Posted on 11/24/2003 5:27:33 AM PST by SJackson
No doubt President Bush's Whitehall speech will be remembered for its "three pillars" — Bush's metaphorical framework for the peace and security of free nations. Maybe more significant, however, are the two "Ifs."
No doubt President Bush's Whitehall speech will be remembered for its "three pillars" — Bush's metaphorical framework for the peace and security of free nations. Maybe more significant, however, are the two "Ifs."
If No. 1: "If the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation and anger and violence for export," Bush said. "As we saw in the ruins of two towers, no distance on the map will protect our lives and way of life."
If No. 2: "If the greater Middle East joins the democratic revolution that has reached much of the world, the lives of millions in that region will be bettered, and a trend of conflict and fear will be ended at its source."
The two "Ifs" take us to a crossroads, staring down uncharted paths through what I take to be our relationship with the Islamic world. After all, the only non-Islamic country in the Middle East, Israel, long ago joined the "democratic revolution" Bush invoked. (The president himself indicated the Islamic-ness of his two conditions when, soon after stating them, he noted, critically, "We're told that Islam is somehow inconsistent with a democratic culture.")
If No. 2, obviously, is the preferred destination for all nations resting on Bush's three pillars. But how to get there from here, and how to avoid the blind alleys along the way?
According to Bush, "the most helpful" action "is to change our own thinking" — namely, to change what he called "a certain skepticism about the capacity or even the desire of Middle Eastern peoples for self-government." As he put it, "It is not realism to suppose that one-fifth of humanity is unsuited to liberty. It is pessimism and condescension, and we should have none of it."
This rather muscular line drew applause, bulging as it does with an infectious vigor. Still, as someone unconvinced that Islam is consistent with "democratic culture" — if democratic culture includes freedom of worship, freedom of speech, and equality of men and women before the law — I would say the concern is not so much that "Middle Eastern peoples" are incapable of self-government, but rather that the governments they would likely form would little resemble the kinds of democracies that now coexist, finally, in peace and relative harmony.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
It took me a long time to realize just how much a student of medieval history could gain from observing the Arab.
Gen. G.S.Patton
I am shamed that the sagacity of this remark never occurred to me until now. Yet I remain stymied as to how we can convince the peoples of the Middle East to give up their centuries of hate and embrace the life-affirming freedom that so many of us take for granted.
Time to do some more praying...
The President, unfortunately, has been sold a bill of goods. His suggestion that imposing a particular method for choosing the Government on a people will somehow make them more friendly is absolute quackery, which is not supported by anyone's history. It is about as foolish as the Wilsonian nonsense 86 years ago, that we were going to War to make the World safe for Democracy. For a much better perspective on the merits of Democracy, see James Madison's comments in Federalist Paper #10.
The answer to the terrorist threat, is in the original plan to hunt down the specific terrorists, who supported what happened on September 11, 2001, and show respect for the rights of others to maintain their cultural traditions--i.e. the traditional American foreign policy. (See War 2001!--The Shortest, Surest Path To Victory.) The absolute worst course that we could possibly embark on, as an alternative, is to appear to be trying to remake the world in our own image. Nothing could serve the purpose of our enemies more clearly. It gives credibility to what in the past was only a vicious lie about our intentions.
William Flax
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