What You Don't Read in the Papers

[Moldran]

IMO, the real question is not "is it possible to bring democracy by force". It is also not "is it possible to bring democracy to Iraq by force".

The real question is: Is the US/the coalition willing to put enough efforts into it ?
Are they willing to pay the price ?
And how high will that price be ?

Establishing Democracy in Germany and stabilizing Eurcope came at a high price (1% of US gross national product into Marshall Plan for years - just one example). The US had a strong motivation to put alot of effort into it because of the beginning conflict with the USSR.

Establishing Democracy in Iraq requires alot of money, military presence for an extended period of time, continuous intervention on many social and political levels. And the world is not going to like the US for that intervention.

I fear that the US are not willing to pay the price at the moment. Their interest in a real democracy in Iraq is not strong enough. As it looks now, they will probably do a half-baked thing. Which is still better than Baath fasciscm probably.

[Zenda]

Surely the Iraqi people would have preferred enough water instead of the ability to open bank accounts, this past half year. Are they now supposed to take loans to buy coca cola? And how is those high wages for elite professions going to help?

I wouldn't blame them if they don't like this kind of democracy.

Was this from one of those pamflets used to boost morale of the troops there?

[Haider]

According to people who live there or where there, it is everything else than a success now:

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/
http://www.back-to-iraq.com/

I would love to see a reliable source for all this claims in the parent (yeah, yeah, you won't name it - a pity. So it is only a random list of things which sound like coming the WH-PR-machine). Some of them have been shown to be less than honest already (like the Iraqi Battallion, which already lost half its members (ARVN anyone?), the schools which are open (they were since day one after Saddam left - without the help of the Occupation force), but unusable, the power plants which bring energy, but not enough to even light up Baghdad half the day, ect. Others of them are true, but tell only the half of the story or are things which are done without any help of the Occupation force. Others were true under Saddam too (open schools and clinics, offices etc), others are plain wrong (Iraqis live not in terror? How do you call the terrorist attacks and the actions by Occupation soldiers like searching homes and deporting people?; Freedom of press? Ask Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabia or Journalists who were detained and hindered by GIs...)
The last points (Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Quatar) have nothing to do with Iraq itself. Two of this countries are even allies of the US despite their shortcomings in human rights and democracy.

[TheDragoon]

Surely the Iraqi people would have preferred enough water instead of the ability to open bank accounts, this past half year. Are they now supposed to take loans to buy coca cola? And how is those high wages for elite professions going to help?

Do you really know what it is like for the Iraqi people? Do you know what they want? I could respond with "Surely the Iraqi people would prefer to be able to buy satellite television to being pulled off the street to be tortured by Saddam's sons," or perhaps, "Surely the Iraqi people would prefer to not be slaughtered and buried in mass graves," but the reality is that I don't know what they think, nor do you.

If you're going to speculate on what they think, at least take everything into acount. :)

[Jester]

"IMO, the real question is not "is it possible to bring democracy by force". It is also not "is it possible to bring democracy to Iraq by force".

The real question is: Is the US/the coalition willing to put enough efforts into it ?
Are they willing to pay the price ?
And how high will that price be ?"

The first two questions are prerequisites of the next three. If it's not possible to bring democracy to Iraq (or anywhere), there is no quantity of effort that will fulfill the objective, and therefore no, they won't be able to pay the price (which is nonexistent).

It's not that the first two questions aren't good. It's that you assume the answer to them is obvious.

Jester

[Moldran]

It's not that the first two questions aren't good. It's that you assume the answer to them is obvious.

Yes, that is what I meant.

The first question is very obvious (it has worked in the past, so it is not impossible).
As for the second question: I see nothing in Iraq's situation that would make establishing democracy impossible. There are countless hindrances, but none that could be considered impossible to overcome.

[Jester]

I seem to recall both Japan and Germany having self-attained democratic traditions a full 50 years before the US got there, and that those systems had simply been hijacked by militarist-fascists.

Is that true of Iraq? Not really, no. They've gone from Ottoman imperial rule to British imperial rule to a Baathist "caudillo" government. (BTW, anyone know the Arabic for "strongman"?) They don't have a democratic tradition they can fall back on. Democracy has to be built from the ground up, and I'm pretty certain that has to come from the consiousness of the people, not in an edict from Washington.

Jester

[Jester]

"But yes Jester I remember you and you wouldnt understand this - I doubt you have ever made even a pretense of a foundation for your insults."

Yes, I know I have quite the reputation for spamming insults and ignoring the issues. It's a bad habit of mine. Wait, no, that's Omega. Who am I, again? Oh, right, Jester. Where do you remember me from, exactly? Here? Maybe RBD? I'm not exactly one for tiptoeing around peoples' feelings, but I think I'm far from the baseless insults type. Unless you can refresh my memory to the contrary, which would be appreciated.

Pete presented a perfectly reasonable argument from his assumptions, which were not at all hidden. You then made an argument by analogy (a really terrible way to argue in any case), without even mentioning the topic at hand.

If your analogy was good, then there would be no problem. It would be a bizarre way to argue, but not without merit. But no, your analogies were both confusing and misleading. Neither of the people mentioned are directly responsible for the events you are asking we attribute to them, something that cannot be said of the war in Iraq perpetrated by Bush, et al. Or, put bluntly, your analogies aren't analogous.

As examples of false dichotomies, your examples are fine. The problem is that Pete did not present one. An unjustified war is grounds for a war crimes trial. That's just plain, old fashioned international law. So there's your dichotomy, as real as anything: Either the war was justified, or those who perpetrated it should be tried as having started an unjust war. That's not a false dichotomy, that's just a regular one.

If your wish was just to present Pete's case as a false dichotomy, which it isn't, there are far less confusing ways to do it than presenting two cases of false dichotomies (which are not analogous to the war in Iraq, and so must simply stand as examples, not analogies) and then calling his question (which was rhetorical) absurd. Your argument was abstract to the point of incomprehensibility. That it doesn't seem correct either doesn't help.

So, yes. Make more sense, please.

Jester

[Occhidiangela]

Three friends later, insofar as the email chain, and as I understand it, a whole lot of folks had forwarded that "message" from that person to their friends. It's sorta like a chain letter thing, and you are right to be a bit wary of them, since there is an easy trap to fall into there.

When I post stuff like that, I do indeed like to point out where I too may find a hole in the tennis racket. :)

[Occhidiangela]

This reply is to Haider of the Blinder wearing clan. ;)

There is more than one story to be told out there, and a great number of the press tell just one. THis fella tells another. Each has its own agenda.

Or don't you get that? Are you only open to one side of a story? The tone of your post leads me to believe that.

Look at my sub title: does this change the picture?

It may or may not. It did not change the picture in my head, it even led me to wonder at the motives of the source, because I get a great deal of email from people and friends on the ground that I do NOT share with public forums like this: for my own reasons.

What did Jack Nicholson say in "A Few Good Men?"

"You can't handle the truth?"

Well, that would be an overstatement, but I suspect if the true picture of what is happening on the ground were told to you, you would not believe it.

[Occhidiangela]

This is a reply to friend Jester on his 50 years of thriving democracy post in re Japan and Germany. :)

Japan was a thriving democracy for 50 years before Perry showed up in 1856? It was a Shogunate then, not quite a democracy.

Let's see, for the 50 years before Hiroshima, that "thriving democracy" fell prey to military adventurism beginning with annexing Korea (1890 something) the attack on Port Arthur om 1905, invading Manchuria in 1931, and the rest of China in 1937. Oh, yeah, and then there's this emperor thing, though by the mid 1930's, and even before during some of the Shogunates, the Emperor was hardly a Victoria or a Peter the Great.

What the hell are you talking about, Jester?

Prussia/Germany was under an Imperial/Royal model up to 1918, although its Bundestag and Bismarck's Chancellorship was a step toward the British Model of Parliamentary Government. Ironically, it was elections that brought the National Socialists to power, at which point "democracy" was dead and gone for a while.

Methinks you stretched your attempt at a point a bit too far, moreso in Japan's case than in Germany's.

[Occhidiangela]

That is unenforceable unless certain folks use force? Just checking.

International law, a nice dream, is only as good as its acceptance and enforcement. So far, 'tis a work in progress. It boils down to treaties, and those sometimes boil down to scraps of paper.

EDIT: this reply to Jester's Reply to Ghost where he comments on international law.

PS: As to the Nuremburg model, that piece of international law is vigilante justice, since it is whatever the guys with the guns, thems as left standing when the shooting stops, say it is. Got it? INternational Law of the Sea is still based on Might makes Right. See Canada pulling over Spanish fishing vessels.

[Occhidiangela]

Reply to Moldran:

If you polish it hard enough, will a turd shine? We shall see.

Insofar as "takes long term military presence" yes it did in Germany and Japan, however, in the current world, I'd say it takes long term multilateral effort. Not saying the UN is an or the answer, but that there are barrels of expertise in representative government that are at present being untapped.

As to will? We shall see. Without it, Iraq today will look a slight mess in comparison to Iraq if America pulls an "Aw #$%&, these ungrateful rat bags aren't worth it" number and leaves . . . which is what a lot of pundits are calling for.

Which reminds us why Geo Bush the elder did NOT continue on to Iraq after he knocked them out of Kuwait: he did not want to own Iraq's problems by becoming "an occupying power."

[Guest]

As Occhi said international law is a bit of a joke nad always has been.

But to specifically adress you.

After all your babble there saying nothing really other than that you dont like my form, its still a false dichotomy. There are other options.

Also note - those are analogous statments in that they all show false dichotomies. I think you know that and are trying to hide the error with your exsesive verbage.


As for who you are - I have seen Jester before is this or maybe a past version of the LL. My guess is you are a psuedonym of another poster used to attack people so as not to soil your name. I beleive you once printed some trifleing little verse explaining who you were.

[Jester]

"Japan was a thriving democracy for 50 years before Perry showed up in 1856? It was a Shogunate then, not quite a democracy.

I was talking about occupied Japan after WWII, not medieval Japan opening up to the world. I presumed that was the reference when people started talking about spreading democracy by force. Ditto with Germany post '46. Indeed, in Germany, one might find a couple of thoroughly failed models for imposing some kind of democracy from outside. The Weimar Republic? Spectacular failure. The Confederacy of the Rhine? Talk about your basic puppet government, but it was at least nominally an attempt to "export" the French revolution. And, of course, it failed horribly, and the people went right back to trying to make a Germany *their* way.

Did I say "thriving democracy" for Germany and Japan? (flip flip flip) No, I didn't. I said self-attained democratic traditions. Neither country was the model of the empowerment of the people. But both were miles ahead of where Iraq has ever been before. A parliament, to counterbalance the power of a monarch, gives the people some feeling of participation, or at least of a plurality of powers. It's a huge step from having only one, totally non-representative focus of power. Sometimes it's little more than a terrible joke, (see: Tsarist Russia) but even then it's a joke people can draw on for an image of their future, something that's genuinely theirs.

Democracy is not the antithesis of militarism. Britain, while remaining one of the most fully functioning democracies in the world, conquered an Empire around the world. I'm not a big fan of military expansion, Japanese or no, but that doesn't mean they didn't have a parliament. God only knows the US has had its hand in plenty of cookie jars, notably in Latin America, but that doesn't nullify your democracy.

An Emperor can be anything from an autocrat to window dressing. That Japan had one does not mean it didn't also have the idea of democracy. Again, definitely not the textbook case of perfect democracy. But something, a lot more than Iraq has/has ever had.

But hey, hope for the future. Maybe with the big man gone, Iraqis will tell both the old Baathists and Washington to get lost, and build a real functioning Arab democracy on their own. That would be something to drink to.

Jester

[Moldran]

Ditto with Germany post '46. Indeed, in Germany, one might find a couple of thoroughly failed models for imposing some kind of democracy from outside. The Weimar Republic? Spectacular failure. The Confederacy of the Rhine? Talk about your basic puppet government, but it was at least nominally an attempt to "export" the French revolution. And, of course, it failed horribly, and the people went right back to trying to make a Germany *their* way.

Truth is that Germany did not really have a democratic tradition before 1945.

The Weimar Republic never found real acceptance. Neither in the masses nor in the elites.
BTW, the Weimar Republic was not imposed from outside. It was the result of a revolt in Germany. WW1 winners had nothing to do with it.

But both were miles ahead of where Iraq has ever been before.

The idea of democracy has more acceptance in Iraq today than it had in Germany in 1945.
Democracy was hated by 90%+ of Germans when WW2 was over. Iraq is miles ahead of that.

An Emperor can be anything from an autocrat to window dressing. That Japan had one does not mean it didn't also have the idea of democracy. Again, definitely not the textbook case of perfect democracy. But something, a lot more than Iraq has/has ever had.

Please be more exact. Can you specify the democratic traditions Japan had before WW2 was over that Iraq is lacking today ?

[Chaerophon]

I don't want to argue what's true and what's false. I don't know the answers. However, I do find it ironic that the author of this e-mail appears to be making the claim that, under Saddam, it has "always been this way", when a great contributer to the economic and social strife has been the sanctions that have reduced the Iraqi economy and quality of life to such a low. If the information contained in the e-mail is true, all the better for Iraqis, but the implied claim that life in Iraq is better than it has ever been under Ba'ath rule is bogus. Yes, Saddam used the sanctions to create sympathy for his plight, but pre-Gulf War, Iraq was one of the economic powerhouses of the middle easy and, socially, was one of the most advanced countries in the region.

From what I understand, the situation varies from region to region, and support for Ba'athists is greatest in the north. While the Shi'ites in the South are celebrating, those in the north are less enthusiastic. The situation is far from cut and dry, and frankly, I'm not about to throw my eggs into ANY baskets.

[Nystul]

Yes, Saddam used the sanctions to create sympathy for his plight, but pre-Gulf War, Iraq was one of the economic powerhouses of the middle easy and, socially, was one of the most advanced countries in the region.


Well aside from the whole 'stay in power by mass-murdering your own citizens with unconventional weapons' thing, the ethnic and religious feuds that have split the nation in three, and the endless war with Iran, I'm sure that period of time was just grand! Although considering most of Iraq's neighbors, I suppose it is indeed fair to say they were one of the most socially advanced countries in the region.

[Chaerophon]

My point: bad as it may have been pre-gulf war, the economic and social indicators that are used in that article are misleading. Economically, Iraq was a hopelessly crippled country under sanctions. This was not the case in earlier times. It would be hard for Iraq NOT to improve economically with the removal of sanctions. As such, the economic standards of the '90's should not be the gauge by which we measure the success of the rebuilding process.

[Moldran]

but the implied claim that life in Iraq is better than it has ever been under Ba'ath rule is bogus

True. Unless you happen to be Jewish, homosexual, member of the wrong ethnic group, or in political opposition to Baath fascism, or have friends or family that fullfill one of these criteria.
It is no surprise that some Iraqis are not very enthusiastic about the end of Saddam's regime. For some people, life will actually not get better, but worse. For all those who benefited from the Baath regime.