Human rights interfere with President Obamas campaign against climate change.
Nobody should get too hung up over President Obamas decision reported by Der Spiegel over the weekend to cancel plans to attend next months 20th anniversary celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Germanys reunited capital has already served his purposes; why should he serve its?
To this day the fall of the Berlin Wall on the night of Nov. 9 1989 remains a high-water mark in the march of human freedom. Its a march to which candidate Obama paid rich (if solipsistic) tribute in last years big Berlin speech. At the height of the Cold War my father decided like so many others in the forgotten corners of the world that his yearninghis dreamrequired the freedom and opportunity promised by the West waxed Mr. Obama to the assembled thousands. This city of all cities knows the dream of freedom.
Those were the words. Whats been the record?
China: In February Secretary of State Hillary Clinton landed in Beijing with a conciliating message about the countrys human-rights record. Our pressing on those human-rights issues cant interfere on the global economic crisis the global climate change crisis and the security crisis she said.
In fact there has been no pressing whatsoever on human rights. President Obama refused to meet with the Dalai Lama last month presumably so as not to ruffle feathers with the people who will now be financing his debts. In June Liu Xiaobo a leading signatory of the pro-democracy Charter 08 movement was charged with inciting subversion of state power. But as a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Beijing admitted to the Journal neither the White House nor Secretary Clinton have made any public comments on Liu Xiaobo.
Sudan: In 2008 candidate Obama issued a statement insisting that there must be real pressure placed on the Sudanese government. We know from past experience that it will take a great deal to get them to do the right thing. . . . The U.N. Security Council should impose tough sanctions on the Khartoum government immediately.
Exactly right. So what should Mr. Obama do as president? Yesterday the State Department rolled out its new policy toward Sudan based on a menu of incentives and disincentives for the genocidal Sudanese government of Omar Bashir. Its the kind of menu Mr. Bashir will languidly pick his way through till he dies comfortably in his bed.
Iran: Mr. Obamas week-long silence on Irans internal affairs following Junes fraudulent re-election was widely noted. Not so widely noted are the administrations attempts to put maximum distance between itself and human-rights groups working the Iran beat.
Earlier this year the State Department denied a grant request for New Haven Conn.-based Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. The Center maintains perhaps the most extensive record anywhere of Irans 30-year history of brutality. The grant denial was part of a pattern: The administration also abruptly ended funding for Freedom Houses Gozaar project an online Farsi- and English-language forum for discussing political issues.
Its easy to see why Tehran would want these groups de-funded and shut down. But why should the administration except as a form of pre-emptive appeasement?
Burma: In July Mr. Obama renewed sanctions on Burma. In August he called the conviction of opposition leader (and fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner) Aung San Suu Kyi a violation of the universal principle of human rights.
Yet as with Sudan the administrations new policy is engagement on the theory that sanctions havent worked. Maybe so. But what evidence is there that engagement will fare any better? In May 2008 the Burmese junta prevented delivery of humanitarian aid to the victims of Cyclone Nargis. Some 150000 people died in plain view of world opinion in what amounted to a policy of forced starvation.
Leave aside the nausea factor of dealing with the authors of that policy. The real question is what good purpose can possibly be served in negotiations that the junta will pursue only (and exactly) to the extent it believes will strengthen its grip on power. It takes a remarkable presumption of good faith or perhaps stupidity to imagine that the Burmas or Sudans of the world would reciprocate Mr. Obamas engagement except to seek their own advantage.
It also takes a remarkable degree of cynicismor perhaps cowardiceto treat human rights as something that interferes with Americas purposes in the world rather than as the very thing that ought to define them. Yet that is exactly the record of Mr. Obamas time thus far in office.
In Massachusetts not long ago I found myself driving behind a car with Free Tibet Save Darfur and Obama 08 bumper stickers. I wonder if it will ever dawn on the owner of that car that at least one of those stickers doesnt belong.
Human rights interfere with President Obamas campaign against climate change.
Nobody should get too hung up over President Obamas decision reported by Der Spiegel over the weekend to cancel plans to attend next months 20th anniversary celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Germanys reunited capital has already served his purposes; why should he serve its?
To this day the fall of the Berlin Wall on the night of Nov. 9 1989 remains a high-water mark in the march of human freedom. Its a march to which candidate Obama paid rich (if solipsistic) tribute in last years big Berlin speech. At the height of the Cold War my father decided like so many others in the forgotten corners of the world that his yearninghis dreamrequired the freedom and opportunity promised by the West waxed Mr. Obama to the assembled thousands. This city of all cities knows the dream of freedom.
Those were the words. Whats been the record?
China: In February Secretary of State Hillary Clinton landed in Beijing with a conciliating message about the countrys human-rights record. Our pressing on those human-rights issues cant interfere on the global economic crisis the global climate change crisis and the security crisis she said.
In fact there has been no pressing whatsoever on human rights. President Obama refused to meet with the Dalai Lama last month presumably so as not to ruffle feathers with the people who will now be financing his debts. In June Liu Xiaobo a leading signatory of the pro-democracy Charter 08 movement was charged with inciting subversion of state power. But as a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Beijing admitted to the Journal neither the White House nor Secretary Clinton have made any public comments on Liu Xiaobo.
Sudan: In 2008 candidate Obama issued a statement insisting that there must be real pressure placed on the Sudanese government. We know from past experience that it will take a great deal to get them to do the right thing. . . . The U.N. Security Council should impose tough sanctions on the Khartoum government immediately.
Exactly right. So what should Mr. Obama do as president? Yesterday the State Department rolled out its new policy toward Sudan based on a menu of incentives and disincentives for the genocidal Sudanese government of Omar Bashir. Its the kind of menu Mr. Bashir will languidly pick his way through till he dies comfortably in his bed.
Iran: Mr. Obamas week-long silence on Irans internal affairs following Junes fraudulent re-election was widely noted. Not so widely noted are the administrations attempts to put maximum distance between itself and human-rights groups working the Iran beat.
Earlier this year the State Department denied a grant request for New Haven Conn.-based Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. The Center maintains perhaps the most extensive record anywhere of Irans 30-year history of brutality. The grant denial was part of a pattern: The administration also abruptly ended funding for Freedom Houses Gozaar project an online Farsi- and English-language forum for discussing political issues.
Its easy to see why Tehran would want these groups de-funded and shut down. But why should the administration except as a form of pre-emptive appeasement?
Burma: In July Mr. Obama renewed sanctions on Burma. In August he called the conviction of opposition leader (and fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner) Aung San Suu Kyi a violation of the universal principle of human rights.
Yet as with Sudan the administrations new policy is engagement on the theory that sanctions havent worked. Maybe so. But what evidence is there that engagement will fare any better? In May 2008 the Burmese junta prevented delivery of humanitarian aid to the victims of Cyclone Nargis. Some 150000 people died in plain view of world opinion in what amounted to a policy of forced starvation.
Leave aside the nausea factor of dealing with the authors of that policy. The real question is what good purpose can possibly be served in negotiations that the junta will pursue only (and exactly) to the extent it believes will strengthen its grip on power. It takes a remarkable presumption of good faith or perhaps stupidity to imagine that the Burmas or Sudans of the world would reciprocate Mr. Obamas engagement except to seek their own advantage.
It also takes a remarkable degree of cynicismor perhaps cowardiceto treat human rights as something that interferes with Americas purposes in the world rather than as the very thing that ought to define them. Yet that is exactly the record of Mr. Obamas time thus far in office.
In Massachusetts not long ago I found myself driving behind a car with Free Tibet Save Darfur and Obama 08 bumper stickers. I wonder if it will ever dawn on the owner of that car that at least one of those stickers doesnt belong.
