" Israel may have to retire its title as the only democracy in the Middle East. With Sunday's free and fair national election, Iraq joins the honor roll as one of the very few Islamic democracies,"
wrote Frum on CNN.com today. If so it would be a strange kind of honor indeed, a ravaged, broken country with millions exiled, tens of thousands -- perhaps over a hundred thousand dead; a country cleansed of Christianity, where an election required massive military support and during which, dozens of people were killed.
Sure, it was an election that may actually reflect the will of the voters, but an election that could only be held because of the military might of an occupying invader; an election to pick a government that does not have the strength to run the country or to rebuilt it. Isn't it a bit premature to be portraying this as a "vindication" of George Bush's attempt to find al Qaeda training camps and Chemical weapons factories capable of attacking the United States within weeks? Is this somehow the conclusion of one of the longest and most costly wars in American history; a war which continues and the end of which is not yet in sight?
Certainly there is some hope for an eventual state of stability, but no assurance whatever as to what course a stable, self governing Iraq would take if not held at gunpoint. Certainly it's not time to have the Frum orchestra playing rhapsodies to a dishonest promise of the coming comity of nations and holding up Iraq as a model of enlightened and liberal democracy capable of spreading a Western model of government all over the Middle East. Can it be any more than dishonest when that still distant prospect is, at this point, the product of the wish to believe and more likely to be a fatuous dream than an accomplished mission?
David Frum is telling us that a distant shimmering mirage that never seems to get any closer as we move toward it is really a garden of Democratic Eden only steps away and that the unsubstantiated vision justifies having wandered in the desert wilderness for nearly a decade seeking one elusive promise after another. I wonder if, like the Moses he seems to think he is, he'll have to settle for seeing it from afar for the rest of his life.
Remember this headline?
ReplyDeleteHamas Sweeps Palestinian Elections, Complicating Peace Efforts in Mideast
And the story behind the headline:
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Jan. 26, 2006 -- The radical Islamic movement Hamas won a large majority in the new Palestinian parliament, according to official election results announced Thursday, trouncing the governing Fatah party in a contest that could dramatically reshape the Palestinians' relations with Israel and the rest of the world.
Is it democracy only when the people we like get elected?
It took the United States a begrudging three weeks to acknowledge this milestone as a democratic event.
Someone needs to remind Frumm of this democratic election in the Middle East.
It's a democracy only when people we LIKE get elected.
ReplyDeleteGood example. We also had a much ballyhooed free election in Afghanistan - several of them - but they elected an oil crook chummy with Rummy and Cheney. Real success story there.
ReplyDeleteAs someone pointed out on Bill Maher the other night, Venequela has free, transparent and legitimate elections and yet we're told Chavez is a commymonster.
Foolish consistency may be a hobgoblin and all that but wildly inconsistent and often contradictory fantasy-based propaganda is the stuff of fools like Frum.
I could be off on this one, but wasn't it just a couple of elections ago that the UN Elections Observers weren't allowed into the US to observe the presidential election?
ReplyDeleteWhat does that make us? An arbiter of what's right for everyone else, and powerful enough to refuse to abide by the same standards ourselves?
"It's a democracy only when people we LIKE get elected."
ReplyDelete"What does that make us? An arbiter of what's right for everyone else, and powerful enough to refuse to abide by the same standards ourselves?"
Right and right again. I also remember when we wouldn't allow elections in Vietnam because they'd certainly vote us the hell out of there. I remember when we overthrew a democratically elected leader in Iran and again in Chile and we removed one by force of arms in Panama.
Oh, but noooo -- Obama was wrong to suggest that we're not totally saintlike. Sounded too much like an apology you see.
The various elections held over the years in Lebanon certainly qualify as "democratic" if Iraq's does. That is to say, if elections in which virtually every vote is cast based on ethnic and religious alignment, and surrounded by violence and the threat of more violence can be considered democratic.
ReplyDeleteLet me hasten to add that such things are a far sight better than what goes on in, say, Saudi Arabia or Pakistan; they are, however, a long way short of what happens in Israel or in Europe.
Of course elections are only free and fair when the people WE LIKE win...
ReplyDeleteThe same thing holds true in our own country...
Conservatives have VALUES while liberals have IDEOLOGY.
Has anyone ever spoken about Liberal VALUES? Has anyone claimed that GWB was a threat to their values?
Of course not, GWB was just a conservative that was corrupted by liberalism....he was a Conservative Gone Wild!
Liberalism is a threat to our country and thus so are liberals.
Conservatives are trying to take the country back...back to the intent of our founding fathers...
Thus liberals can only, as the opposite of conservatives, be the ones who are trying to move our country away from the intent of our founding fathers...
Bipartisanship to conservatives means that they will tolerate liberals civilly as long as they talk nice and are not threatening...
Become an uppity liberal and watch out...but let a conservative say something really crass and stupid and everyone just pretends nothing was said...
Its kind of like the scene from Gone With the Wind where Scarlett makes herself a dress out of curtains...
Of course its democracy when we like you and when we like whom you elect.
ReplyDeleteRemember, this is a country where only conservatives have 'values' and liberals have something called 'ideology.'
Ever hear anyone claim that conservative ideology threatens liberal values?
Or how about Oklahoma, which is now battling over their divorce rate and lots of conservatives don't like the idea that the state is thinking about enacting laws that will allow the state to dictate their personal behavior...
Same state that has no problem doing the same to gays...
Its, don't shove your values in my life but I will shove my values in your life.
Frum has bought into the neocons' delusion, what a surprise.
ReplyDeleteTAO said:
this is a country where only conservatives have 'values' and liberals have something called 'ideology.'
What a great line! (And the following one too.)
By the way, I guess it was a magnificent example of democracy when the American people cast a majority of votes for Al Gore, but five corrupt Republican appointed Supreme Court justices gave us Bush instead.
ReplyDelete