Bush in Brussels

by Paul on February 21, 2005

Does anybody read these things in advance? He really said this.

Lasting, successful reform in the broader Middle East will not be imposed from the outside; it must be chosen from within. Governments must choose to fight corruption, abandon old habits of control, protect the rights of conscience and the rights of minorities. Governments must invest in the health and education of their people, and take responsibility for solving problems instead of simply blaming others. Citizens must choose to hold their governments accountable. The path isn’t always easy, as any free people can testify — yet there’s reason for confidence. Ultimately, men and women who seek the success of their nation will reject an ideology of oppression, anger, and fear. Ultimately, men and women will embrace participation and progress — and we are seeing the evidence in an arc of reform from Morocco to Bahrain to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Um, sir? Those last two? Imposed from outside, remember?

And, since in Afghanistan and Iraq reform was imposed from the outside, does that mean you are admitting that it won’t be lasting and successful? Are they just for show, sort of “Potemkin democracies?”

Mr. Bush, just exactly what is our stance of regime change in the Middle East: are we waiting for them to change themselves, or are we taking ‘em out? Because, as you said earlier in the speech, “Regimes that terrorize their own people will not hesitate to support terror abroad.”

And what’s with this vision of democracy just somehow popping out eventually? “The path isn’t always easy,” you say?” Is it ever easy? Aren’t the Taliban and Saddam examples of the difficulty in holding one’s government accountable? See, democratic movements have a hard time when the government has the guns, the secret police, and the tacit or explicit support of the Americans and their corporations. Sometimes the powerful find that power and wealth for themselves and their friends seems much more fun than having to listen to those annoying masses. It seems like there is often a bloody revolution and a civil war, or both(!) involved. Just what’s our stance on that?

And now that you mention it, have you noticed that members of your party here at home aren’t doing so good a job on ‘embracing participation’ themselves? Those guys in the House seem to keep shutting the Democrats out of the meetings, and over in the Senate they’re calling “obstructionist” and threatening to eliminate filibusters. Out in the states, people keep trying to eliminate Democrats from the voter rolls.

Seems like your whole “Democracy determinism” idea might need some work. Wasn’t it Franklin who said “A republic, if you can keep it?” I think it’s a bit trickier than you make it sound. You might ask Vlad what he thinks; he seems to have some interesting ideas about democracy.

It’s not just the hypocrisy of this new Bush “Democracy Crusade” rhetoric that bothers me; there’s also all this simplistic political analysis that makes it sound like we elected a high school student who failed social studies President.

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