Actions Speak Louder Than Words: A Response to the President's Speech

[radfringe]

Memorandum On:
Actions Speak Louder Than Words: A Response to the President's Speech
http://www.centerforamericanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?cid={E9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03}&bin_id={8EDAE765-D620-4381-B71C-2BC2BD9D2382}

Part One
November 19, 2003

In London this morning, President George W. Bush defended the administration’s policies on Iraq and the war on terrorism. While his speech deftly combined gravity and humor, a close examination shows that his actions fail to match his rhetoric:

International Institutions and Alliances

“First, international organizations must be equal to the challenges facing our world, from lifting up failing states to opposing proliferation. Like 11 presidents before me, I believe in the international institutions and alliances that America helped to form and helps to lead.”

• President Bush says he believes in international institutions and alliances and yet he has gone out of his way to avoid using them to protect and advance our national interests. He launched his attack on Iraq without U.N. approval, despite the fact that a majority of Americans felt we should go to war only with U.N. sanction.

• The administration has also gutted the impact of international organizations aimed at “opposing proliferation” – backing off the Convention on Biological Weapons and not allowing International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors into Iraq to continue their search for nuclear weapons and materials. The administration should use alliances and international institutions because they ultimately benefit us and help ensure fewer American casualties and that the U.S. bears less of the economic burden of the reconstruction in Iraq.

Use of Force

“The second pillar of peace and security in our world is the willingness of free nations, when the last resort arrives, to retain aggression and evil by force…. The victims of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans… had few qualms when NATO applied force to help end those crimes. The women of Afghanistan… did not reproach us for routing the Taliban. Inhabitants of Iraq's Baathist hell… do not miss their fugitive dictator; they rejoiced at his fall. In all these cases, military action was preceded by diplomatic initiatives and negotiations and ultimatums and final chances until the final moment.”

• The use of force as a last resort is necessary and justifiable in the protection of American security. The administration, however, did not exhaust all diplomatic avenues before resorting to the use of force against Iraq, and by doing so, alienated our European allies, costing us critically needed support and resources in the current period.

• While there are similarities in the “evil” encountered in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the U.S. responses to the three have been markedly different. In the Balkans, the Administration worked closely with its allies under a clear NATO mandate and in Afghanistan, the Administration allowed the United Nations to play a central role in establishing the Afghan interim authority. The International Security Assistance Force is largely multilateral, with German troops in the lead, authorized under a United Nations Security Council resolution. The go-it-alone approach has made Iraq susceptible to terrorists.

[opihimoimoi]

1. Poor voting leads to poor leaders leads to poor decisions leads to war.

We have listened poorly and now we pay the price.