COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

The Los Angeles Times' shows its true colors (again) with this piece of editorial tripe masquerading as a front page news story:

President Bush's ambitious vision of global democratic reform has begun to dominate the administration's foreign affairs agenda, in some cases pushing aside urgent international issues.

Since when is global democratic reform not "an urgent international issue?"

What you're seeing here is George Bush totally outclassing a nitwit reporter. George Bush, unlike the reporter, actually has a strategic vision, and is concentrating on making progress toward that goal. He's not Bill Clinton: He's not going to allow himself to get distracted at every turn, losing his strategic vision and letting himself get drawn into being reactive instead of proactive. Bush wants to drive events in the middle east--not allow events in the middle east to drive him.

The reporter thinks these issues are urgent. Why? If Bush is successful in bringing global democratic reform to fruition, then all these so-called "urgent issues" become trivial in comparison.

So far, the president's plan has been driven mainly by high-level rhetoric, symbolic gestures and a handful of modestly funded development programs

Well, that, and the small matter of millions of people participating in the first real democratic elections in the history of the middle east, you small-minded nincompoop!

In the four months since Bush unveiled the approach in his second inaugural address

The Times is parroting a contemptible lie. Global democratic reform has been a touchstone in the Bush Administration for years, as others have convincingly shown.

"A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedome for other nations in the region." (George Bush, February 2003, PBS News Hour

Iranians, like all people, have a right to choose their own government, and determine their own destiny, and the United States supports their aspirations to live in freedom..." (George Bush, January 2003

"Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause, and a great strategic goal. ... The United States supports political and economic liberty in a unified Iraq." (George Bush, August 2002.)



Hear that, morons, a strategic goal. As in "strategy." You might want to look up the difference between a strategy and a tactic.

Somehow, Tyler Marshall has gotten four graphs deep in his story without even mentioning what these other "urgent international matters" could be.

nearly every meeting with foreign officials and many of the changes taking place within the Bush administration, including several key appointments, has reflected the priority of expanding the boundaries of democracy.

Thank God. He's sure not getting any help from the media, nor from the American left, who now makes any excuse for dictatorship so long as they can gain a passing rhetorical advantage over anyone who might support the president's plan for democratic reform.

Although few foreign policy specialists interviewed for this article questioned the president's personal sincerity, some dismissed his plan as little more than fantasy.

I'll see your fantasy, and I'll raise you 25 million purple ink-stained fingers in Iraq and 8 million more in Afghanistan, plus I don't know how many more million newly liberated Lebanese who will bet it's not.

Others expressed doubt that the U.S. had the credibility to advance such ambitious reforms — especially in the Islamic world.

Guess what! We just did. Small-minded punks.

Nazief said two pressing regional issues were largely left out of his May 18 visit with Bush: the unfolding crisis just to Egypt's south in the Darfur region of Sudan, and Syria's involvement in Lebanon.

Well, Nazief doesn't get to decide what's important to the United States. Syria's involvment in Lebanon is coming to an end (no thanks to the left), and Egypt isn't going to do anything to stop Sudan, so what's the point of discussing the matter with them? It's a sideshow as far as US-Egyptian relations are concerned. Real democratic reform in Egypt will have more positive effect in Sudan than anything the Mubarak government might be willing to do about Darfur. Which is nothing.

Yes, Nazief got "put on the defensive." He's a big boy. He can handle it. And it is entirely appropriate for our government to do so.

In the Middle East, America's poor image and more urgent strategic concerns, such as assuring the welfare of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan,

That's a concern. But it's not a strategic concern, Tyler. It's not even particularly a tactical concern.

You must really suck at chess.

Closer to home, bureaucratic resistance within parts of the U.S. government that are skeptical of the agenda threaten to blunt the effect of existing pro-democracy initiatives.

I can put it a bit more succictly: Liberal bureaucrats are enemies of democracy.

More significant, the new emphasis on promoting democracy has launched policymakers on a journey with no clear path to their goal.

Thanks for your opinion, Tyler. Why don't you keep it on the editorial page, where it belongs? I mean, you don't even support this idiotic assertion with quotes. The quotes you give don't support your assertion at all.

Such daunting tasks nurture considerable skepticism about Bush's vision.

I can see it now. "The daunting task of scaling Pont du Hoc nurtures considerable skepticism about Eisenhower's vision of ridding Europe of Naziism."

When did liberals become so weak?

"The simplistic notion that you talk a great deal about democracy and twist a few arms and it will somehow come magically on its own is absurd," said Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was national security advisor to President Carter.

The decision to quote the thoroughly discredited Brzezinski on a story like this is laughable. I mean, is Tyler too blind to see the irony? What countries experienced democratic liberation on Carter's watch? Maybe Carter didn't twist enough arms!

Somehow Tyler made it to the second page of his article without mentioning what "urgent issues" have been sacrificed on the altar of Democracy, other than the two issues with Egypt.

U.S. Embassy political officers, whose job is to keep relations with host governments as strong as possible,

No, genius, that's not their job. Their job is to pursue American interests abroad. Sometimes you do that by strengthening relations, and sometimes you do that by weakening them and going to a competitor. They're not there to make foreign despots happy.

also reportedly question the wisdom of U.S. initiatives that aim to weaken an existing government's grip on power.

Why shouldn't we weaken a despot's grip on power? I'd much rather have mediocre relations with a democracy than good relationships with a brutal, repressive dictatorship. The only reason these diplomats think otherwise is because they've become too close to the host nation's government. In so doing, they've sold out the people of those nations, and they've sold out the American people for the price of diplomatic immunity and a few cocktail parties.

At one level, experts such as Moises Naim, editor of the Washington-based Foreign Policy magazine, acknowledge that Bush has been effective in presenting a series of recent displays of "people power" in countries such as Ukraine, Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan as part of the inevitable march of history.

Well, no shit. You needed an "expert" to help you figure that out?

But he and others say the administration is merely "picking the low-hanging fruit." They argue that the real test of Bush's commitment to change will come in strategically important nations, such as Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, where the political stakes are far higher for the U.S.

Well, there are others who don't want the U.S. to pick any fruit at all.

Some specialists also say the administration reacted more cautiously than many European countries to public uprisings against repressive governments in the Central Asian countries of Kyrgyzstan in March and Uzbekistan last month. One reason: They both house U.S. military bases that are crucial to supporting American forces in Afghanistan.

Hmmm...geez. So the Bush Administration is actually BALANCING the strategic goal of democratic reform with the operational goal (it's not strategic) of maintaining access to bases to support the fight against Al Qaeda.

Wow. Ok. But that sort of undercuts the whole thrust of the article - that the push for democratic reform is trumping all other vital concerns.

But look down the road a little ways: If the US is successful in Iraq and Afghanistan, and if the Mullahs in Iran fall and we have elections there (as I believe there will be, soon), and the US is successful in pursuing democratic reforms in the other former Soviet republics, then it will be difficult for Krgystan and Pakistan to hold on. At some point, the US will no longer rely on the Krgystani and Uzbek bases. At which time, we can work to bring democracy to those people, too, without jeopardizing our fight against the Taliban - the successful prosecution of which is a prerequisite to meaningful reform in the region.

"We thought stability would bring us security," said Krasner, of the State Department. "Well, stability has not brought us security

Exactly right. Although it was only idiots like Brzezinski who thought so. And Brzezinski is still caught up in that foolish way of thinking. And so are all his proteges in the state department, who Tyler quotes earlier as being nervous about the wisdom of loostening the grip of despots on power.

But there was never any reason to think so. Japan was stable when it clobbered us at Pearl Harbor. Germany was stable when it invaded Poland. North Korea was stable when it invaded South Korea. North Vietnam was stable when it invaded South Vietnam. Iraq was stable when it invaded Kuwait. Iraq was stable when it invaded Iran. China was stable when it invaded Tibet. The UK was stable when it marched on Lexington and Concorde. The USSR was stable when it invaded Afghanistan. Germany was stable when it invaded Belgium and France in 1914. Serbia was stable when it attacked Kosovo. Germany was stable when it invaded Russia in 1941. And the Taliban was stable when Al Qaeda attacked us on Sept. 11th, and many, many times before that.

So anyone who thought "stability would bring us security" was a first-class moron.

"Well, stability has not brought us security, so we have to think about how to move these regimes to another position, and our security is dependent on that."

Thank god we have a serious strategic thinker in the White House who is willing to undo the damage caused by Brzezinski and his ilk.

Splash, out

Jason