You write: "Lind says it was Bush’s project to “spread ‘the global democratic revolution’ through ‘wars of choice’ and ‘humanitarian interventions’ in the Middle East and elsewhere." That is not my reading. This what Lind wrote: "This post-Cold War coalition, which culminated in the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush, was a radical movement, not 'conservative' in any sense. It was based on the simultaneous promotion of three utopian projects: spreading 'the global democratic revolution' through 'wars of choice' and 'humanitarian interventions' in the Middle East and elsewhere...." He was not speaking of Bush per se but rather of a post-Cold War coalition whose policies informed a nomenklatura that predated and postdated Bush and from whose ranks Bush chose to staff his administration. The quote from second inaugural address was a distillation of that world view and a radical departure from the foreign policy of his father's generation and even as practiced by Clinton before him. It was radical and noted as such at the time. The reasons for initiating the wars did not dictate their conduct much less the all the years spent in those countries afterwards.
LInd attributes all three of the non-woke projects he complains about -- "the global democratic revolution, the libertarian economic revolution, and the attempt to universalize evangelical Protestant morality " -- to George W. Bush and his administration. He says that "all three revolutions" were imposed "from above by the Bush Republicans."
As for Bush's post-invasion decisions, they reflected his view that our interests and those of the nations we invaded would best be served by something approaching democratically elected governments, as was the case with Germany and Japan after World War II.
One certainly can argue that this view was mistaken as applied to Iraq and Afghanistan. But it's more modest and rational than the globalist project Lind accuses Bush of pursuing -- "a power-mad utopianism" of "spreading a global democratic revolution through wars of choice."
Lind's accusation clearly implies that the wars Bush started were chosen for the purpose of spreading democracy. It's very difficult to square this accusation with Bush's approach to nations that were manifestly undemocratic but not considered threats to our security -- Egypt and Libya, for example -- and even with his approach to Saudi Arabia which was, to some extent, a security threat.
You write: "Lind's accusation clearly implies that the wars Bush started were chosen for the purpose of spreading democracy." As you formulate it, then I think Lind is correct. The casus belli was either obvious or given by the Bush administration for the making of war upon Afghanistan and Iraq. However, instead of "chosen" I would have written "used." Again, initiating those wars, in particular the stated reasons for doing so, did not dictate their conduct or the years of occupation that followed. The conduct and the years of occupation are consistent with the project of spreading the liberal democratic revolution as it was spoken of approvingly and promoted widely at the time. In that second address, Bush makes the case for that promotion as a security issue - not his idea alone at the time, far from it. This was at the height of the hubris attendant to the "unipolar moment" - cashing in the chips from our Cold War victory. It was a time when many in government and academia dreamed openly of immanentizing the eschaton of Fukuyama's "End of History" thesis. The actions of his administration in Iraq and Afghanistan were consistent with the hubris of the time. I would add only that this included much of the Obama administration where the "Arc of History" was claimed to be seen. Yes, Bush hedged here and there in that address, but his pursuit of war and occupation spoke loudly. Lind's choice of the Bush administration as an avatar for a utopian movement at the time in foreign policy is appropriate.
As for the pursuit of SS privatization: Well, Bush spent a lot of political capital pushing SS reforms long in play at the start of his second term which included some elements of privatization only to see them fail to gain much if any support. Bush was an openly evangelical Christian, so of course it informed his world view. But Lind did not ascribe these to Bush alone but rather to Bush as an avatar and culmination of a movement that predated and post-dated him. That administration was the high point of the end-of-history-utopians, the only recent chance for the "Paul Ryan" wing of the GOP to get a shot at entitlement reform and the last feeble gasps of evangelical political power which was at its high point during Reagan's terms. Lind describes a movement with three components that have waxed and waned in influence for decades, not all at the same time, and which ended as now seen in retrospect. He would probably date its end as being November 8, 2016. He may be wrong in some particulars, he surely is hyperbolic in some matters, but his big picture, I believe, is correct.
Without parsing too closely the exact wording used by Paul, skyzyks, or Michael Lind, I must protest that all three buy into the myth, pushed by the left, that Bush started wars of choice.
Bush did not start any wars. First, The Taliban "government" of Afghanistan was implicated in the activities of Al Qaeda, and after September 11th a state of war already existed. Had Japan never delivered its declaration of war after the Pearl Harbor attack, would anyone accuse the United States of "starting" a war with our own declaration? Second, Sadaam Hussein committed multiple acts of war against the United States and our allies. His regime invaded Kuwait, and allowing inspectors access to Iraq was one of the many terms of the armistice which he violated. Since the armistice was the condition for ending the conflict -- in whose absence we would have been justified in driving to Baghdad in 1991 -- any violation of the armistice was an act of war.
As for the idea, which Paul does challenge, that Bush started wars to spread democracy, Bush's Second Inaugural address used the words "democratic" or "democracy" only three times. By contrast, he used the word "freedom" twenty-seven times. He also explicitly said "And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own. America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way."
I feel like the stuff about Bush was a bit of unnecessary throat clearing with the purpose , perhaps, of garnering an audience of liberals which seem to have shut off their brains (probably due to Trump Derangement Syndrome) and allowed their insane (Freudian Id?) fellow-traveler communist Revolutionary ideologues to run rampant through all the institutions of power and influence in this country including major corporations such as Disney. Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and exposure of the Twitter files and the fascist coalition of the Democrats’ Stasi FBI combined with massive surveillance and censorship by private companies on their behalf is a gift right from God Himself in this regard. May the people of this nation awaken from their TDS slumber to what their friends on the communist left actually intend for us. For the record, I’m no fan of Trump, btw.
You write: "Lind says it was Bush’s project to “spread ‘the global democratic revolution’ through ‘wars of choice’ and ‘humanitarian interventions’ in the Middle East and elsewhere." That is not my reading. This what Lind wrote: "This post-Cold War coalition, which culminated in the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush, was a radical movement, not 'conservative' in any sense. It was based on the simultaneous promotion of three utopian projects: spreading 'the global democratic revolution' through 'wars of choice' and 'humanitarian interventions' in the Middle East and elsewhere...." He was not speaking of Bush per se but rather of a post-Cold War coalition whose policies informed a nomenklatura that predated and postdated Bush and from whose ranks Bush chose to staff his administration. The quote from second inaugural address was a distillation of that world view and a radical departure from the foreign policy of his father's generation and even as practiced by Clinton before him. It was radical and noted as such at the time. The reasons for initiating the wars did not dictate their conduct much less the all the years spent in those countries afterwards.
Thanks for your comment.
LInd attributes all three of the non-woke projects he complains about -- "the global democratic revolution, the libertarian economic revolution, and the attempt to universalize evangelical Protestant morality " -- to George W. Bush and his administration. He says that "all three revolutions" were imposed "from above by the Bush Republicans."
As for Bush's post-invasion decisions, they reflected his view that our interests and those of the nations we invaded would best be served by something approaching democratically elected governments, as was the case with Germany and Japan after World War II.
One certainly can argue that this view was mistaken as applied to Iraq and Afghanistan. But it's more modest and rational than the globalist project Lind accuses Bush of pursuing -- "a power-mad utopianism" of "spreading a global democratic revolution through wars of choice."
Lind's accusation clearly implies that the wars Bush started were chosen for the purpose of spreading democracy. It's very difficult to square this accusation with Bush's approach to nations that were manifestly undemocratic but not considered threats to our security -- Egypt and Libya, for example -- and even with his approach to Saudi Arabia which was, to some extent, a security threat.
You write: "Lind's accusation clearly implies that the wars Bush started were chosen for the purpose of spreading democracy." As you formulate it, then I think Lind is correct. The casus belli was either obvious or given by the Bush administration for the making of war upon Afghanistan and Iraq. However, instead of "chosen" I would have written "used." Again, initiating those wars, in particular the stated reasons for doing so, did not dictate their conduct or the years of occupation that followed. The conduct and the years of occupation are consistent with the project of spreading the liberal democratic revolution as it was spoken of approvingly and promoted widely at the time. In that second address, Bush makes the case for that promotion as a security issue - not his idea alone at the time, far from it. This was at the height of the hubris attendant to the "unipolar moment" - cashing in the chips from our Cold War victory. It was a time when many in government and academia dreamed openly of immanentizing the eschaton of Fukuyama's "End of History" thesis. The actions of his administration in Iraq and Afghanistan were consistent with the hubris of the time. I would add only that this included much of the Obama administration where the "Arc of History" was claimed to be seen. Yes, Bush hedged here and there in that address, but his pursuit of war and occupation spoke loudly. Lind's choice of the Bush administration as an avatar for a utopian movement at the time in foreign policy is appropriate.
As for the pursuit of SS privatization: Well, Bush spent a lot of political capital pushing SS reforms long in play at the start of his second term which included some elements of privatization only to see them fail to gain much if any support. Bush was an openly evangelical Christian, so of course it informed his world view. But Lind did not ascribe these to Bush alone but rather to Bush as an avatar and culmination of a movement that predated and post-dated him. That administration was the high point of the end-of-history-utopians, the only recent chance for the "Paul Ryan" wing of the GOP to get a shot at entitlement reform and the last feeble gasps of evangelical political power which was at its high point during Reagan's terms. Lind describes a movement with three components that have waxed and waned in influence for decades, not all at the same time, and which ended as now seen in retrospect. He would probably date its end as being November 8, 2016. He may be wrong in some particulars, he surely is hyperbolic in some matters, but his big picture, I believe, is correct.
Without parsing too closely the exact wording used by Paul, skyzyks, or Michael Lind, I must protest that all three buy into the myth, pushed by the left, that Bush started wars of choice.
Bush did not start any wars. First, The Taliban "government" of Afghanistan was implicated in the activities of Al Qaeda, and after September 11th a state of war already existed. Had Japan never delivered its declaration of war after the Pearl Harbor attack, would anyone accuse the United States of "starting" a war with our own declaration? Second, Sadaam Hussein committed multiple acts of war against the United States and our allies. His regime invaded Kuwait, and allowing inspectors access to Iraq was one of the many terms of the armistice which he violated. Since the armistice was the condition for ending the conflict -- in whose absence we would have been justified in driving to Baghdad in 1991 -- any violation of the armistice was an act of war.
As for the idea, which Paul does challenge, that Bush started wars to spread democracy, Bush's Second Inaugural address used the words "democratic" or "democracy" only three times. By contrast, he used the word "freedom" twenty-seven times. He also explicitly said "And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own. America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way."
Don’t read this if you don’t want to know what’s really going on in the world:
https://whateveristrue.substack.com/p/the-arm-ageddon
I feel like the stuff about Bush was a bit of unnecessary throat clearing with the purpose , perhaps, of garnering an audience of liberals which seem to have shut off their brains (probably due to Trump Derangement Syndrome) and allowed their insane (Freudian Id?) fellow-traveler communist Revolutionary ideologues to run rampant through all the institutions of power and influence in this country including major corporations such as Disney. Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and exposure of the Twitter files and the fascist coalition of the Democrats’ Stasi FBI combined with massive surveillance and censorship by private companies on their behalf is a gift right from God Himself in this regard. May the people of this nation awaken from their TDS slumber to what their friends on the communist left actually intend for us. For the record, I’m no fan of Trump, btw.
I thought the same about Lind giving Bush credit for "utopian" globalization.
Is the stifling of murderous regimes "utopian"?