The USA recently mangled an Afghan wedding party with one of its bombs. While the newspapers called it an unfortunate accident, it reminded me of a fact pattern from my philosophy 100 class where the police shoot at a criminal who stands among a crowd of innocent people. It also made me think of this recent quote from an interview:
“One simple criterion is that if some action is legitimate for us, then it is legitimate for others. To take an example: if it is legitimate for the US to bomb Afghanistan because Washington suspects that the plot to carry out the 9-11 atrocities was hatched there (the FBI has recently conceded they still have only suspicions, no firm evidence), then a fortiori, it would have been legitimate for Nicaraguans (Cubans, Lebanese, and a long list of others) to bomb Washington because they know, not suspect, that it is the source of terrorist actrocities that far exceed even 9-11. Those who do not accept the latter conclusion – that is, every sane person – cannot accept the former one, unless they reject the most elementary moral principles, and thereby abandon any claim to speak of right and wrong, good and evil.”
I understand the realpolitik behind current USA foreign policy. But this just looks like “the big retarded child in the schoolyard” once again. Is there any moral reasoning behind current USA foreign policy?
Nations, like individuals, will act primarily in their own self-interest. Most of the time, it’s not in a person’s or a nation’s self-interest to cause harm for no reason, simply because it creates more problems than it solves. If Nicaraguans et al were to attack the U.S., it would be no more legitimate or illegitimate than the U.S.'s actions in Afghanistan, but they would be incredibly dumb to do so. It’s cheaper and easier to try to avoid a bully than to take him on, so if you perceive the U.S. as “the big retarded child in the schoolyard” (I don’t, and I’m quite sane) the enlightened self-interest solution is to elimintate things about yourself that get the bully’s attention. In this case, clamping down on drug kingpins and Islamist terrorists would be a good start.
If you find current U.S. foreign policy immoral, I’d like to hear your suggestions for Sept. 12 decisions.
Perform honest police work, perhaps under the auspices of the UN.
Commit to judicial prosecution in courts of law.
Resort to force only after legal means have been exhausted.
Enquire about the reasons for the crimes.
Adopt a definition of “terror” that applies to all.
Stop supporting client states who use terror (e.g. Israel, Turkey, etc).
Use dialogue, diplomacy, and other civilized tools of statesmanship.
Broker a fair peace with Palestine (along the lines of UN 242).
Abide by ICJ rulings and international treaties.
Don’t unnecessarily polarize the world by excluding the middle (“you are either with us, or you are against us”).
Respond to legitimate calls for extradition that come from other nations (i.e. Haiti’s repeated requests for extradition of Emmanuel Constant, the latest of which came on September 30, 2001, when the USA was demanding Bin Laden be handed over).
Don’t resort to name calling (“axis of evil”).
Stop thwarting social and economic progress in Arab states in the name of oil.
This list is by no means exhaustive. Of course, number 6 is probably the most important. People seem to respond to aggression with aggression. And with contemporary technology, the rich and powerful no longer are assured the near monopoly of violence that has largely prevailed throughout history. So perhaps enlightened self interest entails a slightly more “enlightened” response?
woah, this one could run and run. I just wanted to add this:
I was always taught that you should stand up to a bully.
(I’m not saying the US is a bully. Just that, if it were, then maybe it should be stood up to rather than appeased and avoided)
“There is more virtue in worshipping a white mouse than a superman because it is better to give succour to weakness than to cringe before strength” Lord Altrincham
“I was always taught that you should stand up to a bully.”
If the bully is very much bigger and more powerful than you are, and you are without friends or influence, doing what you can to stay out of his way is probably the wiser course.
For the life of me, I can’t see any reasoning behind current USA foreign policy. Much less moral reasoning.
Everything is flavor of the month. China is our enemy, Hainan plane incident, APEC and then public support for the US to go into Afganistan. Not wanting to get involved with Israel/Palestine, until it gets so bad that we are at the current situation. Axis of Evil stuff and trotting out all the old bogey men like Iran and Iraq. Steel protectionism while arguing for WTO and free trade. It just keeps going on and on.
Our foreign policy should be about putting Americas interests first. Part of that policy should also be about having good relations with other countries because trade, commerce and cooperation are generally better for everyone (including the US) than war. But that doesn’t mean the US is some “World Dad” figure that has to always break up the squabling children or hand out free money and expect nothing in return.
In general, we should try to do moral things. Feeding starving people, etc are generally considered good. But Somalia demonstrated how best intentions can still sometimes lead to tragedy.
As you probably learned in your philosophy class, morality is very subjective and means diferent things to diferent people. One person may feel that any violence in the implementaion of foreign policy is completely wrong while someone else would advocate the use of military force to intervene in foreign conflicts or overthrow repressive governments.
"You must know there are two ways of contesting, the one by the law, the other by force; the first method is proper to men, the second to beasts; but because the first is frequently not sufficient, it is necessary to have recourse to the second. " - Machiavelli
I know you have an agenda, however I’m going to have to disagree with it. I hardly equate Israel with being a terrorist state. Yes, they have been oppressive in the past. However when all the jews were in Europe, Europe wanted them to be in Palestine, now that they are in Palestine, Europe wants them out of Palestine. Well you know what, screw that, they’re going to do what they can to protect themselves, and sometimes they break the wrong eggs, but they have a better track record than any other nation put in a similar position. I mean Jesus, it happened to us ONCE and we dismantled a country. It has to happen to them EVERY DAY for months before they take serious military action.
We also constantly lambaste them for being more successful than Palestine. Like “Well you guys were losing, then it would be ok.” Israelis don’t strap dynamite to children and send them to restaurants and night clubs.
So please, if you want to talk about moral responsibility please do, but don’t put your agenda in the in the list of things that would be morally responsible. Every country on the planet has had human rights abuses in the past, hell our good buddies over in England are one of the absolute worst. England has had a habit of mowing down crowds with machine guns. Every time Israel is accused of a massacre they are pretty much exonerated, until a couple years past and some new country decides to reinvestigate it and so on. And in the meanwhile someone like Sharon gets the name “the butcher” for a massacre that was committed by a faction that wasn’t even Israeli back in the early 80s.
So while your list was good, your agenda pushing of using your worst example as your best one just shouldn’t fly.
The main reason I mentioned Israel is simply because it is a current focus of the “war on terror”. I don’t have any particular expertise or interest in the region. And there are, unfortunately, many other examples that could have been cited just as readily.
Turning to your statement though that you “hardly equate Israel with being a terrorist state”, the facts speak for themselves. For example:
Probably the worst single atrocity committed by Israel was their invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which left some 20,000 people dead and much of the country in waste. Like the Rabin-Peres invasions of 1993 and 1996, the 1982 attack had little pretense of self-defense. The stated goal was (and is) “to install a friendly regime and destroy Mr. Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization.” In other words, to forcefully persuade Palestinians to accept Israeli rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This continues today (see Bennett, New York Times, January 24, 2002). These operations were and are carried out with the crucial military and diplomatic support of the Reagan, Clinton and Bush administrations, and therefore constitute international terrorism.
The US was also directly involved in acts of terror in the region, including the 1985 CIA car-bombing in Beirut that killed 80 people and wounded 250.
Shimon Peres’s bombing of Tunis that killed 75 people. This was expedited by the US and praised by Secretary of State Shultz. It was also unanimously condemned by the UN Security Council as an “act of armed aggression” (US abstaining).
Peres’s “Iron Fist” operations directed against “terrorist villagers” in Lebanon.
And so on.
I suppose the reason I emphasized number 6 was because it seems like a simple restatement of the golden rule: you get what you give, live and let live.
** Commit to judicial prosecution in courts of law. **
The U.S. will prosecute in courts of law. Surely you are not suggesting that the U.S. should suffer an attack such as 9-11 and merely file charges and let the courts handle it. This was an act of war.
** Enquire about the reasons for the crimes. **
Right. Afterwards lets circle up and sing “Kum By Ya” and say the serenity prayer.
**Use dialogue, diplomacy, and other civilized tools of statesmanship. **
Good idea. I think the U.S. is exerting considerable effort in this regard.
**Broker a fair peace with Palestine (along the lines of UN 242). **
Another good idea. The U.S. is devoted to “brokering a fair peace”. Are the other parties committed to peace? Sure does’nt look that way.
Stop thwarting social and economic progress in Arab states in the name of oil.
The lack of economic progress specifically and progress in general in the Arab states has more to do with the Arabs than with the U.S.
Funny that you mention Israel and Turkey, the only civilized democratic countries in the Middle East, but not Saudi Arabia and Egypt as states that use terror. Just funny, that’s all.
You stated that “the USA is devoted to ‘brokering a fair peace’” along the lines of UN Security Counsel Resolution 242.
Actually, the USA vetoed that resolution. It is one of a history of USA vetoes in this regard, in fact.
There has been a profligate use by the United States of its veto power with respect to Israel. In 29 separate cases between 1972 and 1991, the USA has vetoed resolutions critical of Israel. Except for the USA veto, all of these resolutions would have passed. These resolutions would have broadened the record by affirming the right of Palestinian self-determination, by calling on Israel to abandon its repressive measures against the Palestinian intifada, by sending U.N. Observers into the occupied territories to monitor Israel’s behavior and, most serious, by imposing sanctions against Israel if it did not abide by the Council’s resolutions.
Such a list of resolutions proposed and resolutions vetoed is unparalleled in United Nations history. The list in itself forms a stunning indictment of Israel’s unlawful and uncivilized actions over a period of 45 years and of America’s complicity in them.
Yet references to this damning record are totally absent from the vocabularies of American leaders as they go about saying they are seeking peace. If they are really serious about peace, then at some point they must act with the same firmness they displayed toward Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait. Had they approached Iraq with the same timorous tactics they are applying to Israel, Iraqi soldiers still would be in Kuwait.
The point is that aggressors have always answered the question of whether they want peace by their actions. If the United States really wants peace in the Middle East, it must insist that Israel abide by the judgment of the world community as expressed in resolutions by the United Nations. The U.S. can do this at any time simply by forsaking the use of the veto and joining the world consensus. Anything less makes a sham of the peace process, and is demeaning to leaders of a democratic country.
Anyway, enough about the middle east.
The original post–is the USA just a selfish bully, or is there a higher motive?
So if the US disagrees with the rest of the security council, we should just… ignore this, go ahead and agree with them because everyone else does, and sign off on whatever they decide? And this ISN’T a sham? Excuse me while I laugh myself to death.
Ten bucks says the unattributed quote in the OP is Noam Chomsky. It has his America-hating reek all over it.
Anyhoo, IMO, if there is any moral imperative behind American foreign policy, it is: Western values are superior to non-Western values, and we intend to preserve. encourage, or implement them wherever possible.
Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida spokesmen have now repeatedly admitted they were behind the attacks, and there is no question that bin Laden and al-Qaida were headquartered in Afghanistan before the overthrow of the Taliban.
Not saying I want to defend every single foreign policy action of the U.S. for the last 50 years–far from it–but I’d like a cite on these numerous American acts which “far exceed even 9-11”.
The “War on Terrorism” has done exactly what I thought it would do, null and void any meaning in the word terrorism. There is no definition of terrorism. Terrorism is now just the regime that doesn’t follow your agenda. I think it’s that way for both sides. If you are a terrorist you are a freedom fighter, if you’re fighting the freedom fighter you’re an oppressor. If you’re fighting a terrorist you are just defending yourself. It’s all meaningless, that’s why the War on Terror frightens me so much.
Now if you want to get into why Nation States are a bad thing, and are an outmoded concept, I’ll jump right in, because Nation states are oppressive by nature.