C-SPAN -- Should America use its power to spread democracy?

[Skidmore]

A question based on the inaugural speech.

The responses are downright frightening from the right wingers. Yes, by all means. Rah! Rah! Rah! One guy just threw in the caveat that we need to be taking control of our streets again also.

Lamb read an article by Peggy Noonan, who was apparently having problems with the speech. She couldn't even agree with the continuing march to oblivion.

This country is insane.

[AliciaKeyedUp]

1. Might depend on how the question is worded

Should the U.S. encourage other nations to give more freedoms to their people? Absolutely. Should we use trade as leverage? Again, yes.

Where I disagree is forcing them to with military might.

[Skidmore]

3. He's also asking how America should use it's power.

Some of these callers are basically saying that we should not spare any cost in lives and dollars to make sure that other countries are like us.

[Paleocon]

2. No, absolutely not...

That is not something we should be doing, be it a Republican president or a Democratic president.

[Crankie Avalon]

4. Actually "we" are not truly interested in spreading democracy...

...that's all just a big lie. This is the text of a post I made yesterday of what my position on this whole sanctimony about "freedom and democracy" really means:

The current frontman of the ruling cabal of the United States of America says, over and over again in his coronation speech, that he and the ruling elite he represents will be "expanding freedom" in the years ahead--the same ruling elite that has spent generations propping up despots that repress their respective peoples all across the world, and particularly the Muslim world.

Yes, that ruling elite now solemnly invokes the fig leaf of "freedom and democracy" to obscure what is being done to Iraq, and what will be done to any other place in the world that is weak enough to be cut down and refuses to play ball with the ruling elite of the United States. Because that's the real reason Iraq was invaded--Saddam Hussein stopped playing ball with his erstwhile friends in the U.S. ruling elite, and his country had something that our country's ruling elite wanted. Otherwise, Hussein would be as in with the U.S. as the Saudi ruling family.

This "bringing freedom and democracy to the people of Iraq" is just the palatable smokescreen for hanging a giant "OPEN FOR BUSINESS" sign on an entire country.

I'm reading a book called "Rubicon" about the death of the Roman Republic. As she became an Empire, the elite of Rome used the same tactic--dribbling virtue out of one side of their mouths and hypocrisy out the other, pontificating about their duty to civilize the world and bring peace, order, and Roman law to it. It was all a high sounding beard for the enrichment of their business class, the publicani, who would be the driving force behind each new military adventure, and who, along with the Roman tax collectors, would descend on each new province like locusts or Halliburton contractors. At the same time, the Romans always, no matter how obviously false the claim was, brazenly insisted that every one of their invasions were undertaken as matters of survival, defensive wars that were the only way to continue preserving the lives of the Roman people (pre-emptive wars--sound familiar?).

And now, here we are, listening to the self-serving lies of this empire's publicani shill on the day of his Triumph, as he fulfills his role of jamming an idealistic face onto our client-"nation building," our modern legionary soldiers and corporate contractors swarming into a small nation whose people have as much right to their own country as we have to ours.

It's an awful day for Americans who care, and an awful day for the world.

[Skidmore]

5. I agree wholeheartedly.

It just is so surreal that this country would embrace this type of policy without a whimper.

[Dr Strangelove]

6. A better question would be

Can we use our power (military) to spread democracy? Usually governments installed by force are called something else.

[BoogDoc7]

7. A few questions...

I am ALMOST beginning to become concerned with certain measures taken worldwide, but I do have several questions for the left.

First, do we have a responsibility to correct our mistakes of the past? Both Iraq and Iran are on this list...and those solutions almost require military intervention.

Second, the concern of spreading corporate interests (which I think DO have too much of an undue influence on American government, but maybe not quite as much as most here) is legitimate, but how are we supposed to rebuild certain infrastructures without there aid? Case in point - how was Iraq to be rebuilt - oil fields and power and such - without the aid of American big business, possibly the only entities in the world with the resources and capital to do so on such short notice? Should we let a nation burn in those cases?

Third, how fast are democracies supposed to develop? Are we to go in, oust someone, and then leave it up to possible civil war and anarchy to sort things out, or set up SOMETHING that could lead to a more honest democracy down the road - especially in an area that has not learned the "little things" on how a democracy should be run?

Fourth, when has Saddam ever benefited American corporate interests since the 1980s?

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Rebuilding Iraq would probably have benefitted

from much less American big business involvement. There are many non-American engineering companies around the world (Europe, Japan, Korea, etc.) with specialist expertise - and some, for instance, already had involvement in Iraq (eg much of the power station equipment was German, I believe). However, the American companies insisted on starting all over again with their own designs, rather than repairing what was already there. The results are less power than before the invasion.

Much of the reconstruction would have been much more efficiently done by Iraqi businesses and labour (it's not a backward country, and the more local labour that was employed, the better off the population would be).

[Skidmore]

14. Well here goes.

First, do we have a responsibility to correct our mistakes of the past? Both Iraq and Iran are on this list...and those solutions almost require military intervention.

Reply: We are not correcting our mistakes of the past but are making new ones based on the same type of policy and ideology.

Second, the concern of spreading corporate interests (which I think DO have too much of an undue influence on American government, but maybe not quite as much as most here) is legitimate, but how are we supposed to rebuild certain infrastructures without there aid? Case in point - how was Iraq to be rebuilt - oil fields and power and such - without the aid of American big business, possibly the only entities in the world with the resources and capital to do so on such short notice? Should we let a nation burn in those cases?

Reply: WE have destroyed the infrastructure of those nations for the express purpose of handing lucrative contracts for corporate America and utilize the IMF and World Bank as fiscal billyclubs to keep them in line as we rob them of their resources and wealth. The peoples of these nations don't stand a chance when our nation decides it has interests in them. And what is wrong with letting peoples in other nations choose what their culture and government will look like. What would have happened in Iraq if we had 1) protected their infrastructure following the invasion so it didn't have to be rebuilt from the ground up and 2) we gave contracts to Iraqis to allow them to rebuild their own nation? My guess is there would be less support for an insurgency if those people were gainfully employed and had adequate services and commodities available to them to support their families. It would have also contributed to the development of new centers of power in the marketplace beyond old cronies of Saddam had the opportunities to develop new infrastructure been thought through carefully. That's known as an "exit strategy" and is non-existent; hence the current chaos and the almost certainty of a civil war.

Third, how fast are democracies supposed to develop? Are we to go in, oust someone, and then leave it up to possible civil war and anarchy to sort things out, or set up SOMETHING that could lead to a more honest democracy down the road - especially in an area that has not learned the "little things" on how a democracy should be run?

Reply: WE don't have an honest democracy at this point and are the last peoples on earth to be dictating how democracy should look to anyone in the world. As our own civil liberties and free speech are being chipped away daily, we can no longer be used as the gold standard for democracy. Besides, how can we claim that we even have established democracies historically when we have traditionally left dictatorships which made aggregious human rights violations in our wake. Look what we did to Iran in the 1950s--ousted its one democratically elected leader and left the Shah in his place. We have done this in South and Central America as well--time and time again. Democracies don't develop at the barrel of a gun. They develop because a people has the will to embrace the principles underlying a democratic society. You don't teach democracy by ordering someone to believe it or else. That is not choice.

Fourth, when has Saddam ever benefited American corporate interests since the 1980s?

Reply: That is what this war was about. The American corporations were not getting a big enough piece of the pie that is Iraq. Heck, they wanted the whole pie. Recall Cheney's meetings around the development of the energy plan and the resulting map of Iraqi oil fields all nicely carved up into fiefdoms for American energy companies. Need we say more? That oil is under Iraqi land and BELONGS to the Iraqi people. We have not right to enter their land and steal their wealth which is what we are doing. If a thief enters my home, I will defend my home and my family. How is what the Iraqi people doing to protect their homeland so wrong? It is very human and understandable. We have done just as much damage as Saddam, and possibly more, given that this administration is hell bent on keeping the region destabilized for generations to come.

[Crankie Avalon]

15. Well, I hope you keep waking up and move on from only...

..."beginning to become ALMOST concerned" to being flat-out outraged. I can't speak for "the left," to use your phrase, as I'm not truly a part of it. Or, if I am, I'm only just moving toward it. I'm more just someone who is horrified by the excesses of the elements behind the Bush regime and it seems "the left" is the only domestic source that can possibly oppose it. I wish "the left" would get its act together and become more effective. That being said...

1. How can we "correct our mistakes of the past" when we don't even have the decency to acknowledge them? What mistakes? We have a shameful history of meddling in the affairs of weaker nations but we don't even admit it in any official or significant way. We continually profess some fantasy of what we want to think we are. The fact is, once upon a time we occasionally did good in the world--maybe enough to offset the suffering we caused--but that was a while ago. I'm not quite sure when it happened, but it seems pretty obvious now that we have reached a point where we actually do more harm than good in the world. And so, the world has come to openly hate us. In consequence, many in this country are culitvating a "who cares what the world thinks" attitude as a personal defense mechanism against having a mirror held up to them that shows a reflection they don't like. More of our military intervention to "correct our mistakes???" Please. With all that has come out about how this Administration was planning a war of conquest in Iraq from the very moment it took power in January 2001, about how it seized the opportunity to skew intelligence to make the unrelated 9/11 attack appear like a justification for invading Iraq, about how, once that charade began unraveling, a need for a pre-emptive strike due to "WMDs" was concocted, about how, when that fell through, we then moved on to a farce about "liberating the Iraqi people from a brutal tyrant" (as opposed to the brutal tyrants who are our friends in almost all the rest of the Arab world who don't need toppling)--after all that, I can't believe anyone could still believe we are in Iraq to "correct mistakes." The world has had more than enough of our "correction." No honest person could blame them.

2. These countries wouldn't need to be rebuilt by us if we didn't go in and wantonly bomb them for no good reason in the first place. But I suppose we had to "destroy the village in order to save it." If "Big Business" is so concerned with the good of the Iraqi people, why is it that only they and the American ruling elite are the ones deriving any share of the spoils? Even the truck drivers "rebuilding" Iraq are Americans. Why aren't the Iraqi people given these jobs? Why aren't the Iraqi people themselves, to the maximum extent possible, being allowed to participate in the "rebuilding" of their country? Because that would cut into the richness of the contracts. U.S. "Big Business" is NOT the only one with the "resources and capital" to get Iraq on its feet as quickly as possible (or, "on short notice" as you say). Why didn't we allow Europe to help? If we really wanted all the help for the Iraqi people available rather than just keeping the money all to ourselves? Because we DID want to keep the money all to ourselves.

3. Why on earth do we need to go in and "oust" people who are no threat to us in the first place? Who are we to play God and just go in uninvited and topple other countries governments to set up puppet regimes of ours in their places? WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE??? If we're really just trying to bring "justice" to the world, why don't we start by "cleaning house" in countries that aren't oil-rich? Because they're not enticing boondoggles for corporate bloodsuckers. The only reason we even went into Afghanistan was because its involvement in 9/11 couldn't be denied--even by a pack of liars as shameless as the Bush Administration. But, they never really wanted to go. From their perspective, there was no point. Well, I guess the deal to run a natural gas pipeline through the country is profitable enough for them to keep a few thousand legionaries, but not much else.

4. Yes, Saddam stopped benefiting American interests after the eighties. That's the whole point. We used military force on him in the early nineties when he challenged for control of the oil in our client state of Kuwait. We miscalculated and thought that defeat would leave him weak enough to be toppled by forces within his own country with whom we could then cut a new deal. The U.S. wanted Iraqi elements to do the dirty work, and shied away even when it became apparent they couldn't do it on their own. But once it was realized Saddam was there to stay, unless military force was used in another war against him, the elites of this country began their plotting and dreaming for that very war. The Clinton years put a delay on that, but once they came back into their own with the second of the Bushes in office, it was only a matter of time before another one of our wars of conquest was going to take place. They want Iraq as an insurance policy--it is the second most oil-rich nation and, if an Islamic revolution takes over Saudi Arabia (the first) and knocks out the ruling family there the way the Shah (another of our client creations) was knocked out of Iran, our ruling elite would still have Iraq's oil supply to fall back on.

At this point, I have to say I think either you are pretty naive or you are just putting me on. The tone of your message was respectful and made me treat it seriously and give it a full answer. It took a while to write, AND I'm at my paid work. I hope I didn't waste my time on someone who is just here looking to start trouble while "staying JUST under the radar." I hope you become a valued member of this community.

Take care.

[slor]

8. There are some scary folk out there...

I do not really believe that they even believe what they are saying, but do it to show support for their idiot. I mean can they really be this damn stupid?

[Solly Mack]

9. Might makes right?

Cause that's the bottomline

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Solly Mack]

13. No doubt you'll be on the front line, yes?

It's easy to call for such things as revolution from a computer keyboard. But while you're expressing your disdain for the inactions of others, it might be good to remember you do so from the safety of your home.

[SHRED]

12. Power?

What fucking power?

We are in debt to our necks.

Oh...they mean bombs, that's right...nevermind.