That's the one where President Bush proclaimed that the freedom and prosperity of citizens in the U.S. depends on the freedom and democracy of other countries in the world.
But in two recent columns (and also his book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?"), writer Ted Rall argues that the Bush administration is turning a blind eye to human rights violations and anti-democratic practices in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in return for large (and largely untapped) natural gas and oil supplies, respectively.
Rall presents these facts in all their horrific detail and argues that the U.S. foreign policy now being directed towards these Central Asian countries mirrors that of the Middle East decades ago (which has lead to many of the problems we have there today). As appalling as it is that this is going on, it is even more appalling that Ted Rall is the only one who is reporting it. But that's the MSM for you.
However, I must confess my ignorance too, which is why I'll let the articles speak for themselves. You can read them in full below:
Bush props up another Saddam
How Dick Cheney spent his summer vacation
Thursday, July 06, 2006
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2 comments:
That sort of goes to my earlier post. National security has always been our first priority. Talk about spreading democracy was purely for domestic public consumption. That we should speak of it while at the same time being willing to prop up dictatorships, should come as no surprise to either thsoe on the left or the right.
As always, it goes back to 9/11. 9/11 was the window this administration desired to carry out the invasion of Iraq, which was justified under the rubric of democracy promotion...after the fact, of course. Democracy promotion was a theme of the second inaugaral speech precisely because the threat of WMDs had been destroyed. So again...talk of democracy has only ever been for domestic political consumption.
Not that it's a defense, but it's just continuing America's long streak of hypocrisy by propping up, dealing with, or even installing dictators. It's something we should never have done and should not be doing now. When we elect a new President, it must be part of his policies to truly promote democracy around the world instead of just paying lip service to it.
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