>>>Ms Young and her fans don’t seem to understand that Putin is a leader who fits the circumstances of Russia, not those of the United States. Were he the POTUS here, he’d fit the American culture, and that is what the conservatives (assume and) admire in him.<<<
Bingo. I have always said that neocon doctrine of judging every society under same measures is a failure. It was probably intentional misconception, designed to destabilize said societies under a naive belief that neocons are able to manage following chaos.
It was clear since the very beginning they can’t but their policies had a fresh start and still gaining momentum under Obama to further ruin US influence.
The reality is Jefferson or Reagan won’t make any good presidents for Syria or Libya, just like Assad junior or Q-duffy won’t make it in US politics.
A set of values and traditions are absolutely different.
You can’t drill with a hummer or nail with a drill. Societies are different in a same way and different methods required to govern them.
The problem is Americans for most part are able to reconcile freedom and responsibilities but the residents of Arab nations aren’t. They don’t give a flying hug about separation of powers, fair elections, free enterprise etc. For muslims liberty is a freedom to kill a Christian, to rape a neighbor’s underage daughter and rob a Jew. But a significant part of population dislike an idea of being killed, raped and robbed by either party. It takes no less than Saddam Hussein and public executions to keep said party from performing this way on a daily basis.
I think it is pretty much clear why Saddam didn’t need to address a question of political liberties first and it is an extremely primitive to think he didn’t just to hold power.
Saddam was good at that the majority of his people wanted, he had an economy providing higher standards of living comparing to the rest of the region, as a secular dictator he kept jihadi rapists and murderers in constant fear, both at home and he wasn’t shy to cross some national borders to bleed their noses abroad if needed.
It worked for the majority of his people well, right until jihadis provoked Saddam into some stupid (from international PR perspective) things to defend his nation and then bought western media and politicians to bring Iraq to oblivion in 1990.
You won’t sell safety before freedom in America for obvious reason, yet. It makes Saddam a bad American president.
The French, the Germans, the Russians are different is some way or another too.
If you are about to judge a foreign leader you have to evaluate his approval rating first. If one is a popular leader and his policies aren’t directly hostile to US (it doesn’t mean one has to be pro-American) consider one a good leader.
You state, "Bingo. I have always said that neocon doctrine of judging every society under same measures is a failure." Actually it is an absurd misconception growing out of their origins--according to their own "Godfather," in admiration for Leon Trotsky, the chief butcher in the Bolshevik takeover of Russia. (See The Neocon Phenomenon, where we look at the phenomenon by analyzing their own words, in depth. The Trotsky influenced manifestation are truly ex-communists, with delusions of grandeur.)
Ultimately, the ideology, you refute, boils down to a fundamental attack on the very concept of the nation; which has always been based upon the uniqueness, the exceptionalism of every people. Not only the Marxists, but the Ivy League seekers of World Government, of course, as well as various other fantasy seekers, seek to undermine the concept.
William Flax