A fascinating article at the Washington Post by Peter Baker:
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.”
“I too am a dissident”? That might be a slight exaggeration. Most people believe that his middle east policies are disastrous, but that does not automatically make one a ‘dissident,’ at least not in the political sense of the word. In the end, Bush is the president (he holds all the power – he is the establishment). Besides, nobody is going to lock Bush up in jail because of his opinions (although sometimes some on the far left seem to be willing to go so far, I grant 43). In other words, if I were Saad Eddin Ibrahim I would have a difficult time controling myself at the moment Bush said that he too is a dissident.
One of the major problems with Bush’s foreign policy is that it is utopian. It is fantastic. It sounds nice and all, but realistically spoken, nobody is going to end tyranny. There will be no tyranny at the moment Jesus comes back, but as long as we mere humans rule the earth, dictators and injustice will continue to exist. Bush’s “ending tyranny in our world” philosophy sounds nice, but in practice it is simply not doable. We can help other nations, and we can try to improve the world, but we always have to realize that bad people will always exist and will always – somewhere, sometime – be able to grab power.
Please read more at The Gazette.
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