The National Security Strategy (Bush Doctrine) makes support for liberty and democracy a fundamental element of US foreign policy.
In pursuit of our goals, our first imperative is to clarify what we stand for: the United States must defend liberty and justice because these principles are right and true for all people everywhere. No nation owns these aspirations, and no nation is exempt from them. Fathers and mothers in all societies want their children to be educated and to live free from poverty and violence. No people on earth yearn to be oppressed, aspire to servitude, or eagerly await the midnight knock of the secret police.President Bush has (many times) said that in the past the US was too tolerant of regimes that mistreated their own people and that this was short-sighted.
America must stand firmly for the nonnegotiable demands of human dignity: the rule of law; limits on the absolute power of the state; free speech; freedom of worship; equal justice; respect for women; religious and ethnic tolerance; and respect for private property.
I've mentioned this to people here occasionally and they've dismissed this as a cosmetic change. They didn't believe it when the President starting putting pressure on the Saudis and Egyptians. Now this policy has (seemingly) cost the US some important military bases in Uzbekistan. The eviction came 4 days before a US diplomat arrived to "pressure Tashkent to allow an international investigation into the Andijan protests, which human rights groups and three U.S. senators who met with eyewitnesses said killed about 500 people".
I'm not convinced that this devotion to liberty will best serve US interests, but it seems beyond doubt that the Bush Administration is serious about this policy.
