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New user? Re: Good Job Dubya
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Posted
2/13/2005; 3:57 PM by Brian CarnellLast Modified
2/13/2005; 3:57 PM by Brian CarnellIn Response To
Good Job Dubya (#7220)Label
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Jim Roepcke wrote:
>Backup Brain: Reaping the Islamic whirlwind <http://www.backupbrain.com/2005_01_30_archive.html#a004396>
>
>"Well, now we know why America invaded Iraq, overthrew Saddam, and occupied the country: to bring the blessings of Islamic government to the Iraqi people."
>
>
Yes, very good job.
Backup Brain seems to be under the impression that the status quo under
Saddam Hussein was preferable since women had some sort of equality in
their overall oppression by the Ba'aathist party. There is no arguing
that even the most pernicious of dictatorships can be far more liberal
in many respects than democracies. Eastern Europe during the Cold War
had much more liberal abortion policies, for example, than the West did
then or does now for that matter.
But dictatorships will fall eventually and these conflicts will
resurface (look at how quickly old ethnic conflicts re-established
themselves in Eastern Europe after the end of the Cold War). The United
States learned this lesson very bitterly in Iran where decades of
secularism imposed from above by a US-friendly dictatorship pretty much
evaporated overnight.
Democracy is *not* liberalism, but it is difficult to establish
liberalism without first establishing democracy. It is an extremely good
thing that ordinary Iraqis and religious authorities in that country are
finally debating just how Islamic they want their country to be. They
will certainly *not* choose a mix of religion and politics that is as
secular as Western democracies, but then neither did Western democracies
when they began their centuries-long transformations from
religious-justifed dictatorships to secular democracies (look how long
it took secular Western democracies to finally grant women universal
suffrage or equal inheritance).
In the best case scenario, Iraq will become like its neighbor Kuwait
which is a *long* way from a secular democracy but is on its way and
having the sort of open debates about religion vs. secularism that
Western societies had two centuries ago.
>Backup Brain: Reaping the Islamic whirlwind <http://www.backupbrain.com/2005_01_30_archive.html#a004396>
>
>"Well, now we know why America invaded Iraq, overthrew Saddam, and occupied the country: to bring the blessings of Islamic government to the Iraqi people."
>
>
Yes, very good job.
Backup Brain seems to be under the impression that the status quo under
Saddam Hussein was preferable since women had some sort of equality in
their overall oppression by the Ba'aathist party. There is no arguing
that even the most pernicious of dictatorships can be far more liberal
in many respects than democracies. Eastern Europe during the Cold War
had much more liberal abortion policies, for example, than the West did
then or does now for that matter.
But dictatorships will fall eventually and these conflicts will
resurface (look at how quickly old ethnic conflicts re-established
themselves in Eastern Europe after the end of the Cold War). The United
States learned this lesson very bitterly in Iran where decades of
secularism imposed from above by a US-friendly dictatorship pretty much
evaporated overnight.
Democracy is *not* liberalism, but it is difficult to establish
liberalism without first establishing democracy. It is an extremely good
thing that ordinary Iraqis and religious authorities in that country are
finally debating just how Islamic they want their country to be. They
will certainly *not* choose a mix of religion and politics that is as
secular as Western democracies, but then neither did Western democracies
when they began their centuries-long transformations from
religious-justifed dictatorships to secular democracies (look how long
it took secular Western democracies to finally grant women universal
suffrage or equal inheritance).
In the best case scenario, Iraq will become like its neighbor Kuwait
which is a *long* way from a secular democracy but is on its way and
having the sort of open debates about religion vs. secularism that
Western societies had two centuries ago.
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