Hypocrisy

The following excerpt is taken from an op-ed piece I read on Al Jazeera's website today. Written by a woman educated at the University of London, and by no means a radical, I feel it is quite representative of how a large portion of the Arab World views the democratic rhetoric from George Bush.

"Only the terminally naive and politically blind may, indeed, be duped by the heroic rhetoric of bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq and the region. If anything, the US is widely regarded by the majority in the Middle East as a crucial obstacle in their struggle for freedom from oppression. It is interesting that the most despotic states in the Middle East region are those who have the closest ties with the US and its Western allies."

Although I don't entirely agree with what the author says, if we are to ever shed the grave skepticism surrounding American intentions in the Middle East, then we must begin to act upon our “heroic rhetoric.” We must put real pressure on Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Uzbekistan, and many of our other allies that engage in the repression of democracy.

Saudi Arabia, undeniably our closet Arab ally, routinely imprisons, tortures, and murders political dissidents, denying any form of due process. The Government prohibits or restricts freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, religion, and movement. Citizens have neither the right nor the legal means to change their government. Saudi Arabia has been chastised time and time again for grave human rights violations.

If democratic freedom is truly what we seek, then I wonder if we will threaten Saudi Arabia with sanctions, air strikes, or invasion. Will we launch a preemptive war against them if they fail to comply with our version of democratization? Though many in the U.S. are blind to our hypocrisy, all in the Middle East see through our transparent goals. This hypocrisy is exactly why so many Arabs view America as an imperial aggressor rather than a liberating force. I do believe that Bush is sincere when he says he wants to promote democracy in the middle east, and his goal is a noble one; however, President Bush’s selective interpretation in the implementation of his doctrine will continue to draw criticism from the world community, until we stop giving preferential treatment to those countries that benefit us.

North Korea: A Brief History

Fred Kaplan has an excellent article on Slate today that details the magnitude of Bush's failed North Korea policy, or lack there of...

"A little history to explain what's going on. In 1993-94, the North Koreans threatened to reprocess their nuclear reactor's spent fuel rods into plutonium—the fastest way to get nuclear weapons. After a tense standoff, Kim Jong-il and President Bill Clinton signed an "Agreed Framework." The rods were locked in a pool and placed under continuous monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency. In exchange, the United States promised to furnish North Korea with two light-water reactors for fuel and, eventually, to establish full diplomatic relations. By the end of the decade, the deal was collapsing. The United States never came through with the reactors or the relations; Kim secretly pursued nukes through enriched uranium. But those fuel rods, which could have processed enough plutonium for more than 50 bombs by the time Clinton left office, stayed locked up.

In December(2002), the North Koreans tried to replay the crisis of 1993, threatening to unlock the fuel rods, kick out the IAEA's monitors, and reprocess plutonium unless President George W. Bush supplied fuel aid and promised not to invade. Bush didn't go along, saying that even sitting down with North Koreans would reward "bad behavior." Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wanted to topple Kim's horrible regime. To negotiate with the regime would legitimize and perpetuate it.

So in January 2003, the North Koreans carried out their threat. U.S. spy satellites spotted a convoy of trucks moving from the reactor to the reprocessing facility. Bush did nothing in response. Despite urgings from Secretary of State Colin Powell, he refused to negotiate. Briefings from his military advisers indicated the attack options were too risky. Intelligence agencies didn't—and still don't—know where all the nuclear targets are. And the North Korean army has thousands of artillery rockets—some loaded with chemical munitions—deployed near the South Korean border, a five-minute flight from the capital, Seoul. A U.S. attack would miss some of those rockets; a North Korean retaliation could kill hundreds of thousands of South Koreans. Every U.S. ally in the region has said a military option is out of the question.

Not until last June did Bush authorize James Kelly, then the assistant secretary of state, to put a specific offer on the table. Yet the offer was nearly identical to a deal that the North Koreans had proposed 18 months earlier, before they started reprocessing the plutonium. They would need a much more attractive bargain to cash in the chips, once they had them.

In June 2003, Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican, led a delegation to Pyongyang and proposed a specific 10-step timetable for implementing such an exchange. North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun endorsed the plan.

Was he sincere? Who knows? There was only one way to find out, and Bush didn't go there. Would any disarmament proposal be feasible and verifiable now—two years after the North Koreans started reprocessing all 8,000 of their fuel rods and at least 18 months after they might have started producing nuclear weapons? When Pyongyang first proposed a deal, which explicitly included an offer to put the rods back under IAEA control, there was still a chance to stuff the genie in the bottle. Now nobody knows where the plutonium and enriched uranium are stored, how many bombs there are, or, if they exist, where they're stored.

In short, President Bush may well have blown it."

John Kerry tried to sieze on this issue in the last months of his campaign, but the story never got legs. Its amazing that the most dangerous threat America faces has been left unchecked for four years by this administration, and the press largely steered clear of criticism. All of the things Bush and Rummy said Iraq might some day develope....i.e. WMDs....GUESS WHAT...North Korea has all of them...and a history of illegal trade on the Nuclear black market. Bush's North Korea policy has been a collosal failure that has threatened the safety of this nation.