(marker squeaking) 

- 2006 was the first time that the US government appeared before the Committee Against Torture to talk about Guantanamo and to talk about torture elsewhere. And they lied. They said, "We don't torture." I mean, as far as they're concerned, they were not lying because their definition or perception of torture was different than the rest of the world. But they said, "We don't torture." They made other outrageous statements. And there was a lot of concern among international actors. The same bodies that the United States government supported for years and helped create post-World War II were unanimous in their condemnation of the United States' policy post 9/11. And that says a lot. There is a notion of exceptionalism. U.S. exceptionalism is very strong because it's also developed its own powerful diplomatic, economic, political, military position in the world that it is hard to challenge this big superpower. And the more, I think, the United States, unfortunately, they would be probably more vulnerable if they did not have that power. The problem is that this power has not been translating into always doing the right thing in the world. Certainly after 9/11 we saw how it was used in order to do other, to promote policies and to promote actions that did not really help maintain security, peace, and security in the world. By flouting Security Council resolutions, you know, on invading Iraq, for example. By violating Geneva Conventions, by creating extraterritorial, extrajudicial detention facilities, secretive, secret detention facilities to torture people. By creating massive surveillance program. All of these things, you know, put together, would, if they are, they're creating a precedent to other governments. They are setting infrastructure that could easily be abused in the future. And as we've seen, easily can be developed into something that would be worse and would fire back, would backfire on and cause more harm than good. And so I think that really remains to be the challenge of whether the international partners of the United States, close allies, would also see that their interest is not with the United States' interests continuing these policies. So far, it seems that they have been aligned because they had more to gain from the United States' cooperation or working with United States on these national security challenges and crises. They had more to gain by that than gaining by holding United States accountable for the abuses. And it's a calculation that every country in every part of the world is being made. And I think it's our challenge as human rights advocates to expose that.