I don't know if I'm breaking rules of etiquette by posting comments from another blog, but I thought this one, by Phillip, is so thoughtful and conveys such potent ideas that it deserves a wider reading. Some rules just need to be broken.
Posted by: Phillip | March 30, 2008 at 12:08 PMWhat's really missing in the public debate about American foreign policy? I believe it's the absence of honesty, a reluctance to level with the American people regarding the direct consequences of our own behavior. On any given day, you can find articles castigating the Bush administration, the foreign policy elite, or liberal academics, but you won't find anyone willing to talk directly to the American people about their own responsibility, even culpability, in shaping our hypocritical foreign policy and irresponsible domestic policies.
What do I mean by a lack of honesty? First, no one has asked the American people to put themselves in the shoes of an average Saudi, Egyptian or Pakistani citizen. How hard would it be to imagine what their lives are like? There's an abundance of factual information available. The fact is, no American would tolerate even for one day the kind of repression we expect the citizens of our close "allies" in the Muslim world to suffer for the rest of their lives. Looking back at our own Revolution, we were willing to use military force to free ourselves from relatively trivial concerns like "taxation without representation"; yet we expect the citizens of Saudi Arabia and Egypt to suffer a form of tyranny and repression far worse than anything we experienced here in North America (except of course our former slaves). We ignore this problem because we want the oil to flow freely, at a low price, thank you very much. So, we supply the Saudis with the best military equipment and training their money can buy and look the other way as one of the most despicable dictatorships in the world continues to deny freedom to its people.The results are predicable: As long as we continue to close our eyes when other people around the world are suffering, simply because it suites our economic interests, those people will continue to hate us. If you take a look at debates within the Islamic extremist community you'll see advocates for attacking the "far enemy" (the United States) won out over those who only wanted to attack their own despotic governments because Usama Bin Laden and others made a convincing argument that the best way to remove the despots was to eliminate their foreign support. They're probably right.
That's not to say the Saudis would be better off if the royal family was replaced by a gang of terrorists. An Islamic republic in Saudi Arabia would be a failure, unable to meet the needs and aspirations of its people, just as the Islamic Republic of Iran is a failure. But its not for us to decide what form of government another people should have. Supporting a dictatorship for the sake of stability is a short term solution at best. The longer the pot boils, the more likely the lid will blow off entirely. Perhaps we need to step aside and allow a Sunni Islamic revolution to succeed, in the short term, so it can fail in the long term. Take a look at the history of communism: That ideology only faded away when it failed to meet the needs of its people, as demonstrated by the dramatic collapse of the Soviet Union. For our part, we could make Democracy a far more credible option in the Muslim world if we showed we really mean it, by eliminating all the hypocritical elements of our foreign policy. The most glaring examples are the use of torture and support for despotic regimes.
A reasonable argument could be made that we would no longer be the main enemy and main target of the Islamic extremists if we stopped standing between them and the despotic regimes they want to remove. We should ask ourselves a simple question: Do the Saudi Royal family or any of the other tyrants ruling the Muslim world really deserve our support? How did we allow ourselves to become the primary advocates and defenders of so many despicable regimes? Do short term stability and the preservation of the status quo really reflect our highest values and aspirations?
A lack of honesty is also apparent in our domestic policy debates. As long as so many Americans insist on living in enormous McMansions, while their gas guzzling SUVs to the newest strip mall, we will be dependent on foreign energy. The fact is, we all share responsibility for the decision (or absence of a decision) to allow our cities to grow in the way they have since the end of WWII. We didn't have to allow the developers to push enormous suburban developments further ad further out into the countryside. We didn't have to allow so many millions of Americans to live in vast suburbs where they have to climb in their car to do anything, to shop or dine or play or even to visit friends and relatives. We chose to allow this to happen, or at a minimum we didn't do anything to stop it. Now, we're living with the consequences of our decisions (or indecision).
We could have chosen to develop our cities in a different way, with clustered developments, public transportation, schools and shopping within walking distance. It's ironic that so many upscale Americans are returning to the cities or flocking to new developments that offer a sense of community. Placing individual "freedom", the freedom to drive as big a car as you want and to live in the biggest house you can't afford, above all other values, has serious consequences. The neglect of civic values that lead to more rational zoning and a reasonable degree of regulation also has consequences. Take a look at our financial markets, where an absence of regulation or oversight allowed greed and irresponsible behavior to create a crisis that threatens our entire economy.
Greed doesn't stop on Wall Street, of course. We all share responsibility. If you support the war in Iraq, but oppose higher taxes, you share responsibility for the debt our children and grandchildren will have to pay. If you want the value of your house to go up indefinitely, but don't want to pay too much for someone else's house when you move up, you share responsibility for the state of our real estate markets. If you buy more house than you can afford, but don't want to pay a higher mortgage when the rates go up, you're part of the problem. If you insist on driving a Cadillac Escalade but don't want to pay more for gas, you share responsibility for the higher prices driven by high demand. If you hate sitting in traffic for hours during your daily commute, but refuse to support better public transportation or saner zoning regulations, you're getting what you deserve.
I, for one, would like to find a leader who is willing to have an honest conversation with his fellow Americans about the consequences of our hypocritical foreign policy, not to mention our irresponsible domestic policies. Does the freedom to consume as much as we want whenever we want represent our highest values and aspirations? What kind of country do we want to be, any way? Do we have to accept things the way they are, or can we share the responsibilities and burdens of change?
So, I've taken a vow to stop blaming my government or the conservatives or the liberals for all of our problems. I'm part of the problem, and I need to take responsibility by changing they way I think and the way I live. I'm going to make an effort to understand the way the world looks, from the perspective of ordinary people suffering from the tyrannical regimes we support. And I'm going to try to live a more responsible life by only consuming what my family and I really need. Sure, the adjustment will be painful at times. After all, we Americans have allowed unnecessary and wasteful consumption to dominate our lives, but the choice seems clear to me. Either we choose to change, of our own free will, or change will be forced on us by all those external factors we can't control. The limited supply and high price of oil is just one of those factors.
I also recommend reading the blog post Philip is responding to at democracyarsenal.org: The Things We Don't Talk About on Foreign Policy
Posted by Diana at June 16, 2008 08:17 PM