the point that you're making mr roth about protection for american soldiers again we're not doing this simply because it's some abstract value that appeals to our core sense of right and wrong on our moral value with you will it's because we want we do we want to see terrorism and and we want to be able to do it in a way that is intelligent that doesn't generate generations after generations after generations let me i think the point that you make about the cheapening of the term democracy is really a very valid one and i think we've got to go back to speaking in terms of human rights which are universal rights that every human being should enjoy because that goes to the genuine practice if you will of what we understand to be democratic principles i mean everybody's a democrat i mean you you you i think as eloquently put that put that before us and when we at the same time don't continue to insist on due process we start to slip in along that slippery slope and use our ability to argue you know obama talked about in the iraq case i think i think he was in maybe i'm wrong but i think you he was confusing that with the i think it's a market that was in it this had nothing the iraqis had nothing to do with italy had nothing to do with the cia but when we have the attorney general of the united states make make a statement that says to send him to canada would be prejudicial to our interests i want to get back to the whole issue of transparency you know  classified more documents and has utilized the term you know security to utilize the term  you know as utilize state secrets i believe to preclude them from being the object of criticism and embarrassment and certain witnesses some at the very highest level and they have failed to appear they will appear at some point in time because i think it's important for the historical record that it's become very clear to the american people and to the world i think it's incumbent upon us to to do that you can make a comment i completely agree i think that the most important thing this congress could do in the next term would be to organization is built on the premise that people behave better when they're watched and if you get away with the secrecy you will get away with abuse if it becomes clear as a matter of principle that the ultimately the spotlight will be shined you can make sure that in the future people will not repeat these kind of  another engaging because i don't mean to hold you up but you know we hear from iran for example don't send us money it's it stigmatize blessing or is it a overall net plus is that a negative i hear the same thing from democracy advocates activists rather from cuba the when the administration announces with great fanfare you know we are sending x million dollars into iran to help n g o s you know overthrow the government or something to that effect i mean that becomes a huge stigma then there's no way the local groups can take that money if they're somehow associated with the united states government lose all credibility and they in fact are subject to prosecution so that you know that seem to be more about politics than about really helping things in iran and i think that the u s government should be looking for things they can do on the outside because there is much that can be done of the broadcasting nature but it is not helpful at this stage for there to be big announcements about money being channeled into n g o s you know