[Peace-discuss] Stephen Walt responds to Amy Goodman

[David Green]

AMY GOODMAN: "We’ve got a lot of killers. You think our country is so innocent?" Professor Stephen Walt, your response?
STEPHEN WALT: Well, first of all, Trump is, in fact, correct that the United States has made a lot of mistakes in its foreign policy, and some of those mistakes have had real human consequences. So that’s correct.
The problem here is that, first of all, he’s equating Russian behavior with our behavior, and I think there are some clear differences. But more importantly, he’s using our mistakes to excuse what Russia may be doing today. My mom used to tell me that two wrongs don’t make a right. And for him to essentially say, "Well, it’s OK what Russia is doing. It’s OK to prosecute, persecute, possibly murder journalists. It’s OK to destabilize other countries. It’s OK to invade the sovereign territory of other countries, etc., because, after all, we’ve done similar things," is not, it seems to me, a constructive way to approach our relationship with Russia. And it’s certainly not a way to try and improve our relations with other countries. If we’ve made mistakes in the past, then what we should be doing is learning from them and not repeating them, as opposed to using them as a way to excuse the behavior of countries that, you know, we have to deal with. And we have to establish a reasonably constructive relationship, but one that’s also based on mutual respect.
(no follow-up from Goodman)
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