May I please back-channel this?
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By Michael L. McManus
A new word has just recently crept into the English language. The word is back-channel and its use will become more familiar in the months ahead. In fact, it promises to possibly become as familiar as “Watergate” or other euphemisms for something potentially very controversial, even scandalous.
Its applications are many, but it has found particular resonance in the halls of government diplomacy and those halls are reverberating. First to appreciate the severity, let’s consider “back-channel” as it applies to other areas of our lives.
You go to work one day only to find that you have been fired. No warning, no pretense, just a pink slip and a check for your wages up to that day. You are asked to gather your things and leave the site. You come home to find a good-bye note from your spouse. He or she expresses great hurt and pain and says they cannot continue the marriage. You call on some friends and they seem like they are trying to avoid you. Finally your kids come home from school and do not want to talk to you. You are shunned.
None of these things are explainable. You feel blindsided. It even starts to feel like a conspiracy. The sad reality is that a conspiracy of sorts is exactly what it is. You have been back-channeled! Long after investigation you find that there were untrue and vicious rumors at your workplace and that you were a victim of a hate crime in the workplace. No one wanted you to know. You discover through neighbors that your spouse has secretly been seeing an outside romance. Your friends finally tell you that your spouse has been spreading vicious rumors about you to cover for their own disloyalty. Finally, your kids confess they have also heard these untrue rumors.
You never got the real truth, at least not in time. In a possible effort to protect their own actions, and keep their own affairs and experiments in secret, you were in the dark and purposely. All loyalties seem broken. Ah ha, once again, in the name of protecting the innocent from the ugly truth, the real truth and ultimate loyalty were compromised. You were back-channeled.
Now, to diplomacy and this concept’s recent emergence. The negotiation with Iran took a long time. There were many parties involved, and many twists and turns until President Obama and his team announced that a great deal for the American people had been reached. But, in recent weeks, Washington and the media have been stirring over a piece of video that was “excised” or removed, cut out from the official White House briefing to the public. Worse yet, when questioned about this, the U.S. Department of State admitted it had lied and told the public that the tape had not been doctored. This so far has Watergate-like implications—dirty tricks uncovered.
Everyone in Washington is now trying to avoid the scene. But, in describing it and justifying to explain why it might be in the interest of the American public NOT to know what was going on in actuality, the excuse was that “back-channel” private negotiations were actually taking place with the Iranians, and someone said that if the public knew this or the nature of the talks it could jeopardize the whole deal. In this logic, sometimes the executive branch knows best and can decide when transparency should be suspended or delayed. I didn’t miss the nuance. This is “huge” as some would say.
The executive branch of U.S. government must step aside and it is Congress that passes new laws and declares war. Yet the executive branch wields enormous power. It sets foreign policy for the nation, including back-channel deals. No fewer than 69 treaties have been signed by U.S. Presidents with other nations to defend their borders. Congress and the people had no say. If an American President after eight years in office has allowed himself to think more of world interests than of his own country’s interests, what do we have? Would we know? (See my last article about the “peer shift phenomenon.”)
Back-channel is such a nice word. It sounds legitimate. We are told that what we sometimes don’t know is better for us. Back-channel politics, back-room deals. Back-channel marital issues, secret lovers and cover-ups. Back-channel human resource management in large organizations, organizational dysfunction. A euphemism is a word usually more pleasant sounding than what it actually is.
Who knows how much of our lives are being determined in back rooms through back-channels. It will not stop, because there will always be a way to lie nicely by many who feel it is O.K. to sometimes operate government in secret. Even in the best of democracies. And it is done with high motives: protecting the public from overreactions during sensitive times of negotiating. Protecting the public from the media. Protecting the public from itself.
Frankly, it’s time we have a discussion of all of our “back-channel” dealings. I, for one, don’t want or need a lot of people protecting me from knowing the truth, editing tapes or lying about it. We may see another Watergate over this one. If not, it will be back-channeled.
Michael L. McManus writes twice monthly and exclusively for The Korea Times. He is a visiting professor at a number of universities in Seoul, and invites comment at mcmismism@aol.com.