It's Not Isolationism... It's Rational Thought & Policy

A Bush Alarm: Urging U.S. to Shun Isolationism

The president who made pre-emption and going it alone the watchwords of his first term is quietly turning in a new direction, warning at every opportunity of the dangers of turning the nation inward and isolationist, and making the case for international engagement on issues from national security to global economics.

President Bush's cautions on the dangers of pulling back behind American borders — in trade and investment, in immigration and in his effort to make the spread of democracy the signature of his second term — first cropped up in his State of the Union address six weeks ago.

But it accelerated even before the Dubai ports deal was derailed by members of his own party, and before an unexpected uprising began among some neo-conservatives, who are now arguing that Iraq, while a noble effort, has turned into a failed mission that must be abandoned.

Even here Bush and his gang are trying to spin the opposition to his just plain bad leadership, horribly wrong-headed policy and total incompetence. It is not isolationism that prompted the opposition to the DPW deal. It was the fact that we were finally awakened to the reality that our national security was not really protected and that our entire nation was essentially for sale to the highest bidder, no matter what foreign entity seemed to be making the bid.

In interviews over the past week, Mr. Bush's aides, insisting on anonymity, they say, because they do not want to worsen the fissures, say they fear that the new mood threatens to undermine the international agenda for the rest of Mr. Bush's presidency.

"We're seeing it in everything," said one of Mr. Bush's closest aides last week. "Iraq. The ferocity of an irrational argument over the ports. Guest workers. China and India."

Bush has an international agenda? Now that is NEWS! It appears to most of us that he has a big business agenda, an ultra-conservative un-Christian agenda and a personal agenda, but there is little to no evidence that there is an international agenda. Just which countries, other than the UK under the influence of Tony Blair (another member of the Bush gang), are involved in this international agenda? Oh, yeah, there is India... But didn't they just get finished pushing Bush into an un-wise nuclear deal? It would be no surprise that they are in favor of the the Bush agenda. But where is the rest of Europe? How about the far-east? Are there any African nations included in this international agenda?

Let us not be fooled. There is only a Bush agenda.

So starting on Monday, just a few days shy of the third anniversary of Mr. Bush's order to topple Saddam Hussein, the president will begin an effort to explain his Iraq strategy anew in the changed environment of increased sectarian killings.

He acknowledged on Saturday that "many of our fellow citizens" are "now wondering if the entire mission is worth it."

We are still waiting for the weapons of mass destruction--the premise of our invasion of Iraq--to surface. We are still waiting for the evidence that Hussein and his regime were the seat of terrorist training camps and that Iraq, under Hussein's rule, was a genuine threat to the US or the world. But NOW we are going to get the "real truth." We are no going to get some insight as to how this invasion of Iraq is really worthwhile... doubtful... really doubtful...

As for the worth of the effort, why don't we ask the families that have lost their loved ones how much this effort is worth? Let's not ask them about the dedication of their loved ones to duty... Let's ask them if the billions of dollars and thousands of permenantly disabling injuries and thousands of deaths are worth an invasion that did not have to happen... and a continued presence that only has to happen because no one in the Bush hierarchy would listen to the field commanders.

But rather than simply delve into the familiar talk about the need to root out terrorists abroad so they cannot strike Americans here, the White House plans to have Mr. Bush expand his discussion of the need for the United States to embrace a new role in the world, even if that means explaining the benefits of globalization to a nation that does not appear to be in a mood to hear that message.

We have no new role to discuss. This is a revamping of a cold war. This is positioning the US so that we have a presence in the region that could threaten China's dominance. This is an attempt to force the Middle East nations into becoming strongly allied with the US and the West rather than a numerically stronger China and its far east connections. It is an effort to restore the wealth-producing engine of the defense industry and keep it under US control.

The rest of what Bush and his gang has to say is nothing less than bovine excrement.