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Jan 31, 2006
the state of the union I guess I've just become cynical. I don't really care about the state of the union address, or any other political speech given. I could have written both the President's speech tonight and the Democratic response. They are both that predictable at this point. I even thought the President's speech was really good. Predicatable, but good. There is one glaring contradiction I feel compelled to point out. It's something I've been quietly ranting about for a while. But, tonight illustrated it perfectly. Say what you will about Bush's public speaking ability, but the man is a master rhetorician. Seriously study his speeches, and the guy is probably one of the best rhetoricians in our nations political system. Just because the man has trouble pronouncing some words doesn't mean he has trouble putting them together. He speaks a lot about spreading freedom and democracy to the world, about improving the lives of people in countries oppressed by totalitarian regimes. Maybe he is sincere, I don't know. I think on some level he beleives it. Maybe he even believes this is our guiding motive. I bought into that for a while as well. It was the basis of my support for the war in Iraq. I didn't at the time, and still don't care about "weapons of mass destruction" or any of the other things that were mentioned. The fact is, mass destruction was all over Iraq, whether we found weapons or not. People numbering in the 100,000's were found in mass grave sites. They were killed by there own government that should have been protecting them. The fact is, it was not WMD's, mass graves, or even oil that took us into Iraq. The fact is, we went to Iraq because part of the overall strategy in the war on terror is stablizing the Middle East. Phase one was chase Bin Laden around Afganastan. Phase two was take on the most powerful Middle Eastern country that wasn't our "ally." Thus, we go to Iraq. We westernize them. And they are no longer a threat. I realized that about a year or so ago. So, that had some good moral and philosophical questions for me. The big question is this: The change in regime brings justice to the people of Iraq. This is a good thing, something I can support the war on. However, this was not our motive going in. But, it was an end result. So, what does this mean to my support on the war? I can't answer that now. But it is a peice of my larger point. Bush kept talking about bringing freedom and democracy to people of the middle east. He even called them our friends. He spoke of these things as if they are our motives for being over there. They are not. Not that I buy any of the left-wing theroies about our involvement. I don't. I'm not nearly that cynical. But make no mistake, the well-being of the people of Iraq or Iran is not the reason we are there. The fact is, all of this is to protect our own interests. I don't mean our interests in things such as oil, because if you understand how OPEC and things like that work, none of our actions in the Middle East have any bearing on the oil economy. The issues really are one of security. Thus, the glaring contradiction . . . early in the speech, Bush talked about how we want to improve life for people in the Middle East. I think we have. We certainly haven't fixed things. But we have opened some doors, and with a lot of work still left to be done, I think things can continue to improve. However, later in the speech, he talked about becoming less dependant on oil for the Middle East. Certainly there are some noble reasons to do this, some being environmental, and then there are other reasons. Yet, in these two statements, there is a glaring contradiction. If we make any siginificant reduction in our oil consuption, it will have a devestating effect on the economies of the countries that he just said that we want to improve the living conditions in. I'm not saying we should not explore alternative energy sources. What I am saying is that this illustrates the fact that we don't really care about what's going on in the rest of the world unless it directly relates to our interests. Look at the situation in Darfur. Our government has declared it a genocide. It is probably the biggest atrocity in the world right now. And yet we do nothing. Why? It doesn't affect us. The media doesn't report on it, so there are no political ramifications. They aren't going to attack us. There are no economic implications toward us. So, not need to attack. Overall, I like Bush. I think he's really stepped up and has been decisive in a very difficult time. But, I don't buy into his rhetoric anymore. posted
by Unknown @ 10:39:00 PM |
