The Foreign Service Journal, December 2007

8 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 7 L E T T E R S rights reports on American aid recipients to Congress. I stayed on through the first year of the Carter administration, which made human rights a major policy consideration. I assembled the first human rights reports sent to Congress in early 1977. Those reports on about 75 countries, compiled in a booklet no more than half an inch thick, were a mere shadow of the tomes the department later produced and con- tinues to send to Congress each year. In those years the United States became the leading voice for in- creased respect for internationally recognized human rights. In 1975, State Department FSOs insisted on including respect for human rights in the Helsinki Final Act, a first step in confronting communist regimes with their rights abuses. The 1977 reports to Congress made front-page headlines in leading American newspapers, and Pres. Carter’s references to human rights in his inaugural speech were followed by Vaclav Havel’s creation of a human rights group in Prague the next day. Top-level administration officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights Patt Derian, advocated increased respect for hu- man rights publicly and privately in high-level diplomatic meetings. Even in the midst of the Cold War, we began to raise human rights concerns with our repressive allies and with communist adversaries. Admittedly, human rights policy application was tentative, sometimes experimental and not always uniform, as its critics charged. But America’s advocacy gradually brought some improvements around the world. And there was no doubt anywhere that our government, Congress and the major- ity of American people were strong supporters of human rights. I don’t think the department ever officially defined the term “gross violations” of human rights in the Harkin Amendment, but our working definition certainly included such abuses as murder, other violations of the safety and integrity of the person, incarcerations without charges or trial, disappearances (a common practice in the Chilean and Argentine dictator- ships) and torture. Torture was viewed as barbaric, uncivilized and unjustifiable under any circumstances — a taboo. Until the aftermath of 9/11, I never imagined that U.S. officials could advocate, justify and condone its use. My shock and dismay only deepened as American citizens’ civil rights — i.e., human rights —were also under- mined in the mistaken belief that our security could be enhanced by violating some of our rights. Back in the 1970s, we often told dictatorships fighting insurgen- cies that the rule of law must be maintained, even in a state of emer- gency. We need more voices to make that point in Washington today, as Amb. Murray did so forcefully in the September Journal . Sadly and tragically, America has now lost its human rights voice at home and abroad. Even worse, as some of your authors indicated, we now serve as an example and excuse for other rights-violating regimes. Little wonder that our reputation in the world has fallen to a historic low. Your focus was one in a chorus of voices we must raise to denounce the current abuses and the wrong human rights policies of our government, both in the public forum and at the ballot box. H. Kenneth Hill Ambassador, retired Bradenton, Fla. A New Counterinsurgency Doctrine Speaking as someone who took part in the CORDS pacification pro- gram in Vietnam, I write to compli- ment the Foreign Service Journal for its enduring attention to counter- insurgency. Between the publication of Sarah Sewall’s article in the September FSJ and an all-too-similar article by Undersecretary for Political Affairs U. Alexis Johnson, which the Journal published in July 1962, 45 years passed. In 1962, it looked like counter- insurgency doctrine had a better future than it does now, even with the recent publication of a brand-new army field manual. As Sewall points out, the interagency process that would implement the new doctrine is stalled, and she recommends a high- level bipartisan commission to clarify when and why counterinsurgency serves the national interest. In 1962, such a high-level body existed; it was called the Special Group (Counter- insurgency) and included Robert Kennedy, Gen. Maxwell Taylor, Ed- ward R. Murrow and Under Secretary Johnson. After Vietnam, counterinsurgency fell into disfavor. The Weinberger and Powell Doctrines put up a political barrier to counterinsurgency and other military intervention. In 1987, seeing the need for better coor- dination in the low-intensity con- flict spectrum after the disastrous 1980 attempted rescue of the Em- bassy Tehran hostages and the fumb- ling surrounding the 1983 Grenada operation, President Reagan signed a National Security Decision Directive that established a low-intensity con- flict board. Because of opposition from the Defense Department, very little came of that body, even though it included a senior DOD official named Richard Armitage. It is more than ironic that the 1990s campaign against the U.S. military participation in counterinsur- gency and low-intensity conflict (in the Balkans) was led by Gen. Colin