September 27, 2004
THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN ALIVE:
Bush Offends Sophisticates’ Pieties (John Zvesper, September 2004, Ashbrook.org)
Journalists the world over have written off President Bush’s speech at the United Nations this week as a performance addressed more to his domestic electoral needs than to an international audience. [...]What really offended the assembled delegates of the world’s governments and the watching journalists is that Bush presented this call for enhanced human dignity in the context of his call for widening the circle of liberty and democracy. As he said, "no other system of government has done more to protect minorities, to secure the rights of labor, to raise the status of women, or to channel human energy to the pursuits of peace." Though Bush—as always when discussing this topic—made it clear that the development of liberal democracy takes time and cannot be imposed from without, his discussion was offensive for several reasons.
First of all, the most immediate opportunities for this widening are located in the Middle East, with Iraq naturally at the top of the list. This suggestion—in addition to offending the anti-Israeli thinking of many UN member states—provoked the ill will that many UN representatives still feel towards Bush’s defiance of the non-decisions of the UN with regard to Iraq in 2003. Because the war in Iraq continues, this ill will is now accompanied by not a little feeling that having made its bed, the United States (and its often forgotten coalition partners) must lie in it. The prim told-you-so pronounced after Bush’s speech by the Swiss president, Joseph Deiss, has been frequently quoted in the European press: "In hindsight, experience shows that actions taken without a mandate which has been clearly defined in a security council resolution are doomed to failure." (In fact, previous experience would seem to suggest that very often it is such mandates that precede failure. As for the present case, we shall see.)
Another reason that Bush’s words fell on stony ground is that no one’s call for more liberal democracy is likely to please the majority of governments in the UN, who are neither liberal nor democratic, and could hardly be expected to rally to the cause of human liberty. As Bush did not hesitate to note, it is not only terrorists but also "their allies" who "believe the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the American Bill of Rights, and every charter of liberty ever written, are lies, to be burned and destroyed and forgotten."
However, there was also (at best) a tepid response to Bush among the representatives of liberal democratic regimes, and this needs further explanation. What most offended these sophisticated UN delegates was Bush’s rejection of their postmodern pieties, their unwavering faith in the dogmas of pragmatism and moral and cultural relativism. Bush justified his call for the expansion of liberty by asserting that "the dignity of every human life" is "honored by the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women, protection of private property, free speech, equal justice, and religious tolerance." Many of these traditional liberal principles have become suspect in pragmatic, "progressive" circles. But especially grating to the postmodern mentality that dominates sophisticated minds in liberal democracies is Bush’s claim that "we know with certainty" that "the desire for freedom resides in every human heart," and that therefore the "bright line between justice and injustice—between right and wrong—is the same in every age, and every culture, and every nation." Recognition of such self-evident truths is completely inadmissible in the postmodern faith, in which the only certainty is that nothing is certain.
It's entirely appropriate for other nastions to hate George W. Bush more than Osama bin Laden because our ideas are transforming the world, not al Qaeda's.
The only way that Senator Kerry could hope to reconcile us to our former allies and varied enemies is to deny the self-evidence of the truths upon which our Republic stands. That would make him popular in Paris, Berlin, Beijing, Havana, Damascus, and Pyongyang, but despised at home.
MORE:
Bush's UN speech, de-mythologized (Stephen Zunes, 9/27/04, Foreign Policy in Focus)
Commentators in the mainstream US media seem genuinely perplexed over the polite but notably unenthusiastic reception given to President George W Bush's September 21 address before the United Nations General Assembly. Why wasn't a speech that emphasized such high ideals as democracy, the rule of law, and the threat of terrorism better received?The answer may be found through a critical examination of the assumptions underlying the idealistic rhetoric of the US president's message. Below are a number of examples: [...]
"The dictator [Saddam Hussein] agreed in 1991, as a condition of a ceasefire, to fully comply with all Security Council resolutions - then ignored more than a decade of those resolutions. Finally, the Security Council promised serious consequences for his defiance. And the commitments we make must have meaning. When we say 'serious consequences', for the sake of peace, there must be serious consequences. And so a coalition of nations enforced the just demands of the world."
First of all, the majority of member states that voted in favor of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 - which warned of "serious consequences" for continued Iraqi non-compliance - explicitly stated that this was not an authorization for the use of force and that a subsequent resolution would be needed. The two times in its history that the UN Security Council has authorized the use of military force to enforce its resolution - in response to the North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950 and to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 - such authorization was quite explicit.
Second, if one were to accept Bush's interpretation of "serious consequences" as simply another term for a foreign invasion of a sovereign nation, it is downright Orwellian to claim that such "serious consequences" must be inflicted "for the sake of peace".
Finally, at the time the US launched its invasion of Iraq, the Iraqi government had allowed United Nations inspectors back in with unfettered access to wherever they wanted to go whenever they wanted to, and they were in the process of confirming the fact that Iraq had indeed dismantled, destroyed, or otherwise rendered inoperable its proscribed weapons, delivery systems, and WMD programs. Therefore, the US-led invasion did not "enforce the just demands of the world" since the demands were already being enforced without the use of military force.
Except that the just demands delineated in the Security Council resolutions included liberalizing Iraq. In effect, failure to change the regime himself put Saddam in violation of international law and required regime change from without. It's such a radical notion that folks don't seem able to wrap their minds around it, but the President has made it quite clear. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 27, 2004 12:20 PM
Zunes' Foreign Policy in Focus column, de-moronicized:
Stephen Zunes is an associate professor of politics at the University of San Francisco, so he cannot claim that his ignorant drivel is only the outward manifestation of his tremendous stupidity, although it is surely also that, along with a deliberate attempt to mislead the public.
First of all, the majority of member states that voted in favor of UNSC Resolution 1441 must have been aware that President Bush would use the vote to rally support for an invasion among Americans, and that PM Blair would do the same among Brits.
The subtext of Mr. Zunes' claim is that all of those nations' Ambassadors to the UN were incompetent. Ockham's razor suggests that they are merely better at understanding diplomatic language than poor Professor Zunes is.
Second, it is downright Orwellian to claim that although Saddam never complied with the terms of the '91 ceasefire, meaning that technically Iraq was still at war with the US; and the US and their allies patrolled Iraqi skies with fighter jets; and Iraq would occasionally fire missiles at said jets, and the US and Allied fighters would return fire, knocking out anti-aircraft radars and missile sites, and killing Iraqi soldiers; and Iraq was still under UN sanctions over a decade later; that despite all this, there was an existing condition of "peace".
Finally, at the time the US launched their invasion of Iraq, the Iraqi government was attempting to fool and confound United Nations inspectors, refusing to allow the inspectors free and unfettered access to wherever they wanted to go, whenever they wanted, nor to speak to whomever they wanted without an Iraqi gov't "minder" present to intimidate potential whistle-blowers, as well as by moving equipment and materials around ahead of the inspectors.
All of that was reported to the UNSC by Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix, who was hardly an enthusiastic warmonger.
The UN weapons inspectors were in the process of confirming the fact that Iraq had indeed failed to dismantle or destroy proscribed weapons and delivery systems. The inspectors found banned rockets, artillery shells, and WMD programme equipment, and as well the Iraqi gov't was completely unable to account for tons of biological and chemical weapons previously known to exist.
The claim that UNSC demands were being met without the use of military force is a canard, since CLEARLY Saddam would not have let UN inspectors into Iraq if 200,000 American troops hadn't been deployed to Kuwait.
Zunes' Foreign Policy in Focus column, de-moronicized:
Stephen Zunes is an associate professor of politics at the University of San Francisco, so he cannot claim that his ignorant drivel is only the outward manifestation of his tremendous stupidity, although it is surely also that, along with a deliberate attempt to mislead the public.
First of all, the majority of member states that voted in favor of UNSC Resolution 1441 must have been aware that President Bush would use the vote to rally support for an invasion among Americans, and that PM Blair would do the same among Brits.
The subtext of Mr. Zunes' claim is that all of those nations' Ambassadors to the UN were incompetent. Ockham's razor suggests that they are merely better at understanding diplomatic language than poor Professor Zunes is.
Second, it is downright Orwellian to claim that although Saddam never complied with the terms of the '91 ceasefire, meaning that technically Iraq was still at war with the US; and the US and their allies patrolled Iraqi skies with fighter jets; and Iraq would occasionally fire missiles at said jets, and the US and Allied fighters would return fire, knocking out anti-aircraft radars and missile sites, and killing Iraqi soldiers; and Iraq was still under UN sanctions over a decade later; that despite all this, there was an existing condition of "peace".
Finally, at the time the US launched their invasion of Iraq, the Iraqi government was attempting to fool and confound United Nations inspectors, refusing to allow the inspectors free and unfettered access to wherever they wanted to go, whenever they wanted, nor to speak to whomever they wanted without an Iraqi gov't "minder" present to intimidate potential whistle-blowers, as well as by moving equipment and materials around ahead of the inspectors.
All of that was reported to the UNSC by Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix, who was hardly an enthusiastic warmonger.
The UN weapons inspectors were in the process of confirming the fact that Iraq had indeed failed to dismantle or destroy proscribed weapons and delivery systems. The inspectors found banned rockets, artillery shells, and WMD programme equipment, and as well the Iraqi gov't was completely unable to account for tons of biological and chemical weapons previously known to exist.
The claim that UNSC demands were being met without the use of military force is a canard, since CLEARLY Saddam would not have let UN inspectors into Iraq if 200,000 American troops hadn't been deployed to Kuwait.