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The director of Amnesty International USA warns that the left must confront terror with the same zeal that it battles Bush -- or risk irrelevance.
Nov 15, 2003 | More than two years into the Bush administration's lurching war on terror, William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, is aiming some of his sharpest criticism not at the White House, but at the American political left. His message: Take on the terror threat, or risk irrelevance.
War protesters of various stripes, alongside anti-globalization and human rights activists, have staged several large rallies nationwide this year, channeling their anger at the Bush administration through slogans like "No blood for oil," "End the imperialist occupation" and "Regime change begins at home." But in an interview with Salon, Schulz said that the political left has thus far botched a key mission. "There's been a failure to give the necessary attention, analysis and strategizing to the effort to counter terrorism and protect our fundamental right to security," he said. "It's a serious problem."
In his new book, "Tainted Legacy: 9/11 and the Ruin of Human Rights," Schulz argues that rising global terrorism requires the left "to rethink some of our most sacred assumptions." A vigorous defense of human and civil liberties, while essential to spreading democracy worldwide, is not enough to stop terrorists from blowing up airplanes or shopping malls, he says. And that presents the left with a problem, because some of the tools needed to fight terror, such as stricter border controls or beefed up intelligence work -- and, perhaps, war against states that support terrorists -- chafe against traditional leftist values.
But protecting America's borders as well as its treasured freedoms is a daunting task. There is ample reason to decry (as Amnesty has) the deeply invasive potential of the PATRIOT Act, the secretive rounding up and prolonged detention of more than 1,200 Arabs and Muslims nationwide, and the alleged coercion -- some would call it torture -- of terror suspects by the U.S. government. Of equal concern is Washington's current distaste for multilateral diplomacy, which puts crucial alliances at risk at a time of mounting global turmoil. But it's not enough, Schulz says, to launch defiant rhetoric at a barreling, unilateralist Bush administration, even when its policies threaten to bulldoze the very cornerstones of democracy.
He raises some hard questions: If there's reason to believe the New York City subway is a prime terrorist target, should we really object to surveillance cameras in the name of privacy rights, especially if use of the evidence they obtain is limited? If democratic elections would bring a radical Islamist government to power in Pakistan that might distribute nuclear weapons to terrorists, should we still call for democracy there over military rule?
Like many on the left, Schulz doesn't have ready answers. Saddam's horrific human rights record was well-known -- Amnesty International documented it for more than two decades. And yet, Amnesty takes no official position on the U.S. intervention in Iraq, and Schulz sticks to careful, noncommittal language when it comes to defending human rights with military power. "The job of the human rights world is not to make military decisions of one sort or another," he says.
With the new terror threat roiling the globe -- which some argue has given brutal regimes freer license to crack down at home -- Amnesty may need to recast its framework for defending human rights. U.N. sanctions failed to undermine Saddam's rule throughout the 1990s, and they raise complicated humanitarian concerns, typically compounding economic pain for populations already pinned beneath the heel of dictatorship. "In the long run," Schulz admits, "it may not be wise of Amnesty to have a policy that it takes no position on military intervention."
Still, he remains deeply troubled by the PATRIOT Act and the Bush administration's aggressive doctrine of preemption. "I think history gives us good reason to think this is exactly the wrong strategy to pursue," he says, "if the goal is to prolong American power, and, presumably, its values."
Salon reached Schulz by phone at his home in New York.
Why has the political left failed to articulate an adequate strategy for fighting terrorism since 9/11?
Because of an abhorrence -- a quite understandable one -- for the Bush administration's policies, there has been a tendency for the American political left and the greater human rights community to downplay the genuine, serious threat of terrorism around the globe. Presumably the human rights community is committed to protecting Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, namely the guarantee of security of person -- the right to life. But there's been a failure to give the necessary attention, analysis and strategizing to the effort to counter terrorism and protect this right to security. Far more energy has gone toward offsetting the very real, damaging human rights violations committed not just by the United States, but by many governments, in the name of fighting the war on terror.
But why else do you think that is? In the book you point out that human rights advocates, as much as anyone, should despise terrorism, and be willing to act against it. Is the human rights community simply too disorganized to combat terror, or is there a deeper ideological problem?
Human rights organizations are basically set up to put pressure on governments, not on more amorphous entities like terrorist groups. The traditional tools we use are generally not going to be effective with terrorists. I doubt Osama Bin Laden is going to be moved by 50,000 members of Amnesty International writing him a letter asking him to refrain from terrorist acts. In the face of a new kind of force in the world that is detrimental to human rights, the human rights community has been slow to adapt to that new reality, in both its understanding and its tactics. There's a cultural lag at work here.
It's a serious problem. It means that human rights advocates are seen solely as harping critics. We certainly need to be that; it's a very important role. But if we fail to engage with the very real, hard decisions that governments have to make about protecting the safety of their citizens, then we'll be dismissed as charlatans, or ideologues who are out of step with reality.
A recent Gallup poll showed two-thirds of Iraqis think that the ousting of Saddam "was worth any hardships they have personally endured since the invasion," and two-thirds said they believed that the country will be better off in five years than it was before the invasion. Do you support the invasion and occupation of Iraq?
Amnesty International took no position on the military action itself. We had been highlighting for more than 20 years the human rights violations by Saddam Hussein. No one who cares about human rights can help but be grateful that he is no longer in power.
But the way in which the United States went about the overthrow, particularly in its thumbing of its nose at international institutions, and without an international sanction for the invasion, did in the long run, I'm afraid, enormous damage to the international support structure for human rights.
But over the last decade didn't the international system prove unable to undermine Saddam's brutal regime? Is it fair to say that the repeated call by the Europeans and Russians to let the U.N. inspections process continue rang rather hollow by 2003?
Remember that the European stance, perhaps with the exception of Germany, was not that military intervention of some sort could never be authorized. The fundamental stance of many critics of the Bush administration at the U.N. was that there ought to be more time allowed for the weapons inspectors to do their necessary work. In the book, I do criticize the French and the Germans and the Russians for failing to offer a viable, effective alternative to [military] intervention as a way to put an end to Hussein's human rights violations.
But the issue here is whether or not one country, or a very small group of countries, can, in a hurried fashion, simply ignore international institutions that prop up human rights, along with the many other multilateral enterprises -- not only in the absence of international sanction, but with what appears to have been [direct] opposition.
The NATO-sanctioned intervention in Kosovo speaks to this. Granted, it also took place well after many human rights violations had been committed there, but it was a united action, which has since been supported by a relatively united attempt to rebuild Kosovo. So a greater degree of patience and respect for those international processes regarding Iraq might well have resulted in a far broader coalition, and there's a good chance the consequences of rebuilding Iraq would've been far less drastic, for all involved, than they are now.
