Does Mr. Bush's Foreign Policy Mirror The American Peoples' Soul?

Occasionally a writer sums up a great deal with one metaphor, and the pen proves to be mightier than the sword. And so it is with American novelist E. L. Doctorow's essay, The Unfeeling President.

Mr. Doctorow finds Mr. Bush's glibly-Reaganesque capacity to emotionally disconnect himself from the people he's devastating, while simultaneously waxing optimistic about the harm he's inflicting, to be a metaphor for America's anesthetized descent into a collective state of shriveled soullessness.

Hence, realists who've retained soulful feeling are experiencing the Bush presidency as "mourning in America." They grieve the loss of our liberal foreign policy, which was strongest when we focused not on the example of our force, but on the force of our example. They agonize over the fact that the USA's 2003 military budget of $450 billion constituted almost half of the world's total 2003 military expenditures of $958 billion. They openly question the effectiveness of the USA spending fifteen times more on its own military (i.e., $450 billion) than it did on foreign aid (i.e., $15 billion) in 2003.

Indeed, the American people seemingly have become morally-blind to their own bullying by inventing for themselves a new type of quasi-cinematic Spectator War, in which indifference to the mass killing of innocent civilian noncombatants is perceived as normal, while the rest of the world perceives it as evidence of a superpower gone rogue. Some would go so far as to suggest that there are historical parallels between Germany in the 1930s and the USA in 2004: The Psychology Of Mass Subservience To Tyranny.

Here are two possible reasons for that trait of deadly indifference, in addition to psychological denial, subconscious racism, and the long-term absence of international warfare on American soil: (A) David Mamet's "Bring It On: Violent Movies - And War Movies - Give Us The Thrill Of Victory. But What Happens When War Becomes Reality?"; and (B) Joan Ryan's "Army's Computer War Game Recruits Kids".

And what about the American peoples' ongoing indifference to the illegality of the Iraq War under international law: Was The Iraq War Legal, Or Illegal, Under International Law?

Conclusion: Mr. Doctorow arrives at the unstated-but-implicit conclusion that a national electorate tends to unconsciously assign to itself exactly the kind of "heroic" leadership that it truly deserves, as in Life Imitates Art: They Call Them Heroes.

The Bottom Line: (1) Shouldn't we be using this presidential election as a referendum on the unwise militarization of American foreign policy?; (2) Isn't Mr. Bush's neocon strategy of "Waging Aggressive War For Peace In The Mideast" the diplomatic equivalent of "Holding Orgies For Monogamy In The Marriage Bed"?; and (3) If so, shouldn't Mr. Bush be promptly turned out of office for his dangerous militarization of US foreign policy, which has alienated our allies, isolated us from the world community, and inflamed global anti-Americanism -- Islamic and secular alike -- to unprecedented levels?

Author: Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D. Executive Director American Center for International Law ("ACIL")

©2004EAPIII