Fall into the Gap

One of the core themes behind my statecentrism critique and my "Left Cross" article was the gap between Bush's (and the Republican Party's) rhetoric and his policies. Bush says he's serious about conducting the war on terrorism, but he constantly is making political decisions that severely undermine the fight. To liberals such as myself who support the rhetorical goals Bush outlines, this is maddening. It forces us to toe a very narrow (nuanced?) line, where we support the same goals Bush says he supports, but protest the way he goes about doing them. Politically, it's brilliant, because liberals don't have any credibility on the matter and nobody would even consider questioning a neo-conservatives commitment to fighting a war. So Bush happily continues to chirp away at the refrain of war, strength, and sacrifice, all the while never being held accountable by anyone for totally ignoring those very values in the real world.

Bush's inauguration speech was a tragic continuation of this theme. As he has so often in the past, Bush spoke at length and emphatically about the need to spread freedom, democracy, and human rights around the world. Noble sentiments, and ones that I wholeheartedly agree with. The problem, as The New Republic's Ryan Lizza points out, is that Bush has expressed zero interest in doing any of these things. Sure, he's taken strides towards installing democratic regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan--and he should applauded for doing so. But that isn't the real test of ones commitment to principle. As Lizza notes:

"It takes no courage to call for a democratic revolution in the public squares of one's enemies. It's easy to call for the overthrow of the mullahs in Iran or the lunatic in North Korea. The real test of Bush's sincerity "to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture" is whether he is willing to demand reform from America's autocratic allies. Unfortunately, despite the rhetoric, on Bush's watch America's relationship with tyrants has grown closer."

The US simply doesn't have the credibility to lecture Cuba on human rights when it is busy feeding honey-soaked praise to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Russia, as well as silently cooperating with China, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Oman, Qatar, The United Arab Emirates, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Indeed, almost a quarter of the countries labeled "not free" by Freedom House are official US allies in the war on terror. It is positively Orwellian, and it is enough to make someone like me physically ill.

The gap between rhetoric and reality can only last for so long before it triggers brutal consequences. I argued in a previous post that:

"the perception, however frail, that the world does care, at some level, about the plight of the global periphery and will work to alleviate it [is one of the key factors preventing the poor from exploding in anti-western/anti-American rage]. International institutions such as the UN, where the lowliest nations stand as equals with the US, Britain, and other powers, have done much to convince the global poor that they too are members of the world community, and as such they will be cared and provided for. If the US is seen as abandoning what--to the rest of the world--is a solemn commitment to work for the betterment of mankind, a sense of betrayal will quickly emerge, likely to be followed by resentment and hatred."

More immediately, the rhetoric/reality gap is having a real negative impact on our efforts to rebuild Iraq.

"...Iraqi mistrust of US democratization efforts isn't because of any hostility on the part of the Iraqi's to democracy per se. It speaks volumes about the character of the Iraqi people that the most powerful national figure, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, is also a committed democrat. Rather, the mistrust stems from a mistrust of motives, Iraqi's know (from personal experience and from basic observation of their neighbors) that the US has been perfectly willing to subvert democratic institutions and install friendly dictators when it serves American economic and realist interests to do so. Furthermore, the US has usually coached these actions in the same pro-liberal, pro-democratic rhetoric that we hear from the Bush administration today (cite: Chile, Vietnam). Hence, Iraqi's are understandably paranoid that President Bush's committment to liberalization is a facade, and every misstep and misstatement by the US occupying regime only amplifies these fears. Worse yet, US tolerance and praise of other dictatorships (in Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere), compounds the problem."

The gap is quickly expanding into a chasm, with the vast majority of the oppressed people of the world caught on the wrong side. I pray that the US will change course, but it will never happen unless the media and the people are willing to call Bush out on the hypocrisy of advocating for freedom without acting on it.