I have never been involved in party politics but I am deeply disturbed by the direction America has taken under President Bush. It is not a matter of party politics or personal animosity against President Bush. I consider it crucial that the policies of the Bush administration be rejected in the forthcoming elections. Let me explain why.
President Bush was elected in 2000 on a platform that promised a humble foreign policy. Yet, from the day he was inaugurated, he went out of his way to denounce international agreements and institutions. Then came the terrorist attack of September 11th, which according to him changed everything. He used the war on terror as a pretext to pursue a dream of American supremacy that is neither attainable nor desirable. It endangers civil liberties at home and embroils us in military adventures abroad. There has been a dangerous discontinuity in the way we conduct our affairs: we engage in behavior that in normal times would have been considered unacceptable.
Our new national security posture has been embodied in the Bush doctrine. The Bush doctrine is built on two pillars. First, the United States will not tolerate any military rival, globally or in any region of the world. Second, we have the right to engage in pre-emptive military action. Taken together, these two pillars support two levels of sovereignty: The sovereignty of the United States which is sacrosanct and exempt from any constraint imposed by international law, and the sovereignty of all other states which is subject to the pre-emptive actions of the United Sates. This is reminiscent of George Orwell's famous book "Animal Farm" in which all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
Underlying the Bush doctrine is the belief that international relations are relations of power not law, and that international law merely serves to ratify what the use of power has wrought.
| 