BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Switchboard >

Freedom, you silly liberals! FREEDOM!

  
 
Perfect Tommy
22:19 / 13.03.05
I am hoping to start a difficult conversation, because I feel as though most progressives aren't discussing the elephant in the sitting room:

To be perfectly honest, I expected civil war in Iraq to break out shortly after the election results. So far as I'm aware that doesn't look like it's an imminent threat (although the 1967 NYT article on elections in Vietnam is fairly spooky). I have noticed a few articles what's going on in Lebanon, Egypt, and Palestine which are falling all over themselves praising the Bush Doctrine, which appears to be "you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs."

So, the questions I currently cannot answer: (1) Is there in fact a real increase in positive political development* coming to the Middle East; (2) If so, is it really and truly related to the war/elections, 'cause it sure looks like it; (3) In the long view (i.e., a century or more), can the movement of a region home to many millions of people towards increased political development be worth a pre-emptive war under false pretenses and the killing of 100,000 civilians or more?

I guess I'm finding myself wondering if the war somehow managed to be simultaneously unjustified and better than not going to war. It is not a happy wondering.



* - I haven't taken much political science, so I don't know if 'political development' is a widely used term. My understanding is that it means laws which are justly applied to the entire population, political participation, human rights, and access to opportunity--i.e., a term which attempts to talk about the more decent bits of living in the developed world without necessarily fetishizing 'democracy' as the be-all end-all of 'freedom.'
 
 
sleazenation
23:56 / 13.03.05
Before we go any further I don’t think we can predict with any degree of accuracy the political make up of the world 100 years in the future – just look at how much of a different place the world was in 1905 – Russia was still a monarchy… returning to your first question…

(1) Is there in fact a real increase in positive political development* coming to the Middle East;

It’s a difficult question to quantify - Iraq is still a mess and remains effectively ungovernable by Iraqis (or even by coalition forces). Iraq has held elections but they have been pretty imperfect - far from full, free and fair, they have also appear to have handed power to Shia Clerics. Now it can be claimed that this is an improvement, getting rid of a brutal dictator, but just across the border there is another imperfect democracy where Shia Clerics hold the real power. Its a bit tougher sell to claim that a Shia led government, like the one that is still apparently part of an axis of evil over in Iran is a significant improvement. Then there is the fact that the threat of civil war is ongoing - tensions between Iraq's various communities have not gone away and will continue to persist for a long time… For every way of seeing events in Iraq as progress towards ‘positive political development‘ there is another, less rosy way of viewing it.

The Israeli/Palestinian question does indeed seem to be more hopeful at the moment, but this is at least in part due to an unprecedented level of US engagement in the problem. Israel is one of the largest recipients of US foreign aid in the world. The US has a lot of economic and political leverage over Israel should it wish to use it. The plight of the Palestinians is often cited as a major bone of contention in the Arab world and now that it is personally mired in an ongoing conflict in the middle East the US at last has a stake in a problem that it (along with Britain and a sorry cast of countries sadly too numerous to name here) helped to make. The Death of Yasser Arafat has also given all sides and opportunity/less of an excuse not to, re-engage with each other. So, how far this is due to elections in Iraq and how much is due to a greater degree of will from the US to force the two sides towards each other is again an open question.

On the flip side of this I was actually more optimistic for the organic evolution of stronger democratic institutions in Iran in the late 90s… I don’t see US forces establishing a permanent presence in Iraq as helping Iranian democracy much at all. The proximity of an external enemy tends to bring a country together. And then there is the nuclear question...

The current drive to persuade Syrian forces in Lebanon to leave the country was sparked by assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri rather than any elections in Iraq. Lebanon is a complex situation in its own right. The Syrian army entered to help quell a civil war between Palestinian refugees and various Lebanese factions (it is in many ways ironic that Syria entered Lebanon to fight against the Palestinians)… A rushed departure of Syrian forces (a measure that is well overdue in and of itself) could well see a re-ignition of a Lebanese civil war as various factions seek to filol the power vacuum left in the Wake of Syria’s withdrawal.

The above is a profoundly abridged view of various facets of democracy in the middle east at the moment. There are other ways of viewing the situation and there is merit in contemplating discussing and examining all these different views and weighing them against the facts. However, I would be profoundly suspicious of anyone attempting to sell the idea that democracy to now flowing in the middle east in response to elections in Iraq…
 
 
Joetheneophyte
20:01 / 14.03.05
I am a political idiot first and foremost but I do believe that

The only reason there hasn't been more bloodshed between the Shia and Sunni Muslims in Iraq (we haven't even covered the issue of the Kurds) is that there are tens of thousands of occupying troops maintaining some semblence of peace. The downside, there is still far too much violence and new hatreds and vengance being bred by the day and the US/Coallition troops are in some senses unifying various factions (at least temporarily) to fight the what they see as greater evil

If the troops ever leave Iraq, then there will undoubtedly be a power struggle and huge loss of life as the waring factions fight for supremacy and attempt to pay back old scores.


Iran:

Good point about how having US troops on the border, probably undoing any good that pro western propogandists had had prior to 2003. The young men in Iran who were probably sick of their clerics are probably more scared and distrusting of west and whilst not religious by their own standards, the threats from Bush and his cronies probably causes them to feel more nationalistic than they may have done otherwise.

Lebanon:

Allegedly, the pro West/anti Syria rallies reported in the west were easily outweighed by the hardly reported pro Syrian rallies a few days later. Many Lebanese remember the civil war that virtually destroyed their country in the early eighties and whilst the Syrians outstayed their welcome, they are still viewed with less suspicion than the Israelis.


Israel / Palestine

I will believe it when I see it. Sharon seems to be taking a more statesman like approach but it will only take one suicide bomber to bring the whole thing crashing down. Both sides are filled with so much hatred that I cannot see how any compromise can be reached. Claims that 'my GOD gave me this land three thousand years ago' vs ' Allah be praised, you will be driven into the sea' do not rational arguments make

Until this issue is resolved, I cannot see any lasting peace in that region.....a problem further complicated by the fact that the surrounding countries have all that lovely oil that various parties want to exploit



In summary. NO I do not really believe that this pre-emptive (though what threat Iraq posed is still unproven) war has achieved anything really positive. The new Iraqi Govt will always struggle with legitimacy problems....always being viewed as a puppet regime for western interests. As somebody much cleverer than I said, Democracy has to evolve and cannot be gifted onto a society.
Yes the possibility has at least been given to the Iraqi populace but this has been a double edged sword and the repercussions are that there is a the perception that this is at best a puppet regime; the US will only ever allow their choice of Govt, and at best has replaced a homegrown dictator, with an occupying force. The only way to get over this is to hope for a prolonged period of stability and growth (unlikely) and impossible without the troops staying for the long haul. As soon as the troops leave there will be even more bloodshed than we have already witnessed

sorry to prattle on and I hope I haven't said anything too stupid but this is my honest opinion, flawed as it maybe
 
 
sleazenation
21:42 / 14.03.05
Iran:
Good point about how having US troops on the border, probably undoing any good that pro western propogandists had had prior to 2003. The young men in Iran who were probably sick of their clerics are probably more scared and distrusting of west and whilst not religious by their own standards, the threats from Bush and his cronies probably causes them to feel more nationalistic than they may have done otherwise.


I think it would be a mistake to confuse the notions of pro-democracy and pro-west. I doubt if many of those in Iran who thirst for democracy feel particularly warm to 'the West' - let us remember that Iran was a democracy until the British and US-backed coup removed Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh from power. 'The West' backed the regime of the Shah Reza, son of the former Shah or Emperor. Shah Reza soon became infamous for its ruthless persecution of dissidents and increasingly unpopular until a mass uprising removed him from power, in the resultant power vacuum, conservative Muslims — led by the Ayatollah Khomeini took power declaring Iran an Islamic Republic which while not a full democracy, has many democratic elements. It is this Islamic regime that remains in power to this day.
 
 
electric monk
03:19 / 15.03.05
[slightly OT]

Just wanted to say that I think it's hilarious that Bush and the NeoCons refuse to take the blame for lack of WMD's, lack of equiptment for the troops, lack of postwar planning, etc. and NOW want all the credit for the non-Hezbollah demonstrations in Lebanon. Talk about yer cognitive dissonance.

[/slightly OT]
 
 
Perfect Tommy
04:49 / 15.03.05
Before we go any further I don’t think we can predict with any degree of accuracy the political make up of the world 100 years in the future...

Point well taken--I picked that number as a "...by which point everyone concerned will be dead anyway" point, which felt necessary because of my discomfort at wondering about something being 'worth' a tsunami's worth of dead.


Its a bit tougher sell to claim that a Shia led government, like the one that is still apparently part of an axis of evil over in Iran is a significant improvement.

But hasn't the Iranian government had a credible opposition/reform movement for the past decade or so, which was essentially impossible under the previous Iraqi government?
 
 
sleazenation
07:54 / 15.03.05
Indeed, as I indicated above, Iran has been making its own strides towards its own brand of democracy for some time now. Meanwhile there was, as you say no credible feasible opposition to Saddam in Iraq - many of the current Iraqi political parties were and are constituted out of political exiles that have spent much of their lives outside Iraq and have long been funded by organizations such as the CIA. THis presents something of a credibility problem as far as independence goes. With the best will in the world, even the most vocal exile's in favour of Iraqi soverignty are going to look like the paid servents of the the 'West' and the US in particular, which they kind of are.

But coming back to your point, Iraq under Saddam didn't have the necessary foundations to build an effective indigenous democracy. However, I'm far from convinced that its flawed foundations were or are any more helpful to esablishing a functioning democracy out of a political system imposed by an outside power over such a short period.
 
 
Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo
10:10 / 02.04.05
Was the Iraq War actually about freedom, and the Bush Junta had to cloak it in WMDs in order to "trick" the American people into supporting the right thing?

That's a theory that I have heard from some moderates and people who aren't married to political parties, but I don't buy it. I also don't buy the "freedom is on the march" theory for a number of reasons.

First, the report that came out this week shows just how bad the lies were about WNDs, and the White House is either amazingly incompetent or they lied leading up to the war because they treated it the same way they treat science: Set the goal, and make the facts fit the goal on the way there.

Second: Iran has HAD elections for quite some time. Egypt saying they will have elections is not the same as them actually HAVING elections. Lebanon moving toward kicking Syria out has more to do with Syria over-reaching than Freedom being on the march. The Palestinians have been voting for a while, the US just hasn't liked who they voted for until Arafat died. And so on...

Third: The Iraq election wasn't this Huge Grand deal, in my mind. Iraq has had elections for years, they just had one fewer candidate that we have had here in the US...one of the major political groups boycotted the election, the government is rife with corrupt officials that were appointed by the US, and the new system the US put in place seems like it was made to incite a civil war.

Finally: As we see the major money scandals slowly claw their way to life, it's pretty easy for me to see that Iraq was more about money that freedom. Over $8 billion is simply missing, oil is flowing but no one knows how much, the money to rebuilt the county isn't being used to rebuild things like water filtration or electric plants, and the laws that Paul Bremer put in place are so corporation friendly that Ayn Rand would say they've gone too far. As for the US leaving, Bush has made it quite clear that the US will not leave until every drop of precious freedom and liberty has been pumped out and put on the world market.

I have no cognative dissonance over the war. It was wrong, it was economic, and the aftermath shows that in planned chaos, those in charge can make tremendous amounts of money. When Saddam said that when sanctions were lifted, he would be selling his oil for Euros instead of dollars, he may as well have said, "I want to be invaded", as that would have caused the US economy to collapse. Freedom may be on the march, but US debt is behind it with rifles, making sure it marches correctly.
 
 
Nobody's girl
10:18 / 02.04.05
"Children starving in new Iraq" Beeb Article.

Increasing numbers of children in Iraq do not have enough food to eat and more than a quarter are chronically undernourished, a UN report says.

Malnutrition rates in children under five have almost doubled since the US-led invasion - to nearly 8% by the end of last year, it says.

The freedom to starve, eh?
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
16:33 / 04.04.05
Well from the start I've been worried that Bush and Blair's policy towards the Iraqi people was 'better to die free than live on their knees in chains'...
 
 
m
04:00 / 08.04.05
So, I'm kinda curious about this "was Bush was right" topic, cause it seemed to appear in several different publications at about the same time, and the political changes that are being associated with each other seem pretty tenuous. Am I really to believe that the invasion of Iraq is spreading democracy throughout the Middle-East? What the fuck does Iraq have to do with Arafat dying or Hariri being assassinated? Why did this topic suddenly appear in various media outlets? Is the media trying to stay on the cutting edge by copying one another's headlines or is this just nicely done news manipulation by the US administration. I mean, they *are* really good at doing such things.
 
 
sleazenation
08:47 / 08.04.05
M - newspapers and other newsoutlets are copying each-others output all the time - it ain't a conspiracy, but I do think it is an incredible overstretch to say everything that is convenient for the current US administration is as a result of US military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We shall see who, if anyone, the UN investigators eventually find guilty of the former Lebanon PM's assassination...
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
11:35 / 08.04.05
You can hardly blame the rightwing for trying to push the 'Bush was right all along' idea, they've had about three years of events proving that Bush is both wrong and a lying duplicitous shit. Normal service will no doubt be resumed shortly.
 
 
unheimlich manoeuvre
03:44 / 10.04.05
Lots of public relations and media professionals have been recruited into high level government jobs in the UK/US governments.

War Pimps By J St. Clair counterpunch Aug 16, 2003
"Public diplomacy is a vital new arm in what will combat terrorism over time," said Beers. "All of a sudden we are in this position of redefining who America is, not only for ourselves, but for the outside world."
 
  
Add Your Reply