In December of 2009, Barak Obama was the first sitting U.S. president in 90 years and the third ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet he did so under the long shadow of the war in Afghanistan, where he was ordering 30,000 more troops into battle. Could Truman’s decision to drop the A-bomb on Japan be along the same logic because it was meant to preempt the loss of life that would have come had the US invaded Japan? President Reagan’s peace through strength logic was that a military build-up would forestall or prevent war from breaking out (hence no loss of life would be involved even in the forestalling). The logic of awarding a surge President with a peace prize seems more dubious. However, few today would compliment Chamberlain for having appeased Hitler (even though the prime minister was secretly stalling for time to build up the British forces). Perhaps with the dangerous plans presumably being hatched in Afganistan in 2009 against American cities, it could be argued that a surge is preventative of future conflict. However, such a logic introduces a slippery slope. In other words, if the ends justify the means, then virtually anything can be justified as means as long as it is tied to the end. Human beings have a rather creative ability to rationalize their expedient and self-serving actions. It would be far simpler were the peace prize awarded to someone who clearly opposed war and did something about it without engaging in it himself; even so, there are few like Gandhi in any given generation, and far more leaders wage war in the supposed (or real) interests of peace. I contend that there are in any year enough people who stand up for peace without engaging in war that the peace prize could be awarded to them. Such a policy would clearly distinguish such role models from the ends justify the means rationalizers rather than enable the latter under a subterfuge of peace.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34358659/ns/politics-white_house/
Friday, April 13, 2018
Human Rights Violations by Rulers in Syria and Bahrain: On the American Reaction
The New York Times reported on March 25, 2011 that Syrian military troops opened fire on protesters in the southern part of Syria. Tens of thousands of demonstrators in the southern city of Dara’a, a well as protesters in some other cities and towns around the state, were defying a ruler who once again demonstrated his willingness to use lethal force against his own citizens. The paper reported on March 27th that "(w)ith 61 people confirmed killed by security forces, the country’s status as an island of stability amid the Middle East storm seemed irretrievably lost." Weeks earlier, the Arab League had declared that Qaddafi had lost his sovereignty—meaning his right to rule without intervention from other countries—because he had been engaged in having Libyan civilians killed. Since the League’s declaration on the Libyan dictator, the “president” of Yemen had use force against protesters—even gaining power from the legislature to lock up his detractors. As if these cases would not be enough of a bad precedent, Bahrain’s ruler had also been using lethal force against protests—just days after sitting down with U.S. Secretary of Defense William Gates, who was urging restraint.
In the midst of the Syrian government's violence, MSNBC reported on March 25th that the United States called on the Syrian government to stop the violence against marchers, White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "We strongly condemn the Syrian government's attempts to repress and intimidate demonstrators,'' he told reporters. Meanwhile, according to the New York Times, the new American ambassador in Damascus, Robert Ford, was "quietly reaching out to . . . Assad to urge him to stop firing on his people." Quietly? Meanwhile, American fighters had been bombing what was left of Qaddafi's airforce in Libya. The inconsistency was not lost on some American officials, according to the New York Times. "Having intervened in Libya to prevent a wholesale slaughter in Benghazi, some analysts asked, how could the administration not do the same in Syria? Though no one is yet talking about a no-fly zone over Syria, Obama administration officials acknowledge the parallels to [Qadaffi]. Some analysts predicted the administration will be cautious in pressing Mr. Assad, not because of any allegiance to him but out of a fear of what could follow him — a Sunni-led government potentially more radical and Islamist than his Alawite minority government." So strategic interests, even if running at cross-purposes with itself, are thought by some as a legitimate basis for a rather blatant inconsistency from the standpoint of human rights and the long term goal of democracy in the Middle East.
I contend that the continued support of rulers in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen while turning on Qaddafi, as if diplomacy were sufficient in dealing with the former three but not with the latter, is not at all in the interest of the United States beyond short-term political expediency in the theatre of international relations. Moreover, the double-standard concerning the rulers who have turned on their own people undercuts the credibility of the American government. “Syria’s security forces are showing the same cruel disregard for protesters’ lives as their counterparts in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Bahrain,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. Whitson evinces a consistency seems so easy, yet is for some reason so difficult for government officials around the world, and particularly in the United States. Lest I be misread as bashing my own country, my aim is to call us to a higher ideal and a better international relations. It would be nice to see the Obama administration take the moral high ground on a consistent basis, rather than simply according to vested interests, such as oil but also a desire to maximize influence among sitting heads of state.
Beyond breaking off relations with rulers who violently turn on their own citizens, the self-declared republics of the world have a moral obligation to step in to protect the civilians from their own respective governments. To be sure, there is an opinion in the United States that opposes such intervention unless there is an important U.S. interest at stake. A Middle East populated by republics is in Americans’ interest even apart from the moral imperative to protect the defenseless against their own governments. Even so, as reported in the New York Times on March 27th, narrower strategic concerns were being raised by senior American officials. Specifically, they worried that the widespread nature of the Syrian uprising, for instance, "could dash any remaining hopes for a Middle East peace agreement . . . It could also alter the American rivalry with Iran for influence in the region and pose challenges to the United States’ greatest ally in the region, Israel." A Syrian republic could pull away from Iran, though it could also undo any deals that the Americans have made for Assad's assistance with a peace agreement involving Israel. In other words, the officials were "pulled between fears that [Syria's] problems could destabilize neighbors like Lebanon and Israel, and the hope that [the fall of Assad] could weaken one of Iran’s key allies." Such a pretzel is only natural for short-term strategic thinking that is obsessed with immediate self-interest from all angles. In other words, an obsession to maximize such self-interest is actually self-defeating not only because it is short-sighted, but also because no one scenario is completely in one's self-interest and this is apt to be paralyzing to such a mentality. One might even say that such a mentality deserves itself. It definitely does not deserve to be "leader of the free world."
In the end, and even for today, the world stopping any ruler's violent betrayal of masses of his people such that sovereignty can no longer be construed as absolute is in the American (and the world’s) short and long term interest. This is the new idea that burst through in the world’s consciousness as the Middle East erupted in protest in early 2011. Sadly, the implementation of even such an idea can be compromised by the routine or status quo that naturally goes with a narrower self-interest that assumes that tomorrow will be just like today. Even if merely the idea itself of sovereignty being conditional on a ruler’s non-abusive conduct evinces a significant advance in human political understanding long overdue, consistent implementation is implied. Otherwise, Qaddafi can be viewed as a victim of the unfairness that is implicit in the inconsistency of a lapsed implementation. Such irony undercuts the principle as it manifests on the world stage. American officials who merely urged restraint in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain even as American aid continued were by 2011 woefully antiquarian--as if fossilized incarnations of habits long since expired from the old world.
Beyond the particular cases discussed here, it is important to take note of the phenomenon of human beings whose staid mentality and conduct continue much like the continued instinctual motions of a recently killed insect. Even though the world has gone on to demand more, if only from its new awareness, diplomatic analysts still move their mental limbs in the same awkward movements. How can people in government be so regimented in their cognitive apparatus that they allow themselves to think and behave so out of context (even possibly without realizing it)? This phenomenon is like the nerd who continues dancing on the dance floor (by himself) after the music has stopped or is on to a new song having a different beat.
For example, on March 12th, the New York Times reported that “in the wake of a violent clash between protesters and Bahrain’s security forces and pro-government vigilantes, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates [Bahrain’s] ruling family on Saturday that “baby steps” toward reform would not be enough to meet the political and economic grievances sweeping the region. Mr. Gates also cautioned Bahrain’s king and crown prince during two hours of meetings in Manama, Bahrain’s capital, that if the reform process was prolonged, the United States feared that Iran would become involved and create more chaos. Gates said he was convinced that the king, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, and the crown prince, Sheik Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, were serious about reform and starting a dialogue with protesters demanding more democracy.”
While perhaps being in line with the narrow American strategic interest in Iran’s influence being contained in the region, urging more than baby steps and being assured were clearly inadequate positions from the standpoint of stopping the king from continuing to violate his subject’s human rights. Moreover, Gates’ comments seem so woefully timid or pallid given the facts on the ground in Bahrain at the time that one could be excused for asking if the secretary was suffering from dementia. The New York Times reported that even “as Mr. Gates arrived, security forces firing what protesters said were rubber bullets and pro-government Sunni vigilantes wielding sticks and swords beat back a group of several hundred protesters near the royal palace in Riffa, a residential neighborhood for the ruling family and the Sunni Muslim elite. The protesters said they had been met with stones and clouds of tear gas.” Even so, Gates told the king, “Obviously, leading reform and being responsive is the way we’d like to see this move forward.” Alternatively, the secretary could have said, “Obviously, if your forces continue to fire on unarmed protesters, the U.S. military would have to step in on humanitarian grounds to project your subjects from you—and of course the flow of American aid to you would have to stop.” On the plane, Gates had remarked concerning Libya, “If we are directed to impose a no-fly zone, we have the resources to do it.” The inconsistency is striking, if not indicative of differential motives based on the geo-political strategic interest of the United States.
According to The New York Times, two days later, “about 2000 troops — 1,200 from Saudi Arabia and 800 from the United Arab Ehmirates — entered Bahrain as part of a force operating under the aegis of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a six-nation regional coalition of Sunni rulers that has grown increasingly anxious over the sustained challenge to Bahrain’s king.” Violence against protesters (rather than restraint) ensued while the Obama administration continued to work at the U.N. for a resolution calling for a no fly zone in Libya. Meanwhile, “A senior American diplomat arrived [in Bahrain] on an unplanned visit and sought ways to calm the chaos while pressing the government to exercise restraint.” Additionally, a White House spokesman called for “calm and restraint on all sides.” Calm? Either the American administration is woefully ignorant of an appropriate response or the officials want to protect deals that have been made between the United States and the rulers in Yemen and Syria. Fortunately, there is a third alternative. Sadly, however, the "analysts" have it all figured out, even if their song has ended.
Sources:
Thursday, March 15, 2018
President Trump as a “Neutral Guy” in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: On the Conflict of Interest
In the absence of an international arbitrator with teeth,
the nations of the world must at times have recourse to others in service to
the resolution of disputes—even longstanding ones. This, I submit, is a major
drawback to a world of sovereign nation-states, for rare is one that can
genuinely serve as an honest broker, hence with credibility to the disputants
rather than just one side. Conflicts of
interest all thus allowed, and even ignored as if they had no bearing. In the
context of the longstanding Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the United States has
been plagued with having to surmount the conflict between the interest of being
an ally of Israel and a neutral peacemaking with credible standing as such to
both sides.
In recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel by
announcing that the American embassy would be moved to that historic city, U.S.
President Trump explicitly took sides in the broader dispute, such that the
Palestinians in reaction were “no longer on speaking terms with the president.”[1]
Two years earlier, in the midst of his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump
had said, “Let me be sort of a neutral guy [in that conflict].”[2]
Sitting with the Israeli prime minister in the Oval Office in early March,
2018, the American president insisted that he would still be an active
participant in proffering a peace proposal. Yet without credibility as a
neutral guy to the Palestinians, President Trump risked having his eventual
proposal being viewed as merely an extension of the Israeli interests.
President Trump found himself in a conflict of interest—that
of being Israel’s strongest ally and a neutral peacemaker with credibility on
both sides. Taking a stand firmly in favor of Israel could not simply be
dismissed as if taking such a decision could have no bearing on the assumption
of neutrality ignores the conflict of interest itself. Such conflicts are never
missed by the party on the losing end. An ally of one disputant simply cannot
also be a “neutral guy.” In such a case, another nation-state must be found to
inhabit the neutral role, yet such a nation-state may be difficult to find,
given the networks of alliances that proliferate in a nation-state system of
international relations. That a neutral party would have to be powerful enough
in the world for the neutrality to be effectively leveraged—i.e., garnering the
attention of both disputants rather than dismissed—decreases the likelihood
that such a neutral party could be found. The E.U., for instance, typically
sided with the Palestinians over Israel—perhaps with a motive to counterbalance
the influence of the U.S.
Perhaps absent a global neutral arbitrator powerful enough
to implement a peace settlement, an ally of one disputant could together with
an ally of the other disputant act as a neutral pivot around which negotiations
could proceed. The U.S. would not be able to make a proposal that is
objectionable to the E.U. on peace in Israel. Yet this presumes that the
Americans and Europeans could work together as a united mediator credible to
both the Palestinians and Israelis. The basic problem, I submit, is that the
world puts too much on nation-states as the sole or at least hegemonic actors
on the global stage.
For more on conflicts of interest, see Institutional Conflicts of Interest.
[1] Peter
Baker and David Halbfinger, “Trump’s Hopes ofBeing the ‘Neutral Guy’ in the
Mideast Seem Long Gone,” The New York
Times, March 5, 2018.
[2]
Ibid.
Monday, March 12, 2018
A Critique of Corporate Political Risk Analysis and U.S. Foreign Policy: The Case of Libya
Even though people the world over instinctively recoiled as reports came in of Gadhafi's violent retaliation against Libyan protests on February 21, 2011, the official reaction from the US Government was muted at best. The refusal to act on an intuitive response to immediately remove the Libyan dictator's ability to wantonly kill people resisting his right to rule may have come from concerns that the mounting tumult of a change of government in a major oil-producing region of North Africa could cause even just a disruption in the supply of crude. Indeed, even the mere possibility was prompting a spike in the price of oil (and gas)--what one might call a risk premium. Even the prospect of an ensuing nasty electoral backlash from consumers having to face a possible increase in their largely non-discretionary gas expense was not lost on their elected representative in chief at the White House.
Even five days later, after some serious press on the rising price of gasoline hitting American consumers, the most the president would do is proffer a verbal "demand" from afar that Gadhafi leave Libya. "When a leader's only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against his own people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule and needs to do what is right for his country by leaving now," the White House said in a statement. The dictator must have been shaking in his boots. In actuality, Gadhafi had lost his legitmacy to rule five days earlier, and by the day of the statement the American administration could have been actively involved with willing EU states in stopping him inside Libya. Given the progress of the protesters-turned rebels and the behavior of Brent crude that week, the interests of the American consumer (and Western oil companies, as well as the business sector over all) were by then firmly in line with an enforced regime change in Libya. Oddly, the old dogma of an absolute governmental sovereignty was colluding with an inherently excessive risk-averse corporate political risk methodology to hold America back from acting as midwife to a new political awareness breaking out in the Middle East.
On the day of Gadhafi's self-vaunted shooting spree, Brent crude benchmark vaulted past $108 a barrel (settling at $105.74, a two-year high). On the following day, it rose to $111.25. On the first day of March, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 168.32 points, or 1.38%, to finish at 12058.02, its third triple-digit decline in the past week. Oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange, already up 6% this year, jumped 2.7% to settle at $99.63 a barrel. Brent Crude in London hit $115.42 a barrel, the highest settlement since Aug. 27, 2008.The graph below shows the change in oil, though the change looks astounding in part simply because the graph only goes to 15%; were it to go to 100 percent, the picture might seem less dramatic.
The Wall Street Journal had reported already on February 21st that the rise was "driven by increasing unrest in the Middle East." Specifically, worries that the turmoil in Libya was curtailing output of that country's oil were said to be driving the price climb. However, USA Today cites Darin Newsome, an energy analyst at DTN, as pointing to the role of speculators around the world as propelling the price of oil. "The flow of money plays an enormous role in the direction, speed and volatility of these markets." In fact, the market mechanism itself may be flawed because speculators could push commodity prices out of sync with the underlying supply of the respective commodities. Turmoil in Libya cannot be blamed for the ensuing “creation” of artificial value (such an increase, by the way, had fueled the housing bubble in the US that came in for a hard landing in 2008). In fact, the rise in world oil prices began before the final third of 2010—before the prospect of widespread popular protest in the Middle East was realized. Indeed, the climb during the last third of 2010 looks a lot like that which took place in the first third of 2009 (during a recession). It was not until well into February, 2011, that the turmoil in the Middle East appeared, according to MSNBC, “to pose limited risk to global oil supplies. Neither Tunisia nor Egypt produce oil or gas.” Such “limited risk,” besides being mitigated, cannot very well be projected back well into 2010 to explain the rise in the price of gas.
Incidentally, another interesting feature of this graph is the sustained drop in 2008, before the financial crisis in September (and the U.S. Presidential election in November!). The “V” pattern at the end of 2008 is classic “electoral.” It suggests that the price of gas may be very attuned to the electoral interests of those in power, and therefore to government policy. My contention in this essay is that this dynamic was alive and well in Washington when Gadhafi was turning on his own people.Sources:
Jerry DiColo and Brian Baskin, "A Stealth Comeback for $100 Crude Oil," The Wall Street Journal, February 22, 2011, pp. C1, C3.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704506004576173961240139414.html?mod=ITP_moneyandinvesting_0
Gary Strauss, "If Unrest Spreads, Gas May hit $5", USA Today, February 22, 2011, p. AI.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41739499/ns/business-personal_finance/
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/business/energy-environment/24oil.html?_r=1&hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/business/global/23oil.html?ref=todayspaper
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41785849/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/africa/18nations.html?hp
Saturday, February 24, 2018
The UN Court Obviating War: The Ruling on Kosovo's Independence
The UN’s highest court ruled in 2010 that Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia did not break international law. President Hisashi Owada of the International Court of Justice said international law contains no ”prohibition on declarations of independence” and therefore Kosovo’s declaration ”did not violate general international law.” Kosovo’s statehood had been recognized by all of the United States and most of the States of the EU.
Critically, the court’s ruling is nonbinding. Hence China and Russia are under no obligation to recognize it, though as both states are members of the UN one might suppose that the UN’s ruling is binding on them as members of the UN. What sanctions, one might surmise, could the UN issue against its members that do not recognize the rulings of its court? Short of cancelling their memberships, what could the UN assess that it could enforce? Perhaps the UN could effectively withhold their voting privilege in the UN while maintaining their membership (and fees). I contend that such “teeth” is necessary if the UN is to be an honest broker concerning questions of declarations of independence such that war is obviated. In The Least Dangerous Branch, Alexander Bickel argues that the judiciary is the least dangerous branch because it does not have control of the purse or an army. A court whose rulings are nonbinding is to render it nearly impotent—nearly because just being a court carries with it some legitimacy and thus influence. Even so, as an improvement on the alternative (i.e., war), the UN’s court needs something more binding. To tout an absolutist theory of sovereignty of the nation-state as an obstacle to recognizing the UN court as binding would be enervate a possible improvement of mankind with respect to conflict in international relations. Particularly in an age in which mass human destructiveness is possible, we can ill-afford a Bodinean theory of sovereignty. In spite of the dangers in continuing the status quo in international conflict resolution, we advance at a snail’s pace—particularly as compared to technological development. I contend that it is high time for political development in international relations. Yet for this to occur it seems that human nature itself—particularly, its intractability—would have to be overcome, which might render the original problem moot. Even so, it is worth a try. We may be closer than we think to being able to give the UN’s highest court a bindingness sufficient to reduce the likelihood of war appreciably.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/07/22/world/europe/AP-EU-World-Court-Kosovo.html?_r=1
Friday, January 26, 2018
Lessons Learned from the Arab Spring
"When a leader's only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against his own people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule and needs to do what is right for his country by leaving now." The White House issued this written statement five days after Qaddafi had turned in violence on his own people who were protesting unarmed in the street. Nearly three weeks after the first day that Qaddafi had lost legitimacy, President Obama tried to raise the pressure on the Libyan dictator further by talking about “a range of potential options, including potential military options." Yet by then the politics of such intervention were getting more complicated by the day, according to The New York Times. The paper reported that critics were contending that the White House was too much concerned about perceptions, and that the administration was too squeamish on the military options on account of the preceding administration's invasion of Iraq based on a claim of danger to the United States from Saddam's access to WMD. Even the critics acknowledged that the best outcome militarily would be for the United States to join other nations or international organizations rather than go it alone. About a week after the president's hint of military options, the E.U. decided not to impose a No Fly Zone. A few days later, the Arab League, which, according to The Huffington Post, had already barred Libya's government from taking part in League meetings, issued a statement that Qaddafi's government had "lost its sovereignty." The League decided to establish contacts with the rebels' interim government, the National Libyan Council, and to call on the Security Council of the U.N. to impose a No Fly Zone on Libya. In a statement, the Arab League asked the "United Nations to shoulder its responsibility ... to impose a no-fly zone over the movement of Libyan military planes and to create safe zones in the places vulnerable to airstrikes." It would not be until March 18th, nearly a month after Qaddafi had first had weapons used against the protesters, that the Security Council would act. According to The New York Times, "After days of often acrimonious debate, played out against a desperate clock, as Colonel Qaddafi’s troops advanced to within 100 miles of the rebel capital of Benghazi, Libya, the Security Council authorized member nations to take “all necessary measures” to protect civilians, diplomatic code words calling for military action." Within days, according to The New York Times, "American and European forces began a broad campaign of strikes against the government of . . . Qaddafi, unleashing warplanes and missiles in the first round of the largest international military intervention in the Arab world since the invasion of Iraq."
Analysis:
It is tempting to focus on weighing the pros and cons of the military engagement, including how it came to be decided (It took too long), whether the genuine motive was oil or human rights (I suspect oil), and whether we were being consistent, given abuses against protesters going on in Bahrain and Yemen at the time (We were not, and this points back to the motive being to stop or reverse the gas price increase caused by speculators overstating the supply-impact of political instability (see my essay criticizing corporate political risk analysis and its self-fulfilling prophesy). To be sure, I weave these matters in my analysis, even if merely implicitly in some of their aspects. However, I prefer to bring out dynamics that might otherwise be overlooked by tracking events on the ground. I approach the Libyan case as a learning opportunity that can be placed in a larger framework oriented to the long-term. Hoping for a progression in the way the human race organizes itself, I look at ways in which international organizations can be reformed and principled leadership involved to protect and defend citizens' human right to life against encroachments by their own governments. As a backdrop to my argument, I submit that the matter of whether or not to engage in a military intervention can be thought of in terms of a window of opportunity with respect to human rights. After discussing this matter, I turn to the matters of international organization reform and principled leadership geared to human rights. While this essay is long, I beg the reader's indulgence in my attempt to proffer a substantive treatment of the subject. My aim is not limited to agreement; I hope my thoughts and reasoning, and even the values I presume therein, stimulate (or provoke) the reader to greater thought and proposals than I can muster.
"This is a window of opportunity for the United States," Zahi Mogherbi, an adviser to the Libyan rebels' interim government, had said weeks before the Security Council's vote. The most basic shift that had occurred in the three weeks between Obama's two statements was from a government turning on its own people to a military divided between being loyal to Qaddafi and supporting of the rebels. Even though the eventual international fire power is not without merit in protecting Libyan civilians, I contend that it is far easier to justify external military intervention against a government that has turned on its own unarmed people because such a basic betrayal involves a complete loss of legitimacy to rule, as the Obama administration noted in its statement five days after Qaddafi's decision to kill protesters. By the time the conflict had become one between armed rebels and the military loyal to Qaddafi--that is, what the West was calling a civil war--the window to boldly declare with military force that the Libyan government would not be allowed to turn on its own (unarmed) people--had passed. The protesters had been replaced by rebels. Even if successful external military intervention was still possible, the human rights justification had weakened because a government is on firmer ground in fighting armed rebels. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. To be sure, Qaddafi's forces were killing unarmed civilians "without mercy," according to the tyrant himself; the human rights element had not dissolved even if it was extant with contests taking place on the field of military battle. Even so, just five days after the government of Qaddafi had turned on the people it was to protect, the claim that Qaddafi had lost the right to rule was being overlaid by the observation that Libya was entering a civil war with two armed camps. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango (though dancing alone or in a group seems to be the rule in techno music nightclubs). The transition from a human rights violation to the more ordinary civil war can occur in days in a fast-moving situation on the ground. Referring to the window that was rapidly closing for military intervention, Zahi Mogherbi observed of the U.S. Government, "They are not taking it or they are taking their time."
Even if military action being delayed a month so diplomatic channels could result in a U.N. resolution could ultimately facilitate or bring about Qaddafi's downfall (hence such action is worthy of support), President Obama missed the window of opportunity in which he could have claimed to be stopping Qaddafi from violently turning on his own people rather than from winning a civil war by going after civilians and rebels in rebel areas. Talking to reporters on March 19th, the first day of the U.S. involvement in the action, Obama said, "we can’t stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy.” But the president did stand idly by, for roughly a month since Qaddafi's violence on February 21st.
Both the idiosyncratic and bureaucratic features of the diplomatic route that the U.S. and E.U. choose to take point to the need for a new international mechanism if the world wants to protect and defend--in real rather than diplomatic time--the human right of civilians to life when their own respective governments are acting to sever that right. Absent such an expedited mechanism, principled leadership by individual rulers with significant military force are obligated by a universal duty of conscience to fill the gap rather than wait on diplomats to make deals. The basis of such leadership would not be a self-serving desire to be the world's police or to protect some vital resource such as oil; rather, the operative principle would be what David Hume calls the sentiment of moral disapprobation, which all non-sociopath human beings feel at the sight of unjust harm. I begin with the institutional reform argument, after which I discuss the naturalistic basis of principled leadership.
Governments siding with rebels against a ruler the other rulers don't like is far more familiar in international diplomacy, and thus readily routinized, than is standing on principle with teeth. It is thus no wonder that the politics became more complicated by the day as Obama consulted with allies before the Security Council's vote. In short, the American president had missed the window when a non-routine idiosycratic decision to stop Qaddafi's violence against the protesters could have been taken in the realm of human rights rather than stopping a civil war. Obama rather quickly faced institutional and diplomatic hurdles involving other countries and international organizations. It could have been predicted, for example, that Hilary Clinton's statement that the matter must be decided by the U.N. would meet with Russia's apparent refusal to go along with even a no fly zone--that is to say, with paralysis until a deal could be made. Such is the nature of routine international relations: both the U.S. and Russia evinced the rigidity and absolutism (my way or the highway) of international diplomacy that eventuates the need for one government to pay off another. In the case involving Libya, the rise in oil prices was undoubtly in the mix motivating a deal; such an inducement, and indeed economic incentives in general, cannot necessarily be relied on to close such deals. Therefore, even if it is successful in particular cases, international diplomacy leading to a Security Council affirmative (i.e., non-vetoed) vote cannot be relied upon even for eventual action. it is certainly not set up to act on the expedited basis that is required to arrest human rights violations in real time. In short, the world needs another mechanism.
Lest it be thought that the Arab League could be consistently relied on to de-recognize a member government's right to sovereignty, the League's decision against Qaddafi in particular was informed by the particular circumstances at the time. According to The Huffington Post, "Amr el-Shobaki, an Egyptian political analyst, said the decision reflects the upheaval in the Arab world, which also includes serious unrest in Bahrain and Yemen as well as rumblings of anti-government dissent in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq. . . . El-Shobaki also said Gadhafi has few real friends among Arab leaders – he has publicly clashed with and insulted many of them, including at Arab League summits." Rather than showing itself as a check on governmental abuse in the Middle East that the world could rely on, the League evinced concern for its members' internal political stability and dislike for a particular ruler. To the extent that the Arab League's request was requisite for the Security Council's vote oking military intervention, not to mention it just being debated, the entire chain of international diplomacy in this case can be seen as highly particular to this case, and therefore not necessarily to be triggered the next time a dictator turns against his or her people.
Therefore, lest mankind be left to the trepidations of indecision at the expense of arresting human rights violations in real time and to the self-interests of rulers as governments around the world and their international organizations hinge on the contingencies particular to the cases, I contend that either a permanent mechanism that involves a transfer of some governmental sovereignty beyond the nation state be designed and instituted, and, in the meantime, that some courageous ruler establishes the precedent of principled leadership to stop an abusive ruler in the act (or at least to divert his attention). While principled leadership would be an advance, it would only be of temporary utility, as leadership is not as long-standing as are institutions. With an accompanying transfer of sufficient governmental sovereignty (while designing a check to prevent abuse), an international institution can act in a timely manner befitting the timeline of human rights violations.
Going through the U.N. as it was initially designed cannot be relied up to stop or mitigate the violation of human rights by rulers unless some governmental sovereignty is transferred to the Security Council (e.g., no vetos). As discussed above, the existence of vetos translates into the need for governments to be essentially paid off, and such deals and the economic clusters conducive to them cannot be relied upon on a consistent basis because they are unique to the parties of the deals and the particular geo-political and economic context (as well as the particular villain). The combination of the vetos in the Security Council and the sheer diversity of opinion that one can expect in body representing over two hundred countries around the world--specifically, the diverse views on the nature and extent of national sovereignty--make it virtually impossible for the U.N. to proffer effective responses with teeth in real time. In dealing with Qaddafi, it took the Security Council about a month, and who knows but the governments themselves what China and Russia got in exchange for their abstentions.
As an alternative or co-reform, NATO could be reformed in its governance such that an expedited procedure could be devised to assess and possibly respond to a human rights violation by a ruler inside or out of NATO. While weighing the options on Libya, President Obama indicated that bureaucrats at NATO headquarters were weighing the options of the alliance attempting a joint military involvement, but NATO decisions take place in the allies' respective capitols rather than by bureaucrats at NATO. This arrangement of power in the alliance inexorably makes for slow decision-making, even when a window of opportunity is brief. Because the diversity of opinion is likely to be less among NATO members than at the UN Security Council because NATO is on a smaller scale, that alliance is the more suitable agent to gear any military response to a government "gone rogue." For this to be possible, some governmental sovereignty must shift to the alliance so a council or office holder standing for the entire alliance can make a timely decision. Just as an external military intervention itself implies that national sovereignty (e.g., of Libya) is not absolute, the same qualification must needs be applied to NATO for it to serve as a viable stand-in for the world in "just saying no" to continued governmental betrayal.
Given the staying power of the absolutist interpretation of national sovereignty, principled leadership might be the best the world could hope in the meantime. For example, the U.S. President or E.U. leaders could boldly make a stand against a government turning against its own people and intervene unilaterally or in a joint U.S./E.U. mission. Each of these unions is empire-scale, and thus would carry a lot of weight in standing on principle not just by saying that a ruler is no long legitimate, but also actively stopping him or her in real time. To be sure, to the rest of the world there would be more credibility involved when such an intervention is not limited to one region or two unions. In the Libyan case, the U.S. was indecisive from the outset and the E.U. was too divided and state rights' oriented.
Governors of countries can discern the need to act quickly to respond in real time before a window closes from when an issue should be turned over to diplomatic channels. I suspect that the people of the world have come to the conclusion that the doctrine of the absolute right of national sovereignty is antiquated because it is incompatible not only with there being boundaries to legitimate rule, but also with the defense of human rights from across a political border. That is to say, the absolutism is incompatible with the interconnected world's growing demand that human rights be respected even by those in power. Hence it should be no surprise that the world was dismayed by the shuffling by the Obama administration and the leaders of the E.U. while a dictator was on his own people. Had the E.U. (or some of its state governments) and/or the U.S. exercised force based on principled leadership before the window of opportunity had closed, the world would have crossed a threshold through the establishment of a new precedent. Governments abusing their own citizens will have been put on notice rather than enabled like alcoholics by ineptitude and indecision until a possible Security Council resolution could be passed. A coalition of the willing is likely to naturally form in little time after a principled leader has taken a stand in action and not just word. Such a leader would not be delayed from endless debate on his or her country's best strategic interest; rather, he or she would act on principle.
Although nearly a month after Qaddafi first turned on his compatriot protesters, Sarkozy expressed a principled basis for the external military intervention that had begun that day (albeit having waited for the Security Council's action a few days before). Referring to the "murderous madness" of a regime that has "forfeited all its legitimacy," Sarkozy justified the involvement of his airforce fighters as he spoke "in the name of the universal conscience that will not endorse such crimes." A universal conscience is rooted in human nature; such a basis is not conditional on a U.N. resolution. From his state capitol in the fractured E.U., Sarkozy made a principled declaration that resounded like a shot heard round the world--carried almost instantaneously as though by reflex by a mass of humanity "tweeting" through the ether. He asserted that it is our duty to respond to the anguished appeal of civilians.
"This is a window of opportunity for the United States," Zahi Mogherbi, an adviser to the Libyan rebels' interim government, had said weeks before the Security Council's vote. The most basic shift that had occurred in the three weeks between Obama's two statements was from a government turning on its own people to a military divided between being loyal to Qaddafi and supporting of the rebels. Even though the eventual international fire power is not without merit in protecting Libyan civilians, I contend that it is far easier to justify external military intervention against a government that has turned on its own unarmed people because such a basic betrayal involves a complete loss of legitimacy to rule, as the Obama administration noted in its statement five days after Qaddafi's decision to kill protesters. By the time the conflict had become one between armed rebels and the military loyal to Qaddafi--that is, what the West was calling a civil war--the window to boldly declare with military force that the Libyan government would not be allowed to turn on its own (unarmed) people--had passed. The protesters had been replaced by rebels. Even if successful external military intervention was still possible, the human rights justification had weakened because a government is on firmer ground in fighting armed rebels. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. To be sure, Qaddafi's forces were killing unarmed civilians "without mercy," according to the tyrant himself; the human rights element had not dissolved even if it was extant with contests taking place on the field of military battle. Even so, just five days after the government of Qaddafi had turned on the people it was to protect, the claim that Qaddafi had lost the right to rule was being overlaid by the observation that Libya was entering a civil war with two armed camps. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango (though dancing alone or in a group seems to be the rule in techno music nightclubs). The transition from a human rights violation to the more ordinary civil war can occur in days in a fast-moving situation on the ground. Referring to the window that was rapidly closing for military intervention, Zahi Mogherbi observed of the U.S. Government, "They are not taking it or they are taking their time."
Even if military action being delayed a month so diplomatic channels could result in a U.N. resolution could ultimately facilitate or bring about Qaddafi's downfall (hence such action is worthy of support), President Obama missed the window of opportunity in which he could have claimed to be stopping Qaddafi from violently turning on his own people rather than from winning a civil war by going after civilians and rebels in rebel areas. Talking to reporters on March 19th, the first day of the U.S. involvement in the action, Obama said, "we can’t stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy.” But the president did stand idly by, for roughly a month since Qaddafi's violence on February 21st.
Both the idiosyncratic and bureaucratic features of the diplomatic route that the U.S. and E.U. choose to take point to the need for a new international mechanism if the world wants to protect and defend--in real rather than diplomatic time--the human right of civilians to life when their own respective governments are acting to sever that right. Absent such an expedited mechanism, principled leadership by individual rulers with significant military force are obligated by a universal duty of conscience to fill the gap rather than wait on diplomats to make deals. The basis of such leadership would not be a self-serving desire to be the world's police or to protect some vital resource such as oil; rather, the operative principle would be what David Hume calls the sentiment of moral disapprobation, which all non-sociopath human beings feel at the sight of unjust harm. I begin with the institutional reform argument, after which I discuss the naturalistic basis of principled leadership.
Governments siding with rebels against a ruler the other rulers don't like is far more familiar in international diplomacy, and thus readily routinized, than is standing on principle with teeth. It is thus no wonder that the politics became more complicated by the day as Obama consulted with allies before the Security Council's vote. In short, the American president had missed the window when a non-routine idiosycratic decision to stop Qaddafi's violence against the protesters could have been taken in the realm of human rights rather than stopping a civil war. Obama rather quickly faced institutional and diplomatic hurdles involving other countries and international organizations. It could have been predicted, for example, that Hilary Clinton's statement that the matter must be decided by the U.N. would meet with Russia's apparent refusal to go along with even a no fly zone--that is to say, with paralysis until a deal could be made. Such is the nature of routine international relations: both the U.S. and Russia evinced the rigidity and absolutism (my way or the highway) of international diplomacy that eventuates the need for one government to pay off another. In the case involving Libya, the rise in oil prices was undoubtly in the mix motivating a deal; such an inducement, and indeed economic incentives in general, cannot necessarily be relied on to close such deals. Therefore, even if it is successful in particular cases, international diplomacy leading to a Security Council affirmative (i.e., non-vetoed) vote cannot be relied upon even for eventual action. it is certainly not set up to act on the expedited basis that is required to arrest human rights violations in real time. In short, the world needs another mechanism.
Lest it be thought that the Arab League could be consistently relied on to de-recognize a member government's right to sovereignty, the League's decision against Qaddafi in particular was informed by the particular circumstances at the time. According to The Huffington Post, "Amr el-Shobaki, an Egyptian political analyst, said the decision reflects the upheaval in the Arab world, which also includes serious unrest in Bahrain and Yemen as well as rumblings of anti-government dissent in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq. . . . El-Shobaki also said Gadhafi has few real friends among Arab leaders – he has publicly clashed with and insulted many of them, including at Arab League summits." Rather than showing itself as a check on governmental abuse in the Middle East that the world could rely on, the League evinced concern for its members' internal political stability and dislike for a particular ruler. To the extent that the Arab League's request was requisite for the Security Council's vote oking military intervention, not to mention it just being debated, the entire chain of international diplomacy in this case can be seen as highly particular to this case, and therefore not necessarily to be triggered the next time a dictator turns against his or her people.
Therefore, lest mankind be left to the trepidations of indecision at the expense of arresting human rights violations in real time and to the self-interests of rulers as governments around the world and their international organizations hinge on the contingencies particular to the cases, I contend that either a permanent mechanism that involves a transfer of some governmental sovereignty beyond the nation state be designed and instituted, and, in the meantime, that some courageous ruler establishes the precedent of principled leadership to stop an abusive ruler in the act (or at least to divert his attention). While principled leadership would be an advance, it would only be of temporary utility, as leadership is not as long-standing as are institutions. With an accompanying transfer of sufficient governmental sovereignty (while designing a check to prevent abuse), an international institution can act in a timely manner befitting the timeline of human rights violations.
Going through the U.N. as it was initially designed cannot be relied up to stop or mitigate the violation of human rights by rulers unless some governmental sovereignty is transferred to the Security Council (e.g., no vetos). As discussed above, the existence of vetos translates into the need for governments to be essentially paid off, and such deals and the economic clusters conducive to them cannot be relied upon on a consistent basis because they are unique to the parties of the deals and the particular geo-political and economic context (as well as the particular villain). The combination of the vetos in the Security Council and the sheer diversity of opinion that one can expect in body representing over two hundred countries around the world--specifically, the diverse views on the nature and extent of national sovereignty--make it virtually impossible for the U.N. to proffer effective responses with teeth in real time. In dealing with Qaddafi, it took the Security Council about a month, and who knows but the governments themselves what China and Russia got in exchange for their abstentions.
As an alternative or co-reform, NATO could be reformed in its governance such that an expedited procedure could be devised to assess and possibly respond to a human rights violation by a ruler inside or out of NATO. While weighing the options on Libya, President Obama indicated that bureaucrats at NATO headquarters were weighing the options of the alliance attempting a joint military involvement, but NATO decisions take place in the allies' respective capitols rather than by bureaucrats at NATO. This arrangement of power in the alliance inexorably makes for slow decision-making, even when a window of opportunity is brief. Because the diversity of opinion is likely to be less among NATO members than at the UN Security Council because NATO is on a smaller scale, that alliance is the more suitable agent to gear any military response to a government "gone rogue." For this to be possible, some governmental sovereignty must shift to the alliance so a council or office holder standing for the entire alliance can make a timely decision. Just as an external military intervention itself implies that national sovereignty (e.g., of Libya) is not absolute, the same qualification must needs be applied to NATO for it to serve as a viable stand-in for the world in "just saying no" to continued governmental betrayal.
Given the staying power of the absolutist interpretation of national sovereignty, principled leadership might be the best the world could hope in the meantime. For example, the U.S. President or E.U. leaders could boldly make a stand against a government turning against its own people and intervene unilaterally or in a joint U.S./E.U. mission. Each of these unions is empire-scale, and thus would carry a lot of weight in standing on principle not just by saying that a ruler is no long legitimate, but also actively stopping him or her in real time. To be sure, to the rest of the world there would be more credibility involved when such an intervention is not limited to one region or two unions. In the Libyan case, the U.S. was indecisive from the outset and the E.U. was too divided and state rights' oriented.
Governors of countries can discern the need to act quickly to respond in real time before a window closes from when an issue should be turned over to diplomatic channels. I suspect that the people of the world have come to the conclusion that the doctrine of the absolute right of national sovereignty is antiquated because it is incompatible not only with there being boundaries to legitimate rule, but also with the defense of human rights from across a political border. That is to say, the absolutism is incompatible with the interconnected world's growing demand that human rights be respected even by those in power. Hence it should be no surprise that the world was dismayed by the shuffling by the Obama administration and the leaders of the E.U. while a dictator was on his own people. Had the E.U. (or some of its state governments) and/or the U.S. exercised force based on principled leadership before the window of opportunity had closed, the world would have crossed a threshold through the establishment of a new precedent. Governments abusing their own citizens will have been put on notice rather than enabled like alcoholics by ineptitude and indecision until a possible Security Council resolution could be passed. A coalition of the willing is likely to naturally form in little time after a principled leader has taken a stand in action and not just word. Such a leader would not be delayed from endless debate on his or her country's best strategic interest; rather, he or she would act on principle.
Although nearly a month after Qaddafi first turned on his compatriot protesters, Sarkozy expressed a principled basis for the external military intervention that had begun that day (albeit having waited for the Security Council's action a few days before). Referring to the "murderous madness" of a regime that has "forfeited all its legitimacy," Sarkozy justified the involvement of his airforce fighters as he spoke "in the name of the universal conscience that will not endorse such crimes." A universal conscience is rooted in human nature; such a basis is not conditional on a U.N. resolution. From his state capitol in the fractured E.U., Sarkozy made a principled declaration that resounded like a shot heard round the world--carried almost instantaneously as though by reflex by a mass of humanity "tweeting" through the ether. He asserted that it is our duty to respond to the anguished appeal of civilians.
What Sarkozy neglected to say, however, was that the appeals had begun roughly a month earlier when Qaddafi's henchmen began shooting down funeral mouners in the streets of Tripoli. To be sure, Libyan protesters-turned-rebels who would have been subject to Qaddafi's "no mercy" were surely saying, "better late than never," as they stood on the dictator's ruined tanks after the first bombing campaign of the international coalition. Even so, a bystander could certainly be pardoned for surmising that the duty to respond without standing idly by had been triggered in America and Europe by a desire to lower gas prices or even to keep them from going still higher than they had in the previous two or three weeks--a consumer-driven political response, in other words. A fundamental moral duty, meaning an obligation to act, that comes from "the universal conscience" of human beings, does not 'click in" as soon as political self-interest chimes in. The window for such a duty as the primary and genuine motive closes as time and selfish considerations are allowed to intercede and the immediacy of the felt-conscience fades. To grasp this point, it is necessary to discuss the nature of the duty's basis in human nature.
The duty, being as universal as is conscience (i.e., excluding socio-paths and Yankee fans), is sourced in a naturally-felt psychological sentiment of misapprobation, which David Hume argued constitutes moral judgement itself. This sentiment is naturally felt in watching or learning of unjust harm, such as from a governor of a country turning against his own unarmed people by wantonly having them killed simply for protesting. Of course, while still active in the case of civilians, this feeling/principle is mitigated when it is armed rebels who are being killed--hence the window of opportunity for a human rights-based principled leadership. It is natural for any human being to be filled with utter disgust at the squalid sight of innocent civilians being shot by government troops. So it is also natural for a person to want to step in and stop the atrocious harm at once. The natural propensity of compassion manifesting in instantaneous word and deed is also evinced in a person who pulls a rapist off a young woman on a city street while people passing watch while quietly conferring with each other on what, if anything, they can or should do before they continue on with their plans. Such bystanders, unfortunately all too common in the world, are mere epigones in the human race; they are hardly natural leaders even if they have gained the power of political office by having woven words of saccarine silk. The person taking it upon himself to pull the rapist off the defenseless victim, on the other hand, is a natural leader in touch with his own humanity; he is thus able to act with humanity. He is not presuming to be his own police force for the city; rather, such a person is instantiating the highest that humanity has to offer: caritas naturalis, seu benevolentia universalis (natural higher human love raised high rather than remaining low in lust for power, money, or sex; that is, love as universal benevolence).
In conclusion, were the world not so focused on Qaddafi during his escapades, we might have used the ferociousness of his violence against civilians to evaluate not only the way other rulers reacted (or failed to react), but also what institutional reforms could have expedited the process befitting the nature of human rights violations and how principled leadership could override political expediency and bureaucratic meandering, even if only in theory yet. To be sure, principled leadership is contingent and short-lived, given the nature of leadership itself. For this reason, even in the event of such leadership manifesting and establishing a precedent, the world would be well advised to continue to work toward an international institutional mechanism that has some real teeth in protecting unarmed citizens from their own rulers. Even in the excitment over the Security Council's sanctioning of "all necessary means" to protect Libyan civilians, the world would be wise to ask: how could the process have been better from the standpoint of defending human rights? The key to the institutional reform, the world would realize, is the same as the rationale for removing a sitting governor: the qualification of national sovereignty from the absolutism advocated by Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, respectively. For these two thinkers, only God's law can restrain the power of a human sovereign, and then most probably in the ruler's afterlife. According to Hobbes, for example, the human sovereign--the Leviathan, or king of the proud--has the exclusive right within his kingdom to interpret divine law (even such authority was thought by Hobbes necessary to avert civil war in the contentious seventeenth century in Britain). In any case, political theory in the twenty-first century need not be held hostage by an antiquated theory devised in and for a very different context and distant time. Technology alone has made the world much more interdependent, and thus in need of stronger international agency, albeit with adequate checks and balances to prevent abuse of the added authority.
Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/world/middleeast/08policy.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=todayspaper
Jim Michaels, "Is Libyan 'Window of Opportunity' Closing?," USA Today, March 10, 2011, p. 6A.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/12/arab-league-asks-un-for-libya-no-fly-zone_n_834975.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/africa/18nations.html?hp
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/03/19/france.libya.meeting/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/world/africa/20libya.html?hp
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Are Americans Indifferent to Europe?
Are Americans indifferent to what is happening in Europe unless there is some direct effect on them? If so, the news media would simply be catering to their tastes in focusing on other matters. One could ask whether such journalists have a social responsibility to provide the news that is intrinsically newsworthy even if customers do not think they need it. Physicians, for example, do not prescribe what their patients need based on what the latter think they need. Two events in Europe can be cited as being newsworthy yet they went virtually uncovered in the American news media.
The other major European story occurring at the time of the German president's resignation was the Eurovision show, which is the European equivalent of the American Idol. The Rachel Maddow Show on MSBNC made a brief mention of it on June 1, 2010. Lena Meyer-Landrut, the winner, had become the superstar across Europe with her song Satellite, yet virtually no mention of her was made in America. Particularly considering the difficulty with which many Germans have had in feeling pride in their state given the Nazi atrocities in the last century, Lena's unabashed patriotism was itself newsworthy (and healthy for the Europeans). It is odd, given the tremendous popularity of American Idol (and Lena in Europe), that neither the Eurovision contest nor Lena received arny attention from American broadcasters. Political indifference or ignorance cannot explain a cultural snub on a type of pop icon that Americans would have valued.
Evidently, European news must clearly affect Americans for it to be covered in the United States. For instance, there was plenty of coverage of the Greece debt crisis, undoubtedly because Wall Street was being affected. Yet in spite of the relevance to the EU's bailout of states overwhelmed by their public debt, there was virtually no broadcast coverage in early 2011 of Germany's objection to the EU having a pooled emergency rescue fund. Nor was there coverage of the Franco-German proposal to give the EU government a role in seeing that the states having the euro have fiscal policies in sync. The E.U. itself is only rarely mentioned other on the news networks. That is probably due in part to the fact that most Americans have no idea what the EU is, let alone that it exists. One could thus point to the social responsibility of the newscasters to bring the public up to date.
I suspect that Europeans pay more attention to what is going on domestically in the U.S. than vice versa. ON visits to Europe, I have been stunned by the attention being paid by ordinary people there to American politics. During Bill Clinton's fiasco with Monaca Lowinski, the story was front news and much discussed by Europeans in their leisure. The typical American does not follow stories such as Villipan's juridical vindication against Sarkosy, for example, or Berlesconi's hiring of a young prostitute. To be sure, the concentration of power in the U.S. Government makes for a tall edifice that is visible even across an ocean. Were there one president of the E.U. with power roughly equivalent to the American president (i.e., the European states transfering most of their sovereignty to the EU), perhaps that would galvanize American attention (and journalistic newsworthiness). Even so, there is more than enough scandal in the EU that would undoubtedly be of interest to Americans. For some reason, the broadcast news editors are efffectively gate-keeping as concerns news from Europe.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/world/europe/01germany.html
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