The chaos of National Sovereignty
The chaos of national sovereignty:
The aggressive unilateralism of the last Bush administration was essentially business as usual. A US president withheld the right to do anything, to anyone, any time.
After the Cold War and the Clinton administration’s appeal to multilateralism even he ended up rejecting key international treaties, launching military actions in Iraq and Kosovo without UN approval, and, continued insisting that we were an ‘indispensable nation.’ Reagan, Johnson, and Truman did the same. The last Bush administration did it even more.
Now, President Barack Obama is doing some of the same. In his Oslo Nobel acceptance speech, he too acknowledged that he cannot step outside the national sovereignty box. He did refer to the nonviolence of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi -- but he still devoted most of his remarks to defending the concept of war. Specifically the ‘war’ in Afghanistan. He said "We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes,"... "There will be times when nations - acting individually or in concert - will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified." So, our newest President still believes that wars can be morally justified -- if conducted in self-defense, as a last resort, and if the use of force is proportional, and if, whenever possible, collateral damage is avoided.
The problem with this interpretation of just-war theory is that it doesn’t fit the war in Afghanistan. There, it is not in self defense. The Taliban do not pose a threat to our national security and the few al-Qaeda remnants that remain can be relocate almost anywhere. Second, our military force there is far from proportional. The most powerful nation in the world is bombing one of the weakest. And civilians losses have not been light. Stephen Walt calculations suggest that our forces have killed between12,000-32,000 civilians in Afghanistan since 2002. We have lost fewer than 1,000 U.S. soldiers. Our Afghanistan war is still a war of choice.
At Oslo, Obama did reassure the Europeans that American policy would be fairer. "America cannot insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves," he said. "For when we don't, our action can appear arbitrary, and undercut the legitimacy of future intervention - no matter how justified." Obama satisfied many others by offering nuclear disarmament (but not today), closing Guantanamo (mostly), surging in Afghanistan (for now), bumping up military spending (a little), reducing CO2 emissions (but not much), and banning torture (but not rendition).
Essentially, it looks like the needed transformation of US foreign policy to achieve real peace is not in the cards. In The Cairo Detour, Farrah Hassen said "He didn't acknowledge the growing civilian casualties - not limited to but certainly increased by drone attacks, ostensibly aimed at dismantling the Taliban and al-Qaeda. These casualties have increased the risk of blowback against the United States rather than win the hearts and minds of Afghans, Pakistanis, and Muslims throughout the world."
The Obama Doctrine remains ‘multilateralism when we can’. And as long as we and the rest of the world rely on this fundamentally chaotic nature of national sovereignty…we will not know real peace or security. For peace/security is not a function of armaments or dis-armaments. It is a function of justice. And justice is a function of law. National sovereignty is neither just nor lawful. It is the system of lawlessness that has brought us two world wars, the cold war, dozens of small wars and genocides…and now the endless war on terrorism. Armageddon here we come.
The aggressive unilateralism of the last Bush administration was essentially business as usual. A US president withheld the right to do anything, to anyone, any time.
After the Cold War and the Clinton administration’s appeal to multilateralism even he ended up rejecting key international treaties, launching military actions in Iraq and Kosovo without UN approval, and, continued insisting that we were an ‘indispensable nation.’ Reagan, Johnson, and Truman did the same. The last Bush administration did it even more.
Now, President Barack Obama is doing some of the same. In his Oslo Nobel acceptance speech, he too acknowledged that he cannot step outside the national sovereignty box. He did refer to the nonviolence of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi -- but he still devoted most of his remarks to defending the concept of war. Specifically the ‘war’ in Afghanistan. He said "We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes,"... "There will be times when nations - acting individually or in concert - will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified." So, our newest President still believes that wars can be morally justified -- if conducted in self-defense, as a last resort, and if the use of force is proportional, and if, whenever possible, collateral damage is avoided.
The problem with this interpretation of just-war theory is that it doesn’t fit the war in Afghanistan. There, it is not in self defense. The Taliban do not pose a threat to our national security and the few al-Qaeda remnants that remain can be relocate almost anywhere. Second, our military force there is far from proportional. The most powerful nation in the world is bombing one of the weakest. And civilians losses have not been light. Stephen Walt calculations suggest that our forces have killed between12,000-32,000 civilians in Afghanistan since 2002. We have lost fewer than 1,000 U.S. soldiers. Our Afghanistan war is still a war of choice.
At Oslo, Obama did reassure the Europeans that American policy would be fairer. "America cannot insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves," he said. "For when we don't, our action can appear arbitrary, and undercut the legitimacy of future intervention - no matter how justified." Obama satisfied many others by offering nuclear disarmament (but not today), closing Guantanamo (mostly), surging in Afghanistan (for now), bumping up military spending (a little), reducing CO2 emissions (but not much), and banning torture (but not rendition).
Essentially, it looks like the needed transformation of US foreign policy to achieve real peace is not in the cards. In The Cairo Detour, Farrah Hassen said "He didn't acknowledge the growing civilian casualties - not limited to but certainly increased by drone attacks, ostensibly aimed at dismantling the Taliban and al-Qaeda. These casualties have increased the risk of blowback against the United States rather than win the hearts and minds of Afghans, Pakistanis, and Muslims throughout the world."
The Obama Doctrine remains ‘multilateralism when we can’. And as long as we and the rest of the world rely on this fundamentally chaotic nature of national sovereignty…we will not know real peace or security. For peace/security is not a function of armaments or dis-armaments. It is a function of justice. And justice is a function of law. National sovereignty is neither just nor lawful. It is the system of lawlessness that has brought us two world wars, the cold war, dozens of small wars and genocides…and now the endless war on terrorism. Armageddon here we come.
posted by Chuck Woolery at 11:46 PM
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