Posted on 09/10/2002 4:18:52 PM PDT by Pokey78
Those who said that America - and perhaps even the world at large - would never be the same after September 11 turn out to have been right only in part. American legislators have not found any anthrax in their recent mail, and so some of them, encouraged by recent remarks from officials of previous administrations, wonder openly whether further combat in the Middle East is even necessary.
They are insisting not only that President George W Bush provide them with a convincing bill of particulars regarding Saddam Hussein, but also that they approve any future action. This despite their full endorsement of such action on September 14 last.
In short, business as usual. Some other things have certainly changed. The pre-September 11 George W Bush was a relatively colourless figure, uncomfortable with international affairs and, despite his strong religious faith, largely bereft of what his father famously referred to as "the vision thing". The post-September 11 President is decisive, fully engaged in his mission, and quite eloquent on the war against terrorism, with an economy of language that we have not heard from a president since Truman.
Similarly, Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, who had been tagged as the cabinet member least likely to succeed, has become a matinee idol. Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, may score higher in the polls, but nobody races to the television to watch his press conferences; they do Rumsfeld's. The transformation began immediately after the first aircraft hit the World Trade Centre, and Mr Rumsfeld told his staff: "I've been around for a while, and, believe me, this is not the last one we'll see today."
The greatest change has come among the American people themselves. Americans are the first people in history to believe that peace is the normal condition of mankind, but this reassuring conviction was effectively shattered, for this generation at least, on September 11. Americans now believe, with Machiavelli, that there are many people who are more inclined to do evil than to do good, and the only way to deal with them is to dominate them. They hope and believe that Saddam will not be the last terrorist tyrant to fall at their hands.
Americans are traditionally in a great hurry, but they have shown great patience with this president. They recognise that the war will be long and they trust that they have somehow struck lucky with their leader at a moment of peril. Recent drops in the President's popularity suggest that the people's patience may be wearing a bit thin, but now it seems that action is imminent and they will soon find out if Mr Bush is up to this challenge.
The Americans may have been patient so far, but, as General Patton once reminded his troops, Americans can't stand a loser. Yet it is hard to imagine America will lose. So long as the people are convinced they are well led, and the war goes well, they will support it. One has a tendency to forget that, in the Second World War, it took nearly two years after Pearl Harbor before decisive victories were achieved, yet the American people did not waver.
Americans are not fond of realpolitik; they are a people of crusades and spasms. They almost never fight limited wars for limited objectives (most Americans now believe the 1991 Gulf war was excessively limited); as Ronald Reagan said, the country is too great to have small ambitions. Few have noticed that President Bush has in fact outlined a war of vast dimensions. Lurking behind the awkward phrase "regime change" is a vision of a war to destroy the Middle Eastern tyrannies and replace them with freer societies, as was done in Japan and Germany after the Second World War.
Early on after the September 11 attack, it was widely said that America would have to fight a new kind of war, conducted in large part in the shadows, with covert instruments and secret warriors. In the event, it turns out to be a very traditional sort of war, because they have found that the common denominator of their enemies is tyranny.
The states that undergird the terror network are Iran, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia. They do not share ethnicity (Iranians are not Arabs) or even religious conviction (both Saddam and the Assad family in Syria came to power as secular socialists), but they are all petty tyrants. And the most lethal weapon against them is the people they oppress.
The Iranians demonstrate almost ceaselessly against the mullahcracy in Teheran; in recent days, there has been street fighting in Isfahan, political demonstrations in Teheran, and the petroleum pipeline has been shut down in Tabriz. Student leaders have called for a nationwide demonstration today, a clear sign of the Iranian people's desire for freedom.
The Iraqis were willing to risk everything in the final weeks of the Gulf war, and the unreliability of Saddam's armies is well known. If Iranians and Iraqis are freed, the Syrian dictatorship cannot possibly survive, and the Saudi royal family would have to choose between shutting down its worldwide network of radical Wahhabi mosques or facing the same destiny as the others.
A war on such a scale has hardly been mentioned by commentators and politicians, yet it is implicit in everything President Bush has said and done. He has directed the creation of an Iraqi government-in-exile that is committed to democracy, and he has promised the Iranian people that America will support them in their desire for freedom. He has recognised that democracy is essential for peace between Palestinians and Israelis, and that requirement surely extends throughout the entire region.
In one of those delightful paradoxes in which history so delights, America's enemies sought to destroy it on September 11, only to find their own survival at mortal risk. And all those who said the world would never be the same, thinking that America had been fundamentally shaken and demoralised, will soon find that, instead, America's enemies will be the subject of revolutionary change at its hands.
Thank heaven our language has been freed from the chains of meaning. Otherwise I might have to point out that when America turned the ancient tyrannies (that's what lttle Mr. Wilson called them) of Europe into democracies we got.....oh what were the names of those men-of-the-people?
Helplessly hoping......
Cultural Jihad: ""...Excellent essay bump..."
You can't mean that. Unless you look forward to the prospect of drowning in the oceans of blood that will be unleashed by these revolutionary democracies at whose birth our government and military seems determined to preside like Wicked Fairy Godmothers--having learned NOTHING from history.
I will get back to you and others on some of the contentions raised against my little dissent (#22). But I just had to respond to your closing thought. It is precisely because I would hope to see more freedom among peoples, that I dissent from the idea of trying to foist Democracy on them. Democracy, as Madison observed so clearly in the Federalist Papers, is not a means to greater freedom. It is quite the opposite.
I will try to find the time to get back here, later today, to more fully develop my points. It is vital to understand the political/social dynamics involved in this argument. And it is sad how few Conservatives seem to do so. We have let the Left clothe a particular procedure for choosing Governments with a mystical power that it does not have. The key to freedom is a general understanding and acceptance by those who hold political power, however that power may be delegated or devolve, on the limitations on what is a legitimate exercise of political power. Americans once understood this concept as second nature. We no longer do so; and rather than lecturing the world on Government, we need a time for rediscovery of our own lost wisdom.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
WRONG!
We should turn them into glass. The Islamic ones anyway...
What would Democracy in Algeria or Egypt look like? Iran. That's what. Better glass than that.
I promised earlier to return, and augment my post #22. I have picked your comment as capturing the essence of the argument, here.
The requirements of "democracy," do indeed include an educated population, and a middle-class, as you suggest. Put, slightly differently, the basic concept requires three things to work anywhere:
1. You have to have a population with sufficient intelligence among the average member, to actually understand the functions and purposes of Government.
2. You have to have a population that has been educated in the enduring values of their own Society--a population which has a frame of reference within which to make decisions with respect to the application of Government to their ongoing existence as a people.
3. You have to have a population with sufficient leisure time to reflect on those who seek office, and how they measure up with respect to the functions and purposes of your Government.
You assume that having an educated middle-class, you will meet these criteria. But are you certain that the educated middle-class in Iran is potentially as dominant as the educated middle-class in Switzerland, where Democracy really has worked for an extended period? Are you certain that there is not a large under-class that may be easily exploited by demagogues, first as a swing vote, and then as a basis for obtaining an elective tyranny?
Yet, even if you are, we have but scratched the surface of the problem. As Madison pointed out, minorities are the real victims of Democracy. Are there not small tribal entities in all of the countries that the writer would, in effect, seek to remake, who have different social priorities than the middle-classes that you see being potentially dominant? For such as these, can anyone really suggest that "Democracy" has any connection whatsoever to Freedom?
Consider, for example, what would happen if the philosophy of the "Civil Rights" movement in America--something which some Conservatives are now actually embracing at this venue--were to be applied in Iran. Forcing these tribal groups into common schools; abolishing their right to confine their more intimate business dealings to their own, could very shortly destroy the existence of ethnic groups that have survived for many centuries. Does that serve the cause of Freedom?
Don't misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that Sadam is a champion of ancient small nations, now under the umbrella of modern Iraq. He has done monstrous things to some of these peoples. But a modern "Democracy," is scarcely likely to be much better. Far better, in such an environment, a Government where the leader--be he King, Emir, Caliph, or whatever--assumes that he is answerable first to Allah, for his stewardship of all of his peoples, than to a one-man, one-vote Democracy. For, it is very likely, that even with that educated middle-class, that even if a majority of that educated middle-class are men who value toleration; that all too soon, such new "Democracies," will degenerate into what you see now in country after country in Africa. How can anyone be certain that more "Democracies" in the third world, will not result in more Mugabe style Zimbabwes, where the mob, not the "Middle-Class" is supreme?
So it is not only a politically able mainstream, educated and affluent, that is required. It is a common identity, a shared tradition--in short a common value system. In America, we had great diversity among the States--and a very limited Federal Government, that only had authority to act in areas where we had a common value system.
But let me bring this subject very close to home. When Bob Dornan lost his seat in what had been a Conservative district in California, because of the influx from South of the border, was that evidence of "Democracy" working in America? Putting completely aside, his charge that many voted illegally; does anyone think that those voters who made the difference, really understood the traditional role of the United States House of Representatives, were really wedded to time-honored American values, or really should have been determining the future fate of the America we love?
There is no magic in counting noses. When counting noses, permits unconscionable men to gain power, it becomes a threat to all that is honorable and decent. This whole question of "Democracy," as a panacea for all human political problems, needs to be carefully reexamined. The more carefully it is examined, the more compelling will seem Madison's comment in Federalist Paper #10.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site [Where there are numerous articles relevant to this subject.]
William Flax
To attempt to establish freedom in a land is a noble and worthwhile cause, however, how likely it is to succeed I am uncertain. I would certainly like to see it succeed, and pray that it will, but we cannot imagine that merely by our actions of war that freedom and liberty will ring through Iraq. I believe the people there desire it, but it is our moral charge, if we invade, to assist them in establishing a good government respecting the rights of all- a hard thing, made even harder by the fact we are unlikely to accept a long-term (many years) maintainance of prescence there- if such a thing is even feasible. It is also self-aiding, as a good government is unlikely to sponsor activities harmful to our interests.
At any rate, it is unlikely things will grow worse for Iraq's people- though, again, they could if things go the wrong way. Revolutions and regime changes often precede genocide- ie Russia, Germany, Turkey, Cambodia. The US must move wisely and carefully- human lives ride upon our decisions.
TIA.
L
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