Text 8025, 90 rader
Skriven 2005-01-25 13:35:28 av Alan Hess
Ärende: some dictators are safe
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http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-op.price25jan25,1,1218864.story?c
oll=bal-pe-opinion
President's grand speech on freedom rings hollow


By G. Jefferson Price III

January 25, 2005

THAT WAS A marvelous speech President Bush made last week as he took the oath
office for a second term. Truly marvelous. It was so grand I can still hear
freedom ringing in my ears.

Why the oppressed and suppressed people of the world did not rise up, throw off
their shackles and depose the tyrants who rule them is beyond me.

Could it be because the people whose tyrant was last overthrown - the people of
Iraq, that is - are still reeling from the consequences? Or could it be that we
have a credibility problem when it comes to people who are ruled by "leaders of
governments with long habits of control," as the president put it?

"Start on this journey of progress and justice and America will walk at your
side," the president exhorted those guys with long habits of control.

Why, having been shown the light and the true path to glory and friendship with
America, did the people of Iran not throw over the mullahs and give up a loud
cheer to welcome Hollywood, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Halliburton into their
land?

Could it be that they don't trust us any more than we trust them?

Why did Hosni Mubarak, the president-for-life of Egypt, who hasn't held a truly
free election in 2 1/2 decades, not show any sign of apprehension that his time
is up? Did President Bush threaten to stop sending Egypt billions of dollars a
year so long as the Mubarak regime continues the sort of political repression
that makes people hate him, and hate us for putting up with him? No, and I bet
he doesn't.

And what of our friend King Abdullah II of Jordan, also sustained by a healthy
dollop of American taxpayers' money? Will he be told to give up the habit of
control established long ago by his father? Nope.

And how about those Kuwaitis, the ones who were making all that noise about
democracy while America went to war to save their little emirate from Saddam
Hussein in 1991 while the wealthiest of them sat in the spas of Europe? Are
they going to give up control for the sake of democracy? I dare say not.

Or the House of Saud, which has a huge responsibility for the state of affairs
in the Middle East and now the rest of the world. Will the Saudi royals take
time from buying glitzy hotels in London to let their people express
themselves?

Highly unlikely. The House of Saud will fight political reform to the death -
everyone's but theirs, that is.

This month, more than a dozen Saudi citizens who protested against their rulers
got a taste of just how disinclined the House of Saud is toward democracy and
free speech.

Fourteen men and a woman who demonstrated against the authorities were
sentenced to prison terms and lashings.

Did the Bush administration hear of this and threaten not to buy any more oil
from Saudi Arabia? Would the administration encourage the people who
demonstrated and were so severely punished? Nope. Something may have - should
have - been said privately, but there was no uproar of indignation.

The list goes on. Pakistan, America's important ally in the war on terror, is
not a free and democratic state, and no one will be threatening President
Pervez Musharraf with sanctions because of it.

China, the biggest nation in the world still living under a nominally communist
dictatorship, certainly will not be sanctioned for the abuses the leadership
inflicts on its people.

The speech President Bush made last week could have been made by any president
of the United States in the last century - and in one way or another it has,
and with more credibility.

Authoritarian rulers the Bush administration does not like - such as the rulers
of Iran - have plenty to worry about. Authoritarian rulers the Bush
administration gets along with don't have much to worry about at all.

G. Jefferson Price III is a former editor and foreign correspondent for The
Sun.

Copyright + 2005, The Baltimore Sun

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