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Jewish World Review June 13, 2005 / 6 Sivan, 5765 Hypocrisy is smarter than stupidity By Peter A. Brown
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
In our daily lives, we admire consistency in people, yet often we believe it can be the hobgoblin of little minds when dealing with larger forces.
How and when — if ever — to disregard a principle we hold dear is a test of our value system and of conflicting claims on our moral compass.
Especially when national security is involved.
This dichotomy has arisen over the U.S. treatment of prisoners from the war on terror. Most Americans believe U.S. policies should be the government equivalent of the Golden Rule, yet they wonder if a new kind of terrorist enemy requires new ways of dealing with prisoners.
This issue of U.S. officials saying one thing and doing another is arising again about how to deal with friendly, but repressive, governments in Central Asia with large Muslim populations.
President Bush said in his second inaugural address that backing democracy would become the guiding light of U.S. foreign policy. His critics — and even a few supporters — scoffed.
After all, past presidents have often paid lip service to the ideal. Many later found that protecting U.S. interests required unattractive trade-offs, putting America in bed with unsavory dictators and tyrants.
At various times, other presidents have struck marriages of convenience with the Shah of Iran, various strongmen across Africa and South America, and even Saddam Hussein at one point.
Yet almost six months after his inaugural speech, Bush, for the most part, gets credit for being true to his word.
He lectured Russian President Vladimir Putin and Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazief about the need for democratic reform in their countries, even though America needs good relations with both.
U.S. interests require that Bush not let the recent upsurge in Russian nationalism lead to a deterioration of relations to the Cold War level. Moreover, Russia's abundant energy resources are a key to reducing U.S. dependency on Middle East oil.
Egypt has long been one of the saner Middle East voices from a U.S. perspective. It has been the prime Arab nation backing Bush's Middle East peace initiatives and has been helpful in trying to help stabilize post-war Iraq.
Bush's efforts to promote democracy in Central and South America have met a muted response, but that has not stopped him from speaking up. His comments about other Middle Eastern nations and dictatorships elsewhere, such as North Korea, where there is no illusion of good will with the United States, are less surprising and required less political capital.
But an upcoming test of his resolve will be how the United States deals with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
They are central Asian Republics, formerly part of the Soviet Union. Bush must choose between fighting the war on terrorism or rewarding nations that practice democracy.
Since 9-11, under a temporary deal, the United States has paid Uzbekistan $500 million for border control and security measures that include use of its airfields. Those are located in the nation's southern region that borders Afghanistan and are involved in military operations.
Negotiations are under way for a permanent and more expensive arrangement even though Uzbek authorities in May brutally put down civil unrest among its people, who are 88 percent Muslim. The confrontation reportedly cost hundreds of civilian lives.
Kazakhstan, with almost half of its people practicing Muslims, has given the United States rights to use its airspace, which stretches from China to the Caspian Sea running along Russia's southern border.
But the U.S. State Department recently had to waive rules requiring nations getting U.S. aid to meet certain human-rights criteria to continue the arrangement.
It would be shocking if Bush refused to nurture these relationships because of human-rights concerns.
It is easy for those in Congress to hold him to an inflexible human-rights standard in foreign policy.
You can't blame them, especially Democrats, for using Bush's own words against him.
Politics is their game.
Lawmakers get paid to talk and occasionally legislate.
Thankfully, they rarely make real-time national-security-related decisions.
Their modus operandi is often to come down after the battle and shoot the wounded via public hearings.
I'd like the president to stay true to his inaugural view that "the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands."
But hypocrisy in this case is less dangerous to my health, and to yours, than holding him to an inflexible standard.
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Peter A. Brown is an editorial page columnist for the Orlando Sentinel. Comment by clicking here. © 2005, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services |
Mitch Albom | |||||||||||
