The Moral Plank

Callimachus at Done With Mirrors reminds of a time when the Republican party put a plank into its platform requiring that foreign policy be done in accordance with moral principles. It was a reaction by the Reagan wing of the party to the so-called realpolitik of the Kissinger-run State department. The repudiation of the "realists", if you will.

When I read over the "moral foreign policy" passage in the platform today, I can see how much of it was tailored by "Reagan's Raiders" to specifically embarrass Ford, and how much of it was crafted with an eye to the immediate realities of the Cold War. Jesse Helms, among others whom nobody ever accused of being politically high-minded, had a hand in shaping it.

But there it is: Unintended consequences and all.

The goal of Republican foreign policy is the achievement of liberty under law and a just and lasting peace in the world. The principles by which we act to achieve peace and to protect the interests of the United States must merit the restored confidence of our people……

…….Finally, we are firmly committed to a foreign policy in which secret agreements, hidden from our people, will have no part.

Honestly, openly, and with firm conviction, we shall go forward as a united people to forge a lasting peace in the world based upon our deep belief in the rights of man, the rule of law and guidance by the hand of God.

…….People say now we're at the end of the curve that began in Kansas City that August. That George W. Bush has run that ship on the rocks, and we'll go happily back to realpolitik. People who lay claim to the compassion of others merrily advocate pulling out of Iraq the better to let the Sunnis and Shi'ites butcher one another, as though that conflict was rooted in the people's desires and not propelled from the top down. What are they to us, after all? Just more surly brown people.

The same people who lay claim to having an abundance of compassion have no problem, it seems, with igniting a bloodbath. Because they can point their fingers and say it was someone else who started it. They wash their hands of it, and do not notice that they are washing them in blood.They have no problem saying they believe in human freedom but also cheerfully advocate closing off free trade. Even though there is ample evidence that free trade policies do more to lift the world's poor out of misery than do all the handouts and debt-relief measures they advance as solutions. Those ideas serve only to reward poor governance. But they wash their hands again, this time in the blood of the starving poor they don't really notice. They advocate endless negotiations with tyrannical regimes despite the fact that those negotiations in the past have never solved anything. And they wash their hands in yet more rivers of blood in the aftermath when the negotiated "solution" fails.

Because the realpolitik is easier than morality. Pushing the problems off to future generations is easier than dealing with the situations today. Pressing the next war onto other's sons and daughters or grandchildren is easier than dealing with hard facts. For these are not the people who volunteer to defend or fight for their country. These are the people who look to others to do that when their ideas and policies are found wanting. But they will screech and point fingers at their defenders when the time comes and ignore the other players in the war and their depredations. Indulging in feel good policies at home is easier – oh, so much easier –  than making lasting change in the rest of the world. Scolding has always been easier than doing. Screeching has always been easier than actually solving problems.

That does not make it moral. Not at all.