May 02, 2017

Enemies Are Always Dictators - Talking With Them Is Unpresidential

Welcoming and supporting dictators who act in U.S. interests is the usual behavior of any U.S. president. U.S. media support such.



Obama greeting the hereditary dictator of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev

But when Trump talks and meets some head of state who works for the interests of his own country, he is breaking some iron rule of established U.S. foreign policy. In FP-circles "talking with the enemy" is seen as sincere crime. Trump invited the duly elected president of Philippine Rodrigo Duerte and mused casually about meeting the DPRK head of state Kim Jong-il. Both are seen as insufficiently deferring to U.S. diktats.

Thus someone in Washington DC ordered up a media campaign depicting Donald Trump as coddling dictators.

The Washington Post responded with an op-ed and an "analysis". Both border on satire:

Trump keeps praising international strongmen, alarming human rights advocates

As he settles into office, President Trump’s affection for totalitarian leaders has grown beyond Russia’s president to include strongmen around the globe.

...

In an undeniable shift in American foreign policy, Trump is cultivating authoritarian leaders, one after another, in an effort to reset relations following an era of ostracism and public shaming by Obama and his predecessors.

...

Every American president since at least the 1970s has used his office [at least occasionally*] to champion human rights and democratic values around the world.

...

Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said “This is a man who has boasted publicly about killing his own citizens,” Cardin said of Duterte in a statement. “The United States is unique in the world because our values — respect for human rights, respect for the rule of law — are our interests. Ignoring human rights will not advance U.S. interests in the Philippines or any place else. Just the opposite.”

[* the words "at least occasionally" were added only after the original piece was mocked on Twitter and elsewhere.]

Yes, the U.S. of course never ignored human rights in the Philippines... (/snark)

There surely is a certain "uniqueness" in U.S. global political behavior. But its is certainly not engagement for "human rights". It is exactly the opposite. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt remarked about a blood dictator: "Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch."

The NYT joins today's anti-Trump/anti-Duerte campaign with an editorial and a racist cartoon:

The United States has long seen itself as a beacon of democracy and a global advocate of human rights and the rule of law. It has faltered, sometimes badly, undermining leaders whose views did not fit its strategic objectives and replacing them with pliant despots. Yet for the most part American presidents, Republican and democratic, have believed that the United States should provide a moral compass to the world, encouraging people to pursue their right to self-government and human dignity and rebuking foreign leaders who fall short.

Who believes such marketing bullshit? Fact is that the U.S. has always coddled dictators as long as they did what it asked them to do. Clinton, Bush, Obama all welcomed various theocratic sheiks and murderous dictators at the White House. Since World War II the U.S. has attempted or succeeded in "regime change" over 50 times. It did not care if those countries were dictatorships or staunch democracies like France or Australia. In fact none of these illegal interference was motivated by "human rights". Many succeeded in eliminating progressive democracies by installing murderous right-wing regimes.

Bush invaded Iraq based of lies willingly peddled by the New York Time and the Washington Post. Obama directly ordered American citizens killed by drones and without any legal procedure. U.S. police shoot dozens of innocent each year, but when drug dealers get killed in a Philippine police raid its elected president is called a "strongman". Meanwhile U.S. they U.S. directed war on drugs in Mexico has killed thousands.

It is obviously helpful for U.S. interest when its president meets and proselytizes those who are not fully on the U.S. side. One makes peace with one's enemies, not with friends. But such logic does work in the establishment's deluded minds.

Any head of state disliked by the establishment is called a strongman, totalitarian, autocrat or dictator. The real reason for such characterization has nothing to do with democracy, elections or "human rights". It is rather the "thuggish anti-American behavior" of some leader as one U.S. imperialist calls it. "Thuggish anti-American behavior" is automatically attributed to any head of state who works foremost in the interests of his own country.

What do writers and editors like the above think when they peddle such mythology? They know that it is evidently contradicted by facts their own papers report on other occasions.

George Orwell called this "doublethink", the ability to simultaneously hold two contradictory beliefs in one's mind and to accept both of them. Is that not just another form of insanity?

Posted by b on May 2, 2017 at 14:33 UTC | Permalink

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