OK, let's start with basics.
What kind of government do most Middle Eastern countries have? Answer: a dictatorship or a "King"
Why? Because the people in these countries, until now, have not been politically mature enough to handle anything more complicated. They lack the education to even understand how a democracy works. When the American soldiers were forming caucuses of leaders from different areas of Iraq, they constantly had to chastise them for just shouting out demands. They didn't understand that, in a democracy, everyone has a chance to speak. In their minds, the loudest voice is the only one that gets heard.
Democracy is having a hard time taking hold in Iraq because a small portion of the population, call them insurgents or terrorists, don't want democracy. They are Islama-fascists who will not accept anything but a government that only favors them, a government that only reflects their idea of a good society. One trait of fascism is suppression of the oppostion through terror and censorship. Certainly, this is what the terrorists are doing.
They do not want to share power. They do not want to compromise with rival groups. They demand that their views supercede everyone else's. That is way they are Fascist, just like the Nazis.
Here's a definition of Fascism: "A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion." [Robert O. Paxton, "The Anatomy of Fascism," 2004]
The Middle East is an area that historically has been rife with violence. Democracy is a good cure for that because Democracies practically never have any armed disputes between one another. The closest thing to two democracies engaged in war was when Argentina claimed the Faukland Islands, and Britain sent warships to prevent that.
Without the civilizing force of democracy, there will never be any lasting peace in the Middle East. Quite the contrary, radical Islam will just continue to grow stronger, and people will not have any human rights beyond what the Islamic religious leaders grant them. That means, few rights for women. Under the Taliban, girls weren't even allowed to go to school. That is impossible under a democracy.
So, democracy will help Iraq because you won't have a super powerful dictator stealing all the country's wealth for himself, you won't have the threat of Islam getting a stranglehold on the political power in the country and thereby limiting peoples' freedoms.
Democracy is not easy. It is a messy process. It is many voices clamouring to be heard. But unless Iraqis learn to work together, to form a coalition government, you will never have anything but an uneasy truce. Democracy is a civilizing force. Until now, Iraqis have not had a real civil society. They were just kept in check by a strongman dictator so they couldn't all kill one another through sectarian violence.
Democracy is the best hope for bringing economic prosperity to the country. Foreign investors would be extremely wary of investing under a dictator, and even less interested if it were an Islamic state.
2007-02-08 13:10:24
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answer #1
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answered by pachl@sbcglobal.net 7
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Democracy will not work in Iraq, or any other country for that matter. Democracy is a failed political experiment. Power corrupts, and absolute power corupts absolutely. We once had the perfect form of government, called a Constitutional Republic. In a Constitutional Republic, the government has only limited powers. Unfortunately, our Constitutional republic was hijacked several decades ago and replaced by a so-called democracy. In a democracy, supposedly, the majority rules. If you look at our government now, you'll clearly see that the majority is no longer even heard. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Democracy will never work.
2007-02-08 13:30:49
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answer #2
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answered by vineyardtech 3
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Bush has no intentions of promoting democracy in Iraq. Bush stated during the Presidental debates to appeal to the bloodthirsty far-right that "there would be NO nation building" there. He has other, vile intentions for the people of that region. To understand, an overview of the "Big Picture" is necessary. The tribal people of the Middle East had not risen above their neolithic differences to align and form a lasting union of tolerance among themselves, as other nations of the world already had, when greedy foreigners descended upon those lands and began to plunder the oil there. Royalty and tribal elites were bribed. And, the CIA was used by U.S. oil interests, including those belonging to the Bush family, to deliberately destabilize the region for control and to prevent the people in the Middle East from uniting and controlling the oil themselves. Halliburton had the contracts to build the Al Qaeda training camps. Our new Secretary of Defence, Gates, was the man assigned to teach the Al Qaeda forces how to fight. Bush's oil company, Arbusto, is business partners with the Bin Laden family and, as an example of their families' closeness, Bush gave Osama's brother, Salem the Houston Gulf Airport in Texas as a gesture of friendship. Bush and his family and his associates significantly helped to create the terrorists that our soldiers fight today. And, they deliberately contributed to the chaos and suffering of innocent people there. The people of the Middle East, betrayed by their corrupted leaders and weakened by foreign powers (not only U.S. oil interests but arms dealers and developers from all over the world), failed to rise to the realities of the 20th century in time for the 21st. And, their future is grim. Middle Eastern oil production peaks in 2012 and ends in 2070. The plunder of Middle Eastern oil is now a desparate piggy-fest of who gets control of the remaining oil there. The societies there, so long destabilized, have disintegrated into episodic chaos and heightened religiosity as the quality of leadership plummeted. Foreign and local elite oil interests, concerned about security for their pipelines and oil fields now that factions of local power mongers, freedom fighters and religious fanatics threaten to disrupt the efficient flow of oil out of the land, placed foreign troops, including those from UK and U.S., in the region to ensure enough, but only just enough, stability to get the oil out. Many U.S. soldiers there now report that all they do is guard oil fields and a flow of oil profits that go to only a few people in the world. Even the plunder has grown chaotic with an estimated 500,000 barrels of oil going "missing" every day, securing someone's power in the future as oil begins to run out. Bush marches through the region and wants to invade Iran now to lock up the pipeline routes. He is asking $622 BILLION more from us, to be debted out to China and Korea for our GRANDCHILDREN to still be slaving away to pay off. He has not said what he wants that money for, though. Bush refuses to state a "plan" for Iraq. He just says he has one. And, as being heard currently in Waxmen's Congressional hearings, the $12 BILLION in CASH bribes that Bremer was sent to Iraq to "jump start" their economy went 100% missing while still in U.S. Republican hands.In order to have an initial foothold for the plunder march through the region, the U.S. taxpayer pays Isreal $30,000 every year bribe for every man, woman and child, plus, has given them weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons which the Isrealis have recently threatened (then denied) to use against the Iranians. Those are the only WMD known in the region aften ten years of searching for more. The search for WMD is a propaganda ploy to convince easily frightened U.S. taxpayers to keep financially supporting the "search" and Republican-welfare contracts gravy train. Americans are dangerously ignorant and unable to make critical decisions, as evidenced by a recent poll that shows over a third of the U.S. public adamently does not believe that the U.S. has any nuclear weapons of its own.(!!!). They are sheep ready for shearing. The search for WMD in Iraq has always been a ploy because arms dealers and their activities are well known by U.S. intelligence. As a matter of fact, most of the arms dealers who sell weapons in the Middle East are associates and friends of Cheney and Bush. Now, with a Democratic Congress and worldwide disgust for Bush and Cheney's lying and plundering and unspeakably irresponsible plundering of our own nation's financial security while racking up the largest national debt in the history of mankind, there may be some reasonable approach that will be considered and some way to help the people of those regions who have been disarmed and are now at the mercy of roving gangs of religious fanatics and other factions. Bush and his associates and others like him will not tolerate a true democracy in Iraq, unless it submits to his plans. Bush is having the same difficulty tolerating democracy in the U.S. Bush refuses to listen to the will of the American people or to our Congress. He has repeatedly accused Americans and our leaders who disagree with his crimes and plunder as being supporters of "terrorists". Remember, Bush does not represent the American people. He represents the oil interests and war profiteers. He and his gang have done nothing but destabilize and weaken the United States. Bush was in Viet Nam recently to arrange for thousands of American jobs to be given away to that nation, jobs that should have gone to Americans but were "outsourced" to avoid paying American's even the minimum wage. Republicans and Conservatives deliberately allowed U.S. business owners to criminally invite and hire undocumented Mexican workers, again, to avoid having to pay the U.S. working class a decent and legal wage. This influx of undocumented workers have caused considerable strains on our communities' social services and fabric of society which could have been prevented if not for Republican/Conservative Bush led slashing of funds aimed at those services and planning committes, which was a deliberate ploy to destabilize the middle class and our communities so that we would be more amenable to slave wages eventually. Without Congressional oversite, Bush recently signed a political extension of the economic N.A.F.T.A and Canada, Mexico and the U.S. are now a new Superstate with all borders to be "streamlined" and eventually eliminated. The NEW government's website is below. This is fact. Bush and his associates are doing whatever they can to destabilize this nation just as they did the Middle East. For example, Bush has aligned himself and his interests in the U.S. with the Christian Evangelicals, 40 million strong, whose leadership reported last fall in "Faith and Nation" that they advocate for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government if their religious agenda is not made into legislation. And, they are preparing to fight their neighbors. See the Jesus Camp video. Bush is contributing to the creation of even more terrorists in these Evangelical fanatics. Bush and his family supported Saddam when it suited them. They support whomever goes along with them or is most easily bribed. They support the Shiites now because they seem the most easily "managed" and exploitable or amenable to the "Big Picture". That may change from day to day, depending upon the vagaries of the chaos. Supporting terrorists runs in Bush's family. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, supplied at LEAST one/third of Hitler's raw materials and ores before President Roosevelt and the U.S. Congress stopped him specifically with the Trading with the Enemy Act. What is it going to take to stop George W. Bush?
http://www.spp.gov
2007-02-08 13:11:03
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answer #4
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answered by Anonymous
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