After Russia invaded Ukraine, it kidnapped thousands of children and forcibly relocated them to more than 100 different locations around the massive country.
It seems a bit odd to not mention the Israel/Gaza war when it’s one of the most talked about conflicts in the world with several human rights violations reported on and the US having been largely involved in it since the beginning.
The U.S. does not and has never cared about human rights. A country founded on slavery, destabilizing other countries, etc, etc, etc. does not. This author appears saddened that the mask is more obviously removed, which seems a bit naive to me
With respect, blanket cynicism is equally naïve - it's just oversimplifying in the opposite direction. The reality is that the United States has been both a protector AND a violator of human rights, and that's something we should be able to grapple with.
I'm very, very sorry. My intent was not to "both sides" America's actions, and I would not ever try to justify *why* the humans rights violations were okay actually. They're not, and we (Americans) need to own that.
Americans do need to know and understand where we have done harm, but to deny where we have done good is no more helpful or honoring of reality than denying where we have done bad. We can either shrink our perspective down to the pinprick of naïveté or cynicism, or we can choose an expansive view that holds the fullness of complicated reality.
I feel like different only in what we are allowing to continue w/ Russia...not helping to assist getting kidnapped Ukrainian children back to their families. US was trying to get our own people out of Gaza.
This was a very interesting read, and one that rang a bit hypocritical to me. I come from a country that was intentionally destabilized by the US to protect their financial interests in my country. A dictatorship was put in place, soldiers were trained, we were launched into a decades long civil war with atrocities so great against our indigenous communities that it’s historically known as the silent holocaust, and it was all done on US dime and with US approval. Orphaned children were experimented on and left without any care for the diseases they were given by US doctors with no accountability to this day. To hold the US up as a beacon of hope for the fight to uphold human rights and as the standard for upholding human rights world-wide feels like a slap in the face to what my people have been subjected to. I’m not saying we shouldn’t care about these vital programs being gutted, or that we as a people should turn a blind eye to the kidnapped children of Ukraine and human rights violations around the world. We should absolutely care. Every child deserves peace and stability. I just wish there was a way to report on this that didn’t paint the US as a long standing hero of human rights when that simply isn’t true. Is it possible to acknowledge these ugly actions and still feel the importance of fighting to maintain these vital programs? Why does the US need to be painted as a long-standing hero of the world for the gutting of these programs to be vitally important? These are all genuine questions, because I sit here feeling the weight of what my people have been through and how it doesn’t fit into or feel acknowledged by how this article described the United States fight for human rights.
Thank you for sharing your perspective. I think this is such an important discussion when looking at the US and it's policies. As a country we have often done terrible things in other countries when our interests relied on the terrible things happening. There are unfortunately too many examples. We might aspire to be better than we were, but as a country our government doesn't always meet those aspirations.
Thank you for this perspective and for expressing it so effectively. There is a lot to digest in the history of American actions abroad, but it does seem that, whether it is painted as heroism or not, what the United States considers “human rights” depends on our self-interest. One year we arm the Taliban. One year we fight the Taliban. While ordinary Americans may side with Ukraine on a purely human level, our government sides with it when it serves our interest. Even this article starts with our responsibility to humanitarianism and then evolves to how it affects our grocery bill. The US has done a lot of good and a lot of bad in the world and both have come from a place of self interest.
Absolutely correct! And if Trump and Stephen Miller have their way, everything you stated here will be erased from history books, (at least in the United States).
All of it is wrong and horrible, we Americans are watching our people being physically acted by our own government and sent to another country or put in a detention facility (concentration camps) without do process and now this dictator wants to eliminate habeas corpus, so he can arrest anyone he wants that doesn’t agree with him and his regime, he’s already had 2 Judges arrested because they were protecting their own court and the people in the court room. America will soon be lawless and have a dictator who steals from their people to pay off his rich buddies around the world.
IF we even survive as a country. It’s all being dismantled so fast that we may end up fighting to regain our own rights for a very long time. And what country will trust us after this?
The sad history is that Trumpmhas destroyed everything he touches. His legacy is a long list of failed businesses and ruined relationships. It’s insane he was elected at all, let alone twice. He and those enabling him refuse to learn from our own history and lack the imagination to see the big picture: this IS a deeply interconnected world, and for all our flaws we were a voice for good in it. What we have lost due to the blowtorch of this administration may never be regained.
Thank you for reporting on this, Elise! Your observation about businesses facing "a stark choice: ignore potential abuses and risk consumer backlash, or implement costly independent monitoring" hints at a broader issue worth exploring.
When government monitoring systems like the State Department's reports are gutted, the transparency enabling informed consumer choice vanishes. Without reliable information sources, businesses can easily obscure problematic supply chains, knowing that "consumer backlash" becomes unlikely when documentation of abuses is inaccessible. Few corporations will voluntarily maintain costly oversight when external pressure eases—the calculation simplifies to maximizing profit when accountability diminishes.
This reality places an impossible burden on individual consumers who lack the time, resources, and expertise to investigate global supply chains. We're asking busy people to become amateur international investigators while dismantling the professional systems designed for this purpose.
We see this challenge everywhere. Even committed human rights advocates purchase impossibly cheap items on Amazon without thinking twice about its origin, consume chocolate from regions with documented child labor, and watch entertainment featuring Scientology-affiliated actors—despite extensive documentation of their abuses, including forced family separation, coerced labor, and systematic intimidation of former members. Unless nudged into doing so, consumers simply don't connect their choices to these documented abuses, and I can only imagine what energy they currently have to spare in doing this research is going to be eroded as prices for everything goes up this year.
It's the inevitable result of placing systemic problems on individual shoulders. Expecting consumer choice to fill the void left by government monitoring effectively abandons the field. Human rights oversight requires collective action and institutional systems. By dismantling these mechanisms, we're pretending that scattered, under-informed individual actions can somehow compensate for a massive governance failure.
Cutting money should not always be the goal. There are some things that should be worth any cost for our national security. I mean all of this coming from an administration that isn’t having a problem with a parade for don with an almost 100,000,000 price tag. Our reputation will be forever marred. We had enough people who thought a felon wouldn’t screw us. I love a good I told you so moment, but this one is too detrimental to our country.
It’s puzzling as to the purpose of these actions, many of which come directly from Project 2025. Yes the very thing Trump disavowed (gasp! He lied!). In appearance alone, it seems this administration is reducing the government to a dictatorship earning its place among the rest around the world. Sadly, these actions are being blindly allowed by Congress who seem to have abdicated their role in government. What’s really scary is the actions we are seeing mirror those we saw in the 1930’s in Europe. That’s the scary part.
His only purpose has been payback against the very people he was ejected to serve: his fellow Americans. He truly is that petty. That and staying out of jail. And continuing his grift for more and more $$$. He cares only for money and power.
I agree with everyone’s comments. The only things I have to add are that it is all underwritten by greed. Short-term savings for long-term loss. It is not only Trump, but every other blood-sucking vampire involved that is responsible, so please do not limit accountability to him.
However, is not being done for the sole purpose of greed. It is to accomplish the end goal of the USA being dismantled as a freedom-loving democracy and re-built as an authoritarian dictatorship. This is a transition. Which is ironic, because you know how much they hate trans people.
Finally, this is all being done in our name. We are the USA. We are the ones responsible. We are just like the Europeans that allowed atrocities. Some resisted. They made a difference.
Gaza is not a war, it’s a genocide. America does nothing to stop it. Worse, we support it. As far as dismantling human rights initiatives worldwide, we are showing the world what we believe…this administration and Congress should be ashamed. Are we wielding power in the worse ways possible? And what is next here…what people in America are at risk if this administration and Congress are willing to turn their heads if human rights violation tick up?
Economic considerations aside, I want to live in a country where our leaders make moral and ethically right decisions that protect human rights. That is the soul of our nation. As we have seen this administration is cruel and callous both home and abroad. People need to ask themselves is this who we are. If you don’t speak up and continue to vote for those that support the disregard of human rights, then the answer is, yes, it is who YOU are.
America had a brand - a brand earned by our country fighting for democracy especially in WW1 and WW2. That brand has been continued by USAID, by the gigantic amounts of money spent by ordinary Americans when tragedy strikes in other countries and by many acts of official support. That brand has give us significant safety and economic advantages. I agree with the comments that we have betrayed our ideals at times- but we did have those ideals. We strove to be better- trump and his acolytes are systematically destroying our place in the world which isolates us and places ordinary Americans at great peril. He wants us to be the new Russia.
Important topic, but the outdated example at the start gave me pause—Yale’s lab did get an extension to finalize their findings and transfer of information to Europol in April. I don’t agree with the halt to the lab’s funding, and believe the are doing important work, and I share the concern about human rights violations…but accuracy matters if we want to build trust and strengthen the case.
All they got was a short extension as part of the standardized process for shutting down terminated programs and that’s now over. Democrats in Congress want to continue the program but the the Administration ignored them.
As I stated, I am not in agreement with the halt to funding of the program - or how it was done. I was pointing out that the facts in the article were not updated and presented an incomplete picture - accuracy matters in reporting, whether you agree with the topic or not.
The fact that the US funded stealing children from Ukraine is just diabolical. Watching children in Gaza being starved and killed is horrible. When do we the people say enough and I get not supporting certain areas with my dollars, but this is such a level of dehumanization, I don’t understand why NATO hasn’t prosecuted us as a nation.
“Disgusted” is not a strong enough word for our hypocrisy and cruelty. It’s up to the rest of us to keep highlighting this problem; educating others and tormenting our elected officials.
It seems a bit odd to not mention the Israel/Gaza war when it’s one of the most talked about conflicts in the world with several human rights violations reported on and the US having been largely involved in it since the beginning.
Thank you! Came here to say funny how we claim "human rights violations" when it comes to Ukraine, and remain silent about Palestine.
The U.S. does not and has never cared about human rights. A country founded on slavery, destabilizing other countries, etc, etc, etc. does not. This author appears saddened that the mask is more obviously removed, which seems a bit naive to me
With respect, blanket cynicism is equally naïve - it's just oversimplifying in the opposite direction. The reality is that the United States has been both a protector AND a violator of human rights, and that's something we should be able to grapple with.
Unfortunately when you hail from a country that’s been the victim of atrocities, the both sides argument rings hollow and self serving for Americans.
I'm very, very sorry. My intent was not to "both sides" America's actions, and I would not ever try to justify *why* the humans rights violations were okay actually. They're not, and we (Americans) need to own that.
Americans do need to know and understand where we have done harm, but to deny where we have done good is no more helpful or honoring of reality than denying where we have done bad. We can either shrink our perspective down to the pinprick of naïveté or cynicism, or we can choose an expansive view that holds the fullness of complicated reality.
I feel like different only in what we are allowing to continue w/ Russia...not helping to assist getting kidnapped Ukrainian children back to their families. US was trying to get our own people out of Gaza.
This was a very interesting read, and one that rang a bit hypocritical to me. I come from a country that was intentionally destabilized by the US to protect their financial interests in my country. A dictatorship was put in place, soldiers were trained, we were launched into a decades long civil war with atrocities so great against our indigenous communities that it’s historically known as the silent holocaust, and it was all done on US dime and with US approval. Orphaned children were experimented on and left without any care for the diseases they were given by US doctors with no accountability to this day. To hold the US up as a beacon of hope for the fight to uphold human rights and as the standard for upholding human rights world-wide feels like a slap in the face to what my people have been subjected to. I’m not saying we shouldn’t care about these vital programs being gutted, or that we as a people should turn a blind eye to the kidnapped children of Ukraine and human rights violations around the world. We should absolutely care. Every child deserves peace and stability. I just wish there was a way to report on this that didn’t paint the US as a long standing hero of human rights when that simply isn’t true. Is it possible to acknowledge these ugly actions and still feel the importance of fighting to maintain these vital programs? Why does the US need to be painted as a long-standing hero of the world for the gutting of these programs to be vitally important? These are all genuine questions, because I sit here feeling the weight of what my people have been through and how it doesn’t fit into or feel acknowledged by how this article described the United States fight for human rights.
Thank you for sharing your perspective. I think this is such an important discussion when looking at the US and it's policies. As a country we have often done terrible things in other countries when our interests relied on the terrible things happening. There are unfortunately too many examples. We might aspire to be better than we were, but as a country our government doesn't always meet those aspirations.
Thank you for this perspective and for expressing it so effectively. There is a lot to digest in the history of American actions abroad, but it does seem that, whether it is painted as heroism or not, what the United States considers “human rights” depends on our self-interest. One year we arm the Taliban. One year we fight the Taliban. While ordinary Americans may side with Ukraine on a purely human level, our government sides with it when it serves our interest. Even this article starts with our responsibility to humanitarianism and then evolves to how it affects our grocery bill. The US has done a lot of good and a lot of bad in the world and both have come from a place of self interest.
So true - every child deserves peace and stability.
Absolutely correct! And if Trump and Stephen Miller have their way, everything you stated here will be erased from history books, (at least in the United States).
All of it is wrong and horrible, we Americans are watching our people being physically acted by our own government and sent to another country or put in a detention facility (concentration camps) without do process and now this dictator wants to eliminate habeas corpus, so he can arrest anyone he wants that doesn’t agree with him and his regime, he’s already had 2 Judges arrested because they were protecting their own court and the people in the court room. America will soon be lawless and have a dictator who steals from their people to pay off his rich buddies around the world.
We're going to be paying for this administration's shenanigans for a long time.
IF we even survive as a country. It’s all being dismantled so fast that we may end up fighting to regain our own rights for a very long time. And what country will trust us after this?
The sad history is that Trumpmhas destroyed everything he touches. His legacy is a long list of failed businesses and ruined relationships. It’s insane he was elected at all, let alone twice. He and those enabling him refuse to learn from our own history and lack the imagination to see the big picture: this IS a deeply interconnected world, and for all our flaws we were a voice for good in it. What we have lost due to the blowtorch of this administration may never be regained.
Thank you for reporting on this, Elise! Your observation about businesses facing "a stark choice: ignore potential abuses and risk consumer backlash, or implement costly independent monitoring" hints at a broader issue worth exploring.
When government monitoring systems like the State Department's reports are gutted, the transparency enabling informed consumer choice vanishes. Without reliable information sources, businesses can easily obscure problematic supply chains, knowing that "consumer backlash" becomes unlikely when documentation of abuses is inaccessible. Few corporations will voluntarily maintain costly oversight when external pressure eases—the calculation simplifies to maximizing profit when accountability diminishes.
This reality places an impossible burden on individual consumers who lack the time, resources, and expertise to investigate global supply chains. We're asking busy people to become amateur international investigators while dismantling the professional systems designed for this purpose.
We see this challenge everywhere. Even committed human rights advocates purchase impossibly cheap items on Amazon without thinking twice about its origin, consume chocolate from regions with documented child labor, and watch entertainment featuring Scientology-affiliated actors—despite extensive documentation of their abuses, including forced family separation, coerced labor, and systematic intimidation of former members. Unless nudged into doing so, consumers simply don't connect their choices to these documented abuses, and I can only imagine what energy they currently have to spare in doing this research is going to be eroded as prices for everything goes up this year.
It's the inevitable result of placing systemic problems on individual shoulders. Expecting consumer choice to fill the void left by government monitoring effectively abandons the field. Human rights oversight requires collective action and institutional systems. By dismantling these mechanisms, we're pretending that scattered, under-informed individual actions can somehow compensate for a massive governance failure.
Cutting money should not always be the goal. There are some things that should be worth any cost for our national security. I mean all of this coming from an administration that isn’t having a problem with a parade for don with an almost 100,000,000 price tag. Our reputation will be forever marred. We had enough people who thought a felon wouldn’t screw us. I love a good I told you so moment, but this one is too detrimental to our country.
It’s puzzling as to the purpose of these actions, many of which come directly from Project 2025. Yes the very thing Trump disavowed (gasp! He lied!). In appearance alone, it seems this administration is reducing the government to a dictatorship earning its place among the rest around the world. Sadly, these actions are being blindly allowed by Congress who seem to have abdicated their role in government. What’s really scary is the actions we are seeing mirror those we saw in the 1930’s in Europe. That’s the scary part.
His only purpose has been payback against the very people he was ejected to serve: his fellow Americans. He truly is that petty. That and staying out of jail. And continuing his grift for more and more $$$. He cares only for money and power.
I agree with everyone’s comments. The only things I have to add are that it is all underwritten by greed. Short-term savings for long-term loss. It is not only Trump, but every other blood-sucking vampire involved that is responsible, so please do not limit accountability to him.
However, is not being done for the sole purpose of greed. It is to accomplish the end goal of the USA being dismantled as a freedom-loving democracy and re-built as an authoritarian dictatorship. This is a transition. Which is ironic, because you know how much they hate trans people.
Finally, this is all being done in our name. We are the USA. We are the ones responsible. We are just like the Europeans that allowed atrocities. Some resisted. They made a difference.
Be the Resistance.
Make a difference.
Gaza is not a war, it’s a genocide. America does nothing to stop it. Worse, we support it. As far as dismantling human rights initiatives worldwide, we are showing the world what we believe…this administration and Congress should be ashamed. Are we wielding power in the worse ways possible? And what is next here…what people in America are at risk if this administration and Congress are willing to turn their heads if human rights violation tick up?
Economic considerations aside, I want to live in a country where our leaders make moral and ethically right decisions that protect human rights. That is the soul of our nation. As we have seen this administration is cruel and callous both home and abroad. People need to ask themselves is this who we are. If you don’t speak up and continue to vote for those that support the disregard of human rights, then the answer is, yes, it is who YOU are.
America had a brand - a brand earned by our country fighting for democracy especially in WW1 and WW2. That brand has been continued by USAID, by the gigantic amounts of money spent by ordinary Americans when tragedy strikes in other countries and by many acts of official support. That brand has give us significant safety and economic advantages. I agree with the comments that we have betrayed our ideals at times- but we did have those ideals. We strove to be better- trump and his acolytes are systematically destroying our place in the world which isolates us and places ordinary Americans at great peril. He wants us to be the new Russia.
Important topic, but the outdated example at the start gave me pause—Yale’s lab did get an extension to finalize their findings and transfer of information to Europol in April. I don’t agree with the halt to the lab’s funding, and believe the are doing important work, and I share the concern about human rights violations…but accuracy matters if we want to build trust and strengthen the case.
All they got was a short extension as part of the standardized process for shutting down terminated programs and that’s now over. Democrats in Congress want to continue the program but the the Administration ignored them.
As I stated, I am not in agreement with the halt to funding of the program - or how it was done. I was pointing out that the facts in the article were not updated and presented an incomplete picture - accuracy matters in reporting, whether you agree with the topic or not.
The fact that the US funded stealing children from Ukraine is just diabolical. Watching children in Gaza being starved and killed is horrible. When do we the people say enough and I get not supporting certain areas with my dollars, but this is such a level of dehumanization, I don’t understand why NATO hasn’t prosecuted us as a nation.
Truthfully, I hope NATO will eventually find this administration guilty of war crimes.
Because they want our money. It's greed pure and simple.
“Disgusted” is not a strong enough word for our hypocrisy and cruelty. It’s up to the rest of us to keep highlighting this problem; educating others and tormenting our elected officials.