Liberation of countries with oppressive regimes

why doesn't the internatl community liberate other countries
"why doesn't the international community liberate other countries"

dek - This is a great question. I'm sorry it's not the title of the interaction, because more people might have more quickly posted replies. (I had to abbreviate a word above to fit in "the limit.") Anyway, to offer an answer: It behooves them NOT to - usually financially or some other matter of control. However, there is a dictum in political science that says, "People get the kind of government they deserve." Walk out of Iraq tomorrow and the people would probably vote for a fundamentalist Islamic government. But that's not what "we" want. Unless it means a larger slice for our capitalist free markets. That's another matter. Too complicated to discuss in a few words here. For years, there has been great "support" for many dictators - including Saddam. And, when the worm turns, they get their head lopped off. :-) :-) :-) - Charli[/color]

This world has had repressive regmines all during my 67 years of life on earth. I'm sure that's been true for most of human history. Why would a country like the US bother to topple one regime over another? Is it because of WMD's? That can't be true, because there are many countries in this world with WMD's. Is it because Saddam is such a tyrant, and kills his own people? There are plenty of bad regimes in this world today that is responsible for the death of their people, so that can't be the reason. What else is there about Iraq that separates them from the other bad regimes? Oil! Black gold. Energy. Whoever controls the oil supply in this world will be the future economic giant. c.i.

True freedom involves the acceptance of responsibility; perhaps a little appreciated fact, that is not attractive to everyone.

Childhood involves being in a position to learn, experiment, and experience the world, under the protective care of a mature parent.

Some societies do not wish to grow up.

And, in my opinion, untill we are prepared to be responsible for whatever happens around us, without assigning blame to deities, other creeds, other races, inate evil, etc. no one will be free.

I think, such a forced regime change may happen only if the regime endangers strategic interests of the superpower. Ohterwise, people of the country involved should make an effort to achieve positive changes by themselves.

is imposition of liberal democracy also type of repression
as far as the case of Iraq is concerned, it is undeniable that it is an authoritarian state controlled by a dictator. and setting aside the consideration that the US is pursuing its own national interests, either economic or political, a motive on the moral ground, if any at all, is to liberate the country from the arbitrary and atrocious dictatorship. the slogan might well be that the military operation is for the well-being of Iraq people who, after the downfall of Hussein, will enjoy human, civil and political rights as people in the western countries do -- really tempting, isn't it?
true, liberal democracy has won it victory in the past 30 years with bunches of countries dumping the authoritarian government and establishing kind of democratic polity, due to either international political pressure or domestic social unrest. the universalization of liberal democracy typical of american type seems to be pushing forward in the same way as what took place in the colonial time.
one of the basic traits of a democratic and liberal society is marked by the degree of tolerance of diversification. a society allowing high degree of diversification is by all means a liberal one.
the universalization of liberal democracy led by some major western states, however, is contrary to what liberal democracy itself favors. uniformity is not what a liberal democracy pursues.
by extension, how is it justified that the US carries out military operation for the purpose to transplant into Iraq democracy as part of effort to universalize the democratic ideology around the world?
if the universalization of liberal democracy carries on anyway, can we say that a dictatorship featured by every country being democratic and liberal is dovetailing into American type of democracy dictatorships previously scattered around the world?

But I think that tolerance to diversity should be limited by borders defined by the common sense, otherwise the society will be tolerant to such versions of human behavior as cannibalism or pedophilia.
The same refers to diversity of political systems; when they cross certain red lines, they should be corrected. In the best case it will occur as a result of inetrnally induced reforms (like in Czechoslovakia), or popular unrest (like in Rumania); but when this does not happen, and the regime threatens both its subjects and neighboring countries, it should be modified by foreign intervention.

In general, I agree.
But, how can we define enforceable "common sense"?
By LAW.
There are laws against cannibalism, and laws against pedophilia.

In the case of political systems (or rather, of repressive regimes), who makes the law?
Shouldn't it be an International Court?
Should it be multilateral institutions?
Or do you think it should be the Superpower, now self-appointed as World policeman?

Well, the mentioned Superpower is the only one capable and willing to enforce the law. All the others either lack possibilities, or are reluctant for different reasons.

What law is the Superpower willing to enforce, steissd?
Who wrote it?

Maybe, God...

EDITORIAL FROM TODAY'S NEW YORK TIMES
Perhaps this editorial from today's New York Times is appropriate here. Below is the URL and the first four paragraphs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/29/opinion/29KRUG.html?ex=1052616853&ei=1&en=f1f57661b8b872b4

Matters of Emphasis

April 29, 2003
By PAUL KRUGMAN

"We were not lying," a Bush administration official told
ABC News. "But it was just a matter of emphasis." The
official was referring to the way the administration hyped
the threat that Saddam Hussein posed to the United States.
According to the ABC report, the real reason for the war
was that the administration "wanted to make a statement."
And why Iraq? "Officials acknowledge that Saddam had all
the requirements to make him, from their standpoint, the
perfect target."

A British newspaper, The Independent, reports that
"intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic were
furious that briefings they gave political leaders were
distorted in the rush to war." One "high-level source" told
the paper that "they ignored intelligence assessments which
said Iraq was not a threat."

Sure enough, we have yet to find any weapons of mass
destruction. It's hard to believe that we won't eventually
find some poison gas or crude biological weapons. But those
aren't true W.M.D.'s, the sort of weapons that can make a
small, poor country a threat to the greatest power the
world has ever known. Remember that President Bush made his
case for war by warning of a "mushroom cloud." Clearly,
Iraq didn't have anything like that - and Mr. Bush must
have known that it didn't.

Does it matter that we were misled into war? Some people
say that it doesn't: we won, and the Iraqi people have been
freed. But we ought to ask some hard questions - not just
about Iraq, but about ourselves. . . .

[/color]

"Why doesn't the international community liberate other countries?"

Because that would mean war against the USA. It so happens that much closer to home than Iraq, the US aided dozens of oppresive, brutal dictatorships in Central and South America. There were 20+ US military incursions in the twentieth century to suppress rebellions by the oppressed of some of these countries.

To name a few countries with dictators we supported: Guatemala, Nicaragua, Cuba (pre-Castro), Panama, Chile, Haiti, Dominican Republic, etc., etc.

That is why, at my age, it seems so brazen and hypocritical to announce that we are concerned with dictatorships. The name of the game is oil and power.
Argentina, Paraguay,

Fbaezer, you made a good point in saying that supranational organization rather than one world policeman should help redress those "rogue" totalitarian states on behalf of the international community. yes, no doult that allowing one state to maintain world order and preserve human rights is treacherous, if not devestating. but i think, although reluctantly, that we do need a superpower in this world to do the nasty work.

however, some significant requirements have to be met if a state wants to take the role of world policeman. first, obviously it must be economically powerful. nasty work does drain upon fiscal reserves. second, it should have an appealing--of course in the relative sense--culture, which meets the need of gradually leading the citizens of the world to integrate. third, the state must have a net of interest all around the world and short of it, people in the world will be generally worse off.
these three basic requirements are fundamentals for a state to be qualified as a leader in the world.

although personally i am reluctant to admit of this fact, this is really the way the world works and the only way the world can finally stay in peace and harmony without any more radical conflict, say warfare. the history does tell us that the balance of power between several major states is ineffective in preserving peace and averting wars. since the modern international politics is still fraught with the notorious monetary transactions, the multipolar arrangement with US a little bit more powerful is doomed to fail. nation states can never escape the fate of surviving through at the expense of others' benefits. undeniably, the win-win scenarios have already been achieved through international cooperations. but the truth is that win-win scenarios are corollary of the globalization, a process led mainly by the US. this, therefore, justifies the significance of the role US is playing in the international politics.

nonetheless, here i am not trying to denigrate the importance of the UN. the international political arrangement, as i envision, is that US dominates with necessary containment offered by the UN. the interantional politics thus arranged help the US weave a net that covers all the nation states in terms of economic interest. the cooperation between nations covered under the net will then lead to cultural aggregation. with all this stuff accompolished then will come a world much different from what it used to be, a world in peace and meaningful cooperations covering almost every country.

admittedly, the work to be done is stackable and above all, nasty. however, the international politics is itself nasty. to deal with nastiness, the nasty tactic is forgivable. anyway, the ends justifies the means; here, this proverb works.

acepoly, I agree.
The problem is that the US government is quite unconfortable with the "necessary containtment" of multilateral organizations, and seems ready to put them aside if they don't bow to US interests.

I think that Russia is a great example of why it would be a problem to rid oppressed countries of "evil-doing" leaders. At the time of the fall of communism, the majority of their people had absolutely no formal education in democracy. They had only been told it was bad. They didn't know how to put it into action or sustain it, and it's been difficult for the Russian citizens to become accustomed to freedom. The Czech Republic got very lucky in that their dissident leaders were educated in democracy and that they were young and alive at the time that they could lead the country into a successful transition. It would be very rare to find a country to liberate, I would imagine, that would have the leaders-in-waiting that the Czechs had. It would most probably end up being more like Russia or even worse, and unless the US wants to make like England did and stay in the chosen country to govern for years until they were properly educated in our system of government, it just wouldn't work.

Fbaezer, i admit that the political arrangement in international politics is really difficult to work out some positive future for us. the lack of some basic institutions that might be indispensible to operationalize this arrangement leaves us in the accusation of reinstituting hegemony in a world that is claimed to "diversified". yes, the power of nation states is getting important and should by no means be neglected. these nation states with different cultural background will form a very effective force to stymie the process of "cultural aggregation". but as you agree with me on this point, that is, the world does need a dominating power, we would have to work out those necessary institutions that can operationalize this political arrangement.

LibertyD

to educate people how to run a democracy is important if they want to avoid turning out to be a mobocracy. but it is not necessary that a democratic state would have to stay there and deliver to people "education packages". we have another way, which probably might be even more acceptable for those "arrogant nation states". the education packages can be incorporated into the process of economic globalization.

remember the economic always has an impact on the political. when the goods and the way of doing business reach those countries, an education is already under way, although gradually and sometimes impercetible. but it is truly getting off the ground.

What is most important in this "line" of thinking is "whose" economic ideals are to be touted as "the way"?

"democracy"?????

Would it not be a major step forward if we could offer the emerging world an option for living that goes beyond gross, selfinterested, commercial consumerism.

Say "the sustainable sharing of world resources"!

acepoly, I disagree with your theory that economic globalization would be education enough. Again, look at Russia. Sure, they're making some progress, but after thirteen years of freedom, they're still in a state of trying to come to terms with their democracy. I think that not only is it due to so many not being educated about democracy, but also because of the overestimation of the rewards of democracy by so many of the citizens. We make it seem so easy and we have so many riches to show for it, but all of us who were born and raised in a democratic state know that it isn't a big bowl of easy-living cherries. Imagine living your entire life with some jerk in power telling you what to think, what to study, what to be when you grow up, etc. and then all of a sudden you can do whatever you want (comparitively). The average person is not going to be thinking about the mechanics of a democratic government. They will be thinking about all the "stuff" that economic globalization will bring them, but Nikes and McDonalds and DVD players won't inherently bring them education on how to run and live in a democracy. It will bring, by itself, a focus on riches rather than a focus on caring for the new democratic society. It would reinforce their false ideas that the Nikes etc. are what democracy is all about, and we know that it's a lot more complicated than that.

Like a lot of others have said on this thread, the citizens of whichever country we great Americans want to "liberate" have to want to be liberated. They also have to understand that liberation doesn't mean all fun and games. We also have to reconsider what democracy means to us...and colonialisation of repressed countries, unless I've missed something, doesn't fit into the American democracy. Certainly "liberating" a country and then leaving it to figure out what it's supposed to do next with an uneducated government and a bunch of American goods isn't part of our idea of democracy, either.