Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

The US Air Force last Monday said it would take no disciplinary action against personnel who flew from Kabul to Qatar in August 2021 with human remains in the wheel well of their C-17 cargo plane, saying commanders determined the crew "acted appropriately" in deciding "to get airborne as quickly as possible," according to a Washington Post report. 

It has long been known that the likelihood of such investigations convicting the US military involved in general is very low. Such investigations are not so much about accountability as they are in fact about exoneration. Throughout the US military justice system, senior officers wield enormous power. Even when US courts-martial are involved because of the seriousness of the cases, it is difficult to sentence those involved for killing civilians in other countries, and there are few examples of military staff being reprimanded. 

Even during the unjust Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan during which tens of thousands of civilians were killed, no Americans have been held accountable and put on trial. Instead, the US frequently accuses leaders of other countries, such as Vladimir Putin, of being a "war criminal" and calls for a "a war crime trial." 

The fundamental reason the US is so indulgent of soldiers involved in such cases is that the US is engaged in hegemonic wars, invasive operations that cannot be conducted without causing casualties. Therefore, it needs a mechanism for soldiers to remove themselves from any guilt when they kill.  

The US even enacted the American Service-Members' Protection Act during the Bush administration in 2002, which aims to "protect US military personnel... against criminal prosecution by an international criminal court to which the US is not party." The law, known as The Hague Invasion Act, authorizes the US President to use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any US or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court." 

The real intention of the US is clear: to confirm that "there is no authority over sovereignty." "The US cannot allow a supranational authority capable of punishing the US. That's the reason why Washington repeatedly condones US soldiers killing civilians of other countries. The US does not want to be tied up when engaging in hegemonic behavior," according to Shen Yi, a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University. 

However, the hegemonic US has instrumentalized human rights to package its foreign actions, which, first of all, does not achieve its desired goals and, secondly, is a major setback for those who are genuinely concerned about human rights internationally and an insult to the idea of "human rights" itself. 

The C-17 crew forced a takeoff knowing that there were Afghans climbing on the outside of the taxiing plane, but afterwards the US Air Force didn't take the matter seriously, no amount of sophistry can erase the fact that it has extreme disregard for life and violates fundamental human rights. The last US drone strike before American troops withdrew from Afghanistan killed 10 civilians, including seven children. But the Pentagon only acknowledged it as "a tragic mistake" and didn't penalize any of the military personnel involved in the strike. Another example of war crimes violating international law. 

Given that the US is committing these crimes with power politics, violating the sovereignty of other countries and imposing its own so-called values, it puts on display its double standards, thus causing the US to lose its international credibility completely in the end if it still refuses to reflect on its acts, Song Zhongping, a Chinese military commentator, pointed out. 

The US should realize that it no longer has the ability to continue with its hegemony, Song said. The US wars in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan have shown that it is not realistic to rely on the US' own values and democratic system to override other countries' political practices. It is bound to fail, and the international order will suffer. 

Ben Wallace, the UK's Defense Secretary, once suggested that the US probably isn't a superpower but just a "big power" as it wasn't willing to stick it out in Afghanistan. This means that the US is no longer capable of assuming international obligations, that the values and norms it proclaims do not represent basic international norms, and that the US has in fact fallen from its altar long ago. 

The US has never truly valued and practiced the human rights that it boasts of. There are no real human rights in the US, only fake ones that serve its own interests. At home, it uses "human rights" to distract people's attention and create conflicts instead of improving people's lives; abroad, human rights are used to whitewash its war crimes. 

The US poses the greatest threat to global human rights, seriously harming global progress and security. Shen believes that the humanitarian disasters replicated around the world by the US since the beginning of the Cold War clearly prove that Washington is actually a hypocritical humanitarian defender that uses human rights as a rhetorical tool. And the first thing needed to safeguard human rights is to oppose hegemony and the US war crimes. 

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn