CRITIQUE/ROGUE STATE TALK

TERM "ROGUE" IS INAPPROPRIATE

"ROGUE NATION" APPROACH BLINDS US TO THE REALITY OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF PEOPLE, NOT RULERS

HOWARD BREMBECK, Fourth Freedom Foundation, 2000; IN SEARCH OF THE FOURTH FREEDOM // VT2002 acs p. 56

With the virus of the Cold War continuing to infect our body politic, we seem unable to concentrate on building rapport with the people of all nations. Instead, we continue to emphasize diplomatic practices and policies that are as archaic as the top hats that once crowned the heads of ambassadors. Rather than treat the people of all nations as friends or potential friends, we stigmatize some nations as "rogues" and do little or nothing to end the rule of leaders who foment hatred and lawlessness. We don't seem to understand that, in the final analysis, there are no rogue nations. There are only rogue rulers and their authority is temporary because, in today's world, the ultimate power resides with the people.

BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAS REINTRODUCED THE TERM "ROGUE STATES" — A BIG MISTAKE

ROBERT S. LITWAK, is director of international studies at the Woodrow, Wilson Center, May 1, 2001 Los Angeles Times SECTION: Metro; Part 2; Page 9; Op Ed Desk HEADLINE: Commentary;'Rogue' Labels Put U.S. in Straightjacket //VT2002acsln

Under the Bush administration, we once again have "rogue states." This term, wisely if belatedly abandoned by the Clinton administration last June, would better have been left dead as a policy designation. Now, instead, it seems to be a lead factor in the Bush administration's move to establish a ballistic missile defense.

In diplomacy, words shape policy. "Rogue state" is a lazy convenience that has obscured our understanding of the countries branded with the rubric. Worse, by typecasting the countries with whom we should have no dealings as pariahs, it distorts our policy toward them. It was no mere obsession with language that led the Clinton administration to change this term to the infelicitous but less constraining "states of concern."