Posted on 03/06/2006 4:03:26 AM PST by frankjr
THE "DEMOCRACY backlash" is in full swing, largely because of the carnage in Iraq and the electoral success of the terrorist organization Hamas in the Palestinian Authority. In the past week our op-ed writers from right to left have expressed doubts about, or opposition to, the Bush administration's project of encouraging democracy in the Middle East.
There are and will be many lessons to be drawn from that, but "democracy cannot be imposed by force" is not one of them. For one thing, democracies do sometimes emerge from wars (Japan and Germany). ...Saddam Hussein represented a threat to U.S. national security interests -- in the weapons he was thought to possess and to crave, his flouting of international norms, his totalitarian example and his ambition to dominate the Middle East.
...But radical Islamists and others hostile to Western interests cannot be wished away: They are powerful forces in the Middle East that, until their recent participation in elections, pursued their goals by terrorism. Democratic participation has caused Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah and at least some of Iraq's Sunni and Shiite groups to scale back violence at least temporarily.
So it's fair to oppose democracy promotion, but only if you're honest about the alternative. Throughout much of the Muslim world, that alternative is not a gentle flowering of civil society but the conditions that after Sept. 11 were recognized as threatening: closed and stagnant economies that leave millions of young people unemployed; brutal secret police services that permeate society and stifle education and free thinking; corrupt rulers who nurture religious extremism to shield themselves at home and make trouble abroad.
But without elections, ...-- without some measure of accountability to the people -- what will induce a dictator to allow civil society to grow? The "realists" need to answer that question, too.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Thanks for the article.
Important article asking great questions and offering great insight!
We went to war with Iraq because Iraq was a threat to our security and regional stability!!!
How dastardly are the demon rat critics who distort our history for their own political gain. Their hunger to regain power is overshadowing any good judgment, as they become an evil force which welcomes division, happily weakening us and bringing us down.
This mess with hamas being elected is not a bad strike against Democracy , its a strike against the people who elected Hamas. They decided what kind of government they wanted , now let them stew in their own juice. Cut off funds to Hamas, and Isolate them like you would any person with plague. Like we should have done with AIDS.
He could add South Korea to that.CIA World FactBook South Korea
America should have set up the government to allow for the first ten ammendments of the U.S. constitional liberties being given to the Iraq people, the first ammendment right being the single most importants and especially the freedom to worship . Without religious freedom, their is no freedom.
Athiests and Islamics have much in common.
Exactly! And now we know.
You know for whom Hamas' election was a black eye?
The Israeli liberals!
And all everywhere who maintained that peace with these war like neighbors was both imminent and attainable. The election revealed how wrong they were -- fortunately for Israel if you ask me.
IMO anyone who voted for Hamas is a terrorist. Stop all this talk about Peaceful Islamics and radical Islamics.
They all read the same book and it says destroy infidels.
Thats us folks. Wake up.
Yes, and in all three cases, Japan, Germany and South Korea, we established a democratic government after subduing a militant global threat.
Iraq is proving to be messy, the advent of a terrorist underground adds a new twist, but the desire of the people to be free and to vote...HOPEFULLY...will bring a new way of life to Iraq.
There are few of them left.
The biggest difference in Iraq as compared to the others is that the other cases each involved a society that was primarily one ethnicity. In Iraq, not only do you have different ethnic groups, but even within the same ethnic group, you have dominant and aggressive rival religios sects.
This isn't to say that it can't be done, of course. It's just pointing out that it will likely be more difficult.
And the funny part is the hate filled Islamics would take out the liberals, the feminists and the gays first. Ironic that the liberals, the most vocal critics of Bush's war on terror, are actually de facto defenders of totalitarianists and their violent movements, void of human rights.
This is information that an enlightened press would be presenting for perspective and balance in the difficulties we (and the Iraqi people) are having reigning in these warring factions with their power craving despots.
But N-o-o-o-o! the press is so anti US that it publishes every skirmish as a sure sign of ultimate mission failure.
The kind (an un-inoculated).. you.. foolishly believe should be invited to live in your house and the kind you 'wisely' don't...
Either way.. in the end.. you and your family will be dead....
imo
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