The State of Bush's Mind: Bush said: "Dictatorships shelter terrorists, and feed resentment and radicalism, and seek weapons of mass destruction." But democracies have done as good of a job in also producing radicalism and seeking (and acquiring) weapons of mass destruction. Is it a coincidence that Israel (which is falsely hailed as the only democracy in the Middle East--the only one is in actuality Cyprus--) is the only Middle East country with WMDs. Also, if one remembers history, the only country that has actually used nuclear weapons is none other than the proud "beacon of freedom." And when Bush says: "Democracies replace resentment with hope, respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbors, and join the fight against terror." Is he talking about a democratic Palestine, or does he only have in mind democracies that produce results that are in congruence with US economic and political interests? And then Bush said: "And we do not forget the other half -- in places like Syria and Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Iran" But he left out from that list tens, literally, of oppressive countries that are aligned with the US (Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, UAE, Oman, Jordan, Libya, Algeria, Guatemala, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Bahrain, etc). Quite convenient in selecting only those oppressive countries that are not aligned with the US. And when Bush names names, he misses a very important fact: that in all the cases that were integral to Bush's doctrine, and its shallow promotion of ritualistic voting (Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine), the three countries are on the verge of civil war, and social tensions and conflicts are at an all time high. Those countries face much more uncertain and violent futures, than when Bush decided to intervene. Of course, this should not be interpreted as a call for the return of Saddam (or for the return of Syrian troops to Lebanon); but US intervention (militarily and politically) have been detrimental to the stability, prosperity, and security of all three countries, and the region as a whole. One also notices that references to Lebanon are far more polite and restrained that they were slightly less than a year ago (after Hariri's assassination) when the Bush administration was invoking Lebanon almost daily, hoping to finally create that "model of Middle East democracy" that he so miserably failed to establish in Iraq. He now says: "and men and women from Lebanon to Egypt debating the rights of individuals and the necessity of freedom." True; but those men and women have been debating the rights of individuals and the necessity of freedom for decades, long before Bush was born, and they did not need his guidance or his bombs to seek reform--real reform, not Bush's or World Bank's versions--and change. But Bush's claim (regarding terrorists' aims) that "Their aim is to seize power in Iraq, and use it as a safe haven to launch attacks against America and the world." is laughable. This claim is only convincing to anybody who has not checked a map of the world in a lifetime. So Bush wants us to believe that Zarqaqi wants to establish a base in Iraq, mind you, to launch attacks across the border against....AMERICA? How does that work? Unless Zarqawi has intercontinental ballistic missiles, and there is no evidence of that, and Judith Miller has not made those claims about Zarqawi, not yet anyway. And then Bush says: " We have killed or captured many of their leaders --and for the others, their day will come." Notice that he does not even mention by name the real mastermind of Sep. 11: the person most responsible for Sep. 11 is left unnamed. Bin Laden is now subsumed under "others." (He later names Bin Laden). On the Palestinian front, the president's support for democracy becomes oddly qualified: "The Palestinian people have voted in elections. And now the leaders of Hamas must recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism, and work for lasting peace." Demands are made on the occupied, while no such demands are being made on the massively armed occupiers. Such are the standards of Bush's Doctrine. But the lack of seriousness of Bush's "push" for democracies is best exemplified by this sentence: "Saudi Arabia has taken the first steps of reform -- now it can offer its people a better future by pressing forward with those efforts. " One of the most oppressive states on earth, and certainly the most misogynistic and religiously exclusivist, is praised for cosmetic steps that it took in the last years, and which did not affect the fundamental monopolization of power by an unelected royal family, and their allies in the clerical establishment. But who can disagree with Bush when he says: " Third, we need to encourage children to take more math and science". How true. I wish that Bush was encouraged as a child to take more math, science, geography, English, arts, music, and history.