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Tuesday, September 21, 2004

What Democracy?
Posted by Jill | 11:39 AM
Juan Cole knows more about the Middle East on his worst day than George W. Bush ever could. Today he takes a withering look at Bush's delusional claims that the situation in Iraq is improving:

I just heard President Bush taunt John Kerry for suggesting that the US was not safer because Saddam Hussein was deposed, and for saying that the US was in fact less safe because of the chaos in Iraq.

Bush attempted to turn this statement around and suggest that Kerry was preferring dictatorship to democracy.

Iraq, however, does not have a democracy, and cannot possibly have a democracy any time soon because of events such as those described below (and they are only 24 hours' worth)-- that is, because of a failed state and a hot guerrilla war.

Moreover, if Mr. Bush abhors dictatorships so much, why hasn't he overthrown that in China? North Korea? Zimbabwe? Or, say, Egypt? There are enormous numbers of dictatorships in the world. Is the US to overthrow them all? Putin's decision to appoint provincial governors rather than allowing them to be elected (as though Bush should appoint the governors of US states) is a step toward dictatorship. Shall we have a war with Russia over it?


And here he gets to the crux of why Bush's utter botch of the entire region doesn't seem to affect his poll numbers:

I have a sinking feeling that the American public may like Bush's cynical misuse of Wilsonian idealism precisely because it covers the embarrassment of their having gone to war, killed perhaps 25,000 people, and made a perfect mess of the Persian Gulf region, all out of a kind of paranoia fed by dirty tricks and bad intelligence. And, maybe they have to vote for Bush to cover the embarrassment of having elected him in the first place.


Exactly! Imagine how schmucky some of these people would feel if they had to admit how they allowed themselves to be duped by their President. Not only does it fly in the face of everything we believe about America, it flies in the face of everything they were taught in school.

It's not easy facing that the President and the men around him are corrupt, greedy, venal, and yes, murderous. It's not easy facing that over 1000 American young people have died because of a lie. But your obligation as a citizen depends on coming to that realization, and get these people out of power.
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