Posted on 02/12/2011 5:54:04 PM PST by Wpin
Bush adviser says Obama should have listened to the former president
For decades, the Arab states have seemed exceptions to the laws of politics and human nature. While liberty expanded in many parts of the globe, these nations were left behind, their "freedom deficit" signaling the political underdevelopment that accompanied many other economic and social maladies. In November 2003, President George W. Bush asked these questions:
"Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom and never even to have a choice in the matter?"
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Wise up, you're making a fool of yourself:
Google day of rage and see how many hits you get. This is all being highly organized by the left and the MB.
WAKE UP!!!!
Bush had the wisdom to conduct diplomacy quietly behind closed doors. Obama embarrasses leaders of nations on the world stage.
I have said it before. Bush was the last moderate Democrat.
Let’s see...liberated over 50 million people from dictatorships, pushed for a renaissance of private ownership in the US, defended at every opportunity each individuals right to life, attempted to give private ownership to part of social security, espoused the belief that liberty was a right given to each individual (on the planet) from God. Yes, I can see where you think President Bush was not conservative...
"Engagement" has not been the problem, but rather the administration's insistence on engaging with regimes rather than with the people trying to survive under them.
Interesting comment by Elliott Abrams, esteemed member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the very set of elitists who indulge regularly and systematically in exactly what he vilifies - interdiction in the management of others lives.
And be it regime, or, the people surviving under it, that interdiction is clear and understandably resented by all, rulers or ruled. The world is not blind.
A leader is not one who interferes in other thinking peoples' lives; but rather one who lives the courage of example; Christ for instance, or Star Trek's Prime Directive, or the USA as circumspect and living within its own resources.
As is always the case with the CFR, Mr. Abrams cannot see the forest for the elitist globalist trees around him.
Johnny Suntrade
If you think a fellow of the CFR writing in the Washington Post is going to allay fears amongst conservatives you truly are delusional. This is why there will be no peace in the Middle East:
When the women pull the rags off their heads they are liberated. That is the only way they can have a mutual agreement.
Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe - because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty, Bush said. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment and violence ready for export.
“So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people greedy, barbarous and cruel,”
- T. E Lawrence
Most stopped defending him years ago.
Chrchill
When they dump islam, maybe there will be freedom.
I've maintained that GW Bush will be remembered by history as a great president. A part of that will be if people of the Middle East who desire freedom emulate Iraq and not Iran. Hopefully, Egypt will be the first Bush Doctrine success following Iraq.
nice article
He ran on "no nation building" and not being the world's police men, which are conservative Constitutionalist ideas. But he invaded Iraq for no reason and sought to be the world's police (just as Clinton and his dad had done) to the point that we, as a nation, are almost bankrupt.
In addition to his failed world police vision, he tried amnesty for law breaking illegals, saw the biggest expansion ever of federal governmental power, and presided over the largest budgets in U.S. history (until Obama broke his records). Bush is the reason the Tea Party was born; we were tired of not having any advocate for the Constitution as the Republican party had lost its way.
I bet you are a Ron Paul peasant...you are so very wrong about President Bush and history.
Success in Iraq? Have you been there? I have. It's by far not a success, especially when you factor in the cost of American lives and wealth. Iraq will go down as one of the worst foreign policy mistakes in American history.
No, I don't think Paul has a chance at winning. I'm just a plain old Constitutionalist who believes in the founders' vision of America and her sovereign states. Bush was certainly no Constitutionalist and was very far left of what our founders wanted.
“The only revolution that turned out for the better was the American Revolution”
That’s because it was a war for independence rather than a social revolution.
The colonies had been largely self-governing for years. The British governors were an unwanted overlay. The founders didn’t have to invent a governing system from scratch, they simply built on the burgesses and town councils that already existed.
“Men with such radically diverse ideals and political views could have never held together “
They were hardly radically diverse. Read what John Jay had to say about his fellow Americans in Federalist Paper #2:
“With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.”
http://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entry.php?rec=455
“I don’t believe it can happen. Democracy is too alien a concept to that culture. And very few westerners have any understanding of their culture.
I’ll be happy to be proven incorrect. But I won’t be. “
My money’s on you.
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