The Bush Library Looks for a Home
At first when you hear it, it just sounds like a contradiction in terms: The George W. Bush Library. What's that, a couple of comic books, maybe a Playboy from the 70s, a couple of Cliff's Notes from his college days? Oh, yeah, and The Stranger and several Shakespeares.
I guess every President has one, right? So Bush plans to build the most expensive Presidential library ever, naturally, and they're trying to figure out where to put it. Southern Methodist University, being in Texas, is one of the three contenders for this great honor. According to Texas Monthly blogger Paul Burka, "a letter, dated December 16, from 'Faculty, Administrators, & Staff' of the Perkins School of Theology to R. Gerald Turner, president of the Board of Trustees, is now circulating not only on the SMU campus but also among a wider academic community, urging the board to 'reconsider and to rescind SMU's pursuit of the presidential library.'"
It says, in part:
It appears that all you have to do is undermine the Constitution, embarrass your country internationally, kill a few hundred thousand people, and destroy the environment, and these thin-skinned liberal professors want to act like they don't know you. Sheesh.
Part of the question, apparently, is whether this would just be a library, that is, a place where documents could be stored and accessed, or a think tank where Bush conservatives can plan their next brilliant war or crime or whatever. (It seems important to distinguish between "Bush conservatives" and ... conservatives.)
I cannot imagine any university accepting the latter on its campus. Maybe some books, some papers, and the usual Bush accouterments -- snipers on the rooftops, concrete barricades in the driveways, cops checking IDs, retina scanners, metal detectors, database background checks ... but not a center for conspiring against the planet and all those who inhabit it. I just don't think any university would accept that.
I guess every President has one, right? So Bush plans to build the most expensive Presidential library ever, naturally, and they're trying to figure out where to put it. Southern Methodist University, being in Texas, is one of the three contenders for this great honor. According to Texas Monthly blogger Paul Burka, "a letter, dated December 16, from 'Faculty, Administrators, & Staff' of the Perkins School of Theology to R. Gerald Turner, president of the Board of Trustees, is now circulating not only on the SMU campus but also among a wider academic community, urging the board to 'reconsider and to rescind SMU's pursuit of the presidential library.'"
It says, in part:
"We count ourselves among those who would regret to see SMU enshrine attitudes and actions widely deemed as ethically egregious: degradation of habeas corpus, outright denial of global warming, flagrant disregard for international treaties, alienation of long-term U.S. allies, environmental predation, shameful disrespect for gay persons and their rights, a pre-emptive war based on false and misleading premises, and a host of other erosions of respect for the global human community and for this good Earth on which our flourishing depends."
"[T]hese violations are antithetical to the teaching, scholarship, and ethical thinking that best represents Southern Methodist University."
"Another matter that warrants our attention is that whether it aims to or not SMU will, in the long run, financially profit on the backs of hard-working Americans who feel squashed by policies they've now rejected at the polls. Surely it's not the case that SMU will allow itself to benefit financially from a name and legacy that globally is associated with suffering, death, and political 'bad faith.' Taken together, all these issues set decision-making about the Library in a framework of inescapable ethical questions, and remind us of a key imperative adopted by many leading universities around the globe: 'to be critic and conscience of society.'"
It appears that all you have to do is undermine the Constitution, embarrass your country internationally, kill a few hundred thousand people, and destroy the environment, and these thin-skinned liberal professors want to act like they don't know you. Sheesh.
Part of the question, apparently, is whether this would just be a library, that is, a place where documents could be stored and accessed, or a think tank where Bush conservatives can plan their next brilliant war or crime or whatever. (It seems important to distinguish between "Bush conservatives" and ... conservatives.)
I cannot imagine any university accepting the latter on its campus. Maybe some books, some papers, and the usual Bush accouterments -- snipers on the rooftops, concrete barricades in the driveways, cops checking IDs, retina scanners, metal detectors, database background checks ... but not a center for conspiring against the planet and all those who inhabit it. I just don't think any university would accept that.
posted by JimK at 1:40 PM
19 Comments:
You mean like a "TTF analysis"?
Half a billion dollars worth of blood money will not remove the stain of nearly 3,000 American soldiers' lives.
655,000 dead Iraqis who never tried to hurt an American that wasn't trying to kill them first;
3,000 soldiers killed from being someplace they had no business being in the first place.
Millions dead from imposition of the Global Gag Rule, which allowed the spread of a preventable plague;
Complete destruction of the Bill of Rights, American civil liberties and basic human rights.
and the one that is completely, forever unforgivable~ TORTURE committed under the US Flag.
No school should consider hosting such a vile legacy.
Unless America resolves to win this war, there will be a lot more American lives lost. It's not like Vietnam. We can't just walk away and desert the citizens of one country. The effects of that here would be far-reaching.
I agree with the last Anon that Iraq is not like Viet Nam. We could walk away from Viet Nam and the devastation was limited to that corner of Southeast Asia.
In contrast, the devastation of Iraq has had, and will continue to have, dire consequences beyond the borders of that benighted land.
Since the American Government created the chaos in Iraq, the American people owe a debt to the people of Iraq whose country has been turned into a killing ground, in which Sunnis kill Shia, Shia kill Sunnis, Sunnis respond in kind, and the cycle appears unbreakable.
I remember (and kept) a cartoon, circa early 2003, of Bin Laden in the Uncle Sam Wants You pose, saying "I want you to invade Iraq." Well, we did so, an fostered a greater Sunni terrorist threat and created a bountiful recruiting story for Al Qaeda.
Had Ahmedinijad been in power in Iran in 2003, the same sort of cartoon could have had him as the center piece. We removed Iran's greatest rival and worst enemy and created a vaccuum in southern and central Iraq that Shia Iran could easily fill. That was an impossibility before March 2003; now it is a likelihood. (And it is not at all unlikely that Ahmadinijad's election was in large measure the result of the not irrational fear on the part of Iranians that the United States was getting ready to invade their country next.)
So, of course, leaving Iraq will have consequences. IF we had it in our power to separate the warring parties within Iraq and create a secular democratic state, that would allow all Iraqis to live in peace, then it would be unconscionable for us not to do so. We broke it; we have a moral responsibility to repair it.
But the question we must squarely face is whether there is any possibility that we can accomplish such a mission. Increasingly, it is becoming clear to everyone but Administration apologists that there is not such a possibility; and that remaining there will only make things worse for the United States -- more dead soldiers, more people in the Islamic world seeing the United States as their enemy (thus providing more impetus for terrorist recruitment), and no prospect of a peace in Iraq.
Once we leave, the civil war will continue and become even worse, as the Shia and Sunni militias go at each other -- and as the Saudis become more aggressive in supporting the Sunnis and the Iranians become more aggressive in supporting the Shia. Sheer numbers suggest that the Shia will prevail, perhaps at the cost of a genocide of Sunnis. Al Qaeda in Iraq will be slaughtered by Hezbollah in Iraq. We trade one set of terrorists for another. Then the Shia Iraqi/Iranian front will splinter as age-old Arab/Iranians rivalries come to the fore. In the aftermath of the Sunni slaughter, how shaky will the Saudi government (our erstwhile ally) be? A fully independent Kurdistan (as opposed to the de facto Kurdistan that existed under our protection prior to March 2003) threatening stability in eastern Turkey and northwestern Iran. All consequences of our shattering of the Iraq dictatorship of Saddam.
For this we can thank Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld -- and Powell's lack of courage in failing to blow the whistle on the enterprise at its outset.
Still, if it were possible to prevent all these terrible things by our remaining indefinitely as putative referees, then we would have a moral obligation to do so. And it would be in our national interest to do so.
But, as George I seemed to have understood when he made the painful decision not to go to Bagdhad in 1991, there are limits to what we can impose upon that part of the world.
The challenge for us as a nation is not to decide what is or is not possible. If it is possible to make things better over there, then we should do so. But that possibility -- if it ever existed at all -- seems now to be nothing more than a chimera.
If it is not possible to prevent and reverse the slide into carnage in Iraq, then we should start the process of withdrawal.
Our choices are between bad alternatives and worse alternatives. We need to be clear eyed about which are which.
Iraq is going to be a mess for some time to come, no matter what we do. There is nothing to "win" - it's over. You can't democratize a place that has no concept of democracy. That has to come from the people. The fact is that our presence there only gets our soldiers killed. There's no defined mission - I read a quote the other day where a soldier said they just drive around and wait to get hit with a road-side bomb. Nobody knows what they're supposed to do. They just targets.
Iraq left to its own devices will go one of two ways: it will disintegrate into the smaller tribal regions it actually is, and each will ally with the neighbor they can get along with - Iran, Syria, Pakistan, etc.; or it will be taken over by some dictator who rises from within who can establish the kind of control Saddam had.
If Iran moves in, Iraq will be another Shia nightmare. This would be a disaster not just for the Sunnis, but for all the women in the country. Women in Iraq were the most free and well educated women in the Middle East until we showed up. Now they can't leave their houses without fear of being kidnapped, raped or killed. It will only get worse if Sharia spreads.
The best option, and we could do this if we had someone sane in the White House, would be to state that we were relinquishing control of the oil revenues and were leaving in 3 months. Request that the UN provide an international force of Peace Keepers to aid the transition. Get an actual Diplomatic team from the US and the EU to work with the Iraqis on separating the various factions and helping members relocate.
Make Iraq off limits to US contractors and let the Iraqis hire whomever they choose to get the electricity going and rebuild. Unfortunately, the US is going to have to keep bleeding money into the region for some time to come, but if the Iraqis had their own oil revenues back, they wouldn't need help for long.
Everyone has an interest in a peaceful resolution in Iraq, so they'll help if we'll just get out of the way. Our presence there only inflames the situation. We are occupiers and they want us gone. The Iraqis aren't helpless - let's get out of their way.
I appreciate that David recognizes that we, as a nation, have responsibilities. A few quiibling points:
"Since the American Government created the chaos in Iraq,"
Not true. The sadistic lunatic who oppressed his fellow countrymen and threatened his neighbors caused it. He was a major source of instability and had finally, using techniques on an international level similar to those he used in his recent trial, pretty much neutralized any influence from the civilized world.
"Well, we did so, an fostered a greater Sunni terrorist threat"
And as 9/11 showed, there was already such a threat before the invasion.
"We removed Iran's greatest rival and worst enemy and created a vaccuum in southern and central Iraq that Shia Iran could easily fill."
We tried just letting them wreak destruction on each other in the 80s and it didn't turn out well. Problem is, one of them eventually wins by using weapons of mass destruction. Necessity is the mother of invention. Let's not give them motive to perfect their technique.
"And it is not at all unlikely that Ahmadinijad's election was in large measure the result of the not irrational fear on the part of Iranians that the United States was getting ready to invade their country next."
Yes, it is unlikely. The real sin of the U.S. in the last few years to these people is our unconditional support of Israel since Bush became President. the problem with all these countries is that lack of open exchange and free speech has let the governments warp the minds of the people. We've spread democracy to most other parts of the world. We can do it here but it will take commitment. We shouldn't acquiese in these repressive regimes just to stabilize our oil spigot.
As far as Iran, and on an international level, free speech doesn't exist. If Ahmadinijad proposes nuking Israel, we should make it clear he will be assasinated. This is how Israel ended the intifada- targeting the leaders.
"But the question we must squarely face is whether there is any possibility that we can accomplish such a mission. Increasingly, it is becoming clear to everyone but Administration apologists that there is not such a possibility;....
Once we leave, the civil war will continue and become even worse,...
Still, if it were possible to prevent all these terrible things by our remaining indefinitely as putative referees, then we would have a moral obligation to do so. And it would be in our national interest to do so...
If it is not possible to prevent and reverse the slide into carnage in Iraq,"
But, David, isn't this the argument Chamberlain used in WWII. We can't win. We must make the best of the situation.
Truth is, we can't afford to give up on civilization. What happened to the Democratic Party that would "pay any price, bear any burden to secure the blessings of liberty"? We can't sacrifice our soul for the sake of expediency.
"But, as George I seemed to have understood when he made the painful decision not to go to Bagdhad in 1991,"
All he understood was international pressure. The thanks he got was an assasination attempt from Saddam.
"You can't democratize a place that has no concept of democracy. That has to come from the people."
The people there have showed they have a concept of, and overwhelmingly support, democracy. Our obligation is to protect it until the minority terrorists allied with al quaeda, Iran and Syria are dealt with.
Your suggestion that they don't deserve self-determination is triumphalist arrogance.
"Women in Iraq were the most free and well educated women in the Middle East until we showed up."
Not saying much and, while we're at it, untrue. Women in Kuwait have more liberty. We helped them get it.
Viva America!
"The best option, and we could do this if we had someone sane in the White House, would be to state that we were relinquishing control of the oil revenues and were leaving in 3 months. Request that the UN provide an international force of Peace Keepers to aid the transition. Get an actual Diplomatic team from the US and the EU to work with the Iraqis on separating the various factions and helping members relocate."
Uh, we tried to get help from many of these people before this all started but they were more concerned with their own interests. Still are.
"The best option, and we could do this if we had someone sane in the White House, would be to state that we were relinquishing control of the oil revenues and were leaving in 3 months. Request that the UN provide an international force of Peace Keepers to aid the transition. Get an actual Diplomatic team from the US and the EU to work with the Iraqis on separating the various factions and helping members relocate."
Uh, we tried to get help from many of these people before this all started but they were more concerned with their own interests. Still are.
"Everyone has an interest in a peaceful resolution in Iraq, so they'll help if we'll just get out of the way."
HA HA HA!
Ho HO ho!
HEE-hee-hee!
Now that I'm back on my chair, let me just say: yeah, I can see how Iran and Syria and Russia and China and al-quaeda and France and yada, yada, yada wants a peaceful resolution.
Hey, Anon, as the last one to leave the house, please remember to turn out the lights. Btw, do you have any children who've served in Iraq?
1. David: "Since the American Government created the chaos in Iraq,"
Anon: Not true. The sadistic lunatic who oppressed his fellow countrymen and threatened his neighbors caused it. He was a major source of instability and had finally, using techniques on an international level similar to those he used in his recent trial, pretty much neutralized any influence from the civilized world.
David reply: Under Saddam, there was horrible oppression, but no chaos. The chaos we have now will, one way or another, inevitably lead to another oppressive regime, once the chaos is ended, by virtue of one set of groups utterly suppressing another set.
2. David: "Well, we did so, an fostered a greater Sunni terrorist threat"
Anon: And as 9/11 showed, there was already such a threat before the invasion.
David reply: Please note that I said “greater” terrorist threat. By invading Iraq, we essentially poured gasoline on the fire and made it even worse than it was.
3. David: "We removed Iran's greatest rival and worst enemy and created a vaccuum in southern and central Iraq that Shia Iran could easily fill."
Anon: We tried just letting them wreak destruction on each other in the 80s and it didn't turn out well. Problem is, one of them eventually wins by using weapons of mass destruction. Necessity is the mother of invention. Let's not give them motive to perfect their technique.
David reply: Actually, it did work out well, from the point of view of American national interest. When Iraq and Iran were going at it, as terrible as it was, their energies were focused on each other, and not on us or any of our allies.
4. David: "And it is not at all unlikely that Ahmadinijad's election was in large measure the result of the not irrational fear on the part of Iranians that the United States was getting ready to invade their country next."
Anon: Yes, it is unlikely. The real sin of the U.S. in the last few years to these people is our unconditional support of Israel since Bush became President. the problem with all these countries is that lack of open exchange and free speech has let the governments warp the minds of the people. We've spread democracy to most other parts of the world. We can do it here but it will take commitment. We shouldn't acquiese in these repressive regimes just to stabilize our oil spigot.
David reply: You have loaded a lot of thoughts into one paragraph. But you don’t respond to my point, which was that the combination of George II’s Axis of Evil statement (suggesting that Saddam and theocratic Iran were somehow allies) and the invasion of Iraq cut Iranian moderates off at the knees and opened the way for Ahmadinjad’s election. While the mullahs in Iran screen the candidates, the fact of the matter was the previous Iranian president was far more open to respectful communication with the West.
Thomas Friedman wrote a lot about younger Iranians who had some reason to believe that over time there would be more moderation in the regime. The language and actions of George II ended all that.
As a supporter of Israel and its right to exist within secure borders (and one who has always thought that the West Bank settlement movement was a disastrous policy), I must say that George II has been the worst US president for Israel. The problem was not “unconditional support,” but rather a posture that encouraged imitation that led to the stupid response in southern Lebanon last summer.
As for our ability to “spread democracy,” please define what you mean. Except for Germany and Japan after World War II (a special case, in my view), we have never successfully spread democracy by the barrel of a gun. Our successes in that regard have been the result of containment (not aggression) with respect to the Soviets, providing an example that people wished to emulate (see Hungary, Poland, etc.), and then (when it is in our power to do so) eliminating impediments (as we did by pulling the plug on Marcos in the Phillippines). We can take some credit for the democracy in South Africa, because we got serious about sanctions. But when, except in the aftermath of WW II, have we ever successfully brought democracy by invasion/liberation?
5. David: "But, as George I seemed to have understood when he made the painful decision not to go to Bagdhad in 1991,"
Anon: All he understood was international pressure. The thanks he got was an assasination attempt from Saddam.
David reply: The issue there was not just international pressure per se. It was an understanding that we could not be successful as an occupying force, given the complexity of the various forces and ethnic divides in that artificial nation-state.
6. Anon: But, David, isn't this the argument Chamberlain used in WWII. We can't win. We must make the best of the situation.
Truth is, we can't afford to give up on civilization. What happened to the Democratic Party that would "pay any price, bear any burden to secure the blessings of liberty"? We can't sacrifice our soul for the sake of expediency.
David reply: The Chamberlain analogy is often the last refuge of those who want to believe that enough military force can solve any problem. The question, as I tried to demonstrate in my earlier posting, isn’t whether it would be a good thing to defeat our enemies, but whether we have the capacity to do so. The West probably could have stopped Hitler in 1938, but was too risk-averse to try. Hitler’s goals and his capacity to achieve those goals were plain for all to see. The goals of the warring factions within Iraq are clear within their borders – extermination or suppression of each other – and their capacity to do that is pretty clear, as well. Their capacity for foreign mischief is present, but not so great that we should simply “kill them all” – which is the only way to be sure to stop the bad stuff. And “killing them all” would mean killing all the innocents in the middle, because our military cannot be expected to figure out friend or foe. Unless one wishes to follow the John Wayne-esque approach of “kill them all, and let God sort them out,” this is not a viable alternative.
More to the point, it is very different to deter or resist invasion (that was what the West acquiesced to in Czechoslovakia in 1938, but then resisted in Kuwait in 1991) than to “win” a civil war (which is what Viet Nam was about, and what Iraq has become about).
JFK’s statement -- “pay any price, bear any burden” – was understood by most people to resist the expansion of the Soviet empire. That was the containment policy, which worked better than anyone could ever have imagined. The phrase was invoked in Viet Nam, because too many people equated containment with getting in the middle of a civil war that had infinitely more to do with national pride (Ho Chi Minh was the local leader who resisted the Japanese during WW II) than it did with connection to potential Soviet expansionism. That distinction was not lost on the architect of the containment policy, George Kennan, who opposed our involvment in Viet Nam. In the nearly three decades following our extrication from Viet Nam, our government seemed to have understood the difference between what was doable and what was not doable. That era of common sense foreign policy ended in March 2003.
We need to protect ourselves against terrorism. But we need to do so in ways that lessen, not increase, the problem.
I don't normally respond to posters who don't have the stones to sign their names, but I'll make this one exception.
I didn't say that the Iraqis don't deserve self-determination. I said they're capable of it on their own, and that we aren't in a position to secure it for them.
This war is bankrupting our government and breaking our military. We're pouring Billions down the drain while our own schools and infrastructure crumble around us. At this point, Bush is responsible for more death and torture than Saddam ever was - and Saddam had the electricity working. We haven't managed that in 3 years.
It is not our job to recreate the Middle East. We are not an empire, we are a Republic and the people have made it clear that this "war" is not worth the cost. Given a choice, I'd take New Orleans back over a democratic Iraq any day. Now we'll have neither. The incompetence and sheer hubris of this administration is stunning. Their betrayal of American principles is unforgivable.
"I didn't say that the Iraqis don't deserve self-determination. I said they're capable of it on their own, and that we aren't in a position to secure it for them."
Well, they had an election and, yet, a small vicious band of violent terrorist, aided by vicious band of outside forces is trying to thwart their choice. Those elected officials believe we are vital to protecting the choice made by the people.
But what do they know? Apparently not as much as Migraine Morgaine, international affairs expert at the local Starbucks!
Sorry Anon, the "small band of terrorists and outsiders" theory is just wrong. The Iraqi people, even the elected officials, don't want the US there, they blame us for their problems; the insurgency consists mainly of local people trying to get their homeland back.
JimK
There should only be 5 items in the Bush library- the Barney Cam films. I don't think we should hold their ownership against Barney and Ms. Beazley or poor Spot(RIP)
"The Iraqi people, even the elected officials, don't want the US there,"
This is wrong. The elected officials were in a panic in November when they thought the U.S. election results might mean the withdrawal of forces.
You probably mean officials in Iran.
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