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MIDDLE EAST |
Current rating: -8 |
by JOEBIALEK
(No verified email address) |
23 Feb 2003
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THE UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY TOWARDS THE MIDDLE EAST CHANGED FOREVER AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001. THE POLICY NOW IS TO REPLACE DICTATORSHIPS WITH DEMOCRACIES |
As we draw closer and closer to war with Iraq, I think a few points need to be made. The result of the attacks on September 11, 2001 have forever altered the foreign policy position of the United States towards the Middle East. What at one time appeared to be U.S. cooperation with the Arab dictatorships in exchange for a smooth supply of oil has evolved into a policy of regime change whereby the U.S. will systematically convert these countries to thriving democracies. We are witnessing the next crusades. This time, however, the motive is not forced conversion to a religion but rather to a particular political-economic system. The U.S. has allowed dictators such as Saddam Hussein, King Fahd, Crown Prince Abdullah, Muammar Al-Qaddafi etc. to reign free so long as they kept their terrorist cells in check; 9-11 changed all that. With the obvious development, training and encouragement from the Middle Eastern countries, these terrorist cells have forced the U.S. to take the necessary steps to protect its own interests as well as its very survival. Diplomacy with these dictatorships is no longer a viable option. The Middle East is a very unstable region similiar to what Europe was like before World War 1 and the end of World War 2. Now there is the existence of the European Union. Unfortunately, it required two wars to accomplish this. As with Europe, dictators do not go easily. They must be vanquished. The first Gulf War did not go far enough, now we must fight another to insure the stability of the region by replacing dictatorships with democracies. Until we are victorious, the world is not safe for democracy, capitalism or the United States.
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Duh |
by *
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
23 Feb 2003
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Maybe if US policy BEFORE Septemeber 11 had not BEEN the installation and support of dictatorships, we wouldn't face the problems we face now.
Of course, the disreputable example set by the 2000 election sure isn't going to inspire much faith in any system that the US has its hand in at this time. We ought to stay home and straighten out our own problems with democracy before being so arrogant to tell others how to solve theirs. |
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As You've Noted |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
23 Feb 2003
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A majority of the dictators in the Middle East are supposedly our allies. If we can't bring democracy to our allies first, what makes you think we can do it by making war on those who Bush claims are our enemies? |
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Making The World Safe For ... |
by Joe Futrelle
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 3
23 Feb 2003
Modified: 06:21:29 PM |
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When we are victorious, the world will be more dangerous and less democratic, and the blood of innocent people will be on our hands. We will not ask the families of the people we will kill to vote on what we are about to do. We will not listen to them. We will ignore them. We will pretend they don't exist. There will be no democracy for these people, just the knowledge that we could have spared their family members, and didn't, and the insult of being told it was worth it. We will congratulate ourselves, but we will have paid as great a cost as those whose lives we will destroy, because in order to achieve all we intend to achieve we will have to give up our humanity and embrace hatred, violence, and ignorance. |
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A Regime That Hates Democracy Can't Wage War For Democracy |
by Harvey Wasserman
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
24 Feb 2003
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George W. Bush says he wants to attack Iraq to install democracy. But as he explained on December 18, 2002: "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
Under Bush the Constitutional guarantees that have made America a beacon to the world for two centuries have been shredded in two short years.
In terms of basic legal rights and sanctuary from government spying, Americans may be less free under George W. Bush than as British subjects under George III in 1776.
Though the trappings of free speech remain on the surface of American society, the Homeland Security Act, Patriot I, Patriot II and other massively repressive legislation, plus Republican control of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, plus GOP dominance of the mass media, have laid the legal and political framework for a totalitarian infrastructure which, when combined with the capabilities of modern computer technology, may be unsurpassed.
The Administration has used the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, as pretext for this centralization of power. But most of it was in the works long before September 11 as part of the war on drugs and Bush's modus operandi as the most secretive and authoritarian president in US history.
So with today's US as a model, what would be in store for Iraqis should Bush kill hundreds of thousands of them to replace Saddam Hussein?
* President Bush has asserted the right to execute "suspected terrorists" without trial or public notice;
* The Administration claims the right to torture "suspected terrorists," and by many accounts has already done so;
* Attorney-General John Ashcroft has asserted the right to brand "a terrorist" anyone he wishes without evidence or public hearing or legal recourse;
* The Administration has arrested and held without trial hundreds of "suspected terrorists" while denying them access to legal counsel or even public notification that they have been arrested;
* The Administration has asserted the right to inspect the records of bookstores and public libraries to determine what American citizens are reading;
* The Administration has asserted the right to break into private homes and tap the phones of US citizens without warrants;
* The Administration has attempted to install a neighbors-spying-on-neighbors network that would have been the envy of Joe Stalin;
* The Administration has effectively negated the Freedom of Information Act and runs by all accounts the most secretive regime in US history;
* When the General Accounting Office, one of the few reliably independent federal agencies, planned to sue Vice President Dick Cheney to reveal who he met to formulate the Bush Energy Bill, Bush threatened to slash GAO funding, and the lawsuit was dropped;
* After losing the 2000 election by more than 500,000 popular votes (but winning a 5-4 majority of the US Supreme Court), the Administration plans to control all voting through computers operated by just three companies, with code that can be easily manipulated, as may have been done in Georgia in 2002, winning seats for a Republican governor and US senator, and in Nebraska to elect and re-elect US Senator Chuck Hagel, an owner of the voting machine company there;
* FCC Chair Michael Powell (son of Colin) is enforcing the Administration's demand that regulation be ended so nearly all mass media can be monopolized by a tiny handful of huge corporations;
* Attorney-General Ashcroft has assaulted states rights, a traditional Republican mainstay, using federal troops to trash public referenda legalizing medical marijuana in nine states;
* Ashcroft has overridden his own federal prosecutors and assaulted local de facto prohibitions against the death penalty, which has been renounced by every other industrial nation and is now used only by a handful of dictatorships, including Iraq.
Overseas, the US record is infamous. Among those it has put in power are Saddam Hussein, the Taliban and Manuel Noriega, not to mention Somoza, Pinochet, Marcos, Mobutu, the Shah, the Greek Junta and too many other murderous dictators to mention in a single article.
Afghanistan, leveled in the name of democracy and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, now stands ruined and abandoned. In sequel, Bush is gathering Iraq attackers with the promise of cash bribes, oil spoils and conquered land.
Turkey, Bulgaria and Bush's manufactured Iraqi opposition are already squabbling over the booty. Bush says rebuilding will be funded by Iraqi oil revenues, probably administered through the same core regime now in place, but with a different figurehead.
In other words: the media hype about bringing democracy to Iraq is just that. There is absolutely no reason to believe a US military conquest would bring to Iraq the beloved freedoms George W. Bush is so aggressively destroying here in America.
A regime that so clearly hates democracy at home is not about to wage war for one abroad.
Copyright © 2003 by Harvey Wasserman
http://www.commondreams.org/
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