Article to dis-cuss?

[♦ nivek ♦]

If so inclined, read 'till end of article.

 

Let the fire begin!

 

kL

***************

 

http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=7674

 

Faith-Based War

by Patrick J. Buchanan

 

"This is a very positive day . for world peace," said

President Bush, following the referendum on a new

Iraqi constitution. "Democracies are peaceful

countries." Considering that Iraq is perhaps the least

peaceful country on earth, the statement seemed

jarring.

 

It should not be. For it reflects a quasi-religious

transformation in George W. Bush - his political

conversion to democratism, a faith-based ideology that

holds democracy to be the cure for mankind's ills, and

its absence to be the principal cause of terror and

war.

 

In the theology of a devout democratist, if Americans

will only persevere in using their power to convert

the Islamic world, then the whole world, to democracy,

we will come as close as mankind can to creating

heaven on earth.

 

As Bush said in his second inaugural, "So, it is the

policy of the United States to seek and support the

growth of democratic movements and institutions in

every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of

ending tyranny in our world."

 

Speaking two weeks ago to the 20th birthday conclave

of the National Endowment for Democracy, Bush recited

the true believer's creed: "If the peoples [of the

Middle East] are permitted to choose their own destiny

. by their participation as free men and women, then

the extremists will be marginalized and the flow of

violent radicalism to the rest of the world will slow

and eventually end."

 

The president was seconded by Vice President Cheney on

CNN: "I think . we will, in fact, succeed in getting

democracy established in Iraq, and I think that when

we do, that will be the end of the insurgency."

 

Upon this faith Bush has wagered his presidency, the

lives of America's best and bravest, and our entire

position in the Middle East and the world. But as the

Los Angeles Times' Tyler Marshall and Louise Roug

report, U.S. field commander George Casey is skeptical

that any election where Iraq's Sunnis are dispossessed

of preeminence and power will ensure an end to terror.

It may, he warns, bring new Sunni support for the

insurgency.

 

Also challenging the Bush faith is Brian Jenkins, a

terrorism specialist at RAND. He cites Colombia, Sri

Lanka, the Philippines, and Northern Ireland as

countries where democracy has failed to end political

violence.

 

Nathan Brown, a Mideast expert at the Carnegie

Endowment, agrees: "The democratic process as it has

worked so far [in Iraq] has certainly done nothing to

undermine the insurgency."

 

But the most sweeping challenge to President Bush's

faith-based war comes from F. Gregory Gause III in

Foreign Affairs. Writes Gause: "There is no evidence

that democracy reduces terror. Indeed, a democratic

Middle East would probably result in Islamist

governments unwilling to cooperate with Washington."

 

In Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, it is anti-American

Islamists who seem positioned to seize power should it

fall from the hands of the authoritarian rulers the

National Endowment for Democracy and its

neoconservative allies seek to destabilize and dump

over.

 

If Gause is right and Bush wrong, the fruits of our

bloody war for democracy in Iraq could mean a Middle

East more hostile to American values and U.S. vital

interests than the one Bush inherited.

 

That would be a strategic disaster of historic

dimension.

 

Not only does democracy offer no guarantee against

terror, writes Gause, democracies are the most

frequent targets of terror. Not one incident of terror

was reported in China between 2000 and 2003, but

democratic India suffered 203. Israel, the most

democratic nation in the Middle East, endured scores

of acts of terror from 2000 to 2005. Syria's

dictatorship experienced almost none. While Saddam's

Iraq was terror-free, democratic Iraq suffers daily

attacks.

 

Researching 25 years of suicide bombings, scholar

Robert Pape found the leading cause was not a lack of

democracy, but the presence of troops from democratic

nations on lands terrorists believe by right belong to

them.

 

The United States was hit on 9/11 because we had an

army on Saudi soil. Britain and Spain were hit for

sending troops to occupy Iraq. Russia was hit at

Beslan because she is perceived as occupying Chechnya.

 

Democracy is thus no more a cure for terror than its

absence is the cause. Osama has no moral objection to

dictatorships. He means to establish one, a caliphate

where mosque and state are joined, and sharia law is

imposed without recourse to referendum.

 

As with Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Ho, and Castro, so, too,

with bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Such men seek

absolute power and use revolutionary terror as the

means to establish their dictatorships.

 

By January, we shall know whether Iraqi democracy is

the antidote to terror Bush believes it to be. If it

is not, he and we will have to face the grim

consequences of his conversion to a utopian ideology

in the name of which he pursued a potentially

calamitous three-year war.

[Ouroboros]

Didn't the Roman Empire expand from the same argument, that they were superior in its construction of politics and government than the other countries, and had the right to force their ideas on them? I mean, isn't this how imperialism starts? Even if democracy is a good thing, it's not good to force it on other countries, people don't accept freedom by force, but freedom they have bought themselves. Just like American freedom was bought in the blood and lives of the Americans that sacrificed their lives. That's the only way to bring people in under the same ideology. IMO.

[Japedo]

5 of my $0.02

 

First, The United States is actually a Representative Republic and not a Democracy, (Hence why the Mob doesn't rule here, and the individual gets the same rights as the majority).

 

Second. One can not give freedom, it has to be taken and wanted.

 

Third, The Middle east doesn't want 'freedom' in any way shape or form, Actually Iraq was run by a secular government when it was under Saddam. (Not saying I agree with him in the least, but it never the less is still a fact)

 

Fourth, The ME is run as a Theocracy, where the holy books rule the land. Just as swift, and bloody as the holy books are too. These people have no want or desire for freedom, they wish to abide what they feel is gods will, with Gods laws, not 'mans' laws, and wish to run their country as such. The United States has Zero rights dictating any sort of governments or policies over there. We after all gave them Saddam, I think we should stay the hell out of it.

 

Fifth, Saddam is/was removed, what are we still 'liberating' the people from? It will go like the rest of the ME, Tribal, and war will not cease there in our lifetimes. They hate each other but their common enemy is the US, who refuses to stay out of ME Policies. It will get hairier and more people will die, no side will ever concede that they are in the wrong...

[Skankboy]

I agree. The new "red white and blue" menace of today is identicle to the "red" menace of the cold war years. We are doing exactly the same thing we were trying to stop the Soviets from doing and using exactly the same excuse to do it (ie, our way is the best for mankind).

 

Han's got it right, from the Roman Empire, to the Conquistadors, to Manifest Destiny, to today's Operation Freedom; the names and ideologies change but the idea that we're doing it "for their own good" seems to be the common thread throughout.

[Guest Guest_Beverly_*]

Can I get in my 2 cents too??/

 

Personally, I don't think it has anything to do with religious war, or faith based war.

 

George was born a polititian. (of the R variety)

they routinely seek out the christian voter block

 

churches are polling places

87 billion in faith based funding is a hugh incentive to the pastors to get out the vote (and you all know "gods" pick in this election)

 

So, if you can peddle your agenda past the christians, bingo...

 

it's about the oil

 

George and the boys just manipulated the sheeple by promising big bucks and positions of power to the Pastors, the pastors will "guide the flock" in how to think.

 

As it turned out though,,, the actual figures on that faith based funding turned out to be much less than promised,

 

and now that he is in his second term.... Pastor got kicked to the curb, money wise, but, some key appointments to power are being made...

 

the Repubs are going to want to mobilize the sheeple in the future.

 

many of the big christian/evangelical types are cheesed off, and organizing marches on Washington now. power is OK, but they still want the money.

 

You all know how it is when you don't pay your tithe..

 

"God" gets testy

 

They can talk religion all they want, but, in the end,,, it's about the money and oil

 

Beverly

[Gnosis of Disbelief]

Buchanan's one of those frustrating people that I either agree or

disagree with strongly. In this case, I pretty much agree with him;

democracy is not some magic elixir that will automatically cure all

the world's ills, and despite the neocons' propaganda, this fantasy

has been disproven over and over again in recent history.

Democracy is a relatively rare and often short-lived form of

government that tends to degenerate into demagoguery and

tyranny over the long haul.

 

I also do not get why the form of government that works for one

group of people should somehow work for all groups of people.

There are a lot of religious and cultural factors in the Middle East

that militate against the idea of western democracy there. The

people of that part of the world have to find a form of government

that best suits them. And, given the long history of conquest and

foreign rule that those people have experienced, they are not going

to respect any government that is imposed on them from the

outside.

 

 

They can talk religion all they want, but,  in the end,,, it's about the money and oil

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Religion, money, and power have mixed from time immemorial.

The Crusades were just as much about European princes controlling

lucrative trade routes to India and China as they were about

religion. Not quite a thousand years later, and the christians are

still mucking about there, only now it's about oil and not silk or

spices. The more things change, the more things stay the same....

[Casey]

Fifth, Saddam is/was removed, what are we still 'liberating' the people from? It will go like the rest of the ME, Tribal, and war will not cease there in our lifetimes. They hate each other but their common enemy is the US, who refuses to stay out of ME Policies. It will get hairier and more people will die, no side will ever concede that they are in the wrong...

 

They have him on trial at the moment, but according to the news broadcast I saw this morning, his trial has been adjourned because if I recall correctly, "Too many witnesses are too scared to come forward".

 

I wonder why?

Casey