[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 136 (Wednesday, November 24, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2140-E2141]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        THERE IS NO THERE THERE

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, November 24, 2004

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the recent resignation--
apparently encouraged by the President--of Secretary of State Powell 
has stripped one of the important facades behind which the reality of 
the Bush foreign policy has been hidden. It is deeply regrettable that 
the President and the Secretary of State worked together to keep this 
facade in place until now, because the fact that the Secretary of State 
would be leaving is the sort of information that would have been 
relevant to the voters on Election Day. There is no clear evidence that 
Secretary Powell had any great influence on the Administration's 
foreign policy, but his having been around did I think help the 
Administration in its effort to appear more reasonable in its foreign 
policy than it has been.
  But Secretary Powell's leaving is not the only recent example we have 
of a facade being lifted from this Administration's record in 
international affairs. In the Washington Post Monday, November 15, Fred 
Hiatt points out another great gap between the reality of the 
President's foreign policy and the way in which the Administration has 
described it--the issue of the promotion of democracy as a goal of 
American foreign policy.
  As Mr. Hiatt notes, when John Kerry ``made clear that promoting 
democracy abroad would not be a priority of his presidency,'' this 
quote ``allowed George W. Bush to claim the high moral ground of 
foreign policy.'' As Mr. Hiatt notes, the President asserted at his 
nominating convention in 2004, ``I believe in the transformational 
power of liberty . . . the wisest use of American strength is to 
advance freedom.''
  But as he points out, this high-minded statement of purpose bears 
very little relation to the Bush foreign policy in reality.
  Mr. Hiatt clearly documents the President's high tolerance for wholly 
undemocratic actions by foreign nations as long as they are compliant 
with American foreign policy in other regards. Indeed, as he notes, the 
only two examples that can be cited by the President's defenders in 
which the goal of promoting democracy has played a role are Afghanistan 
and Iraq. And these examples in no way bear out the claim that the 
President has made the advancement of democracy a central part of his 
foreign policy--or even a peripheral one.

[[Page E2141]]

  In Iraq, the President advanced the notion of promoting democracy to 
explain his decision to go to war only after his preferred political 
explanations--the tie between Iraq and September 11th and the presence 
of weapons of mass destruction--were rebutted. Democracy here was a 
rationalization constructed to justify a policy that clearly had other 
goals, and then only after alternative explanations were refuted.
  It is true that the results of the American intervention in 
Afghanistan will certainly be a far more democratic Afghanistan, and I 
welcome that. But here too it should be noted that the President's 
approach was to first ask the repressive and brutal Taliban to 
surrender Osama bin Laden to us, and only after that government refused 
to do that did we invade. Democracy in Afghanistan will be a happy 
byproduct of our war, but it was not the motivating factor.
  Beyond that, as Mr. Hiatt makes clear, there is not an area in the 
world in which promotion of democracy has been an important part of the 
Bush foreign policy. To quote Mr. Hiatt, ``in Bush's first term, 
democracy promotion seemed to be the policy mostly when it was 
convenient . . .''
  I agree with Mr. Hiatt that it is not axiomatic that the promotion of 
democracy should be the single or even the most important goal of 
American foreign policy in every instance. But what is--or at least 
ought to be--clear is that a President should not claim a moral basis 
for his foreign policy which in no way corresponds to reality.
  Mr. Speaker, with Colin Powell no longer serving as a diversion 
without real policy influence, and with the experience we have had with 
the Administration's inaccurate claims about weapons of mass 
destruction, I hope that the Administration's actual foreign policy 
will receive a good deal more scrutiny than it has in the past. Mr. 
Hiatt's column is a good beginning in that effort. I ask that it be 
printed here.

               [From the Washington Post, Nov. 15, 2004]

               A Foreign Policy To Match Bush's Rhetoric?

                            (By Fred Hiatt)

       In an interview last spring, Sen. John F. Kerry made clear 
     that promoting democracy abroad would not be a priority of 
     his presidency. Of course he believed in freedom and human 
     rights, but in every country there seemed to be a goal that 
     would rank higher for him in importance: securing nuclear 
     materials in Russia, fighting terrorism alongside Saudi 
     Arabia, pursuing Middle East peace with Egypt, controlling 
     Pakistan's nuclear program, integrating China into the world 
     economy.
       Kerry's ostensibly pragmatic approach alarmed some 
     idealists in his own party and allowed George W. Bush to 
     claim the high moral ground of foreign policy. ``I believe in 
     the transformational power of liberty,'' Bush declared as he 
     accepted his party's nomination for the second time. ``The 
     wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom.''
       But here's the irony: Kerry's recital of priorities around 
     the world was a pretty fair description of Bush's first-term 
     record. An interesting second-term question will be whether 
     the president reshapes his policy to match his rhetoric: 
     whether he really believes that democracy abroad is in the 
     U.S. national interest. There are, after all, plenty of smart 
     foreign policy experts who doubt that proposition.
       In 2000 Bush did not campaign on a liberty platform, and 
     even after his oratory began to soar, his policies didn't 
     change much. In Afghanistan and Iraq, democracy evolved 
     gradually into a central goal of post-invasion U.S. policy. 
     But in the rest of the world there seemed--just as for 
     Kerry--to be higher priorities.
       The administration counted its management of relations with 
     China and Russia as a major first-term success, for example, 
     marked by stability and cooperation in fighting terrorism. 
     The fact that China was chewing away on Hong Kong's freedoms, 
     and continuing to lock up its own dissidents, journalists and 
     priests, didn't get in the way. The stunning rollback of 
     freedoms in Russia didn't seem to bother Bush either.
       Smaller countries offered a similar picture. Bush welcomed 
     Thailand's autocratic leader as a comrade in the war on 
     terrorism even as democracy there eroded. Under congressional 
     pressure, the administration rapped the knuckles of 
     Uzbekistan's torturers, but not so hard as to interfere with 
     a budding military relationship. Azerbaijan's longtime 
     communist strongman bequeathed power to his ill-prepared son, 
     but that was okay; Azebaijan is rich in oil and gas. 
     Pakistan's strongman broke repeated promises to return his 
     country to civilian rule, but he was too valuable an ally 
     against al Qaeda for the administration to object. And so on, 
     around the world.
       The choices Bush made weren't evil, and they didn't mean 
     that, all things being equal, he wouldn't prefer to encourage 
     democracy. The United States was attacked, and it needed 
     basing rights in Uzbekistan to retaliate. Its economy needs 
     Azeri oil, and Venezuelan oil, and all kinds of other 
     undemocratic oil. The alternative to the general running 
     Pakistan might be a lot worse--a fundamentalist Islamic 
     regime with nuclear weapons, for instance.
       So there were strong arguments for maintaining good 
     relations with all of these autocrats. But that's the point; 
     there will always be countervailing arguments. If you think 
     democracy is just a secondary, wouldn't-it-be-nice 
     objective--if you don't think raw national interest is served 
     by spreading freedom abroad--liberty will always rank below 
     some mother, legitimate priority.
       You might understand if Bush felt that way. After all, it 
     was democratically elected leaders in France and Germany who 
     caused him the most first-term heartburn. Many experienced 
     diplomats, including senior officials of the Bush 
     administration, believe it's more important to appeal to the 
     national interest of a Russia or an Egypt than to worry about 
     how those nations are governed.
       But Bush says he is convinced of the opposite view: that 
     America will actually be safer if more countries become 
     democratic. ``As freedom advances, heart by heart, and nation 
     by nation, America will be more secure and the world more 
     peaceful,'' he argued in that same convention address.
       Such a belief translated into policy would not mean that 
     liberty would automatically and always take precedence over 
     basing rights, counterterrorism cooperation or smooth trade 
     relations. But in Bush's first term, democracy promotion 
     seemed to be the policy mostly when it was convenient: in 
     Palestine, where it allowed him to avoid confrontation with 
     Israel's leader; in Cuba, where it allowed him to win votes 
     in Florida. If you see him in the next four years risking 
     other U.S. interests to champion liberty where it is not so 
     convenient, then you will know he meant what he said on the 
     campaign trail.

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