Politics

外交和双重标准

Aug 23, 2013 Gareth Evans

堪培拉—可接受的外交警告和现实主义何时变成了站不住脚的不顾道德标准？并非所有外交界人士都在乎这一点，但在乎这一点的，通常要面临令人极度不安的选择。

谈判救命的和平可能意味着给予罪大恶极者赦免。生活在暴政中可能比接受无政府状态对生命的威胁更小。平息动荡局势可能意味着不公开谴责应该被定罪的行为。在现实中发出正确的声音比在哲学教室中更难。

但有时这条线真的会被越过，所有相关方都知道这一点，而且后果可能影响深远。美国至今没有因为军队在街头和监狱中屠杀数百名穆斯林兄弟会支持者而砍掉其对埃及的军事援助，这是人人都看到的最新例子。

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 5 Comments on this article

Carol Maczinsky Aug 26, 2013

Other nations are not responsible for their internal matters but it is a good argument to cut and renegotiate assistance.
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hari naidu Aug 26, 2013

Why did you delete or remove my comments?
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Edward Ponderer Aug 26, 2013

I must disagree with the Chancellor Evans assessment on two grounds -- the moral and the mathematical.

The Muslim Brotherhood in its attitude toward democracy and it political opponents, and it attitude to other cultures and religions is akin to a combination of the former German Nazi Party American Ku Klux Klan. They were not peaceful protesters, but quite violent and with a tendency to target Coptic Christians and their institutions. As to the army being to wait on democratically elected Morsi, the German army certain waited on democratically elected Vice Chancellor Hitler. History shows that it was not a good idea.

As to intervention, the situation is chaotic--globalization is general chaotic itself as links between individuals, groups, and nations have become extremely complex. The situation in the Middle East is extreme due to its internecine nature (the Arab Spring has largely imploded, old and new hatreds turning in upon themselves). But I do mean chaos in some poetic sense, I mean mathematical chaos. As such, the results of intervention as proposed would simply add further entropy into the Murphy's Law engine.
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Zsolt Hermann Aug 25, 2013

The last thing I want to do is to protect politicians but the present hesitancy, "double standards", helplessness has it very obvious reasons.
Present day politicians, trained and growing up in a fragmented, polarized world, where they could easily identify "enemies" and "allies" today find themselves "on another planet".
By the world becoming global and interdependent, the previous behavior, mindset has become destructive.
Acting in the previous polarized, linear manner in a round, global and integral system causes almost immediate negative reactions which come back to the initiator with multiple force.
And this is what those nations, usually initiating, like the US for example start to learn.
If we look back at US military or political interventions since the Second World War, especially the more recent ones, almost all of them failed defined by their initial goals, and moreover they all came back to haunt them.
We all have to learn a completely new mindset, and a new type of global diplomacy, where each and every problem is discussed and solved around a "round table", utilizing mutual communication and connection, where all players are participating as equals, not arguing or fighting, but building something new and common above the inherent disagreements and differences.
Individual priorities have to be replaced by global, common priorities.
We have to reprogram ourselves based on the very strict and precise laws integral systems work on.
We are not in a Hollywood movie with a guaranteed happy ending, and we also do not control the system we exist in. Either we adapt to the strict, natural laws or we keep suffering.
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m r Aug 25, 2013

The author makes a sweet case that Diplomacy has no inherent meaning and is just another name for Double Standards. It definitely is not a byword for wisdom that is so much wished. Rightly so, in matters of (perceived) self and geopolitical interests, you (need to) walk over dead bodies, ruthlessly.
It is then for history to judge, if the path followed did in fact achieve the aimed for goals, by then all actors are all dead.
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