The New Cold Warrior
There is a certain symmetry in the current GOP deification of Ronald Reagan as the guy who ended the first Cold War and the emergence of George Bush as the guy who started the next one. I'm not the only one who's noticed: our neighbors to the South have as well. From a June 6, 2007 editorial in Mexico's La Jornada:
Just before the meeting of the group of most powerful nations on the planet, also known as the G-8, the President of the United States, George W. Bush, launched a new attack on Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he accused of being an obstacle to democratic development. He then issued an additional broadside of criticism against China, Belarus, Burma, Cuba, North Korea, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, referring to the governments of those nations as dictatorships, jailors and violators of individual guarantees.
These and other expressions of hostility from a military superpower like the United States, which has not hesitated to invade, level and occupy countries that it considers enemies - Afghanistan and Iraq are only the most recent examples - should not be taken lightly by any government. For that reason, the insults pronounced by Bush could well result in a joining together of the aforementioned states; despite the fact that up to now, that have had almost nothing in common except for being included on the list of the current U.S. administration's phobias.
At least two of the members of Mr. Bush's ever growing "Axis of Evil" are nuclear powers, and two more are on the verge of becoming so. Two of the remaining nine are located right here in the Western Hemisphere, and one of those is a major supplier of petroleum to the US. It's not like Mr. Bush's comments don't have consequences, but unfortunately that apparently is not a concept that is ever considered in his way of presidentin'.
What is especially galling is that in the past we could expect traditional allies to stand with us whenever a US president felt compelled to chastise another nation. We no longer have that luxury. We've lost our standing to be any kind of moral arbiter, as this editorial points out:
...the current government of the United States does not have the least moral authority to push for human rights in other countries: Bush is the jailor of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the orchestrator of the sinister air net of the CIA – which extends across various continents – to transport hundreds or thousands of kidnapped persons to clandestine torture centers and prisons. He is responsible for severe restrictions on civil rights and invidual guarantees on his own U.S. soil.
Sadly, too true. We've even managed to make it on Amnesty International's list of nations with human rights problems.
Heckuva job, George.
Just before the meeting of the group of most powerful nations on the planet, also known as the G-8, the President of the United States, George W. Bush, launched a new attack on Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he accused of being an obstacle to democratic development. He then issued an additional broadside of criticism against China, Belarus, Burma, Cuba, North Korea, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, referring to the governments of those nations as dictatorships, jailors and violators of individual guarantees.
These and other expressions of hostility from a military superpower like the United States, which has not hesitated to invade, level and occupy countries that it considers enemies - Afghanistan and Iraq are only the most recent examples - should not be taken lightly by any government. For that reason, the insults pronounced by Bush could well result in a joining together of the aforementioned states; despite the fact that up to now, that have had almost nothing in common except for being included on the list of the current U.S. administration's phobias.
At least two of the members of Mr. Bush's ever growing "Axis of Evil" are nuclear powers, and two more are on the verge of becoming so. Two of the remaining nine are located right here in the Western Hemisphere, and one of those is a major supplier of petroleum to the US. It's not like Mr. Bush's comments don't have consequences, but unfortunately that apparently is not a concept that is ever considered in his way of presidentin'.
What is especially galling is that in the past we could expect traditional allies to stand with us whenever a US president felt compelled to chastise another nation. We no longer have that luxury. We've lost our standing to be any kind of moral arbiter, as this editorial points out:
...the current government of the United States does not have the least moral authority to push for human rights in other countries: Bush is the jailor of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the orchestrator of the sinister air net of the CIA – which extends across various continents – to transport hundreds or thousands of kidnapped persons to clandestine torture centers and prisons. He is responsible for severe restrictions on civil rights and invidual guarantees on his own U.S. soil.
Sadly, too true. We've even managed to make it on Amnesty International's list of nations with human rights problems.
Heckuva job, George.
Labels: Bush Legacy, Foreign Policy, Hypocrisy
posted by Diane at 2:05 PM
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