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Peter asked on Calpundit: How is it that you reconcile criticism of Bush's foreign policy -- specifically, the wars in Iraq and (to a lesser extent) Afghanistan -- with your obviously firm belief in human rights?
I suspect I'm on your left, Peter, so let me try to answer this question. (I'm not sure you'll find the answer acceptable, though.)
I have a firm belief in human rights: I wish that human rights were at the core of my government's foreign policy (and I have said as much to government representatives whenever I get the opportunity). I have, therefore, a settled opposition to tyrants, whether singular or collective, who abridge human rights - whatever excuse they give.
For this reason, I am firm in my opposition to the Bush attack on Afghanistan and invasion of Iraq: neither one had a thing to do with human rights, and may, indeed, have set back the cause of human rights in Afghanistan and in Iraq by a generation.
Why would you think otherwise? You only have to read reports from those who have been in Afghanistan and seen the conditions there (outside the very small area which Bush & Co permit to be patrolled by international troops) to know that the US has simply replaced a singular theocratic tyranny with a multiplication of theocratic tyrants. Girls couldn't go to school under the Taliban because it was against the law: girls can't go to school under the warlords because they'll be killed if they do.
It would have taken $15B dollars (plus, of course, military peacekeepers over the whole country) to return Afghanistan to the state it was in before the US and the USSR tore it to pieces in the 1980s. That is, one sixth of what Bush asked Congress for, to pay for the occupation of Iraq.
Bush & Co were (the most of them who were in power under Reagan and Bush I) quite happy to deal with Saddam Hussein right up until he invaded Kuwait. They have no history at all of principled objections to tyranny: merely the determination that tyranny shall be to the benefit of the US (or, at least, to the benefit of Halliburton et al). They have installed Chalabi, and, I think, would be content to have him replace Saddam Hussein: any reports nasty organizations like Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch provide, as they did of Saddam Hussein, as they do of other tyrants the US support, would be ignored.
So there you have it, Peter. I am against the attacks on Afghanistan and on Iraq because I am committed to human rights: Bush & Co instigated them because they don't give a damn about human rights. Bush's wish to deny gays the right to get married is merely another example of this.
February 27 2004, 12:14:39 UTC 8 years ago
Anonymous
February 27 2004, 18:14:00 UTC 8 years ago
First of all, I certainly won't defend the reasons for which Bush went to war with Iraq (Afghanistan is another matter), and in both places the reconstruction effort has been generally pathetic (though certainly moreso in Afghanistan, in which the media is less interested for some reason).
But I think it's misleading to say that he's *replaced* the Taliban with warlords in Afghanistan. Certainly, that has been the effect; the U.S. appears to have no control outside of Kabul, and warlords run the country beyond as a result. But the fact that he failed to establish control in the power vacuum after the Taliban's fall isn't really the same as making a concerted effort to prop up warlords.
I haven't seen the $15B figure before, though for all I know that could well be the necessary amount to really start the reconstruction effort in earnest. And, again, I think that's something that really needs to be done. As a point of clarification, though, are you saying that we ought to have just spent the $15B in Afghanistan instead of the $87B in Iraq? Or are you just saying that it demonstrates that Bush's real interest is in blowing things up, rather than rebuilding them? I believe we should spend both the $15B (or whatever else is necessary) and the $87B; there are a lot more problems that this money can solve in Afghanistan and Iraq than in the U.S. However, if you only meant the second point, I really can't argue with that.
I'm not exactly sure how to put what I want to say; but I suppose that the closest I can come is, I agree with you on Bush's intentions, but I'm more optimistic that these things can have good results in spite of them. For example, it certainly seems that Ayatollah Sistani is committed to a secular, democratic Iraq; and so unless the Bush administration actively interferes with his plans (which is really not in their interests), we might well end up with a solid democracy in Iraq. This could prove to be a stabilizing influence on the region as a whole, and lead to real changes in human rights -- where once there was one of the most brutal regimes on the planet.
I won't contend for a second that Bush et al. are not hypocritical, or are motivated by a genuine interest in human rights rather than oil. But at least, in the process of conducting these wars, he's given the people in Iraq and Afghanistan a *chance* at life under something other than a repressive regime; and this seems more than they had in the first place.