...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Monday, April 28, 2003
      ( 10:28 AM )
 
Democracy Non-Grata

What if the eventual "democracy" in Iraq votes to have weapons of mass destruction or to not sell its oil to the U.S., or votes in a Shiite cleric as its leader? How much of a "democracy" are we actually going to install? (this is a rhetorical question). There was an excellent article in The Oregonian's Sunday Editorial section by Roger Morris (which of course doesn't have an online link), discussing the US record of "regime change." He reiterates the fact that at no time when we have either overtly or covertly intervened in countries did true democracies emerge. Our only motivation has always been our own interests. The prime example is Iraq itself:

"U.S. arms and aid for propping up an
Iraqi monarchy in the 1950's, CIA-backed
coups in 1963 and 1968, one bringing in the
Baathists and the second bringing in Saddam
himself. The Gulf War. Now its sequel. Five
times in a generation, Washington intervened
to ensure that Iraq did not defy U.S. interests."

It doesn't matter if BushCo is vindicated with some sort of discovery of WMD (I'm not holding my breath), whatever excuse they use, it will always ring hollow. There won't ever be a true democracy because the U.S. will forever be directing the interests of Iraq towards its own, there won't ever be true liberty for the people of Iraq, because that would mean they could decide what to do with their oil, they could decide to support Palestinian independence movements, they could decide that they don't really agree that Israel should be the only country allowed to have WMD in the region, they could decide they're not interested hosting our occupation...and none of those decisions would ever be allowed to be made.

It's a very sobering thought to realize that your own government not only blatantly lies to the world and to us, its citizens, in order to obtain power and dominance and to further its own greed - and it's even more sobering to realize that we as a nation are doing nothing to stop this pattern from repeating itself.

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