THE PLANK APRIL 20, 2009
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Responding to this morning's eloquent New York Times op-ed on human rights in Afghanistan, Michelle Goldberg of the Prospect writes:
So far, the administration's realism has overshadowed its idealism, especially in Afghanistan, where the United States is reaching out to "moderate" elements of the Taliban. Lots of observers seem relieved by this scaling back of American ambitions. By cynically cloaking its own aggression in the language of human rights, the Bush team did much to discredit the latter. But ... there are real moral costs to realist compromises. Hamid Karzai, like most leaders, is perfectly willing to sell out Afghanistan's women when it's politically convenient. Are we?
Goldberg's overall point--that there are severe tradeoffs between realism and human rights--is plainly correct. But it was another sentiment embedded in her post that stood out to me: "By cynically cloaking its own aggression in the language of human rights, the Bush team did much to discredit the latter." Look, obviously, as a statement of fact, this is completely accurate: Through a mixture of cynicism and incompetence (probably more cynicism than incompetence, though clearly both were in play), the Bush administration badly sullied such liberal concepts as democracy-promotion, nation-building, and human rights. But I have heard liberals make some version of this observation so frequently that I am starting to worry: Will it come to serve as a sort of intellectual alibi for Obama's pursuit of realism? That is, if the new administration ends up--in contravention of every liberal principle--allowing the Taliban to make a comeback in Afghanistan, ignoring human rights in its dealings with China, and dragging its feet on Darfur, will liberals tell themselves that Obama had no choice because "the Bush team did much to discredit" idealism?
If so, that would be a shame, and illogical too. It is true that Bush sullied foreign-policy idealism--but Bush is no longer in power. Liberals are. And that means the days of defining liberalism as a reaction to Bush are over--or at least they should be. To be sure, Bush left Obama with an enormous mess, and cleaning up that mess does require scaling back our foreign-policy ambitions; no liberal would dispute this. But we can scale back our ambitions without tipping too far in the direction of cold realism. And if and when Obama does tip too far in the direction of realism on specific issues, liberals should be prepared to hold him accountable, not make excuses for him by noting that Bush rendered idealism unattractive.
However Obama proceeds in Afghanistan--by cutting a deal with the Taliban, as the authors of today's op-ed seem to worry he will do, or by pushing hard for a stable democracy that respects human rights--it will have been his choice, and ultimately his responsibility. What George Bush did to tarnish by association liberal values like freedom and democracy no longer applies; it is liberals who, going forward, get to call the shots. Here's hoping that, when it comes to issues like human rights in Afghanistan, we make the right choices.
--Richard Just
11 comments
Right, because international relations is really just a tabula rasa - wiped clean with the introduction of a new administration. Hopefully we can make this point clear to the majority of Afghais so they can keep an open minded about what we decide to do over there.
- benberger
April 20, 2009 at 7:55pm
I certainly agree that in regard to foreign policy, Obama is turning out to be little more than Bush Lite. And in some respects he may well end up leaving Bush in the dust.
Let's see if reporters at the next White House news conference are interpid enough to ask bluntly how far apart the two administrations really are?
To wit:
Obama boasts of withdrawing the troops from Iraq. Except for maybe 50,000 to train the Iraqis. And that could take years and years. And, of course, if the violence flares up again, he may have no choice but to send tens of thousands more troops over.
He assures us Gitmo is gone. But it will take a year at least. And, of course, he is not closing down all the black op prisons in other countries. He is even willing to hold the, uh, "worst of the worst?" with no right to habeas corpus.
He says that furtheing political freedom for all world citizens is what he wants to pursue. But he won't push this on China...or Russia...or Egypt....or Saudi Arabia. Right?
In my heart of hearts, I knew there was no fucking way those who own and operate the military industrial complex in America would ever allow anyone to become POTUS until he was fully in accord with "how things really work".
And how can America's punditocracy actually approach this debate about "realism" vs. "human rights" openly and honestly if its members were not...by and large... also fully vetted to toe the line of those with all the wealth and power. Indeed, their reward for this is such that they themselves can become celebrities. They can hobnob with the pols on a first name basis and crack jokes about each at dinners and such.
But let me ask Mr Just this: Are you able to list 5 things that reflect genuine "idealism" in Anerican foreign policy? And I'm not talking relief efforts for those stricken by natural disasters. No, I'm talking about policies that were pursued only to aid and abet democracy, human rights and freedom around the globe such that sustaining a favorable business climate was not the most important rationale.
george walton
- iambiguous
April 20, 2009 at 7:59pm
Fair enough that the sins of the Bush administration shouldn't serve as an excuse for whatever wrongs the Obama administration may do. But this sort of mushiness completely alienates me from the idealists on both sides of the political spectrum who reliably utter this sort of inane pablum:
"Hamid Karzai, like most leaders, is perfectly willing to sell out Afghanistan's women when it's politically convenient. Are we?"
Implicit in this sort of formulation -- one heard much the same talk, though with different subjects and predicates, from the right with regard to "cutting and running" from Iraq from '05 to '08 -- is the notion all that is required to achieve America's preferred ends is the strength of will to insist on them loudly enough, long enough.
Short of raising an army of several millions, sending it to Afghanistan to occupy every village in the country, forcing all the locals to learn English, and making the damn place the actual 51st state in our union, the fate of Afghani women won't really be up to us. We didn't go to war in Afghanistan to give equality to women; we went to war in Afghanistan to break up a terrorist network and depose the tinpot government that was sheltering it. The goal is to leave the place with a functioning state that is not run by the people we invaded to overthrow. Period. We can insist on full equality for women all we want, but the plain fact is that the moment our soldiers leave, Afghani women will enjoy exactly as much liberty as they are willing to demand on their own.
So this isn't a question of selling out Afghani women, because they're not ours to sell. And anyway, foreign affairs is not a test of our will or the fervency of our wishes. That's one mistake of Bush-era thinking that is being repeated in the Obama era, but by many of Bush's strongest critics on the sidelines, not by the Obama team.
(Of course, I would like us to do whatever we can to aid Afghani women in making a place for themselves in Afghani society so they have a better shot when we leave, but there's an important difference between wishing for that as a sort of bonus in the course of achieving our actual, more limited objectives, and regarding that as the mission itself. We're not in Afghanistan to purify our souls, we're there to achieve the practical ends for which we went to war.)
- rhubarbs
April 20, 2009 at 9:00pm
I don't know Rhubarbs... perhaps our mistake regarding Afghanistan was that we ignored the plight of Afghani women earlier on. There is definitely a close relationship between how they view women and how they view us. Perhaps we should not have waited for 9/11 to confront the Taliban. Perhaps that should have been done sooner via sanctions and yes, even some veiled threat at military options.
Overall, we had no exit strategy for post-Soviet Afghanistan and we are (still) paying dearly for it now. We're there, we have the power, it may regress after, but it will leave it's mark (as abolishing the conglomerates in Japan did after the war even though they were later re-instated).
In fact, I propose the following - absolutely reach out to moderate elements within the Taliban and let their treatment of women be the defining criteria for said moderation. And any political leader who goes frothing at the mouth about how impure and inferior women are, get rid of them BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY... but not before you have an viable alternative in place to fill the resulting grass roots level power vacuum.
Secretary Clinton, what sayest thou?
- Gavriel Meir-Levi
April 21, 2009 at 3:12am
George, you're kidding right?
Rhubs, right on.
Gavriel, you draw an interesting parallel, but it occurs to me that their attitudes towards women have a long and storied history, whereas most of their views towards the US are based on a recently developed political expediency fostered in no small part by past administrations' willingness to meddle, covertly or otherwise, in the politics of foreign sovereignties.
- GSpinks
April 21, 2009 at 11:04am
One of the questions that should be asked about this situation is what, if anything, can the U.S. really do to improve the lot of Afghan women? If we can do it and doing so will not, in some way, harm the material interests of the United States [which contains some 150 million females] then we should do it. But how much can we really do? The awful truth about Afghanistan is that its men are mostly repulsive sexual bigots, violent and oppressive. And many of its women don't know any better because no one has ever permitted them to know better.
Can we change this situation? Maybe. But I have my doubts about how much.
- DC Spence
April 21, 2009 at 12:41pm
The problem is that if one argues that the position of Afghan women is or should be a benchmark of American success, it will look like they are getting privileged treatment in U.S. foreign policy formation. There are, however, also millions of women in Africa, say, who are victims of radical clitorectomy every year -- yet nobody is prepared to argue that we need a significant military commitment to put right that problem too.
Although achieving sustainable victory in Afghanistan must involve encouraging a more open and equal social order, I don't believe that we can make social engineering the basis of major strategic and military interventions. If Afghan women had the same problems they have now, but their country wasn't a former and potentially future source of attacks against the U.S., we'd have no great interest in "improving their lot."
- ironyroad
April 21, 2009 at 5:47pm
Trackback from PunditKix.com
- Anonymous
April 22, 2009 at 7:35am
Well really then what is the answer Irony? That we continue to ignore these women until the scenario is pat enough? Until everything balances out perfectly in some ledger somewhere? WTF?
- Wandreycer1
April 22, 2009 at 11:23am
The issue is whether we allow the Taliban back into power in the country. All other issues, human rights, women's rights, limited democracy, poppy fields and heroin ALL follow from acheiving that goal.
Unfortunately, if the report I heard last night on NPR (?) is true, the Taliban will be well in control of the entire NW pakistan countryside, so Afghanistan will become merely an outpost.
- desertdog
April 22, 2009 at 11:23am
Actual realism would involve immediate and unconditional withdrawal from both Iraq and Afghanistan without any regard for the wellbeing of the formerly occupied people. These wars add absolutely nothing to our security, Al Qaeda has no jurisdiction and even if we utterly stomped on both countries they would move to some other place.
The actual idealism here is the White Mans Burden Syndrom. We came to conquer the brown people, but stayed for their own wretched sake...
- cthulhu2008
April 22, 2009 at 12:15pm