Re: Post-Saddam Iraq?

From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Sun 10 Nov 2002 - 21:09:08 GMT

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    > > > ----- Original Message -----
    > > > From: <joedees@bellsouth.net>
    > > If those countries are rebuilt as participatory democracies, any
    > > power they accrue could be a positive counterbalance to the
    > > theocracies and dictatorships in the area. Besides which, as I said
    > > before, the US has seen the cost of NOT engaging in nation-building,
    > > and it is far greater than the cost of engaging in it.
    >
    > Ah, that is the thing isn 't it ! Democracy !
    > Why do we have to impose OUR values and norms upon people who
    > haven 't got the slighest idea of what we're talking about !?
    >
    > Like I said in the post to Grant about Russia, how do you think the
    > Iraqi people will react upon their new born freedom, individuality and
    > the re- location of their identity, of which we do not know anything !
    > How would you interconnect Islam, the religion into a democratic
    > housing !? The Iraqi people, just like the Russians who ' believe ' in
    > their country more than they rational understand it, is literally
    > wiped clean of taking on any initative, their lives are literally
    > destroyed by Saddam and by the sanctions imposed by us.
    >
    You mean to tell me that their values are to embrace voiceless oppression under a dictatorial despot (Saddam) or a hardline mullah mafia (which the people of Iran are currently rebelling against)? I most sincerely doubt it. Democracy allows people both the freedom to choose for themselves what they value, and the freedom to attain it, provided that their goal does not interfere with the freedoms of other peoples. This is why democracies get along reasonably well together. We may have to educate people who have never experienced the freedom and voice granted them in a participatory democracy in the use of such benefits, but I have little doubt that they would come to appreciate it as much as the Japanese, although, like the Japanese, the form their democracy eventually will take will be influenced by their cultural values and history.
    >
    > Kenneth
    >
    >
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