Why a Stronger E.U. Is Needed in International Affairs

As 2023 and the following year made clear, the world still faced additional challenges in rebuffing incursions that violate human rights, including crimes against humanity. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s military incursion into Gaza both demonstrate how easy it had become, especially with advanced military technology, to kill civilians so as to decimate an entire population so the land could be filled with the people of the aggressors. If this sounds like Hitler’s policy to make room for the German people in Eastern Europe, you are not far from touching on the real motives behind the aggression. It would be a pity were such motives to become the norm while the world looks on. I contend that the U.S. enabling of Israel has unwittingly contributed to the establishment of such a norm, and that therefore a stronger E.U. was needed not only domestically, but also internationally, as a counter-weight in defense of the human rights of civilians in Gaza.

UNRWA Gaza director Scott Anderson, speaking on the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza as of November, 2024, said, “We haven’t been able to get food to those people for over a month. If we don’t do something quickly, it could devolve into a full-blown famine, which would be a manmade condition and something that could easily be corrected if we just get enough aid in to take care of everybody.”[1] The key here is the word, manmade, for as officials in the Israeli government had been openly admitted, including the president, everyone in Gaza is culpable and thus deserves to suffer the consequences. Ironically, as the case of Nazi Germany demonstrates, it is very easy to go from the supposition that a certain people is subhuman to the sordid instinctual urge to exterminate the group. The “meta-premise” is that identity-politics by group is valid and based on ontological rather than merely cultural differences.

A month earlier, the “Famine Review Committee [had] called the situation in the north of the Strip ‘extremely grave and rapidly deteriorating’ and said all actors in the war much take immediate action ‘within days not weeks’ to avert a humanitarian disaster.”[2] During that month, the amount of aid entering Gaza dropped dramatically due to yet another offensive by Israel’s military in the north of Gaza.[3] “By the end of October, an average of just 71 trucks a day were entering Gaza,” whose population at the time was over a million.[4]

Anderson’s assessment in mid-November suggests that his demand had not been heeded, especially by Israel, but also, and this is important, by its strongest ally, the United States. Even though less than a week before the U.S. presidential election, the Biden administration “accused Israel of ‘not doing enough’ to answer international concerns over indiscriminate strikes on Gaza,” which in turn was a factor in the reduction of food-aid getting into Gaza, “Israel’s military chief . . . said the Israel Force needs to be larger, as the war expands to different fronts.”[5] U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said of the Israeli government officials, “They are not doing enough to get us the answers that we have requested.”[6] Of course, the token U.S. resistance to Israel did not win Michigan for Harris, as Arabs in Grand Rapids did not take the bait.

A few weeks after the U.S. presidential election, the Biden administration declared that Israel was not violating U.S. law after all in terms of killing and limiting food-aid to the residents, who by then were almost all displaced, and thus homeless, of Gaza. Back in May, the administration had said “that Israel’s use of U.S.-provided weapons in Gaza likely violated international humanitarian law.”[7] Of course, the administration provided for itself a caveat that would enable a reversal after the election: Wartime “conditions prevented U.S. officials from” collecting enough evidence to go beyond stating that Israel likely violated international humanitarian law, which, by the way, would mean that Israel had been violating U.S. law too. Even at the time, the media noticed that “the caveat that the administration wasn’t able to link specific U.S. weapons to individual attacks by Israeli forces in Gaza could give the administration leeway in any future decision on whether to restrict provisions of offensive weapons to Israel.”[8] In November, 2024, after the election, the Biden administration stated that the U.S. would continue to supply Israel with weapons. Exactly a week after the election, the administration announced “that it would not without weapon shipments to Israel,” even though the “30-day deadline” for Israel to “significantly alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza [had] expired.”[9] U.S. State Department spokesmn Vedant Patel said that Israel had not violated the U.S. law that “bars offensive weapons from being transferred to countries that block aid from reaching civilians.”[10] A report written by aid groups and requested by the Biden administration “determined that Israel had failed to meet the vast majority of the requirements laid out by” the administration—Israel having failed to comply with fifteen of the 19 measures that the U.S. had indicated must be met to avoid a delay in weapons shipments, and yet the administration announced that the U.S. would continue to ship weapons to Israel.[11] That this occurred just after the election is relevant, as this strongly suggests that the strategy was based on domestic U.S. politics—namely, trying to get as many votes as possible for Harris from Muslim Americans.

It is also significant that on the very same day, Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign minister, “proposed formally to suspend political dialogue with Israel over the country’s alleged violations of human rights and international law in the Gaza Strip.”[12] Unlike the U.S., the E.U. was not politically beholden to AIPAC, the American Israeli Political Action Committee. Even by the report that the Biden administration had requested, the Israeli government had been violating humanitarian law by restricting humanitarian aid into Gaza, perhaps to rid the Strip of its remaining population as the final solution. The world needed an active E.U. with sufficient competencies (i.e., enumerated powers delegated to the E.U. by the states) to stand against U.S. policy in defense of humanitarian law—even that which had been enshrined in U.S. law! Especially with Russia invading Ukraine with many civilian casualties there, the world very much needed a world-power, which the E.U. could be, to push back on violators.

Clearly, the world could not count on the allies of violators, such as China and North Korea in the case of Russia, and the U.S. in the case of Israel; in fact, those allies went beyond merely standing quietly by to actively enable the aggressors. With regard to Muslims, I suspect that the U.S. Government was still too oriented to redressing the attack that took place on September 11, 2001, to accurately and fairly even perceive the one-sided over-kill being committed by Israel in Gaza.

The Israeli government’s perception was biased, which is why John Locke argued that government should exist to impartially judge cases of injury because victims tend to exact too much punishment by being swayed by emotion (hatred). Following Locke, Adam Smith wrote that the administration of justice should be “exact,” meaning not disproportional, and “equal and impartial.”[13] Victims who have been injured are in no position to determine and dispense justice in such a matter; hence the need for government. But what if governments are themselves the victims?

Holding onto resentment more than twenty years after the Muslim attack on the World Trade Tower in New York City may explain why the Biden administration was tacitly going along with Israel’s excessive “pay-back,” also known as punishment-as-vengeance, against the civilians residing in Gaza. Even allies should not be entrusted with being able to reasonably assess and contribute to punishment. Israel had been woefully excessive in inflicting suffering on the civilians in Gaza, acting with impunity in part because the E.U.’s states had not transferred enough sovereignty to the union in foreign policy and defense for the E.U. to be able to act as a counterweight to the United States.

It is dangerous when a sovereign country, such as Israel, can act with the presumption of de facto impunity internationally. That the rest of the world had not acted with sufficient force to arrest Israel’s aggression and deflate the sense of impunity suggests that if the UN could not be given real power, at least the European Union should be strengthened at the federal level. More to the point, the delusion that the E.U. is but an international organization or alliance and thus should not be given more power by its states has cost not only the E.U., but also the world. 

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1. Stefan Grobe, “UNRWA: Risk of Famine in Gaza without Swift Action,” Euronews.com, November 15, 2024.
2. Euronews, “UN Warns Famine Is ‘Imminent’ in Northern Gaza as Israel Siege Continues,” Euronews.com, September 11, 2024.
3. Euronews, “14 Killed in Israeli Strike on UNRWA School Used as Shelter for Displaced Gazans,” Euronews.com, August 11, 2024.
4. Ibid.
5. Euronews, “US Accuses Israel of ‘Not Doing Enough’ to Address Concerns over Strikes in Gaza,” Euronews.com, October 31, 2024.
6. Ibid.
7. Ellen Knickmeyer, Aamer Madhani, and Matthew Lee, “US Says Israel’s Use of US Arms Likely Violated International Law, but Evidence Is Incomplete,” The Associated Press, May 11, 2024.
8. Ibid.
9. Jacob Magid, “US Says It Won’t Withhold Weapons to Israel, as Deadline to Address AidCrisis Passes,” The Times of Israel, November 13, 2024.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Shona Murray and Jorge Liboreiro, “Borrell Proposes to Suspend E.U.-Israel Political Talks over Gaza War,” Euronews.com, November 13, 2024.

13. Peter Minowitz, Profits, Priests, and Princes: Adam Smith’s Emancipation of Economics from Politics and Religion (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), p. 38. See Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. ed. R. H. Campbell, A. S. Skinner, and W. B. Todd (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), V. i. b. 1, 15, and 25.

As U.S. President, Was Obama Really Anti-Israel?

In a poll in 2011, only 22% of Jewish voters in the U.S. said they approved of President Obama’s handling of Israel. Dan Senor pointed to the erosion of Obama’s Jewish fund-raising as another sign that the president was losing Jewish support in the United States. A poll by McLaughlin & Associates found that of Jewish donors who donated to Obama in 2008, only 64% had already donated or planned to donate to his re-election campaign of 2012. While a politician would undoubtedly try to placate and mollify the unsatisfied electorate, a statesman acting in the American interest might conclude that those voters were wrong in their assessment that the president’s policy was “anti-Israel.”

In February 2008, Barak Obama had said, “There is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel.” In July 2009, the president reportedly told Jewish leaders at the White House that he sought to put daylight between the U.S. and the state of Israel. In the same meeting, he said that Israel needed “to engage in serious self-reflection.” These comments were hardly anti-Israel, yet they were taken as such.

In fact, when the Palestinian foreign minister was insisting in 2011 that Palestine would apply for membership in the U.N., the American administration was threatening a veto should the application go through the Security Council. According to Ethan Bronner, “The United States has said it will use its veto there because it believes that the only way to Palestinian statehood is through direct negotiations with Israel.” The Palestinians could go through the General Assembly, but they would only get a nonmember state status. That would save the U.S. criticism from the Arab world after exercising the veto.

That the Obama administration would veto a Palestinian membership in the U.N. should have been sufficient indication to American pro-Israel voters that Obama was not “anti-Israel.” In fact, the veto threat told the world that the U.S. was still firmly in Israel’s corner, which, by the way, prevented the U.S. from being able to take on an “honest broker” role in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. Given that Israel continued building settlements after the U.S. indicated that it did not support it, the American administration’s veto threat looked very pro-Israel. From an American perspective, the threat could even be viewed as too pro-Israel, hence Obama's desire to distinguish America's interest from that of Israel. This hardly connotes being anti-Israel.

Obama may have not gone far enough; perhaps he was generally too pro-status quo from not being willing to seriously challenge the sacred cows, including the Israeli lobby and that of Wall Street, in spite of his campaign slogan of "Real Change." After Obama's presidency, very little discussion has taken place on whether Obama as president even proposed anything that could be reckoned as real change rather than incremental reform in the interests of the powers behind the throne (i.e., large political campaign donations). 
It could be that more tough love from the U.S. toward Israel rather than a veto-threat could have pushed the peace talks ahead because the rightful points of both sides would have been given validity. Also, rather than having done nothing as Israel continued its settlements’ construction, the Obama administration could have withheld aid pending a cease in the construction, or even a final peace agreement. Israel would have had a real incentive to negotiate even though from a position of strength relative to Palestine. The millions of dollars for Israel could even have been paid to the Palestinians until such time as a peace deal was concluded.

Taking up more of an impartial position, the E.U. was considering a pledge to support Palestinian statehood at the U.N. after one year’s time, assuming the Palestinians immediately resumed direct negotiations with Israel. The E.U. would support Palestinian statehood if no peace deal were achieved. However, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would hardly have agreed with her E.U. counterpart, Catherine Ashton, on such a plan. Clinton could hardly be said to have been part of an anti-Israel administration. 

Even if President Obama was regarded as anti-Israel by some American Jews, he could have used his first term to run the end-game for peace by pressuring Israel rather than acquiescing in order to get re-elected by appeasing voters already mistaken on his stance being anti-Israel. Of course, ending the game with a peace deal—difficult if not impossible when holding to the status quo—would have done more for the president’s re-election bid than trying to appease skeptical American Jewish voters by threatening a veto at the U.N. The best means of re-election can be quite ironic, while the political path of least resistance can actually be the least successful politically.

Voters who thought they saw an “anti-Israel” policy in spite of the veto threat were, I submit, wrong; they were over-sensitive to any “daylight” and too used to getting everything they wanted, policy-wise. Appeasing such voters was not in America’s interest. Given the benefit to Israel from a peace deal, the appeasement was not in Israel’s interest either. So it can justifiably be asked whether those voters accusing Obama of being anti-Israel were actually anti-Israel in terms of long term consequences. 

Sources:

Dan Senor, “Why Obama Is Losing the Jewish Vote,” The Wall Street Journal, September 14, 2011. 

Ethan Bronner, “Palestinians Resist Appeals to Halt U.N. Statehood Bid,” The New York Times, September 16, 2011. 

Jay Solomon, “Palestinians Firm on State Vote,” Wall Street Journal, September 19, 2011. 

American Foreign Policy on Pakistan: Balancing Foreign Aid and Duplicity

Osama bin Laden “lived and died in a massive, fortified compound built in 2005 and located on the outskirts of Abbottabad, some 60 miles from the capital of Islamabad. It stood just a half-mile from the Kakul Military Academy . . . and close to various army regiments. . . . (C)ongressional Republicans and Democrats questioned whether bin Laden was hiding in plain sight, with Pakistani military and intelligence operatives either totally unaware of his location or willfully ignoring his presence to protect him. ‘I think this tells us once again that, unfortunately, Pakistan at times is playing a double game,’ said [U.S.] Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a Senate Armed Services Committee member who indicated that Congress could put limits on funds for Pakistan. ‘It is very difficult for me to understand how this huge compound could be built in a city just an hour north of the capital of Pakistan, in a city that contained military installations, including the Pakistani military academy, and that it did not arouse tremendous suspicions.’ Based on the location of the compound and its proximity to army regiments, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said Pakistan's intelligence service and army has ‘got a lot of explaining to do.’

What [Pakistani] state officials and those in the military may have known about bin Laden could be quite different from what tribes and even families in the region knew or, more to the point, were willing to say about the Abbottabad compound and its occupants. Prior to the raid on the compound, U.S. officials say, they didn't inform Pakistan of its plans. Unaware and unnerved Pakistanis scrambled their aircraft in the wake of the U.S. military intervention. Pakistani authorities expressed ‘deep concerns’ that the operation was carried out without informing it in advance.” In fact, former Pakistani prime minister (and general) Musharraf claimed that the raid violated Pakistan’s sovereignty.

Analysis:

Both Collins and Levin are highly credible U.S. Senators. Carl Levin chaired the Senate hearings on Goldman Sachs in 2010. He charged the bankers with knowingly selling their own clients on housing-backed securities (CDOs) that the bankers knew were “crap.” The other indicator I would point to is the fact that the Pakistanis were not told in advance of the successful mission. At the very least, this indicates a lack of trust, which presumably does not come out of thin air. I would not be surprised if there had been leads subsequently leaked. Most probably, certain elements in the Pakistani government allied with particular tribes had provided intel on a case by case basis to the terrorist network. Even so, that bin Laden was in such close proximity to the Pakistani military since 2005 is indeed suspicious; that the U.S. Government had given Pakistan $18 billion since 9/11 turns out in hindsight to be problematic and perhaps even embarrassing.

Given her reasonable suspicion of betrayal, Sen. Collins’ suggestion that the foreign aid be “limited” does not go far enough. In fact, it sounds like a lawyerly “solution.” Even though just a week before the death of bin Laden, Pakistan’s ruler tried to get Karzai in Afghanistan to drop the U.S. in favor of Pakistan and China, it is not in the interest of the American government to continue to give billions to a government that could not be trusted even for the top U.S. priority. In other words, if Pakistan could not be trusted on something so important even with the foreign aid, why continue to give more?

Moreover, giving foreign aid to dictatorships or fraudulent “democracies” undercuts the American goal of a world consisting of republics. Ironically, trying to extend one’s influence beyond the extant republics in the world can actually fortify resistance that which the influence is geared to achieve. It is naïve to think that simply giving dollars to a dictator or corrupt ruler will somehow edge him or her closer to democracy. In actuality, the dollars make the shift less likely because the dictator or corrupt “elected” ruler is strengthened by the aid.

So if Karzai in Afghanistan wants to continue to use elections as window-dressing and Pakistan wants to continue to allow elements to play one side against the other involving the U.S., I contend that it is in the American interest (beyond immediate influence) to cut off the American funds. Given the value on wealth in the U.S., the American government may tend to overstate the ability of dollars to manipulate foreign governments beyond mere lip-service as a front to duplicity. At the Center for Global Development, according to Marketplace, Nancy Birdsall pointed out that aid "does not buy love; it does not even provide leverage, frankly." Getting only what we want to hear is perhaps fitting if we are so oriented to manipulating others for immediate effect rather than to rewarding only true friends. Would this alternative really be such a dramatic or radical shift in policy, or do we give the status quo too much weight?

Regarding Musharrif’s claim that Pakistan’s sovereignty was violated by the U.S. mission, the former prime minister was conveniently overlooking the trust issue, and thus the real probability that secrecy was necessary for the success of the mission due to Pakistan’s track record. He was also ignoring the argument that given Osama bin Laden’s extent of harm in the U.S. and the fact that the terrorist had indeed been living in Pakistan (i.e., that government had at the very least failed to apprehend him), the American government—having essentially declared war on bin Laden’s organization—had the military right to go in and take out the man. In short, it is very convenient for Pakistani officials to ignore their own state’s faults (or failure to contain leaks and, moreover, to have caught bin Laden) and blame the American government for obviating those faults. At the very least, it is bad form. Whether the American government is willing to act on this intel beyond extending a mere slap on the wrist remains to be seen.

Sources:

“Pakistan Accused of Playing bin Laden ‘double game’” MSNBC.com.

John Dimsdale, "Sights Set on U.S. Aid to Pakistan," Marketplace, May 2, 2011.

Knee-Jerk Reactions: On the U.S. Government Enabling Dictators

While in the U.S. Senate, Paul Kirk, the interim U.S. Senator who took Ted Kennedy’s seat, said, “Without a legitimate and credible Afghan partner, that counterinsurgency strategy is fundamentally flawed. The current Afghan government is neither legitimate nor credible. . . . We should not send a single additional dollar in aid or add a single American serviceman or woman to the 68,000 already courageously deployed in Afghanistan until we see a meaningful move by the Karzai regime to root out its corruption.” 

Kirk was essentially arguing that the U.S. was enabling (i.e., in the sense that one enables an alcoholic) President Karzai, who had been reelected by widespread fraud. Whether the U.S. Government was trying to have it both ways, or was utterly unwilling to put its money where American principles are, the perception around the world was probably that the United States had sold itself out for short-term strategic/military advantage. 

How resilient are principles that are upheld only when they don't cost anything?  Could it be that standing more on principle--insisting on fair and free elections as a precondition for any American aid and military involvement--would mitigate the need for a surge? Such thinking runs against the grain in the modern world, which is actually rather primitive in its insistance on knee-jerk force.  An eye for an eye and the world will be blind (Gandhi).  September 11, 2001: we must hit back.  There is no other option. They must pay. Ironically, practicing Christians were not only cheering, but also leading the charge.  An eye for an eye.

“Be realistic!” you might say.  "It's a real world out there!" Ok, how about this: the U.S. Government could have concentrated its military force in Afghanistan on the actual culprits, rather than on rebuilding the country or taking on the Taliban.  Is it really so idealistic to cut off U.S. aid to autocratic governments? I suspect that we are limited by the status quo as a normative and descriptive limitation that is actually quite dogmatic in the sense of being arbitrary.  In other words, we believe our self-constructed walls are real; we don't see how rigid we have become.

Given the emphasis on force, does it make all that much difference who is occupying the U.S. Presidency? President Bush invaded Iraq. President Obama criticized this policy then led a surge of his own in Afghanistan.  Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex, and both Bush II and Obama played ball with these pay-masters.  Meanwhile, we were mollified with the government's “scoldings” of Wall Street banks (the strongest of which went back to their old ways anyway).  Can we blame the bankers for ignoring government officials whose principled leadership is so contingent? People, especially powerful people--like Wall Street bankers and Karzai--can sniff hypocrisy and automatically reduce the respect given.

The United States is like a giant machine, or a very fat person, who can only move slowly…turning woefully slow with a rudder that is too small.    Meanwhile, we vaunt our ship as the biggest ever made: A city on the hill, from Puritan lore. We can’t sink, we assure each other.  But our ship of state is made of iron. I assure you, it can sink, and all the more because we have drifted out into deep water without realizing how far we have gone…how far off course.  Our rudder is too small for our mechanized monstrosity--our Titanic laden with $14 tillion in federal debt alone (not counting those of the states). Our primative knee-jerk reactiong after 911 suggests that everything we know is wrong, even as we presume we can’t be wrong.   So as we rearrange the deck-chairs at our mascurade dance, we order more champaigne and congraduate each other on having the biggest ship.  Meanwhile, is anyone looking ahead for icebergs?  We are so sure of our ship, and thus so vulnerable.

Source:

Brianna Keilar, "Obama Ally Breaks with Him on Afghanistan," CNN, December 2, 2009.

Did Obama Press Israel to Compromise for Peace?

Seeing to “capture a moment of epochal change in the Arab world,” U.S. President Obama delivered a foreign policy speech on May 19, 2011 in which, according to the New York Times, he sought “to break the stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” by “setting out a new starting point for negotiations.” In particular, he suggested that the Israelis go back to the 1967 borders, adjusted somewhat to account for settlements on the West Bank. Meeting with Obama on the following day, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “We can’t go back” to the 1967 borders, according to MSNBC.com. This put the U.S. at odds with one of its foremost allies. Considering the amount of financial and military aid involved, Netanyahu could have been accused of biting the hand that was feeding Israel. Yet due to lobbying no doubt, the Obama administration did not fully play its hand in pressuring the ally.

Before the president’s speech, according to the New York Times, Netanyahu “held an angry phone conversation with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton” to demand that the president’s references to 1967 borders be cut. White House officials said that nothing was changed from Israeli pressure. In spite of the billions in aid to Israel from the U.S., the Israeli government had ignored the president’s request that settlements be halted—only to reject the 1967 borders proposal.  Given the position of Israel in the Middle East and its financial support from the U.S., the Israeli government’s rejection of the American proposals is perplexing. In fact, the refusals, as well as the pressure, could be taken as presumptuous, given Israel’s intransience in negotiating with the Palestinians.

So why, one might ask, didn’t the American president freeze aid to Israel? Although Jews in the U.S. are only about 2% of the total population, as donors to political candidates and the Democratic Party, the Jewish influence is disproportionate. Congress would hardly support real pressure on Israel, so realistically the president’s hand was probably tied.

In fact, I would not be surprised if Netanyahu had threatened Obama that if he kept the 1967 border proposal in his speech, he would lose Florida in 2012. It would be unfortunate if Americans who happen to be Jewish would put another country before their own in voting for president. In fact, I submit that it is in the Jewish interest, whether in Florida or Israel, that additional pressure be applied to Israel so a comprehensive peace deal may be achieved. Indeed, the reaction to the speech in the E.U. was that finally the U.S. Government was standing up to Israel.  A spokesperson for E.U. foreign policy minister Catherine Ashton said she "warmly welcomes President Obama's confirmation that the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with the mutually agreed swaps, with secured and recognized borders on both sides," according to Zawya.com. Perhaps the E.U. and U.S. could combine forces to pressure Israel to comrpromise.

However, was making a proposal not to Israel’s liking standing up to the Israelis? I contend that the most intractable problem in the Middle East requires more than words. Accordingly, President Obama should find the will to put money behind his words. Specifically, he should give the Israeli government a deadline for a peace deal, after which American aid would be frozen. If Congress’s approval is necessary, the president should make the recommendation, agreeing to take the heat. 

Coming off his victory over Osama Bin Laden, Obama has some political capital to burn, and he should not be afraid of retaliation from Americans who happen to be Jewish—whom I would think would be against occupation wherever it is going on, given the history of Jewish suffering under occupation. Surely Jewish Americans realize that two wrongs do not make a right, and, moreover, that Israel’s future will not be secured until it compromises with those whom it is occupying. Borne of occupied resistance, the United States itself ought to be for the occupied rather than the occupiers, and Jewish Americans are part of the United States, are they not?

In any case, the way to win a presidential election is to keep one’s eyes on the prize rather than deferring in order not to offend particular interest groups. Paradoxically, if winning re-election is the predominant factor in every major presidential decision, the likelihood of a win is diminished accordingly because there are inevitably costs borne more by some than others as a leader puts his money where his mouth is in order to achieve any truly worthwhile accomplishment. Relatedly, a benefit of a representative democracy rather than a direct democracy is that in the former representatives have a period of time insulating them from the immediate passions of the people so they can go out on a limb to bring home the bacon that might involve a bit of discomfort.

Sources:

Mark Lander and Steven Lee Myers, “Obama sees ’67 Borders as Starting Point for Peace Deal,” The New York Times, May 20, 2011.

MSNBC.com, “’We Can’t Go Back’: Israeli PM Rejects 1967 Border Proposal,” May 20, 2011.

Zawya.com, "EU 'Welcomes' Obama Call to Respect Pre-1967 Borders," May 20, 2011.

U.S. “Foreign Aid” Enabling Pakistani Betrayal

Officials speaking on behalf of Pakistan’s government claimed that Pakistani officials did not know that Osama bin Laden had been living in Pakistan, and yet a Pakistani court sentenced a Pakistani to a 33-year prison sentence for treason in having conspired “to wage war against Pakistan” by aiding the CIA in its hunt for bin Laden.[1] If trying to find him constitutes treason, it follows that the Pakistani government was opposed to the Americans finding him. Meanwhile, that government accepted hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign aid from the U.S. Government.  The reaction of an appropriations committee of the U.S. Senate in 2012 was merely to cut $33 million from $800 million in foreign aid to Pakistan. It would seem that the U.S. Government wanted it both ways—to castigate Pakistan for essentially hiding bin Laden while seeking to retain some influence with the Pakistani government by bribing it with foreign aid.

That the Pakistani government linked the 33-year prison sentence to that government’s demand for an apology form the U.S. for an airstrike that accidently killed 24 Pakistanis is, according to Sen. John McCain, “beyond ludicrous.”[2] At the very least, the linkage violates the defendant’s human right to freedom, as he had nothing to do with the U.S. airstrike. Senators McCain and Levin claimed to be outraged, yet it is strange that the result is a paltry $33 million cut (out of $800 million of foreign aid to Pakistan).  If helping the U.S. Government find the man behind 9/11 constitutes waging war against Pakistan, then the U.S. itself can be faulted for continuing to give Pakistan anything. Demanding that it earn back the privilege of being trusted (a privilege given the aid) is not too much to ask, especially for $800 million (even less the $33 million).

Even if the U.S. Senate was not principled enough to act on principle, the interest if the United States can be distinguished from financially enabling a government that prosecutes citizens for “waging war” against Pakistan for having helped the U.S. in a mission that the Pakistani government itself had indicated it accepted (and would help, rather than hinder). It is not in one’s interest to consider the friend of one’s enemy as one’s friend. That is to say, the U.S. Government could have done better even in terms of its own interest, if it is defined as something broader than short-term manipulation of other governments by essentially bribing them. Such influence assumes that governments do not accept the “foreign aid” only to act against the “donor.”  Therefore, even from the standpoint of political realism, the U.S. Senate committee did not go nearly far enough in its fiscal policy of foreign relations. As a result, other governments must have gotten the message that it is possible to take the money and tacitly act against the United States.

1. Jonathan Weisman, “Senate Panel Holds Up Aid to Pakistan,” The New York Times, May 24, 2012.  

2. Ibid.