More on that Idea
Wow. It’s hard to know where to start, particularly as I realize that I should have done a bit more to situate the book before providing an excerpt from the conclusion. Let me do that briefly now, both with a link to the book’s website, and an explanation of at least where the title comes from. Some of you may remember my link to Captain Ian Fishback’s letter to John McCain back in 2005 explaining his vain efforts to try to get his superiors to articulate clear standards of interrogation and describing the abuses he witnessed committed against detainees as the result of the lack of standards. He ended that letter by asking whether we as a people were going to sacrifice our ideals to our security, arguing that our true strength lies in trying to uphold our ideals. For himself, he said that he “would rather die fighting than give up even the smallest part of the idea that is America.” I chose that title because it came from a soldier (who has served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan) writing to a former soldier in a way that directly refutes the Administration’s claims, as Sy Hersh quotes in the New Yorker this week, that “Abu Ghraib is just the price of defending democracy.”
More generally, I wrote the book because I’m half-Belgian and travel a great deal and am acutely aware of how we are perceived abroad. I wanted an account of American values that is defiantly NOT triumphalist and not exceptionalist. I hope we will move to a discussion of specific values later in the week (I can talk about why I chose humility and faith, in response to a number of reader comments). But for now, the point of each chapter is to ground a particular value in our founding rhetoric, but then to point out how far American reality often diverged from that rhetoric. Proclaiming that all men are created equal when the author of the phrase was a slaveholder is the most obvious, but talking about liberty when we ourselves had colonies is equally apt, or talking about justice when we rounded up 3,000 Japanese-Americans in WWII with no evidence of wrong-doing. I highlight these darker parts of our history in every chapter to make the point both that these are ideals that we have not yet achieved and that the progress we have made (yes, I do believe in progress, see below) has come largely from the individuals and groups in American history who have demanded that we actually live up to our rhetoric. See Frederick Douglass’s 4th of July address, Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s speech at Seneca Falls, Langston Hughes’ poems, Martin Luther King’s speeches, and many many others. That is a very different picture of America than the one we currently project abroad, one that I think is far more accurate for us and more attractive to others. I quote a German friend of mind saying that underneath every America-hater is a disappointed America-lover, trying to capture the point that Julian22 makes about East Asians
Let me respond to three principal points. First, David’s description, and suspicion, of my book as a “progress narrative.” For a second I thought I was back at Harvard Law School, where many of my critical legal scholar colleagues and students would shake their sophisticated heads and cluck at my naïve progress narratives as a liberal international lawyer. It’s hard for me, as a woman who grew up in a solidly segregated Virginia at a time when women with opinons, much less brains, were definitely suspect, to look around and see two women and one African-American secretaries of state over the past decade and the first African-American and women candidates for president with a real shot at making it and not believe in some kind of progress. Over our history, slavery did end; women did get the vote; the civil rights movement did make enormous strides, even if we still have a long way to go. What is certainly true, as I try to point out, is that our history is certainly NOT a linear progression, and for every triumph there are many defeats. One of the central points of the book is that our founders did not believe in some kind of special American virtue; they thought, as Madison wrote, that we were no more angels than any other men (and women), which is precisely why we needed checks and balances to counter our faults. What David always fears most, legitimately, is that if you let Americans (or anyone else) focus on the positive we will forget the negative. That is the point of his book A Bed for the Night on humanitarian intervention – nothing we do is ever simply, uncomplicatedly good, but if we took his view completely we would never actually try to do anything.
David’s second point, which many other commenters make and Bruce touches on, is what this book will look like to non-Americans. I certainly agree that if non-Americans were to read only the discussion of the book here, they would think it is a naïve, triumphalist celebration of all that is good about America. But David’s Latin American friends would probably be agreeably surprised to read, in my chapter on liberty,
“America quickly deprived Spain of its colonial possessions, taking Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean and Guam and the Philippines in the Pacific. Briefly, it seemed as if the United States was acting according to its belief in self-determination, liberating smaller nations from the yoke of colonialism.
But then the liberators stayed. Of the four “freed” colonies, only Cuba was given nominal independence, and even then, the United States inserted a clause into the Cuban constitution allowing America to intervene whenever it deemed appropriate. The other three islands were made effective colonies of the United States—though never officially described as such—and served as important bases for the expansion of U.S. naval power, particularly in the Pacific. In the Philippines, we used force to maintain control over the island nation, our troops fighting the same patriotic Filipinos we had previously assisted in their struggle against the Spanish. As the American flag rose above foreign lands, the irony was palpable: A war justified in the name of liberty was revealed to be an imperialist bid for power.”
I go on to talk about the anti-imperialist league, which included Mark Twain, and their largely vain efforts to point out the hypocrisy between our own founding and what we were now doing. In the chapter on humility I describe “our long and tangled history” in Latin America and some length and note: “Despite our pious claims against European imperialism, the United States intervened militarily in Latin America thirty-seven times in the forty-two years between 1890 and 1932, a policy we called gunboat diplomacy.” I describe the Hoover-Roosevelt good neighbor policy as at least based on mutual respect for Latin American nations, as an example of what a foreign policy consistent with humility would look like.
Third, the issue of American versus universal values. I chose the excerpt I did because in a previous exchange in the International Herald Tribune David had accused me of being an American exceptionalist; I wanted to make clear that I do NOT think that Americans are in any way unique for forging our national identity based on a set of fundamental principles. What I argue repeatedly throughout the book is the our founders did not think we were unique, but only blessed to be able to be the first nation to prove that a political system could be organized to secure enlightenment values. I cannot put this better than Oleeb did in his comment on David's first post: “Slaughter's assertion that the basic American values she writes about are universal is, more than anything else, an expression of the fundamental liberal/Lockean position that such things are the natural rights of human beings, and that they are "self evident". This is the root and basis of American political thought and government and the values she discusses are essentially those fundamentals the 18th century founders asserted despite not having attained them all by a long shot.” What is important today about recalling that they are universal – or, more precisely, that America was founded on the premise that they are universal – is that it means we must understand our own experience as just one dimension of a global experiment in trying to secure those values – the liberal democracies that I list are just some of the many others that interpret these values according to their national traditions, cultures, politics and develop different political systems to attain them. That is a very different and, I argue, much better premise on which to engage the world.
More later. Thanks particularly for the comments by Ben Bartlett, Mimi Katz, Codegan, Monkey Boy, Rain39, aMike, the one from John Haber where he talks about the value of our ideals if they could lead us to dismantle Guantanamo, and the one from Matt Steinglass on the Music Man. To some others, I know this is the blogosphere, so civility is irrelevant, but where does some of this vitriol come from? What did Rachel or I ever do to you? And sorry, Ellen, I’m afraid that I really am from Princeton.
Though I suspect you were asking "What did Rachel and I ever do to you?" rhetorically, you deserve an answer.
First, when you try to speak for a lot of people by telling them either what their values are or what they should be, you've got to expect some pushback.
Rachel then politicized it with a critique of progressive "cynicism" that many of us found at best dismissive and at worst insulting.
So there you have it. In one instance it seemed the two of you were trying to speak for us and in the next, that you spoke down to us.
In any event, the comments made were hardly uncivil. I think when you move from the general to the specific that you're going to see the temperature rise around here.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
June 21, 2007 6:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
“Abu Ghraib is just the price of defending democracy.”
From Sidney Blumenthal's "Imperial Presidency Declared Null and Void" on salon.com:
"The President," the [US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit] said, "claims power that far exceeds that granted him by the Constitution."
"Put simply, the Constitution does not allow the President to order the military to seize civilians residing within the United States and detain them indefinitely without criminal process, and this is so even if he calls them "enemy combatants" ... Of course, this does not mean that the President lacks power to protect our national interests and defend our people, only that in doing so he must abide by the Constitution."
So it seems public opinion, much of Congress, the courts, the law, all agree that the Bush Administration is destroying the American Idea. Yet the destruction continues unabated.
What's a citizen to do?
If Bush & Co won't listen, if repubs in Congress continue to enable these abominations because they would rather protect their political fortunes than face the truth of Constitutional demolition by their fellows, I fear the barn doors are open and our lovely American Idea has galloped off to the next country.
Is this still a democracy?
- Ted Bucklin
June 21, 2007 7:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
I appreciate such a thoughtful post, not to mention all that effort in wading through stacks of responding posts and comments. It does help address what Professor Slaughter means by American values if they aren't either unique or well maintained. I'll pretty much go along, with the reservations that we can debate both the values and what is left after the qualifications made.
But interesting question why such a hostile response. I didn't altogether join it, but I can understand it. Destor's already tried to explain. I can add that, first, it's bound to feel a little funny to start an approach to foreign policy with a lecture on American values right now. After all, they've been looking especially tarnished recently, and Bush has used very much the language of American values to justify an invasion. We don't have to go back through a history of things like the Spanish-American war to see that the timing is off and, perhaps, some implications or the whole approach is not sufficiently thought out. Hints of justification for something akin to Bush is bound to draw hostility, no?
Second, if we're tempted to see a little more Bush-ism than we'd like, our reaction may be colored by the previous America Abroad discussions. There she and Ikenberry had described a concert of Democracies in, of course, not unilateral (and thus "exceptionalist" terms), but certainly in potentially hawkish ones. That gave the new post a nasty coloration.
Finally, she doesn't reply to another point I'd mentioned: that her initial post posed a dilemma: how can we assert values if we don't demand them of others, like, shall we say, Iraq and Iran? Now, I said it was a false dilemma, but that aside, it seems to demand we either give up our values or impose them by force. Since we are rather fond of things like democracy, and since she is herself extolling those values, should we not have been scared to the point of a little venom? Maybe wrongly, but I'd sure love to hear her respond on such issues, too.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
June 21, 2007 7:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ann-Marie
I don't where to post this but you were one of the best academics ever to appear on The Colbert Report. You made your points while recognzing the true nature of the show.
What increasingly worries me is how similar you will see responses to your views that are very similar whether coming from the Bush Right to the Blogging Left.
Ideology of both groups trumps reality. Expertise is derided. There is a Manichean division of the world but if one chooses the West versus Islam or China, the other makes the U.S., Israel or the West in general the bad guys. The Right has borrowed from the Left the use of the mantle of victimhood for favored groups. Both sides spending very little time looking at the world as it is. One wants to engage in a war with all the "bad guys" and the other wants to unilaterally surrender to all the "good guys." A major difference is that the Far Right has been in power and always has a chance at power in the U.S. the Far Left would need a catastrophe to gain power.
Using American values to guide American policy makes a lot of sense in order to both avoid fear and to keep policy grounded. However, the world is not black and white. Choices often need to be made. What happens when there are great dangers to the U.S. and its allies and our values alone are not enough of a shield? There needs to be both a long term promotion a liberal democracy, not just democracy, tempered by the humility that Americans expect their government to both protect them physically and promote their interests.
Nothing would be more useful if academics would join with actual politics to get the American people to look much more clearly at the world.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
June 21, 2007 7:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
.> But interesting question why such a
> hostile response.
As with many of the front-page "name" posters, I guess I didn't see the hostile response. I did see a lot of detailed, thoughtful, trenchant questioning and criticism. And some was expressed a little bit strongly. But less strongly than the typical dorm-room argument session of my youth. I didn't see any posts that I thought worth the wrist damage to rate a 2 or 1 and none close to 0.
Honestly I think this is similar to what has been said to Time Magazine's Joe Klein over at Swampland quite a few times in the last 3 months: your readers (that is, your customers) have always felt this way and always wanted the opportunity to challenge you. It is just that blogs provide them with an opportunity to do that - in an environment that is not controlled and pre-bounded.
sPh
June 21, 2007 7:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, having thrown some of the vitriol as well as some of the not-vitriol, I apologize.
One of the perils of a "book club" on the internet is that probably 98% of the participants are the annoying kind who show up without having read the book, myself included. The excerpts cited here cast it in a different light.
Accumulating Peripherals
June 21, 2007 9:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, I'll bite.
Seriously, I would like some examples of where the criticism turned personal. And if the cap fits, I'll wear it and apologize for being a jerk. But as far as I can tell, overwhelmingly your ideas are being critiqued. And if this bothers you, the blogosphere - which to me is the most brilliant medium through which consumerism gets to be expressed - is really not going to be a comfortable forum for you. I think you recognize this.
Speaking for myself, the Concert of Democracies concept first, and now the seven pillars of American excellence, don't work. Not politically, and more importantly, not in a policy context. Dan K spells it out better than anyone else in this community, and frankly, it is my humble opinion that none of you have properly responded to his arguments. In fact, you haven't begun to address the substantive matters he has raised.
There are a number of recurring themes that you touch on, and this issue of "universal values" bothers me essentially because I don't find you addressing it in its logical context. (Rachel's post here is in the same category). The UN Charter, as far as I am concerned, does a perfectly good job of defining universal values - in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights. What exactly is it you are looking to re-invent?
There is however, within the UN founding documents, what it widely regarded as a fundamental ambiguity. And that is whether the rights of the individual - as expressed in the Universal Declaration - supersede the rights of a sovereign state - as expressed in the Charter - or vice versa. Where do you come out on this issue? Or more importantly, where have you explored this issue?
And here's the rub... If you came out and said, yes, the Universal Declaration is the gold standard, and all other International Law is subordinate to it, I'd respect that view. I'd also point out that holding that view would be politically suicidal, but your argument could at least be coherent.
Equally, if you came out and said that the rights of a sovereign state were the gold standard, despite the evident humanitarian consequences of holding this position, I'd respect that argument. It has a moral queasiness to it, but there is an internal logic.
But you do neither. And instead of finding some rational middle ground, you have staked a position that American values are a type of Universal Declaration, and by extension I take this to imply that American sovereignty is inviolable. But because these values are "universal", this further implies that any nation can stake this same claim to sovereign inviolability based on exactly the arguments you are making for America. And what kind of a mess does that leave us in? Or rather, how does that begin to change the world from where we are today?
In short, it's my considered view that you have triangulated onto a bullshit argument. The minute you qualify your sacred values as "American", you ditch objectivity and forego the opportunity to consider meaningfully what sort of foreign policy would meet these ideals.
Arriving at a bullshit argument is easily done - we all do it - but goodness, you've not only made it the centerpiece of your book, you're trying to sell it as a political silver bullet! And this is what inspires the passionate responses here; when you take a step back and realize that your ideas are deeply-held, and long-thought out, and we probably tend to lean the same way politically, yet we end up profoundly disagreeing with you... it's pretty exasperating. And this gets expressed in many ways, sometimes depending on which side of the bed one got out of.
Maybe I'm naive, believing that the founders of the United Nations nailed it when it came to universal values. Yes, many (all?) nations deviate from the high ideals set out in the document, but isn't the Charter itself a good enough blueprint for what sort of a world we aspire to live in? And isn't it a good enough reference point for us to set the standards we as a nation would like to meet?
June 21, 2007 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
To paraphrase one of our favorite bêtes noires, "Nations don't have values; they have interests."
Slaughter and Kleinfeld don't want to talk about those interests and how many Pomeranian grenadiers they're prepared to sacrifice in the achievement thereof. They wish to follow their bliss -- apparently, happy to drag us over the cliff with them.
Little wonder there's been a bit of robust pushback, here.
June 21, 2007 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
What happens when . . . our values alone are not enough of a shield?
Well, if you're Alan Dershowitz, you send for Jack Bauer and to hell with our vaunted values. What about you, Dan?
June 21, 2007 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
On reflection, this post is a bit dishonest. Anne-Marie reacted to criticisms by trying to pull back a bit and to claim that she's no pursuing a "triumphalist" notion. But, check this out:
http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/0610/slaughterRT.php
In her conclusion she says: "standing on America's principles, and promoting them not as our values, but as universal values, is the best long-term answer to the terrorists' message. We will not accept a world divided along religious, geographic, or civilizational lines."
That's an interesting and telling statement. There's certainly no "live and let live" in this. It's really a call for US hegemony. It certainly gives no consideration to those who might want to opt out for religious or cultural reasons.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
June 21, 2007 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
That is not Dershowitz' position. Perhaps I would send you to disuade those who would kill us that they shouldn't. However, the violation of certain values, such as torture without consequences, are so deadening of a society that they should always be barred. Whether recognizing that perfection is hard to come by and sometimes a nation has to work with a lesser of two evils is a reality that neither Bush and his allies nor this opponents on the Far Left seem to tolerate. It is so nice to know who the saints are.
In the near term I would invite as many countries that would benefit from global order to participate both in helping keep order and in liberalizing organization. I would also work on pointing out they beneift from keeping illiberal groups out of both power and from getting weapons.
It would be nice, Ellen, if values were self-actualizing. They are not. For centuries abstract principles that can be adopted by many people but still need practical interpretation.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
June 21, 2007 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
I guess my question is, is a discussion of values as a series of vague propositions of any real use?
Are windy appeals to sentiment and motherhood really of any help.
Honestly, who is going to come out against 'faith and humility?' Where is the controversy in 'tolerance?'
To make simple blanket assertions that these values define America seems to me to be a careful overlooking of a much more complex and nuanced history and conduct. It obviates the need to look at these nuances, and it undermines the committment to any kind of positive ethics.
The mindless assertion that 'America is good' frees America from the need to actually 'be good.' Rather, it retroactively endorses American conduct, no matter how questionable, as good... because America has done it, and America is good.
June 21, 2007 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Abu Ghraib is just the price of defending democracy.”
Whew, that's one helluva price to pay for what little is left of our democratic republic after 6+ years of the Bush-Cheney junta calling the shots.
Defending Democracy? You mean like imprisoning over 20,000 Iraqi's in Saddam's old prisons and not letting them taste "democracy" by denying them Habeas corpus? By not letting these lost souls see an attorney or their families?
Or maybe letting some hired goons practice "democracy" on Iraqi men and boys by shoving light sticks up their rectums?
But hey, in our "democracy", torture is A OK, as long as you weren't actually meaning to cause permanent damage. And hey, it gets hot in Iraq in the Summer, so a little "water-boarding" is just our democratic way of cooling those chaps down. And you know what they say about making an omelette.
No, i don't see your version of "democracy" either here in America or abroad.
Maybe if i spent my Summers in the Hamptons and the rest of the year, breathing that rarified air of academia, i might be able to see your version of "democracy."
Until then, We the People need to take back our country from the thugs, liars and murderers who are exporting our brand of "democracy" to the rest of the world.
June 21, 2007 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Daniel,
This is the crux of it isn't it?
"Principles" are feel good stories - what you tell to children. They are, literally, ideals that, by their nature are going to get splattered with quite a bit of mud (and BLOOD) here on the earth.
Ideals are, literally 'nice talk' and the US has always talked a helluva good game.
I wonder though if the US' staggering hypocrisy has finally cancelled out the warm n' fuzzy feelings people around the globe are supposed to have when we talk about our 'values.'
My bumper sticker review of the Slaughter book debate:
"Actions speak louder than words."
June 21, 2007 12:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hard to argue with that. It brings out the inherent self condraction of "promotion of 'pluralism'"
Maybe the terrorist message is: "We will not accept a world dominated by pornography, greed, hypocrisy and gluttony."
Does Iran have to have "Girls Gone Wild"?
It's hard not to say we're just pushing liberalism on people who may not want it and may have darn good reasons for not wanting things like alcoholism and prostitution in their societies.
June 21, 2007 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why did I have such a strong reaction to Dean Slaughter's initial piece? Because in my view American intellectual life, in the public sphere at least, is sbsolutely chocking, gagging, suffocating on patriotism. Patriotism is a legitimate emotion; most of us have affection for the places we're from - nothing wrong with that. But there is surely such a thing as too much patriotism. And in my view, American culture is smothered in patriotism, and emotionally addicted to it, to the extent that it is impeding clear, constructive and broad-minded thinking about other matters.
So I just don't think that what the world needs now is yet another book on the true meaning of American patriotism, filled with the usual lofty and high-minded rhetoric about capital-L Liberty, capital-T Tolerance, capital-D Democracy etc. I'm afraid my instinctive reaction to the essay was "not more of this!"
I am frustrated by all of this inwardness because I think those with the education and capacity to understand global isuues, and the institutional support to research them in depth and write about them, ought to be writing books that exhort Americans to look beyond their national borders, get beyond debates about national identity, national purpose and national pride, and approach global problems with a practical, cooperative, can-do spirit, without a lot of undue, unnecessary emphasis on where the problem-solvers happen to be from. They need to be told to get beyond their introspective conversations about whether America is this or America is that, beyond their post-Cold War and post-9/11 navel-gazing and wound licking, and just lend a freaking hand! (This goes for left as well as right: too much moping and raging about what's wrong with us can be just as unhealthy as too much bragging about what's right with us.)
They should be exhorted, in the words of a couple of great internationalists of the past century, to remember their humanity and forget the rest. They should be encouraged to think more about how much they can learn from the rest of the world rather than how much they can teach it; and think more about ordinary non-special helping rather than exceptional oh-so-special heroism. Exhort them to open up, stretch their necks out of the foxhole, and demand more media coverage of the rest of the world - a community they are part of whether they like it or not. And instead of indulging their native chauvinism and narcissism, let them know they have an obligation to learn more about these things.
They should also be told that there is already a gathering global social movement out there that needs intellectual, moral and material assistance, and that it is time for them to join it. Americans on the whole seem to be the last to "get it" as far as the global movement goes. Let history judge which nations were exceptional, and which not; or which nations promoted universal values and which did not. There is no time for that now!
Could we get some more popular books from American global affairs specialists where the reader might actually wonder whether or not the author was from America? Do these authors all have to make such a show of dropping to their knees, rending their garnments and blubbering in their constitutions as they receive the gifts of the holy spirit Jefferson or Madison? Why do so many of these books have to about the Idea of America, the American Way, the American Path, the American Spirit, the American Experience - America, America, America. Enough! We have heard it all before. There is nothing new under the sun here.
I happen to be from New Hampshire. Imagine if every time someone proposed a practical national policy like reforming health care, or reducing the deficit or cleaning up the air, I responded by saying "Yes indeed, because caring for the sick is a New Hampshire value", or "Absolutely, be cause all true Granite-staters believe in fiscal discipline", or "Certainly, because nothing better expresses the New Hampshire value of stewardship, shich is at the same time universal, than caring for the environment." Isn't all this both cloying and irrelevant? Wouldn't my listener (even another New Hampshire listener!) justly complain "Enough already with this New Hampshiremania!"
Ending global warming makes obvious sense. Preventing large nuke-packing countries from blowing themselves up makes obvious sense. We don't need a damn permission slip from James Madison or Woodrow Wilson!
June 21, 2007 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Merman, she's not endorsing that statement, she's just quoting it. Dr. Slaughter and you are on the same side.
June 21, 2007 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan K;
This reminds me a bit of the Peter Bienert discussion on Foreign Policy.
I think in both cases the proponents are (perhaps wrongly) assuming the best 'rhetorical' and 'political' path dovetails with the best actual policy.
She likely is trying to head off "YOU JUST HATE AMERICA!!" tripe from Limbaugh brown shirts.
I think the warm n' fuzzy feelins' are the spoonful of sugar that Slaughter is using to help the medicine go down.
I'm of the 'cynical' school that feels the best response to terrorism and foreign policy in general is often the least emotionaly appealling and least likely to make political hay for you.
We probably would've been better off minimizing the the threat publically and vigorously pursing them in secret, but then the opposition would come up with some kind of 'missile gap' jingoistic nonsense and put you out of power.
June 21, 2007 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, that is what I'm getting at.
Plus, I don't want Iran competing for the alcohol and prostitutes anyway. Look what happened to gas prices when China and India started buying cars!
Okay, bad joke.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
June 21, 2007 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan K is certainly right that the patriotism level has been set on 11 in the US for too long for all but the most dedicated heavy-metal right-wing fans of that noise. The question you're raising is whether the left still needs to ward off the Limbaugh spirits by plastering American flags on its forehead.
I get the feeling that the mood is shifting in the US of late, and that people are more concerned about a series of concrete problems -- global warming, Iraq and anti-American feeling in the Islamic world, globalization, immigration -- than they are in waving the flag and denouncing foreigners and fifth columnists. So I'd tentatively side with Dan K on this one. I don't think "jingoistic nonsense" is the 600-pound political gorilla it was, say, four years ago.
Accumulating Peripherals
June 21, 2007 6:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Doesn't it seem like this can easily be boiled down to good global citizens who have good foreign policies, will almost certainly have fewer enemies?
Islamic terrorists won't sacrifice themselves and fly our planes into buildings if we are not killing and exploiting Muslims, supporting totalitarian regimes (that also kill and exploit Muslims) and arming other countries to kill and exploit Muslims, but are respectful of Islam's role in Muslim politics. Rogue states won't find themselves trying to hold on to power by deterring the US with their own nukes, (which is not, actually, an irrational stance), if we are not threatening to attack them. And these are just for starters.
Solving bad foreign policy problems through the use (somehow) of good values, strikes me as more of what we are doing now...going to the hardware store expecting to buy a loaf of bread. Universal values are probably great things, especially if the situation calls for them. But, I'll put a bet on the "approach global problems with a practical, cooperative, can-do spirit..." as a more promising way of reducing the number of our enemies.
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. H.L. Mencken
June 22, 2007 5:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you Dan K,
I've always felt queasy about patriotic fervor. Every time I see a bumper sticker that says "Proud to be an American" I wonder what's to be proud about. Yes, there's some good stuff, but how can anyone feel proud when there's torture and war and lawlessness at the highest levels?
And yes, I think AnnMarie and many other would-be centrists are trying to cook up a progressive burrito wrapped in a red, white and blue tortilla, looking for some way to appeal to the red meat people.
In my view this is a hopeless task. What is the probability that patriotism-addled right wingers, who use reason as perhaps the last consideration in forming an opinion, will even enter a discussion of reasoned discourse, even if it has been given a mild patriotic flavor? It's just not how they operate. The entire right wing/neocon discourse has been designed to reject any and all ideas that do not correspond to their world view with a vehemence that precludes even a cursory consideration of alternative ideas, Ann Marie's (and America's) included. For "patriots" patriotism is used to prevent thoughtful consideration, not engage in it.
Thus, Ann Marie and other centrists seeking dialogue with the red meat people, hope they can bring them to the table by pretending to be one of them, a patriotic 'Merican. But no matter what it comes wrapped in, a vegetarian burrito is a vegetarian burrito.
Ted B.
June 22, 2007 7:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
"What's to be proud about?"
It's a serious question that hasn't been answered in this discussion and if people are going to claim that American values are universal, then it needs to be answered.
It also has two levels. You asked it in terms of "Given what's wrong, is there really room to be proud right now?"
I ask it this way: Unless you're an immigrant who uprooted your whole life to come here, why be "proud to be an American." I mean, you only are one because you were born here. Certainly you can be proud of yourself or of other people for things that have been accomplished but why be "proud to have been born somewhere?" How do you take pride in the result of a genetic lottery?
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
June 22, 2007 8:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
To some others, I know this is the blogosphere, so civility is irrelevant, but where does some of this vitriol come from? What did Rachel or I ever do to you?
Well, I think the main thing Rachel has done is run the Truman Project, which seems designed as a vehicle for passing on the established imperial tradition in American foreign policy – liberal wing - from the generation now in custodial charge of it to a new generation of emerging leaders, and for propagandizing on behalf of that imperial project. If one looks at the resumes of the Truman Project’s members and fellows, one sees much of the American establishment on display: the usual corporate foundations, corporate strategy and consulting firms, corporate law firms and investment banks are all represented there, supported by the same non-governmental institutions, reproduced by the same small handful of schools.
The character of that establishment tradition is a sort of contractual alliance between hard-boiled imperialism and soft-hearted missionary idealism. The former see the American government and the military, diplomatic and intelligence instruments it has at its disposal as mainly tools for competition and domination. The purpose is to crack open markets for import and export, extract favorable terms, bribe and intimidate local officials, chase away foreign competitors, and change local regimes when those regimes do not provide a friendly business environment. For these people, the US government and US commerce and financial capital all form one seamless whole. Going to the government with a request for help with a local official is no different than going to a private sector service supplier for help with one’s payroll system or travel bookings. The business of America is business, and the US government is itself just a business that provides certain services to other businesses.
And there is a revolving door among all the divisions of this conglomerate. Some of the private firms and their consultants do work for US intelligence, and intelligence gathered by the US government is in turn passed on to the private firms. The military and its corporate suppliers provide the muscle and intimidation needed to assure the success of US enterprises operating abroad, and then the clients that are developed through the work of these enterprises order weaponry and provide basing. A certain portion of the proceeds are channeled into making sure the right people get elected to the government, elevated to the appropriate committees and sufficiently rewarded, personally and as representatives, to secure their continuing commitment.
There is a liberal wing of the imperial tradition as well. The idealists in this wing are those who are willing to tolerate and work with their boorish commercial counterparts, though perhaps with some outward show of snooty disdain, as long as they are allowed into the acquired client countries to work their transformative missionary magic on the locals. In earlier generations, the mission was Christianity: Christian missionaries went in to save souls for Jesus, following the conquistadors to South America, or US soldiers to the American west, or Hawaii, for example. Now “democratic” liberalism is the cause. So as the unfriendly governments are removed, the missionary NGO’s go in. (At least they go in when the liberal wing is in charge. One major gripe the liberal imperialists have with the Bush administration is that following the invasion of Iraq, which they generally supported, the administration stiffed the NGO’s and relied too much on private for-profit contractors.) Some of the civil society missionaries also dabble in intelligence work. The missionaries also help provide the propaganda back home, and public relations abroad that ease the way for the US Inc. expansion. To their credit, they do generally try to push for soft power techniques of expansion, and counsel against the counterproductive backlash of too much sheer ruthlessness and brute force.
The total package – the brazen imperialist operation, assisted by its useful missionary auxiliary - is a full-spectrum transformative project whose natural endpoint is a corporate-run US sphere of influence that spans the entire globe. Occasionally, the leading lights of the two wings get together for high level consensus-building and policy-setting, such as they did in the meetings sponsored by the Princeton Project.
Since Rachel Kleinfeld has been posting here, she has communicated in many ways her belief that she represents a new, spiritedly patriotic "9/11 generation", that has given itself the mission of eradicating the influence of those decadent old cynical lefties in the Democratic Party - with their skepticism about international capitalism, wariness of US government motives and visceral dislike of military force and militarism – and helping Democrats learn how to hug the military and get with the imperial program. I would say the general tone of her posts is condescending arrogance, painted over with a layer chipper enthusiasm. She has a particularly irritating habit of trying to gain acceptance of her ideas by suggesting we are all on the “left”, and therefore on the same side. Now I’m sorry, but I just have a hard time seeing myself as on the same side with Goldman Sachs, Booz Allen Hamilton or Kissinger McLarty Associates.
Kleinfeld is a professional propagandist, and comes here to propagandize on behalf of her project. She and the other Truman fellows and advisors have always been given a forum here in the sporadically active, but generally dormant America Abroad section – indeed, it appears their seats are permanently kept warm for them, no matter how long they are absent - and more critical voices have been systematically excluded, and generally confined to the comments section or infrequent guest spots in other sections.
June 22, 2007 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
DanK,
Given the breadth of your postings on this topic it's a little intimidating to try to second you. But, here goes:
My big objection to the Truman National Security Project is much like your own. I don't see them as creating room in their movement for voices outside of the select schools and consultancies that make up their membership. They've appointed themselves a Messianic role -- they will tell us what to think and when we object they will dismiss us, either assuming we don't have credentials or savvy.
Kleinfeld has specifically tried to speak for her generation, of which I'm a part. She says her generation was definied by 9-11. It's funny but I'm a New Yorker as are many of my friends and we were all there for 9-11. If you asked us all whether the event defined us, I doubt anyone I know would say "yes."
We won't ever forget it, that's for sure. But there's no sense among us that it made us into who we are, or that it guides our beliefs in any way greater than it being a fact of history that has to be dealt with.
Most of us, by the way, rather frown when somebody says that they advocate a position specifically because of 9-11. We demand more of an answer than that.
The Truman Project purports to define our actions by the values that they advocate. Issues such as "popular will," are subordinated to what they say we're supposed to believe.
Kleinfeld purports to speak for a generation.
It certainly seems as if they are here to preach more than to listen and that so far as they're concerned, our ideas don't matter. They also know that they get their ideas turned into policy not through debating with the likes of us but by serving on special committees and giving talks at the Hoover Institution where their opponents aren't welcome to participate, no matter how much what they do actually affects us all.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
June 22, 2007 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would like to request that you copy that post to a discussion table submission.
sPh
June 22, 2007 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
At the link you posted, destor23, in the right-hand column there is a link to a reply by John Judis to one Truman Project document. In it, he makes, far better, the point I've been trying to make about what I've seen from the Truman Project, which is, roughly: "Yes, yes, I get a sense of what you would like to say. But what would you do?"
Judis writes:
"What bothers me about this Truman statement is the absence of any discussion of what should be done. Should one assume that Democrats know what to do about Iran, or about extricating the US from Iraq, but simply face a problem of how to sell these policies to the American people? I don't think that's the case. If one reads, say, the Truman people's statement about Iran in this light, it sounds particularly hollow. When candidate X is at the debate and is asked, "Well, it is clear you don't like Iran having nuclear weapons, but what should the US actually do to prevent it?" the authors "stand principled" alternative doesn't suggest any answer at all. Perhaps this is too harsh, but my feeling is that this is too much one of those Lakoffian exercises that reflect the policy elite's preoccupation with marketing ideas that they don't yet have." (end of Judis quote)
I have the same reaction to what has been written by Anne-Marie here so far about her book.
Maybe a way to understand the vitriol a bit better is to suggest that at this particular site, many of the most vocal denizens seem either to be more than a little weary of the endless Democratic marketing proposals, to prefer to discuss ideas in the form of policy substance, or both.
Or, a third possibility: perhaps there is interest in learning more about the substance behind the rhetoric and suggestions on values offered in some Truman Project documents and, evidently, Anne-Marie's book, the better so that people can judge for themselves whether it is, well, both substantial and agreeable?
I don't think most at this site believe marketing is unimportant in politics. Rather, I would guess that most would agree with Judis' thoughts on the matter as expressed in the quote above.
It seems not at all unreasonable to me for folks here to wonder out loud whether there is considerable agreement on the substantive policy implications of the values and marketing language, or whether there are instead rather large and fundamental philosophical and policy differences of viewpoint.
The substance of most of the testy remarks, if I am reading them right, is a request for engagement that goes beyond context-less discussion of values and marketing strategies.
June 22, 2007 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Truman Project
==============
I have looked over the Truman Project web site, and remaining objective and
not allowing the TPM Café gang to sway my opinion, and not having any
preconceived opinions about Madeline Albright since I am an amateur, I'd say
I think it's an excellent idea. I have only the web pages to go by of
course.
I believe in values on a National and personal level. And to that end I
agree with the Truman Project that we should not allow conservatives to
"own" the values meme.
As far as promoting values, I don't see anything wrong with it if it is done in the right context, which many contributors at TPM Café seem to think would better fit within the United Nations architecture.
Regional Economic Unions?
=========================
A few days ago under the loginID NumLock, (this stuff can be addictive, and
so I change my login ID if I feel I need a break before posting again, well OK - I have a light case of manic depression and I can get carried away, and the change in LoginID helps)
the gang didn't think much of my idea of having the US promote to muslim /
arab nations the formation of a muslim and/or arab economic union. Not a
middle eastern economic union - excluding Israel - for obvious reasons (the
muslim / arab nations wouldn't go for it.) The Europeans have done this, so
I don't understand why it was a lousy idea. I'm not sure if it wasn't well received because I'm being sophomoric about something (good chance of that) or if it is merely because I suggested the US promote it.
Perhaps global stability and peace has a better chance of being achieved
by achieving regional stability and peace? Which I am wondering if economic unions
would be more of a slam dunk solution than outright global initiatives based
on values.
What does the Truman
Project think about promoting a Muslim / Arab Economic Union - to put Humpty
Dumpty back together for that population, at least to a certain extent -
economically? It seems like a no brainer and a slam dunk to me. And we
might be able to restore regard from non extremist muslims (muslims not
interested in a religious "caliphate") if we promote the idea. I googled and
found two muslim / arab web sites promoting the same idea. If muslims / arabs were going to promote it and create it on their own, without needing our help in promoting it, why then has it not happened already?
Muslim / Arab Economic Union Article 1
Muslim / Arab Economic Union Article 2
Such regional economic unions could then decide for themselves if they want
to draw up a list of required values to be adhered to, in order to maintain
membership in the union, as well. And in this case the values will be
customized to the culture of the region, while in the case of a muslim / arab economic
union, to the culture of the region as well as to the religion.
Would that fly?
p.s. After sleeping on it, I should add that if there was to be a Middle Eastern Union, including Israel, that would be even better of course as I believe that would solve the Palestine/Israel conflict and violence pronto.
If either Union (muslim / arab or middle eastern including Israel) ends up changing oil trading currency to their new currency, tough cookies. It would be better than the alternative (continued instability and possibly the formation of a religious caliphate some day.)
And if you can promote the values idea to the European Union, if they adopt it (maybe they already have - again I'm an amateur,) they can be the role model economic union of which subsequent regional economic unions can then hopefully emulate (on the values thing.)
June 22, 2007 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm quite sure you're onto something, AmericanDreamer.
Can I add one concern? It's that the "Values" language is stated in agreeable but vague terms. So I look at the values and say "Hey, I like those values," and then Anne-Marie heads off to a meeting with a state department official and she starts getting involved in the actual crafting of policy. 2 weeks later, let's say, the policy is implemented. I think it's horrible. I say, "Anne-Marie, I hate that policy!" And she says, "But destor23, that policy is grounded in the values that you said you agreed with!"
Anyone can tell me that they hold freedom as a dear value. But if I don't know what they're going to do with that value, it's meaningless to me.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
June 22, 2007 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, freedom or liberty is a really good example destor, along with tolerance. Every culture has worked out some idiosyncratic balance between what people are free to do, i.e. what is tolerated, and what they are forbidden to do. There is not a lot of information packed into the claim that one supports freedom. It is only informative when it is combined with some fairly clear context, where one social practice is contrasted with another.
I have a German friend whose father worked for NATO, and who has lived in seven or eight different countries. I asked her once why Germans, who generally speaking seem to prefer order and restraint, accept such unrestrained speeds on the autobahn. All she could say is that in every country she had been in, there was some particular kind of liberty that people prize, and represents what freedom means to them, and that for Germans its driving your car as fast as you damn please.
June 22, 2007 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
At the time of the release of the Princeton Project on National Security's report, "Forging a World of Liberty Under Law", co-authored by Anne-Marie and G. John Ikenberry, I read the report but did not submit my thoughts on it. Spurred by the current exchange I went back and reviewed it try to get a better sense of what the substantive policy application might look like for the values Anne-Marie writes about with great passion. Link to the report is:
http://www.wws.princeton.edu/ppns/report/FinalReport.pdf
I will stipulate at the outset that I don't assume or maintain Anne-Marie agrees with each and every recommendation in the report. I have to assume that she agrees with its overall thrust and is at least not terribly uncomfortable with most of its specifics, though.
I think there are some good ideas in the report, some of which I would have liked to have seen elaborated on more. But overall what I see in that report troubles me in several respects. I'll mention some of the major ones here.
*The major theme of the report is to recommend the United States promote ordered liberty, both within and between the countries of the world. One might think that to many a reader it is not at all a given that this is a doable project, and what the authors think might constitute success. Yet nowhere is there even a cursory discussion of the historical experience with efforts to do precisely this sort of thing, and what has or should have been learned from this experience. It is almost as though the people who came up with this recommendation believe this would represent pretty much an entirely novel sort of effort. Whatever success might be achieved in building capacity within other countries to bring about ordered liberty would depend on the contents and execution of the reconstruction and development agenda. Yet this section (pp. 71-72) is superficial and weak.
*Page 46 of the report notes that "the United States must also engage in a range of counter-proliferation measures. These should include:...Pressing ahead with the development of a working missile defense system..."
Whoah. Pardon me if I am left to wonder whose signatures on this report were landed with the inclusion of this item? Yes, the United States must engage in a range of counter-proliferation measures. But pressing ahead with the development of a working missile-defense system is undermining what is left of the arms control regime.
Missile defense, as I understand it, is thought to be unworkable by most of the scientific community. And it has been exceptionally expensive already for the taxpayers footing the bill. It does provide a good livelihood for the contractors engaged in the R&D. Who are those contractors? Are they among those supporting the work of this project? Perhaps not. But I am led to wonder. Given how controversial an issue missile defense is, I would at least expect to have seen a sentence or two explaining why the group believes missile defense enhances rather than reduces security.
*As a response to the poor image of the United States in many quarters these days, the report recommends on page 74 that "the United States should shift its public diplomacy efforts from a public relations approach to a sales approach. While public relations involves one-way communication strategies, a sales-based approach requires understanding what motivates the recipient of a message to 'buy' or inhibits the recipient from accepting and embracing the ideas being proferred."
Here, the arrogance of an un-humble group of people creeps into the prose. There is no suggestion that, in some contexts, the ideas being proferred might not be good ones for the recipients to 'accept and embrace', for entirely justifiable reasons. Or that would-be proferrors might benefit from doing a good deal of respectful listening and living with people whose lives they seek to improve, in order better to understand, before deciding whether and if so, how, to proceed with the proferring.
*on page 19, the report states that "Labeling countries as democracies or non-democracies, much less as good or evil, also needlessly complicates our relations with many nations, and often undermines the very goals we seek to achieve." No matter. On page 7, we read that "...the United States should work with its friends and allies to develop a global 'Concert of Democracies'. These two statements beg for reconciliation.
I would prefer to see more in the way of discussion and exploration of how these kinds of issues might be addressed in the America Abroad part of the forum. I am not at all averse to conceptual discussions. My favorite America Abroad contributor is DanK. His posts feature rich conceptual discussion. The difference is that the implications for policy orientation are, when they are not made explicit, typically quite clear in his posts. So I am left feeling as though I understand what, from a policy orientation perspective, or, if you prefer, an action perspective, is actually at issue and at stake.
June 22, 2007 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for doing the work and sussing out the specifics.
The contradiction between not labeling countries and yet having a "Concert of Democracy" just demands explanation.
The support for a missile defense program is mind-boggling.
Your note about the "sales approach" toward American diplomacy are right on. I suppose the answer is that of course we're selling something that's good for them. We're selling "universal" values, after all. Your critique is powerful. But this one's consistant with the rest of Anne-Marie's work.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
June 22, 2007 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
The support for a missile defense program is mind-boggling.
I believe the avowed aim of the Princeton project was to develop a foreign policy outline that could serve as the basis for a bipartisan foreign policy. The report was crafted following the work of several bipartisan working groups.
I imagine that producing such a document requires a fair amount of negotiation and give and take. Missile defense has been a sacred cow for Republicans for some time now, so I'm guessing that failure to include missile defense would have been a deal-breaker for a substantial number of the Republicans participating.
June 22, 2007 8:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan, this is not true:
A large majority of those in the secular NGO-Peace Corps spectrum (excluding the new faith-based NGO segment, which is a whole other can of beans) opposed the Iraq War from the start. However, the attitude quickly shifted to one of "given that they're going in, better at least that we get involved, since we have experience in post-conflict situations. Maybe the whole thing will do some good, ultimately." This attitude is one that NGO folks may be too quick to assume, but it has obvious historical roots -- they've spent the last 25 years having to come to accommodations with the Jesse Helms/GWB GOP. And for that matter, the whole evolution of NGOs comes out of working out accommodations with governments they consider objectionable and whose policies they disagree with, since the founding of the International Red Cross in 1859 to take care of the wounded on both sides of what the original IRCers considered a stupid war.
Your "contractual alliance between hard-boiled imperialism and soft-hearted missionary idealism" has a far more mixed record than you are willing to admit here. You cannot wave away the positive side of this record in Japan and Western Europe post-'45, Eastern Europe post-'89, in Bosnia and Kosovo post-'95; and you cannot wave away those periods when it was the soft-hearted missionaries (David Rieff, at the time, included) who were calling for more US military intervention. I still don't understand what accommodation Rieff has come to in terms of how his current anti-interventionism would have played out in Sarajevo in '92. It may be impossible to craft such a general theory; maybe we just need different attitudes at different moments.
You also elide the fact that most of the time and in most places, those soft-hearted missionaries DO NOT want imperial interventions at all. NGOs aren't calling for Western military intervention in West Africa, South or Southeast Asia, Latin America, or 95% of the other places they work in. The question only arises in connection with violence against civilians in failed states.
The support of soft-hearted liberal missionaries for some military interventions has been called into question because of Iraq. Iraq has cast Western military interventions in a new light because, as of the mid-90s, it was generally assumed that in the modern post-Cold War era, military interventions by liberal democratic states would be well-intentioned and would not entail massive violence against civilians. In the Clinton era, the left failed to foresee the possibility that a Western democratic state, in the hands of a right-wing party, might still launch an old-fashioned illiberal, nationalist, imperialist intervention driven by jingoistic and commercial interests. And even as that invasion was underway, many left-leaning NGOs failed to understand that the character and attitudes of the US administration were such that anything they did to take advantage of the invasion to "do some good" was doomed to failure. The question now is, given what we understand about how unreliable our own government is, should we instead adopt a non-interventionist stance, in general? Maybe "Yanqui stay home" is the better policy?
I don't think so. I don't think we should have a general stance on this question. I think David Rieff was right in 1992 to press the Clinton Administration and European governments to intervene in Bosnia, and right in 2002 to try to stop the Bush Administration from invading Iraq. And I think Nick Kristof is right press the US and other governments to work out peacekeeping arrangements in Darfur and Eastern Congo. I think some of those "imperialistic interventions" do good, and some do harm. The most critical question, for me, is to ensure that the interventions are international and multilateral, not American-driven.
Accumulating Peripherals
June 22, 2007 10:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Makes sense. Maybe we should try some kind of quid-pro-quo on that one. "We'll agree to throw away $10 billion on your meaningless missile defense program, if you'll agree to spend $10 billion on universal Head Start access." Treat it like the pork it is.
Accumulating Peripherals
June 22, 2007 10:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
The imperialism argument does a great deal of work in explaining the overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala and the US and British overthrowing of Mossadegh and installing the Shah in Iran.
But I don't think it represents the predominant motivations, or accounts for the consequences to date, of the Bosnia and Kosovo interventions, ugly and late as they were.
Nor, opposed as I was to the Iraq war, do I believe it explained the major motivations of all of those supporting it, including people such as Michael Ignatieff, French president Sarkozy's new Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner (a maverick member of the Socialist party, until he was kicked out for accepting Sarkozy's job offer; Kouchner's odyssey is written up in Paul Berman's fascinating Power and the Idealists), or Berman himself.
Gulf War I, I believe, was justified in undoing an act of naked aggression. The Bush Administration's watching as Saddam slaughtered Kurds and Shiites in the immediate aftermath by the thousands probably was not, given the President's statement which might reasonably have been taken by the rebels to mean a) the US was encouraging them to overthrow Saddam and b) implicitly, the US would support them if they did so.
As weary as I get of doing so at times, my instinct is to fight openly for the flag where necessary. (Where's Todd Gitlin on this thread?)So long as so many US voters are moved to entrust great power to others based on whose flag narrative is more compelling, I see no alternative. The liberal's flag narrative is, by far, in our day, the heavier political lift, as the saying goes. The politics of hope, reason and compassion don't sell as well of late as the politics of fear. (Nor is it clear they ever have, for that matter.) I refuse, however, to cede it to Bush and other moral cretins by default.
The thrust of my comments in this and other threads relating to Anne-Marie's book is to probe for more information so that I can judge whether the flag/the policies/the values/the ideas (take your pick) Anne-Marie wants to fight for are the ones I believe in or not.
June 23, 2007 12:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Matt. Thanks for these comments. I think a lot of what you say is true, and some of it is a useful refinement of some of the broad brush statements I made in my previous comment. But I do have some criticisms and rejoinders to make. I have started to write a response, but am going to be out on the road most of the day, and probably won't get a chance to return to them until late this evening. If I am not able to get to them in a time to make a contribution to this thread, I will post them as a discussion post.
General theme: The prospects for the humanitarian cause depend on a re-commitment to a global internationalism, based on the extension of potent global governance and international law, and a clear rejection of imnperialism. Humanitarianism will always be compromised and undermined to the extent that it tries to piggy-back on the more ruthless and selfish activities of states. The notion that any modern state can be turned into something even approximating a liberal humanitarian enterprise is a dangerous illusion.
June 23, 2007 6:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
For some of us dummies, and I imagine there are a few read-only dummies anyways, besides my being a read-write dummy, can you expand on what your ideas are Dan? I read the three sentences in your earlier post above, but I could use some clarity between what your foreign policy, representing non-imperial, non-franchise America, Democratic Party foreign policy, would be compared to Truman Democrats. You mentioned something in another post about being in favor of middle 20th Century US foreign policy. But I think some clarify would be beneficial for folks like me.
Also, would you help to achieve, through promotion, something like this? Or would you just as soon let such ideas pan out or not on their own?
It seems to me that is the best way to deal with terrorism - removing one of the terrorists' reason for being.
If an Islamic Union happened, and oil trading changes to their new currency, does the US go bankrupt or would it not be a big deal.
June 23, 2007 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Got it,
thanks Dan.
I was already in this camp but just didn't know it.
Although I have some "conservative" leanings like I believe in having the best weaponry. (I just don't like to see using them in quick-draw manner like we did in Iraq.)
I am proud of my father's WW II medals and japanese swords, and I am patriotic but certainly not religiously patriotic.
I put my US flag out labor day, memorial day, and july 4, and not the other 362 days of the year.
I believe one can believe in strong weaponry and be patriotic, but still be an internationalist. I guess Wesley Clarke falls into that category for example. It would have been either a different Iraq War, or no Iraq War, had Wes been elected in 2000 instead of W (I realize he didn't run until 2004.) I don't believe in having a gigantic foot soldier army though. I more believe in weaponry and special forces.
I'm an environmentalist.
So I too with others around here believe in using the UN - even if that means fixing the UN's flaws - rather than go the cowboy route (which we saw from Carl Pope's blog, the cowboy independence was/is a myth). I think agreed upon international "permission slips" are a good thing.
June 23, 2007 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink