Posted on 07/09/2013 5:56:28 AM PDT by Kaslin
The military coup that ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi marks another failure in U.S. foreign policy over several administrations, which have erroneously promoted the notion that American-style democracy in Islamic lands will produce a nation more like ours.
The Founders wrote a Constitution. When properly read and obeyed, it guards against pure democracy and makes "we the people" subject to laws that cannot be abolished by popular vote. Benjamin Franklin properly called what the Founders wrought a "Republic." Representative government would guard against the passions of a majority. No such safeguards apply in Egypt, or for that matter throughout most of the Islamic world.
George W. Bush famously said that freedom beats in every human heart. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, it depends on the meaning of freedom.
Definitions are important. To a radical Islamist, Sharia law defines freedom. Constitutions guaranteeing equal rights for all, including religious minorities like Coptic Christians in Egypt, multiple parties and free speech are mostly absent from societies where Islamists rule. And so majorities, often followed by the mob, and then the army, rule.
Secretary of State John Kerry spent most of his recent visit to the Middle East focusing on the establishment of a Palestinian state. This failed policy is a sideshow and irrelevant to the turmoil throughout the region. The Obama administration is calling for an "inclusive" political process in Egypt, which would include a role for the Muslim Brotherhood. But the Muslim Brotherhood's radical religious outlook and earthly agenda are the problem, not the solution. Why should the United States expect a different government if a different "brother" is elected, or if Morsi is somehow re-instated?
How can Egypt have a stable government when the Brotherhood claims to be doing the will of God at the same time the military says it carried out God's will by removing Morsi, and secularists say they don't want Islamists governing Egypt?
Writing in the UK Daily Telegraph, Fraser Nelson, editor of the Spectator, says the Arab world needs capitalism, more than democracy. He suggests that Western aid to Egypt be conditioned upon property rights. Throughout the Arab world, he writes, bureaucracy and corruption keep many people from starting businesses without paying costly bribes: "...under Hosni Mubarak, for example, opening a small bakery in Cairo took more than 500 days of bureaucracy. To open a business in Egypt means dealing with 29 government agencies. The same story is true throughout the region: The average Arab needs to present four dozen documents and endure two years of red tape to become the legal owner of land or business. If you don't have the time or money for this, you are condemned to life in the black market: No matter how good you are, you will never trade your way out of poverty."
The right to own property was fundamental to America's founding. In the beginning, only white male property owners were allowed to vote. Discriminatory, yes, but the point about the importance of being invested in the new nation by literally owning a piece of it was thought to be a fundamental component of citizenship.
American policy in the Middle East has failed over many decades because of false assumptions, especially when it comes to Israel. While often treating that tiny land as a weed that ought to be dug up, rather than a flower in the desert to be nourished, U.S. policy has focused on placating Arabs and Muslims, many of whom wish to destroy Israel and America.
Perhaps now that the United States is rapidly headed toward energy independence (enhanced if the opposition to the Keystone pipeline and fracking can be overcome), this and future administrations won't feel the need to bow to Middle East dictators and will push a "re-set" button that has a better chance at succeeding than the one that for too long has been stuck and inoperative.
Oh tell me about it Cal Thomas.
And they never will be...period!
Something our earlier leaders knew. Don’t wake the sleeping dog of democracy among those uneducated in the rest of the deal. One of my favorite sayings: Education can’t keep up with population.
Under Sharia law or custom, the concept of equal rights for non Muslims is a contradiction. Minority rights were rarely protected in Muslim countries the way a Westerner would understand the concept of equal rights. Today there is no clear majority Western secular consensus in any Muslim country. When Western policy makers understand this fact, policies may become rational in dealing with Muslim countries. Diplomats, businessmen, and the media get a very narrow perception since they deal primarily with urban and government elites.
Trying to tell me that “nation-building” might not work?
islam is 7th century barbarism. It always has been and always will be. As long as people cling to it, they will be trapped in 7th century barbarism.
Our best way to deal with them is to quarantine them in their own self made hell holes and let them kill each other off. moslems have no place in the civilized world.
Under no circumstances should a moslem ever be allowed in these United States as their “religion” makes them a sworn enemy of us and everything we stand for.
Islam and democracy are polar opposites, and a true mooselimb believer cannot practice democracy.
A mooselimb woman has less value in their culture than a horse.
One vote, one man, one time and then allah will tell you who your leader really is, and no one gets to vote.
Most nations are not ready for democracy when it happens.
When there was an attempt in France, there were 4 of the bloodiest years in the history of any nation. Napoleon was the result.
Today, a democratic Italy can barely function governmentally. It is not certain they have the hang of it 60 years or so after the dictator was drug through the streets.
It can be argued that Greece was not ready for democracy. It was destroyed in pretty short order.
Then there is Indonesia and Malaysia....... both are democratic with very large Islamic. It seems to be working there.
This is why Islam should really be called a “cult”.
Democracy is vile when Judeo-Christian ethics are not present.
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - good?
The Islamic Republic of Iran - good?
Egypt - good?
In our own republic, as Judeo-Christian ethics fade, look what happens.
We have a president and his whole administration acting as if they don’t have the slightest connection to ethics.
And here we are.
A bit more than half a century ago, the Foreign Policy Community made decolonization one of its highest priorities, to be executed by way of the UN. The British and French were required to give up their empires, and there was a naïve belief that democracy would break out overnight. The primary effect of this ill-conceived policy was to create a playground for the CIA, KGB and Chinese Intelligence.
In 1963 Goldwater called this a fool's errand. He stated that not everybody was ready for democracy. Some people would never be ready for democracy due to cultural and religious traditions. He argued that the best thing for these nations would be a benevolent dictator, preferably one loyal to the US and not to the Soviets. Goldwater was lambasted by the Mainstream Media, the Foreign Policy Community and the Democratic Party, all of whom viewed him as the sworn enemy of FDR's saintly anticolonial ideals.
The funny thing is that Goldwater was right. Even when he's dead, he's still right.
Oh, hahahaha, that comment exhibits the stupidity of the speaker.
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