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And I would hardly blame Bush alone for eroding trust in the US government. It’s been going on for a long time, at least since JFK’s assassination, when people started to not believe everything the government told them (I think some level of scepticism always existed, it just increased). The negative side of increasing freedom of the press and american life was the spreading of crap leftist (and other) ideas infecting and destroying any trust in the government at all. That’s why there are so many ridiculous conspiracy theories that have sprung up around everything under the sun. I still hear people blaming the CIA for almost anything that occurs anywhere on the planet.

Actually, I think there’s been plenty of scepticism throughout history, it’s not just a recent thing. But with the rise of the internet and the easy spread of ideas, it has become easier to diseminate information and ideas, whether good or bad. This is a great thing, but we should never lose our scepticism of the government nor of those who criticize the government, as they may have a hidden agenda, just as the government does. In other words, be sceptical of the government and be sceptical of the critics of government.

Snow, I’d like you to find the major speech where Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, or Rice makes the case for the war in Iraq based on “gaining a foothold in the region.” Seriously, try.

OTOH, I do remember a certain speech at the U.N., but I don’t think Powell claimed that we needed to conquer Iraq for greater basing rights in the Middle East. What was his main argument, do you remember?

tequila, I never said that this was Bush et al used the ‘foothold in the Middle East’ idea as their main justification. I don’t know what they said to the public as I don’t live in the US and don’t read many American news sources. As far as I understood it, it was for this reason that they went in. Above, I say that the Bush admin went in for this reason, because they thought it was the right thing to do. It seems that it was not a realistic goal and they didn’t plan well for it, but I believe that the reasons for it were this, among others, and I see nothing wrong with that idea. That’s why I supported the war, because I thought it would give them a foothold in the region. I don’t know what most Americans thought or were told. I still think it was a noble goal, just unrealistic and poorly planned.

I think Ron Paul hit the nail on the head in the recent republican debates about our interventionist foreign policy. The WMD argument was used to whip up the American public for the war, but the real reason for the war was a misguided attempt to invade and “recreate” the middle-east in the same manner that we “recreated” Japan and Germany following our defeat of them with WWII. In other words, the Iraq war was a continuation of our “missionary” foreign policy of trying to convert the rest of the world to “Americanism”, rightly or wrongly.

There are numerous reasons why this attempt was illfated from the beginning, based on the flawed comparision of the muslim middle-east with Japan and germany.

Snow,

I don’t think anything you said was leftist at all. I agree with you that public trust in government has been eroding since JFK (if not before). The government kept a great many secrets as part of fighting the cold war, secrets that have proliferated over time and have created uncertainty in the minds of much of the public. Combine this with stuff that LBJ and Nixon did, a certain distrust of government by the public is warranted. Bush is the continuation of a trend that began in the 60’s.

Consider that some of the Bush administration are Nixon retreads (like Rummy).