November 18, 2014--Minding Our Business

Briefly--

Why is it that every president since at least Harry Truman, when abroad, feels the need to lecture other leaders about human rights?

Most recently Barack Obama in China where he chided his host, President Xi Jinping, about stifling political dissent in Hong Kong, then during a quick visit to Myanmar he gently prodded fellow Nobel Prize winner Daw Aung San Suu Kyi about her country's resistance to power sharing with the opposition, and then a day or two later at the G-20 summit in Australia where he again took Vladimir Putin to task for Russia's incursions in Ukraine.

Without doubt, China, Russia, Myanmar, and a host of other countries could do a lot better. A lot. But is it our place to criticize them about their human rights crimes and misdemeanors?

Back in the old Cold War days in response to our constant hammering on abuses in the repressive Soviet Union, though God knows there was much to point out, Soviet leaders such as Nikita Khrushchev were equally quick to retort that we were hypocritical, that we had human rights problems of our own, most notable that there was still government sanctioned and imposed segregation that kept Negroes "in their place" and Native Americans mainly confined to arid reservations.

And today, if they were inclined (and Putin certainly has been--severely criticizing us as the cause of most of the problems in today's Middle East) they could point out that after six years of the Obama presidency Guantanamo is still operating, U.S. citizens are routinely spied on by many government agencies, and poverty and inequality are worsening.

I know that one reason American leaders feel it necessary to criticize the records of others--even when being hosted by them--is to demonstrate to the rightwing back home that they are tough enough to stand up to our adversaries while trumpeting our alleged "exceptionalism."

My question to traveling presidents--In a dangerously fractured world, where we should be seeking to reduce tensions even with leaders we despise (Putin comes to mind), do we need another Cold War, do we want to chill further relations with our major trading partner and debt holder (China), do we want more Westerners to be beheaded in Iraq, do we want to find peaceful ways to keep Iran from getting The Bomb?

I am more and more attracted to Henry-Kissinger-style realpolitik--diplomacy based primarily on power and practical and material considerations rather than on ideological notions or ethical premises.

Just as we hate it when others point fingers at us, it's time for us get off our proverbial high horse.