Kevin Drum tentatively supports a Human Rights Exception in a limited way meaning that the world should look at removing regimes that have human rights records that are appalling.
I think this is putting the cart before the horse.
Before we start knocking off dictators and the sort in the name of humans rights abuses, wouldn’t the first step be to stop actively aiding regimes that behave badly?
Let’s see…Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Uzbekistan, etc. And don’t forget some of our closer projects that are headed towards the same problems such as Honduras and Colombia.
The reality of living in a dangerous world is that you have to use some unsavory people to protect one’s position in the world. Recognizing that, we don’t need as many as we support. Before we start popping off other countries, let’s start by removing active support of those we safely can remove our support.
Since I just linked to Kevin, let me endorse this post. Reynolds used to be fun to parody because he had his blind spots, now it is almost like a self-parody every time I read his site.