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Friday, February 03, 2006

Commentary on the State of the Union, Part I

My somewhat jaded thoughts on the State of the Union address--Bush's statements are in italics.

Abroad, our nation is committed to an historic, long-term goal: We seek the end of tyranny in our world.

Call me cynical, but historically--and currently--we have supported dictators and tyrants; a quick sampling includes Heydar Aliyev and his son (Azerbaijan), Islam Karimov (Uzbek), Mobutu Sese Seko (Congo/Zaire), Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (the last Shah of Iran), Augusto Pinochet (Chile), and even Saddam Hussein himself for years.

On September the 11th, 2001, we found that problems originating in a failed and oppressive state 7,000 miles away could bring murder and destruction to our country. Dictatorships shelter terrorists, and feed resentment and radicalism, and seek weapons of mass destruction.

It's clear that the implication here is Iraq, but in reality 9/11 was about Al-Qaeda and Afganistan--we went after Iraq afterward because we were scared. Iraq was disobeying UN sanctions again and again and we thought they might have WMDs, a fear related to--but not created by--9/11. Or at least that was the stated reason. But that's still not the same thing as deciding that Hussein was dangerous because he sheltered terrorists.

Democracies replace resentment with hope, respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbors, and join the fight against terror.

Democracies do want the people want, assuming that elections aren't hindered by threats and fear. But a vote elected Hamas to power, a group not exactly known for respecting their neighbors and fighting terror--and that's legitimate from a democractic point of view, which may not always fit in with Bush's idealism.

And there is no honor in retreat.

Is that true? I think we should stay in Iraq until we figure out how to extricate ourselves without failing the Iraqis (the man who makes a mess should clean it up), but there are times that retreat is necessary--if you're losing a battle and need to regroup, retreat may even be wise.

When they murder children at a school in Beslan or blow up commuters in London or behead a bound captive, the terrorists hope these horrors will break our will, allowing the violent to inherit the Earth.

Bush's use of Biblical allusion is always interesting. The original phrase was "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

We are the nation that saved liberty in Europe, and liberated death camps, and helped raise up democracies and faced down an evil empire.

While this is true (although worded somewhat arrogantly), we have to recognize our country's unsavory past as well. We helped to topple Iran's first democratic government. The CIA provided $1 million in covert aid to parties in Chile that helped depose the elected President Allende. And let's not forget that we were condemned for an "unlawful use of force" in Nicaragua by the World Court (which we now don't officially recognize, even though we accepted their findings prior to that case).

We're on the offensive in Iraq, with a clear plan for victory.

I seriously question the last half of that statement. I hope we have a plan for victory, but I'm not sure that we actually do.

Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy.

This may be the most profound line in the speech, and does ring true. However, critical analysis is important lest we repeat our mistakes.

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