Known and Unknown, by Donald Rumsfeld: on Foreign Policy
Condoleezza Rice:
2001 Uzbekistan: Human rights trump security
In 2001, Amnesty International called the Uzbek government's "indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force." After the facts were uncovered, it was clear that the Uzbek authorities had confronted an effort intended to overthrow the local government.
The government's security forces and public affairs officials functioned poorly, but this was not a simple case of soldiers slaughtering innocents, as had been widely alleged and misreported.My arguments did not prevail. At an NSC meeting, Condi
Rice responded to me by declaring, "Human rights trump security." I wondered if she had really thought that through. She seemed to be saying that if a country didn't behave as we did or as we expected, it would be shunned, even if turning it away from
us took a toll on our nation's security, and to make matters worse, it arrested their progress on human rights. "We made a clear choice, and that was to stand on the side of human rights," a senior State Department official echoed in the press.
Source: Known and Unknown, by Donald Rumsfeld, p.634-635
Feb 8, 2011
John F. Kennedy:
Thin foreign policy record from all-too-short presidency
For all John Kennedy's personal charm, little had been accomplished in his all too short presidency. On the foreign policy front, the administration's record was thin. There were the talks with Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna, where Khrushchev came away with the impression that Kennedy was young and inexperienced.
There was the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba that added to the impression of American weakness.
Then followed the construction of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis, both of which seemed to have been at least in part a result of the emboldened Khrushchev deciding to test America's new young leader.
Source: Known and Unknown, by Donald Rumsfeld, p. 81-82
Feb 8, 2011
John McCain:
2001: Publicly rebuke Uzbekistan for human rights violations
Human Rights Watch reported that "Uzbek government forces killed hundreds of unarmed people who participated in a massive public protest. Amnesty International called the Uzbek government's "indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force."By 2001,
some members of Congress began a campaign of condemnation of the Uzbek government. Sen. John McCain traveled to the capital of Tashkent to deliver a public rebuke. "History shows that continued repression of human rights leads to tragedies such as the
one that just took place," McCain lectured. Around the same time, I received a letter from McCain & 5 other senators, insisting that America not pay the $23 million we owed the government from our military's use of the Uzbek air base. I replied to the
senators, "The bills we have from the Uzbeks are for services rendered in the war on terrorism."
If we took such a good and evil view of the world, we wouldn't be able to count on support from any non-democratic country. My arguments did not prevail.
Source: Known and Unknown, by Donald Rumsfeld, p.634-635
Feb 8, 2011
Ronald Reagan:
1982:Disagreed with Law of the Sea's international authority
The so-called UN Convention on the Law of the Sea was designed to codify navigation rights in international waters. But it had grown into something considerably more ambitious, with a provision that would put all natural resources found it the seabeds of
international waters under the collective purview of the treaty's signers--a scheme that would result in substantial wealth being put into the hands of what was ominously called the International Seabed Authority. Shortly after Reagan was inaugurated, he
was invited to join a ceremonial treaty signing by some 160 nations in Jamaica. To nearly everyone's surprise, Reagan announced he was not ready to agree to the treaty. Reagan believed rewards and investment incentives should go to those nations that had
the specialized technology and capability to mine the ocean floor, not to the "Authority."Reagan's reversal of US policy led to consternation at the Department of State, to which Reagan asked, "But isn't that what the election was all about?"
Source: Known and Unknown, by Donald Rumsfeld, p.262
Feb 8, 2011
Page last updated: Mar 12, 2012