Matt Yglesias

Israel Refuses to Cooperate With UN Human Rights Inquiry

The Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip produced various allegations of human rights abuses on the part of the IDF and naturally there are counter-allegations against Hamas. The UN Human Rights Council decided, sensibly, to do an investigation into these allegations. And they decided, cleverly, to ask South African judge Richard Goldstone to head it up. Goldstone is highly credible, widely respected, an expert on international humanitarian law. And he’s Jewish, so it would be hard to label any criticisms he might make of Israeli conduct as motivated by antisemitism.

Unfortunately, Mark Goldberg reports that Israel has decided not to cooperate with the investigation.

I think this is a serious mistake. As Mark says, it’s only going to lead outside observers to the conclusion that Israel feels it has something to hide. The IDF leadership and Israeli politicians have loudly proclaimed that IDF conduct was of sterling-pure morality. But in the real world, the way you know an organization takes an issue seriously is that they make a serious effort at monitoring. If the IDF were really “the most moral in the world” it would be eager to participate in this sort of exercise, not just to clear its name but because the way you achieve moral conduct is precisely by rigorously investigating allegations of misconduct. By trying to shout down or block out efforts to inquiry, all the Israeli government is doing is signaling both to outsiders and to insiders that they don’t genuinely take these concerns seriously.

Obama Administration Cracking Down on Human Rights Lobbyists

I think I’m going to put this in my “I hope this isn’t true” file:

Many Democrats thought Tom Malinowski, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch, would be a powerful choice, but he cannot take the job under Mr. Obama’s rules against lobbyists. Mr. Malinowski was registered as a lobbyist to advocate for victims of genocide, torture and oppression, rather than moneyed interests, but that has not earned him a waiver.

That’s really, really stupid. Let’s hope that Obama and Hillary Clinton had some other objection to Malinowski and then to be polite they decided to run with this nutty no waiver story. Or something.

Former Cole Commander: Damn the Human Rights — Full Speed Ahead

The former commander of the U.S.S. Cole is none too happy with Barack Obama’s efforts to return the United States to the rule of law and the international community:

The former commander of the USS Cole, the American war ship that was struck by a suicide boat in Yemeni waters more than eight years ago, on Thursday slammed President Barack Obama’s orders to close the Guantanamo detention center and reassess the prisoners being held there.

”We shouldn’t make policy decisions based on human rights and legal advocacy groups,” retired U.S. Navy Cmdr. Kurt Lippold said in a telephone interview. “We should consider what is best for the American people, which is not to jeopardize those who are fighting the war on terror — or even more adversely impact the families who have already suffered loses as a result of the war.”

With respect, this is just wrong. I am one who believes that international relations should be largely understood through the lens of interests. But there’s still such a thing as right and wrong. And we should, in fact, make adequate respect for the law and for human rights an important priority when making our policy decisions. Over the long run, Americans will much prefer to live in a world governed by law and human rights than one of chaos and brutality. And other countries will be better-disposed to our national power and leading global role insofar as they see us upholding humane values and basic decency. Besides which, it’s the right thing to do.

The Unknown Abuses

I don’t really know what to make of this Tariq Ali piece, but this here is a provocative point:

Add to this the continuing sore of Kashmir which has for decades been treated as a colony by Indian troops with random arrests, torture and rape of Kashmiris an everyday occurrence. Conditions have been much worse than in Tibet, but have aroused little sympathy in the West where the defense of human rights is heavily instrumentalised.

I don’t see any point in trying to get into a Kashmir-Tibet oppression olympics, but problems in Kashmir are real enough according to Human Rights Watch:

Violence erupted in Jammu and Kashmir after a state government decision in May 2008 to transfer uninhabited forest land to a Hindu trust to build temporary shelters during an annual Hindu pilgrimage called “Amarnath Yatra.” Once the decision became public knowledge in June, Muslim Kashmiris protested against the land transfer and the transfer order was revoked. This sparked off anger among Hindu Kashmiris. Demonstrations in the Jammu region have paralyzed the state in recent weeks.

The state of Jammu and Kashmir has been in conflict for the last two decades, and tens of thousands of civilians have died, caught between separatist militants and Indian security forces. While militants have been responsible for human rights abuses, Kashmiris have long complained about violations by Indian troops who go unpunished for serious crimes including extrajudicial executions, torture, arbitrary detentions and enforced disappearances. The violence had reduced since 2003, but the recent protests show that the Kashmir issue is yet to be resolved.

You hear basically nothing about this in the United States. And surely Ali is right that the “instrumentalization” of concern for human rights is part of the story.

Saakashvili the Pure

Amidst an overall useful column, former Bush administration official Paul Saunders makes the important point that Mikhail Saakashvili’s government in Tbilisi is not, in fact, as pure as the driven snow:

But the situation inside Georgia belies Saakashvili’s rhetorical commitment to freedom. Most glaring was his handling of opposition protests last fall. The State Department’s 2007 Human Rights Report, released just a few months ago, found “serious problems” with Georgia’s human rights record and notes “excessive use of force to disperse demonstrations”; “impunity of police officers”; and declining respect for freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and political participation. Ana Dolidze, a democracy advocate and former chair of Georgia’s Young Lawyers Association, has described in detail how Saakashvili acted quickly after entering office to empower the executive branch at the expense of parliament and to strengthen the government by “stifling political expression, pressuring influential media and targeting vocal critics and opposition leaders” — including by using law enforcement agencies. Saakashvili is far from the morally pure democrat he would have the West believe he is.

By the same token, while Vladimir Putin’s Russia certainly falls short of norms of liberal democracy in a variety of ways, it’s hardly the greatest totalitarian dystopia known to man. Like the gambit to posit a gaping cultural void between “western” Georgia and “eastern” Russia the effort to impute a large ideological element of democracy versus dictatorship into the Russia-Georgia conflict is essentially bogus. Georgia by all accounts comes closer to the democratic ideal than does Russia, but both countries exist along the continuum flawed political systems. Georgia’s not a place like, say, Poland or the Czech Republic that’s really organized a clear post-Communist democratic politics. Russia and Georgia are fighting over land and influence, not big ideas, and as Saunders says “fighting erupted not primarily because of what the country represents but because of its government’s actions.”