(Military Times) Op-Ed: Two Elections

[unhappycamper]

Two Elections
William Lind | February 17, 2009

In many Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, the story line depends on some sort of magic elixir or potion. Similarly, the advocates for Brave New World tell us the comic opera called "democracy" flows from the magic of elections. Just hold elections and presto!, wars vanish. Regrettably, BNW's music is not nearly so entertaining as that of Sir Arthur Sullivan, while its plot is even more absurd than most of Gilbert's.

Two recent elections point to a grimmer reality. The first was in Iraq, for provincial councils. In Iraq as in most of the world, the question is neither whether elections were held nor who won. The question on which social order depends is who accepts the results of an election. If elections are to substitute for war, not only the winners but also the losers must accept their outcome. Losers must give up power, patronage, one of the very few local sources of money (often lots of it), and possibly physical security as well, hoping for better luck next time, if there is a next time.

I suspect the odds of that happening in Iraq are small. The Washington Post recently quoted one U.S. officer who served as an adviser to Iraqi army units saying of Iraqi commanders, "When you got to know them and they'd be honest with you, every single one of them thought that the whole notion of democracy and representative government in Iraq was absolutely ludicrous."

That quote was in a piece by Tom Ricks, the Post's long-time defense correspondent, in the Sunday February 15 "Outlook" section. Rick's goes on to say this:

I don't think the Iraq war is over yet, and I worry that there is more to come than any of us suspect…


rfest of article at: http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,185227,00.html