This post was started about a month ago, but was not finished until now. The context is a bit old, but the point remains.
A few days ago I read on the CNN ticker that the United States had bombed militants across the border from Afghanistan inside Pakistan. This is not the first time this has happened; in fact, I guess it's becoming common enough so that it's not really news anymore, since it was only reported at the bottom of the screen in the same place where information about Madonna's divorce and cricket scores are reported.
Tied to this, although we're a bit late in mentioning it, is the news that a U.S. commando team performed a raid across the Iraqi border into Syria--our neighbor to the north--two months or so ago. According to the New York Times, the commandos were going after "an Iraqi militant responsible for running weapons, money and foreign fighters across the border into Iraq". U.S. sources say that he was killed, while Syrian sources say that civilians were killed. It's hard to know who to believe. In response to the raid, though--as reported in this article in the online magazine Slate--the Syrians filed a complaint with the United Nations Security Council, shut the American School in Damascus and pulled out of a regional conference on Iraqi security. Even the Iraqi government, whose existence and success the raid was ostensibly designed to protect, protested against the action.
Again according to the New York Times, the actions in Pakistan and now Syria are based on "a legal argument that has been refined in recent months to justify strikes by troops and by rockets on militants in countries with which the United States is not at war." The article goes on to say that this concept is different from the doctrine of pre-emption--which the administration, you'll remember, used to justify invading Iraq--in that while the pre-emption concept is used to provide a rationale for going to war against a country and attacking governments and armies, this new concept is used to provide a rationale for attacking certain people or groups inside a country. So, I guess all the bases are covered now.
This new policy, though, makes me uncomfortable. For one, it once again ignores the basic concept of national sovereignty and says we in the United States should have the right to enter any country and do as we please if we think it is in our best interests. It says to the governments of these countries and their people that their interests, and their borders, don't matter. But just think how Americans would react if some country performed a similar raid on American soil for whatever reason. And it can't help the United States win friends in the world or in the region. A few posts ago we wrote about the antipathy towards the United States one experiences these days when living overseas. I don't think these kinds of actions will improve this situation.
But beyond this and in a way more important is the existential significance of this policy. It's disturbing to me that the American government seems to be spending so much time and effort these days coming up with creative arguments to justify hurting people. Think about it. In the past few years administration lawyers have been busy crafting inventive and separate arguments not only to justify pre-emptive strikes against a country but also raids against certain elements inside a country. The lawyers have also--don't forget--been busy crafting a definition to the exact meaning of torture, and have no doubt helped to decide that sending certain people from the U.S. to another country to be tortured excuses the United States from the accusation of the use of torture. So, we have now defined why we can hurt you, how we can hurt you and how much we can hurt you. Yay.
It's true that there are people and groups in the wide world who seek to do the United States harm. However, is the employment of violence all we have to offer as solutions to this problem? Have we no creative capacities to offer anything else? And must the administration spend so much time laying the groundwork for the use of violence, as if no other solution was possible or even desirable? Maybe I am different, but it bothers me that my government and country has placed such great priority recently on the justification of pain. Maybe if as much time was spent laying the groundwork for peaceful solutions to our problems, such justification wouldn't be necessary.
A few days ago I read on the CNN ticker that the United States had bombed militants across the border from Afghanistan inside Pakistan. This is not the first time this has happened; in fact, I guess it's becoming common enough so that it's not really news anymore, since it was only reported at the bottom of the screen in the same place where information about Madonna's divorce and cricket scores are reported.
Tied to this, although we're a bit late in mentioning it, is the news that a U.S. commando team performed a raid across the Iraqi border into Syria--our neighbor to the north--two months or so ago. According to the New York Times, the commandos were going after "an Iraqi militant responsible for running weapons, money and foreign fighters across the border into Iraq". U.S. sources say that he was killed, while Syrian sources say that civilians were killed. It's hard to know who to believe. In response to the raid, though--as reported in this article in the online magazine Slate--the Syrians filed a complaint with the United Nations Security Council, shut the American School in Damascus and pulled out of a regional conference on Iraqi security. Even the Iraqi government, whose existence and success the raid was ostensibly designed to protect, protested against the action.
Again according to the New York Times, the actions in Pakistan and now Syria are based on "a legal argument that has been refined in recent months to justify strikes by troops and by rockets on militants in countries with which the United States is not at war." The article goes on to say that this concept is different from the doctrine of pre-emption--which the administration, you'll remember, used to justify invading Iraq--in that while the pre-emption concept is used to provide a rationale for going to war against a country and attacking governments and armies, this new concept is used to provide a rationale for attacking certain people or groups inside a country. So, I guess all the bases are covered now.
This new policy, though, makes me uncomfortable. For one, it once again ignores the basic concept of national sovereignty and says we in the United States should have the right to enter any country and do as we please if we think it is in our best interests. It says to the governments of these countries and their people that their interests, and their borders, don't matter. But just think how Americans would react if some country performed a similar raid on American soil for whatever reason. And it can't help the United States win friends in the world or in the region. A few posts ago we wrote about the antipathy towards the United States one experiences these days when living overseas. I don't think these kinds of actions will improve this situation.
But beyond this and in a way more important is the existential significance of this policy. It's disturbing to me that the American government seems to be spending so much time and effort these days coming up with creative arguments to justify hurting people. Think about it. In the past few years administration lawyers have been busy crafting inventive and separate arguments not only to justify pre-emptive strikes against a country but also raids against certain elements inside a country. The lawyers have also--don't forget--been busy crafting a definition to the exact meaning of torture, and have no doubt helped to decide that sending certain people from the U.S. to another country to be tortured excuses the United States from the accusation of the use of torture. So, we have now defined why we can hurt you, how we can hurt you and how much we can hurt you. Yay.
It's true that there are people and groups in the wide world who seek to do the United States harm. However, is the employment of violence all we have to offer as solutions to this problem? Have we no creative capacities to offer anything else? And must the administration spend so much time laying the groundwork for the use of violence, as if no other solution was possible or even desirable? Maybe I am different, but it bothers me that my government and country has placed such great priority recently on the justification of pain. Maybe if as much time was spent laying the groundwork for peaceful solutions to our problems, such justification wouldn't be necessary.
2 comments:
Add Gaza to your list. Arghhhh. Hope you're staying warm amidst the snow. Um Tulip
That is what is called quick fixes, by myopic american government(s).
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