Bush’s Weakness Hurts America
No one listens to the leader of the free world anymore. Bush made a speech asking world leaders to join him in condemning the brutal repression of pro-democracy forces in Burma. No one did. It’s business as usual in Burma. In Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf has declared martial law over the objections of the Bush administration. Musharraf is supposed to be our ally, but he takes our money and goes his own way. Vladimir Putin ridiculed our Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense when they visited Russia about a month ago. George Bush has virtually no influence on the world stage.
Traditionally other nations follow the US out of either respect or fear. But countries neither fear us nor respect us these days. Our enemies see the US Army bogged down in Iraq with no help from our allies, stuck in the middle of a brutal civil war with no feasible plan for withdrawal. So they know that the most our military can do is drop bombs on other countries. And no one respects our President because he’s never shown any respect for the opinions of others, especially those with whom he disagrees.
The shortcomings of Bush’s cowboy diplomacy should be obvious to everyone by now. Bush’s attitude never changes. It’s always my way or the highway. When it comes to world affairs, most of our allies have chosen the highway. Now that we’ve traveled down the long road in Iraq, our soldiers could sure use some help. But no one is there for us. Even the British troops are pulling out.
Bush also places a tremendous emphasis on personal relationships, but unfortunately he’s a poor judge of character. It makes him easy to manipulate. The president’s soul brother Vladimir Putin is now making Bush look silly. Effective leaders judge people by their actions and Putin has never been a fan of democracy. Bush will never grow up. We can only hope that our next president is a strong leader.
Bush, Putin, Musharraf, Iraq, Pakistan, Burma, Russia, foreign affairs, foreign policy, world affairs, democracy
November 5th, 2007 at 5:14 am
And to our embarrassment and shame, a recent Guardian poll in Britain (with cooperation from newspapers in Israel, Canada and Mexico) found that in these nations President Bush is considered more of a threat to world peace than North Korea’s Kim Jong-il, and is trailing Osama bin Laden by a mere twelve percentage points!
But I thought Bush’s favorite philosopher was Jesus, “the Prince of Peace.” Hmmm….
November 5th, 2007 at 7:09 am
The question is, can anyone help win back international respect after this idiot leaves office? And how long will it take not only to repair the damage this administration has wrought on the world and our country - but can we?
November 5th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Winning back the respect of the world? Pretty iffy, if you ask me. It’s going to take some major effort from this buffoon’s successor to win it back. Particularly when the next President will be left with this global mess to clean up that Bush has apparently determined to pass on. Oh yeah, and yet another year to add to the list of disasters. No wonder they hate us.
November 6th, 2007 at 4:38 am
[...] TV, he sounds measured, calm and quite reasonable. That’s why it’s important to judge people by their actions. Musharraf governs like a totalitarian dictator. When he realized that the Pakistani Supreme Court [...]
November 19th, 2007 at 11:59 am
[...] not have an effective long term plan for establishing a stable, representative government in Iraq. Our leaders expected to get in and out within a few hundred days. But we’ve always done nation building in [...]
December 6th, 2007 at 4:41 am
[...] will have a difficult time explaining where they want to take the country. The course plotted by George Bush is clearly unsustainable, but Bush remains popular in many Republican circles. Worse yet, most [...]
January 7th, 2008 at 3:45 am
[...] we’re not the bee’s knees, either. And until we get back on the right track (kicking Bush’s sorry ass to the curb will be the first lost step regained), I’ll not be proudly waving Old Glory. [...]