No matter how macabre things get in Baghdad, the sun never stops shining for President Bush. The war, we were told, would knock off a regime friendly to al-Qaida, unhand Saddam of weapons of mass destruction, liberate a people yearning for freedom, promote peace in Israel and begin a democratic domino effect that would rid the region of the despair that breeds terrorism.
The individual justifications were less important than the overarching lesson: bring democracy to Iraq, and all good things will come together. In a triumphant address to the National Defense University March 8, Bush offered even more arguments for the war. "The advance of democracy leads to peace," he said, "because governments that respect the rights of their people also respect the rights of their neighbors."
I have to say, that's kind of a funny comment coming from a president who isn't exactly famous for his respect for constitutional rights or for his regard for other countries.
In just four years, the Bush administration invaded two countries, ordered covert operations in God knows how many more, circumvented or killed countless international treaties, seized and detained foreign citizens such as Australia's Yaser Hamdi and Canada's Maher Arar, presided over a catastrophic prisoner-abuse scandal and in the process ticked off untold millions of people.
And respect for individual rights? Under the Bush administration, terror suspects are subjected to unprecedented surveillance, held in prison without charge or legal counsel and tortured or otherwise humiliated in prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo and other U.S. military bases. In extreme cases, they are extradited to serial human rights violators such as the governments of Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia or Uzbekistan, where they can be hidden from international monitors and tortured.
A recent lawsuit filed by the ACLU claims that the plaintiffs represented "were incarcerated in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they were subjected to torture and other cruel and degrading treatment, including severe and repeated beatings, cutting with knives, sexual humiliation and assault, mock executions, death threats, and restraint in contorted and excruciating positions." So widespread is abuse of prisoners in U.S. detention centers that one government official told the Washington Post, "If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job."
Seen in this light, the connection that Bush sees between "governments that respect the rights of their people" and those that "respect the rights of their neighbors" makes for pretty damning commentary on his own governing style.
Bush hopes a certain kind of liberal politician will emerge in Iraq, one who exhibits a meticulous respect for individual rights and procedural checks and balances, and who is quite cautious and multilateral in his approach to foreign policy.
But what's striking is that Bush himself isn't that type of leader, and in fact, he spent the 2004 presidential campaign ridiculing his opponents for precisely those qualities.
After Howard Dean suggested giving Osama bin Laden a fair trial, expressing a classic liberal faith in the rule of law, President Bush got belligerent: "It is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers." Bush ripped into Sen. John Kerry's suggestion that American policies should pass a "global test."
There's a common theme in Bush's rhetoric and actions: an overarching disregard for legal and diplomatic fetters that might force him to compromise his ideological aims. If other countries express doubts about our foreign policy goals, Bush ignores them. If treaties like the Geneva Convention and the Torture Convention make it harder to catch terrorists, he disregards them.
When reading reports from the Washington Post indicating that the Bush administration plans to keep Guantanamo detainees in custody without charge for possibly the rest of their lives, despite numerous reports of mistreatment, one gets a sense of the administration's profound disdain for human rights and the rule of law.
For Bush, I suspect, the difference is between weakness and strength. How else can one explain his attraction to Vladimir Putin? To Bush, liberal wimps who stay safely within the boundaries of what is "acceptable" simply lack the vision to do what is right. Whether a government should topple foreign regimes or torture innocent prisoners are not questions of morality, but questions of will. In his words, "America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country."
If Bush gets his way, Iraq will be ruled by a pussyfooted, Shia version of John Kerry. The constitution will be faithfully upheld and treaties will be carefully applied.
Meanwhile, back in America, Bush isn't likely to lose his authoritarian streak anytime soon.
Nate Goralnik '06 keeps changing his position.
