Freedom Isn't Free

Certainly Vladimir Putin must be annoyed by our Boy King’s efforts to upstage Russia’s VE celebrations with his little freedom tour of the Baltic States.

On the lowest level, it’s probably an expression of Bush’s corrosive egotism — his insistence that he can’t bear to pay second fiddle to any other national leader — in any venue and regardless of the downside for America’s image or his effectiveness as a diplomat.

Did I say “corrosive”?

Make that pathological.

Consider George’s public humiliation of the president of Latvia. On the same trip that he’s using the Baltic States to tweak the Soviets for trampling on the aspirations of the Letts, Estonians, and Lithuanians for freedom, dignity, and self-determination for 45 long years, he demonstrates his belief that “Latvia” is probably just some foreign word for doormat:

After Bush finished, Vike-Freiberga (Pres. Of Latvia) then explained that they would take four questions — one for each president. Again, Bush tried to interrupt, saying, "Or you can have all four questions to me," knowing that foreign reporters usually want to use the opportunity to probe the U.S. president.

Vike-Freiberga ignored the remark as she called on a Latvian journalist, and Bush threw his arms up and looked to help from aides offstage. The Latvian journalist said he would prefer to question the U.S. leader, and Bush responded, "Yeah, I thought that might be the case."

And as he predicted, all four questions were for him.

Actually, Bush can pride himself on another trifecta. He managed to make the presidents of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania — all sharing the podium with him — look impotent and pathetic at the same time.

On another level, Bushism simply represents the shifting time frames of a new generation.

Ronald Reagan’s personal movie featured him winning World War II.

George’s interior infomercial celebrates him conquering post-war tyranny.

But I think there’s something else at work.

All this blather about freedom is meant to shift the dominant narrative away from the achievements and sacrifices of nation-states to the crusade for freedom and its slightly less respectable doppelganger, property rights.

To me, the domination of the Baltic States by the Soviet Union, tyrannical and awful as it was, pales in comparison to the apocalyptic horror of World War II.

Freedom and democracy didn’t save Europe from Nazism.

Neither did big business.

In fact, I sort of remember big business was along for the Nazi ride.

The Balts didn’t do much of the heavy lifting, either.

Despite the grandiose Bush soundbite:

There is no power like the power of freedom and no soldier as strong as a soldier who fights for that freedom

...it took raw Soviet power to do the job.

It took Russians and Communists fighting for their country — a tyrannical system of socialism in one country.

Not the spiritual forefathers of Ken Lay, Dick Cheney, Jonah Goldberg…

…or George W. Bush.

That’s kind of awkward when America’s new state ideology is all about exalting the achievements of businesspeople over bureaucrats, entrepreneurs over big government, religious privilege over civic duty…

…property rights over human rights…

…private power over public power.

So a lot of history has to be ignored, distorted, or forgotten.

And fresh crimes have to be committed, defended, and repeated.

Nation-states, as long as they weren’t overtly genocidal, were once respected as the supreme legitimate actors on the world stage and recognized as the most effective representatives and protectors of their peoples’ interests.

Nation-states had a pretty good run in the 20th century, saving Europe and Asia from Fascism and liberating the third world from colonialism.

Despite this track record, big business has always chafed at governments’ assertion that the public good could transcend and supersede private interest.

Thanks to decades of assiduous, duplicitous, and well-financed efforts by the American right, the U.S. government has been brought to heel.

Internationally, the quest for ascendancy of private power was expressed most completely and perfectly as contempt for national sovereignty.

Enter Iraq.

In defiance of the international order, we destroyed a sovereign state for no good reason. No al Qaeda links, no WMDs, no nuthin.

The best we can say it was an awful mistake of unimaginable incompetence.

It’s probably more accurate to say it was a brutal crime committed with malice aforethought and concealed after the fact with active and cynical deception.

Maybe an apology was in order?

Nah.

In the post-invasion cover-up, sovereignty itself became the crime — because it stood in the way of “freedom”.

And now we are left with the tatters of a new world order in which private power, unilateral pre-emption, deception, and destabilization are meant to fill the void left by the eradication of meaningful sovereignty.

The Bush administration hopes it will struggle through this morass with its flimsy, ad hoc rationales for a bright, shiny world of “freedom” - based on the serial destabilization of sovereign states — unchallenged.

Don’t worry, Bush will have help…

…as long as liberals allow themselves to get dragged into arguments about whether the Iraq invasion brought democracy to the Middle East.

The Iraq invasion brought death to the Middle East.

And the idea that we should ignore the crime that took place so we can admire its collateral consequences is like saying…

…we should be thankful that 9/11 improved the skyline in downtown Manhattan.

Maybe there can be a legitimate discussion about whether a sovereign state’s right to speak for its people and even to exist can be rescinded because the United States feels that its obeisances before the gods of private enterprise and property rights are insufficiently complete and sincere…

…or because its leaders refuse to genuflect wholeheartedly before the hollow imperial idol that is George W. Bush.

But we sure aren’t having that discussion today.

Instead we stand around with embarrassed frowns, unable to muster the guts and perspective to insist that freedom must go hand in hand with wisdom, restraint, and mercy, not reckless aggression and geopolitical opportunism

We pretend that the costs and consequences of an international campaign of U.S. unilateralism cloaked in the name of freedom are too derisory, tangential, or difficult to calculate.

But in our hearts we know destruction of sovereignty — a nation — has its own terrible cost.

“Freedom” isn’t free.

Ask any Iraqi.

Peter Lee is the creator of the anti-war satire and commentary website Halcyon Days. He can be reached at peter@halcyondays.info.