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

To: GUSTAVE JAEGER who wrote (2825)	11/14/2003 9:11:30 AM
From: ChinuSFO	Respond to of 3959

Gustave, thank you for the classy post. Wonderful. Please keep more of such coming. I have bookmarked your links you provided in the post.

To: GUSTAVE JAEGER who wrote (2825)	11/15/2003 9:28:55 AM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3959

All things being equal, leave us alone 15-11-2003 American President George W. Bush stood in front of an audience of the adoring last week, and told them that he wants to democratise the Middle East. Presumably at the point of a gun. For that is the way his Administration is attempting to impose this particular system of governance in Iraq. Apparently he forgets - or more likely never knew - that democracy is not something that can be forced on people by violence. It has to be accepted by the citizens of a nation and sought by popular demand. The nascent electorate must desire the franchise and seek it from the leaders of their nation if it is not provided. In a democratic society, the people cannot even be compelled to vote - that is what democracy is about. Introducing such political systems into a country becomes worthless if that introduction is made by bombing the citizens into submission. Bush looks to the Middle East and, through careful indoctrination by the neo-conservatives in his Administration and blinkered narrow upbringing, believes that there is only one country in the region that is truly democratic: Israel. That, of course, is nonsense. Ask any Arab-Israeli. The franchise is limited to those deemed to be acceptable to the Israeli state. Those seen to be "beyond the pale" have never been allowed to vote and, if it continues as at present, never will be. So just what sort of democracy does Bush see in Israel? Does he wish to have a similar form of peoples' representation in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries? The franchise does exist in Lebanon, Algeria, Syria, Iran, Libya and systems of peoples representation are rapidly being introduced in other Middle East states. Is it, perhaps, that the systems employed in these countries do not match up to that in the US? But then Arabs remember the Florida count during Bush's election… gulf-news.com