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• Monday, August 20, 2007 11:12 AM

  Foreign Policy Community "Ideology"

  I don't know if I count as "in the foreign policy community", but I have worked for the State Department and elsewhere. I also protested this war before it began and see no contradiction in these positions, nor do many of my colleagues. Some were marching with me, some were not.

  There is exactly one ideology that I'm aware of that being part of the U.S. foreign policy community (and the government in general) pretty much requires: to have as your primary goal protecting the interests of the people of the United States. End of story. Interests can be pretty broadly defined, and there can be a lot of co-existing goals that forward that position. For example, I tend to think that protecting human rights in other countries (and, to the extent possible from my position, our own) protects the interest of the people of the United States. Ending poverty protects our interests. An ideology of preventative war and torture does not.

  But at the end of the day that is my goal, and that means that in the grand hierarchy of goals there is none that it is subservient to. I think it's good that Glenn considers equally the rest of the world in his equation. As a human being, that's absolutely necessary and I would do the same - I am a citizen of this world. But I can see how many in the foreign policy community think that they simply cannot consider those goals as equal, and that in fact to do so would be a dereliction of duty.

  —kate_dc Read kate_dc's other letters
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