George Bush And The Legacy Of The Lincoln Era Democrats

About a year ago, the Times of London published an opinion piece, It sounded so good to start with. But where did all go wrong, George?. Written by Gerald Baker, it is a whiny, wistful piece about a George Bush and noble ideas gone bad. Mr Baker’s piece carefully points to the litany of Mr Bush’s ‘failures.’ He gravely concludes that America is ‘weaker’ because of George Bush.

Baker categorizes our efforts in Iraq and the Middle East as failures, and cites events in those regions as evidence of a failed policy. He notes sectarian strife in Iraq that boiling over and the newly ‘empowered’ Hizbollah in Lebanon as evidence of those American failure.

What utter drivel.

Baker’s opinions are not new or original, nor are they unbiased or without a political agenda.

What went wrong for Mr Baker, the critics of George Bush and the Democrats in Congress is that for this president, ‘business as usual’ isn’t good enough. Like the Democrats that hounded Abraham Lincoln and sought to foil his every move in fighting the Civil War, this crop of Congressional politicos have done everything could to usurp this administration’s efforts to bring democracy and human rights to region utterly devoid of them. There is no pretense that the efforts to undermine Mr Bush are anything but politically motivated. Where are the Democrats who say, ‘We differ with the administration on tactics, but we too are determined to bring democracy to the Middle East no matter the cost.’

Like their predecessors that fought with all their might to keep American blacks politically, socially, economically and educationally disenfranchised for decades after the civil war, this generation of Democrats will be remembered for abandoning Arabs to continued tyranny and slaughter if they get their way.

Removing Saddam was good for the people of Iraq. The current campaign of death and mayhem has nothing to do with Saddam. It has everything to do with denying freedom and democracy to Iraqis and turning Iraq into a base of terror, not unlike Afghanistan under the Taliban. The removal of Saddam from a position of power in Iraq did not create new terrorists. Those predisposed to terror now had a place to congregate and the regimes and nations from which these ‘foreign fighters’ hailed were only too happy to help them leave their own countries and help them find their way into Iraq. Better to fight Americans and America than to upset the tyrannies and dysfunctional despots.

A free and democratic Iraq is a threat to the regions tyrants and the religious authorities those dysfunctional regimes have co opted. A free and democratic Iraq is a threat to the status quo and to the regimes and organizations that exist solely to preserve those regimes. This truth is equally applicable to the policy wonks of both the Democrats and Republicans. The difference is that the Democrats are the American of the Arab League. We noted

Even the name, ‘Arab League,’ is deliberately misleading. In fact, that organization does not represent Arab interests at all- and never has. The Arab League has not sponsored a single educational, economic or re al democratic reform and empowerment program in it’s entire existence. The Arab League is an organization dedicated to maintaining the status quo and preserving the leaders of some of the most repressive and dysfunctional regimes in the world. That is it’s entire raison d’etre.

The Democrats have have made clear they are perfectly content with a Middle East where hundreds of millions are to remain under the jackboots of murderous tyrants. If that agenda will fill campaign coffers and ballot boxes, that is the stand they will take. If it takes deceit and lying to the American people to boot, so be it. As far as they are concerned, that kind of politics is business as usual. That is clearly reflected in how General Petraeus is being treated by Democrat interests- and called a ‘traitor’ to boot. It seems the General is going to report tp Congress that things are looking up in Iraq- a notion that is unacceptable to many Democrats.

Iraqis who ask that we not ‘give up on them’ are ignored by Democrat interests.

Business as usual isn’t good enough for George Bush and his Middle East policy reflects that. Notwithstanding Democrat denial and self delusion, there is not an Arab regime that can even be remotely classified as a moral regime- never mind free. Mr Bush will not pretend there is. Ronald Reagan referred to the former Soviet Union as an ‘evil empire.’ Mr Bush will not pretend the Arab regimes are anything but what they are- an assembly of dysfunctional, repressive and failed regimes. As a consequence, the Arab world has been reduced to nothing but a jellied mass, festering in hate, convinced they can blame everyone else for their failures and lot in life. Those Arabs that are dysfunctional want to be considered as equals with the rest of the civilized world, simply because they want to be considered as equals. They expect their dysfunctional values- which include hate, racism and bigotry- to be accepted in civilized society, as equals.It is this kind of Middle East with which the Democrats are perfectly content. In their view, isolationism is security.

It is clear that these ideas are perfectly acceptable to the majority Democrats in both Houses of Congress.

Mr Bush has made it quite clear that he will not tolerate a status quo that leaves Middle Eastern populations in the dark and without hope, in a world that moves forward with blinding speed. Business as usual isn’t good enough. What infuriates the Democrats (and the Arab world) is that when it comes to the universal truth that all people benefit from democracy, Mr Bush refuses to lower the bar, an exercise at which the Democrats excel. He will fight the fight. He will not cut and run and he will get as dirty as necessary to get the job done. It is interesting to note that Mr Bush is not afraid to get dirty or do manual labor. That is very different than many of his political opponents spend their time sailing or wear blazers and rep ties to clambakes.

That a western Europe once overrun by Nazi and then liberated by Americans, Canadians and British soldiers supports and stands behind the ‘noble’ Arabs and their dysfunctional and tyrannical regimes speaks volumes about the fork in the road Europe has chosen. As the Arab world embraces and luxuriates in it’s only recorded achievement of note, anti Semitism, Europeans have turned a blind eye, for too long. That any Americans would do the same, is a disgusting and revolting notion. There is a reason some Europeans are leaving their homes- for good. See this, too, for a realistic look at what Europe now faces.

Since when is it incumbent upon Americans, this proud, noble and motley assemblage of ‘wretched refuse,’ to become like the Europeans that were only too happy to send them on their way? Why would a nation that has always raised the bar, now be only to eager to lower standards?

Fausta took a surreal look at how Europe sees events in Lebanon.

Since when do Americans, citizens of a nation that has liberated more people from oppression into freedom than anyone else, take their ‘marching orders’ from people and nations that have proved to be anything but moral? Are the Russian ruling classes, with their sordid history, equ al to us? Are the French, with their own history of oppression in Algeria and elsewhere (if you think the Spanish were tough on the Basques, think again) and Vichy collaboration, a beacon of ethics? If that is what passes for business as usu al in a free and democratic country, Mr Bush will have no part of it.

Mr Bush will not allow the hypocrisy of the left and Euro-trash to accepted as ‘business as usual.’ That Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are up in arms and working themselves into a frenzy over Israeli ‘atrocities,’ while ignoring decades of slaughter in Darfur and Algeria, for example, is laughable. That the Arab and Muslim world are oblivious to those kinds of tragedies or ignore them altogether, is a tragedy- and a profound example of Arab world moral bankruptcy. That moral bankruptcy is the most shameful legacy of the dysfunctional Arab regimes.

We can only hope the election of Angela Merkal in Germany and Nicolas Sarkozy in France represent a turning in Euro-politics.

Mr Bush hasn’t failed. He just won’t be a part of ‘business as usual.’

Great leaders are measured by their commitment to high ideals and their unwavering support for the moral causes that change the world for the better .

It is great leaders that will be remembered. Everyone else will be forgotten, including the this crop of Lincoln-era type Congressional Democrats.