04 January 2007
What Bush Has Done for America
President Bush stated one of his principles clearly and starkly in the January 3, 2007, Wall Street Journal: “… when America is willing to use her influence abroad, … the world is more secure.” That influence is not economic or political; it is military and forceful. The world’s security is not defined as what’s best for the globe’s communities, but what serves the interests of Bush’s financial and partisan supporters – the sale of weapons and military equipment, as well as the establishment of order where his corporate supporters have much at stake.
Sure, it would be criminal to ignore the growth of a sanctuary for international terrorists anywhere in today’s interconnected globe. Al Qaeda in Afghanistan taught us that lesson. However, the lesson was not to create fictional threats to the safety of Americans out of petty dictatorships like Saddam’s Iraq.
Bush has squandered America’s influence in the world by invading and disrupting the tense balance of rivalries in the cradle of civilization. Although the humanitarian costs of imposing that balance have not been congruent with American values, eliminating those costs is not our mission. We continually learn about humanitarian crises in the world that we choose not to alleviate -- e.g. Rwanda, Darfur, etc. It was only after the fact that this objective was proposed as a rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The unusual sacrifice – monetarily, in American and Iraqi casualties, and in global respect – turned out to be falsely justified by arguments claiming Saddam’s WMD and links to Al Qaeda. America cannot continue to use her influence this way.
President Bush stated one of his principles clearly and starkly in the January 3, 2007, Wall Street Journal: “… when America is willing to use her influence abroad, … the world is more secure.” That influence is not economic or political; it is military and forceful. The world’s security is not defined as what’s best for the globe’s communities, but what serves the interests of Bush’s financial and partisan supporters – the sale of weapons and military equipment, as well as the establishment of order where his corporate supporters have much at stake.
Sure, it would be criminal to ignore the growth of a sanctuary for international terrorists anywhere in today’s interconnected globe. Al Qaeda in Afghanistan taught us that lesson. However, the lesson was not to create fictional threats to the safety of Americans out of petty dictatorships like Saddam’s Iraq.
Bush has squandered America’s influence in the world by invading and disrupting the tense balance of rivalries in the cradle of civilization. Although the humanitarian costs of imposing that balance have not been congruent with American values, eliminating those costs is not our mission. We continually learn about humanitarian crises in the world that we choose not to alleviate -- e.g. Rwanda, Darfur, etc. It was only after the fact that this objective was proposed as a rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The unusual sacrifice – monetarily, in American and Iraqi casualties, and in global respect – turned out to be falsely justified by arguments claiming Saddam’s WMD and links to Al Qaeda. America cannot continue to use her influence this way.
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