Democracy, terror and fantasy

[RT_Fanatic]

By Dennis Roddy


"We have set out to encourage reform and democracy in the greater Middle East as the alternatives to fanaticism, resentment, and terror."
-- President George W. Bush, on the first anniversary of the Iraq war.


WASHINGTON -- Most of us know democracy as a system of governance. Our president understands it as a ritual incantation, something summoned as a curative for everything from terrorism to impetigo.
Absent the weapons of mass destruction, the major predicate for our assault on Mesopotamia, George W. Bush now hawks democracy as the remedy for terrorism. Democracy will ameliorate many ills: social restiveness, dispossession, tribal division. But to peddle democracy as the solution to terrorism betrays a cheap misapprehension of both institutions.

<snip>

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05058/463106.stm

[ixion]

1. He makes some very good ponitts, but seems to misfire on a key

dynamic...


Osama bin Laden does not hate us because we hold elections. He hates us because our networks carry beer commercials, our synagogues remain undefiled and our women drive.




This is, of course, wildly off the mark. The reason Islamic extremeists hate us is because we meddle in their affairs rather than allowing them to have their own society. It's not about us. It's about what we do to others, doing as we would NOT like to have done unto us.

[Inland]

2. I think the radical islamists would still hate us but

would they pick the US as a target for terrorism if the sole quarrel was the US as a source of women's rights, pop culture and capitalism?

Clearly, motivations run across the board, and the US managed to create a broad coalition of anti American forces. I wouldn't mind experimenting in keeping democracy and not being a worldwide bully, just to see if that measure helps us out some.