A critique on government's fundamentalism , September 16, 2006
In his last effort to dump George Bush, Soros resorts to his stern objectivity and economic savvy to expose the disastrous consequences of keeping a drug-rehabilitated and born-again Christian in the driver's seat of a superpower. Soros attributes to the latter traits, Bush's experience with the devil. Bush found his mission in 9/11 and the neocons found their man in Bush. That was crude social Darwinism achieved by military supremacy to ensure national survival and subjugate the rest of the world. The nation that is fittest militarily survives, others perish. Hoping that Bush would lose the 2004 election, Soros described the Bush's doctrine as a bubble of supremacy that would soon burst. He li kens military fundamentalism by market fundamentalism. Both tend to favor the interest of individual nations and disregard the collective welfare of whole body of nations. Thus, as the sole superpower, America is wasting its treasures and making its mistakes that caused far-from equilibrium world peace. Since there is no other nation stronger than America, America would only decline by virtue of its own mistakes. Those are plenty, thanks to Bush's doctrine. Soros takes on Bush's proclamation to rally the world for the American cause and to take the war to the enemy. In an open society, people choose for themselves and do not need others to rally them. Thus, Bush's views of subjugating the world to his American causes are fundamentalist, not only militarily and economically, but also religiously. Secondly, the enemy has no address to wage war at. Soros brilliantly relies on the dictum of victim-perpetrator analogy to analyze many examples of international terrors. He concludes that America should have never overreacted to 9/11 in such manner that squandered opportunities for world peace. Terror was around since the beginning of history and would not disappear soon. It is even worse when nations turn terrorists and not realize it. He exemplifies that with our count of our deaths in Iraq while forgetting about the Iraqi deaths. One of the craziest ideas, Soros discusses, is the MAD; mutual assured destruction, which calls for wide spread of nuclear weapons such that nations would be deterred by fear from mutual destruction. Similarly is the debate over the war on drug; whether to deal with addicts as sick or criminals? Whether illicit drugs made legal? Soros outlines three scenarios for getting into the Iraq quagmire: Oil, Israel, and Imperial supremacy. Those are concealed under the façade of spreading democracy and ridding of weapons of mass destruction. He overlooks the personal influence of the rich Kuwaitis and Saudis dreaded Saddam's adventures. To Soros' dismay, reason does not prevail in politics or in economics. His theory on reflexivity in economics, has a role in politics as well. Electorate has emotions that determine future leaders. Leaders have emotions that shape their decisions. Thus, world peace is as unpredictable as world market. The bust and boom, in economics, works well in politics. Yet, with all the criticism to Bush's policy in Iraq, history might credit Bush for his daring and charismatic risk in altering the course of a totalitarian regime. Getting Saddam into a prison cell would not be forgotten for generations and might even be correlated with biblical justice in the eyes of many Muslims. Major historical landmarks were made by radical leaders.
By
:
