[Peace-discuss] Can Amanda Taub say "Israel"?

[David Green]

Amanda is a graduate of Uni High circa 1999 who now writes for the NYT,
including as the "interpreter."

At the end of this Vox article from 2016 she wrote:

"In his speech in the Parque de la Memoria, Obama stood before a wall that
bears the names of thousands of people murdered by the government we
supported, and said
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/03/24/remarks-president-obama-and-president-macri-argentina-parque-de-la>
 that we cannot forget the past, but that by confronting it we will build a
better future.

And he's right, but it's a lesson that doesn't just apply to regimes and
atrocities that are safely in the past. The United States has still not
come to terms with the real lesson of its support for Argentina's military
junta, which is that when the US sacrifices human rights in order to
further other foreign policy objectives, it eventually ends up on the wrong
side of history.

Last year, Vox's Matt Yglesias asked
<http://www.vox.com/2015/2/11/8020187/obama-interview-human-rights> Obama
whether he was concerned about the human rights records of *US allies such
as Egypt, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. *The president's answer was an
unsatisfying dodge. Obama hedged, saying that the US has to press for human
rights improvements while also pursuing other national security objectives
— to "do both things."

Doing "both things" sure sounds nice. But, as I wrote
<http://www.vox.com/2015/2/11/8020187/obama-interview-human-rights> at the
time, that doesn't answer the real question of when it is worthwhile for
the US to pursue improvements in human rights at the expense of other
objectives.

It seems that it is easier to make speeches apologizing for our failures to
live up to our values in the past than it is to make the hard choices to
live up to them now, today."

https://www.vox.com/2016/3/28/11317904/obama-argentina-dirty-war
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