Derek Chollet over at Democracy Arsenal says the president deserves some credit for a good speech, particularly for proposing the Active Response Corps. I agree. I think it's a good idea, as long as its operations and budget are relatively transparent and the Corps works in conjunction, not competition, with NED, IRI and NDI. We spend too little money on peaceful democracy promotion to have those organizations fighting among themselves.
Finally, Dan Froomkin notes that it was a rare admission by the president that he made a mistake.
"One of the lessons we learned from our experience in Iraq is that, while military personnel can be rapidly deployed anywhere in the world, the same is not true of U.S. government civilians"I would say that a related lesson not mentioned by the president is that non-DOD US government civilians should be involved in all stages of the war planning, not just reconstruction. They shouldn't necessarily have a veto over military action. However, they bring a different perspective to the table that may help make the transition from conflict to reconstruction to peace a little easier.
2 comments:
"He told the IRI that all democracies were built on certain common foundations:
* Freedom of speech
* Freedom of assembly
* Free economy <=====BINGO!!!
* Independent judiciary
* Freedom of worship"
Privatizations, keeping states out of determining their own economic destinies and other IMF/WB mandates. Would he mean that by "free economies"?
I actually liked that section of the speech and almost quoted it.
I noted the "free economy" line. I like to believe he was referring to capitalism in all of its forms, as opposed to Marxism or systems so disorganized that they fail to protect individual's right to do business or property rights.
Of course, Bush's specific ideas of "free economy" (tax cuts, massive government spending, destroying social safetynets) are not the same as most Europeans or Latin Americans. But I'm the hopelessly naive sort that believes this was a more general reference towards property rights and entrepreneurship.
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