Saturday, February 18, 2006

Bush's war on Democracy

Many of the President's international initiatives are driven by a proclaimed desire to spread democracy. One thing that he and his administration appears to not have considered is, what happens when we don't like who is democratically elected.

Democracy in the Palestinian Territory has resulted in a terrorist group being put in charge of the country. Now both Israel and the US have to deal with a group we have spent years denouncing. Sec. Rice is not only talking about the US discontinuing aid to the Palestinian Authority, but warning Arab states that they better not fund them either.

We are in a war of words with Venezuela, because of their leader Chevaz. A man elected twice by margins greater than Bush. Despite the fact he was elected and confirmed democratically, we don't like his economic ideas, so we denounce him.

With Iraq we see an Islamic party winning the election. This party will end up much more closely aligned with and Iran than the west. An Iran we denounce, despite the fact that it is much more a democracy than our friends in the area, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwaiti and any number of other non democratic but west friendly nations.

So, now not only do we have a war on Poverty, a war on Drugs, a war on Terror, but a war on Democracy (if that democracy doesn't happen to walk in lock step with the current administration).




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2 comments:

Lynne said...

Absolutely correct. Good post.

JFH said...

I've always said the Democracy as a positive measure of a country is greatly overrated. Freedom (of the Press, of Speech etc.) and Personal Liberty are far more important than Democratic elections.

Of course, without fair and democratic elections it IS difficult to acheive these latter goals, but that doesn't mean that free elections equate to a free society.