But what about China? Is it U.S. policy to importune Chinese dissidents “to start on this journey of progress and justice”? How will we manifest our readiness to “walk at [their] side”?
China, so massive, is maybe too massive a challenge for our liberationist policy, even as the Central African Republic is too exiguous. Then what about Saudi Arabia? Here is a country embedded in oppression. Does President Bush really intend to make a point of this? Where? At the U.N.? At the Organization of African Unity? Will we refuse to buy Saudi oil?
These paragraphs, not the goofy grammar lesson, are the important part of Buckley's article. That is, the President is promising something that we have absolutely no intention of taking concrete, consistent action to implement. My own reaction is that the speech was wildly inconsistent with Pres. Bush's statement in interviews last week that he will not increase the size of the Army.
Agreed. No expansion of the Army and Marines...not to mention the time and $$$ it takes to train and equip them.
Does this speech not promise something that W has no intention of delivering? And is that not precisely what his father encouraged, by egging on the Kurds and the Shiites to overthrow their "leader", sodamnm?