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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (83436)	3/18/2003 3:32:02 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

I think it is absurd to equate the establishment and support of liberal democracies with imperialism. Ah, so you disagree with Bill. He's willing to fess up and admit it's old, unadulterated, late 19th century brand, imperialism spun in all honesty as itself. One has to be a Marxist, or similarly blinkered, to suppose that a regime that is accountable to the people through free and fair elections, has civil liberties (especially freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion), and is committed to a meliorist approach to social problems is a tyrannical imposition. Oh, my, those evil "Marxists" appearing. I have a sort of old fashioned view of democracy, that it is unlikely at best, perhaps impossible, for it to be imposed from the outside without a prior culture which supports it (perhaps Germany after WWII) or without a cultural icon who accepts it (Japan after WWII). It is more likely to appear as an alien culture imposed by an occupying force that is not seen as democracy but simply an extension of the "American way of life." They might wish to have an "Iraqi way of life." It will also, after some time, likely be seen, as an agency of McDonalds, Coke, etc. Which we would not think bad; they might well think, particularly the Shiias in the south, as culturally degenerate. And while it is true that we have supported authoritarian regimes in the past, it was generally with the understanding that we were supporting the lesser of two evils, and regimes more open to internal reform then communist regimes would be..... Oh, please, you wish to argue that US support for Central American dictators was not meant to enhance US corporations. Even the participants in the Eisenhower administration who later wrote about this, admitted their interventions had to do with American business interests.

To: Neocon who wrote (83436)	3/18/2003 4:22:22 PM
From: paul_philp	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Neocon, I have been struggling for a while to find a better metaphor than imperialism and hegemony for the Project for a New American Century ideals. I tried missionaries for a while but we are not trying convert anyone to a new belief system. The project is both less offensive and more aggressive than the missionary metaphor implies. My current favorite, although surely controversial, is the Borg. We want to assimilate them into the Capitalist/Democratic/Technological system. This will seem to some as Americanization (JohnM makes this point) but I think this is an error. The C/D/T system has an American flavor today only because America was the first to be fully assimilated. Canada, Israel, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan are examples of countries assimilated after America where the local flavor of the C/D/T system is quite different in many ways from the American flavor. I think the Arab world is being offered the choice of competing Borg assimilators - the C/D/T system and the pan-Arab theocracy system. George Bush is 'Queen of the Hive' for team C/D/T and Osama Bin Laden is 'Queen of the Hive' for team pan-Arabia. I think Bin Laden correctly viewed this competition as a winner-takes-all fight which is why he is willing to use such harsh tactics. The neocons are correct that we must actively promote the C/D/T system in the Islamic world. People talk about the Irish peace process as finally paying dividends. I see it differently. In the early '90's Ireland was assimilated into the C/D/T system and once that happened the vitality of the Irish terrorists was gone. The young generation doesn't subscribe to 'the troubles' and they largely ignore the figureheads. The old generation is started to die off. Peace in Ireland is happening one funeral at a time now. The limiting factor for a society to be fully assimilated is trust. The reason Russia went to mafia after the Soviet Union was the lack of trust. There were no institutions, practices or remedies to support fair exchanges between people, business and governments. The russian mob provided the first round of this structure. In the films Gangs of New York it very much seemed that something like mob-like institutions were providing the trust required for social order. It will take time for trust to emerge in Iraq and the first implementation of the C/D/T system may be uniquely Arabic and difficult for us to recognize. The biggest challenge will be withdrawing at that point and allowing the Iraqi people to evolve their own flavor of the C/D/T system. This is exactly how America got from 'The Gangs of New York' to Silicon Valley - evolution of the system. Our goals in Iraq and other countries is to stop things from getting worse, make enough progress so that the people of that country begin to imagine new possibilities for their futures and then get the hell out of the way and let them mature, innovate and evolve. Paul

To: Neocon who wrote (83436)	3/18/2003 4:23:27 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

You are right. Setting up democracies does not equal imperialism. The problem is, our track record on setting up liberal democracies, is poor. Very poor. Look at the list of qualities you made, qualities we both agree the U.S. should be promoting throughout the world. Where have we instituted such governments? Sure, it's happened in a few, a very few, places. But it's only happened in nations that already had developed economies. For every post-WWII Germany, there are 20 Pinochets. For every post-WWII Japan, there are 20 Shahs. The ugly fact is, we have a consistent track record, going back to the late 1800s, of setting up governments that do the exact opposite of the "good government" qualities you list. <while it is true that we have supported authoritarian regimes in the past, it was generally with the understanding that we were supporting the lesser of two evils> This is the classic rationalization used by Imperialists. When the British (and the French, and the Belgians, and all the rest) carved up Africa in the 1800s, they said, "In an ideal world, these inferior peoples could govern themselves. But we have to conquer and rule them, because we have to stop the slave trade. It is the lesser of two evils, we don't do this out of self-interest, it's for their own good. And if they don't understand this, then we may have to kill them, and keep killing them till they do understand. More slaves die through ill-treatment, than our machine-guns will kill, so we are actually saving lives by sending our armies in." When you say we are going to set up in Iraq a society that "has civil liberties (especially freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion)", this is the "triumph of hope over experience".