Democracy Versus Security
Which is more critical to the United States in the Islamic world—that a government be democratic, or that it be a friend and ally in the war against al-Qaida and Islamic extremism?
In the Bush era, the answer has seemed unequivocal.
We are for democracy first. For democracy is the best guarantee of our security interests. As Condi Rice famously said in 2005 at Cairo University:
For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither. Now, we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people.
As the United States expelled the Soviet Union from the Middle East, brought peace between Egypt and Israel, and won the Cold War, Rice's statement was both false and full of hubris and condescension toward 11 U.S. presidents, who, whatever their failings, put U.S. interests above all else.
Nevertheless, democracy first became declared Bush policy.
Pursuing it, Bush and Rice demanded elections across the Middle East. What did they produce? Victories for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Moqtada al Sadr in Iraq and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran.
Why did free elections fail to advance U.S. interests?
Because the most powerful currents running in the region are populism, nationalism, Islamic fundamentalism, anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism, all of which translate into popular recoils from leaders seen as too close to the United States. In survey after survey, Arab and Islamic peoples declared Bush to be the least admired world leader and America among the least respected of nations.
And if the volatile peoples of this region harbor such hostile attitudes, why would we insist on elections that would bring to power regimes responsive to those attitudes?
After the victories of Hamas and Hezbollah, stability did not look so bad and the White House seemed to back away from its demand that friendly autocrats and monarchs seek the approval of the masses at the ballot box. U.S. interests, in friendly regimes, appeared to have trumped democratist ideology.
Now, however, the United States is demanding that Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf remove his uniform, end the state of emergency and hold free elections, which we anticipate will be won by the Pakistan Peoples Party of Benazir Bhutto or the Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif. Bhutto and Sharif were both prime minister twice in the 1980s and 1990s, and both were charged with corruption and forced to flee after the 1999 coup of Musharraf.
Under Secretary of State John Negroponte delivered this tough message to Musharraf and was rebuffed, though the general agreed to step down as commander in chief by the end of the month and hold elections in January, in which he intends to run again for president.
A new Supreme Court, the previous justices having been ousted by Musharraf before they could rule against him, has declared that the general is eligible for a new five-year term.
Thus, we now have a nation of 170 million Muslims with nuclear weapons in political chaos. Tribal leaders in the border regions have been giving sanctuary and support to the Taliban, and Islamist warriors have taken over the Swat valley, 100 miles from the capital. There are reports of army and police surrendering to the Islamists, even of defections to their ranks. The roadside bomb that almost killed Bhutto and did kill and wound hundreds of her followers on her return is indicative of the insecurity in the cities. Pakistan could come apart.
What the situation in Pakistan tells us is that there are more important considerations than how leaders or governments are chosen. In the case of Pakistan, the first imperative is that the government in control of those nuclear weapons, be it autocratic or democratic, be stable, reliable and not hostile to the United States.
A pro-American general in charge of the army and nuclear weapons may be preferable to having custody of those weapons turned over to a coalition government of politicians brought to power through a plebiscite in a country where anti-Americanism is pandemic.
Indeed, given our failure to anticipate or predict election results in Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran, how can we be sure that Islamists will not win a share of power in Islamabad?
Not only in Pakistan, but in other Muslim nations like Egypt and Turkey, military men willing to intervene to prevent their countries from falling to Islamism are surely preferable to elected Islamists like Ahmadinejad or elected leaders who may feel compelled to bend with the prevailing radical winds.
Order comes first—for without order, there is no true freedom.
When one considers that today Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and the sheikdoms of the Gulf are ruled by monarchs, and Iran's president was democratically elected, we ought to recognize that while free elections are nice, national interests come first.
COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
Entries(RSS)
"Which is more critical to the United States in the Islamic world—that a government be democratic, or that it be a friend and ally in the war against al-Qaida and Islamic extremism?
In the Bush era, the answer has seemed unequivocal.
We are for democracy first. For democracy is the best guarantee of our security interests."
What is most critical to the true interests of the American people, rather than out corrupt government, is that the Islamic world remain in the middle east of the Asian continent. As long as those benighted heathens are there, we can stay out of their AO and keep them out of ours.
The presumption that the US has any compelling interests in that hellish part of the globe is absurd anyway and has had terrible consequences. We, as a people, would be best served by leaving islamic peoples and nations alone to handle their own affairs.
If they want to sell oil, US based oil companies can import it, but there are other sources for that commodity and no oil company deserves access to the US military or diplomatic corps for protecting their interests.
Why should Americans care what the heathens in Pakistan do as long as they aren't doing it over here?
The point that Mr Buchanan misses is that it precisely because the US has supported, and continues to support, regimes under which no American would willingly live that democracy, almost automatically, produces leaders who are hostile to the US. Trying now to repress democracy will simply confrim the people in their belief that no good can come from the US and that its local henchmen can be got rid of only by violence.
Bear in mind also that democracy has thrown up leaders hostile to the US in Latin America and Europe, and we'll see what becomes of John Howard next Saturday. There is nothing purely middele-eastern or islamic about the phenomenon.
Honest Abe, Woodrow Wilson, FDR. What place does W. take in that list?
Mr. Kenney writes :
"The point that Mr Buchanan misses is that it precisely because the US has supported, and continues to support, regimes under which no American would willingly live that democracy, almost automatically, produces leaders who are hostile to the US."
Assyria has never in its history been democratic. Neither is it a place that Americans will ever willingly inhabit. The point Mr. Buchanan makes is that America's interest is not and therefore,
should not, always be measured by what form of government a people possess. Most Americans would rather have cheap fuel purchased from dictators, than expensive wars to purchase democracy. Mr. Buchanan is a realistic American patriot and not an ideaologue for causes. For those types,one should look toward the State Department and all those diplomats telling Secretary Rice how they would prefer to watch democracy grow from the shores of the Potomac than the shores of the
Tigris and Euphrates.
Mr. Buchanan is being disingenuous here. The elections in Iran he cites, to take only one example, were not free. And his criteria for America's friendship, that it be a stable and reliable ally in the war against terror, entitles Israel to our friendship, yet he would withhold our friendship for that state if he had his wish.
'that it be a stable and reliable ally in the war against terror, entitles Israel to our friendship, yet he would withhold our friendship for that state if he had his wish."
This is not evident or consistent from anything that I have read or heard concerning Mr. Buchanan's opinions towards Israel. If you could provide the info. I would greatly appreciate it. Certainly he has been critical of the equivocation of US and Israeli interests, or in fighting wars in that part of the world that are not in our national interest, but so far as I know, he has always maintained an obligation in arms, technology and trade towards Israel. Are you speaking about foreign aid ? Or is it your opinion that Israeli and American interests in the Middle East are always synonymous ?
Patrick, very interesting and well said. Watching the war from North of the border sometimes leaves me wondering why the US ever imagined it could srong arm a few million Muslims into believing that the Democratic American way of life was something they want and need. If one basis there veiw of America on the western media they would mostly see the negative, ie: the murders, the gays getting married, gay rodeo, Jerry Springer Show types, high speed chases, etc.etc., There is no wonder that honest hard working, God fearing Muslim would never want to live in a democratic country that displays it self to the world through a window filled with those images. If only the headlines would read "Millions of American families got up today, sent their children to school, and all went well! And gave thanks to God" This would be most likely be a very true statement and one that would even impress the eastern world!
"Why should Americans care what the heathens in Pakistan do as long as they aren’t doing it over here?"
Hear, hear! But with due respect, I wouldn't term them "heathens", Mr. Roberts; I've an online friend in Islamabad who's a devout Muslim, and I don't consider Muslims to be "heathens".
"Honest Abe, Woodrow Wilson, FDR. What place does W. take in that list?"
MAP, little jugeared Dubyer is simply the most recent addition to that list of tyrannical, lying mass murderers. He is surely the most ignorant and childish on the list, but he fits right in as a self righteous tyrant who places no value at all on human life or liberty.
Surely you aren't trying to claim that W isn't in the same league as those "great presidents" you listed. If you are, you're simply not aware that W is as Godless a lying, faux-pious heathen as Abe, as delusional a fool as Woody and every bit as much an amoral socialist and admirer of fascism as Frankie.
"Hear, hear! But with due respect, I wouldn’t term them “heathens”, Mr. Roberts; I’ve an online friend in Islamabad who’s a devout Muslim, and I don’t consider Muslims to be “heathens”."
My apologies, Mr. Alexander. The heathens I refer to are the violent warmakers in Pakistan who are like their kind in every country on earth. I don't consider all muslims heathens. People who see war as a godly enterprise are the heathens I referred to. Our country has its share of those, as well.
I have moslem neighbors who immigrated from Palestine in the 1960s. I regard them as my civilized friends, as you regard your online friend in Islamabad.
No slander of innocent peoples was intended.
Empire costs more than it's worth and serves only the special interests of a nation who call their own interests 'national security', while the general population suffers in real terms including morally at home in accepting empire as a given. Those special interests we are schooled to confuse with 'national security' so thoroughly manipulate our own democracy, some of them may have decided the Middle East would become more facile in this regard if the ME went 'democratic.' It backfired, but in backfiring serves the interests of israel, not the interests of the oil companies or the interests of the people of the u.s. The policy was structured to be win-win for israel - if the ME went democratic and became more susceptible to manipulation as a result (win) - if not which was much more likely to be the case then the ensuing turmoil would keep the u.s. bogged down in the ME (win).
Israel and the neocons are cynical about our empire (and by proxy, theirs) but will milk it and ride beside it for as long as it is in their own interests to do so. In that regard one cannot blame the nation-state of Israel for doing and conducting its foreign policy in the same manner we wish our government and nation would conduct its own.
We can only blame the israeli spies in the u.s. who through their lobby AIPAC help israel to achieve its aims underhandedly as well, at the expense of the people of the u.s. Why such agents are permitted to have 'dual citizenship' - is both symptomatic of the problem and a good indication of who wags the dog in this case. But don't we all know that, really?
"Which is more critical to the United States in the Islamic world—that a government be democratic, or that it be a friend and ally in the war against al-Qaida and Islamic extremism?"
Shouldn't the US proceed on the assumption that my enemy's enemy is my friend? Who cares whether help in the struggle against fanatical Islam, comes from a despot or a democrat ?
What is a heathen? A heathen, related to Germanic Heide, is someone living on the heath, that is, in the boondocks. It is thus used to translate the Latin paganus, country-dweller, which came to mean a rustic who preserved the old religion and had not yet converted to Christianity. In heathen earlier times it was used also as equivalent to gentile and thus properly applied to Muslims. In these more sensitive times, however, we have promulgated the false notion that Muslims accept the authority of the Scriptures and thus are not heathens. In fact, they only accept the Old and New Testaments in a very peculiar sense. The Koran represents the uncorrupted tradition, while the books read by Christians and Jews have been falsified. Therefore, it is quite correct, if not entirely polite, to refer to Muslims as heathens in much the same way that Mormons refer to us Christians as "gentiles," a term which coming from their own mouths excludes them from Christianity. I find it very odd the way people in the West have become so sensitive to the feelings of Muslims. Of course there are good Muslims, just as there have beenn good Nazis and good Klansmen, but how rarely we hear it said. One should not hate non-Christians--Muslims, Mormons, Jehovies, Jews, atheists, Gaia-worshippers--but there is no particular reason to be especially sensitive to their feelings and every reason to make it clear that they are not we.
And, no, the enemy of my enemy, though he may be my ally on occasion, is hardly ever my friend. Was Stalin our friend? It is this error that leads us to think of Israel as a friend, because it is hated by Muslims, or of Muslims as friends, because they oppose Israel. It may sound a bit tautological, but in truth only a friend can be a friend.
Mr. Kenny
Democracy does not produce anything. Rather it is the product of advanced culture characterized by enlightened self interest. Democracy did not produce the American spirit, the American spirit demanded democracy. Americans, at least those of my generation and those not indoctrinated in K through 16+ socialist educational temples would never allow despotic governments. The socialist Euros with their despotic nanny states, the intellectually and technologically stagnant middle easterners, the chronically unstable and inept socialist Latin Americans and Africans, all are characterized by "has been" or "never have been" cultures. Interestingly, they all have turned their backs on enlightened SELF interest and embraced the "socialist man" paradigm of "from all according to their ability to all according to their need." Are we, as a nation, rejecting enlightened national (self) interest and embracing the rotten corpse of socialist one-worldism aka Bush's Globalist Democracy?
Of course there are good Muslims, just as there have beenn good Nazis and good Klansmen, but how rarely we hear it said. One should not hate non-Christians–Muslims, Mormons, Jehovies, Jews, atheists, Gaia-worshippers–but there is no particular reason to be especially sensitive to their feelings and every reason to make it clear that they are not we.
And, no, the enemy of my enemy, though he may be my ally on occasion, is hardly ever my friend. Was Stalin our friend? It is this error that leads us to think of Israel as a friend, because it is hated by Muslims, or of Muslims as friends, because they oppose Israel. It may sound a bit tautological, but in truth only a friend can be a friend. -TJF
"It may sound a bit tautological, but in truth only a friend can be a friend." - That, your last line in the above is the simple which eludes, when the media constantly brainwashes otherwise.
That one no longer has one's own media is only possible because western christianity's values became unsustainably or perhaps prematurely liberal, given the ideologies of those it sought to include.
Those whom western christianity's Values sought to include, do not share them, because their ideology and subsequent beliefs/thus behaviours, regard those values only as something to bend, in their conquering of the christian ideology its subsequent beliefs/behaviors and peoples. Be clear about that, if possible.
For example a supremacist ideology which has elevated supremacism to the level of the sacred views friendship this way: I'll allow you [the other] to obey me. If you do not obey me then you are choosing to no longer be my friend and thus i'll attack you. ... And, this standard of friendship within a supremacist ideology does not apply within the ideology/group itself. It applies only to the other.
In this regard these ideologies (also calling themselves religions) really are the antithesis of the christian ideology/religion upon which western european civilization was founded. Which conversely elevates to the level of the sacred - inclusion of all of those who would choose to join its ranks and the veritable denial of any kind of necessary delineation of peoples, genders etc. at the level of the sacred in the eyes of its Church once they have chosen to join together in this sacred belief and Church of Christ. As well as the acceptance of those who have chosen not to join. ...
The other ideologies calling themselves religions do not even have such voluntary inclusion and pacific intent as a sacred goal, never mind as a current practice. In Fact their end goal is supremacism of their own ideology/and even of their own people or blood group which has been elevated to the level of the sacred in their belief system.
So far it has been perhaps the hubris of the west's christianity to expect to be able to include these ideologies in its own area of operation. When it is considered a sacred duty by those being included, based on their own ideology and subsequent beliefs/behaviors, to oppose and undermine at every turn these same western/christian Values and the people of these Values, who ironically have misguidedly opened their gates to them. So you are correct that 'we are not them.' But I'll add, in fact they do not Do what we do - rather they are obliged as a sacred duty to do the opposite in relation to ourselves as what we do and now it is to our profound, not merely tangential detriment. And they are organized and obliged to do this as a sacred duty. *They never know when to stop, and yet they accuse God in their own belief system of never knowing when to stop. It's probably why THEY never know when to stop... it's God's fault.
No one can deny this. No one will appear here to deny it and debate it, because then it opens up the can of worms : - no? - let's LOOK at and deconstruct your ideology and so-called 'religion.'
So instead of denying this and debating it, the others will attack and demonize the party pointing out these obvious FACTS and putting them in the light. Because otherwise debate will expose to public scrutiny their own ideology, beliefs and behaviors sacred to themselves while at the same time obviously and profoundly deleterious to the rest of us. They can't abide that, since it loses them their cover. And this is why they also must keep the media. Because now that they have it, their-media to placate the values of the West, pretends to freedom while there is none in it. That is Not even a Value of Their own. So they are right on track even 'sacredly' speaking. You think they're going to change?
Happy Thanksgiving.
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"Order comes first—for without order, there is no true freedom."
Interestingly, this is almost an exact qoute --
"Order, not freedom, is the highest principle, and the best guarantee also of the right degree of freedom"
-- from Heinrich Pesch's "Ethics and the National Economy", as translated by Rupert Ederer. Fr. Heinrich Pesch, S. J. was the great, Catholic, and maybe the world's greatest, economist ever;and he provided the basis for all of the great Papal social encyclicals of the late 19th and 20th centuries. He is the only real intellectual antidote to Mises, and the house shills who man and graduate from our academies of "higher learning".
Buchanan says Iran's president was democratically elected. I seem to recall that almost all the prospective candidates were forbidden by the ruling clerics to participate in that election. What is Buchanan talking about?
TJF, you said:
"And, no, the enemy of my enemy, though he may be my ally on occasion, is hardly ever my friend. Was Stalin our friend? It is this error that leads us to think of Israel as a friend, because it is hated by Muslims, or of Muslims as friends, because they oppose Israel. It may sound a bit tautological, but in truth only a friend can be a friend."
I don't think of Israel as a friend because Muslims hate them. I think of Israel as a friend because they believe in freedom and practice it pretty well for a nation under perpetual siege. And anyone who thinks of Muslims as friends, because they oppose Israel, is as good as someone who thinks of Nazis as friends, because Nazis opposed the U.S.
For me the chief political divide in the world is between freedom and dictatorship. Freedom is what makes Europe and the U.S. -- and Israel -- so phenomenally productive by comparison with the despotic culture of Islam. It is freedom, in part, that explains why Jews have received roughly 1500 times the number of Nobels per capita received by Muslims. (Jews: 1/100,000 vs. Muslims: 1/150,000,000.)
But I understand this is the website where all the people congregate who have a thing about the Jewish lobby and Jewish influence in the States. We'll never agree about that, I'm pretty sure.
Ed Roberts, you said:
"I have moslem neighbors who immigrated from Palestine in the 1960s. I regard them as my civilized friends, as you regard your online friend in Islamabad."
Perhaps you know that the Qur'an tells Muslims not to befriend non-Muslims, except deceptively, to guard against non-Muslims and further Islam. I'm not trying to say that your Muslim friends are not truly your friends. But insofar as they are truly your friends, maybe they are not entirely faithful Muslims.
Qur'an Chapter 3, Verse 28:
Let not the believers take disbelievers for their friends in preference to believers. Whoso doeth that hath no connection with Allah unless (it be) that ye but guard yourselves against them, taking (as it were) security. Allah biddeth you beware (only) of Himself. Unto Allah is the journeying.
Stephen Bourque, you said
"...no wonder that honest hard working, God fearing Muslim would never want to live in a democratic country that displays it self to the world through a window filled with those images. If only the headlines would read “Millions of American families got up today, sent their children to school, and all went well! And gave thanks to God” This would be most likely be a very true statement and one that would even impress the eastern world!"
The United States could be as pure as you like and Islam would still demand that Muslims (and everyone else) live under Islamic law, not democracy. From the time of Muhammad, Islam has been indistinguishably a religion and a state. By contrast the central figure in the New Testament said (as I'm sure you know) to give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. Muhammad actually BECAME Caesar. By contrast the main figure of the New Testament is reputed to have refused, as a demonic temptation, rulership over the whole earth. He is reputed to have said "My kindgom is not of this world." He told his disciples that he who would be greatest among them would not lord over them but would serve them and wash their feet. With all these reported statements and acts, the New Testament planted the seeds of a separation of religion and state that took many centuries to bear fruit. Islam's core doctrines not only contain few or no such seeds of separation between religion and state; Islam is in many ways as hostile to such seeds as the sand dunes of Arabia are hostile to agriculture.
No, it doesn't so much matter what we in the West do. Islam will seek to subjugate us under Islamic law and to overthrow democracy and freedom of religion and speech even if we are all as sober and unlicentious as can be imagined and our media shows only "moral" and "ethical" fare.
Some speak of a hope for an Islamic Reformation. Others point out that that is what the harsh Wahabism of Saudi Arabia was, a return to the original texts and core of Islam in its purity. So maybe what is needed is not a Reformation but a deliteralization of certain core Islamic texts.
Others point to Muslim Indonesia as a supposed example of Islamic democracy in action. Yet just recently 41 Christians were sentenced to five years in prision for the horrible crime of...proselytizing!! The leader of an heretical Muslim sect was forced to recant his views, under pain of a similar five year sentence. You will have hear of the Christian schoolgirls beheaded a while back on their way to school by Muslim extremists. Or perhaps you will have heard of the recent party the anti-terror chief of Indonesia held for convicted terrorists, including some of the Bali bombers. Or the hundreds of Christian churches that have been destroyed in Indonesia. So Indonesia might be a democracy by some definition, but it ain't free. If the Muslim world is to be reformed, the focus should be on freedom first, democracy second. Otherwise the electorate puts extremists in office, as the Palestinians did with Hamas.
Turkey, vaunted as an example of Islamic democracy, is arguably worse than Indonesia. Every month or so someone throws a molotov cocktail into some church, or beats a priest. Recently three Christians were tortured and murdered. Prime Minister Erdogan refused to condemn that huge hit of a movie Valley of the Wolves, in which American soldiers are portrayed as murdering Iraqis to sell their organs on the medical market, with the help of a Jewish doctor. Mein Kampf recently sold 100,000 copies and would have sold more if Germany had not prevailed on the Turkish government to ban the book. But maybe there are some admirers of Mein Kampf around here. I hope not.
The rest of the Muslim world is far worse than Turkey or Indonesia.
Call in and check out our interview tonight at 8PM EST with Dr. Paul L. Williams, author of The Day of Islam at thirdrailradio.com