Posted on 04/04/2006 6:39:07 AM PDT by rellimpank
A response to Messrs. Buckley, Will and Fukuyama.
A small group of current and former conservatives--including George Will, William F. Buckley Jr. and Francis Fukuyama--have become harsh critics of the Iraq war. They have declared, or clearly implied, that it is a failure and the president's effort to promote liberty in the Middle East is dead--and dead for a perfectly predictable reason: Iraq, like the Arab Middle East more broadly, lacks the democratic culture that is necessary for freedom to take root. And so for cultural reasons, this effort was flawed from the outset. Or so the argument goes.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
That's undeniably true.
But you could go further in describing what else is lacking there.
So true. George Will can harp and harp, but until he comes up with some alternatives, who will really listen to him?
George Bush has a vision of freedom for the Middle East. It is a fabulous vision. Ronald Reagan had it for the Soviet block. These types of men make great Presidents.
I have read Will in the past, but I have not agreed with everything he puts out. He comes across as an elitist snob, too educated and intelligent to grasp the truth of the matter. Buckley I can give a pass since I feel his time has passed.
So did Woodrow Wilson.
So what? Liberals always justify their catastrophes by referencing their good intentions.
Conservatives are supposed to make plans, not dream dreams.
Converting hundreds of millions of barbarian tribesmen and savages into republicans and businessmen is an absurd fantasy - it's not a vision, it's an hallucination.
George Will and Bill Buckley are not on my list of conservatives. WFB
George Bush definitely has plans.
And they are coming to pass.
This view of Iraqi's is what hamstrings those who pontificate on the subject. The article points out correctly that Iraqi's voted in higher numbers than Americans ever have. It seems to me arrogant and elitist to take the position noted above.
Problems the Iraqi's have, ground down they have been, but to say they can't sustain freedom because they haven't been properly raised and educated is sadly misguided.
America, we have our own problems sustaining liberty and freedom at home. Just look at all the socialistic programs, the welfare state, the destruction of the black family community.
Well, since I am arguably arrogant and I am certainly an elitist, I guess I'm right on track.
It seems to me that the problem in Iraq is NOT the general population, which shows up in droves whenever there is a vote, but rather a few idiots (many of them foreign) with IEDs.
People like George Will are the unrealistic ones ... they believe that there is some sort of magical presence (aka "mores") that lives in western liberal democratic societies. They are "magical" because they cannot be transferred to others who have not been initiated (except of course, Japan, Eastern Europe, Turkey, South Africa etc. etc etc etc etc).
Realistically, liberal democracy is an IDEA, and one that is not even very complicated. It is not some sort of mysterious, unteachable force that moves through only select societies.
The same could have been said of Turkey in 1920. Yet, despite its problems, secular democracy has somehow managed to survive in what was the Ottoman Empire Caliphate.
While he deserves kudos for his role as a founding father of hte modern conservative movement, Buckley has a history of wandering off the reservation. Since 1972, he has advocated legalizing drugs, and in the late 1970's, he backed Jimmy Carter's plan to give away the Panama Canal.
"A mark of serious conservatism is a regard for the concreteness of human experience. If cultures are as intractable as Mr. Will asserts, and if an existing democratic culture was as indispensable as he insists, we would not have seen democracy take root in Japan after World War II, Southern Europe in the 1970s, Latin America and East Asia in the '80s, and South Africa in the '90s. It was believed by many that these nations' and regions' traditions and cultures--including by turns Confucianism, Catholicism, dictatorships, authoritarianism, apartheid, military juntas and oligarchies--made them incompatible with self-government."
Democracy does not necessarily require a culture of democracy, but may require an abatement of religious fundamentalism. After emerging form the Dark Ages, the West somewhat supplanted the primacy of God with a belief that secular democratic principles and earthly freedom are worthwhile goals. Present day Muslims overwhemingly beleive that there is no God but Allah and no Law but God's Law. Japan was humbled by being reduced from a superpower to an occupied nation, and they abandoned belief in the deity of the Emperor and Imperialism. There is no Islamic superpower, and the Muslim world widely attributes their poor socioeconomic and political status to the Zionists and the Godless, Pro-Zionist West. They have very little in our world but Oil and Allah, both of which they think we want to appropriate or destroy. We are asking Muslims to adopt western ideals which are fundamentally in conflict with Islamic teachings regarding the law of man and the law of God. It will be a long, uphill battle to impose democracy on Islam.
Turkey was fortunate enough to be influenced by Europe and its secular ideals. Turkish democracy evolved from the dictator-like suppression of fundamentalism and opposition parties by Ataturk. Importantly, democracy was not imposed by outsiders.
bttt
These idiots are worse than lefties. They supported the war, now want to cut and run and call it a failure. Screw each and every one of these wusses.
Do you mean "my list of conservatives I like" or "my list of people who are conservative". I'm not sure how you could take them off that latter list, especially Buckley who did more to revive a nearly dead Conservative movement than any single individual with his publication of "God and Man at Yale" and founding of the National Review. Like who you want, but history is history. Buckley was one of the few people in America who spoke out against the sixties loudly and clearly and consistently while they were happening.
What exactly does it mean for democracy to be "imposed by outsiders"? Last I checked, nobody ever forced the Iraqis to the polls in large numbers at gunpoint.
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