Was Bush right after all? From The In-dupe-ndent
They're only beginning to get it. The events of today are the direct result of September 11th. When we as Americans said that 9/11 changed us, it was traumatic, it was searing, but most of all it was motivating: we weren't going to sit down and ask why everyone hated us. We knew why. We knew why a nation of quarrelous, cantankarous, bawdy and religious people had achieved such extraordinary success. We knew why nations full of otherwise ordinary Joes and Joans had nothing to show for themselves. We were successful. They were failures. They knew it. That's why.
We could have easily waved it off, fired a few missiles at a camel in a desert and held high a squirrel pelt. We could have said that it was too difficult, that minds couldn't be changed, that whole peoples didn't want what we had and didn't believe what we believed.
Instead, we set out to change hearts and minds. We did. And this past November, we affirmed that we had the right strategy, the right leadership, and the right plans. What we understood, what Afghans, Iraqis, Lebanese and others have openly acknowledged, is the power of personal liberty. Freedom, in a word. That which makes people succeed when they have it. Oh yes, let us tip our hats to our own opposition, because the valuation of liberty is made in part by the tolerance of dissent; thanks Kos and Mikie and John Kerry, you figured that part out just fine.
But personal liberty is more than that. Courage. Sacrifice. Respect. Tolerance. Decency. And most of all, the subliminal factor, the giving factor, the will to extend one's own blessings to those we've never met, to those who have said over the ages that they 'hate' us. That willingness to bring freedom to ordinary people who've never met us defines the unique American vision of liberty.
George Bush didn't conjure up the idea of bringing liberty to the Middle East recently. It wasn't born in his state of the union speech a few weeks back. It wasn't a campaign promise. The doctrine that personal liberty would break the hold of thugs and despots wasn't born yesterday. It's not an after-the-fact excuse for going into Iraq or Afghanistan, and it's not a justification for oil.
It's been the mission since about September 12th. The Independent doesn't yet see that. But they're closer today than they were. |
|