Disparging the vision against tyranny
In a half-mocking tone, Peter Baker in the Washington Post describes another Bush failure – his failure to end tyranny;
By the time he arrived in Prague in June for a democracy conference, President Bush was frustrated. He had committed his presidency to working toward the goal of “ending tyranny in our world,” yet the march of freedom seemed stalled. Just as aggravating was the sense that his own government was not committed to his vision.
As he sat down with opposition leaders from authoritarian societies around the world, he gave voice to his exasperation. “You’re not the only dissident,” Bush told Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a leader in the resistance to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. “I too am a dissident in Washington. Bureaucracy in the United States does not help change. It seems that Mubarak succeeded in brainwashing them.”
Baker goes on to blame the failed Bush vision of ending tyranny in the world on bureaucrats in the State Department, Republican candidates for president, even the Vice President.
But Baker doesn’t blame Democrats – you know, those guys who stood on the roof of Hussein’s palace on the eve of our attack and declared Hussein to be a more honest broker than the President. Those guys who deliver false messages of peace to tyrannts against the advice of the White House, the guys who do their best to keep the Iraqis scared that we’re going to pull out and leave them to their own devices.Those folks that coddle every dictator they can get their puny arms around. Sacrificing the lives and well being of our planet’s citizens for purely political reasons. All for the Bush Derangement Syndrome – sacrificing human lives at the alter of Al Gore’s and John Kerry’s political defeat – such petty, petty little cretins.
And those career diplomats in the State Department who figure that turmoil in the world is their job security:
But some officials worry about alienating a friend in a region where Russia is reasserting influence. Assistant Secretary of State Richard A. Boucher has argued for giving Nazarbayev more time to reform. The discord has gotten so personal that rivals have dubbed him Boucherbayev. In an interview, Boucher said those promoting democracy are not responsible for the broader picture. “We have to work on an overall relationship,” he said. “The issue of democracy is not to be able to denounce people. The issue is to make progress.”
Still, after an invigorating start in 2005, progress has been harder to find. Among those worried about the project is Sharansky, whose book so inspired Bush. “I give him an A for bringing the idea and maybe a C for implementation,” said Sharansky, now chairman of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center in Israel. “There is a gap between what he says and what the State Department does,” and he is not consistent enough.
The challenge Bush faced, Sharansky added, was to bring Washington together behind his goal.
“It didn’t happen,” he said. “And that’s the real tragedy.”
What a rational person can’t tell these arrogant imbeciles is that those tyrannts who oppress their people don’t respond to kind words and cajolery – that’s why we call them tyrannts. Regimes who hang dissidents in public, threaten the media and the families of dissident students don’t respond to diplomatic gestures. No matter how hard you wish it to be so.
I’d never thought I’d see the day that the US government wouldn’t stand behind the President on such an essential issue as spreading Democracy and improving conditions for people world wide. Yet, here we are.
Category: Foreign Policy, Politics, Terror War
