What's happening with those poor devils at Camp Xray ???

Ah! I see that you edited your post, ILZ (I always do, too - you always forget something ...).

and if I'm not mistaken, it was to add this last paragraph, that wasnt there before:



If that was your point, we are - again - in full agreement, it appears ;-)

I have no idea what this means. If you are saying a glorified dictatorship is a failed dictatorship.....that is a trivial truism. Whether it represents a small achievement for democracy or a small defeat for totalitarianism is irrelevent - my point is that it is not a democracy. That is all.



The democratic, or semi-democratic nations, are generally doing better. However, as I explained later in my post, this is not because of democracy. Rather, it is the general stability of the nation that allowed democracy to rise.



True. However, they voted for reforms withen an Islamic Fundamentalist government. My point is that Middle Easterners traditionally choose forms of government that are undemocratic and un-Western. This does not refute my point.



What does Milosevic have to do with the history of Middle Easterners electing undemocratic anti-Western leaders?



If half the voters want a fundamentalist government, you can bet your galloshes that a Western style government will never materialize. A democratically elected Iraqi government will have a strong fundamentalist and anti-Western element.



I don't know. I don't want to theorize. My point in bringing up Algeria, again, is that Middle Easterners traditionally elect a undemocratic and anti-Western leaders. Also, democracy does not lead to stability. Where is the evidence to refute this claim?



Exactly. In the Middle East, the avenues they have traditionally chosen are anti-American and fundamentalist. That is all I am saying.



In the case of Iraq you are right. The democratically elected government would not be as worse than Hussien. However, in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and many others the result would be far different.



I am all for democracy in Iraq, as I said at the end of my last post. I only take issue with the idea that it will result in a stable pro-Western government.

Democracy is not the solution to all the worlds problems, despite what the Bush administration would like to think. In many places democracy is desparately needed. In other places, like most nations in the Middle East, democracy would result in leadership that is more fundamentalist and anti-Western than the dictators they are replacing. In some other nations, namely Iraq, democracy can be installed, but we should not expect it to result in a Western style democracy. That is all I am saying. I have yet to see you lay out any effective arguments against those points.

It hasn't been my impression either -- I think you have misunderstood what I wrote. I'm not saying Germany, France, and Russia are setting up tribunals because they want to mess with the United States. I'm saying their desire not to mess with the US is so strong that they wouldn't set up a tribunal even if the case against the United states was perfectly good -- which I think it is.

Let's put it this way. You submitted that "democracy has nothing but a history of failure in the Middle East". That would suggest that there were democracies, and they failed. Which ones are you referring to?



Instability is not conducive to democracy ... that sounds like a truism, yes. Except that many current-day democracies were born in times of turmoil - not unsurprisingly, since most system changes take place (and cause) turmoils. There are also democracies that emerged or evolved in a gradual process, where the dictator/king/etc peacefully handed over power - but there's certainly no systematic pattern suggesting it is the better, more natural, let alone only way for democracy to emerge.

German democracy was not born out of stability - it was born out of war, defeat and attempted revolution. Indonesian democracy was established exactly when the long-lasting stability of the Suharto regime crumbled into incoherence and the crowds took to the streets. Just two random examples. The latter even shows stability can actually hamper democratisation - stagnating the system, so to say.



They didn't "vote for reforms within an Islamic Fundamentalist government" - they voted for reforms, period. The "Islamic Fundamentalist government" bit is the part they have no voting rights to exercise over. Its continued existence is guaranteed by the overriding legal powers of unelected bodies.

Ironically, the reason they are still stuck with it is because, thus far, they restrained their protests to reasonable parameters of "stability". At the moment it looks like only a resort to political turmoil - call it revolution - would be able to rid Iran of its Supreme Leader and Council of Guardians.

I say "ironically" because this is where you seem to lock these Middle Easterns into forms of dictatorship because of the way your argument bites into its own tail. You imply Middle-Easterners are not suited for democracy ("democracy has nothing but a history of failure in the Middle East") and, here for example, refer to how the Iranians have kept their "Fundamentalist government" as evidence - but for them to prove you wrong - i.e., rid themselves of the Council of Guardians in revolt, say - they would need to crush the stability, which you insist should remain in place - because of them not being suited for democracy - which you prove by referring to how they havent gotten rid of the Council of Guardians ... et cetera.



Why wouldnt his case suggest an analogy with the Iranian one? I find Iran under Khatami to pose a highly striking analogy to the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, for example - especially his latter, waning years (1989-1991). But then I am not one to argue that, somehow, people in the Middle East are culturally less able or suited for democracy than people elsewhere, so perhaps the analogies come easier to me.

Anyway, the analogy was simple. In retort to your argument that democracy just won't work in the Middle-East, I suggested Iran was a good example of Middle-Easterns wanting (more) democracy and using what democracy they have quite adeptly. You responded that I shouldn't "forget that the rise of the Shah in 1979 was only achieved because a majority of the population favored a Islamic state to a pro-Western dictatorship" - as if that somehow still proved they weren't ready or right for democracy, no matter what position they are taking now. That argument would never stick if you'd apply it to a European country, as I showed with my Serbian analogy.

A majority of Serbs voted for a warring, nationalist authoritarianism - does that prove they are culturally unsuited for democracy? I'd say not, and point to the Zajedno and Otpor demonstrators, and the elections in which they did vote Slobo out, eventually, as proof.

I don't see why similar political developments in Iran should be judged differently, just cause its in another continent - that would smack of ... (whats a nice way to suggest the cultural equivalent of racism?). The fact that the Iranians are apparently, a generation on, perfectly capable of changing their mind, choosing for democratic programs, instead, and doing so using all the means one would in a normal democracy too (elections, demonstrations, petitions, law cases - as opposed to lynchings, murders, burning oneself, etc) - would seem to prove they are no more "unsuited" for democracy than the Serbs are.

That make sense?



Ah - there's the point. You see, we agree that a "Western style government", one that will not have an "anti-Western element", is unlikely to appear in the Middle-East. No dispute there.

I just don't see how that equates with democracy being impossible in the Middle-East. You have democracies that do not look and feel like America's democracy in every respect - hell, European democracies work greatly different from America's - but are still democracies. You have democratically elected governments that have "a strong anti-Western element". So what?

What Americans need to do is see that democracy is a question of people's empowerment - a question of government system - and not an equation with "American culture". Hell, they could vote in socialists! It's where Americans insist on "bringing democracy" to the far abroad but then "quickly cancel" it when it doesnt turn out "like in America" where the problem lies.

Democratisation is about democratisation, not about McDonaldisation. Realising that would solve both the conservatives' incomprehension at "them not being grateful to us for bringing our democracy" and your apparent fear that democratisation means Americanisation.

Elections in Iraq could well yield results that would involve some anti-Americanism and not resemble "a Western style government" - but would still be "a Western style democracy" (if it is free elections, multi-party parliament etc that we are talking about).



On democracy leading to stability - compare (semi-democratic) Thailand with neighbouring (dictatorial) Birma ... (semi-democratic) Botswana with neighbouring (thuggish authoritarian) Zimbabwe ... (semi-democratic) Russia with neighbouring (utterly dictatorial) Byelorussia ... Costa Rica (with its long democratic tradition) with neighbouring Central-American countries ... how many continents do you want me to cover? <grins>

Seriously, though - because I realise that you could come up with a number of counter-examples - I'm not going to look it up for you, but I do believe a recent UN report - the Human Development Report? - did a wide-reaching evaluation of economic and social indicators on quality of life, and democratic countries did turn out to do better than dictatorial ones. (And socio-economic quality of life standards do equate with some stability, I'd say).

As for your former claim, Iran was the evidence to refute that one - ever since the democratisation process there started, the Iranians have voted in as much of an opposite to their old "undemocratic and anti-Western leaders" as they were allowed to.

Furthermore, I would again like to split the two -"undemocratic" and "anti-Western" - up. The (Algerian) FIS was certainly anti-Western - but no more undemocratic than its main rival in the elections - the party of the former FLN dictatorship.

So I dont see a pattern in which, faced with a main choice on the ballot, Middle Easterners "traditionally" elect the more undemocratic party. No evidence whatsoever that I can think of.

I do think that the decades in which Western powers have propped up hateful authoritarian regimes in the region have fostered anti-Westernism. Right now, they probably would vote in anti-Western leaders. Some of those would turn out - if the US would let them - to found democracies with a distinct anti-American slant. Others would turn to authoritarianism or worse, after all - in which case the country in question would often still not be much worse off than it is now.

I am not underestimating the danger of political Islamist extremism. But its growing influence is the product of the utter popular frustration with the current closed, authoritarian systems in the first place - systems in which citizens have little say and which frustrate their every ambition. And it will continue to grow the longer the Arab countries wait with reforms. If the switch to democracy had been made twenty years ago, fundamentalism would never have become what it is now. As it is now, the risk has increased but trying to smother it any longer under the repressive lid of authoritarian "stability" will really make it explode. The longer they wait with democratic elections, the greater the chance that fundamentalists will win them. Yes, that's a gloomy outlook.

Oddly enough, the popularity of fundamentalism is an expression of democratic frustration. If a move is made now, the longing for democracy may still outweigh the penchant for the fundamentalists' anti-Westernism ... and the fifty-fifty balance between them (as in Iraq) will still persuade some Islamists to accept a hybrid of the two sets of values for their government (as they did in Turkey). The longer we wait ...

And you, in turn, may not want to "theorize", but the question is fair enough. You say there shouldnt be democratisation in many ME countries because they would elect fundamentalists. You refer to Algeria. But what should they have done, there, then? The only alternatives I see are:
* having let the FIS take over power and see what would happen (and the FIS was a fundamentalistic party, but it wasnt anything like its terrorist successors have become after ten years of subsequent bloody civil war, and it did not have 90%, there would have been counterforces, the FLN, the powerful Berber party)
* not having allowed the elections in the first place, with the stagnated, hollowed out FLN dictatorship remaining in place. That's the recipe you are now prescribing for Egypt, Saudi-Arabia, Uzbekistan ... do you really think that would actually help against fundamentalism?



The "traditionally" in that sentence keeps intrigueing me. "Fundamentalism" or Islamism is a real enough danger now - but its a pretty recent phenomenon in ME politics, I think - emerging from the late 70s onwards. I would also again suggest the Iranian counter-example of the past five years - as well as the Yemenite example, where the fundamentalist party may have gained extra seats when the last elections were held just after the Iraq war, but still were left clearly in the minority.

"Traditionally" anti-American, that I'll buy. But being anti-American doesn't make them any less suited for democracy - that's exactly the mistake the American far right (Rumsfeld and Cheney c.s.) are making.



Two things.
A) That's exactly what they want you to believe - the current dictators, that is.
B) Let's take these ones, OK? Pakistan, they're already allowed to vote. Just a decade ago, they still voted in a female president - so much for traditionally opting for fundamentalism. Her government was corrupt as hell, so the pendulum swung back again ... but that's about it. Afghanistan - they'd vote for anyone who'd stop the anarchy and the warlords, is my guess - pro- or anti-Western - just like we would in that situation. Egypt, you may be right ... fundamentalism has festered on so long, there, it may be too late now ... though I dunno about Mubarak being better or worse than what would ensue. Uzbekistan - that's where I get agitated.

Karimov's Uzbek dictatorship is positively one of the most totalitarian and criminal of present-day Eurasia. Check any human rights report. He's far worse than most of your "glorified dictatorships" - he's the real thing. And for over ten years now he's managed to get away with it, abroad, by referring to some abstract Islamist danger. Well, back in 1990 the Muslim movement there was moderate, and had allied itself with pro-Western democrats. Then Karimov cracked down. Ever since, people have been imprisoned and tortured at random while Karimov's cronies rob the land. In the meantime, any oppositional pamphlet or muffled protest has been hit on as more evidence of the supposed "Islamist danger", though there is little sign of a wide-spread movement of anything like the extremism found further south. It's propping up people like Karimov that has gotten us in this ****, with people turning to fundamentalism as their last resort in anger and frustration, in the first place.



You added that end of your post after I was writing mine. On your "stable pro-Western government" point we agree.



<grins> - ok, wait - first you write, "There is a reason why we support so many dictatorships in the Middle East - because we know their democratically elected counterparts would be far less sympathetic to American interests" - and now you argue that Bush is wrong thinking "Democracy is the solution to all the worlds problems"?

I don't think he believes that at all - I think he is just out to get pro-Western governments that are somehow indebted or tied to America in place, and "democracy" just happens to be the most convenient banner with which to install such a one in Iraq.

Now I, on the other hand ... no, not the solution to all the world's problems ... but democracy is a system that promotes transparency in governance and thus in economy, corruption is on average lower in democracies, in democracies the leaders are slightly less likely to spend all their budget on arms and nepotism and thus slightly more likely to spend it on education and health care, which benefits the economy again, leading to ... well, et cetera - not mentioning freedom of media, human rights and all that.

"In other places, like most nations in the Middle East, democracy would result in leadership that is more fundamentalist and anti-Western than the dictators they are replacing" - could well be - but propping up these dictators for longer still will definitely further boost fundamentalist and anti-Western trends - and imagine what will ensue once they are, after all, swept away ...

"In some other nations, namely Iraq, democracy can be installed, but we should not expect it to result in a Western style democracy" - Agreed.

That's about it :-). (That must be the longest-ass post I've posted in months ...

I read you correctly, Thomas, and we disagree. When I said "This has not been my perception for much over a year or so, but it gets frequent reinforcement.", I meant to say the countries mentioned would go to some lengths to harass the US, rather than avoid messing with us.

To be clear, that is not a long standing opinion. It has developed in the past year, or possibly two. I can see how my original statement could be taken to mean that my outlook had become more optimistic, when I meant exactly the opposite.

Nimh: Concise and to the point, as always!
I think that two very important facts bear emphasizng: First, what the current administration labels "democracy" is in fact free market capitalism with govenrment support, not government by the people. Second, the tendency to use the experiences of the post WWII era to predict a rosy outcome in Iraq, and to attempt to gloss over the Iraqi opposition to US occupiers is fallacious in the extreme.
Also, if true (representative) democracies are to flourish in the Near East, they are likely to take shape gruadually, like they are doing in Jordan and Egypt, where assembies have been costituted in recent years. In addition, it is likely that representative governments will include representatives with a, Islamicist outlook. What will the US do in these situations? If one looks at the historical record, the conclusion may be drawn that these democracies will be overtrhown and replaced with totalitarianisms friendly to the US. If you recall, this was the situation in Iran in the 1950s.
Therefore I must support your assertion that democracy ahs indeed not "failed" in the ME, but appears to be slowly evolving. Where it has "failed" there has usually been outside help by Western governments uncomfortable with the makeup and views of the elected leadership.

That's in there too, you're right. Absolutely. But no one starts out with such a wicked mindset. You have to abandon your own humanity to become a Camp X-ray defender. This abandonship from humanity is always the result of personal unhappiness.

But somewhere, deep inside, there's still something of a primitive moral awareness glimmering under a thick layer of the forced self-approval that keeps the fascist apologizers on the tracks of daily life. The Germans knew it in 1930, the Americans know it now. And they're clenching on to every possible absurdity to pardon themselves.

________________
PS: Nice try, Thomas, but no cigar. I can follow you in this thread, but in the climate change thread it's about time you revealed your true colours.

Okay, so I was the one who misunderstood you -- sorry about that. I'd be curious to hear what, in your opinion, would be in it for those governments. They can set up a tribunal, find the US guilty of breaking the Geneva convention, and order the prisoners on Guantanamo Bay released. The US government, having demonstrated ad nauseam that it doesn't respect the judgment of international institutions on its conduct in wars, will probably ignore the tribunal's ruling too. As a consequence, the countries who set up the tribunals look like idiots without having accomplished anything. Even if you ignore the uglier turns this could take -- a trade war, say -- this strikes me as a high price to pay for America bashing. So what, to repeat the question, do you think would be in it for the governments in question?

As an aside, and just out of curiosity -- how closely are you following the political debate in Germany, France and Russia? And which media do you follow it in?

Oh I'm always interested to hear answers about that kinda thing! If you're considering talking about that, anyway, perhaps you'll consider it doing it on the thread I got about it? :-)

What newspapers / (online) journals do you read? And why?

Oh, I agree with you, btw, Thomas - Some French and Germans might not mind making some trouble for Bush, but they won't get into anything that'll truly get them into trouble, not if its not about something absolutely crusial to their interests anyway.

The Belgian case was telling - they did their share in annoying the US during the run-up to the Iraq war - but when the Americans really let their stern eyes fall on Belgium, i.e. on the Belgian international war crimes law, they made sure to retreat quickly enough ..

deleted, double post

Thanks, hobitbob, for coming by and sharing your opinions - appreciate it - and some good points!

Thanks for the link, nimh! I see roger has already answered there. More surprisingly, I also see that you yourself haven't. <wags index finger>

Thanks to nimh for giving me a heads up on this detailed and well reasoned discussion of democratization of the ME. This tidbit stopped me long enough to reply before finishing the balance of the convo-- If I restate someone's opinion on this--please excuse me.

Thomas made some adept points about the US' relationship to an international tribunal. I would like to say Rog is correct, IMO, on the surface of the issue. France, Germany et al aren't 'afraid', I don't think, of a US response to a tribunal--but what it may cause down the road. I suspect Thomas is correct, in that the US would not submit to such a tribunal--and this widening of the gulf between the states and the rest of the world may propel the US even further away from the international community--which would be bad for us, and IMO, the rest of the world-- It would be an ultimatum of important proportions, and the reverberations would harm the world. Not militarily, but trade wise, economically, diplomatically. Hell, it could start a psuedo-Cold War.

Will be reading the rest of the thread with great interest.

nimh--

Fabulous explanation of your rationale re: Democratization. Some do seem to think Americans believe democratization=pro-American. Not so. But, it does mean some basic things that would, IMO, lead a populace to evolve from fundamentalism, nd toward goals that bring about more peaceful nations.

This comment of yours:

...I believe speaks to the heart of the desire for ME Democracies.

Your recent post was a jewel of explanation, evidentiary proof and foundational historical items. This is why I follow you with great interest. Thank you for the time you spent on this subject.

Actually, this thread is about people being transported, imprisoned and tortured in total anonimity without anyone representing them.

And you guys are trading political viewpoints. Bravo.

How does treatment of Guantanamo prisoners compare with other prisoners of War?

I don't think McCain got a lawyer during his stay at the Hanoi Hilton. Wolf, what makes you so sure they're being tortured? What do you consider torture?

Nice try, but the two are compatible and linked. We didn't go over there and try to ruin a good thing someone had because it was in our interests to do so, we went over and destroyed something evil, because it was in our interests to do so.

And for the record, in case some of the whiny liberals here missed this point: it is our government's JOB to do what is seen to be in the interest of Americans. That is their primary function, not something over which one shouts "Ah-ha! Caught you!"

"How does treatment of Guantanamo prisoners compare with other prisoners of War?

"I don't think McCain got a lawyer during his stay at the Hanoi Hilton. Wolf, what makes you so sure they're being tortured? What do you consider torture?"

Sofia -- This is a perfect example of what we were talking about above -- acting as though America maintains higher values with respect to human rights and then using comparisons with lousy treatment by other nations to justify our lousy treatment of uncharged prisoners. It's a little like bringing up your kids by saying, As long as they're not behaving worse than the worst kids in school, that's okay.

I know !!!

Errrmmm ... I will - soon - honest, guv!

Hi Sofia, 't was good to be inviting your comments again <sheepish apologetic grin>

Wolf - sorry about hijacking your threat - well, I'm not really sorry cause it was a fascinating rollercoaster detour (and you should see what happened to the Dem candidates thread <wink>) - but - point taken <nods>.