The Politics of Sorry

Six stations on the road to forgiveness -- and why there's no harm in President Obama apologizing to Afghanistan.

BY KARL E. MEYER | MARCH 12, 2012

In its admirable fertility, the English language provides an ample choice of alternatives for the commonplace expression "I'm sorry." The offending party can "apologize," "express regrets," or "voice remorse." The culprit can confess "error," "fault," or "guilt," while vowing to "repent," "atone," and/or "compensate." Especially in election years, "sorry," in all its gradations, is often dissected to suggest that a public figure is groveling. Thus Barack Obama's opponents accuse the U.S. president of needlessly saying "sorry" overseas on what presidential candidate Mitt Romney has called Obama's "American apology tour." The attacks reached a fever pitch when Obama sent a message to Afghan President Hamid Karzai apologizing for the careless burning of Qurans by U.S. personnel at Bagram Airfield. Candidate Newt Gingrich called the apology an "outrage" because six Americans were killed in the riots provoked by the burning and as many as 30 Afghan lives were lost. The White House was still scrambling to respond to continuing protests of the Quran burning when a seemingly berserk soldier reportedly massacred 16 Afghan civilians, including women and children, in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province on March 10. Rarely have the politics of sorry seemed so sensitive.

The first question worth examining is whether Obama is in fact guilty as charged, but the more interesting second question is whether saying "sorry" really matters in foreign affairs. In respect to the first question, fact-checkers at the Washington Post failed to find a single full-throated apology in any of the president's overseas speeches; instead, he repeatedly extolled America and its ideals. Like his predecessors, Obama has become practiced in conceding error without saying sorry, as exemplified early in his presidency when he held that a Boston police sergeant had "acted stupidly" in arresting an African-American scholar, Harvard University's Henry Louis "Skip" Gates. Having caused an outcry, the president then recalibrated his words, holding that both policeman and professor had "overreacted," and invited both to share a beer at the White House.

In respect to the broader question, in my view, saying sorry truly does matter, and it was wise and just for Obama to do so following the tragic blunder at Bagram Airfield. Few wounds fester longer than a failure to acknowledge gross abuses, even in times long past. Japan to this day remains tongue-tied regarding treatment of Korean "comfort women" during World War II and is still faulted in Asia for its tardy and awkward apologies for its wartime transgressions. Turkey steadfastly resists to even acknowledge its indiscriminate slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman troops during World War I, prompting the French National Assembly to pass a law criminalizing denial of what is widely regarded as a genocide. Turkey, for its part, accuses France of ignoring its own crimes perpetrated during an Algerian war that claimed more than a million lives (Algeria's count) or at least 300,000 lives (in France's reckoning) -- a discrepancy ironically symmetrical with contested counts of Armenian fatalities in Turkey.

Concerning France's undeclared war in Algeria, President Nicolas Sarkozy all but shrugged prior to his sole visit to Algeria in 2007. True, he told an interviewer that many suffered in the conflict, but "I'm for a recognition of the facts, but not for repentance, which is a religious notion that has no place in relations between states." To date, there has been no official apology for France's violent repression and use of torture in the war, so Algerians have repeatedly complained. Even as national leaders are held to heightened standards of moral responsibility, they tend to duck for cover in traditional formulas for avoiding or narrowing blame. I have developed a score card of sorts describing the six degrees of contrition, ranging from virtual dismissal to full embrace.

Mario Tama/Getty Images

 

Karl E. Meyer is a former editor of World Policy Journal and co-author, most recently, with Shareen Blair Brysac of Pax Ethnica: Where and How Diversity Succeeds.

DR. KUCHBHI

10:02 PM ET

March 12, 2012

An apology is just not going to cut it

This is not a case where somebody spoke out of turn or forgot to return a library book by the due date.

We have shown a sad hypocrisy when it comes to deaths of Afghans (and Iraqis previously in incidents like Haditha for example) at the hands of our soldiers. Some of these deaths have been accidental, others have been callous and yet others have occurred in what may be called the fog of war.

Sadly there have been others like this that have been flat out murder. In almost all of these cases, we have fallen short of meting out punishment that goes with the crime. Actions or inactions in such cases have sown doubts in the minds of our staunchest Afghan allies that we're there to help them. It embarrasses them and destroys the work done by the 99% of American troops in building bridges with the Afghan people.

If the victims had been American, there would be little doubt about what the fate of the perpetrator would have been. But given our slap on the wrist treatment of criminals in such cases, we have sent a message out that Afghan deaths as less important than American deaths.
In effect, we are begging them to kick us out on our behinds making us no different in their eyes from the Russians.

The patriotic thing to do here is to make sure that the perpetrator is punished no different than he would be if his victims were middle class residents of any American suburb.

 

FORLORNEHOPE

7:18 AM ET

March 13, 2012

Nobody ever learns

We could try learning from history, though it's a bit late for that now. The old British Empire had more sense than to try ruling Afghanistan. Whenever the Afghans caused too much trouble they sent in a force to sort them out. Actually they always underestimated what was needed and took a beating. However they then went back in force and the Afghans kept quiet for the next forty years, 1839, 1879 and 1919. The issue had been so clearly settled in 1839 that the Afghans didn't even cause any trouble to the British in 1857, despite continuing to claim Peshawar. Once Al Qaeda and the Taleban had been ejected we should have got out and left the Afghans to it. Someone might have needed to repeat the exercise in 2040 or so but they probably will anyway. Whether or not Obama, or Bush should apologise is pretty irrelevant.

 

WEMEANTWELL

2:44 PM ET

March 13, 2012

Why We Lost in Afghanistan

From the US perspective, a soldier in uniform, representing the United States to the people he encounters in Afghanistan, murders sixteen people including nine children and it is called an unfortunate, isolated incident. When the US accidentally blows up sixteen Afghan civilians with a 500 pound bomb, to the US it is just another day at the office, "collateral damage."

Each time one of these horrors occurs in Afghanistan, the US response is that it is an isolated incident. How many isolated incidents must accrue before we acknowledge we have a collective problem?

It is obvious to everyone in Afghanistan that the US really could care less about burning Korans, pissing on Afghan dead or even the murder of children, except perhaps as a PR issue to be managed.

That is why we lost in Afghanistan. Time, now, after twelve years of war, to call it quits.

Peter

wemeantwell.com

 

SHELLY KRESGE

11:37 AM ET

March 14, 2012

An Apology and A Punishment to the Aggravator

Asking for an apology is seem right and the berserked soldier should be sorry of what is done. The massacre of 16 Afghan civilians is too much and added to that is the burning of Qurans which is sacred to them. An apology is just right and to genomma lab, punishment should be given to the one that provoked this incident.

 

ROD POORE

8:31 PM ET

April 8, 2012

US politics

I think that, I've been saying this for the last half dozen years that the USA should be concentrating on improving things for Americans rather than intervening unnecessarily overseas or granting money and aid to other countries that don't need it. See the contrast in attendance in the US houses for legislation that is sponsored for the benefit of Israel whether it be to send the latest US fighter planes or bunker busting bombs and the support for punative actions against the enemies of Israel. People should wonder sometimes whether US congressmen and senators are representing Israel of the American people. In the meantime, there are lots of US matters relating to infrastructure, education, social security, medicare, pensions, housing, poverty, etc that needs attending to but are left wanting.