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March 20, 2005
Surprising (mis)trust
The Washington Post (via Kevin Drum) reports on some Bush administration fibbing:
In an effort to increase pressure on North Korea, the Bush administration told its Asian allies in briefings earlier this year that Pyongyang had exported nuclear material to Libya. That was a significant new charge, the first allegation that North Korea was helping to create a new nuclear weapons state.
But that is not what U.S. intelligence reported, according to two officials with detailed knowledge of the transaction. North Korea, according to the intelligence, had supplied uranium hexafluoride -- which can be enriched to weapons-grade uranium -- to Pakistan. It was Pakistan, a key U.S. ally with its own nuclear arsenal, that sold the material to Libya. The U.S. government had no evidence, the officials said, that North Korea knew of the second transaction.
There's already a fair amount of predicable outrage among liberal bloggers about this, and it's certainly justified. But I have to admit that I'm a tad surprised by Kevin's response to it. I share his opinion that Pakistan is a particularly tricky nut, and any president would be forced, by necessity, into some hypocrisy in dealings with that complicated country.
But shock at Bush misleading Asian allies over nuclear proliferation? Please. It's not as if he didn't mislead his own constituents (forget the unfortunate fact that he got away with it). I'm consistently surprised by the sheer willingness to trust Bush simply because he is the president. This was a widespread feeling before the Iraq invasion, by Bush friend and foe alike. As the facts inevitably broke against him, some people inched toward skepticism -- but not everyone. But why? If this country learned nothing else from Nixon, isn't that position and stature do not equal trust and credibility? Wasn't this country founded on an explicit skepticism for authority? Isn't this country constitutionally organized on the premise that power needs to be checked in order to be trusted?
This brings me to one of my main gripes with how John Kerry ran his campaign. Suffice to say, the man was not a smooth talker. But he was sharp. His vote in favor of the Iraq war resolution, I believe, was improper. But intellectually, he had a very compelling argument to defend his vote. Kerry could have said that, on principle, he is in favor of empowering the executive in matters of foreign policy. The war resolution, many seem to have forgotten, was not a declaration of war -- this country will probably never have another one of those. Rather, it simply authorized the president to take action as he saw fit to deal with Iraq's (supposed) WMD. Kerry's mistake -- as he should have explained it and, I believe, as he actually felt -- was not necessarily that he voted for the resolution. Rather, it was that he trusted the president -- a mistake made by all too many Americans, and thus one that many voters would have understood. To be sure, many in Congress were already sharp enough at the time to not trust the president, but you work with that you got.
Regardless, I simply cannot understand shock at any of the Bush administration's loose associations with the truth. If he misled those who elected him, I am utterly unfazed that he might have misled our Asian allies. Trust is earned, not endowed -- is that such a hard thing for Americans to grasp?
Posted by Daniel Widome at 07:06 PM to Asia,
