Ethics Newsline®

“Is it ethical to gloat?”

I was sitting in a local restaurant last week when a friend came up behind my chair, tapped me on the shoulder, and without any preface popped that question.

I knew what he had in mind: The deaths of Saddam Hussein’s sons, Uday and Qusay, were all over that day’s news. What had caught my friend’s attention were television images of U.S. government officials taking visible delight in those deaths, almost to the point of laughing self-congratulation. If that kind of gloating over death is our public standard of behavior, my friend said, our nation is at risk of losing something precious.

Was he off the mark? Was he indulging a misplaced sympathy for two brutal murderers? On the list of Most Wanted Iraqis, after all, Uday and Qusay were numbers two and three. No one but their father inspired more dread. Coalition forces have been struggling to convince the Iraqi people that Saddam and his family won’t ever come back. Without that conviction, there can be no trust in a future Iraq free from dictatorial dread.

My friend knows that creating such trust isn’t easy. Many Iraqis feel it was shattered at the end of the Gulf War in 1991, when the previous Bush administration encouraged them to overthrow their dictator. But U.S. forces failed to support their uprising. The result: Saddam’s troops extracted deadly revenge, burying rebels and innocent citizens alike in mass graves that only now are coming to light. This time, Iraqis need palpable evidence that the tyranny is finished.

My friend also knows it’s not enough simply to assert that Uday and Qusay are dead. Conspiracy theories abound. Some Iraqis think the brothers cut a deal with coalition troops, who spirited them out of the country under cover of a massive firefight and then produced dead look-alikes. Others, following the summer’s news from Britain and the United States about alleged manipulations of intelligence data to make the case for war, don’t trust any coalition announcements. They need evidence.

And my friend knows that Iraqis aren’t the only ones benefiting from these two deaths. Coalition casualties are mounting across Iraq from sporadic attacks by Saddam loyalists. Whatever destroys that loyalty — and persuades ordinary Iraqis to tip off coalition forces about the attackers — is hugely important. What better way to uproot and dispirit the loyalists than to remove the people to whom they swore allegiance?

My friend, a successful local businessman, knows all that. Like many Americans, he follows news from Iraq reasonably closely. Like them, he understands that this is war, in which enemies get killed before they kill you. His concern, I sense, is not so much over what happened as over how it happened.

He’s onto something. Practical ethics, after all, has two branches. It’s about doing the right things. And it’s about doing things right. In the long history of moral philosophy, the first branch asks the large question whether war is the right thing to do. The moral challenge of warfare — that it requires killing — has been well explored by philosophers. If warfare serves purposes larger than itself — protecting free societies, for example, or preventing even larger calamities — its moral purpose is usually justified as the lesser of evils.

But to conclude that war is sometimes the right thing to do addresses only half the moral argument. Doing it right is equally important. Hence my friend’s concern. He surely wants the coalition to win rather than lose. But among strong powers of any sort — nations, corporations, sports teams — there’s not always a clarity about what it means to win. We’re more apt to instruct children to be good losers than good winners. Yet without that instruction, triumph too easily shades into triumphalism, which my dictionary defines as “a proud, often arrogant confidence in the validity and success of a set of beliefs, often specifically religious beliefs.”

The last thing the coalition needs is further reinforcement of its image in the region as the proud, arrogant Christian occupier of a Muslim nation. Should the coalition have announced the deaths? Certainly. Explained how they occurred? Yes. Displayed the bodies? Yes, if needed to dispel illusions. Pointed out why it matters that these two criminal careers are finished, and how that makes Iraq a better place? Vitally important.

But all that can be done in an even tone. It can be said with a matter-of-fact conclusiveness, expressing relief without indulging smugness. It costs nothing to avoid triumphalism. If that avoidance helps win the peace overseas — as well as here in America’s local communities — it’s well worth the effort.

(c)2003 Institute for Global Ethics

“They chose to protect the image and reputation of their institution rather than the safety and well-being of the children entrusted to their care. They acted with a misguided devotion to secrecy. And they failed to break their code of silence even when the magnitude of what had occurred would have alerted any reasonable, responsible manager that help was needed.”

– From the conclusion of a report released last week by Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly, following an 18-month investigation into the role of Catholic church leaders in the sex-abuse scandal. (“Mass. Reports 1,000 Church Abuse Victims,” AP, July 23.)

* * * * *

“No one is more disappointed than me and my staff that we can’t bring criminal charges. If we could have, we would have. They knew they were under no obligation to report. These were deliberate choices.”

– Attorney General Reilly speaking at a news conference, explaining the state’s inability under current laws to bring criminal charges against church leaders, who he angrily accused of knowingly exploiting weak laws to hide abuse. (“789 Children Abused by Priests Since 1940, Massachusetts Says,” New York Times, July 24.)

WASHINGTON
The U.S. Air Force last week stripped Boeing Co. of $1 billion in planned launch contracts as part of a repudiation of the aerospace giant’s use of stolen documents to outbid its main competitor.

The government’s action follows an investigation into Boeing’s use of documents stolen from rival Lockheed Martin in a bid to win the bulk of a $1.88 billion satellite launching contract in 1998.

Using as many as 25,000 stolen Lockheed documents, Boeing won the lion’s share of the planned launches, taking home 19 launches to Lockheed’s seven, reported the Washington Post. It took Boeing until last April to turn over all of the pilfered documents, which had been taken from Lockheed by a former worker.

Last week, the Air Force rebuked Boeing for its behavior, reallocating five of Boeing’s launches to Lockheed, effectively cutting roughly $1 billion in planned profits from Boeing’s balance sheets.

Three Boeing subsidiaries were also barred indefinitely from competing for additional launch contracts — a prohibition that comes at a particularly tough time for the aerospace giant, which already is facing rocky profits.

The ruling “is a stunning rebuke to Boeing from its most important customer,” defense industry analyst Loren Thompson told the Times. “Boeing has invested billions of dollars in trying to become the global leader in space. Right now it is not so clear they are ever going to make a good return on that investment.”

As part of last week’s remediation, the Air Force said it would help Lockheed build a strategic West Coast launch pad — plans for which had been abandoned after the original launch allocation, reported the Associated Press.

“While it’s fine to compete, it’s not fine to compete at any cost,” Peter Teets, undersecretary of the Air Force and a former Lockheed executive, said last week, announcing the penalties.

“We are extremely disappointed by the circumstances that prompted our customer’s action, but we understand the U.S. Air Force’s position that unethical behavior will not be tolerated,” Boeing chief executive Phil Condit said in a statement. “We apologize for our actions.”

A lawsuit by Lockheed, a Justice Department investigation, and the indictments of two former Boeing workers by a Los Angeles grand jury also are under way, noted the Post.

Easing the sting of last week’s Air Force rebuke, Boeing last week predicted that a planned contract with the Air Force to lease 100 Boeing 767s would proceed as planned, despite a price tag far higher than previously disclosed, reported the New York Times.

The six-year, $17.2 billion plan — badly needed by Boeing to maintain its 767 production line — is actually projected to cost nearly twice the original estimate, coming in at roughly $30 billion, an independent congressional agency warned last week.

The lucrative contract, which has the support of the White House, has been criticized by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and others as a bad deal for taxpayers.

CHICAGO
Abbott Laboratories agreed last week to plead guilty and pay more than $600 million in civil and criminal fines after obstructing a government investigation into the firm’s efforts to overbill Medicare and Medicaid.

The fines and felony plea stem from an undercover sting of an Abbott subsidiary in 2001, when employees were videotaped coaching undercover FBI agents on how to cheat and overbill the government.

The healthcare firm has agreed to pay more than $200 million in criminal fines and payments and $400 million in civil payments, reported Dow Jones. A five-year probationary sentence is also expected.

Last week’s deal brings the total sum paid over the past two years by Abbott for federal charges of Medicare fraud to more than $1 billion, noted the Dow Jones report.

Still, the company insists that it is making progress in reforming its culture, installing a strong and growing ethics office that has a direct audience with the firm’s CEO, according to a report from Chicago’s Daily Herald.

SAN FRANCISCO
United Parcel Service (UPS) last week agreed to pay $10 million to settle a lawsuit charging the shipping titan with discriminating against its deaf employees in workplace conditions and promotions.

The suit was launched four years ago by five hearing-impaired employees who accused the firm of failing to treat them fairly. By the time it reached federal court in April, more than 900 others had joined the suit.

Among the charges, workers accused UPS, the nation’s fourth-largest employer, of failing to uphold disabilities law, denying them promotions, and excluding them from vital information by holding meetings without sign-language interpreters.

“I’ve been working there for 12 years now and for all those years UPS didn’t provide interpreters, a telephone for emergency news, closed captioning, training videotapes, or emergency signals like flashing lights,” UPS employee and plaintiff Babaranti Oloyede told the Associated Press. “We had many meetings, like a meeting about anthrax, and I didn’t have an interpreter, so I didn’t know what was going on.”

The settlement calls on UPS to pay the workers $5.8 million. Their attorneys will receive $4.1 million.

UPS spokeswoman Peggy Gardner last week denied any discriminatory treatment against the hearing-impaired workers, saying the company is “proud of our record thus far.”

“We feel the measures called for in the settlement are only going to make a positive work environment even better,” she added.

The company refused to settle a portion of the lawsuit in which hearing-impaired workers claimed they should be able to drive trucks weighing less than 10,000 pounds.

While federal law bars deaf people from operating vehicles over that weight limit, it allows private firms to set their own standards for which employees may operate lighter vehicles, according to the AP.

While the U.S. Postal Service allows some hearing-impaired workers to operate such vehicles, Atlanta-based UPS does not, claiming that doing so would compromise the company’s commitment to safety.

That portion of the class-action suit will be tested in federal court in San Francisco.

WASHINGTON
Both houses of the U.S. Congress dealt the Bush administration separate setbacks last week, voting to curb two provisions of the USA Patriot Act despite pleas from the administration, which has defended the law as vital to national security.

In the House of Representatives, lawmakers voted to block the Justice Department from searching the homes and property of U.S. citizens without their knowledge, reported the Associated Press.

Such searches, known as “black bag” operations, were authorized by a provision of the Patriot Act. As of April 1, the Justice Department had obtained 47 black-bag warrants, with 248 extensions ranging from one to 90 days.

Last week, House members surprised the administration with an overwhelming, bipartisan vote of 309-to-118 to bar such searches.

“I think the message that 309 votes tells me is that people have the opportunity to look back and say, ‘What have we really done?” said the measure’s sponsor, Rep. C.L. “Butch” Otter (R-Idaho). “I think it’s given unbridled authority to the federal law enforcement agencies.”

A separate law authorizing secret searches of people suspected to be foreign agents, spies, or terrorists remains intact, according to the AP.

Separately, the U.S. Senate last week voted to block all spending for a Defense Department project known as the Terrorism Information Awareness program, which would scan vast numbers of public and private records for evidence of terrorist activities.

The program, which would use cutting-edge data mining technology to puzzle together evidence of possible wrongdoing, has been criticized for allowing the government too much latitude into scrutinizing the daily movements of the public.

Last week, the Senate turned a deaf ear to the wishes of the Bush administration, barring the Defense Department from using any funds from its $369 billion budget to fund the controversial program, reported the Reuters news agency.

Last week’s actions do not seal the fate for either Patriot Act provision, since compromise measures between the House and Senate still must be hammered out.

The votes are being viewed widely as a sign that Congress, which quickly passed the Patriot Act six weeks after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, may now be having second thoughts about the far-reaching measure.

Two recent reports from the Justice Department’s inspector general have highlighted abuse of Patriot Act provisions and detainees by federal agents, further escalating doubts, according to the New York Times.

Three states — Alaska, Hawaii, and Vermont — and 142 local governments have passed measures opposing the Patriot Act and urging local officials to decline enforcement of some provisions, according to the AP.

WASHINGTON
The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly last week to roll back a new and controversial rule that made it easier for media companies to buy up their competitors and extend their reach.

The rule, strongly backed by the White House and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Michael Powell, has drawn fire from nearly all quarters, but the strength of last week’s repudiation — a 400-to-21 vote in the House — surprised many, reported the New York Times.

The controversy centers on an FCC rule adopted last month, relaxing media ownership rules to allow a single TV network to acquire its competitors until it reached up to 45 percent of the nation’s viewers.

FCC head Powell pushed the measure through with White House support. When the dust settled, though, the new rule drew fire from nearly all quarters, noted the Times.

Liberal and conservative groups alike warned that the new rule would limit the diversity of viewpoints available to the nation. Lawmakers of all stripes worried that market domination by a single firm could cut their airtime during election season.

The networks were also unhappy with the rule, saying its 45-percent limit — which replaced a 35-percent cap — failed to go far enough, hurting their ability to compete with cable and satellite TV, noted the Times.

Until last week, Powell and the White House believed they could put down a revolt under way in the Senate by counting on the House to quash any attempt to overturn the rule. Last week’s lopsided vote indicates they underestimated the opposition to the rule, according to the Times.

President Bush has said he will veto any rollback of the FCC provision that crosses his desk — a threat that could backfire and cost political capital given last week’s demonstration of broad opposition to the rule, noted press reports.

“The House has now repudiated the FCC’s attempted giveaway of the public airways to national media giants,” Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), who authored the rollback provision said last week. “I hope the administration is listening and will fix its flawed policy, so citizens can get accurate, free-flowing information — the lifeblood of democracy.”

The Senate, whose Commerce Committee has already indicated strong support for a rollback of the new rule, is expected to take up the matter in September.

NEW YORK
Though agreeing that the gun industry has knowingly created a public nuisance with lax sales and distribution policies, a federal judge nevertheless ruled against the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) last week in a suit seeking sweeping changes to gun-sale policies.

The suit, filed by the NAACP in 1999, charged gun manufacturers with flooding the market and fostering lazy oversight policies on gun sales.

Such policies, the group alleged, allowed firearms to fall easily into the hands of criminals, imperiling the public and harming the quality of life by creating a “public nuisance,” reported the New York Times.

Four years after the suit was filed, U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein last week agreed with the NAACP’s basic argument, but tossed out their suit on technical grounds, saying the group lacked the proper standing to bring the case.

“The evidence presented at trial demonstrated that defendants are responsible for the creation of a public nuisance,” Weinstein said.

While gun makers and distributors could reduce gun violence “voluntarily and through easily implemented changes in marketing and more discriminating control of sales practices,” they have chosen not to do so, he continued.

But despite “clear and convincing evidence” of “careless practices,” the NAACP suit must be rejected because the group failed to prove that its members were uniquely harmed by the industry’s actions, Weinstein concluded.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation welcomed last week’s acquittal, but assailed many of the remarks in Weinstein’s 175-page ruling as “highly offensive and outrageous,” noted the Times.

While last week’s ruling ends the NAACP’s lawsuit, the city of New York has filed a similar suit and is expected to avail itself of the ruling as a basic blueprint to bolster its own “public nuisance” case.

While it lost its own suit, “the NAACP has proved the city’s case,” the group’s lead lawyer, Elisa Barnes, told the Times.

While roughly two dozen cases have been filed across the country accusing the gun industry of negligent or dangerous practices, many of the cases have been dropped or dismissed. The White House and Congress are currently considering passing a law that would insulate the gun industry from such charges.

SACRAMENTO
A federal judge last week rejected a lawsuit filed by two tobacco companies against the state of California, which they accused of violating their First Amendment rights in a series of anti-smoking ads.

The companies — R. J. Reynolds and Lorillard Tobacco — contended that they were being forced, via cigarette taxes, to subsidize the state’s anti-smoking ads, which they say vilify tobacco executives.

The firms argued that the ads, partly funded by a 25-cent per-pack cigarette taxes, amounted to “compelled speech” that forced them to espouse a viewpoint — stop smoking — against their wishes.

Attorneys for the state of California countered that the ad campaign, launched in 1990, was “government speech” paid for by state funds from a variety of sources that necessarily included taxes, reported the Associated Press.

Last week, U.S. Eastern District Court Judge Lawrence Karlton agreed with the state, dismissing the companies’ suit and its claims of First Amendment violations.

“No one could possibly confuse [the ads] for the tobacco companies’ own speech,” Kessler wrote in his ruling.

“The government’s speech is necessarily paid for by citizens, some of whom — like the plaintiffs here — disagree with its message,” Karlton wrote, saying such conflicts are “simply the cost of living in a democracy.”

Defendants’ attorneys said they will appeal the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes

OTTAWA
Iran is accusing Canadian police in Port Moody, British Columbia, of a “criminal act” in the killing of Keyvan Tabesh, an Iranian national who was resident in Canada.

Tabesh was killed after he approached police with a machete on July 14, 2003, according to press reports.

The allegation appears to be a countercharge against Canadian protests over the killing of Montreal photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, who died in Iranian custody.

Ms. Kazemi was detained after she took photographs outside a Tehran prison during student protests. She died from a blow to the head while in police custody. Despite demands by the Canadian government and Ms. Kazemi’s son that her body be returned to Canada for an autopsy and burial in her adopted country, the Iranian government is reported to have buried her in Iran.

Canada has recalled its ambassador to Iran in protest against the killing of the photojournalist and the refusal of the Iranian government to return the body of Ms. Kazemi.

Iran is now countering with a request for a full account of the “horrifying crime” that led to the death of Mr. Tabesh. Canadian politicians have been quick to point out that there is no moral equivalency between killing an unarmed journalist while in detention and an act of self-defense by the police in British Columbia.

However, authorities in that province are investigating the circumstances of deadly police response to the Iranian national.

From the Pew Research Center and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life:

“Religion is a critical factor these days in the public’s thinking about contentious policy issues and political matters. An increasing number of Americans have come to view Islam as a religion that encourages violence while a declining number say Islam has a lot in common with their own religion. The public remains divided over whether churches should stay out of politics, even as large numbers say they are comfortable with expressions of faith by political leaders. There also is evidence that next year’s presidential vote may again provoke deep religious divisions over social issues, especially homosexual marriage.

“The new nationwide survey … shows that there has been an important shift in public perceptions of Islam. Fully 44 percent now believe that Islam is more likely than other religions ‘to encourage violence among its believers.’ As recently as March 2002, just 25 percent expressed this view.

“A separate study by the Pew Research Center in June 2003 found a similar change in the number of Americans who see Muslims as anti-American: 49 percent believe that a significant portion of Muslims around the world hold anti-American views, up from 36 percent in March 2002.

“In the new survey, most Americans continue to rate Muslim-Americans favorably, though the percentage is inching downward. A declining number of Americans say their own religion has a lot in common with Islam 22 percent now, compared with 27 percent in 2002 and 31 percent shortly after the terrorist attacks in the fall of 2001. Views of Muslims and Islam are influenced heavily by a person’s ideology and religious affiliation. White evangelical Christians and political conservatives hold more negative views of Muslims and are more likely than other Americans to say that Islam encourages violence among its followers.

“As the presidential campaign takes shape, religious divisions over some controversial social issues - homosexuality in particular - are as wide as ever. Overall, 53 percent oppose allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally compared with 38 percent who support the idea. Opposition to gay marriage has decreased significantly since the mid-1990s, from 65 percent in 1996. But notably, the shift in favor of gay marriage is seen in nearly every segment of society with two significant exceptions - white evangelical Protestants and African-Americans. While a higher percentage of white evangelicals (83 percent) than blacks (64 percent) oppose legalizing gay marriages, neither group has changed its views significantly since 1996.

“The survey also finds conflicting sentiments about the use of religious rhetoric by politicians. The public at large is quite comfortable with President Bush’s evocation of faith and what many perceive as his reliance on religious beliefs in making policy decisions. A 62-percent majority thinks Bush strikes the right balance in how much he mentions his religious faith, and nearly as many (58 percent) believe the president’s reliance on religion in policymaking is appropriate. Yet in spite of the widespread acceptance of politicians - and the president in particular - referencing religion in their speeches and political decisions, many Americans express a general discomfort when exposed to actual religious statements by various politicians.

“For the most part, people say religion does not frequently affect their voting decisions. Nearly six-in-ten (58 percent) say their religious beliefs seldom if ever affect their voting decisions, while 38 percent say their vote choices are at least occasionally affected by their beliefs. White evangelicals and African-American Protestants are most likely to report that their religion shapes their votes at least occasionally, while white mainline Protestants and Catholics mostly say that religion has little or no impact on their votes.

“At the same time, significant numbers of Americans say they would be reluctant to vote for a presidential candidate even if generally well-qualified if the candidate was a member of a specific faith. Nearly four-in-ten (38 percent) say they would not vote for a well-qualified Muslim for president, and 15 percent express concern about voting for a well-qualified evangelical Christian. Far fewer say they would not vote for a Jewish (10 percent) or Catholic (8 percent) candidate. But fully half say they would not vote for a well-qualified atheist….

“The survey underscores an important and often overlooked fact of American politics: African-Americans and white evangelical Christians are remarkably similar in their views about the role of religion in politics, yet they come to sharply different partisan conclusions. Both groups think the country would be better off if religion were more influential, both defend the role of religious leaders as political spokesmen, and both share similar views on important social issues, such as assisted suicide and gay marriage. Yet their attitudes toward President Bush and partisan politics are almost diametrically opposed. White evangelicals lean strongly toward Bush and the Republicans, and African-Americans lean strongly against both the president and his party. These two groups - both of them highly engaged and religious - stand as important countervailing forces in American public life….

“The survey finds that there is no consensus on whether churches and other houses of worship should weigh in on social and political issues. Roughly half (52 percent) support the idea of churches expressing opinions on the issues of the day, while 44 percent are opposed….”

“Pride is a deeply rooted ailment of the soul. The penalty is misery; the remedy lies in the sincere, lifelong cultivation of humility, which means true self-evaluation and a proper perspective toward past, present, and future.”

– Robert Gordis (U.S. rabbi and scholar, 1908-1992)

When British prime minister Tony Blair addressed the U.S. Congress last week, he spoke glowingly of his nation’s affinity and support for the United States. He needed to. As a journalist, I’ve been visiting and reporting from London since 1979. I’ve never encountered as much anti-American sentiment as I found during a week’s visit earlier this month.

It wasn’t personal; the fundamental civility of discourse is unruffled. What’s new is an almost chemical reaction against the Bush administration, coupled with anguish over the fact that ordinary Americans support the administration so strongly. I was living in London when, 23 years ago, Europe recoiled in horror as U.S. voters put a Hollywood actor into the presidency. In 1980, the reaction was against Ronald Reagan himself, not against the States in general. This is different, and far more serious.

What’s hard for Americans to grasp is why Britain cares. Beyond Wimbledon and Princess Diana, even educated Americans know little about Britain. Educated British subjects, by contrast, know and can cite, chapter and verse, the errors and omission of U.S. foreign policy. They have opinions about Washington’s dismissal of the Kyoto protocol on climate change, its resistance to the International Criminal Court, and its disparagement of the United Nations. But the real resentment comes over the war in Iraq. They’re upset not just for the way Britain got entangled in the fighting or for the alleged distorting of raw intelligence to make a case for war. What most concerns them about the Washington administration is its go-it-alone “cowboy” attitude — a word often heard in London these days.

Turning back to historian Henry Steele Commager’s The American Mind, I was reminded of the reasons that such criticism might appeal in London today. Prof. Commager’s book, published in 1950, remains a brilliant description of the development of U.S. national thought and character in the nineteenth century. Of the numerous contrasts between the American and the European at that time, three stand out:

• Progress. As Commager observes, progress was not for the American “a philosophical idea but a commonplace of experience: He saw it daily in the transformation of wilderness into farm land, in the growth of villages into cities, in the steady rise of community and nation to wealth and power. To the disgust of the Europeans, who lived so much in the past, he lived in the future…. He came at last to believe that nothing was beyond his power and to be impatient with any success that was less than triumph.”
• Introspection. In politics, religion, culture, and philosophy, Commager writes, “theories and speculations disturbed the American,” who “profoundly distrusted the abstract and the doctrinaire.” He also distrusted experts, had “a quantitative cast to this thinking,” and saw religion as practical rather than saintly. And “to the charge that he had no political philosophy he was cheerfully indifferent” — an attitude guaranteed to scandalize European thinkers.
• Carelessness. “Perhaps the most pervasive and persistent quality of the [nineteenth-century] American,” writes Commager, is carelessness. Nonchalant about his dress, food, and manners, he also “took little pride in a finished job, prizing versatility above thoroughness.” Even his speech “revealed his impatience: He slurred over words, left his sentences unfinished, and developed to the full the possibilities of slang.” He was equally careless about imposed authority: “Where the Englishman regarded the observance of a rule as a positive pleasure, to the American a rule was at once an affront and a challenge.” Why? Because “the American rarely expected to stay put and had little interest in building for the future.”

These habits of mind, Commager argues, changed after 1880. But the outgrown roots remain as a stereotype: an impatience with anything less than immediate progress, a pragmatic suspicion of deep thought, and a fast-paced carelessness that would only be inhibited by diligence and detail. In ordinary times, such differences between Britain and the United States are tolerable, even amusing. Exacerbated by current tensions — terrorism, a soft economy, an unpopular war — they surface as anti-Americanism. Why? What accounts for the sudden and almost outsized vehemence of the anti-American thesis?

The answer, I think, lies in a fundamental moral concern. It grows out of the collapse of Communism as a global power. In an earlier bipolar world with limited military and strategic options, the United States had to ask, What can America do? Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the answer is, Anything it wants. That leaves only one question: What ought the United States to do? For a nation of pragmatists unused to introspection, that’s an uncomfortably moral question. Pragmatism, after all, is about what one can do. Ethics is about what one ought to do.

At its worst, the British critique of the United States may reflect an envy of prosperity, a fear of competition, a longing for less regulation, a hunger for more space and less historical baggage. At its best, however, it’s the critique of a longtime friend, genuinely concerned about America’s moral compass. Will the United States interpret progress to mean a steady advancement for humanity, or an impatient triumphalism? Will it think deeply about the big moral and metaphysical questions of our global future, or dismiss introspection as an annoyance and theory as an impediment? Finally, will it transmute its nineteenth-century carelessness into a welcoming informality that refuses to get bogged down in secondary concerns, or into a short attention span that gives only partial consideration to even the most pressing issues?

These are questions of huge moral consequence. It may be, in fact, that the most important twenty-first-century clash of cultures is not the one between Islam and Christianity. Maybe it’s between the United States and its closest overseas cousin.

(c)2003 Institute for Global Ethics

“Every now and then we’ve got to look at our young people and understand why they said what they said, and then do something about it…. None of us that wear this uniform are free to say anything disparaging about the secretary of defense or the president of the United States.”

– U.S. general John Abizaid, head of U.S. Central Command, discussing soldiers’ frustrated remarks last week to the Associated Press. The soldiers, whose duty in Iraq has been repeatedly extended, complained about the delays in going home and, in one case, criticized the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Such statements may have violated military rules, which ban criticism of higher-ranking officers, according to the AP. The military said it is looking into whether punishment should be meted out. (“Griping Could Mean Charges for Soldiers,” AP, July 18.)

CHICAGO
In an effort to ensure that past wrongs are not repeated and to clean up a capital punishment system that the governor has called deeply flawed, Illinois last week adopted a law requiring all interrogations of murder suspects to be recorded on video or audio tape.

Though initially opposed to the idea, Gov. Rod Blagojevich later changed his mind, expressing full support for the new requirement and signing it into law.

“As a former prosecutor,” Blagojevich told the Los Angeles Times, “I had some serious reservations about requiring police interviews to be taped. However, when there is a system that can allow an innocent person to be sent to death row based on a questionable confession, we have a moral obligation to intervene.”

The move was hailed by many as a way to protect innocent suspects, as well as a useful tool for police officers and prosecutors seeking convictions.

Lt. Michael P. Hurley of the San Diego Police Department told the Times that taped interrogations eliminate any “doubt about what was said by the police officer or the suspect. There is no questioning the officer’s veracity. The other thing is it enables the jury to see if the suspect shows a lack of remorse. That can be persuasive.”

However, not everyone is in favor of the new law, particularly some law enforcement officials who see it as an unnecessary intrusion on their management of operations.

Mark Donahue, head of the Fraternal Order of Police in Chicago, told the New York Times, “We’re not in favor of the mandatory provision. We would prefer that it be voluntary.” However, recognizing the current political climate that hangs a high level of suspicion over the current capital punishment system, Donahue also added, “But we’re realists about all of this as well.”

The Times reports that Democratic Governor Blagojevich’s predecessor, Republican George Ryan, declared a moratorium on executions in Illinois and, just before leaving office in January, granted clemency to all convicts on death row. According to the AP, Ryan’s concern stemmed partly from the fact that after Illinois reinstated capital punishment in 1977, 13 people were later found innocent after they had been convicted of crimes and received a death sentence.

The new law will be the first in the nation that seeks to address this problem. Minnesota and Alaska currently have similar procedures, though they are mandated by court order, not law, noted the Times.

In a letter to the Illinois Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Capital Litigation, the Los Angeles Times reports, Amy Klobuchar, county attorney in Minneapolis, stated, “These recordings provide compelling evidence for prosecutors to present to juries, ensure that law enforcement follows best practices, serve as a training tool for police, and protect against false claims of coerced confessions or violations of a suspect’s constitutional rights.”

She also added, “Perhaps most importantly, they enhance the public’s confidence in the integrity of our criminal justice system.”

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico
Federal prosecutors last week rested their case in a Puerto Rican murder trial, seeking the death penalty despite the island’s strong opposition and constitutional prohibition against capital punishment.

The U.S. Justice Department has asked for the death penalty in the case of two Puerto Rican men charged with kidnapping a local grocer in 1998. Prosecutors say the men later killed and dismembered the businessman after their ransom terms were not met.

The Justice Department’s decision to pursue the death penalty flies squarely in the face of the island’s historical and legal opposition to the death penalty, enshrined in its 1952 Constitution with the phrase, “The death penalty shall not exist.”

When the United States adopted Puerto Rico as an official territory, Congress approved the island’s Constitution, giving Puerto Rico congressional representation without voting rights.

The Justice Department now is pushing to trump the island’s Constitution, saying that federal laws allowing it to seek capital punishment take precedence, reported the New York Times.

In 2000, federal judge Salvador Casellas threw out a death penalty plea, writing, “It shocks the conscience to impose the ultimate penalty, death, upon American citizens who are denied the right to participate directly or indirectly in the government that enacts and authorizes the imposition of such punishment.”

The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston reversed Casellas’ decision one year later, setting the stage for the current death-penalty trial.

The administration’s move bucks both the island’s tenuous sense of autonomy and a Clinton-era policy that set a high hurdle for any federal move to bypass local laws against the death penalty, noted the Times.

That guideline ordered the Justice Department to respect states’ bans on capital punishment unless there was a “substantial interest in federal prosecution.” The Bush administration eliminated the guideline in 2001 as part of its push to more vigorously seek the death penalty across the country, according to the Times.

The government’s invocation of federal powers to override Puerto Rico’s constitutional opposition to the death penalty has sparked bitterness among many islanders, who say their integrity is being violated.

“Although we are talking about some facts that are very gruesome, the people of Puerto Rico do not approve in any way of capital punishment,” Arturo Luis Dávila Toro, the president of the Puerto Rico Bar Association, told the Times.

“How can I explain that my constitution is not respected by the nation that teaches us how to live in a democracy?” Dávila Toro complained.

The Justice Department has declined to comment on the case.

BRUSSELS
Belgium last week agreed to reduce the scope of a controversial war-crimes law that has put the country in the diplomatic hot seat, saying the new limits should restore the nation to the good graces of its allies.

The contested law allowed anyone, regardless of nationality, to file war-crimes allegations against any leader regardless of where the atrocities occurred, reported the Reuters news agency.

Critics of the law, including many prominent Western leaders, had complained that it amounted to open season on any leader whose unpopular policy resulted in deaths.

U.S. president George Bush, British prime minister Tony Blair, and Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon had each been charged with war crimes under the law, noted Reuters.

Although Belgium had softened the law before, such steps failed to appease critics.

Recently, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld warned that Washington may limit visits to Belgium and halt funding for the new NATO headquarters in Brussels unless the law was abandoned, noted Reuters.

Last week, Belgium largely complied, agreeing to rein in the law’s reach to allow suits only by Belgian citizens or residents, saying it would redraft the law to mirror those used in other allied nations, according to the AFP.

GENEVA
National politics and poor planning by governments are making it harder than ever for the Red Cross to provide humanitarian aid to many of the world’s most troubled spots, the group warned last week in its annual World Disasters Report.

The report — an annual assessment of deaths caused by natural disasters, industrial accidents, and other non-war catastrophes — indicts both ill-conceived ventures and fickle donation trends by nations.

The Red Cross says the statistics point to a troubling trend: a flood of funding for high-profile crises at the cost of long-neglected catastrophes in places away from the spotlight, reported the Reuters news agency.

The report points to Afghanistan as one example, noting that emergency aid tripled from $100 million to $300 million in the wake of 9/11 — even though the humanitarian crises facing the country remained consistent.

Complicating matters, “the arrival of over 350 international aid agencies in Afghanistan has driven up local rents, inflated salaries, and sucked away skilled Afghans from the government and vital services,” the report claimed.

While the Red Cross says funding increases are welcome, it noted that they usually come only in cases of “politically strategic conflicts” instead of in lower-profile situations of greater need, noted Reuters.

“Humanitarian aid does not deal an equal hand to all those suffering under the shadow of conflict, disease, or disaster,” Red Cross secretary-general Didier Cherpitel wrote in his introduction to the report. Instead, it “tends to favor high-profile emergencies at the expense of more invisible suffering far from the media or political spotlight.”

Iraq and Afghanistan fall into the former category, while “chronic emergencies in countries such as Angola, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo receive little attention,” laments the report.

The annual report found that natural and industrial disasters affected 600 million people worldwide in 2002, with 24,500 people losing their lives. War-related deaths were not included in the count.