Bulgarians For Bush
By James Bowden (11/01/04)
I am on the edge of the American Empire again. Bulgaria this time. Then, Romania until the day before the election. My business is to meet with officers and officials from each Ministry of Defense and discuss how U.S./U.K. expertise can help them get ready to deploy and fight better as U.S. Allies. Both of these Balkan countries have troops in Iraq. Romania also has soldiers in Afghanistan. They’ve suffered casualties in every combat situation. Yet, they are modernizing their forces to have brigades ready at ‘a moment’s notice’ to go with the U.S. – from now on.
Sen. Kerry doesn’t get it. Kerry laments the Iraq Coalition lacks old allies. That’s code for the French and Germans who sulk in their tents seeking more honor. Ironically, they mope before they’ve done their duty and earned any present glory. Meanwhile, the nations that have suffered under Communist Totalitarianism can’t wait to fight along side American legions against Islamist Totalitarianism. They are bold and brave when Islamist threats are actually on their borders and Muslim minorities are their citizens.
Our Willing Allies aren’t backward. Many of their officers attended our service schools and earned advanced degrees from our universities in the fleeting years after 1989. Their questions are probing. Their analysis is keen. I mentioned Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilizations’ concept at a working lunch. The officers knew the book well – and a lot more. My American engineer colleagues never heard the ideas. Yet, I couldn’t find a technical, operational, or historical aspect that was beyond Bulgarian familiarity.
Capitalism is just taking hold here. The effect is exciting. There’s dynamism for forward progress fueled by confidence. Bigger is the liberating power of economic opportunity. Ronald Reagan was so right. The people aren’t wallowing in the despair of their poverty, and they’re still very poor, but they’re filled with hope. Hope is happening before their eyes, one building at a time, as capitalism growths wealth and wealth makes jobs.
Sen. Kerry definitely doesn’t get that either. Kerry marries wealth and then expects Americans to be peasants and settle for the socialism that people, who suffered under socialism, spit on. Kerry wants ‘wealthy’ people earning a penny over $200k combined income to pay punishing taxes (45% Federal alone), while he and Queen Maria Therese, as the entitled super-rich, pay less than the law (12%) and most working families.
One Bulgarian Officer told me how they are considering a national voucher system for education in a country that has no tradition of private education. He said it was to create ‘more opportunities’ for all people to decide for themselves. After I recovered from my shock, I asked him about our Presidential election. He said he didn’t care about the person, but he did value ‘the ideas’ that win. This Bulgarian Officer supports the re-election of President George W. Bush. He wasn’t the only one.
Yet, the Clinton (or is it the ‘Communist’?) News Network , CNN International, has program after bloody program about how Europe is against Bush. On one show their talking heads made much of how Bush’s Evangelical Christian faith was an example of the divide in interests – and futures - between Europe and the U.S. Not a single journalist spoke up for Bush’s Weltanschauung (worldview). Yet, I see Balkan women wearing crosses and hear Balkan officers talk about their future forces as being a ‘Christian’ army. Maybe there is a blue-red divide in Europe like the blue-red counties and cities separation in the U.S. A British fellow in our party said we don’t know about the growing conservative, and Christian, movement in the heart of the U.K. – but outside of London.
All the other networks carried on cable – Bulgarian, Romanian, Greek, Turkish, Italian, British, French, German and Spanish – have news stories about our election. The papers are full of news. The foreigners understand our power. Many resent it, some hate it, and some want to be part of it. Most see the Imperial responsibilities of the American Republic, even if we Americans hate calling our duty and destiny by old names.
One more thing to consider when turning out the vote of everyone who will listen to you – why are Bulgarians for Bush? Bulgarians are for Bush because individual freedom and economic opportunity is the twin helical in the DNA of democracies. Bulgarians are for Bush because freedom isn’t free – ask people who lived under Communist Totalitarianism – and it’s worth fighting other Totalitarianisms in faraway places to stay free.
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