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Brief Comment on U.S.-Indonesian Affairs
By Amb. Ronald D. Palmer
Theodore Friend's moderate line (above) was initiated a few months ago by Ed Masters, President of the U.S.-Indonesia Society (e-mail USINDO@aol.com) in, I believe, a letter to the International Herald Tribune published August 29, 1997. Friend's article is nonetheless a sound approach to the question.
My own inclination, however, would be to expand on the Indonesia case as one among others where U.S. hubris or shortsightedness or even tunnel vision on human rights is causing us to concentrate on narrow policy objectives and to lose sight of our larger national foreign policy purposes. This loss of focus is reflected in the unthinking manner in which we use trade and other sanctions to seek to bring malefactors to their knees, metaphorically speaking.
"We are the United States," some of us say, in line with such sanctions-driven policies.. "If you offend our sensitivities, we who are very pure, are so powerful that we can stamp our foot three times, take away your economic/military/foreign assistance toys and send you off to the corner to stand abashed until we deem you fit to rejoin the rest of the children in the game we run by the rules we set."
"Soon," some of us continue, "we will require White House reports on the persecution of Christians (you can't trust those foreigner lovers in the State Department), and after that Congress will require semi-annual progress reports on the number of conversions and baptisms made by each U.S. diplomatic mission. Indeed, the concept of a 'mission' will take on sanctified and consecrated meaning."