Turning the Bush Doctrine on its head

In the 2002 National Security Strategy, commonly referred to as the “Bush Doctrine,” the president said “America will hold to account nations that are compromised by terror, including those who harbor terrorists – because the allies of terror are the enemies of civilization.”

Later that year he used the same notion to justify a war on Afghanistan. He ordered the Taliban to hand over bin Laden, and when the Taliban asked for evidence of bin Laden’s involvement in the attacks, Bush told them they would do what he said, providing no evidence. They offered to try bin Laden in Islamic courts or send him to a third country, and Bush ignored them and went to war. He bombed Afghan civilians until their government was overthrown.

If we believe the remedial morality we learned in kindergarten, like the Golden Rule, we would apply it to present circumstances.

For weeks the government has sheltered the terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, a Venezuelan national. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez wants Posada extradited to Venezuela for the 1976 terrorist bombing of a Cuban plane, which killed 73 passengers, including Cuba’s Olympic fencing team.

So, what if we universalized the “Bush Doctrine”? After Bush refused Chavez’s orders, U.S. headlines would read “Nation Under Attack: Bush’s hypocrisy triggers Venezuelan assault.”

In Caracas they would read “A nation challenged: Chavez’s Remarks on Venezuelan Military Strikes on U.S.” and “Our Relentless Liberation.” They would tell, in striking detail, how Venezuela swooped into the U.S. at dawn with its Russian helicopters, followed by 100,000 Colombian Marxist revolutionaries, armed with 100,000 rifles (accompanied by 22,000 Cuban doctors).

They would quote President Chavez: “I have not thought about ending the bombing until the people of the United States liberate their nation … ultimately, the people of a nation are responsible for the actions of their government.”

Chavez would liberate us to death, and we would scream our thanks.

The Bush Doctrine also stated that to keep the U.S. and the world safe, America would “actively work to bring the hope of democracy, development, free markets and free trade to every corner of the world.”

So now President Chavez gets to decide how the world will look!

We don’t even have to wait for Chavez to do everything, and we don’t have to wonder if Posada is a terrorist. He’s admitted it, and we have declassified U.S. documents that prove it, too.

The same documents that show Posada’s involvement in terrorism also show that the C.I.A. trained him and paid him to commit other attacks, that the U.S. had foreknowledge of the Cuban airline attack, and that five days before the bombing, the U.S. granted a visa to the terrorist who planted the bomb.

The implications are huge: the U.S. is a state sponsor of terrorism.

If Bush were really serious, instead of waiting for the Venezuelan “liberation,” he would bomb Washington, Miami, Fort Benning in Georgia, and Langley, Virginia. He would have done that in March, when Posada first “snuck” into the U.S.

As a state sponsor of terrorism, U.S. law would force the government to ban weapons exports, oppose World Bank loans to itself and prohibit its own Defense Department from contracting with U.S. companies.

Without constant state intervention in the economy via the Pentagon, our economy collapses in minutes. With important people losing profits and the president homeless (after he bombed the White House), he would send Posada to Venezuela, in accordance with international law.

Rich and powerful states, like the rich and powerful people who run them, are above the law. They write their own laws to suit their needs. Only the weaker states have to follow the law.

It’s a good thing the president, like all the other presidents, is a hypocrite. Otherwise, he’d have no choice but to beg President Chavez to “liberate” us right now.

Khalid Adad can be reached at [email protected].