A Statement of purpose
New York Post - Editorial
Nov 7, 2003
'Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe, because in the long run stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty."
So said President Bush yesterday in a speech to the National Endowment for Democracy that should be required reading for those who see the War on Terror only in terms of casualties and costs.
An eloquent, often moving restatement of American foreign policy at its most generous and idealistic, the speech put the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a historical context that went way beyond narrow conceptions of national interest or, for that matter, partisan politics.
In proclaiming the spread of liberty to be both America's national mission and the foundation of her future security, the president linked democracy building in Iraq with the 1947 defense of Greece against Communism as well as the Berlin Airlift.
And he deliberately evoked his predecessor, Ronald Reagan - who was once mocked as naive for espousing the rollback of Communism, but whose idealism was eventually borne out in the fall of the Soviet bloc.
Bush recalled a June 1982 speech in England's Westminster Palace, when Reagan "argued that Soviet Communism had failed, precisely because it did not respect its own people - their creativity, their genius and their rights" and that a turning point in history had arrived.
That speech, dismissed at the time as simplistic and overly optimistic, turned out to be . . . correct.
As Bush noted, "In the early 1970s there were about 40 democracies in the world." But then, in "the swiftest advance of freedom in the 2,500-year story of democracy," that form of government came to places like Portugal, Spain and Greece, to Korea and Taiwan, to Nicaragua and South Africa, and of course to the former Soviet empire: "As the 20th century ended, there were about 120 democracies in the world. And I can assure you that more are on their way."
Bush reminded his listeners that countries that once seemed extremely barren ground for the growth of representative government - Germany, Japan, India - now enjoy the fruits of democracy. And that the same could someday be true of Cuba, Burma, North Korea, China, Iran and the Arab societies of the Middle East.
He insisted that when skeptics say that democracy is incompatible with Islam, they are engaging in what Reagan called "cultural condescension."
Bush also stressed something that many people forget - namely that one of history's lessons is that political freedom, prosperity and stability are inextricably linked, and together they lead to peace.
"Liberty is both the plan of Heaven for humanity, and the best hope for progress here on Earth," he said.
Too often those who talk about foreign policy fail to look at the big picture or the long view.
Not President Bush: "The advance of freedom is the calling of our time; it is the calling of our country."
Stirring words for a stirring cause in an era of challenge - and opportunity.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/10140.htmExcellent editorial.
"Reagan "argued that Soviet Communism had failed, precisely because it did not respect its own people - their creativity, their genius and their rights" and that a turning point in history had arrived."
Iranian regime does "not respect its own people - their creativity, their genius and their rights"
Awaiting the arrival of "a turning point in history" in Iran.
Thanks for the post.