The FP piece is appropriately subtitled "Don't fall for the nostalgia -- George W. Bush's foreign policy really was that bad." (John Ibbitson, that means you!) Even if you read the news closely from 2000-8, it's worth a look at this list of appalling and criminal actions; all the more so if you avoided the news in that period.
Two items on this list really stick out -- they remind us that domestic policies and inaction by Bush and his gang have undermined American strength in the foreign policy sphere, maybe permanently. This point cannot be repeated too often, though American "leaders" show little awareness and interest. Here are those items, with my emphasis:
11. Hurricane Katrina. It takes a truly spectacular domestic-policy blunder to register as a foreign-policy screw-up, too. Yet Bush's bungled response to Hurricane Katrina was exactly that. Observers around the world saw this debacle as both a demonstration of waning U.S. competence and a revealing indicator of continued racial inequality, if not outright injustice. (You know you've screwed up when you get offers of relief aid from Venezuela's Hugo Chávez.) Because America's "soft power" depends on other states believing that we know what we are doing and that we stand for laudable ideals, the disaster in New Orleans was yet another self-inflicted blow to America's global image. If the United States cannot take good care of its own citizens, why should anyone think we can "nation-build" in some distant foreign land?
14. The Crash Heard 'Round the World. By lowering taxes while waging costly wars, Bush produced near-record fiscal deficits and a mountain of foreign debt. At the same time, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's easy money policy encouraged a vast real estate bubble that eventually collapsed in 2008. Bush's economic team also paid little attention to regulating Wall Street, thereby facilitating the reckless behavior that produced a major financial collapse in 2008. The resulting meltdown cost Americans trillions of dollars and millions of jobs, and the aftermath will affect U.S. economic prospects for many years to come.
Although Bush does not deserve all the blame for causing the greatest recession since the 1930s, he was in charge when it happened and his actions contributed significantly to the debacle. And because international influence ultimately rests upon a state's economic strength, the damage wrought by this economic crisis may be Bush's most enduring foreign-policy legacy.
It is always humorous to read political propaganda from the extreme left! It is so typical that they make claims that are quite simply false and their ostentatious amnesia is so blatantly displayed when they conveniently forget when their side makes ‘blunders’.
ReplyDeleteThe hyperbole is amusing, e.g.
“list of appalling and criminal actions”,
“Bush and his gang”,
“a demonstration of waning U.S. competence”.
Regarding Hurricane Katrina.
The rhetoric:
“a revealing indicator of continued racial inequality”
“Bush's bungled response”
“a truly spectacular domestic-policy blunder”
“debacle”
“a revealing indicator of continued racial inequality”
“outright injustice”
So the presupposition is that Bush and his administration ‘blundered’ in their response to Hurricane Katrina. Perhaps they did or did not, but to argue that the response was somehow fashioned by racism and injustice would suggest that it was not a blunder at all. If the Bush administration was truly racist and their response was dictated by racism then it could not have been a ‘blunder’ at all on the contrary it was a masterstroke of pretending to be ‘blundering’ while in actuality the whole response was dictated and controlled to the finest detail, allegedly because of racist motivations.
Absurd!!
Can any rational person believe this? The left can’t have it both ways! Logic dictates that that the response to Katrina was either a ‘blunder’ or was ‘racist’. But not both in the context of the argument presented.
And while we are at it, what about Obama’s truly spectacular domestic-policy blunder, e.g. his response to the BP oil spill? What about all the countries that offered help with skimmers etc. that he did not allow because of union rules that required only American workers?
The pot calling the kettle black?
Regarding The Crash Heard 'Round the World
The rhetoric:
“Bush produced near-record fiscal deficits and a mountain of foreign debt.”
“Bush's economic team also paid little attention to regulating Wall Street, thereby facilitating the reckless behavior that produced a major financial collapse in 2008.”
Continued…..
Another example of hypocrisy from the left!
ReplyDeleteWhile it is true that deficits increased under Bush particularly towards the end of his presidency, what about the last two years under Obama? Deficits of 4 times the magnitude (of Bush’s worst deficit) and projected for ten more years! If the left is truly concerned with deficits the facts are, that Bush must be preferred over Obama.
The claim that the left continually makes is that somehow the financial collapse was caused by a lack of regulation. The facts are, that the expenditures on financial regulation ‘regulating Wall Street’ (nominally and in real terms) were never greater in the history of the U.S. than at the end of the Bush presidency.
Just like a broken clock is right twice a day Stephen M. Walt does get it partly right when he argues “Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's easy money policy encouraged a vast real estate bubble that eventually collapsed in 2008.”
This is true, but additionally and just as important, misguided social policies enacted by the Government exasperated Greenspan’s manipulations through Government entities (Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac (very highly regulated by the way, one must wonder why did they go bankrupt?). These aforementioned misguided social policies enacted by the government (CRA for example) pushing for ‘minority’ home ownership (basically giving loans guaranteed by the government for people who in no way could afford the loans) is what fundamentally caused the collapse.
Both the Federal Reserve and Fannie Mae or Freddy Mac I might add, were created and directed by government interference in the economy. Neither, would exist in a ‘free market’ economy without the Government creating them. When the Government guarantees losses by bankers etc. they take excess ‘reckless’ risk (The Greenspan Put) and this guarantee is an example of government interference and distortion that leads to financial crises. If the bankers knew that if they took on too much risk (and lost massively) and that they would not be bailed out by the Government and the Federal Reserve they would reduce their exposure to risk. The game is heads they win, tails the taxpayers lose. They profit if they win. If they lose they get bailed out! This is government interference at its worst.
This is precisely the opposite of what the left claims that the market needs, more government regulation etc. It is precisely this government ‘regulation’ that encouraged the excessive risk taking.
But even if it were true (Not) that a lack of government regulation by ‘Bush and his gang’ led to the financial collapse, how does the left explain why many other countries Great Britain, Spain, Greece, Ireland, Portugal etc. all experienced the same financial crisis at precisely the same time as in the U.S.??
Conclusion:
The left (including Foreign Policy and Stephen M. Walt) have got to present better arguments than these mediocre examples to be taken seriously. Perhaps they do not have any better arguments?
I simply note that any frame of reference that categorizes Foreign Policy as representing "the extreme left" is worse than useless in my view.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of “frames of reference” is it not the case that mostly with very few exceptions it is the ‘extreme left’ that describes George Bush and his administration as
ReplyDelete‘Appalling’ ‘Criminal’ etc.? They demand that he be arrested for “War Crimes” etc.!
And most contemptibly they make hysterical declarations that George Bush and his administration were motivated by ‘racism’ (without a scintilla of evidence to back this claim) in their response to the Katrina Hurricane! Are these arguments of ‘moderates’, whether on the ‘right’ or ‘left’? Perhaps we can enter in to the realm of semantics and the term ‘extreme’ can be debated, but surely it is those on the ‘left’ who promulgate such arguments.
In any event if one actually reads my prior response I did not specifically claim that Foreign Policy magazine was ‘extreme left’, only on balance ‘left’. What I did actually state in the last paragraph of my entry was “The left (including Foreign Policy and Stephen M. Walt) have got to present better arguments than these mediocre examples to be taken seriously.”
Indeed it is my contention that Foreign Policy magazine is oriented politically to the left. Indeed the evidence of views of the majority of the main contributors to Foreign Policy magazine I believe supports my opinion of the magazine being ‘leftish’.
Marc Lynch generally is ‘left’ leaning in his views on the Middle East.
Thomas E, Ricks in his book Fiasco: The American Military Adventure In Iraq argues the typical ‘leftwing’ view about the terrible mistake that the Iraq invasion was etc.
David Rothkopf in his recent book Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making argues the standard ‘leftwing’ conspiratorial argument of a supposed elite that run world political and economic affairs etc.
When I mentioned ‘extreme left’ it was in the context of Stephen M. Walt, because to bring up claims of ‘racism’ in regard to Katrina I submit, are examples of the ‘loony’ left. (Note I use the term ‘loony’ if that is less contentious than the term ‘extreme’). Mr. Walt also shares in elements of ‘extreme left’ thinking in his views on the ‘Israeli lobby’s’ alleged control over the U.S. Government (read Zionist conspiracy) and his anti-Israeli criticism of settlement building in the ‘West Bank’, and criticism of the Afghan war. These I submit are representative ‘leftwing’ political views.
To be fair, Foreign policy magazine does offer some minimal opposing ‘rightish’ views like James Traub and Daniel W. Drezner, but this is digressing and not relevant to my original criticism.
Continued….
One of the benefits that all the readers of Muhlberger’s World History receive is an education. Mostly in specific matters of History, which with no doubt Professor Muhlberger is an acknowledged expert in. But readers of this blog sometimes unwittingly receive education in the fallacies of logical argumentation. An example is as follows.
ReplyDeleteEvidently Professor Muhlberger is well schooled in the art of deflection. He disagrees with the term ‘extreme left’ that he alleges is how I described Foreign Policy magazine (which I never actually did describe as such, and even if I did is not relevant to my original criticism) and so therefore he derides my ‘frame of reference’ “as worse than useless”. This for all the readers out there (including you Nipissing U students) is known as the logical fallacy of committing a ‘red herring’. Professor Muhlberger ‘quite simply’ made a remark about my use of the word ‘extreme’ (wrongly claiming that I described Foreign Policy magazine as that) that may or may not be accurate but is totally irrelevant to the topic being discussed, the purpose of which is to distract away from the issue being discussed. That being the false claims of Mr. Walt regarding the alleged racism in the Bush administration’s response (“continued racial inequality, if not outright injustice”) to the Katrina Hurricane and, that “ Bush's economic team also paid little attention to regulating Wall Street, thereby facilitating the reckless behavior that produced a major financial collapse in 2008”.
The reality, even though Professor Muhlberger wants to distract the reader’s attention away from it, is that both the claims by Mr. Walt that the Professor says are (“Worth noting” and “Two items on this list really stick out”) have no evidence to support them and are in actuality, not true. And for the Professor to point these claims out logically suggests (with all due respect) that the Professor either knows that they are not true and promotes them anyway for political reasons, or he is not aware that these claims are not true and is just misinformed or rather ignorant.
If those who make these claims have evidence to back them up where is it?
Give ANY evidence that shows that ‘racism’ had any bearing on the implementation of the actions of the Bush administration with respect to the Katrina Hurricane!
Give ANY evidence to support the claim that the Bush administration reduced regulation either financially or policy proscriptive of the financial sector in the U.S. during his tenure as president!
Ironically, Professor Mulberger is right is his observations that “international influence ultimately rests upon a state's economic strength” and “why should anyone think we can "nation-build" in some distant foreign land?”. But, not for the reasons that Mr. Walt proffered.
I, your humble “anonymous’ correspondent will (as I previously stated in an earlier months ago posting) respond to Professor Muhlberger when he strays from his subject of History and enters the sphere of Politics and Economics. I suggest that the Professor when he enters into the aforementioned sphere occasionally expresses or presents questionable ‘facts’ and ‘opinions’ as I believe that the Professor did with this entry. Perhaps Professor Muhlberger respectfully should strictly confine himself to matters of History (which he seems to very rarely be mistaken in) and leave the Political and Economic sphere altogether.
Apparently the first part of my post was not received. The post above is part 2 this posting in the first part.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of “frames of reference” is it not the case that mostly with very few exceptions it is the ‘extreme left’ that describes George Bush and his administration as
‘Appalling’ ‘Criminal’ etc.? They demand that he be arrested for “War Crimes” etc.!
And most contemptibly they make hysterical declarations that George Bush and his administration were motivated by ‘racism’ (without a scintilla of evidence to back this claim) in their response to the Katrina Hurricane! Are these arguments of ‘moderates’, whether on the ‘right’ or ‘left’? Perhaps we can enter in to the realm of semantics and the term ‘extreme’ can be debated, but surely it is those on the ‘left’ who promulgate such arguments.
In any event if one actually reads my prior response I did not specifically claim that Foreign Policy magazine was ‘extreme left’, only on balance ‘left’. What I did actually state in the last paragraph of my entry was “The left (including Foreign Policy and Stephen M. Walt) have got to present better arguments than these mediocre examples to be taken seriously.”
Indeed it is my contention that Foreign Policy magazine is oriented politically to the left. Indeed the evidence of views of the majority of the main contributors to Foreign Policy magazine I believe supports my opinion of the magazine being ‘leftish’.
Marc Lynch generally is ‘left’ leaning in his views on the Middle East.
Thomas E, Ricks in his book Fiasco: The American Military Adventure In Iraq argues the typical ‘leftwing’ view about the terrible mistake that the Iraq invasion was etc.
David Rothkopf in his recent book Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making argues the standard ‘leftwing’ conspiratorial argument of a supposed elite that run world political and economic affairs etc.
When I mentioned ‘extreme left’ it was in the context of Stephen M. Walt, because to bring up claims of ‘racism’ in regard to Katrina I submit, are examples of the ‘loony’ left. (Note I use the term ‘loony’ if that is less contentious than the term ‘extreme’). Mr. Walt also shares in elements of ‘extreme left’ thinking in his views on the ‘Israeli lobby’s’ alleged control over the U.S. Government (read Zionist conspiracy) and his anti-Israeli criticism of settlement building in the ‘West Bank’, and criticism of the Afghan war. These I submit are representative ‘leftwing’ political views.
To be fair, Foreign policy magazine does offer some minimal opposing ‘rightish’ views like James Traub and Daniel W. Drezner, but this is digressing and not relevant to my original criticism.
Continued….