"All my experience in fostering democracy
and open society has taught
me
that democracy cannot
be imposed
by military means."
I have been crisscrossing the country for the last three weeks arguing
against the reelection of President Bush. I feel strongly that he has led us in the wrong direction. The invasion of Iraq
was a colossal blunder and only by rejecting the President at the polls can we hope to escape from the quagmire in which we
find ourselves.
I embarked on the tour because I was worried that the dramatic deterioration in Iraq did not produce
the decisive lead for John Kerry I had confidently expected. Now that I am at the end of my tour, I am not reassured. Kerry
and Bush are neck and neck in the polls, and although I believe that voter turnout is likely to give Kerry the victory, the
race is too close for comfort.
The nation is deeply divided and the two camps seem to be talking past each other. John
Kerry won all three debates but President Bush invokes his faith and that inspires his followers. In the end, it boils down
to a philosophical difference over how to deal with an often confusing and threatening reality.
Let me inflict on you
a brief lecture in philosophy.
An open society such as ours is based on the recognition that our understanding of reality
is inherently imperfect. Nobody is in possession of the ultimate truth. As the philosopher Karl Popper has shown, the ultimate
truth is not attainable even in science. All theories are subject to testing and the process of replacing old theories with
better ones never ends.
Faith plays an important role in an open society. Exactly because our understanding is imperfect,
we cannot base our decisions on knowledge alone. We need to rely on beliefs, religious or otherwise, to help us make decisions.
But we must remain open to the possibility that we may be wrong so that we can correct our mistakes. Otherwise, we are bound
to be wrong.
End of lecture.
President Bush has shown that he is incapable of recognizing his mistakes. He insists
on making reality conform to his beliefs even at the cost of deceiving himself and deliberately deceiving the public. There
is something appealing in the strength of his faith, especially in our troubled time. But the cost is too high. By putting
our faith in a President who cannot admit his mistakes we commit ourselves to the wrong policies. We are the most powerful
nation on earth. No external power, no terrorist organization, can defeat us. But we can defeat ourselves by getting caught
in a quagmire.
Open Societies suffer from an innate weakness: uncertainty. Leaders who claim to be in possession of
the ultimate truth offer an escape from uncertainty. But that is a snare, because those leaders are bound to be wrong.
Under
the influence of globalization we have been exposed to more than a normal dose of uncertainty. That is why the kind of faith
that guides President Bush is so appealing. The traumatic events of 9/11 have reinforced that appeal. President Bush rose
to the occasion and he carried the nation behind him. But he has led us in the wrong direction. He used the war on terror
as an excuse for invading Iraq. If we reelect President Bush we are endorsing his policies and we shall have to live with
the consequences. We are facing a vicious circle of escalating violence with no end in sight. If we reject him at the polls
we shall have a better chance to regain the respect and support of the world and break the vicious circle. Our future depends
on it.
That is why I consider this the most important election of my lifetime and that is why I have taken such an
active role in it. I have devoted half my fortune and most of my energies in the last 15 years to promoting the values of
democracy and open society all over the world, especially in the former Soviet Empire. After 9/11 I came to feel that those
principles need to be defended at home.
For 18 months after 9/11 President Bush suppressed all dissent by calling it
unpatriotic. That is how he could lead the nation so far in the wrong direction.
The invasion of Afghanistan was justified:
that was where Osama bin Laden lived and al Qaeda had its training camps. The invasion of Iraq was not similarly justified.
The
war in Iraq was misconceived from start to finish -- if it has a finish. It is a war of choice, not of necessity, as President
Bush claims. It goes without saying that Saddam was a tyrant, and it is good to be rid of him. But in invading Iraq as we
did, without a second UN resolution, we violated international law. By mistreating and even torturing prisoners, we violated
the Geneva conventions. President Bush has boasted that we do not need a permission slip from the international community,
but our disregard for international law has endangered our security, particularly the security of our troops.
The arms
inspections and sanctions were working. In response to American pressure, the United Nations had finally agreed on a strong
stand. As long as the inspectors were on the ground, Saddam Hussein could not possibly pose a threat to our security. We could
have persisted with the inspections but President Bush insisted on going to war.
By now we know that we went to war
on false pretenses. The weapons of mass destruction could not be found, and the connection with al Qaeda could not be established.
What has not yet sunk in is that President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Condoleezza Rice knew that Saddam had no nuclear
capacity long before we invaded Iraq. The intelligence experts of the Energy Department told them in 2002 that the famous
aluminum tubes, which were presented as the most concrete evidence that Saddam had a nuclear program, could not possibly be
used for enriching uranium. Yet they used them as evidence. They deliberately deceived the public, the Congress and the United
Nations.
The aluminum tubes were not the only instance of deliberate deception. There was the yellowcake contract with
Niger mentioned in the President's State of the Union message. That document was forged and a CBS expose of how it came to
be forged was recently suppressed or more exactly postponed until after the elections. Then there were the mobile labs that
Colin Powell falsely claimed were for biological warfare. President Bush went much further than Colin Powell. He spoke of
incontrovertible evidence and said that the smoking gun may take the shape of a mushroom cloud.
More recently, President
Bush claimed that we went to war to liberate the people of Iraq. I find that claim preposterous. If we had cared about the
people of Iraq we should have had more troops available to protect them. We should not have used methods that alienated and
humiliated them.
All my experience in fostering democracy and open society has taught me that democracy cannot be imposed
by military means. And the way we went about it in Iraq will make it more difficult to promote democracy in the future. Through
my foundation network devoted to promoting democracy and open society worldwide, I feel this personally. Under President Bush,
America has lost its credibility as a champion of open society.
Instead of admitting his mistakes, President Bush now
tells us that offense is the best defense and we are safer at home because we are fighting the terrorists abroad. The argument
resonates strongly with an electorate fearful of terrorism - but it is a Siren's song.
Let me explain why.
The
war on terror is an abstraction. But the terrorists are real people and they are not all alike. Most of the people attacking
our soldiers in Iraq originally had nothing to do with al Qaeda. They have been generated by the policies of the Bush administration.
We have been spared a terrorist attack at home but it is quite a stretch to attribute that to the invasion of Iraq. The insurrection
in Iraq, however, is a somber reality and it doesn't make us safer at home. Our security, far from improving as President
Bush claims, is deteriorating.
Bush's war in Iraq has done untold damage to the United States. It has impaired our
military power and undermined the morale of our armed forces. Our troops were trained to project overwhelming power. They
were not trained for occupation duties. Having to fight an insurgency saps their morale. After Iraq, it has become more difficult
to recruit people for the armed forces and we may have to resort to conscription.
Before the invasion of Iraq, we could
project overwhelming power in any part of the world. We cannot do so any more because we are bogged down in Iraq. Iran and
North Korea are moving ahead with their nuclear programs at full speed and our hand in dealing with them has been greatly
weakened.
There are many other policies for which the Bush administration can be criticized but none are as important
as Iraq. Iraq is the proof that we cannot put our faith in the President.
It is hard to believe that all the accusations
I have leveled against President Bush are actually true. I wish they weren't because then we wouldn't be in the predicament
in which we find ourselves. There is only one way out. To change leadership and direction. Fortunately we have a credible
- and attractive - alternative. I have known John Kerry personally for many years. He will make an excellent president.
I
have been crisscrossing the country for the last three weeks arguing against the reelection of President Bush. On my travels
I have heard many doubts about John Kerry. Why can't he project the same certainty as President Bush? Admittedly, he won the
debates, but does that qualify him to be our Commander in Chief? Will he be as single- minded in pursuing the war on terror
as George W. Bush?
Let me address these concerns. John Kerry has presented a cogent and coherent case but the Bush
campaign managed to define him before he could define himself. They made fun of his explanation of the various votes he cast
on the $87 billion appropriation for Iraq, although it made perfect sense. He was practically not heard, except in snippets,
until the debates.
But the trouble goes deeper. The war on terror as defined by President Bush is a one-dimensional
presentation of reality. We cannot fight terrorism by military means alone. We can use military force only when we have a
known target; but it is the habit of terrorists to keep their whereabouts hidden. To track them down we need the support of
the populations amongst whom they hide. Offense is not necessarily the best defense if it offends those whose allegiance we
need.
John Kerry is aware of this other dimension. That is why he cannot be as single-minded as George W. Bush. He
is nuanced because reality is complicated. This has been turned into a character flaw by the Bush campaign. Yet, that is exactly
the character we need in our commander in chief. John Kerry is prepared to defend the country as he showed in Viet Nam; but
he has learned first hand the devastation that war can bring and will use military force only as a last resort.
By
contrast George W. Bush revels in being a war president. His campaign is shamelessly exploiting the fears generated by 9/11.
Vice President Cheney is conjuring mushroom clouds into our cities. But fear is a bad counselor; we must resist it wherever
it comes from. President Roosevelt had the right idea when he said, "We have nothing to fear but Fear itself." If we re-elect
President Bush the war on terror will never end. The terrorists are invisible, therefore they can never disappear. It is our
civil liberties that may disappear instead.
An open society is always in danger. It must constantly reaffirm its principles
in order to survive. We are being sorely tested, first by 9/11 and then by President Bush's response. To pass the test we
must face reality instead of finding solace in false certainties. This election transcends party loyalties. Our future as
an open society depends on resisting the Siren's song.
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