One wonders.

"Syria's human rights record is poor, the report said. Syrians do not have a right to change their government and 'continuing serious abuses included the use of torture in detention, which at times resulted in death,' unfair trials and arbitrary arrests." Is how the Boston Globe quotes the recent State Department report on human rights abuses.

Now, we have a Secretary of State that refuses to repudiate torture, an Attorney General who sanctions torture, a CIA plane that flies prisoners to countries, including Syria, so they can be tortured for us, and we engage in a bit of torture ourselves. If the Prez declairs you an "enemy combatant" you're history -- forget lawyers, habeas corpus, the right to a fair trial, or any of that esoteric rights stuff.

Why would anyone in the world take the United States seriously? We don't have policies, we have parodies of policies.