02 February 2006
State of the Union 2006
In his State of the Union address on 31 January 2006 George W. Bush repeated his emphasis on the war in Iraq as the defining feature of his Presidency. It was the centerpiece of a speech that conceded defeat or ineffectuality in several other policy areas—social security, corruption, deficit spending, disaster relief, even (thankfully) the constitutional definition of marriage.
However, his framing of the war as the vehicle for establishing democracy in the Middle East continues the wrong-headed ideal of the neoconservative and military-industrial complex ideologues who rule the Bush Administration. The speech espoused democracy as the instrument for establishing Western values in cultures such as the Arab Muslim world. It will never be the case that democracy leads to liberal values—the other way around is the only way it can work, if promoting those values is an ideal at all worth losing lives and spending billions for.
In his State of the Union address on 31 January 2006 George W. Bush repeated his emphasis on the war in Iraq as the defining feature of his Presidency. It was the centerpiece of a speech that conceded defeat or ineffectuality in several other policy areas—social security, corruption, deficit spending, disaster relief, even (thankfully) the constitutional definition of marriage.
However, his framing of the war as the vehicle for establishing democracy in the Middle East continues the wrong-headed ideal of the neoconservative and military-industrial complex ideologues who rule the Bush Administration. The speech espoused democracy as the instrument for establishing Western values in cultures such as the Arab Muslim world. It will never be the case that democracy leads to liberal values—the other way around is the only way it can work, if promoting those values is an ideal at all worth losing lives and spending billions for.
Comments:
Post a Comment
