1/24/2005

KUFM / KGPR

T. M. Power

A Bush Crusade against Tyranny?

George W. Bush celebrated his inaugural by declaring that henceforth the focus of this nation would be to spread freedom throughout the world, ending tyranny once and for all around the globe. Such all-American generalities are one obvious way of putting any political opposition on the defensive: If you oppose Bush’s foreign policy, you must be an enemy of freedom and a friend of tyranny.

This manipulation of language is a hallmark of the Bush Administration: Attack and undermine public schools while proclaiming that you are simply seeking to make sure that “no child gets left behind.” Relax air pollution regulations with a policy initiative labeled “clear skies.” Plot the demise of Medicare and Social Security in the name of “choice” and “ownership.” Now Bush seeks to cover the looming disaster in Iraq by declaring that such unilateral invasions and takeovers of other countries are part of a grand scheme to systematically spread freedom and end tyranny.

This puts a dangerous militaristic glint on this nation’s historic commitment to democratic process and individual freedom. Twisting Chairman Mao a bit, Bush appears to believe that freedom flows from the barrel of a gun or at least from bombs dropped from the sky. That belief is somewhat mystifying given that the most impressive recent victories against tyranny did not come about as a result of military action: The fall of the Soviet regime across Eastern Europe and Asia, the fall of the white apartheid regime in South Africa, and the fall of several dictators across Latin America. Often tyranny failed and more democratic regimes prevailed despite American support for the dictators or the minority regimes.

Clearly we would hope that our nation, through its citizens and its government, would support popular democratic movements everywhere in their struggles against tyranny. Unfortunately, that has not always been the case. We support a military dictatorship in Pakistan. We supported the reestablishment of the warlords in Afghanistan. To gain a military base north of Afghanistan the Bush Administration has embraced the bloody dictator of Uzbekistan. The Gulf War in 1991 pushed Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait so that we could re-establish the feudal rule of the royal family there and protect the medieval kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We laid the basis for the current theocracy in Iran by overthrowing a popular nationalist leader and reinstalling the Shah of Iran, an authoritarian, hereditary ruler.

Clearly our government is not always on the side of freedom and in opposition to tyranny. So what is one to make of Bush’s emotional claim that he will lead a worldwide assault on tyranny?

It is important to realize that Bush and the radical conservatives that surround him have a particularly narrow view of what “freedom” means. By freedom they largely mean the freedom of international businesses to enter other countries and workout whatever deals they can arrange to gain access to raw materials, markets, and other investment opportunities. A feudal kingdom like Saudi Arabia that works cooperatively with Western oil interests is a “free” country with nary a tyrant to be seen. A popular nationalist government that threatens to nationalize oil supplies and limit Western ownership and control is a dangerous dictator. Chinese Communist leaders that opposed foreign investment and limit market activity were part of the totalitarian Red Menace. Chinese Communist leaders that welcome Western investment and lend money to the US government to cover its deficits are not tyrants even if political activity, free speech, and religious expression are all still punished by long prison sentences. The theocratic Taliban who eliminated the heroin trade were clearly tyrants but the warlords who have brought heroin production back to record levels are not, even though neither allowed political expression or anything resembling democracy.

The point here is not a cynical one. It is an appeal for truth and sanity.

Cloaking the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan as democratic missions and our muscular use of military force around the world as part of a crusade for freedom simply debases political discourse in this country. When we act to protect ourselves or to strike at people we think threaten us, we should simply say so. When we support brutal dictators because we need their help to accomplish our ends, we should not dress it up as a morally uplifting act. At the very least we need to be honest about what we are doing and why we are doing it. Real democracy depends on leaders being honest with citizens and providing accurate information to those citizens. This Administration fails that crucial democratic test in both regards. It has regularly misled the public about what it is doing and why it is doing it. George W. Bush’s inaugural address continued that pattern of actively misleading the citizenry. In that sense it was part of a policy not to extend democracy around the world but to undermine democracy here at home.