President of self-liberated America visits self-liberated Hungary

A few days ago, President Bush visited Hungary to commemorate the 50th anniversary of a citizen uprising against communist rule. An uprising crushed by external Soviet aggression.

Of course, the real point of his trip was to make false analogies between the 1956 Hungarian uprising and the 2006 Iraq excursion, a photo op to prop up his reeling presidency.

Said Bush, "We've learned from your example, and we resolve that when people stand up for their freedom, America will stand with them."

It's clear that Bush did NOT learn from Hungary's example. Comparisons between Hungary '56 (and the actual liberation of Eastern Europe in '89-91) and Iraq '06 are striking more for their significant differences.

The first significant difference is that Hungarians revolted against foreign domination. They revolted against foreign military occupation. Does Bush want to encourage Iraqis to do this?

The most obvious difference is that in Hungary, the people rose up themselves to revolt against oppression. In fact, this is how all of Eastern Europe was liberated in the late 80s and early 90s. Neither Hungary nor the rest of Eastern Europe was liberated via a US military invasion. While the US and the west offered moral and financial support to dissident groups, ultimately it was the Eastern Europeans who took the initiative to liberate themselves. Contrary to popular myth, Ronald Reagan did not bring down the Iron Curtain. Hungarians did. Czechs and Slovaks did. Poles did.

This is why Eastern Europe's transition to relatively stable democratic systems was fairly seamless and why Iraq is in chaos and civil war (and getting worse). Eastern Europeans wanted democracy and freedom enough to make it happen themselves so they had a stake in making it work.

Eastern Europe is an example of the correct way for the US to help facilitate democracy, human rights and freedom. It's the only way that works.

It's no coincidence that Eastern Europe is the only part of the world where the US is viewed generally favorably. That's because it's the only region of the world where we did things the right way.