(no subject)

To: the Boston Globe

In an opinion piece titled "Failures of Intelligence," dated July 26, 2005, your columnist Jeff Jacoby argued that

"When the enemy is an international terrorist organization or a violent and dictatorial regime, preemption must trump reaction."

In a nutshell, what Jacoby is saying is that we should "shoot first and let God sort 'em out." This argument is deplorable, dishonest, and racist, because it values American lives over non-American lives. It is dishonest because Jacoby is attempting to excuse an inexcusable error.

In his view, anything we do to minimize the deaths of our own people is acceptable; we need not even feel obligated to consider the consequences of errors made, to consider how many non-Americans are going to die. Now that Iraq is on the verge of a full-fledged civil war, with 25,000 Iraqi civilians dead in the last two years, we have to ask if they or the world are truly better off.

The argument that intelligence failures were errors and not lies, as Jacoby asserts, requires us to overlook evidence that the White House suppressed dissent in the CIA. This is what the complex Valerie Plame affair is about. CIA "intelligence" about Saddam's WMD programs was provided in an environment where dissenting CIA agents could expect retribution from the administration. Furthermore, there have been anecdotes alleging that intelligence which did not support the Administration's policy of "regime change in Iraq" was ignored or suppressed. Given these facts, it is not feasible to argue that the WMD claims were mere "errors."

Jacoby then tries to minimize these lies by arguing that Democrats said the same things first, as if those of us who opposed the war from the very beginning would have supported it instead if the lies came from a Democrat instead of a Republican. This war is not a liberal vs. conservative issue; many liberals support the war and many conservatives oppose it. This is also becoming clear as more Republicans voice opposition to the war.

"Shooting first and asking questions later" is reckless from the standpoint of homeland security as well, because it only adds to the growing list of grievances which people in the Arab world have against US meddling in their affairs.

Best regards,
Sabrina R______

options and empowerment

Warning: utilitarian ethical argument follows!

My thoughts today are on the efforts of governments and charitable agencies to "rescue" people from poverty, prostitution, and drug addiction. First up, is this post in feminist about unionized sexworkers in Brazil, and their allies' rejection of US anti-AIDS funds that would have come with strings attached. Secondly, I have in mind a recent study conducted in the Netherlands which found improvements in the lives and health of heroin users if they are able to obtain prescriptions for heroin. Lastly, a recent report on NPR discussed a proposed law in New York that would treat teenage prostitutes not as criminals but as victims.

The goal of a social amelioration program, be it one that aims to help poor people pay their rent and feed their children, or one that aims to help women and children escape if they have been trafficked, and so on, should ultimately be to improve the lives of those involved and to improve the state of society as a whole.

All too often, these programs involve ideas promoted by educated "experts" who have an ideological agenda. That agenda might be liberal or conservative, but either way it comes at the problem with a pre-determined answer to the problem. From ideology to proposed solution, the expert frequently does not see the need to consult with poor people, prostitutes, drug users, etc. to ask them what THEY need or want. Or, even worse, they may have formed the opinion that 'targets' (I am calling them such where they are objectified) of aid programs are intractable, by seeing their resistance to existing aid programs.

Consequently, they throw up their hands in frustration when the targets of their proposed solution avoid participating or complain about its uselessness. "Don't they know what's good for them?" Others (usually conservatives) then point to the futility of throwing money at the problem in the first place.

Social amelioration is rarely driven by true compassion, which implies the willingness to set aside your ideology and listen to people. If the experts listened to poor people, prostitutes, drug users, and so on, they'd find out that what they want and need are options and empowerment.

Empowerment doesn't mean imposing your idea of a roadmap from here to there. Empowerment doesn't mean, "Stop doing X, Y, and Z right now, or else we won't help you!" Empowerment means recognizing that when one lives in an environment of endemic exploitation and limited resources, different life decisions make more sense.

Essentially, from the point of view of those who are the targets of social amelioration programs, the aid workers insist that they stop doing something that makes sense to them, something which has enabled their survival, and do something else instead that may not make as much sense, and continually jump through numerous hoops in order to prove they are "worthy" of a handout. There is nothing empowering about going through a social aid program; on the whole, they add to, rather than subtract from, the indignity of one's life. It typically means less options too, because one has to order one's life around doing what is acceptable by the (essentially alien) morals of the aid workers.

Needle exchange programs, distribution of free condoms, and other similar programs considered "morally shaky" by the mainstream 'malestream' are effective because they do not involve demands, and they provide something that is actually helpful and needed. Thus they seem more like real compassion; and they are therefore more likely to engender trust and willingness to participate among those whom aid workers wish to help.

Only in the way of compassion in general is there any real hope of convincing someone across a "social divide" that your view makes the most sense.

The issues of poverty, drug use, prostitution, and so on, are complex and do not have a "quick fix" of the sort that the American public seems to insist upon. To "rescue" someone from these ways of life does not mean simply intruding into their lives and imposing your view; your view is the normative one only where you come from.