Whose Freedom?: The Battle over America's Most Important Idea Read online

  Progressives—at least the idealists among them—have exactly the opposite views on all these matters. Why? What brings progressives together on these foreign policy positions? And what do the answers have to do with different understandings of freedom?

  BILL CLINTON’S PRAGMATISM

  Progressive foreign policy has always had the dual democratic ideals of protecting our freedoms and extending them to others—where freedom is understood from a progressive perspective. During the Cold War, the ideal of extending freedom was overridden by “realism”—advancing our national interest in the military, economic, and political spheres, even when it meant dealing with dictators or closing our eyes to political oppression and even genocide.

  During the Clinton administration, a transition began. President Clinton at first refused to interfere in the Rwandan genocide since it was not in our vital national interest, and later regretted it for moral reasons, as he began to see the national interest served by moral action. Where George H. W. Bush refused to intervene in Bosnia, citing a lack of vital interests there (no oil), Clinton did use the American military in Bosnia and Kosovo, deciding that democratic idealism (stopping ethnic cleansing, extending freedom to others) did, in itself, serve our national interest. Indeed, there was a redefinition of the national interest under Clinton; for example, he attempted to add labor rights and environmental regulations to trade agreements—a form of democratic idealism: bringing our freedoms to other nations. The idea was that there would also be a benefit to the United States: Less cheap labor abroad competing with our labor force would take fewer jobs from the United States, thus helping American labor. Radical conservatives thwarted such progressive moves on labor and the environment.

  The Clinton approach had two parts: Clinton made a shift in the traditional priorities defining the national interest, giving priority to economics and diplomacy over the military whenever possible. Given this, Clinton took a pragmatic approach: Pursue the ideals, but only insofar as a case could be made that they independently served the national interest as he had redefined it to stress economics and diplomacy over the use of the military whenever possible, except for peacekeeping missions.

  This approach flew in the face of neoconservatives. The PNAC response to Clinton’s policies was predictable:

  Cuts in foreign affairs and defense spending, inattention to the tools of statecraft, and inconstant leadership are making it increasingly difficult to sustain American influence around the world. And the promise of short-term commercial benefits threatens to override strategic considerations.

  Clinton had been educated in “realist” Cold War policies and considered himself a centrist. In addition, he had to deal with a radically conservative Republican Congress. Nonetheless, he made moves in the direction of progressive idealism.

  PROGRESSIVE IDEALISM

  One can best understand the progressive approach to foreign policy by looking at it in its purest form: progressive idealism, where the democratic ideal (protecting our freedoms and extending them to others) defines the national interest. Protecting our freedoms means real protection from terrorism, and a lot more: protection of workers, consumers, and the environment built into trade agreements; protecting jobs by minimizing outsourcing; protecting civil liberties.

  To see what it means to export our freedoms to other countries, let us start at the center of progressive thought—empathy and responsibility—with the implied values of protection, fairness, fulfillment, opportunity, community, and trust. In foreign policy, empathy means empathizing with people of other nations—with individual citizens, not with states. It means wanting those in other countries to have the progressive freedoms we either have or are pursuing here.

  Many of the world’s most urgent problems are not now considered part of foreign policy at all, because they are below the level of the state. Yet those issues persist with greater and greater urgency around the world: women’s rights, children’s rights, refugee issues, labor rights, public health, and, of course, hunger and poverty. Empathy and responsibility, the central progressive values, turn these global problems into foreign policy problems as part of extending our progressive freedoms to the world.

  A good example is freedom for women: the freedom to vote, freedom from forced circumcision, the freedom to have a private sexual life, the freedom to marry who you want to marry, the freedom to pursue an education, the freedom to have a career, the freedom to function in public as men do—drive a car, wear the clothes you want, etc. This is usually not considered part of foreign policy. But for progressives it is part of what foreign policy needs to be.

  Extending progressive freedoms to others means changing foreign policy drastically—looking below the level of the state, in case after case. Freedom for working people means freedom from cheap labor traps, freedom from inhuman working conditions, freedom to get an education, freedom to get capital to start a small business. Extending our freedoms abroad means bringing into foreign policy issues like hunger and poverty, the global environment, refugee horrors, world health—issues tackled by international agencies, some associated with the UN. Working with international agencies and the UN and helping to make those institutions more effective in these areas become foreign policy responsibilities.

  Here is what progressive foreign policy, based on an empathy-and-responsibility perspective on morality, entails:

  Avoiding war whenever possible—removing war as an instrument of policy. In war, enormous numbers of noncombatants—women, children, and the aged—get killed and maimed. Families are destroyed, homes are destroyed, infrastructure is destroyed, with disastrous consequences for individuals, especially the poor.

  War must be an absolute last resort. This means maximizing the use of diplomatic and economic solutions. It also means rethinking the military—keeping war as an option but redirecting the military to peacekeeping and disaster relief.

  Torture must be outlawed and eliminated. Even on pragmatic grounds, it does not yield reliable intelligence, and it is morally abhorrent.

  International treaties, such as the nuclear test ban treaty, should be honored and extended. Nuclear weapons development should end; the use of any nuclear weapons is unthinkably dangerous. The use of so-called depleted uranium should end. It is misnamed; its radioactivity is not “depleted.” It is still radioactive. Its use is ubiquitous in the U.S. military. It poisons our own troops, and used shells are left all over Iraq, poisoning the people we are supposedly freeing.

  Private contractors should not take over military functions; they have no accountability for what they do. The National Guard should not be used to fight wars abroad; they are not properly trained, are needed at home, and did not sign up for such duty.

  The empathy and responsibility that extend our freedom to others turn free trade into fair trade: avoiding cheap labor traps abroad, preserving indigenous ways of life, preserving nature, preventing monocultures, greatly limiting the power of transnational corporations to govern the lives of people in the third world, keeping clean water freely available, preventing the theft of the mineral wealth of a country so that a fair share goes to the people of that country—in short, maximizing for others the everyday freedoms we either enjoy or seek for ourselves, while also maximizing the benefits of trade.

  Trade issues have been inhibiting our ability to extend our freedoms to others. Internet companies like Yahoo and AOL are helping the Chinese to censor Internet content and are even turning over the names of people engaged in “subversive” online activity. The cost of doing business is supporting the suppression of free speech. Our government should be supporting American companies in resisting such suppression, instead of using the same means to spy on our own citizens.

  Terrorism should be seen in terms of crime, not war, and fought in the most positive and least violent way. The war in Iraq increased terrorism by creating new terrorists. To work against Islamic terrorism, we should be supporting extensive networks of moderate Islamic schools to replac
e madrasas. Indeed, there should be overwhelming support for the development and popularization of moderate Islam. The financial support coming from Saudi Arabia should be cut off. The intelligence agencies need to hire more Arabic speakers. Arabic should be taught widely in this country and there should be cultural missions to Islamic countries.

  Empathy and responsibility extend not just to other individuals, or just to human beings, but further to the earth itself as a biological system and all the living things on it. This means, among other things, recognizing the reality of global warming, perhaps the greatest threat to the earth as we know it. We should be working with other countries to cut down on the use of fossil fuels and should put in place a massive program to develop alternative energy sources. Such a program would have important foreign policy consequences. It would vastly reduce our dependence on Middle East oil. New energy technologies could be marketed, or given away, to developing countries; they would then not have to buy oil, or borrow the money to buy oil, or clean up the mess from using oil. Because clean energy is available everywhere, every country has the potential to be an energy producer, not a consumer.

  The cost to our country of maintaining an oil-based economy has been enormous—not just the cost of the oil itself but also the cost in lives lost, in bodies maimed, and in money misspent. Dependence on oil must end.

  Defending our freedoms requires real homeland security; under Bush, a vast amount has been spent with little effect. Our ports, railways, and chemical plants are not safe. Hurricane Katrina showed that we are not prepared for disasters, natural or otherwise. This lack of preparedness is a matter of radical conservative policy: Defund agencies like FEMA that function for the public good; hire private industry; use the military; ignore the needs of people impoverished by disaster, who, if they had been disciplined enough, would be okay and who have only themselves to blame if they’re not. This attitude is despicable. We must rethink homeland security seriously from a progressive perspective, correcting all the conservative defects in the policy.

  We do not defend our freedoms by giving up our freedoms. At Bush’s directive, intelligence agencies have been spying on our citizens without warrants. We have been jailing people without charges or due process. This must end. The defense and spread of conservative freedom is the death of progressive, traditional American freedom.

  PART IV

  IDEAS AND ACTION

  12

  BUSH’S “FREEDOM”

  Bush’s second inaugural address was a work of rhetorical art. More than half of the time, the use of “freedom,” “free,” and “liberty” was in a context neutral enough to fit the simple, uncontested sense—or either the progressive or conservative senses. The words could mean whatever one wanted them to mean, depending on one’s political leanings. Many of Bush’s phrases could have been said by a Democrat with the opposite policies.

  Sentence by sentence, they sounded like traditional patriotic language. Even a liberal as sophisticated as Elaine Kamarck was taken in. But Bush was speaking in the context of defending his controversial policies. This made it seem as if his policies fit the traditional sense of freedom—which, as we have seen, they clearly do not.

  While much of the time Bush was using a vague idea of freedom, he also made specific references to right-wing freedom, evoking the frames of the radical conservatives. There is the reference to “the force of human freedom,” linking freedom to the use of force. He warns us that freedom faces a dangerous threat: The “survival of liberty” reinforces his claim that the Iraq War is part of a war for our survival. The use of “liberty” within the American context is an appeal to conservative populists and an inherent attack on liberals who criticize the war and, in Bush’s view, threaten our survival. The “survival of liberty” also evokes the idea that liberals who oppose the war are enemies of America.

  The association of democracy and freedom with fundamentalist Christianity and creationism is made by reference to “the Maker of Heaven and earth,” followed up by “the imperative of self-government,” where “imperative” suggests obedience to God’s commandments. The fundamentalist battle of good against evil is echoed in “life is fragile, and evil is real …”

  Right-wing economic freedom and the economic liberty myth are evoked in the section implicitly attacking Social Security through reference to “the ownership society.” The curious phrase “preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society” suggests that we are now economic slaves to the government, implicitly echoes the right-wing cry for “economic freedom,” and touches on the theme that discipline is required for prosperity. The right-wing idea that only the disciplined deserve prosperity and the freedom it brings is reinforced by the use of the code word “character”: “the public interest depends on private character.” The suggestion is that liberal elites are destroying the fabric of morality in America. Then, the heart of strict father morality: “Self-government relies, in the end, on the government of the self,” as we discussed. Neoconservative missionary foreign policy is then telegraphed in the important sentence “America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one.” And, nearing the end, creationism is tied to patriotism by invoking “the Author of Liberty.”

  There are mostly uncontested uses of “freedom” and “liberty” in support, via context, of a highly contested policy, sprinkled through with the full range of right-wing uses of “freedom” and “liberty.” The effect is to help commandeer both the word and the idea.

  Here is the context. Bush has just been reelected, running on his post-9/11 record and the war in Iraq as the person most likely to defend the country against terrorist attack. But it has come out, through leaks from former insiders, that he intended to attack Iraq from the first week he came into office. No weapons of mass destruction were found, and it appears that intelligence was doctored or twisted in order to marshal support for the war. Democrats have called the war one of “choice,” not “necessity.”

  At this second gathering, our duties are defined not by the words I use, but by the history we have seen together.

  “The history we have seen together” is 9/11 and the events that followed. But the words he uses are intended to reframe the context: These events defined certain duties for us, which we ignore at our peril. His “duties” include assuming war powers (extraordinary authority given to this president) and going to war in Iraq. The claim is that those war powers are “duties” thrust upon him by external events beyond his control, rather than powers assumed by fiat. “The history we have seen together” suggests a common knowledge and understanding of events, while in fact the reverse is true—the account of events is considerably contested.

  For a half century, America defended our own freedom by standing watch on distant borders.

  This ignores the Vietnam War, our experience closest to the Iraq War, where we were driven out of the country with huge losses.

  After the shipwreck of communism came years of relative quiet, years of repose, years of sabbatical—and then there came a day of fire.

  The Clinton administration’s energetic shift toward the economic over the military, both at home and in diplomacy, is seen as inaction—”quiet,” “repose,” “sabbatical”—leaving behind one’s duties and work, as if the country were asleep and nothing was happening during the greatest economic boom and period of optimism in our history. Clinton’s military containment of Saddam Hussein inside Iraq’s no-fly zones, which indeed succeeded in keeping Saddam Hussein from developing weapons of mass destruction, is ignored. The successful uses of the military in Bosnia and Kosovo are also ignored. The idea is that the country was ignoring a gathering military threat. “And then there came a day of fire” refers to 9/11 using the religious language and rhetoric of Revelation:

  We have seen our vulnerability—and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny—prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder—violence will
gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat.

  “Simmer” repeats “fire” and suggests that “whole regions of the world” might spark a conflagration. The image is apocalyptic! The ultimate causes are “tyranny” (the absence of democracy) and “resentment” (an echo of “they hate our freedoms” as Bush’s explanation of the 9/11 attack). There is no discussion of Osama bin Laden citing the American military bases in Saudi Arabia as a major cause for the attack, and protecting oil interests as a rationale for the Saudi bases. There is no discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

  There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.

  We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

  “America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one.”

  The frame imposed is tyranny versus freedom “in all the world.” We are threatened from around the world. “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands … the expansion of freedom in all the world.”

  This is neoconservative foreign policy in missionary language, joined to the traditional “beacon of freedom” idea, although traditionally the “beacon” was planted on our shores and didn’t go out and preemptively attack other countries. This is an idealist foreign policy, contrasting with the old realist foreign policy that “contained” tyrants and minimized their effect until they could be internally overthrown.