Annotated response to BSH convention speech

[wiggs]

A real journalist actually evaluating parts of Bush's speech point by point. The following is part of a longer article by Rahul Mahajan available at

www.counterpunch.org

snip

BUSH: "I am proud that our country remains the hope of the oppressed and the greatest force for good on this earth. Others understand the historic importance of our work. The terrorists know. They know that a vibrant, successful democracy at the heart of the Middle East will discredit their radical ideology of hate. They know that men and women with hope and purpose and dignity do not strap bombs on their bodies and kill the innocent."

RESPONSE: The United States is right now the principal force opposing democracy in Iraq. The reason is, contrary to the hallucinatory rhetoric, the Bush administration is well aware that more democracy in the Middle East would inevitably lead to more opposition to U.S. policies.

BUSH: "The terrorists are fighting freedom with all their cunning and cruelty because freedom is their greatest fear. And they should be afraid, because freedom is on the march. I believe in the transformational power of liberty: The wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom."

RESPONSE: At this point, he has completely burst the surly bonds of rationality. The starkly eschatological contrast drawn between the champions of freedom and, I suppose, the people who want to be enslaved, is reminiscent of nothing so much as Paul Nitze's NSC-68, the defining document of the "Cold War" and the confrontational policies that drove the world to the brink of disaster so many times.

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