Bush Is Losing Credibility On Democracy, Activists Say

[applegrove]

Bush Is Losing Credibility On Democracy, Activists Say
Governments Appear Quicker to Challenge U.S. Rebukes

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 10, 2007; Page A19

"President Bush waxed eloquent about democracy in Prague's majestic Czernin Palace last week, pledging to the assembled dissidents from 17 countries that the United States "will never excuse your oppressors" and, "We will always stand for your freedom." It was the centerpiece speech of his European tour.

But the scorecard for the Bush administration, four years after it began promoting democracy as the key to the United States' long-term security, shows it striking out, according to analysts and activists who originally endorsed the president's efforts. Democracy regression is visible from Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, a country that was the first democracy in Latin America, to Vladimir Putin's Russia, where the Soviet demise triggered political changes worldwide 15 years ago.


The Middle East, which first spurred the Bush democracy push, is witnessing the biggest setbacks. Lebanon, whose "Cedar Revolution" was heralded by the White House in 2005 as a model for orderly political change in the region, is the latest flash point. In 2007, the United States is sending planeloads of ammunition and war materiel to Beirut to prop up the troops of a beleaguered government.

The audience willing to listen has also dwindled. Among the participants at Prague's International Conference on Democracy and Security were Reza Pahlavi, a son of Iran's autocratic shah who was listed as an "opposition leader to the clerical regime of Iran," and Farid Ghadry, often referred to as Syria's Ahmed Chalabi. Many other invitees, including Richard N. Perle, were leading U.S. neoconservatives and Iraq war advocates.

......SNIP"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/09/AR2007060901469.html?nav=hcmodule

[yourout]

1. Noone to blame but Bush.

President Clinton...........Democracy advances.
President Bush..............Democracy retreats.

[mcscajun]

2. Two problems with the first line of that headline: Tense and Qualifiers

The first is wrong, the second is superfluous.

Bush Has Lost All Credibility (it's been lost for a long, long time now).

[UrbScotty]

3. How can you LOSE credibility on democracy when you don't HAVE any to start with? (nt)

[liberal N proud]

4. You can't promote Democracy at the end of a rifle

And bu$h has never learned this one simple fact.
Democracy has to be something that the people themselves want and are willing to work for.

Something that I think a very large share of America has forgotten as well, we have become lazy in our democracy and may very well lose it for that reason. Too many do not participate in any aspect of democracy so far as to even bother voting.

[applegrove]

5. I agree the lack of voting is one of the most serious problems the Dems face. And your democracy

doesn't work out very well when the Repukes get into power. They just start to diminish everything at home, while enriching themselves abroad.

[peacetalksforall]

6. What could be more repugnant than traveling with Perle and Bush?

Cheney? Bolton? Negroponte? Luis Posada Carilles? Rumsfeld?

[Uncle Joe]

7. Democracy is on the march!

Unfortunately it's headed in the wrong direction.

Thanks for the thread applegrove

[applegrove]

9. You are most welcome.

[IndianaGreen]

8. Bush has turned words like "freedom" and "democracy" into obscenities

Change must come from within, and no one wants a foreign power to occupy one's land. No one that calls himself or herself a humanist or a compassitionate person, would want to see any country being turned into another Iraq.

[DemBones DemBones]

10. Good point. It's like Newspeak, we just haven't gotten to

peace=war yet.