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Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla
TW, where your argument fails is that we are not, contrary to your claim, "forcing democracy" on anyone, as we know that doesn't work very well.
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The US government demands that Iraq have their constitution written and approved by 15 August. That sounds exactly like forcing a government down their throats. Furthermore, the US government has put restrictions on what can and cannot be in that constitution.
Meanwhile, history demonstrates that when democracy is pushed down their throats, bad things like Civil War occur. Brent Scowcroft (a closest friend of George Sr) was discussing this as a real possibility maybe one year ago. Now reporters in the 'field' are reporting civil war as a more likely consideration with each month.
The Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani is recently been quoted saying, "the Kurdish people have the right to secede.''
Meanwhile, one of the underlying themes from the founding members of "Project for a New American Century" was to fix the Middle East and Central Asia; to impose democratic structures on these nations. Those are underlying concepts behind pre-emption. We will fix these people because they cannot fix themselves. Stable democratic governments do not occur when those governments are unilaterally imposed by an exterior force. We even tried to do that in Vietnam. All we ended up with was the most corrupt government in the region. Furthermore, we ended up destabilizing governments in adjacent nations.
Liberty and democracy cannot be imposed. The people must sweat and bleed to eventually 'earn' their own government. If democracy is so good, then democracy will occur naturally. But a democracy imposed on a nation just will not work. George Jr is trying to impose democracy upon Iraq. America has even issued deadlines. Next on the list: Iran.
One of the underlying principles behind "Project for a New American Century" is pre-emption - to unilaterally force a change upon them. In fact, many of the most right wing members of this group have openly called for imposing democracatic institutions on these nations.
America is trying to impose democracy, in part, because the George Jr administration was surprised that democracy did not happen in the first seven months after "Mission Accomplished" was declared. The George Jr administration's own principles just assumed democracy would spring up when the people were liberated. They failed to learn the lessons of history. Those people must take the first steps to liberate themselves. In Iraq, they did not. America is forcing changes upon them - complete with deadlines.