Hawk, do you live in the pages of some fictional book? Why not, for once, try to address real world issues in real world terms instead of resorting to your usual sloganeering, false-assumptioned rhetoric? Maybe a good start would be to try reconcile the following glib assertions contained in your post with realities:
*"I don't care if they have "our style" of democracy. What's important is that they have a government that is elected by, and anwerable to, the people of that country."
Why? How would that work in Iraq where the "elected majority" are "answerable to" a population who are dangerously intolerant and brutal and where there are ancient hatreds that are, even today, resulting in brutal executions of the men, women and children of other sects?
But of course the "people" can change their leaders if they don't like the leadership, right? You say:
*"And I want that for a very important reason. Accountable governments have got to please the people that elected it. Just as Bush's poll ratings have fallen and he's had to adjust his policies, or do major damage control, I want the Iraqis and every other individual on God's green earth, to have the very same right.."
Forgetting that it's not "God's green earth" but rather "Allah's sand colored earth," that's a very good thing if the "people" who constitute the majority are well intentioned, respectful of the rights of others and just. But what if the "people" who constitute the majority are narrow minded, ignorant, radicalized by culture, history and religion and unjust?
Won't they "elect" leaders that will do their intolerant, punitive will? Won't they make those leaders "please" those mean spirited desires? Do you really "want the Iraqis and every other individual on God's green earth, to have the very same right [to force their will on their leaders]..?" Are you so ignorant of human nature and so unaware of the history of Iraq that you're willing to wish a Shiite dominated police force, judiciary and military on the minority sects in Iraq?
I think you are at least that ignorant because you can't even seem to envision that there may be horrendous problems. You wrote:
*"Why the pursuit of fostering such a government in Iraq should be so controversial is beyond my comprehension."
If you'd stop thinking in platitudes and slogans about how a democratic form of government is the best form of government for every nation IN EVERY INSTANCE then maybe you'd be able to understand why fostering a truly democratic form of government in a country like Iraq is controversial.
Why don't you answer the question I posed to Michael:
"And Michael, despite your assertion that "None of this was inevitable," it was all inevitable. The problems in Iraq are problems that would have raised their deadly heads and struck sooner or later no matter how many troops we'd sent in and no matter how efficiently we'd "governed" the newly defeated country. The original premises were fatally flawed...still are.
Hey, if you disagree then tell me honestly how you, as a Sunni or a Kurd in a unified, democratically run Iraq would welcome rule by a bunch of religiously grounded, largely ignorant Shiites who elected leaders with views compatible with their own to run the country? Trust the police? Trust the military? Feel comfortable to worship in ways that are deemed heretic by the majority? Think you'll get your fair share of power, justice, economic benefit, etc.? Wonder if you'll get hauled away, tortured and shot in the head some night? Worry about your daughters getting raped and beaten for their Kurdish or Sunni dress or ways?
You CANNOT have a fair, just and functioning democracy when a majority of the voting public is neither fair, tolerant nor just. Their leaders will reflect their failings and those who are "not us" will pay with their lives, their freedoms and their wallets....
So you see, I agree with you that in a democracy the leaders will reflect the will of the majority. In Shiite-majority Iraq, this decade, this century, that's not a good thing for the Sunnis, the Kurds, the west or the good name of democracy.
If you want an Iraqi democracy that is benevolent and just then you'd better favor waiting to give their culture generations of time to accept some of the precepts that allow tolerance or, alternatively, you'd better favor allowing the nation of Iraq to segregate itself into separate nations that will tolerate the different beliefs and sects that would reside within the new borders.
Because if a strong federal Iraq comes to being dominated by the ignorant shiite, religious zealot majority, I wouldn't want to have had any part in creating that. Ed |
