Bush Spins at the UN

George W. Bush's September 21 speech to the United Nations, marked by an air of unreality and hypocrisy, was insulting to many other nations. Bush presented the United States as the world's premier social worker, leading the fight against AIDS, poverty, child trafficking, human cloning and genocide in Darfur. At best, the Administration has a mixed record in these areas, while the United States continues to give less overseas aid as a percentage of gross national income than any other industrialized country. Moreover, the Administration has focused virtually nonstop on terrorism and Iraq, even when other countries have wanted to talk about trade, economic development and other issues.

Bush further insulted his listeners by speaking about Iraq as if the United States did what other UN members were not willing to do--namely, enforce UN Security Council resolutions. By arguing that the war on Iraq was necessary to enforce such resolutions, he ignored the irony of the situation as revealed after the US invasion: Iraq, it turned out, was in substantial compliance with UN demands to disarm. Bush made no acknowledgment of error in the US assessment of the Iraqi threat or its violation of the UN charter in going to war there, nor any acknowledgment of the chaos and destruction caused by its misguided adventure.

At the same time, Bush presented Iraq and Afghanistan as cases in which the United States was leading a noble cause to bring democracy and liberty to the peoples of the Middle East, while ignoring the problems his policies have helped cause: He made no mention of growing radicalism, heightened hostilities or the money and lives wasted. He likewise gave no sense that the United States is willing to rethink its policies and priorities, and thus offered little reason for other countries to extend significant help in stabilizing Iraq. He did give a nod toward a somewhat more evenhanded approach to the Israeli-Palestinian problem, but he started by talking about the failures of the Palestinian leadership, not the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Subscriber Login

User Name

Password

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.