Another part of Bush's speech dealt with the supposed spread of "democracy" in the Muslim world:
"He [Bush] also offered plenty of praise for democratic advances, naming countries like Turkey, Afghanistan, Iraq, Morocco and Jordan.
'The light of liberty is beginning to shine,' he said."
Is he crazy? In Turkey, the so-called "light of liberty" is undoing Kemalism, putting the secularists in the universities, the judiciary, and the army, under great pressure, and bringing Islam back, step by grim step, as Erdogan and now Gul, cleverly backed by all kinds of people, including the shadowy millionaire Fethullah Gulen, probe and prod at every possible weak point in the Kemalist system. Is this "liberty"? Is this the goddam "light of liberty"?
In Afghanistan, after all the vast American and NATO effort, the Taliban are back. And even without the Taliban, the democratically-elected members of the Afghani Parliament have shown, every step of the way, that they are mostly moved by the ideals of the Shari'a, and are happy to punish "blasphemers" with death. They are happy to deny women equal rights. They are happy to undo every bit of the reforms that Westerners initially managed to accomplish, in the legal rights of women and non-Muslims. The notion that "liberty" has come to Afghanistan is false. Indeed, had the Soviets won their war, and installed a puppet Communist regime, and had that regime acted with the kind of ruthlessness that the Soviet authorities did toward Islam during the 1920s and 1930s, that might have done more in the vein of Ataturk to eventually make Afghanistan a plausible candidate for democracy.
Iraq? Does anyone think Iraq is a place where "liberty" has arrived? It's a place where, at the moment, no one sect can arrogate complete power over the country to itself, but it is also a place where a Sunni despotism has been replaced by a Shi'a despotism, and the Shi'a, whatever their party, have no intention of sharing power in any significant way with the Sunni Arabs, or indeed to allow the Kurds to continue to dream of independence. A cosmetic compromise may be possible, in order to extract more weapons and money, over the next few years, from the Americans, but that's it.
"Morocco"? If anything, the current king is worse, when it comes to pan-Arab hostility to the West, either than his father or than Mohammed V. The ballyhooed "reforms" are nothing at all. He still retains his position because, as a Sherifian, he possesses the prestige to withstand an outright assault by the most militant Muslims. But try to find that "light of liberty" Bush prates about in Rabat, or Sale, or anywhere else in dismal Morocco, from which every day hundreds or thousands set out, determined to make it to Spain or to Italy, and from there, once they are safely in the E.U., to its farthest reaches.
The same is true with Jordan, the last country on Bush's list of places where, he claims, the "light of liberty" is spreading. Jordan remains a police state, and thank god for that, because bad as it is, what might follow the overthrow of thick-necked Abdullah and his photogenic bride would be far worse. But there have been no reforms, no spirit or light of liberty.
Bush is a hallucinator. He talks, he likes the sound his words make, he thinks they must conform to some higher reality, and he has convinced himself they must be true. He's messianic, and also a marxist, because he believes that economic well-being, or lack of it, explains the behavior of people, and that by improving the lot of Muslims, or "ordinary moms and dads" in the Middle East, we will do away with the "root causes" of all the distempers, and all the craziness, and all the hatred directed at Infidels.
He's still unclear about Islam, about the simplest things about Islam. He asked the Arab students whom he saw in Israel if they attended dances with Jews. The American ambassador, Jones (himself someone with deplorable views on Israel, and also exhibiting a failure to grasp the Islamic roots of the war against Israel -- because if he grasped those roots, he could not possibly be such a promoter of further surrenders of territory or territorial control by Israel), explained to Bush that such mixed dances were not exactly possible, and indeed, the very idea of such dances, among Arab boys and girls, also impossible. That Bush did not know this, that he has no real idea of what Islamic societies are like, shines from his every innocent word.
We don't want innocents running us. We want people who may not be nice, may not have such touching faith in "democracy" or any other ideal, for that matter, except the ideal of keeping us, the Infidels, from succumbing to the many-pronged assault of Islam. We can't afford the naive and sentimental lovers of something they thing is swell, something they call -- a bit too enthusiastically and too unthinkingly and too inaccurately -- call "democracy."
The most important thing to remember is that it would have been worse if Gore or that extra form the Deer Hunter had been in the hot seat.
How could we get the Cold War so right and this one so wrong, Hugh?
Is he crazy?
Anyone who believes hat you can have democracy under the sharia is stark raving mad...
Is it time for another Winston Churchill?
As I scan the horizon, I don't see too many likely candidates.
"...blood, sweat and tears." More true now than ever.
Another thing is the gullible fools in the West who are so eager to soil their own nest rather than taking a closer look and to inform themselves what this is all about.
It is mind-boggling that American congressmen pay attention and give any credibility at all to Murat Kurnaz, who was one of the released Gitmo prisoners. The distortions, the whitewash and the victimization of this criminal lunatic is beyond parody, it is scary.
Check this out:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080521/pl_afp/uscongressgermanyturkeyattacksjustice_080521075321;_ylt=Ava6.TJQM29Xm7wszu.8hwgTv5UB
I have been following this on my blog, just google Murat Kurnatz & the Al Qaeda war manual.
And then see who his supporters are. Its scandalous!
"Is he crazY" from the posting above
Is this a rhetorical question?
All too often this adminstration has been followed blindly by those who rightfully sought to bring the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack to justice. Quite sensibly this led to the invasion of Afghanistan and the overthrow of the Taliban regime. A good start that quickly soured. The assault on Tora Bora with the objective of capturing/killing Osama bin Laden failed in that objective, leaving this symbol of audacious contempt for civilization at large. Why? Because Afghan forces were trusted to block off escape routes while coalition forces did the heavy lifting of performing the assault. The results? Osama got away and is likely living across the border in the tribal area of Pakistan, our close ally in the War on Terror.
This example is one of a series of coincidence and happenstance that have followed this adminstration. Does anyone remember this administration's support for the management of US portlands by financial interests located in Dubai? Are we to believe that Dubai, located in the UAE through which financing for the 9/11 attacks was channeled, is a beacon of democracy? So is this president simply innocent? Or crazy? Or stupid?
This administration made its case for the invasion of Iraq based largely upon the residual emotion stemming from 9/11. But the administration's case was little more than an appeal to undiscerning public opinion, lacking -as is now all too apparent- an end game. Crazy? Yes, unless hubris is different than insanity, or unless the real intentions were something else altogether. So at the minimum: Crazy or stupid yes. But innocent? Why is the adjective "innocent" used to describe this president? Are we to believe that this man, with his carefully developed good 'ol boy persona, this scion of East Coast wealth, is just an innocent?
Bush's family has consistently blurred the boundary between "good business sense" and loyalty to the American people and Constitution. Prescott Bush had business dealings with the German financial and industrial interests before American entry into the Second World War. Subsequent to American entry into the war, Bush remained a director of the Union Banking Corporation, which was found to be in violation of the "Trading with the Enemy Act." Innocent? Crazy? Stupid? Which one of these adjectives would best describe Prescott Bush?
Then there is George H.W. whose offenses were well off the radar screen of public scrutiny. It was he who developed off-shore drilling in Kuwait, developing close ties to the ruling family there. His friendship with Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the near incorporation of Bandar into the Bush family, can be looked at justifiably with a certain level of alarm and suspicion. What level of influence was being exercised? How were the vital interests of the American people being protected if not advanced by this relationship? Are we to believe the image of the cigar-smoking, Scotch-drinking, one-of-the-boys Bandar? Or did George H.W. have Bandar's measure all along, playing Bandar like a violin? So what's the verdict on George H.W.? Innocent? Crazy? Stupid? Crazy like a fox? Or simply like a fox?
The current president does not deserve a passing grade on innocence. It is minimally his job to be properly informed, so to innocently pass off his ineptitude as innocence is to deflect hard questions, questions that Americans and citizens of the West must seriously consider: Where is the coherent response to a demographic problem that was created by "innocent" assumptions about how migrations from dar al-Islam to dar al-Harb might happen without risk to the indigent socities. Where is a coherent military plan to effectively bring force to the enemy instead of wallowing in "nation-building" exercises such as Iraq and Afghanistan? And has been pointed out on this website many times, where are we to find the leadership that will even dare name the enemy properly?
So where are we to find the "people who may not be nice?" The tough-minded but loyal SOBs who put the welfare of the nation before their own advancement? The Smedley Butlers of the present age if any of his kind are to be found? To do this requires the citizens of a democracy to be tough-minded SOBs in their own right. To be willing to get off their collective duffs and actively participate in the debate. To be well enough informed to ask the hard and embarrassing questions.
None of us has an excuse for being innocent any longer.
Democracy in the Middle East is not a big thing to me. The security and life within our laws, of US Citizens, and our country is the President's imperative.
I wish he's get off that kick.