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cwemory
Joined: 14 Jan 2006
Location: Gunpo, Korea
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 Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 6:38 am Post subject: WHEN YOU CARE ENOUGH TO DO THE VERY LEAST |
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WHEN YOU CARE ENOUGH TO DO THE VERY LEAST
By Ted Rall
NEW YORK--Are we the world's policeman? Or are we an empire? The rest of the world has already made up its mind about us. The president of the Pew Research Center, whose latest poll of foreigners finds they hate the United Stats more than ever, says: "Obviously, when you get many more people saying that the U.S. [is as much of] a threat to world peace as...Iran, it's a measure of how much [the war in Iraq] is sapping good will to the United States."
But we Americans remain deeply divided over American values and intentions, and it's high time that we got our story straight.
In 1975 Philip Agee published his explosive memoir of his career as a CIA operative, Inside the Company. The former black ops specialist provided proof for what critics had long suspected, that the United States government had assassinated popularly elected foreign leaders and propped up brutal right-wing dictatorships in countries such as Ecuador, Uruguay, Mexico and Argentina throughout the '60s and '70s. Published in the wake of Watergate and the forced resignation of Richard Nixon, disgust for the dirty dealings described by Agee contributed to a reformist wave that fed Jimmy Carter's successful 1976 bid for the presidency.
Upon taking office Carter declared "the soul of our foreign policy" to be concern for human rights. Carter recalled in a 1997 interview: "I announced that human rights would be a cornerstone or foundation of our entire foreign policy. So I officially designated every U.S. ambassador on earth to be my personal human rights representative, and to have the embassy be a haven for people who suffered from abuse by their own government. And every time a foreign leader met with me, they knew that human rights in their country would be on the agenda. And I think that this was one of the seminal changes that was brought to U.S. policy. And although in the first few weeks of his term my successor Ronald Reagan disavowed this policy and sent an emissary down to Argentina and to Chile and to Brazil--to the military dictators--and said, 'The human rights policy of Carter is over,' it was just a few months before he saw that the American people supported this human rights policy and that it was good for his administration. So after that he became a strong protector of human rights as well."
The media and the public interpreted Carter's human rights-based foreign policy as welcome, radical, and sweeping. There were worrisome inconsistencies: Carter's State Department continued to arm and finance the violent dictators of Haiti, the Philippines and Iran. Nevertheless, the CIA was subjected to budget cuts and Congressional oversight. Subsequent U.S. military involvement in Panama, Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq were wholly or in significant part marketed as attempts to liberate the oppressed and protect human rights. Carter and Reagan convinced Americans of all political stripes that defending the helpless, stopping genocide and overthrowing tyrants were our country's basic duties.
We still do. Even though 63 percent of Americans say they approve of their own government's use of torture, 86 percent continue to believe that "promoting and defending human rights in other countries" as a U.S. foreign policy goal is "important." An August 2002 Investor's Business Daily/Christian Science Monitor poll found that 81 percent think that "the impact the U.S. has on the rest of the world [on] democratic values and human rights" is a positive one.
If we're so nice, why do they hate us so much?
The trouble with putting human rights first is that we have do it all the time, in every case, even when it costs us economically. Integrity requires doing what is right even--especially--when it hurts.
Before Jimmy Carter, American foreign policy was a straightforward and cynical realpolitik. We fought in South Korea and South Vietnam as if we were moving pieces on a Cold War chessboard instead of blasting children to bits; the despotic regimes we defended there were more brutal than their enemies. Afterwards, we became hypocrites. We went into Somalia, which controlled a strategic port of entry for oil tankers, but not Rwanda, which had no significant natural resources. We backed Saddam Hussein when Iraq granted lucrative oil concessions to politically connected multinationals and attacked him when he didn't.
A true human rights-based foreign policy would require "regime change" warfare against the biggest evildoers in the world, including those willing to do business with us. What we have now is a Chinese menu pick-one-from-column-A-and-one-from-column-B mishmash. We do whatever we want, then come up with a justification--human rights, WMDs, imminent danger--after the fact.
People liked us better when we didn't pretend to be nice. |
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20060802/cm_ucru/whenyoucareenoughtodotheveryleast
I usally read Ted Rall's opinion pieces because their funny and they have an interesting slant.
But here I'm not sure if his assertions are true.
What do you think? |
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safeblad
Joined: 17 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 7:18 am Post subject: |
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its bout security really, america will be 'world policemen' when it suits.
Jimmy Carter tried to force his human rights policies, but as soon as a some leftist revolution threathened in central america, human rights took a back seat and he funded authoritarians. The security of the U.S. came first, which is fair enough. Carter thought that by advancing human rights he was preventing potential commie revolutions as well.
Reagan was not ' a strong protector of human rights', but not that different from Carter really either. He defined human rights in terms of human security or american security, therefore any percieved threat to the US was a human rights issue.
By time of Bush/clinton there was some time for altruism, what with 'the end of history' and all that. I think the Somalia intervention lessened the appetite, and prevented intervention in Rwanda, and later in Darfur.
Bush aint so different, trying to show the war on terror as a human rights issue as well, 'human rights' being the entitlement to democracy, not to live under tyrants etc However only in countries where there is a US economic or security interest. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 7:52 am Post subject: |
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| A true human rights-based foreign policy would require "regime change" warfare against the biggest evildoers in the world, including those willing to do business with us. What we have now is a Chinese menu pick-one-from-column-A-and-one-from-column-B mishmash. We do whatever we want, then come up with a justification--human rights, WMDs, imminent danger--after the fact. |
This says it all about what I've been trying to say here, in regards to Israel too............no moral center point and it is all about post act justification, make it up as you go, stumbling and bumbling and nothing about real politik, diplomacy and trying to change the world from within, by investment, changing people's lives by small, real ways. Just shoot, kill and say they were bad guys............
You might say it is a "security" policy but I think it has little to do with American security (boys are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan and America is less secure today -- even just from the "fear" factor in the average Americans mindset) and more to do with $$$$ and those who control them levers.
Israel also. Generals justifying new armnament "aid" by emptying old stocks and sending thousands of missles into apartment buildings......it is a cash grab more than anything and again, the poor guys on both sides still carry the shit buckets.
DD |
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