US and European Foreign Policy – the Blunder of Liberal Interventionism continues with Libya

Peoples have a moral right to political self-determination; (nation-) States have a juridical right to sovereignty and territorial integrity. 

 

The political mistake of consistently violating this main idea continues now, after the surge of international military interventions into sovereign nations' internal affairs in the 1990s, with Libya. Apart from the unwise decision to commit to intervening in Libya, the decision to intervene by establishing a no-fly zone came too late; the objective is unclear; the conduct of the operation is flawed. The Western coalition is neglecting a fundamental principle of the philosophy of just war – war should be waged only be waged if there is proportionality between objectives and cost. In other words, the damage and suffering the war causes should not be more significant than the hurt and suffering it aims to avert.

 

To prevent interventions by the international community into sovereign nations' domestic affairs, the United Nations Charter introduced and acknowledged the sovereign equality of all nations. The United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2131 of December 21, 1965, reemphasizes this principle once again: "No state has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatsoever, in the internal or external affairs of another State. Consequently, armed intervention and all other forms of interference or attempted threats against the personality of the State or against its political, economic, or cultural elements are condemned." 

 

This stipulation is a morally valid norm in a global society. As is currently the case in Libya, a government quelling violent political uprisings or revolutionary attempts that aim at its overthrow does not constitute a justifiable cause for intervention. A State can only lose the fundamental State right of sovereignty if a government commits crimes against humanity in the sense of religious or ethnic cleansing or pogroms on certain parts of its population. Cracking down on insurgents and revolutionaries does not fall under this category. 

 

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, Western powers have begun to violate this principle profoundly. National uprisings received support by outright forceful intervention in some countries, but not in others. Apart from military feasibility considerations, ideological bias was the primary incentive for interventions.

Western powers began to breach the principle of national sovereignty during Yugoslavia's disintegration in the early 1990s. After they prematurely acknowledged the former Yugoslav provinces as independent nation-states, the subsequently fledgling states that had just seceded from the former Yugoslav Republic needed help. Thus was the NATO 1995 bombing in Bosnia and Herzegovina vindicated in the wake of the Srebrenica Massacre's apparent horrors. In the two years prior, despite an imposed no-flight zone by NATO, the war had raged on unrestrictedly on the ground before American and NATO airstrikes of Operation Deliberate Force finally paved the way for the 1995 Dayton Peace Accord. 

A few years later, Liberal Interventionism continued, as always for allegedly humanitarian reasons, in Kosovo. After Serbian police and military forces cracked down on Albanian freedom fighters (the Kosovo Liberation Army/KLA), the Euro-Atlantic alliance suddenly felt compelled to embark upon an air-campaign to prevent a humanitarian disaster and take out Serbian forces. Nobody mentioned that the KLA had advanced their case in Kosovo with violent means. Their acts of cruelties underlined the KLA's unjustifiable use of violent means. The reversal of cause and effect, in both ethical as well as political terms, was palpable. There is a good reason and evidence to believe that intervention caused increased bloodshed and intensified ethnic cleansing in both instances, at least in the short term, thus aggravating the humanitarian crisis it intended to prevent in the first place.

 

The same appears to be happening in Libya now. Encouraged by events in Egypt, a dubious group of insurgents, yet to be defined in their ethnic, religious, and political composition, seek to oust Muammar Qaddafi's regime. The callous Qaddafi did not kill his people before the uprising broke out. And he did not attack another country or neglect UN-resolutions over years and years. He crushed an uprising which every political leader – authoritarian or otherwise – would have done. There are no national interests at stake for the US and the EU. There is no humanitarian necessity for intervention, and there is no need to establish a no-fly zone. 

 

The reason for this ignorance in security matters owes to an unbearable unawareness about political theory, international affairs, and the nature of the armed conflict. Neither liberal left nor libertarian right, on both sides of the Atlantic, has ever understood the business of war. When dealing with political violence and armed struggle, they either do too much or too little. In the case of the current political administration in the US, this ignorance manifests itself in a lack of a consistent foreign policy strategy, exacerbated by an astonishing lack of leadership capability on the part of the president. 

 

If it consoles Mr. Obama or anybody, I shall mention that he is not alone. Some heads of government in the European Union contend for the number one ranking in committing foreign policy blunder.

Right becomes Wrong – Arizona Immigration Law Turned Down!

People are holding up a sign that shows an American flag in which the fifty stars are replaced by a swastika, thus claiming their protest against the Arizona Immigration Law! Mexicans are happily embracing each other because a federal judge has just turned down the core elements of this law, depriving it of its most essential elements for enhanced immigration enforcement in Arizona! 

 

There can be no doubt anymore! The right has become wrong; straight is now crooked; common sense turned into no(n)sense; the upstanding transforms into insincerity; upswing into downturn! What is the reason for all this? Why is it that the longer we walk toward the future in our civilization, the more we step backward, deteriorate, decline? 

One reason is the ubiquitous arbitrariness of values and convictions, generated and driven solely by individual and self-centered aspirations, making people lose sight of more comprehensive perspectives. Another reason is that educational institutions and processes no longer convey the profound foundation for understanding political issues on more or less all levels of schooling, teaching, and instruction. Who has learned about the subsidiary principle, the history of ideas of statehood, forms of state and government, division of powers, genesis, purpose, and necessity of state organization and state institutions? The knowledge about the holistic underpinning of Western culture alone provides the foundation for independent thinking and judgment.

The philosophical reason for the misconceptions of immigration and immigration control lies in what we might call a neo-cosmopolitan idea. It claims the individual human being, not the (nation-) state, to be the protagonist in interstate and international relations. While the traditional position sees the (nation-) state as the moral actor in political affairs through which individual rights can be guaranteed, the neo-cosmopolitan stance stipulates a radical reduction of state-sovereignty. It promotes the idea of a global social contract. Indeed, this position presupposes the state to be a mere transient circumstance of political relations whose regulatory and hindering mechanisms – such as borders and stringent immigration policies – stand in the way of individual freedom. 

 

For people thinking – or rather intuitively opinionating – along these lines, citizens' interests within the boundaries of any given (nation-) state are not and must not be considered superior or more exclusive vis-à-vis any other individual that stands outside these limits. For them, not the nation is the subject of the ius gentium, the law of nations, and the protagonist of international relations, but rather the individual human being. There are no international relations at the end of the day. It is only the individual who has and may stipulate legal claims in a global society's cosmopolitan community. This democratic universalism builds the nucleus of this particular strand of political thinking that rejects nation-states' right and political necessity to uphold clear rights (and duties) for their citizens and due process for attaining citizenship. 

 

Both positions – the traditional and the cosmopolitan – promote individual rights and are rooted in the normative ontology of individualism and human rights. However, the difference lies in what each side considers to be the protagonist of political relations. The traditional approach accepts the organization of the (nation-) state as the inevitable perennial model for the protection and promotion of human and individual rights and a potentially peaceful international order. The position of political cosmopolitanism considers the Westphalia nation-state model to be an instrument of oppression and failure that stands in the way of individual liberty and progress. phantasm

 

It would go far beyond the purview of this brief essay to outline all the epistemological, ontological, anthropological, and historical reasons why a world republic will forever remain a romantic illusion. Language and religion have been named two more pragmatic reasons for the impossibility of establishing a global society, no longer divided up by state boundaries and national confinements. The nation-state's condition, clearly defined by territorial borders and distinct legal order, is and will be the best form for a just social order in which the individual's rights are promoted and protected at the same time. We can only base a functional and indeed humane world order on the constitution of (nation-) states and their behavior toward each other guided by an international legal order. It is precisely through international relations that the community of states influences one another and promotes, by way of public opinion, diplomacy, and yes, under specific circumstances, forceful intervention into domestic affairs of a nation, the protection of individual human rights. 

 

The current political debate in the US shows that not even the federal government's exponents are aware of this circumstance. A liberal bias seems to precede the observance of one of the core purposes and tasks of any (nation-) state – to protect its borders and provide security and safety for its citizens. But the misperceptions in this particular regard join hands with the neglect of another essential principle of good governance – the principle of subsidiarity. The subsidiarity principle says that the level of (political) organization that is best able to deal with a task efficiently should take care of that task. While constitutional and federal rules should guide immigration and immigration enforcement, there is no doubt that particular regions and states face specific challenges that need countering in different and proportional ways. The immigration situation for states like California, Arizona, or Texas is different. The federal government must grant those states some leeway in how they safeguard and enforce federal immigration laws. 

 

It makes one wonder why immigration, while it clearly should allow for regional arrangements, is dominated by federal mandate. It astounds even more how liberal bias and political correctness undermines genuine police work. 

 

The results of these failed policies are apparent, and recent developments prove the authority of the outlined arguments. The case of Arizona attests that states take matters into their own hands when the federal government falls short of necessary relegation they should derive from the principle of subsidiarity.

Shameful decision by federal judge in California!

The decision of a federal judge in California to overturn Proposition 8 and rule that the State's ban on same-sex marriages violates the constitutional right to equal protection is but one more proof that our culture's moral underpinning is in severe danger.

 What underlies this and, more or less, all socially contested issues is both an undifferentiated misconception and misuse of the principle of equality. This tendency in the political and juridical realms must be considered the most pernicious trend that has begun to destroy American and Western culture's social fabric.

In addition to the philosophical misconception of the equality notion, ideological strategies are applied in the public and political realms to insulate the concept and prevent a critical debate from taking hold. Whoever attempts to question equality aspirations is denigrated as discriminating, antiquated, a violator of human rights. As far as the issue of same-sex marriages is concerned, even as homophobic. This intolerable state of public debate needs urgent change. The essential prerequisite for a turnaround would be the proper theoretical understanding of the notion of equality, as only sound theory can ultimately provide for good (political) practice.

It is clear that in terms of their human dignity, all men are equal – male and female, people of any ethnic descent, skin color or sexual orientation, infants and geriatrics, everybody. Yet, in addition to their biological and sexual differences, all humans are different regarding their concrete way of being. How would we otherwise justify different income levels, responsibilities and entitlements, property, and tenure?

For the proper dealing with equality, it is thus inevitable to differentiate two levels of equality – the formal or primary one, on which all men are equal; and the factual or secondary one, based on the former, differentiation and disparities are allowed. This fact grasped, equality clearly forbids a schematic equal treatment and not only affords but even demands differentiations that have to be justified by objective and factual rationales. The only thing the principle of equality forbids is arbitrary and groundless differentiation.

It is the perennial task of politics and its legislative and juridical proponents – at any given time and any stage of societal development – to decide which differences are justifiable and which are not. This principle defines what is meant by social justice and demonstrates that a one-dimensional concept of equality must not be confused with justice. (Social) justice can only happen when the two levels of equality – the formal-normative and the factual-contextual – are reconciled and synthesized on objective grounds.

Only the violation of formal equality's outer boundaries or absence of a factually evident reason for any stipulated regulation violates the principle of equality.

This outlined dualism of form and content forbids the schematic treatment of gender issues and any other aspect of social disparity, including the issue of same-sex marriages. To treat the latter different from traditional marriage does not at all violate the principle of equality. The (moral) imperative to upkeep traditional marriage in its exclusivity in both its respects – as a religious sacrament and a civil union – derives from the idea that every social claim has to be designated its proper place in the cultural cosmos of (occidental) values and credos. This cultural underpinning cannot and must not be altered by impulses of individual hedonism and personal gratification, which seem to have become the driving social forces in our societies. Instead, the stakes of the common good and humanistic considerations have got to return to our public, political, and legal discourses.

 But in the given context, we must not deceive ourselves over the fact that it is about more than the desire to satisfy individual sensitivities and personal preferences when it comes to the claims of the gay communities and particularly same-sex marriages. When we deal with gender issues and related topics, we face actions that aim to create new power structures and identity designs, intending to alter our societies substantially. The termination of the traditional binary gender code in the name of equal treatment and anti-discrimination, as a precondition for the destruction of traditional marriage, is supposed to pave the way for an amorphous society that allows for all possible combinations of social coexistence and ways of life.

An adequate understanding of equality is necessary to grasp the issue in all its far-reaching implications, comprehend its multi-faceted impact on society, and unmask the ideological strategies pushing the problem in the various societal contexts.

It appears to be utterly essential to revive and preserve the fundamental values of gender relations and deny arbitrary designs of same-sex unions to being put on level par with traditional forms of human cohabitation. The importance of the issue is paramount and rests at the core of our cultural identity. We will soon find out if our collective social reason will recover the strength to overcome the onslaught of the impertinent forces of irresponsible social engineering and reverse the course of moral deconstruction.

A California federal judge's recent decision is one more example of why we must not leave same-sex marriages to regional sentiments and state legislatures' arbitrariness. It will not be long until federal constitutional regulations must settle the issue in a way with which the entire nation can live..

Don’t End the Ban on Gays in the Military!

The U.S.'s military establishment is about to become a tool for progressive social change or, at least, is about to provide a platform for it. If the military is lifting the ban on LGBT people, it will actively contribute to destroying one central pillar of Western social culture – the fundamental value of distinctive gender relations. If a powerful societal entity like the military organization puts gays and transgender on level par, it will contribute to the termination of the traditional binary gender code and accelerate the ongoing process of social decline.
 
However, those who object to the abolition of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" on the part of the military follow a treacherous line of argumentation, merely based on considerations of utility and efficacy. High-ranking representatives of the U.S. Military, i.e., Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and U.S. Marine Corps General James Conway, use exclusively utilitarian and consequentialist arguments. Conway, who disagrees with Mullen and goes up against Barack Obama's plan to repeal the ban, judge the issue from the viewpoint of whether or not openly serving gays would enhance or diminish the warfighting capabilities of U.S. Forces. But the political side uses the same shortsighted reasons. As but one example, Senator Joe Lieberman expects to find out from the current policy review process if allowing gays to serve openly would bolster the military's battle readiness.
 
But neither the ongoing warfighting in Iraq and Afghanistan nor the combat readiness question should decide the issue. The primary reasons for continuing the policy of banning open gays from serving in the military are much more profound. They rest beneath the superficial surface of expediency and useful practicality and have to do with our cultural identity. With the dissolution of a coherent societal order due to the increasing infiltration of arbitrary notions of individual hedonism and personal gratification into our social, political, and legal life, the moral decline of western societies has already reached new and alarming heights. As one of the last bastions of traditional order in any political community, the military establishment must not subject itself to undifferentiated equal treatment policies. It is paramount that it resists the onslaught of all those forces that promote social engineering and moral deconstruction. We have to be aware that gays and transgender people's claims are not exclusively about their desire to satisfy individual sensitivities and personal preferences. They also aim to create new power structures and identity designs that intend to alter our societies substantially. 

Therefore, it is apparent that the policy of banning openly gay and transgender people in the military ought to stay in place. However, implemented policies must support the prevention of abuse to escape from mission duress and warfighting tasks. A "well-timed revelation" of gay sexual orientation to that effect must result not merely in immediate and opportune discharge from the military but also in severe penalties that serve as a deterrent and serious obstacle against abuse.

U.S. Healthcare – A Political Debate Gone Astray

The current health care debate appears stuck between two irreconcilable positions – government-provided single-payer health care for all versus private health care chosen voluntarily from a competitive environment of health insurance companies. 

 

Neither of these approaches emphasizes what is decisive for an efficient and affordable reorganization of the health care system in the U.S. and everywhere else – the factor that every citizen, without exemption, must be obliged to be health insured. How the individual provides health insurance is of secondary importance; the primary concern is that every individual must be health insured. It should not depend on the private and personal initiative of whether one is insured or not. To put this obligation in legislative terms is as far as government guidance should go; to support those who cannot afford health insurance is as far as government intervention must go. 

 

People must understand that sickness and injury do not depend on a healthy lifestyle and youth alone. The transcendent aspect of human life, this particular dimension of life upon which we have no bearing, applies to everyone, is self-evident beyond all differences in faith and existential designs. We all know of friends, relatives, or acquaintances who suddenly got struck by cancer, got injured in a car accident, or came down with some unexpected illness that nobody could have possibly foreseen. 

 

In principle, the crux of health care is easy to comprehend. Everybody who works and has income must pay into some health insurance system covering him (plus all his dependents like spouse and children). Everybody who has no work or is otherwise unemployed and unable to care for himself has got to be insured by way of social support. A specific part of unemployment or retirement or disability benefits has got to go straight into health insurance coverage in the latter case.

 

The major flaw in the health reform model promoted by the Democrats is demanding government-provided, single health care coverage for everybody instead of affording it only to those who cannot pay coverage for themselves. The major flaw in the health reform models promoted by Republicans is rejecting government intervention as endangerment of civil liberty or considering it even to be unconstitutional. They neglect that single-care coverage through government support for unemployed and no-income people is essential for social stability and overall societal well-being, as is the legal obligation for everybody else to provide for their health care coverage.

 

The government could provide all of this without changing the current state of affairs of competing insurance companies by subsidizing private insurance companies for those who cannot buy their health insurance. This arrangement would provide social stability as far as the most pressing social issue of nationwide healthcare for every citizen is concerned without implementing a new system of entirely restructured nationalized health care and without colossal budgetary expenditures. 

 

When it comes to health care, there is no reason to violate the perennial principle of good governance – as much government as necessary, as little government as possible!