Amitai Etzioni Notes

"Liberty and Security for All?"

The following is a review of Security First by Jean Bethke Elhstain that appeared in The New York Sun on August 29, 2007:

"Anything Amitai Etzioni writes is worth reading. Considered the father of "communitarianism" - an intellectual trend of the past 15 years that has positioned itself against an "individualism" that could not take account of social obligations and the imperatives of communities - Mr. Etzioni specializes in exploring dilemmas such as individual rights versus social obligations, and civil liberties versus security. He never ducks the hard questions. Mr. Etzioni knows that in political life there are multiple goods that may conflict with one another, especially when the crunch comes. The crunch came for Americans on September 11, 2001."

The Unintended Consequences of Promoting Democracy Policy"

Below is a review of Security First by Paul McLeary, published in the Jewish Daily Forward on August 22, 2007.

"In the eyes of Amitai Etzioni, the Soviet Union’s relegation to the dustbin of history hasn’t changed the fact that what is left of the former empire remains the greatest threat to international security on the world stage. But this isn’t your father’s expansionist Russian bear. In fact, according to the calculus used by Etzioni, professor of international relations at The George Washington University, the Russian state is more dangerous for its inaction rather than for anything it is actually doing."

Libya: A Foreign Policy Test Case

One of my fine colleagues is Benjamin Barber, who wrote very eloquently about the danger of citizens being turned into passive consumers rather than serving as active participants in the political process. He is the first to tell you that what he really wanted to be in life was not to be a political science professor but an actor. He puts his talents in this department to good use by giving lectures that could be readily be put onstage at any old place Off Broadway. Recently he dropped by to visit with none other than the Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, Barber found him a much more attractive figure than the Western media has long depicted as the “implacable despot” from Tripoli.

Excerpt from "Security First"

The focus on Security First as the guiding principle of U.S. foreign policy does not refer, as the followers of narrow realism might have it, only to the security of the United States and its allies.  The Primacy of Life principle places a responsibility on the major powers not only to ensure basic security for their own peoples, but also to contribute to the basic security of other peoples.  The legitimacy of the approach relies in part on its consistent application, one that respects life—not American or British or some other Western life—but life simply, indeed all lives.  This entails, under limited conditions, interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign nations.

The Best Way to Cheat - Continued

On August 15, I posted the "The Best Way to Cheat."  Within days, I found two items that seem to me to further support my points.

The best way to cheat

The lessons of recent days in the financial markets: If you steal peoples’ title to their houses, raid their pension plans, or empty their nest eggs, you better do so on a very big scale.  Stealing on a national level is fine, but on the global level is best.  Only small-time crooks may end up in jail; occasionally even a crook of the Tyco caliber gets into trouble; but the real big ones get bailed out by one government or another.

Obama, an opportunistic hawk?

When Barack Obama was criticized as dovish because he declared himself willing to sit down with the enemies of the state, he responded by turning suddenly hawkish—calling for US military strikes within Pakistan.  If even small drops in his approval rating can lead Obama to re-invent himself, he will have a hard time keeping his supporters.  A policy of talking to one and all fits well into the overarching community-building, unifier theme of his campaign, but not a policy of invading nations. Also, to bomb anyone to show that one is tough has some very unfortunate neocon overtones. That is the way Bush was egged on early in his term to seem tough by beating up on Saddam’s Iraq.

'Fundamentalist' Muslims who reject all terrorism

The most important point of R. James Woolsey and Nina Shea's commentary ("What About Muslim Moderates?" editorial page, July 10) is left implicit: It is not that Muslims differ a great deal from one another and that we should do like the U.K. and cultivate moderates and reject extremists; rather, the important point is in the authors' definition of what constitutes a moderate Muslim.

A right to false IDs?

Every time I fly and see a TSA agent studiously examining my driver license, I bite my tongue to avoid making one of those cracks that gets you into trouble. I happened to head a small study group, composed of security experts and privacy advocates. It determined that five years after 9/11 it is still easy for terrorists to get fake drivers licenses, and offered suggestions on what must be done to make them more reliable. Very few of the needed measures have been introduced so far. For instance, you still can get a driver license in as many states as you wish--one for you, and the rest for the bad guys. True, a handful of laws were passed to introduce Real IDs, but they still remain very much unreal.