Is President Bush evil?

Bloggers on the left of the political spectrum often assert that President George "Dubya" Bush is evil. To some extent, I am sympathetic to that point of view.

Like most Canadians, I disagree with the decision to invade Iraq. The original justification for going to war — i.e., that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction — was proved to be without merit. Meanwhile, attention and resources were deflected from the real enemy:  the loose network of terrorists who were responsible for 9/11 and subsequent atrocities (e.g. in Madrid and London).

The Iraqi people were delivered from Saddam Hussein's tyrannical rule, and a democratic election was held. But thousands of Iraqi non-combatants were killed in the process. The ongoing American presence is interpreted as an occupation, eliciting violent resistance, and American casualties mount steadily. The Americans and their allies have been unable to restore order and make life tolerable for the Iraqis.

In sum, it is arguable that George Bush and his advisors have screwed up, big time. But "evil" is very strong language, and I doubt it is warranted in this instance.

Recently, I made a comment on Snaars' blog that immediately called forth a rebuttal. (Snaars, I hope you don't mind that I've decided to address the issue on my blog. I'd like to broaden the discussion to include my regular readers, who will certainly be interested.)

Snaars' original post, Minority Me (which is quite interesting in its own right) had nothing to do with the war in Iraq or George Bush's presidency. I made a tangential remark, "I do not think Bush is evil in the way Hitler was evil."

To me, this seemed a perfectly unobjectionable assertion. But one of Snaars' regular readers took issue with it:

Why is hitler made out to be this evil that is so astronomical that in today's society individual's can't compare? … I think evil is as evil is. I think the fact that our defense secretary said that torture was ok to use in abu grave was evil. …

My point is not that bush is more evil then hitler, but i certainly would not want to say it isn't possible … I just want to keep my eyes open, and it is difficult right now because i feel like i'm in the same position as a german during the beginings of World War Two.

I should note that I respond sympathetically to the last sentence of the comment. The writer is deeply concerned about the direction his country is headed and, as an American, he feels personally responsible for it. He speaks for many other Americans who are similarly distressed. Their distress shows in their readiness to characterize President Bush as evil.

I responded, in part, by emphasizing the vast scope of Hitler's atrocities. Hitler not only killed six million Jews in a methodical attempt to exterminate that race. He also killed gypsies, homosexuals, communists, trade unionists, people with physical or mental infirmities, and any German who dared to oppose his absolutist rule. In addition to that, he invaded and/or bombed a series of neighbouring European nations in a bloody attempt to establish an empire.

Abu Ghraib notwithstanding, President Bush simply isn't in the same league as Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and the very few others who arguably belong in that elite category. I reach this conclusion based solely on the scope of the atrocities committed by these men.

But we still haven't answered the question, Is President Bush evil? To address the question directly, we have to define the term. What do mean, "evil"?

I'd like to introduce a distinction drawn from the field of criminal law. In law, behaviour is not considered criminal unless two criteria are met. It isn't enough merely to commit the prohibited act (actus reus); one must also have the intention (or guilty mind, mens rea).

Arguably, President Bush has made some terrible decisions with horrific consequences. We might go so far as to say that he has committed the evil act (actus reus). But has he done so intentionally? Does he have the second characteristic, the guilty mind? I hesitate to go so far in my criticism of his presidency.

Admittedly, there is one consideration which gives me pause. It seems to me that President Bush knowingly lied to the American people, and the rest of the western world, with respect to the justification for going to war in Iraq. A growing body of evidence suggests that the administration did not just exaggerate the facts, but actively sought a pretext for the invasion, and ultimately invented such a pretext.

If so, this deliberate misrepresentation of the facts was truly evil, in my view:  an instance where President Bush possessed the guilty mind in conjunction with the guilty act. This is a grave offence, when a democratic leader lies to the electorate on a life-and-death issue.

But that is the only case in which I am prepared to go so far. And even in that case, I wonder what President Bush would say in his own defence if we could have an honest and open dialogue on the subject — without political posturing. Presumably he thought the invasion of Iraq was justified, even if the private reason differed from the public pretext. In other words, he still didn't knowingly set out to do evil.

In general, I do not believe we can judge people's motives based on media reports. This is particularly true in the present climate, where objectivity is a forgotten virtue and even journalists seem to divide along ideological lines.

I would encourage people to be more circumspect in their language, but I suspect it's futile. I recognize that measured and nuanced positions are ineffectual in the current political climate. It's necessary to use inflammatory language, if you want anyone to pay any attention.

And that causes me deep concern for the future of democracy as a viable system of governance. But there I go again, off on another tangent.

[cross posted on The Art of the Rant]