What to make of Bush - a rejoinder
Kip has posted a longish reaction to my longish post on George Bush. I am off to the store with Carmen so don't have time to say much now, other than to say I still hold to everything I wrote in the original post. There is, however, an article on The Wall Street Journal that might be of interest. I can't figure out if it supports Kip's view or undermines it since it seems to start with the assumption that the War in Iraq has gone very bad indeed, but that the Bush Doctrine needs to be upheld. It also, I believe, misrepresents what the midterm elections meant, but a lot of people are doing that. Nevertheless, its a good read so here it is. Any opinions?
posted by Clemens @ 3:07 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
It seems to me that Henninger (the author of the Journal's op-ed piece) has failed to understand the same thing the Bush administration has failed to understand. It's all well and good to have a doctrine that proposes, as Henninger points out, to build "the infrastructure of democracy" in places around the world. But it another entirely to think that such an infrastructure can be built on a foundation of invasion, conquest, and "pre-emptive" combat. How could these actions promote anything other than resentment in a local population? I'd also point out that Afghanistan's democracy is doing none-too-well, either.
In short, what's the point of rescuing a doctrine unless you have a successful way to implement it? The Bush Docrine and Bush's attempts to implement it have failed because his world view is just far too simplistic. But then, once he declared he was going on a "Crusade" to "get them folks" in the Middle East, it was already clear he had no idea of what he was getting us into.
Yes, mostly I agree that the 'Bush Doctrine' isn't much of a doctrine. If we are going to use force for good, why aren't we in Darfur? If to protect use from failed Islamic states, how about Somalia? (will the Demos use the question 'Who lost Somalia?' next election?).
The simplest reason the Bush Doctrine makes little practical sense is simply this: the Bushies were not willing to pay for it.
I have always thought, almost from day one (Carmen will wearily attest to this!) that the overiding weakness of the Bush admin was that it saw everything as a political problem that merely required clever spin and electorial tactics because the only real victory was over the perceptions of the American voting public. As I've said elsewhere on this blog (quoting Orwell, for one), this isn't true in warfare.
Or much of anything else in the long run. This is, I am afraid to admit, a typically American failing as much as a Repub, or even Bushie, one.
Perhaps if we made more American students study World History?
I was going to reply to this, but I have a Dec 1 deadline! (lucky you, it would have been one of those annoying long comments!)
But re: your earlier question, opinion polls (which it must be said are generally pretty slipshod on this continent) find Aussies are quite strongly opposed to the war.
But the Prime Minister supports it, and he remains extremely popular. The opposition have gained no advantage despite being vehemently against supporting the Iraqis against the terrorists (silly me, I nearly said 'against the war') and continuous parliamentary and media focus on this issue.
Make of that what you will...
Our Prime Minister has one advantage, under the Westminster system, to vote for John Howard (whom all common plebs love like a favourite uncle), voters must vote for their local coalition federal candidates (the rogues we might otherwise be tempted to punish).
... I meant to say 'we' common plebs...
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