James Purnell: Why the west is losing the battle for Arab hearts and minds
[James Purnell is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Stalybridge and Hyde from 2001 to 2010. He is currently the Head of the Open Left project at the left leaning think tank Demos.]
The crowds in Egypt, Yemen and Tunisia should be holding up replica Statues of Liberty. Instead, the west is losing the battle for Arab hearts and minds at the very moment they are winning their battle for democracy and freedom. I blame Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. I remember complaining to Jack Straw, when he was foreign secretary, about Cheney's extremism. Jack's riposte stayed with me: "If you think Cheney is bad, you should hear Scooter Libby."
Scooter Libby, Cheney's (very) right-hand man, became the most senior American official to be convicted of a government scandal since John Poindexter in the Iran-Contra affair. He then benefited from probably the most extraordinary use of a presidential pardon when Bush commuted his 30-month prison sentence. This vignette of Bush-life is a microcosm of why the demonstrators aren't pro-American: because you cannot impose democracy and good government on other countries while abusing them yourself. A foreign policy based on values needs legitimacy.
Allies of weasel
Irving Kristol defined the neoconservatives as liberals who had "been mugged by reality". But Cheney and Rumsfeld weren't neocons. They were American hegemonists, dedicated to expanding American power by whatever means necessary. "Neo-heges", if you like. And those means included propping up anti-democrats abroad and cutting democratic corners at home.
Democracy caught up with them in the end. But then something odd happened. The world could have said that Bush's goal was right but his methods wrong, yet we seem to have retreated into a realist mush...
Read entire article at New Statesman (UK)
The crowds in Egypt, Yemen and Tunisia should be holding up replica Statues of Liberty. Instead, the west is losing the battle for Arab hearts and minds at the very moment they are winning their battle for democracy and freedom. I blame Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. I remember complaining to Jack Straw, when he was foreign secretary, about Cheney's extremism. Jack's riposte stayed with me: "If you think Cheney is bad, you should hear Scooter Libby."
Scooter Libby, Cheney's (very) right-hand man, became the most senior American official to be convicted of a government scandal since John Poindexter in the Iran-Contra affair. He then benefited from probably the most extraordinary use of a presidential pardon when Bush commuted his 30-month prison sentence. This vignette of Bush-life is a microcosm of why the demonstrators aren't pro-American: because you cannot impose democracy and good government on other countries while abusing them yourself. A foreign policy based on values needs legitimacy.
Allies of weasel
Irving Kristol defined the neoconservatives as liberals who had "been mugged by reality". But Cheney and Rumsfeld weren't neocons. They were American hegemonists, dedicated to expanding American power by whatever means necessary. "Neo-heges", if you like. And those means included propping up anti-democrats abroad and cutting democratic corners at home.
Democracy caught up with them in the end. But then something odd happened. The world could have said that Bush's goal was right but his methods wrong, yet we seem to have retreated into a realist mush...