Editor’s note: This commentary is by Nicholas Chlumecky, of Hinesburg, who graduated last year from the University of Victoria with a master’s in Pacific and Asian Studies.
[I]n 1971, Pakistan began Operation Searchlight in what is now Bangladesh. Ostensibly ordered to counter violence against the Bihari minority, the true objective was to forcibly crush Bengali nationalism. What followed was the killing of up to three million Bangladeshi people.,
Watching all this unfold was American diplomat Archer Blood. Reporting to his superiors in the United States, he wrote:
… US policy related to recent developments in East Pakistan serves neither our moral interests broadly defined nor our national interests narrowly defined … Our government has failed to denounce the suppression of democracy. Our government has failed to denounce atrocities. Our government has evidenced what many will consider moral bankruptcy …
Blood concluded by stressing the hope that policies could be changed to “salvage our nation’s position as moral leader of the free world.”
Blood was quickly recalled to Washington and shuffled to a position in human resources. The dissent went against the Nixon administration’s attempts to use Pakistan to improve relations with China. Blood’s career was sidelined permanently. He died in 2004, unknown.
The story of Archer Blood mirrors the path of the United States in the aftermath of the Second World War. Economic and political interests have triumphed over all else. Turning a blind eye to repressive regimes became accepted as Cold War realpolitik, and this policy continues today as we support Saudi Arabia and Egypt. U.S.-Turkey relations have grown colder not because bodyguards of President Erdogan assaulted protesters on American soil, but because Turkey prefers Russian arms to American ones.
It is not just in foreign policy that Blood’s legacy (or lack thereof) stings the most. In domestic politics, “moral” interests too have been sidelined in favor of money. The opioid crisis occurred thanks to a “profit-over-all” approach from pharmaceuticals, ignoring a lack of data in favor of the market. The CDC now estimates 130 Americans die a day from opioid abuse. The private health care system is defended on the grounds that competition should keep prices lower while continuing development. Yet the U.S. still spends significantly more on health care than other industrialized nations with universal coverage. South Korea, for example, spends 7.6% of GDP on health care after reaching universal coverage in 1989. The United States? 17.2%.
Perhaps most damning is the fact that economic inequality has increased rather than decreased over time. In 1998, the top 1% of the U.S. population had the same share of wealth as they did in 1920. The top 0.1% control 6% of all wealth in the U.S. Meanwhile, productivity no longer matches real wages. From 1960 to 2000, real wages decreased while productivity doubled. While workers grow poorer, the interests of wealth are preserved: progressive tax rates, as high as 90% during the 1950s, were slashed to around 30% during the Reagan administration, and the Obama administration claimed the average tax rate for the top 400 was 23%.
As average Americans feel more and more like they have no impact or say, while commentators belatedly ask, “How did we get here?”, my mind inevitably turns to Archer Blood. A man who decided to speak up against an administration’s hypocrisy and was thanked by having his career waylaid. I understand the reluctance to make things harder for yourself. But now, with people turning to online fundraising to pay medical bills, oceans filling with garbage, and representatives that care more about campaign contributions than voters, is that a luxury Americans can afford anymore?
