I always get a bit of a kick watching black and white logic fall on its ass. It’s a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. Black and white logic tends to be the refuge of simple minded people, you know: “you’re either with us or against us†style thinking that dictates all decisions can be made simple when you see it as either black, or white. This logic is a staple of our own fearless leader, George W. “the W stands for War†Bush, and is struggling these days to make his stubborn theories on Democracy work.
Unfortunately for him, it comes at the expense of looking the fool.
Today Bush spoke about the difference between the U.S. hardline on Burma, and the relatively mute response to Pakistan President and military chief Pervez Musharraf’s seizure of power. Musharraf’s recent suspension of his nation’s constitution is the ultimate destruction of Pakistani democracy, and our support of this matter is the ultimate bastardization of Bush’s pledge to support the flowering of democracy abroad. Get this: Bush claimed the difference is that Pakistan had been on the path to democracy and Burma had not. When you hear it, you may hear what I discovered, that the normally cocky President sounds so confused in this clip you’d think he’s trying to convince himself.
Ironically, the path to democracy has veered dramatically away from its intended destination, increasingly so, thanks to a little engineering help from the Bush White House, (who’ve successfully laid out brilliant democracies in the following countries: ________). Musharraf can compare himself to Abraham Lincoln all he wants, he is no Abraham Lincoln, and neither is Bush. They may see themselves as “War Presidentsâ€, but they both rule by dictation, not negotiation and certainly not by representation. Sure they may say they are great promoters of democratic rule, but it doesn’t make it so.
Between the rhetorical lines however is a deeply troubled Bush. On one hand he is urging Musharraf to return to democracy, on the other he needs the dictator for his war of, I mean on, terror, meanwhile he has to publically defend the fact he’s financed and supported Musharraf with military hardware and foreign aid, helping to secure the power of an up and coming dictator, a dictator, by the way, that presides over a nation of 164 million people, and has nuclear weapons. Never mind the fact North Korea was helped to achieve it’s nuclear goals from Pakistani scientists.
So let me get this straight, Iraq had not nukes, nor was trying to get them, didn’t harbor terrorists (accept in the American controlled zones) and didn’t pose any tactical threat to our nation or allies, but they’re a part of the Axis of Evil? Meanwhile Pakistan supplies Axis of Evil nations with nuclear technology, two-times the U.S. and is the birth place of so many terrorist groups that Musharraf’s decline in popularity was largely affected by his attempts to crack down on them, yet somehow they are a necessary partner in the war to combat the Axis of Evil? That’s pretty twisted logic.
That’s what I mean about black and white logic falling on its ass. The world is more complex than yes or no decisions. Surely, where would we be without simple decisions? Some decisions necessitate simple answers: to buy something or not to buy, to stay in a relationship or not to stay, to go to war or not to go to war. However, all of these decisions are easily complicated by life’s uncanny ability to be intricate: what car to buy, what to do about children in a relationship and which side to support in a war can make a simple decision complicated.
Iraq, for example, is a very complicated place. Bush may say we are there fighting for freedom, God, country, truth, justice and the American way till the cows come home, but all the while the body bags return and Iraq is worse off than it was under a brutal dictator. With three racial groups, all of whom hate each other, factions of support and decent for the Iraqi regime within all three groups, Al Qaeda, foreign gung ho extremists, Iran, Turkey and Syria all playing a role, The American Army, The Coalition of the Willing (not the able), War profiteers like Halliburton and the Carlyle Group and 500 private security forces, it can get very complicated, very fast. It’s certainly not a simple US and THEM situation.
The irony is that Bush’s simplicity is what has allowed things to get even more complicated around the world. Well there’s one simple decision we all should take into consideration: Republican and more of this mess or Democrat and at least a return to some sense of sanity.
Are we good people or are we mindless morons who follow a wolf in sheep’s clothing off the cliff? See how that’s a loaded question, even if it is true? We need to stop being spoon-fed our most important decisions, in baby sized proportions. I suppose you can’t be too angry with the American people however, especially when their own leader cannot see how the world for what it really is: complex.