Quagmire

Suport them until they can support themselves? Global welfare? You use a quote, so will I, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you feed him forever". But you can't teach a person how to fish the bottoms with cheese bait (catfish, it's what everyone I know does, so it must be the best) if all they have is trout (fly fishing, I don't do that, it must be wrong).

And the wonderful quote is from and about Western culture, (against the King of England, I might add). Are you saying China should be democratic, that they have a "fundamental right"? That the residents of Vatican City
(a sovereign nation) should have self determination? Saudi Arabia? That monarchies are inherently evil?

Bah.

Well, we certainly are self-determination fans around here, aren't we.

This is indeed good news. I would advise caution before you start unrolling the "mission accomplished" banner again. Though, indeed, this is a definite positive development for Iraq's future.

That said, what about Iran? Now there's a country with WMDs, who has a fundamentalist Islamic government at the head. I hear two or three years away from a bomb.

Let's say Iraq works (why not? it's a beautiful day!) - what's next? Are you all geared up for a push across the border into Iran? Are you true believers in the mission of America to spread self-determination to all corners of the globe through preventive war? If not, why not?

Finally, I have to say that I would be genuinely delighted if Iraq comes around. I have secretly believed for years now that we would have been better off with Sadaam on our side. This is purely pragmatic reasoning - he was a butcher of the worst degree - but he was also a secular leader in the middle east who had no love for Al Qaeda or Iran. That's why we courted him in the first place.

But if the Bush people can pull off Iraq, and establish a truly legitimate democracy in that area, then that will be a major accomplishment. We will have an ally in the region who is not (hopefully) a butcher. It is the best route from that perspective (imo).

We are a long way from victory, and the profiteering that is occurring in Iraq is repulsive even by American standards. But if it all works, it could be very good.

I'm a liberal with no facts, but I do have my fingers crossed. :)

we have anon postulating that communism might be good for a certain people - 'nuf said.

Btw,
For all you communist apologists, bring it on. I can't believe you all, but try and take your best shot. Anon 10:37, foleyma, etc. I can't wait.

I found his self determination fans crack a bit unecessary.

"BS. Dictatorships are never better. Never" That is absurd. There are many historical instances of powerful singular leaders uniting warring factions into one cultural model, and causing nations to expand under peace. Charlemagne. Alexander the Great. Catherine. Not recent, granted, but certainly extant. There are more examples that don't spring to mind, I am sure some historians out there can fill in the blanks of benign dictatorships I am missing.

Democracy, something I very firmly believe in, is relatively new to humanity.
It is the best model for me, and I submit, for most. But I also submit not for all, and I will not impose my will on others, or speak for others. If they want to throw off the form of government they have and adopt a new one, they should be permitted to try, but we must not engage in jingoistic meddling, even if they want to dump democracy for a monarachy, a secular dictatorship, or a fundementalist religion based dictatorship.

I am satisfied with my system, but am enough of a pragamatist/realist to say, "Join me if you want, but I'm not going to make you."

And I am enough of an isolationist to say, "I don't care what you do, just don't mess with me, and I won't mess with you."

Sure force is justified. If I don't like your opinion about how things should be run, I should offer you my model, and if you don't take, I should punch you in the nose. It's for your own good.

King George wan't really that bad, just too many taxes on the colonists. The American revolution was economic, not political, you know.

The Shah of Iran wasn't all that bad, he didn't murder his people, and fostered western lifestyles for those of his subjects that wanted it.

Attaturk, the leader of Turkey following the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the 20th century, was not only benign, but forward.

The Dalai Lama, before the chicoms kicked him out of Tibet.

Or maybe you prefer Robert Mugabe, the duly elected president of South Africa?

To bring things up to date. To generalize the Shah while trying to bring Iran into the 20th century indulged in excess and supressed dissent creating factors that led to his ouster. The people in Turkey practice representative democracy from an Islamic point of view. Robert Mugabe is the President of Zimbabwe not South Africa. Mugabe's policies over the last few have resulted in starvation and increased poverty and dissenters are jailed or just diasappear.

All it takes is time and especially so when you had people living under decades of death, repression and fear.

Especially when they're still living under it, arguably to a worse degree. Outside the Green Zone it's nearly anarchy.

Last I checked, our history of installing democracies is rather bad, and it's not surprising, considering how hard it is to march in someplace and then suddenly tell people that they're going to have a democracy now. I challenge anyone to find me an example where a democracy was successfully imposed from outside without that power exercizing a massive occupation force to keep that country in order.

Besides, what social capital exists in Iraq outside of the mosques? The Kurds have some, since they were bascially independent once we set up the no-fly zone in the 90s, but what about the Sunnis and the Shiites?

When we do pull out, we'll either leave a very stable democracy or a civil war. For the longest time, my thoughts have leaned towards the latter just through the facts of the situation, and I've yet to have anything improve my hopes. Whether or not we leave tomorrow or two years from now, blood will be spilt when we go and I'm not thrilled with the prospect of spending American lives just to stall that eventuality.

Success! I got the right and the left hating me now!

A success story. America democratized Mexico without an occupation force. Or don't you remember Emperor Maximillian, TheSqure?

Point of clarification.

I know Napolean installed his bro, Max, but I have no idea about the time line of when Mexico became reasonably democratized. But, it went from an Empire to a democracy with the U S of A keeping a mighty close watch on what was going on.

And we kicked the Spanish crown out of Cuba with Teddy riding rough, and didn't keep an occupational force there, except for gitmo, but we must have known we would need that.

Too bad Batista was a jerk, and too bad Fidel got cut by the Giants and had to find new work as a revolutionary. He could have been a greeter at a sandwich shop in Miami.

IP, thanks for your thoughtful responses. I agree with your points, but when you cross economic structures with political structures, you are asking for trouble.

I would argue that NO economic structure has remained intact in even reasonably democratic or republic societies. The whole point of a democracy is that it is supposed to allow us to choose for ourselves to change the country's course when we don't like the way it is going.

In this way, any ultra-state--communist or capitalist--is going to have to go dictatorial to hold its power for any duration of time. At least until this current era when propaganda and controlled media threaten to change this dynamic since people vote on advertising rather than policy (I'm not accusing one side of the aisle or the other on this--both are seeking to do this).

The point I'm making is that this idea: "Communist tendencies=totally communist=it's ok for us to usurp free elections to stop it" is extremely undemocratic.

Remember, the Nordic countries are certainly Socialist-minded, and have their own strengths and weaknesses, but they are also very democratic, arguably moreso than the our great nation at the present.

Japan has many socialist systems in place, but any democratic problems it has are not related to these systems.

In the end, it seems like most of us are looking for the same thing: self-determined democracies. Believing that some socialist policy is the best way to optimize this doesn't make me stupid or best buddies with Castro, Mao, Stalin or any of the other dictatorships I despise. It just means I'm looking around the world and at history and assessing what I think works best.

In terms of the Iraq situation, I learned a lot from this article:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/pdf/050930/050930_cover.pdf

I didn't like the title or sub-title of the article, but I really found the soldier's own words interesting, but also depressing. He sounds like a brilliant interrogator who really wanted the best for Iraqi, but that his expertise was unappreciated by the leadership in his location.

As for the fluffy, antiwar or prowar stuff, I woudn't call them "anti-American" as much as "irrelevant polemicists". But don't throw the baby out with the bath water--there are plenty of people with factual compelling assessment that are very helpful in us coming to our own conclusions about the war.

At this point I'd say that as long as we are horrendous at dealing with the people of the countries we invade, it's really irrelevant whether the war itself could be justified or not--terrible things are going to come out of our occupations.