Self-interest motivates the world's conflicts. When nations conduct themselves with the sole intent of advancing their own agendas, rather than the common good, you have rape in Cameroon, exploding oil pipelines in Nigeria, nuclear proliferation in North Korea, our conflict in Iraq and the escalating violence between Israel and Lebanon.
On another blog site, The Huffington Post, a discussion arose regarding recent comments by Bill Clinton that Democrats should not be divided over the War In Iraq. It raised some interesting debates but in particular I want to talk about one commentator's remarks that it was not a mistake to go after Saddam Hussein: No it was not a mistake it was primarily done for Israel and the Neocon/Lukudnik belief that a "Democratic MiddleEast" would be good for Israel. Everything else was secondary if not also important. By: Spinoza750 on July 13, 2006 at 11:00am
I responded: ... I don't agree that going after Hussein wasn't a mistake. Strictly speaking, the Likudnik view is that a destabilized, fragmented Middle East would enhance Israel's security. That perspective says nothing about a "democratic Middle East." As you know, bringing "democracy" to the region was part of the justification for war. It's been widely suggested that the Bush administration went to Iraq with no real expectation for the success of putting a democracy in place in Iraq, which would mean they went into the campaign, eyes wide open, with the sole purpose of creating chaos. The escalating violence between Israel and Lebanon can only further fracture the Middle East. Since you can't sell people on a war for chaos, you say you're fighting terrorists, unseating a despot and promoting democracy. Hmmm. I think I'm beginning to better understand the Bush foreign policy. This leaves me with two questions: Will Israel's enhanced security come at the expense of the entire region's? And, will a fractured Middle East minimize or in any way negatively impact radical Islamic terrorism? Since I don't see how any political leader could know the outcome, it would seem they are taking a terrible risk with the lives of Iraqis, Israelis, Lebanese, Americans, and people all over who are subject to these political machinations. What I'm realizing more each day is that there's a conflict of interest between our political leaders and ourselves. - We want them to make it a better world for us;
- They want to keep their jobs.
Political leaders keep their jobs because there is chaos and we need them to bring order to chaos. If they bring chaos to the world, isn't that job security? If they promote fear in the world, aren't they guaranteeing their control? I don't know if political leaders are always consciously aware of their own self-interests. Let me rephrase that: I don't think our leaders are aware of their own self-interests when those interests match ours. When those interests conflict, they know. A good leader will choose the people's best interest first; a bad leader will choose his or her own. We've been seeing a lot of bad leadership in the last few years, and I'm not just talking about President Bush. Pick your leader and run your own analysis. The important thing is we have to be smarter than the rhetoric so that we can tell when our leaders put their own self-interests ahead of ours. I strongly believe that what we're seeing now in the Middle East and elsewhere is rank self-interest. I think the people -- Iraqis, Israelis, Americans, Lebonese, Chinese, Japanese, North Koreans and South Koreans, all of us -- want peace. I think there is a way to achieve at least some small measure of peace.First, foreign policy must be based solely on the common good, on: - cultivating cultures of opportunities internationally,
- nurturing ingenuity and innovation, and
- preserving and protecting human dignity and human rights across the board.
When nations are motivated by the common good, they serve everyones' self-interest. Self-interest then becomes a by-product of the policy, not the controlling force. In my previous post regarding the rape and murders in Iraq, I called for the global cultivation of a new taboo against rape, child abuse, torture and slavery similar to the taboo most if not all cultures have against cannibalism. When you adopt a global foreign policy based on strict abhorrence of these things and a true respect of all human life, foreign policy stops being guided by self-interest and things like human rights stop being casualties of diplomacy.Second, we have to bring our political leaders under our control. That one's harder. Not every system of government affords a way to do that, certainly not our American two-party system, or at least our culture. Too often, we allow ourselves to fall under the spell of rhetoric, to be swayed by ideas rather than facts. We're all to blame, but the media has to take the most blame. Television, print and Internet news sources have allowed themselves to be manipulated by the rhetoric and wind up reinforcing it through repetition. Investigative journalism has taken a back seat to sensationalism. Part of it has to do with the way they perceive people consume the news. The problem is these current reporting methods are reinforcing less substantive consumption. No one takes the consumer to task by forcing introspection. Here's an example. Do any of you read CNN.Com's online news? Every day they feature a "Quick Vote" survey. Today's survey question asks: Should a picture of a dying Princess Diana have been published? The survey question is based on CNN's report that several British tabloids recently criticized an Italian magazine for carrying a picture of a dying Princess Diana slumped over in her limousine after the crash in Paris. (Pretty sick.) Why did CNN ask the question that way, shifting responsibility to the Italian magazine? Why not ask: Would you buy a magazine just to see pictures of a dying Princess Diana? Or better still: Do you get your cheap thrills from the tragedies of others? There's been this conspiracy to desensitize the public from itself, to shield it from self-awareness and self-responsibility, from introspective consumption. What does that have to do with the price of gas, you may ask? A lot. People, and the American public in particular, are being trained to believe their information is someone else's responsibility. As a result, they're asking fewer questions, taking more at face value, assuming that what they need to know is exactly and only what is being fed to them, and because that's what they consume, that's what the media produces. Someone has to break the cycle. If the media doesn't, we have to it: - by demanding more and better information,
- by analyzing the bit we get,
- by questioning where the information is coming from,
- by asking whether the way it's presented sends a different message.
In the world of foreign policy, we do that by clawing our way past the rhetoric to analyze the violence around us. We ask whether it is a justified and just war or one promoting rank self-interest. We ask whether it's a destructive conflict or one intended to promote the common good (like military actions taken to oppose genocide). In a democracy, we have a greater responsibility to do this because our system of government, in theory if not in practice, gives us the greater ability and responsibility to question our leaders. We have not been doing our jobs.There will be countless people who laugh at the idealism of this post, the Pollyanna mentality that the world can be better. It sort of begs the question of what their purpose is in life -- to make the world worse or not make a difference at all? Don't be fooled by the cool, unaffected and even cavalier way these people jeer at a postive outlook -- at the very idea that the world could be better, more cooperative. These "unaffected" people are terrified. They're terrified of a world where leaders don't have excessive control. They think control is necessary because conflict is something that just naturally exists in the world. They don't see that conflict is a human product -- usually a by-product of rank self-interest. We make our world, people. A foreign policy guided by rank self-interest and control isn't for the people; it's for the politicians -- the bad ones. We need a change of policy. We need a change of leadership. Add your comments to "Foreign Policy of Self-Interest and Control." |
