The Bush Doctrine
Norman Podhoretz has written an article on the Bush Doctrine and it's opponants. It is a very good read and I recommend it. This bit here I think is especially interesting:
But there would be a heavy price to pay for placing so much stress on the issue of WMD. Not only did the failure to find them severely injure the case for invading Iraq; perhaps even more injurious was that the emphasis on WMD obscured the long-range strategic rationale for the invasion. For while the immediate objective was indeed to disarm Saddam Hussein, the larger one was to press on with 'draining the swamps' - whether created by religious despots, as in Afghanistan, or by secular tyrants, as in Iraq - that were in Bush's view the breeding-grounds of terrorism in the greater Middle East. Nor could those swamps be drained only by strong-arming the regimes under which they had been festering. It was also necessary in this view to replace these regimes with elected governments that would work to fulfill the hopes of 'the peoples of the Islamic nations [who] who want and deserve the same freedoms and opportunities as people in every nation.'Obviously in retrospect the WMD arguement turned out to be bad. I do regret, and did at the time, that the drain the swamps arguement was largely ignored and overlooked. I still believe the idea of regimes in the middle east that would actually benefit their people, and hence benefit us, is very sound policy and the only realistic response to the dangers of our time. I acknowledge however that this goal is lofty and difficult to achieve.
posted by Dave Justus | 1/12/2005 01:39:00 PM
9 Comments:
Dave, with respect there is something that you and so many other Americans can not understand.
One small glimmer of it comes from the current relationship between your country and mine. It is now so much part of history that it is forgotten - that once there was a treaty, a mutual defence pact called ANZUS.
History records that there was only one thing that killed ANZUS. It was a piece of legislation that banned nuclear weapons and nuclear powered craft from NZ. That really got the Argentinian fire ants into the furthest recesses of the Amreican administration. It never really seems to have gotten over it either.
As a consequence of that one act, ANZUS is no longer operative, NZ is no longer a "most favoured nation" though PRC (China) is.
You know something? It was one of the best things this country ever did. Why? Because we are truly free of being bullied into "defending the interests of" the USofA.
Most pleasing of all was that we did not have any repeats of the likes of LBJ in Wellington DEMANDING that NZ send troops to the war in Vietnam. We were able to make up our own mind about Iraq.
And guess what - I got a quiet smug feeling that we were not part of the "alliance of fools".
you are talking about NZ where their are more sheep than people right?
No to down you country (it has some of the most beautiful secenry that i have ever seen in pictures, i have never been their, though i want to go sometime), but i get a smug feeling knowing that countries like Iran are going to have a harder time attacking countires like yours (small and beautiful)
Probligo,
I am having a tough time understand the point of your comment, at least in connection with my post.
I fully understand that NZ and the US are no longer close allies, which is a pity in my opinion and I freely accept that various president's, including our current one may at times 'bully' other nations.
Bullying other nations is not a part of the Bush doctrine (although many will indeed say it was part of the implimentation of it.) Simply put, the Bush Doctrine is that failed/repressive states are a danger to America and thus an aggressive promotion of Democracy and Nation building is needed to deal with this new sort of threat.
The article I posted explains a lot of the reasons why people disagree with that argument and provides, I believe, effective counter arguements.
I have one question for you Probligo: Do you prefer Iraq as it was 2 years ago or Iraq as it is now?
Dave, the point of the NZ is example is that (not surprisingly) the US is no different from any other nation in that its foreign policy is no different to any other. It is driven by self interest, not altruism.I find it difficult to understand the American desire to "spread" its variety of "democracy" when to all appearances it is based upon deceit, lies and wrong assumption.
Yes, there has been a problem with "failed" states and nations. It is a failing of the present structure of the UN. That failing has been addressed with the structural review undertaken during the past year or so. It is the part of the Charter that prevents the UN involving itself in the internal matters of another nation. That failing has become fundamental and is now being addressed, at long last.
On the question of terrorist attack on NZ, it has happened. It was not sufficiently "important" to make too many waves on the international scene. There were no pleas for internation assistance to punish those responsible. After all only one person was killed - not a big deal huh!
The fact that is the French government that carried out the terrorist attack was probably a leading reason for nothing happening too.
Oh you don't remember the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour? Forgotten two French secret agents who got caught, tried for murder and then spent two years on a French tropical island paradise before being welcomed back by Chirac as heros?
No, Iraq2 was the right thing to do, undertaken for wrong reasons (now at last admitted by your administration), without any justification (also now admitted), illegally (it was NOT pre-emptive strike), and in the wrong way.
France Germany and Russia were right, as much as you might puke at the idea. The Resolutions of the UNSC were not binding, they were not passed under Article 7 of the Charter. The case against Iraq had not been proved. The requirement for Iraq to "prove the negative" was an impossibility given the attitude of the US administration.
Tell me something Dave, how do you feel about being lied to?
Been thinking about the question Dave - Iraq now or under Saddam...
You know, there is not really much to choose is there?
A violent and ruthless dictator
or
Kuwait in reverse.
I do not feel that I was lied to. I have mentioned previously that our intel on Saddams WMD was bad. We were fooled much like the rest of the world was fooled. Even many countries who were against the war believed that Saddam was developing WMD. It is also a fact that he still desired WMD and would have resumed development at some point in the future.
I am unaware of any statements of the U.S. administration that the War in Iraq was undertaken for the wrong reasons or that their was no justification for it. I am also unaware that the War in Iraq was illegal under international law. International Law is, unfortunately in many ways, more a myth than a reality in any event. I do not believe that the U.N. security council has issued any declaration that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was illegal aggression. (hah!)
As I said in my post, the clean the swamps rational and the long term good of the Iraqi's were always my primary reasons for support of the Iraq War not the WMD issue in any event.
I do find your comparison of Iraq now and Kuwait in 1990 to be rather farsical. Perhaps I am misremembering, but I don't think Saddam was working to establish a democratic self-ruled Kuwait and combat fascist thugs who were killing Kuwati citizens. I suppose I could be mistaken though.
I think the fine print in WaPo in the last three days or so records the return to Washington of the US Army Colonel in charge of the team searching Iraq for WMD, and the contents of his report to the President.
As reported in this part of the world he has concluded -
SH had no effective capability for production of chemical and bio weapons.
The SH nuclear programme was effectively non-existent.
There was no evidence of CW and BW production or storage.
The search teams have been diverted to "other duties".
The command structure was being downgraded in rank from Colonel (hence his return to Washington) to Major (I think).
As WMD was the ONLY grounds for the war that was given to the UNSC prior to the invasion, the grounds are apparently now accepted as baseless at least by the man charged with searching for them. (Welcome home, Hans).
Like I said, I do not expect your acceptance or belief.
But, please accept that if I am given information which I believe to be true, then it should be acceptable to you as good, effective and proper evidence of the claims that I am making. Isn't that what you are expecting of me, and the rest of the world, when you speak of the claims made two years back?
_____________________
Just as an aside here, the term "clearing the swamps" is especially unfortunate and upsets me immensely.
Why?
Remember the "people of the Euphrates"? They were a small remote community living in the swamp areas of the Euphrates south of Baghdad.
They were one of the indigenous groups to suffer from a very insidious genocide perpetuated by Saddam.
He effectively "removed" them, killed them off, by diverting the Euphrates into permanent channels, ostensibly for irrigation purposes.
The project was called "draining the swamps".
Sickening, really.
About the whole NZ drama that's been taking place on Dave's sight...Did you(the NZ dude) pay any attention to the sickening anti-Semitic politics on behalf of your puny, Arab-appeasing so-called government?We have a small country, smaller than yours, yet we've done everything to support America in its efforts to rid the world of a clear and present danger.Man...I wish Israel was free to put you guys to shame like we've done to those your government has shamefuly tried to defend!!! The way I see it, guy, is like this...I smack you in the face...will you want to fight back? HELLO that's what America is doing.
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