From a reader:

Jonah,
Interesting point in your cover story about the decline of liberal appeals to human rights in foreign policy. But isn’t that just because the nature of our enemies have changed? Back in the 1970’s and 80’s the Left was always outraged about some human rights abuse or another, but always in some country that was a strategic ally of the United States, and usually in cases where the main opposition was aligned with the Soviets. Back then our conflict with the Soviets was global and struggles for territory was largely waged by proxy. So places like El Salvador, Chile, South Africa, or the Philippines were key battlegrounds in the struggle against communism, and the left was constantly harping on civil rights abuses in those countries. But little or no effort was expended protesting far worse atrocities by pretty much any government that was pro-Soviet. Even genocidal mass-murders in places like Cambodia, Uganda, or Ethiopia were treated strictly as humanitarian tragedies with little attention to the deliberate actions by the anti-American governments. So the left’s moral preening always urged either the undermining of an American ally or foreign aid that would inevitably end up in the hands of some Communist dictator.
Today’s conflict is different. Where communism was an ideology without real roots in any specific culture, Islamism is rooted in the larger Islamic community. On the one hand this means that pro-American governments in non-Islamic regions are of minor importance to the war on terror and therefore of little use for bashing American policy (though note the Left’s opposition to the Free Trade Agreement with Columbia). On the other hand, the lines in Islamic areas are far more blurred than the sides usually were in the Cold War. Pointing out the very real atrocities committed by American allies like Saudi Arabia or Egypt could perhaps be used to embarass the United States, but the more obvious conclusion would be that such problems are endemic to the culture and values that they share with our enemies.
Also, there has been tremendous progress towards human rights and free elections among countries that are friendly to the United States. Outside the Middle East and probably Africa, I can’t really think of any pro-American dictator who is still in power.