An Honest Moment?

After touring a genocide memorial in Kigali, Rwanda this week, President Bush said,

"A clear lesson I learned in the museum was that outside forces that tend to divide people up inside their country are unbelievably counterproductive."

Take a moment is snigger at his awkward turn of phrase, but then take a closer look at the substance of his statement. He likely is just saying something he thinks people say after visiting a memorial to genocide. If only it were truly a moment of reflection brought on by an authentic engagement with awfulness of the suffering in Rwanda (and elsewhere). Although Bush boasts about not be reflective or introspective, there were moments in his Africa visit this week when he seemed genuinely moved by the conditions of those in desperate need. So let us hope that his accidental moment marks the first steps toward acknowledging some culpability for the ongoing suffering of Iraqis. But even if President Bush is unable to recognize how "unbelievably counterproductive" his foreign policy is, we can hope that Americans will take Bush's insight to heart in future foreign policy adventures from Iraq and Iran to Cuba and Columbia.

Sticky Rice

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appeared before Senate and House committees yesterday to answer questions about the Administration’s intentions in Iraq. After questions about the future of Iraq (and contradictory White House statements relating to Iraq), some Members of Congress brought up the recent study by the Center on Public Integrity that found Rice made at least 56 false statements about the national security threat posed by Iraq in the two years following September 11, 2001. The report asserts that Rice’s false statements were part of an orchestrated PR campaign designed to sway public opinion in favor of the invasion. The success of the PR campaign was essential to leading the nation to war. Rice, Cheney, Bush might’ve convinced themselves they were telling a Noble Lie in service of neoconservative dreams, but the fact is, Rice et al led the republic into an unnecessary war under decidedly false pretenses.

When confronted with findings of the report, Rice grew indignant and responded, “I did not at any time make a statement that I knew to be false or that I thought to be false.”

This is a shockingly low standard. The U.S. went to war because Rice wasn’t certain that WMD claims were false?! When a republic is considering war, its leaders should make every effort to find out what is wise and true. Presidential advisors should have higher standards than repeating information they “do not know to be false.” And it is downright despicable to knowingly deploy a glitzy marketing campaign on such dubious pretenses. This Administration has repeatedly dragged out the (incorrect) trope that because there is some doubt (about global warming, biology, smoking causing cancer), we should not act. To go to war with lower evidentiary standards than is required for public health policy verges on evil.

And why didn’t Rice say that her statements were true? Or, that she believed them to be true? Her clever and vigorous protestations are acknowledgments that she now knows her statements were untrue; that she should’ve known they were false at the time.

But she should be truthful, not merely avoid saying things she knows are false. She knows now, and she knew then, that she was not being truthful. “Know to be false”? She knew it wasn’t true, but she couldn’t prove it false. Rice is playing clever with her words. She is defensive because she knows she failed to do the right thing. Maybe she didn’t know it was false. It is logically impossible for Saddam Hussein to prove that he does not have WMD; therefore it is impossible for Rice to know with certainty that she was saying falsehoods. She merely misled and misrepresented. She avoided speaking truthfully and now gets indignant when she is held a little accountable.

Secretary Rice’s doth protest too much, methinks.

SOTU answers Iraq questions

President Bush waited more than thirty minutes into the SOTU to mention in the elephant in the room—Iraq. Probably a good oratory strategy since the “surge” and the President’s larger Iraq plan needed further explanation and I with anxious anticipation to hear a clear and honest account of the administration’s plan for Iraq. It was not worth the wait. President Bush added nothing to the discourse on Iraq. In fact, he only further muddled the situation.

Bush seems intent on viewing the world in black and white—he shows little interest in nuance even when the situation in Iraq obviously demands a sophisticated response. He seems not to understand the mess in Iraq and continues to insist that it is simply a battle between Good and Evil. In the SOTU Bush says "[t]he Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat.” "Whatever slogans they chant ... they have the same wicked purpose. They want to kill Americans, kill democracy in the Middle East and gain the weapons to kill on an even more horrific scale." The escalating violence in Iraq is more complicated than the armies of Freedom battling the forces of Tyranny. Does Bush really believe that the Shiites and Sunnis are the same? And that totalitarian best describes their sameness? Does he distinguish the small minority of al-Qaida in Iraq from Shiites and Sunnis?

I must conclude that the President does not fully comprehend the situation in Iraq and that he is unwilling to honestly examine the dire complexities of the war.