Rational Philosophy

Early news of the destruction of the CIA interrogation tapes had the distinct whiff of smoke about it; the kind of smoke that hints at the existence of fire. The sad story had all the hallmarks of a not-so-wily White House cover up. The protestations of ignorance from all corners; the silent finger pointed at the lone and lowly scapegoats, I mean maverick lawyers at the CIA… I’m sure that many of us had the same question: could this really have happened without the knowledge and endorsement of the White House?

Today we have a glimpse of the smoldering coals of that fire. At least four lawyers close to the administration weighed in on the question of destruction, apparently, among them Alberto Gonzalez, the long arm of the war. And a former senior intelligence official speaks of the “vigorous sentiment” of some White House big wigs in favor of destroying the tapes. Why? Because at the time the Abu Ghraib detention scandals were making the administration and the country look bad, as if we lacked principles and decency. So came, we may presume, the principled and decent voice of power: Let’s burn those incriminating tapes.

I’ll go out on a short and sturdy limb and predict that the US administration also had a hand in Pakistan’s quiet release of about 100 detainees who had been held on suspicion of terrorist involvement in secrecy and with dubious legal grounds or outright lack of same. One of whom was so sick and malnourished that he died about twenty days after being left on a garbage dump.

What philosophical lesson can we take away from the miserable conduct of the present administration? An odd aspect of the Bush presidency seems to be that the man himself hasn’t garnered more ill will. And therein perhaps lies the seed to the lesson.

Bush is the president by title but not by function. He’s the front man. Bush has been more truly and firmly manipulated than the American public. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Fieth, Wolfowitz, and the rest of the hawkish bunch, all with their overlapping and dangerously ulterior motives have molded the clay of the hapless Bush. The plan, but for one fatal flaw, would have been perfect. Bush is so clearly incapable of complex subversive maneuvering that the country was duped into thinking he mostly meant what he said. He probably mostly did mean what he said having been fed the uncomplicated black-and-white surface ideology of his puppeteers.

Here is the point: The American public has been manipulated. Bush’s wranglers used a political system short on insight and long on hype to get an unqualified stooge into the highest office of the government. When that can happen, the system needs revision. The public needs to use the lessons of the last few years to allow itself to yield to wisdom and to carefully evaluate the policies, strengths and weaknesses of the current batch of candidates. The beauty pageant is a distraction. We owe it to ourselves to get wiser, to dig deeper, to understand the motives and motivations of the hopefuls so that we pick the one who is the least corruptible, the best intentioned, and the most effective. Sound bites be damned; America needs a real president again.

In an odd but apparently cleverly orchestrated sequence of events, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf has tightened his grip on his rule by dispensing with the Supreme Court and scrapping the constitution. This only a few weeks after the return to Pakistan of the self-exiled former leader Banazir Bhutto (whose jubilant welcome-home parade was marred by a deadly bomb attack). And only months after Musharraf promised to relinquish his military post if elected president.

Apart from the obvious questions about how these distressing events will affect the future of Pakistan and the region, they pose another question that calls upon the current US administration to decide whether it will denounce Musharraf’s dismantling of democracy, or whether it will decide that it needs a friend in Pakistan more than it needs to stand by the principles of global freedom.

Surprising some, Pat Robertson, the television evangelist and Christian Coalition founder, has endorsed Republican White House hopeful Rudy Giuliani for president. Roberston feels that Giuliani’s qualities as a leader outweigh his shortcomings as someone who supports abortion and gay rights.

And house Republicans have joined Democrats to overturn the President’s veto of the water resources development act, just one a several funding bills that seem set to pit Republicans against their leader.

To quote American Theologian Tryon Edwards “Compromise is but the sacrifice of one right or good in the hope of retaining another - too often ending in the loss of both.” But is this the case? What is the philosophy of compromise?

If Bush continues to court Musharraf’s favor by going easy on him in the face of his anti-democratic measures he will discredit the very ideal he says he seeks to promote — global democracy. Now, there are some who think (I’m one of them) that Bush may even believe that he supports global democracy, when what he really wants is to feel safer and to make his friends and allies wealthier. In which case, compromise would seem to be the most attractive strategy; a slap on the wrist for Musharraf so that America can continue to rely on his support.

Reading Pat Robertson’s comments, his goal in compromise seems to be that he hopes to have a strong leader in the White House, one sympathetic to a broad swath of Christian concerns, even if not all of them.

And house Republicans seek to approve funding they feel their constituents support, even if it weakens the overall coherence of their party and its goals. The long term result of which may be that they hurt Republican chances in the next election and thereby risk not getting what their constituents want in the long term.

From a purely conceptual perspective, Tryon Edwards definition of compromise seems quite good: “the sacrifice of one right or good in the hope of retaining another.” But what Edwards’ sobering analysis doesn’t account for is whether, if one were not to compromise, one would forgo a greater right or good. What’s the alternative? in other words.

Therefore, in considering any specific instance of a compromise, we need to evaluate three things:

1. What do we give up by the compromise?
2. What do we gain by the compromise?
3. What options do we have if we don’t compromise?

Bush’s task at hand will be made more difficult if he denounces Musharraf’s actions and isolates Pakistan. But it won’t be made impossible. From a practical perspective, even without Pakistan’s support Bush can continue to fight the war on terror, albeit less adeptly (if that’s the right word). As a matter of principle, not denouncing Musharraf’s actions would undermine Bush’s declared objectives and make a further global mockery of his rhetoric of freedom.

It’s hard to know what Robertson expects to gain from his endorsment of Giuliani, and it’s hard to imagine that he will lose a great deal by endorsing him, but he did have alternatives (McCain, for instance) who would have provided a safer bet. Perhaps then his endorsement of Giuliani reflects a more principled choice than it might first appear. Perhaps he really does believe that Giuliani will make a strong leader and that this is more important than having a president who doesn’t support abortion and gay rights.

And for the house Republicans, voting with the president would have meant voting, symbolically at least, in favor of fiscal responsibility. This would have been a greater good, perhaps, than achieving some short-lived favor with their constituents. But perhaps the chance to distance themselves from Bush was just too appealing to pass up.

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