Democracy In The Middle East? Where?
By Ted Bohne
11 March, 2005
Countercurrents.orgDemocracy! Is it behind this curtain? No, not there. What about this Chair, no, no democracy there. I'm wondering just what democracy the Bush cheerleaders refer to. There certainly isn't one in Afghanistan. Karzai might be president in his house depending on his wife's mood, but past that, it's business as usual. The US will probably get the Trans-Afghan pipeline which is likely the real cause of the invasion of Afghanistan, but the people are still dirt poor, with no hope, no reconstruction. They've gone back to raising opium poppies. The same Tribal Leaders are in leadership today. All Afghan's well know Hamid Karzai is a US stooge.
What about Iraq? Why there's still a shooting war going on there. UN Resolution 1441 apparently was followed. The numbers the Bush people spat forth hardly tell the truth. Less than forty percent of the voting public in Iraq voted. Alawi came in a distant third, while the winner is friendly with the Iranians, and believes in strict Islamic Law. I guess more underhanded, lowlife chicanery is needed. Gotta call a Republican for that. There's no reconstruction going in Iraq either. Most would agree that as long as the US is still shooting up the place, that rebuilding is not a sign of intelligence. The Iraqis HATE the US. It is the people of Iraq, whether Ba'athist, people loyal to Hussein, or whatever, they're still Iraqi. I suspect countless would prefer Hussein to the horrors foisted on them by the US.
Threatening Syria makes little sense. The US doesn't have the ground forces to do anything about Syria, and further, US troops carried on a exchange of gunfire on the border and clearly inside the Syrian border in the early part of this "war." Further how can the US seriously challenge Syria's occupation of Lebannon with the Israeli's still in the occupied territories, and the US in Iraq. If that isn't the clearest definition of hypocracy, then one doesn't exist.
There IS NO peace and move toward democracy in the Middle East. These people are different in countless ways from the West. They don't want a country where the leadership isn't elected by them. They don't want a country with a rogue government that takes their jobs and sends them to other countries to avoid laws in their own country designed to protect the people, the environment, and to escape taxes these companies richly deserve to pay. Here's a short definition of the term "Democracy."
Main Entry: de·moc·ra·cy
Pronunciation: di-'mä-kr&-sE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -cies
Etymology: Middle French democratie, from Late Latin democratia, from Greek dEmokratia, from dEmos + -kratia -cracy
1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
2 : a political unit that has a democratic government
3 capitalized : the principles and policies of the Democratic party in the U.S.
4 : the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
5 : the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges
This type of government doesn't even exist in the US, much less anywhere in the Middle East. This excerpt is courtesy of Merriam Webster. In none of the forms of democracy does the does anything remotely resembling the Bush regime appear. Nor does anything the Bush regime is trying to foist on the Middle East.
The US has used at least four false excuses to raid Iraq and Afghanistan. Each excuse has been vetted by the finest minds in the world and found to be not misleading, but lies, plain lies. The American people haven't any assurance that the Bush regime was even elected in 2004, and know damned well it wasn't in 2000. It doesn't seem to occur to people that given the fact that Bush was not elected in 2000, that every act since then is a crime. Every person killed of any nation directly or indirectly because of the maniacle machinations of George W. Bush and his entourage constitutes murder.
This corrupt group is trying to fill the courts with right wing extremeists. It has let public education decend into ruin. Now people with legitimate grievances will have a harder time fighting medical malpractice, and corporate malfeasance to name a few. What Bush didn't tell the people is that it is the RICH that are the largest users of trial lowers. It was class action suits that at least try to keep the greedy corporate suits in some sort of check. Especially since now with virtually complete deregulation of Corporate America, quality, safety, and price are left entirely to whatever the market will bear.
This is what American Soldiers are fighting and dying for. This is both Americans and Iraqis are dying for, losing limbs over, and having their lives forever changed for, and by god!, it ain't democracy.
It only remains now for the American people and the peoples of the world to decide how best to dispose of the Bush crew. Changes are being made that we all will have to live with certainly for the rest of our lives. I've sometimes though that if I hear the phrase "our children and grandchildren," again, I'd either throw up or shoot the dimwit that said it or both. Unfortunately, it is absolute fact that our progeny will pay dearly for the actions of the Republicans, and the inaction of the Democrats.
For those who believe in God, you'd better hope he's the forgiving sort. If not, Hell is going to be a mighty crowed place! Pack light!!
Ted Bohne can be reached at [email protected]
