Bush must embrace the values of open societies, by George Soros

[TexasLawyer]

From the Daily Star, Lebanon

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=12267


Bush must embrace the values of open societies

By George Soros

Tuesday, February 01, 2005


<snip>

When Bush declared war on terror, he used that war to invade Iraq. When no connection with Al-Qaeda could be established and no weapons of mass destruction could be found, he declared that we invaded Iraq to introduce democracy. In Iraq and beyond, when Bush says that "freedom will prevail," many interpret him to mean that America will prevail. This impugned America's motives and deprived the U.S. of whatever moral authority the country once had to intervene in other countries' domestic affairs. If, for example, America offers support to Iranian students who are genuinely striving for greater freedom, they are now more likely to be endangered by American support, as the regime's hard-liners are strengthened.

To explain what is wrong with the new Bush doctrine, I have to invoke the concept of open society. That is the concept that guides me in my efforts to foster freedom around the world. The work has been carried out through foundations operating on the ground and led by citizens who understand the limits of the possible in their countries. Occasionally, when a repressive regime expels our foundation, the Open Society Institute, as happened in Belarus and Uzbekistan, we operate from the outside.


Paradoxically, the most successful open society in the world, the U.S., does not properly understand the first principles of an open society; indeed, its current leadership actively disavows them. The concept of open society is based on recognition that nobody possesses the ultimate truth, that one may be wrong. Yet being wrong is precisely the possibility that Bush refuses to acknowledge, and his denial appeals to a significant segment of the American public. An equally significant segment is appalled. This has left the U.S. not only deeply divided, but also at loggerheads with much of the rest of the world, which considers its policies high-handed and arbitrary.

Bush regards his reelection as an endorsement of his policies, and feels reinforced in his distorted view of the world. The "accountability moment" has passed, he claims, and he is ready to confront tyranny throughout the world according to his own lights. But the critical process that is at the core of an open society - which the U.S. abandoned for 18 months after Sept. 11, 2001 - cannot be forsaken. That absence of self-criticism is what led America into the Iraq quagmire.

<snip>

[Cha]

1. Thanks, I'm going to read this

tomorrow!