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Monday, May 08, 2006
The most dangerous man in the world
If anybody it's Dick Cheney. He's apparently trying to start a new cold war according to the Russian media. Further he says he's unperturbed by the negative reaction to his comments.
I for one, remember the cold war, and would prefer this idiot be more diplomatic if at all possible. Is that too much to ask? Anyway, Putin is a proto-dictator, whatever, so are lot's of people (Chavez doesn't even come close to Putin). He hasn't threatened to shove a hedgehog down our pants yet, so let's try not to actively piss off the only country that has enough nuclear armaments to wipe us off the map. And as far as spreading democracy and how that's the right thing to do no matter what, that's a load of bullshit. Democracy is a cure for nothing, Cheney's single-handedly proven that one false. In fact, historians will probably look back on this time as a great failure of Democracies. Failure to combat HIV, failure to combat poverty, failure to avert war, failure to protect freedoms, failure to prevent human rights violations, failure to do nearly everything the assholes at PNAC thought it would. The question is, is this a fundamental failing of democracy as a system of governance, or is just a failing of these jackasses to use democracy for good (or even just not-evil). |
5 Comments:
Lot of interesting stuff in that post.
As a place to start, your post seems hinges on the idea that democracy is not a solution. If, as you suggest, democracy is such an abject failure on issues like HIV, poverty, human rights, etc., what are you proposing as the superior form of government?
3:33 PM, May 08, 2006
I'm not saying that there is a better form, as it has been said before, it is a terrible system of government but it's the best we've got.
I'm just objecting to the language that's constantly used that suggests democracy cures problems. There is no evidence to suggest this is the case. In fact, many dictators seem to be much better at fixing problems, Castro would be an example, such as providing universal education and universal healthcare. Probably because they have the luxury of implementing plans without any feedback from officious pricks that infest democratic governments.
Further, inflicting democracy rather than allowing it to evolve organically appears to be just about the worst thing you can do. It doesn't seem to work anywhere we do it. But again, that might be because it was done poorly and under false pretenses.
Overall, this administration might have just made me a lifelong isolationist. I still feel like we can improve things in places like Darfur, or if, god forbid, we encounter an enemy like Hitler again, but for the most part we suck at intervention and should stop. Or if we do intervene, we should abandon any pretense of democracy, rule like iron-fisted imperialists until we straighten shit out, and then get kicked out by democratic revolutionaries.
6:39 PM, May 08, 2006
At the point of a gun, we imposed democracy on Japan and Germany. I don't consider our work there to have failed.
Since Saddam was a proud follower of Hitler (the Baath party is a Nazi-Stalinist fusion), the example of Germany seems relevant now. Prior to our democratization, Germany was at the center of a European war every couple decades. Saddam, a good student, seemed to start middle-east wars at an even faster rate: Iran, Kuwait. Hitler gassed Jews and Saddam gassed the Kurds.
I don't see how one can claim that a democratic Iraq would be worse for the world.
1:52 AM, May 09, 2006
Ha!
Sorry Jim, but the whole Japan and Germany argument is getting kind of tired. As it has been pointed out endlessly, both of those countries had homogeneous populations and Japan at least had an entirely intact infrastructure. Iraq is a post-imperialistic nightmare combination of three groups of people who hate eachother's guts. There is a reason the Brits abandoned the place 80 years ago. Second, the people who imposed Democracy at the point of a gun in those cases were competent, they had enough troops, but even so 50 years later we still have troops in both of those countries. Finally, those two countries are the exception to the rule. Most of our other interventions have been disastrous, especially our misguided cold-war adventures like installing the Shah in Iran, Pinochet in Chile, our misadventures in Vietnam, Guatemala, Congo and Panama. What else? Cuba in 1898, our bombing of Cambodia leading to the rise of the Khmer Rouge, the Phillipines, Somalia, all mistakes leading to horrible consequences down the road. I can only think of two successful interventions in the last few decades, Grenada and Serbia. Not exactly a stellar track record.
Further, I didn't claim a democratic Iraq would be worse (although I think it is for the reasons above), I just said installing Democracy is not a solution to problems like our dear leader constantly suggests. Democracy is not a cure-all, or even a cure-some. There is no evidence to suggest that Democratization alone is sufficient to make anyone's life better, and instead it might just allow sectarian conflict held down by a strongman to flare up and lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths. We might have improved Iraq if we knew what we were doing, instead, we've created a devastating civil war killing thousands of civilians a month.
Finally, Saddam Hussein was not comparable to either Hitler or Stalin, whether the Baathists had fascist roots or not. These men systematically killed millions. Further he did not create wars at a fast rate. He was in control of the country for about 35 years and started one and a half (do you really think Iran was innocent in the Iran-Iraq war? If so, why were we on Saddam's side?) Finally, if you believe the Lancet studies or Iraq body count, we've probably surpassed Saddam in the number of civilians killed by virtue of our intervention. This is not an improvement no matter how bad he was.
3:05 AM, May 09, 2006
1). If you look at post-WWII history, you will see that the media was as or more hysterical about the failures of occupation in Germany as they are now about Iraq. Hysterical sells papers.
2). The examples you point to are generally about the US installing dictatorships (Vietnam, Chile, etc.). Their failures would seem to point to the virtue of trying democracy instead.
3). The Lancet study on civilian casualties was an outlier. Not even Osama
claims the US caused casualties on even the same order of magnitude.
4). While Lancet extrapolated to wild estimates, we have, by contrast, hard evidence, in the way of mass graves, to show that Saddam was not the good person some now claim.
5). Many Democrats say that Iraq democracy is bound to fail because of the lack of a homogeneous population. Often these same Democrats oppose any US immigration controls and get offended at the suggestion that the US should have, at a minimum, a common language. Do they want the US to fail or do they not really think that a homogeneous population is important?
Regards,
Jim
3:48 PM, May 12, 2006
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