Bush is just doing his best

Re “Bush’s best-laid plans,” Opinion, Dec. 30

I was surprised by Andrew J. Bacevich’s article regarding President Bush’s attempts to influence Pakistan. Although I am not a fan of the president, it seems rather naive to criticize Bush for trying to manage history. This is exactly what almost every administration, and every other country with some power, has always tried to do. We have a long history of trying to influence other countries. Some have succeeded (the Marshall Plan in Western Europe, Poland, perhaps even the Philippines), and some have failed (Iran, Vietnam, Cuba). Perhaps if we were more involved, we could have stopped Nazi Germany in its early stages. Who knows? To say Bush is unique and bad for trying this seems naive or just anti-Bush.

Andrew Bressler

Culver City

Bacevich’s comments are all based on his acceptance of one questionable supposition: that Bush’s goal is the spread of democracy and freedom.

If the supposition changes to one of Bush hoping to achieve eventual dominance and control of Middle East oil reserves, then creating turmoil in the region might be the only way such a goal can be achieved. Public affirmation about democracy becomes mere rhetoric designed to distract.

Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan to run against President Pervez Musharraf in so-called democratic elections. Who would lose by Bhutto’s successful comeback? Obviously, Musharraf. But what about the Bush administration? Without Musharraf, it would lose its puppet.

Ultimately, Bush’s goals are not freedom and democracy in the world. If events in the Middle East since 2002 are viewed with that thought in mind, the puzzle pieces fall into place.

Sharon Graham

Huntington Beach

Bacevich is unconvincing. If America truly has no influence in Pakistan, why did Musharraf end martial law, resign his military position and call for elections in which his major opponent was a pro-Western, U.S.-backed woman that he permitted to return from exile? Must we really throw up our hands and accept the status of spectator when Al Qaeda assassinates arguably the most revolutionary politician in the Muslim world? I see no wisdom in Bacevich’s argument to stop our efforts to support freedom and democracy while our enemies work so hard to inflict their murderous ideology on people who are giving their lives for the right to vote.

Robert Johnston

Rancho Palos Verdes

I figured the Bhutto assassination showed that fanatic-infested places like Pakistan have a lot of bad people who do bad things. But The Times was able to find someone to teach us the real lesson, which is the folly of the Bush administration for trying to “manage history.” Bacevich thinks the U.S. is powerless to affect events, and we should therefore not attempt to manage anything at all.

This is triumphalism of a perverse, anti-American sort. Maybe we should ask a Kosovar, a Czech, a Pole, a Kuwaiti and an Iraqi Kurd or Shiite whether the U.S. has made any contribution to the big picture of the last 60 years, which is a steady growth in that corny Bushism ridiculed by the liberal professoriate, “freedom.” It’s different, of course, when the international event in question is climate change, or Darfur, or working conditions in sovereign nations.

Robert Sydow

Manhattan Beach