When I first joined the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service, I was optimistic about the positive role the United States played in the world. By the time I left not quite a decade later, I was haunted by how dangerous our shortsighted foreign policy can be.
What worried me most was how casual the U.S. government was about arming, training, and resourcing dictators, tyrants and local thugs all over the world. We typically justified this in the name of stability or maintaining influence, but pursued it with shockingly little accountability for the negative consequences.
I didn’t understand how we could reconcile the human rights values we claimed to champion with the human rights offenders we championed too. After I walked away from my career, I wanted to know more.
