No Red Lines

“America’s Monster” the New York Times reporters named him. Abdul Raziq, the warlord, kidnapper, torturer, murderer was our “model partner” in Afghanistan. He fought the Taliban—successfully—by imposing his own reign of terror. 

“Sometimes we asked Raziq about incidents of alleged human rights abuses, and when we got answers we would be like, ‘Whoa, I hope we didn’t implicate ourselves in a war crime just by hearing about it,’” said Henry Ensher, a State Department official who held multiple posts on Afghanistan, including as the top civilian representative in Kandahar in 2010 and 2011, when he worked with Raziq.

“We knew what we were doing, but we didn’t think we had a choice,” Ensher said.” 

Sounds like an earlier statement, attributed to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s our son-of-a-bitch.” That statement was supposed to refer to, among others, Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo and Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. Trujillo and Somoza were both backed by the United States and both massacred their own people without compunction. As did Alfredo Cristiani in El Salvador and Efraín Rios Montt in Guatemala, also U.S. allies.

We still back monsters, sending them aid and weapons, lending them legitimacy and recognition.

Before he was elected, President Biden said he would ostracize Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). The crown prince was undeniably responsible for the brutal assassination of U.S. resident and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. After becoming president, Biden met with MBS, fist-bumped him for the photographers, and counts Saudi Arabia as a close ally. 

Now his administration proposes even closer ties with, and more weapons for, the Saudi regime, as an incentive for Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel. 

Which brings us to Bibi Netanyahu, currently waging war without limit or end in sight. On Sunday (May 26), Israel bombed a refugee tent camp in Rafah, killing at least 45 people. About half were women and children, some burned alive. The bomb came from the United States.  Two days later, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, visiting Israel, signed an artillery shell, inscribing it “Finish them!” The Biden administration continues to send weapons, as Israel’s bloody attack failed to cross its “red line.”

Of course not. If the United States counted Abdul Raziq as our man in Afghanistan, if Biden can fist-bump the mastermind of Khashoggi’s assassination, surely we cannot balk at Netanyahu’s unlimited war. To do so would not be in the proud U.S. tradition of support for a long line of monsters.

How much blood is needed to draw a red line?