The (Other) Inconvenient Truth
COLIN GLEESON
“We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor those ideals by upholding them not when it’s easy, but when it is hard.”
US President Barrack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech (10 December 2009)
Unfortunately for Barrack Obama, he seems to have indeed “lost himself”.
Principles – whether they be those we as individuals chose to live our lives according to on a day-to-day basis, or those with which world leaders chose to govern by – mean absolutely nothing if they are abandoned when the going gets tough. Principles are fundamental truths. Not take-it-or-leave-it suggestions depending on the situation or level of opposition. It takes real courage to have actual principles – to shun the path of least resistance.
The United States has been long regarded as a leading human rights defender, and there is no doubt that a lot of good work has been done by successive administrations at certain junctures. But the real test of America’s much referred to “ideals” and “principles” comes when there is a real and actual cost to their own interests in standing up to defend those ideals and principles. Unwillingness by the United States to take the blows in order to defend those principles renders its self-professed moral high-ground on these issues redundant.
As Kenneth Roth pointed out, Obama has failed to apply any pressure on Russia for the widespread killing of activists and journalists. What is going on in Russia is as bad as any violation of human rights anywhere in the world. There is no freedom of speech, massive corruption, rigged elections, and State-sponsored killings. Russia’s status as a major superpower however means that Obama and the United States choose to look the other way.
Even worse is Obama’s attitude to China. The man who shouted from the rooftops that he was bringing change to Washington became the first US President to cancel a White House invitation to the Dalai Lama, after pressure from the Chinese. Not only is China guilty of widespread human rights abuses within its own State, but have also carried out what amounts to a cultural genocide on Tibet and its people. As well as colonising Tibetan territory, the Chinese are widely believed to be behind the kidnap a six-year-old boy who was declared Tibet’s Panchem Lama by the Dalai Lama in 1989 – making the child his successor and the next spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. The absence of a Panchem Lama threatens the very way of life for Tibetans, who have already been robbed of their homeland. Obama’s snub to a fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner who professes non-violent principles (and actually adheres to them no matter what the cost or situation) was a real low point for him personally and a United States that professes democratic values and the upholding of human rights as a cornerstone of their society.
In general, Obama’s presidency has been characterised by brilliant rhetoric but devastating inaction. Having said that, it would be misleading to dismiss rhetoric as mere tokenism. What the president of the United States says is important. Condemnation of atrocities, human rights abuses, or wrongdoing lends a moral high-ground to those suffering and tells them they are not alone insofar as what is happening to them has been denounced as wrong. Of course, this is not enough, but it is still an important cog in the human rights machine.
To change tack, the focal article by Richard Falk in the Foreign Policy Journal dealt with the issue of relativity of rights based on nationality: the notion that it is somehow more acceptable for the US to kill a foreign civilian than an American citizen. The author asked Americans whether they wish to endow their State with more discretion and less accountability when it comes to the killing of foreigners than Americans. The point is well made as the siege mentality (You’re either with us or you’re against us) that has dominated US foreign policy since the September 11 attacks has fostered a hatred for America abroad, particularly in the Middle East. This development is counter-productive to the war on terror and serves only to radicalise young would-be militants in the Middle-East. Donald Rumsfeld’s comments regarding the number of Iraqi civilians killed in the war there were deplorable and again serve only to foster a hatred for America and its foreign policy.
The killing of foreign civilians is a cause for far graver concern than that of an American citizen who is guilty of orchestrating terrorist attacks. Falk suggested that in Anwar al-Awlaki’s case, America should “rely totally upon cooperative law enforcement with the government of the territorial sovereign”. It is difficult to see how this can work. Al-Awlaki was pursued by American and Yemeni intelligence for two years without success before he was killed in a drone strike. Osama bin Laden was living in a high-security, certainly suspicious-looking, residence within yards of a military base in the middle of Pakistan. This would seem to suggest that a reliance on some foreign intelligence and law-enforcement agencies may not be particularly efficient in terms of combating terrorism.
There is no doubt, as Peter Baer and Monique Castermans-Holleman outlined, that foreign policy is a complex organ, riddled with moral dilemmas. Oftentimes, policy-makers are faced with impossible choices and no-win scenarios. But in facing those dilemmas, policy-makers have a responsibility to uphold human rights and respect human life to the greatest degree possible. Unfortunately, in many instances, as Baer said, most human rights considerations have been “trumped” by the war on terror. But, on a final note, President Obama would do well to read the words of Harold Koh: “All over this world there are human rights heroes. Like Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, Andrei Sakharov of Russia, and Vac1av Havel of the Czech Republic, who said, in effect: ‘We can protect freedom if we have the courage to stand up, so let it begin with me.’”
I’d agree with Colin in that Obama’s actions as president have differed sharply from from the rhetoric in his Nobel acceptance speech. I’d also agree with David P Forsythe article that Obama has “muddled through” his first term in office. He has approached challenges pragmatically rather than sticking to any fixed ideology.
I think it is wrong to give the US this mantle of protector of human rights. Firstly, they seem to find it burdensome and have no real interest in complying with anything that they deem to have conflicting interests with their own state interests and secondly, year after year the US commits human rights atrocities or backs regimes that do. Why then fool ourselves that the US is going to do anything other that pursuit its own interests? Clearly the spread of western ideals has immense benefits that we are lucky to share but for the people of those countries who have become an obstacle to US interests, the very notion of the US as being a purveyor of principles regarding human rights is completely obscene. As noted in David Chandler’s book “From Kosovo to Kabul…” The institutions that are supposed to promote human rights have in a lot of cases been shaped by US policy so there is often not less emphasis put on US human rights abuses but certainly less action, if any.
Regarding US treatment of its citizens and non US citizens who they perceive to be enemy combatants; US prisons are dens of torture, rape and suffering, it of course makes sense then that they will treat those they feel are threats to US interests with the same compassion that they treat those they have found to break the law at home. The troops they send to fight their wars have been thought to see the enemy as sub human which is why there are so many cases of US servicemen urinating on the corpses of dead Afghanis or chopping off their fingers as mementos.
The use of drones will be regulated as soon as other countries catch up with technology. Until then the US will continue to use drone strikes to kill who they deem to be combatants (American or otherwise) as it’s the most pragmatic way of fighting a war in a country without actually having to say you are fighting a war and go through all that Security Council bureaucracy which the US seems non too fond of complying with when its own interests are at stake.
Colin Gleeson’s paper makes an eloquently phrased normative argument in favour of prioritising human rights in US foreign policy. I would add two critical notes to further the discussion.
First, it must be established what policy-measures are appropriate for achieving particular objectives before state behaviour can be evaluated. Colin’s argument regarding China finds fault with Obama for declining to invite the Dalai Llama. He rightly describes the human rights situation in Tibet as deplorable. However, he does not explain why political symbolism would be an effective tool for the United States to bring about change. Given that China perceives the Tibetan question as a sensitive and important domestic affair, Beijing may be expected to seek retribution toward either the US or the Tibetan people in response. Local and international NGOs do not particularly need the kind of further legitimization an Obama statement could provide, as the Chinese rule of Tibet is already widely regarded as illegitimate. The Tibetan people have had “the moral highground” for years. It is difficult to see how this gesture would have had a significant effect. A similar comment can be made about Colin’s discussion of US inaction toward Russia. These policy evaluations would have been much more persuasive if they had been explicit about the expected causal mechanisms.
Second, the comment on the killing of foreign nationals stops short of the most interesting part of the discussion. In the sixth paragraph, Colin denounces the double standard applied to the treatment of foreign nationals. In the seventh paragraph, he rejects Falk’s suggestion that the US cooperate more closely with national governments as an alternative. The logical extension appears to be that the US should continue its unilateral global anti-terrorism actions, except with more regard for prisoners’ and civilian rights. Unfortunately, Colin does not discuss the conclusions of his argument. Instead, he restates in the last paragraph that any given solution must prioritise human rights.
This article would have benefited from including causal mechanisms and alternative policies. It is difficult to agree with Colin that Obama has ‘lost himself’ without considering the potential ‘real’ Obama.
Colin Gleeson’s response effectively addresses the Obama administration’s foreign policy record to date, and is correct in its analysis regarding the importance of practicing what you preach when it comes to upholding certain principles in matters relating to foreign policy. The failure of the current and previous administrations- with the exception of Jimmy Carter’s administration to a degree- willingness to ‘take the blows’ in order to defend those principles, has as Colin contends quite rightly, rendered America’s self-professed moral high ground on human rights related issues redundant.
This is no where more evident than in America’s relations with China and Russia, where economic and security interests have taken precedence over the promotion of human rights. However, it must be noted that America’s bargaining power with China has been considerably reduced as a result of its economic dependency on Chinese funds to fuel its economy. It seems fair to suggest then in this instance, that the administration may be justified in being cautious in its condemnation of human rights abuses in China.
I would also disagree with Falk in relation to Anwar al- Alwaki’s case, where he suggests that they should ‘rely totally upon cooperative law enforcement with the government of the territorial sovereign,’ especially in light of recent events in Pakistan surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden, not to mention the current political instability in the country.
The claim that Obama ‘seems to have lost himself’ is certainly shared by many of his critics. However, I would add, that we should not be surprised that this is the case considering his mandate is as noted by Forsythe, ‘to respond to strong domestic pressures for economic advantage and national security, not to mention the demands of powerful interests groups.’ This does not excuse inaction altogether, but it does shed some light on the current administrations failings in view of the economic crisis it inherited from the previous administration.