Unless this guy is blowing some serious smoke, i don't know where the 'liberal' label comes from, DW.
He professes no love for the left.
- Gabe
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THE SOVEREIGNTY CON
By RALPH PETERS
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February 3, 2003 -- WHEN you appear in the broadcast media, amid the snarls and wails, self-control helps you sell your ideas. Yet I do not regret the time I lost my temper on the air.
During the Kosovo fuss, I appeared on a talk show with the editor of a lefty journal whose motto should be, "The truth is irrelevant." The editor blathered on about American aggression and how Milosevic's Yugoslavia was a sovereign state in which the United States had no right to intervene, no matter what was done inside its borders.
I blew up. Unlike left-wing extremists, I'm not very good at finding excuses for genocide, mass rape and torture. I pointed out that, by her standards, Hitler would have been just fine if he had limited himself to killing German Jews.
For perhaps the first time in history, a left-wing scribbler found herself at a loss for words.
At the beginning of a new century, the United States needs to revolutionize international relations. The Bush administration has already begun to do this on a practical level by pursuing terrorists around the world, bringing down the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and preparing to depose Saddam Hussein. Still, we need to move beyond our current piecemeal approach, to forge a new American doctrine on sovereignty.
Today, claims of territorial sovereignty by dictators and illegitimate regimes amount to the biggest con in history. No matter how unfairly borders are drawn, no matter how monstrously tyrants behave toward their populations, no matter how ruthlessly a strongman seizes power, the world pretends that those who hold the reins in the capital city are entitled to do whatever they want on their own territory.
The current system is the greatest collective violation of human rights in our time. The United States must shatter this antiquated scam designed by kings and princes to protect their personal fiefdoms. In the 21st century, a government must earn its right to claim sovereignty.
How? By working for the benefit of its citizens, not just for the privileges of a small, armed elite. By respecting the dignity of its people, including its minorities. By providing for its citizens, instead of stealing from them. By allowing them to speak freely and to live without fear of their own government. Above all, a state must earn its right to sovereign borders by adhering to universal standards of human rights.
And don't try to tell me that human rights are relative. We all know better. We may argue about the morality of the death penalty, but we can all agree that mass murder is unacceptable. Torture is not a cultural tradition, nor is mass rape merely a social construct. Yes, there are nuances. But on the level that matters internationally, we all know human-rights violations when we encounter them.
Leftists, clinging to their memories of protests past, will object that America has no right to judge others, that we violate human rights ourselves. That's nonsense, and we all know it.
Next, the lefties will warn of "slippery slopes" and American imperialism. That's nonsense, too. Deposing Saddam does not lead inexorably to the invasion of Sweden.
To the left's horror, today's international revolutionaries are on the political right. The left wing represents the ancien regime: old slogans, old prejudices and badly failed approaches to security and human rights. American "conservatives" are the driving force behind overdue global reforms.
And we are led by a president who appears to have recognized an obvious truth resisted by the left: The human rights of one dictator are not more important than the human rights of the tens of millions of citizens he oppresses.
What could say more about the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the left, here and abroad, than its defense of Saddam, of the Taliban, of international terrorists and of every thug who wins a game of capture-the-flag in the developing world?
The Bush administration has a chance to pioneer an international system of tiered sovereignties that would strip tyrants and their apologists of their current, horribly unjust diplomatic defenses.
It should work like this:
Level One: Every government, from Mexico to India, that respects the will of its people through democratic institutions, works for the betterment of its citizens, demonstrates progress toward respect for human rights and strives toward the rule of law deserves continued recognition of its full, legal sovereignty.
Level Two: States that cannot control their own territory, that lack the ability to protect their own citizens or to prevent international terrorists and other criminals from using their territory as a refuge, would be able to claim only partial sovereignty. More capable, rule-of-law states would have the right to intervene for limited purposes to bring killers and other criminals to justice. In every other respect, these weak, but well-intentioned states would enjoy the traditional privileges and protections of sovereignty.
Level Three: Regimes that refuse to enforce the rule of law inside their borders, that knowingly harbor terrorists and criminals, that behave aggressively toward their neighbors or that abuse their own citizens would forfeit their territorial sovereignty and their right to govern. Period.
Of course, dozens of United Nations members would howl, given their own governmental inadequacies, their addiction to corruption and their present ability to get away with murder in the most literal sense. But we must recognize that the majority of the voices in the United Nations do not represent the majority of their own populations. The United Nations has become a travesty, a talkathon for tyrants. We must forge ahead, regardless of criticism.
If President Bush has the vision to see through the sovereignty con and to begin to dismantle the diplomatic defenses that coddle dictators, we just might live to see the day when a majority of the world's states will accept the self-evident truth that every government should be of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Ralph Peters is a frequent Post contributor and the author, most recently, of "Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World."
