October 14, 2004
Freedom and Liberty on the March!
In December of last year, Pakistan's president Musharraf pledged to retire from the Army by the end of this year. Today, his party helped push through a law in the National Assembly to allow Musharraf to stay on as the chief of the army beyond December 31st.
This happened just one day after I finally received my October 4th issue of The New Republic (a week after I received the October 11th issue!) In this issue, Peter Beinart writes:
As far as I can tell, George W. Bush believes three things about his war on terrorism. First, it can only be won by promoting democracy. Second, the more integral a country is to the war on terrorism, the less principle number one applies. Third, moral consistency matters above all else.
Now, I watched the debate last night, and clearly Mr. Beinart can't be right. Our president assured us we can be secure "if we spread freedom and liberty around the world." Also, "[f]reedom is on the march." The president then clarified his attitude toward marching freedom when he confided, "I can't tell you how encouraged I am to see freedom on the march." He also made an important observation about our country: "We got great faith in the ability of liberty to transform societies, to convert a hostile world to a peaceful world." We do got great faith, Mr. President. We do got it.
Posted by cradle at October 14, 2004 11:04 PM