Andrew Hagen

Millions of Iraqi voters streamed to the polls today. (*) They voted in their country’s first free election in half a century. Several suicide bombings today did not deter the vote.

The voters acted in defiance of terrorists, thugs, and murderers. They brought down the notion that they did not want the right to guide their own country’s future at the ballot box.

Thanks to the courageous and noble people of Iraq, the night of terror has given way to the first rays of morning freedom.

It is a glorious day in Iraq.

It is a sad day for the Left. Though I have defended it for long on the basis that its core moral principles remained intact, now I must reconsider whether the Left retains any moral legitimacy.

For many years, Iraq was a country ruled by a brutal dictator, Saddam Hussein. The Left did not fight the dictator’s expansion into Kuwait. The Left opposed sanctions against the dictator. The Left opposed toppling the dictator. The Left opposed fighting the remants of the dictator’s terroristic security police. The Left opposed helping the people of Iraq who were under murderous attack from the most savage and anti-democratic underground guerilla campaign in recent years. The Left opposed helping the Iraqi people defend themselves long enough to vote. Now the Iraqi people have voted anyway. The Left has failed its own project, and the Iraqi people.

The Left failed abjectly on the Iraq issue to stand by what were once its core moral principles. This failure comes on the heels of its embrace and appeasement of totalitarianism in the 20th century, Chernobyl, and countless other failures of the Left’s. The dream that a good Left can be put back together now looks more like a smokescreen.

I wonder whether there can be any Left again. I wonder if the Left is now finally dead.

One thing is clear. If the Left is dead, the Iraqi people will not regret its loss.

On this grand day, it is appropriate to remember all of the coalition fighting men and women who gave their time and health and lives in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Northern and Southern Watch, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and operations after the fall of Saddam, continuing today. We remember the missing, including Scott Speicher. The security and the liberty of America and the world has been well-guarded by their bravery and sacrifice.

Photo credit: Faleh Kheiber/Reuters.

President Bush’s impromptu news conference this morning revealed just how empty is President Bush’s new policy, or ideal, or goal of replacing tyranny with freedom. It is also a step in the right direction, as President Bush moves to sweep his mistaken, impulsive speech under the rug in favor of a reasonable and prudent approach. (*)

Because our own freedom is enhanced by the expansion of freedom in other nations, I set out the long-term goal of ending tyranny in our world. This will require the commitment of generations, but we’re seeing much progress in our time. . . .

Q Sir, your inaugural address has been interpreted as a new, aggressive posture against certain countries, in particular Iran. Should we view it that way?

THE PRESIDENT: My inaugural address reflected the policies of the past four years that said — that we’re implementing in Afghanistan and Iraq. And it talked about a way forward. I think America is at its best when it leads toward an ideal. And certainly, a world without tyranny is an ideal world. The spread of freedom is important for future generations of Americans. I firmly believe that free societies are peaceful societies, and I believe every person desires to be free. And so I look forward to leading the world in that direction for the next four years.

Q Do you see it as a policy shift?

THE PRESIDENT: No, as I said, it reflects the policy of the past, but it sets a bold, new goal for the future. And I believe this country is best when it heads toward an ideal world. We are at our best. And in doing so, we’re reflecting universal values and universal ideas that honor each man and woman, that recognize human rights and human dignity depends upon human liberty. And it’s — I’m looking forward to the challenge, and I’m looking forward to reaching out to our friends and allies to convince them of the necessity to continue to work together to help liberate people.

Yes, Terry.

Q Mr. President, let me take you up on that, if I may. Last month in Jordan, a gentleman named Ali Hatar was arrested after delivering a lecture called, “Why We Boycott America.” He was charged under section 191 of their penal code for slander of government officials. He stood up for democracy, you might say. And I wonder if here and now, you will specifically condemn this abuse of human rights by a key American ally. And if you won’t, sir, then what, in a practical sense, do your fine words mean?

THE PRESIDENT: I’m unaware of the case. You’ve asked me to comment on something that I didn’t know took place. I urge my friend, His Majesty, to make sure that democracy continues to advance in Jordan. I noticed today that he put forth a reform that will help more people participate in future governments of Jordan. I appreciate His Majesty’s understanding of the need for democracy to advance in the greater Middle East. We visited with him at the G8, and he has been a strong advocate of the advance of freedom and democracy.

Now, let me finish. Obviously, we’re discussing a process. As I said in my speech, not every nation is going to immediately adopt America’s vision of democracy, and I fully understand that. But we expect nations to adopt the values inherent in a democracy, which is human rights and human dignity, that every person matters and every person ought to have a voice. And His Majesty is making progress toward that goal.

I can’t speak specifically to the case. You’re asking me to speak about a case that I don’t know the facts.

(emphases added)

Of course, President Bush need not know the facts in Ali Hatar’s case to know that Jordan has a repressive government. Jordan is better than China, but still has progress to make.

In the speech, Bush announced he was making a “policy” of bringing freedom to the world. Now it is only a goal.

The press conference continued:

Q Mr. President, if I could return for a moment to your inaugural address. Dr. Rice referred in her testimony to six outposts of tyranny, countries where we clearly, I think, have a pretty good idea of your policies. What we’re confused by right now, I think — or, at least, I’m confused by, is how you deal with those countries like Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, with whom we have enormous broad interests. Should the leaders of those countries now be on notice that the primary measure of their relationship with the United States should be their progress toward liberty? Or can they rest assured that, in fact, you’ve got this broad agenda with them and you’re willing to measure liberty up against what China does for you on North Korea, what Russia does for you in other areas?

THE PRESIDENT: I don’t think foreign policy is an either/or proposition. I think it is possible when you’re a nation like the United States to be able to achieve both objectives — one objective, the practical objective of dealing, for example, as you mentioned, with North Korea. But I — in my meetings with Chinese leadership in the past, and my meetings with Chinese leadership in the future, I will constantly remind them of the benefits of a society that honors their people and respects human rights and human dignity. I have — for example, in meetings with the Chinese in the past, I have brought up the Dalai Lama, I’ve brought up concerns of the Catholic church. I have discussed my belief that a society that welcomes religious freedom is a wholesome and — religious freedom is a part of a wholesome society and an important part of a society.

Vladimir Putin — I have discussed with Vladimir Putin some of his decisions. I will continue — as you might remember in our meeting in Chile. I will continue to do so. I will remind him that if he intends to continue to look West, we in the West believe in Western values.

I — democracy is a progress — you’ll see progress toward a goal. There won’t be instant democracy. And I remind people that our own country is a work in progress. We declared all people equal, and yet, all people weren’t treated equally for a century. We said, everybody counts, but everybody didn’t count.

And so I fully understand developing a democratic society in the — adhering to the traditions and customs of other nations will be a work in process. That’s why I said we’re talking about the work of generations. And so in my talks, in my discussions with world leaders to solve the problem of the day, I will constantly remind them about our strong belief that democracy is the way forward.

What is this work that will take generations? Shall we merely remind them again and again what we stand for? Will we become the great international nag? Of course, what it means is that President Bush’s stand on replacing ending tyranny was an empty one.

Give President Bush credit for downplaying “the freedom speech.” At this point, he should continue to downplay it, keep moving ahead, and try to make people to forget all about it.

Charles Krauthammer believes an international anti-American coalition may form soon. (*)

A contributor to Bush’s “freedom speech,” perhaps Krauthammer could have modulated the tone of that speech a bit to avoid the kind of empty rhetoric that will only cause distrust of America in the future.

Warmly backing George W Bush’s new crusade against tyranny, David Brooks says, “The pace of progress will vary from nation to nation.” (*)

I’m sure it will. So long as countries like Saudi Arabia and Indonesia have strong trade ties with the US, their pace of reform can be slow—so slow no one notices any reform. Weaker nations better keep looking back over their shoulders.

Of course, Bush will have to bend the rules a little to bring “freedom” to the poor, stupid, helpless masses, but if innocent people are killed in the name of liberation while the Politburo partakes in caviar and vodka, hey, that’s progress.

Let’s briefly consider what President Bush says he aims to do in the next four years:

• privatize Social Security
• end progressive income taxes
• end all federal inheritance taxes
• stop illegal immigration
• grant amnesty (and ultimately citizenship) to almost all illegal aliens currently in the US, with numbers estimated between 8 and 20 million
• prevent another 9/11–scale attack
• refrain from environmentalism and drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
• embark on a manned mission to Mars
• win the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
• bring peace to the Middle East
• stop nuclear proliferation
• end all forms of tyranny around the world
• balance the budget

Does something smell a little fishy? Can you say the word overreach?

The world was rocked by President Bush’s inaugural address. Fox News reports: (*)

President Bush’s inauguration day speech was a 180-degree turnaround from the pre-2000 election campaign in which he said he didn’t believe it was the United States’ role to get involved in nation building.

Already, however, the mature thinkers in the Bush Administration are trying to overrule their out-of-control boss. The Washington Post reports: (†)

White House officials said yesterday that President Bush’s soaring inaugural address, in which he declared the goal of ending tyranny around the world, represents no significant shift in U.S. foreign policy but instead was meant as a crystallization and clarification of policies he is pursuing in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East and elsewhere.

So the question is posed: is the speech empty rhetoric or does it represent a grand policy shift?

Nor, they say, will it lead to any quick shift in strategy for dealing with countries such as Russia, China, Egypt and Pakistan, allies in the fight against terrorism whose records on human rights and democracy fall well short of the values Bush said would become the basis of relations with all countries.

In his inaugural address Thursday at the Capitol, President Bush promised his second-term goal would be to spread freedom and democracy and end “tyranny in the world.” Some saw his words as changing U.S. foreign policy.

Bush advisers said the speech was the rhetorical institutionalization of the Bush doctrine and reflected the president’s deepest convictions about the purposes behind his foreign policies. But they said it was carefully written not to tie him to an inflexible or unrealistic application of his goal of ending tyranny. . . .

But it has alarmed some critics, who say it suggests a major and potentially mistaken expansion of U.S. foreign policy goals or merely empty rhetoric. They have asked whether the speech’s soaring language has any practical application as the president goes about the gritty work of day-to-day diplomacy, and, if it does not, what meaning does it have?

The Post’s report goes on to mention that writers outside the White House had influence on the speech. Among them were William Kristol, Natan Sharansky, Victor Davis Hanson, Charles Krauthammer, and John Lewis Gaddis. Not shockingly, we haven’t heard a peep of criticism of Bush’s speech from any of them.

What practical implications does the speech have, indeed? It must have either major implications or none at all. The words “the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world” have no nuance. That bit of blather told to the papers about the nuances of Bush’s speech is nothing more than deceit.

Of course, the real story is that Bush presented an impossible adolescent fantasy in the speech. The Bush Administration will nevertheless seek to exploit its empty rhetoric as it tries to convince certain parties of the benevolence of the Administration’s intentions. That will be especially useful as those countries with economic ties to the US, like China and Saudi Arabia, get a free pass from Bush’s “end tyranny now” campaign, while countries like Belarus feel the chill.

This bit of news may also conceal a power struggle going on within the White House. On the one hand are those on the side of realpolitik. On the other side are the idealists. With this announcement, the realist side has made a major display of influence, indicating they are the real power behind the throne.

Update: The New York Times has the same story. (‡)

These are dark times. Today’s events confirm the wisdom of deep pessimism toward the future.

With his immature, ignorant, and foolish inaugural speech today, President Bush has signaled the end of his credibility as a serious thinker on foreign policy.

So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

(*) And so George W Bush throws out the remaining pragmatic and realist elements of his foreign policy in favor of utopianism. He joins a long line of would-be liberators who ended up as terrible tyrants, from Robespierre to Lenin to Stalin to others of such ilk.

The self-praiseful dictators and strongmen justified their actions on the basis of their self-described status as good people, and their goal of bringing good things to the poor, oppressed people of the world.

And when you are the world’s liberator, you surely have the right to do anything you feel is necessary to erect your vision. Even if it is uglier than Abu Ghraib.

The Afghanistan and Iraq wars were just on the basis of confronting the Islamic threat of terrorism and WMD potentiality in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. A regional strategy of promoting representative government was in play. The tyrants of Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran could not stand before the implacable will of the American people. The Iraq campaign has neared a major victory in the national election to be held at the end of this month.

Now Bush seems to abandon all that. We had to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan because they posed an imminent threat as seen on 9/11. We had to fight Saddam because the natural extinguishment of his regime would have taken too long while he retained his WMD potentiality. Today, those principles are gone. Today, George W Bush says we must liberate the world because we can. He simply assumes that the poor brutes of the world are incapable of liberating themselves.

He states that the real goal is nothing less than global democracy, a la his father’s New World Order. (†) The father’s idea fell flat, so it is left to the son to globalize the globe.

It is no longer enough for a country to be on friendly terms with the US. Now they must follow our laws and regulations. In practice, this will not have any law or regularity to it. It means they will dance when 43 says to dance.

Regardless of his benign intentions (and I’m sure his are, just as I know what paves the path to Hell), Bush’s plan, should it be set into motion, will not create a global regime of law. It will create a global regime of empire.

Witness Bush’s nominee for Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, naming the “outposts of tyranny:” Cuba, Burma, North Korea, Iran, Belarus, and Zimbabwe. (‡) Conspicuously absent are China, Vietnam, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and other sworn enemies of democracy. Of course, all of these have strong economic ties with the US.

So if you have strong trade ties with America, you can torture your people mercilessly, deny them every right and privilege, and still not be an official “outpost of tyranny.” (We have no tyranny in our country?) If you make the mistake of not making much of what American consumers wish to buy, or of not buying much of what they make, however, a few public incidents involving a few of your slap-happy law enforcement officers will prompt our President to send in the Marines for an office visit.

Sure, it sounds good. Liberate the world. Let us expend all of the riches and wealth of the USA to give sweatshop workers the right to unionize. Let us all eat gruel and wear burlap sacks, and send everything else abroad so that little children in dirt-poor Gura-Gura can buy the New York Times from their street vendor on the corner and call Nani-Nani the one true god without fear of stormtroopers hurling them into age-inappropriate detention centers.

The trouble with all childish dreams is not so much in the ends, as in the means. Just how will George W Bush make his dream a reality?

Of course, he cannot, nor can our country working together ever come close to making this juvenile fantasy work. In addition, of course, great exertions by those bestowed with great power will have great effects on the world. Finally, of course, it will all work out inevitably to benefit the elite in America, and few others.

How many people will die in the nightmare to come, sacrificed for the glory of a madman? How soon will we cast aside our Constitution in favor of more “efficient” principles? I hope we never know. I hope the Congress, the American people, and the military, sworn to protect our country from all enemies, foreign and domestic, will not allow the increasingly vain and childlike nonsense emananting from the White House to give them much bother.

Meanwhile, very real threats to the welfare of the world continue to grow. Iran rapidly constructs its nuclear mass-death machines, for example. I suppose we should deal with that soon, assuming our first task is not to fire a missile at Belarus.

President Bush’s argument behind his vision falls flat, of course. He says that the only way to be safe from terrorism is to envelop the planet in “democracy” (read: empire). It is more immaturity. You cannot ever have complete safety. You cannot walk down the sidewalk without some danger.

The point is to deal with the threat. The threat is Islamic terrorism. Ennobling the Koran can only fail to impress the bloodthirsty savages who cut the heads off of innocent people and bathe in their entrails before the video cameras.

We need not guarantee the secret ballot in Burma before defeating the current menace of Islamic jihad. We can deal with the threat without attempting to fulfill a crazed vision.

A renewed Atlantic partnership that grants America economic influence in Europe in exchange for European influence over American foreign policy is now, regrettably, the best we can hope for. Let’s hope the sensible people who remain in the Bush Administration can steer that course.

So reason persists for some hope. The American voter did not give a mandate to George W Bush for an international version of the French Revolution. They voted for him based on protecting US national security. The American people will not be herded about like animals and I hope we will not tolerate for long the theatrical adolescent antics that constituted today’s inaugural address.

Humanity faces the possibility of great horrors in the 21st century. We need and deserve a US President who will deal with threats, not one embarking on a self-described, self-decided mission from God.

Note: Last year one Robert Teesdale ran www.globalamericanrevolution.net, which advocated the extension of the American Revolution to the entire globe. The web site was chock full of what I thought resembled fascist imagery. He popularized his site on freerepublic.com, the conservative news forum. Unfortunately, Teesdale’s site is now offline. A comparison to the speech today would have interested me.

Update: Peggy Noonan says Mr Bush merely gave a bad speech and suffers from “mission inebriation.” (§) Other types of inebriation spring to mind. The sniveling, politically brown-nosed William Safire calls it very good. (**) Time to call it quits, language man.

Update: 5 February 2005. Teesdale old web site address is fixed.