There is a special reaction reserved for a black American who praises Republican politics.  It is sorta like the look militant anti-smokers have for their friends who are smokers.  First, the stunned look.  �You are kidding, right?�  They think you are just trying to shock them.  Then, if you follow their eyes, you can see them searching your soul: �maybe he is dead, and I am staring at a robot.�  Finally, there is the final reaction, a combination of pity and contempt: �oh, and I used to think you were smart�how could you possibly do that?�  Ya Khsara!

I liked and respected Reagan because he completely understood the evil of imperial communism as well as the danger of ever-growing and confiscatory government.  But I really wasn�t a Reganite because of what Paulos Natnael recently alluded to: his foreign policy made a distinction between tyrants: the commie-coddling tyrants were called dictators and had to be fought; and the commie-fighting tyrants were simply authoritarians and they had to be nudged to change.  This terrible dual policy gave us the Pinochets, the King Fahds, the Ferdinand Marcos and the Saddams of the world, along with the many overthrows of democratically elected governments in the Third World.

Now, if only he made no distinction between tyrants�that all are enemies of freedom and should be resisted, we thought, but we were a minority within a tiny minority.  And if only he was a little more comfortable with America�s diversity� 

In other words, if only he were more like George W. Bush who, in my opinion, will be judged by historians to be the fourth most influential US president (after Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln.)

The Refreshing Air GW 

I will now take a pause as you express your total shock and disgust.  In fact, I will help you and mouth off with you.  Altogether now:  Uncle Tom�Patriot Act�self-hating-Muslim/black� illegal war�discrimination� Christian fundamentalist� Abu Ghreib� Guantanemo Bay�cowboy�stupid�

Hear me out.  When we were younger, we idealized the radical revolutionaries like Che Guevarra, Malcolm X, Jemal Abdu Nasser and others.  Then we learned the inevitable: that they had too steep a mountain to climb, they ran out of steam and their revolutions fizzled.  Isaias Afwerki, who many (including me) at one point thought of as in the same league of history-changers, recently admitted this handicap in one of the most depressing interviews he gave with an Australian journalist: �Vision is one thing; realizing your vision is a completely different thing��

Now, what if you could have a radical revolutionary occupying the most important office in the world, with the entire resource of the richest and most powerful nation at his disposal? Scary or exhilarating, depending on how he will use that power.  I find it exhilarating, but first, my interpretation of American politics.

The Paleo and Neo-Conservatives

In American politics, the interesting political debate is within the Paleo (traditional) and neo-conservatives.  Progressive liberals are really not part of the debate because their ideas have already won and been institutionalized in American politics: civil rights, environmentalism, human rights, right-to-privacy, social justice, unions, etc. In essence, in American politics, status-quo means progressive liberalism and change/revolution is advanced by the mis-named �conservatives.� 

The change agents are the traditional conservatives and the neo-conservatives. For the purposes of this column, let�s just focus on what separates the two in the matter of foreign policy and why, I think, Bush is the right man for the right time: Planet Earth�s foremost Ambassador of Freedom.

I will now pause while you smirk and ridicule my naivet�.  Ok, that is enough smirking.

The paleo-conservatives believe that the world is one screwed up mess; that America is the exception (manifest destiny) and the less America has to do with the world, the better�other than the occasional muscle flexing to show it who is boss.  The Europeans are to be avoided because they are closet-socialists; Africa is a basket case; South America is a good land for banana plantation; Asia does not share the same �Judeo-Christian� values and Canada is, well, Canada.  Any effort to change the world is futile�it only ends up diminishing America.  All international treaties are bad because they compromise American sovereignty�setting up some European bureau or, worse, the UN!�to tell Americans what to do.  The World Court! Kyoto! Human Rights Watch! Amnesty International! Aghhh. (Some of their railing against many of these organizations, by the way, sounds remarkably like the PFDJ language.) The paleo-conservatives are also not big fans of immigration or globalism and, if you get them really drunk (or Buchanan-sober), they will strip off all their coded language about �culture�, �Judeo-Christian�, �heritage�, etc, to tell you that they wish America would shut down all immigration but, if it must, then accept only Europeans.  In short, if the paleo-conservatives views prevailed, I certainly wouldn�t be where I am writing what I am.

The neo-conservatives believe that the world is still a screwed up mess but that America has the power and the moral duty to fix it.   Progressive liberals used to believe this but somewhere between Vietnam and Iran-Contra, they lost their values and now tolerate the torture and oppression of distant people in distant places by espousing �non-interference� or, worse, cultural relativism.  "Maybe what we consider torture is some kind of cultural rite of passage...who are we to judge?" according to their thinking.  They will interfere to save whales, stop the chopping down of trees in distant places, fight to end mutiliation of female genitalia, but ask them to help some poor man who is being tortured by his government, they will find some excuse not to help. (Unless you count letter-writing campaigns to dictators as �help�)

According to the Neos, the Europeans�actually, �old Europe��is too compromised to help, because it has institutionalized moral relativism as a new culture (�who are we to say what is right and wrong�.�).   The neo-cons see the world in starkly delineated morality�there are good guys and bad guys, there is good and there is evil. It is this clarity that is criticized for dangerous simple-mindedness (�if you are not with us, you are against us.�)  They�at least Bush�has articulated the view that the hunger for freedom and liberty is not just restricted to people who share the �judeo-Christian� values and that liberty is �not America�s gift to the world, but the Almighty�s present to the humanity.�

Now, let me pause for a minute while I request the impossible: visualize Bush while fighting the urge to throw tomatoes, eggs and insults at him.  Pause.  Ok.  Now, let�s see if his theory has been vindicated:

• Afghanistan.  The progressive liberals said, �You cannot just import democracy.  It has to be tailored to the local custom and taste.  It takes a long time to evolve.  People need bread, not democracy. Etc.�  The paleo conservaties were skeptical�because the Afghanis are neither Judeo, nor Christian nor even able to speak English.   Wrong.  They had an election proving that liberty is the Almighty�s gift to humanity;

• Iraq:  The progressive liberals said, �Here comes carnage!  Here comes civil war!  How naieve!  How can you ask people to vote when they have no sense of security?  Elections? Secure the nation first!�  The paleo-conservatives were very skeptical�many had already decided to retreat: �I only supported the war because I thought there were weapons of mass destruction.  I didn�t support it to export democracy to cultures that are not familiar with it.�   Wrong again.  The people showed that the hunger for the right to choose your own government is universal and hard to deter.

• Middle East:  When Bush sold the Iraq war, one of his arguments was that this would place a footprint of and foothold for democracy, for others to emulate or be inspired by.  The progressive liberals (which includes the entire population of Europe) said, �how naieve! How dangerous!  What a riot.  What a dangerous cowboy!�  The paleo-conservatives were even more skeptical: �Liberty?  Elections in Arab countries?  Values, culture, etc, etc.�  Wrong again.  Elections were held in the West Bank and the prospect for peace between Palestinians and Israel is better than it ever was because the election re-defined it for what it is: a dispute between Palestine and Israel--as opposed to one between Arabs and Jews, which is what every corrupt emir, sheik was selling it for the past 30 years to distract his people from his oppression.  There will be freer election in Lebanon, thanks to Bush�s strong position (compare the hand-wringing this would have elicited from Madeline Albright.)  And I wouldn�t be surprised if the tyranny of Syria collapses before the end of Bush�s term.

The Bush Doctrine is a refined Maoism: freedom and liberty do come from a barrel of a gun, as long as the gun�or the threat of the gun--is pointed at a tyrant.  What about "homegrown democracy"? That is nice, but the reason intervention is sometimes justified is that, unlike during the times of the American revolution�when it was two relatively-equal sides battling for supremacy�now, thanks to the world Woodrow Wilson created, the tyrants of the world have all the weapons, placing the forces of freedom at considerable disadvantage in initiating a people�s rebellion.  The world requires some advocate of freedom to provide the diplomatic, moral, material and, as a last resort, weapons to change the dynamic.  And who better for this than the United States?

Bush & Eritrea

Years from now Bush�s inaugural speech will be�.hold on.  I am going to say something, so please hold on to something to punch.  Pause.  Ok.   Years from now Bush�s inaugural speech will be compared to Kennedy�s �ask not what your country�� It set in motion America�s new foreign policy, which will last a generation or two.  (I am assuming that a republican will win the next two elections, probably, hold on to your punching bag, Jeb Bush.)   As good as the speech was, it was not perfect: while it has come a long way from Ronald Reagan/Jeane Kirkpatrick�s sub-cateogrization of tyrants into authoritarians and dictators, it is still too soft on the Mubareks, King Abdallah and Dictator-for-life Isaiases of the world.  Bush will only �nudge� them toward democracy, because they are �crucial allies� in the fight against terror.  This is wrong, the same policy was pursued during the Cold War��he might be a son-of-a-bitch but he is our son-of-a-bitch��and the results were always disastrous.

The Eritrean opposition has many challenges.  One of them, second only to convincing the Eritrean people, is to convince the Bush administration that they are a good alternative to Isaias Afwerki.  That they are the voices of liberty, democracy, freedom (including religious), justice, free enterprise, moderation and stability.   How do they do that? 

To be continued�.

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