The Democratic Domino Theory Revisited

[manhattan]

@ElvisL1ves

While you’re on the “Do you know” kick, manhattan, do you know if any other participant on this thread even *heard * about the ANSWER rally you refer to, much less planned to attend? Where *did * you hear about it - do you have the courage to tell us?

Why yes, yes I do. Watch in amazement as I display AMAZING FEATS OF COURAGE and reveal for the VERY FIRST TIME to this EXCLUSIVE AUDIENCE that I, uh, read one of the billion or so flyers they stick to every lamppost in my neighborhood and around my office whenever they have an event and then I Googled them. Also, they hang out in Union Sqare, just a few blocks from my apartment. Do I get a medal or something?

You’re still badly and obviously missing the point. The peace movement is not directed by Trotskyites. Few of those who oppose our invasion and occupation have ever heard of this group you claim exists.

Then allow me to educate those people. Sit back and watch as your ignorance becomes eradicated right before your very eyes.

Not only do you claim it exists, you assert that it’s actually controlling something.

They do, and they are. See below.

it is no different from a statement that, say, “The Ku Klux Klan will hold a pro-war rally on the 12th of Never in Chicago. You don’t plan to attend, I hope, manhattan. Please say you don’t support the Klan’s effort to get more good people killed. Even if your idol David Duke is going to speak”.

Excellent analogy, as it happens. Suppose someone said to you that they were going to march in a big rally sponsored by the KKK but they aren’t really racist, they just want to oppose quotas. Could you even stop laughing at that person long enough to tell him how ridiculous that was? I couldn’t. If you march with the Klan, you’re endorsing the Klan.

Now here’s the thing. A lot – and I mean a LOT of the so-called peace rallies or other mass demonstrations in the US are organized and funded by International ANSWER or the groups for which they front, the International Action Center and the Worker’s World Party. The rallies are theirs. They get the permits, they rent the port-a-johns, they march in front, they set the agenda, they choose the speakers. When you read in the Times that “protest organizers” are suing to be in Central Park instead of on 7th Avenue, ANSWER is the plaintiff. They pay the lawyers, they are the complainants. When you see Jesse Jackson photographed in front, you’ll see someone from the Secretariat at the Worker’s World Party next to him.

And Elvis, I’m telling you, no shit, that these are bad, bad people. They actually support North Korea. They supported the massacre at Tienamen Square. They supported Saddam Hussein. Not opposed the war, supported Hussein. Bad, bad people. I won’t link to them – people can Google for themselves and draw their own conclusions.

And yeah. Hundreds of thousands of perfectly ordinary people, patriotic Americans, who oppose the war march behind these guys without a clue.

If hundreds of thousands of patriotic Americans marched behind the Klan, wouldn’t you be angry? Wouldn’t you want to do something about it? Even if you were for quotas and they were against, wouldn’t you want them to know the scum they were associating with? That’s all I’m doing. Want to march against Bush? Fine. But if the flyer says ANSWER, just. say. no.

Your attempt at well-poisoning undercuts your own position by its own sheer disgustingness.

The well is already poisoned, but not by me. I’m just encouraging people not to drink from it.

[furt]

@John Mace

What more proof do you need than this very thread to see that that isn’t realistic?

It’s not realistic to hope that that the advance of freedom and democracy should be a univeral goal?

Alas, you may be right.

[John_Mace]

ANSWER is indeed bad news. It’s an umbrella organization that includes such free thinking groups as the “Korea Truth Commission”, which put out this paper Report of the 8th International Fact-Finding Mission of the Korea Truth Commission. Note the adulation displayed toward the NK regime in the first few paragraphs. Disgusting.

[PatriotX]

I wonder how much of what’s being touted as the spread of democracy in the ME is merely window dressing.
I expect I’ll want to reference the fact that I had my doubts at this date.

[elucidator]

Trotskyites! (snicker) Makes me wonder if friend Manny actually knows any honest-to-gosh leftists, or if he is merely reflecting the quaint political notions of a byone era? Ah, yes, the Trotskyist, the very last of the Commie true believers, one of the few people left who can use terms like “dictatorship of the Prorletariat” while keeping a straight face.

No, Manny, you don’t get it. It is of no consequence whatsoever who “calls” an anti-war rally, the only central point is what the rally is about. We don’t care who got the permit, somebody who either is or knows a lawyer, we guess, and could n’t care less! You can’t “lead” an anti-war movement anymore than you can herd cats! A very large segment of what you may as well call “leftists” wouldn’t know ANSWER from the dog pound, and, like me, chuckle at the very word “Trotskyist”!

You really oughta get out more.

[pantom]

manhattan I’m sure knows this story, but for those who don’t, a bit of entertainment:

Back in the day, Alex Hamilton founded The Bank of New York. As Alex was a Federalist, this bank tended to favor members of that party.
This left the Democrat-Republicans vexed. Aaron Burr, a state senator, came up with a brilliant idea. To a bill establishing a water company for the City of New York, he attached a clause which stated that the company could use its surplus funds for whatever purposes it wished. Not coincidentally, the funds were used for the establishment of a new bank, favoring Burr’s party, which by one line of descent was the origin of the Chase Manhattan Bank. Its symbol, that oddball square thingamabob, was in fact a representation of a wooden water pipe.
The point of this? Well, rooting around the Libertarian web site lewrockwell.com, I came across this gem, from a full year ago: Neocons Strategy Now Focused on Syria

It cites a law, the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003. Reading their cite, I couldn’t believe what I was reading, as it was just laden with the most amazing chutzpah. So I searched. And found it. The text:

To halt Syrian support for terrorism, end its occupation of Lebanon, stop its development of Weapons of Mass Destruction, cease its illegal importation of Iraqi oil and illegal shipments of weapons and other military items to Iraq, and by so doing hold Syria accountable for the serious international security problems it has caused in the Middle East, and for other purposes.

What those other purposes may be will, I suppose, become manifest in the fullness of time. It may set manhattan’s heart aflutter, but it gives mine a chill.

[Squink]

@PatriotX

I expect I’ll want to reference the fact that I had my doubts at this date.

Did you see the news footage of yesterday’s demonstration? It was ENORMOUS. The photographers didn’t have to confine themselves to tight shots, as they did last week. Panning left and right showed more demonstrators, and panning to the horizon revealed demonstrators to the horizon.
There’s no way in hell Ryan-Liam’s (linked) ‘reports of supporters being transported across the border from Syria’ could have had any significant impact on the size of the crowds.

[Nietzsche]

manhattan:

I want to make sure I’m understanding you correctly. You stated:

@manhattan

Here’s something specific the left can do: The Trotskyite pro-terrorists at International ANSWER are planning protests on March 19 demanding that the US leave Iraq now (and their usual litany of other stuff). Everybody’s on board that whether we should have gone in the first place leaving now is bad, right? So tell your lefty friends NOT TO GO TO THE PROTEST! The protests have a zero chance of changing our policy and a non-zero chance of embolding the insurgents.

And in regards to my question about no-bid contracts, you stated:

Too small potatos to worry about, frankly. The big contracts will be let by the elected, sovereign Iraqi government in the future.

So you’re saying that some obscure anti-war group does more to embolden the insurgency than the hardships Iraqis face daily due to gross mismanagement brought on by a failed policy and no-bid contracts? Is that what you’re saying?
Regardless of what the “sovereign” future Iraqi government does, isn’t it the U.S.'s goal to get the country settled as fast as possible and get out? Wouldn’t you then also rid those pesky Trotskyites of a pretext to display their innate contempt for your country?
So isn’t allowing non-coalition countries in to help you towards those goals a natural (and even somewhat blatantly obvious) option?

[Nietzsche]

furt:

@furt

It appears that many are answering in the affirmative to the second part, questioning or minimizing the seriousness of the events of the last week or two, and pointing out that this may well just be a false spring. That seems a reasonable position to me, though it’s certainly the (ahem) *conservative * way of looking at things.

But I do note that in seven pages, no one has seriously argued that all of this would have happened regardless of US policy. A few people have asserted this, but no one has actually tried to build a plausible, logical argument that something else is causing this wave of reformist sentiment. I find that telling.

Telling of what? Squink and I mentioned how protests have been taking place in the Middle East all along. PatriotX provided cites of how democractic elections had taken place in the Palestinian territories before. I think everyone here has heard about unrest in Lebanon. So unless you’re suggesting that the U.S. was somehow behind the death of Yassir Arafat and Rafiq Hariri, I don’t see how the U.S’s actions in the region has anything to do with them. Yes, elections have taken place in Iraq. That, in and of itself, is positive and it’s due to the U.S.'s actions. Same goes for Afghanistan. But I have yet to see some evidence of a “domino effect” or falling of walls in the region. Last I heard, a Berlin-wall like structure was being erected.

[Sam_Stone]

Today’s fun quote, from The New York Times:

For Bush, No Boasts, but a Taste of Vindication

He has gone out of his way not to crow, or even to take direct credit. But not quite two years after he began the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, and not quite two months after a second Inaugural Address in which he spoke of “ending tyranny,” President Bush seems entitled to claim as he did on Tuesday that a “thaw has begun” in the broader Middle East.

At the very least, Mr. Bush is feeling the glow of the recent flurry of impulses toward democracy in Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and even Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where events have put him on a bit of a roll and some of his sharpest critics on the defensive. It now seems just possible that Mr. Bush and aides like Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz were not wrong to argue that the “status quo of despotism cannot be ignored or appeased, kept in a box or cut off,” as the president put it in a speech at the National Defense University here.

Wow, even the hated, evil neocon Paul Wolfowitz is getting some props. And the credit is coming from the strangest sources…

Still, even as sharp and consistent a critic of Mr. Bush’s foreign policy as Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat, gives Mr. Bush some credit for the latest stirrings of liberty along the eastern Mediterranean.

“What’s taken place in a number of those countries is enormously constructive,” Mr. Kennedy said on Sunday on the ABC News program “This Week.” “It’s a reflection the president has been involved.”

We now return you to your regularly scheduled whining and moaning.

[rjung]

All that demonstrates is that Senator Kennedy is not as rabidly partisan as his counterparts across the aisle. A shocking thought for the folks on the Right, I’m sure…

[Brutus]

@rjung

All that demonstrates is that Senator Kennedy is not as rabidly partisan as his counterparts across the aisle. A shocking thought for the folks on the Right, I’m sure…

No, all that shows is that Kennedy is not as rabidly partisan as you, which should cause you no end of soul-searching and reflection.

[Sevastopol]

While we are sharing giggles, your mission should you elect to adopt it, is to identify the author of the following:

But some of the higher-end predictions that we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are wildly off the mark.
…
There’s been none of the record in Iraq of ethnic militias fighting one another that produced so much bloodshed and permanent scars in Bosnia, along with a continuing requirement for large peacekeeping forces to separate those militias.
…
Moreover, the Iraqis themselves can provide a good deal of whatever manpower is necessary. We are already training free Iraqi forces to perform functions of that kind, including command of Iraqis units once those units have been purged of their Baathist leadership.

and for bonus points this one:

“Yes, that is right, Dick. We have no evidence of any active Iraqi terrorist threat against the U.S.”

[elucidator]

So. Sam, let me see if I got this right. If Chubby Teddy or the Times says something you disagree with, that’s just typical left-wing liberal type stupidity, to be brushed aside as just so much propaganda. If they say something you like, then it must be true, because even the people who lie all the time are suddenly telling the truth.

And if a big crowd of Lebanese people demonstrate against Syria, and, by extension, Hezbollah, they are the real people, and if a big crowd demonstrates for Syria and Hezbollah, they are the puppets of tyrannical masters, and can be discounted.

How marvelously simple it all is!

[elucidator]

And, by the way, did you miss this part? Way down towards the end?

…Saudi Arabia’s recent limited municipal elections and President Hosni Mubarak’s announcement that he will permit multiparty presidential elections in Egypt this fall are indisputably encouraging to would-be reformers here and there.

But full and genuine democratic elections in either country might well result in strongly anti-American governments.

As for instance Pakistan, the most egalitarian and democratic of military dictatorships. All indications are that if democratic elections were to take place, we would quickly be short one true-blue ally. So, naturally, we can expect you, and The Leader, to firmly insist and press for just such democratic reforms, seeing as you are both principled, not like those hypocritical lefties and liberals.

Have I got that about right, Sam?

[PatriotX]

@furt

PatriotX asks some worthwhile questions in post #169 and elsewhere, essentially saying that whatever good may come in the ME, the only meaningful criteria of success or failure is US national interest; but I suggest a seperate thread for that.

Already had it’s own thread- the one you referenced in your OP Defending the Democratic Domino Theory of the ME

As now, no one much wanted to address the issue then. IMHO, it seems a more relvevant to ask if what one sets a bout to do is useful than to ask if it can be accomplished.

That said and done…
I’m eager to see the widespread democratic reform in the ME.

I suspect that for many participation in the ‘pro-Syria’ rally was motivated by a nearly spiteful attitude from a perception of external interference. Not so much pro-Syria as anti American foreign policy. If my suspicions are well founded, the rally is a product of our recent foreign policy ventures.
Somehow, our fyog bit isn’t gaining a foothold.

[PatriotX]

@Sevastopol

While we are sharing giggles, your mission should you elect to adopt it, is to identify the author of the following:
We are already training free Iraqi forces to perform functions of that kind, including command of Iraqis units once those units have been purged of their Baathist leadership.

As a footnote, whoever transcribed this miss some caps. It should be Free Iraqi Forces- the armed faction of the INC.

[pervert]

@John Mace

Of course, no other state has actually become democratic. Any claims of spreading democracy is way, way, WAY too soon.

Agreed. Just as the claims of an unmitigated cluster fuck are premature.

Why did it have to be Iraq? Why not push one of the US-friendly states to embrace Democracy?

Because Saddam was much more of a holdout than any of the friendly nations. He was actively shooting at international troops. He was still spouting death to America rhetoric. And most importantly, he was doing this dispite having been in a war against almost the whole world. From a certain perspective, he did win the Gulf war. As I said, his was an example of a defiant tyrant who was victorious (to an extent) over the entire western world.

What I am suggesting is that ousting Saddam provided the world with direct evidence that tolerance for regimes such as his was no longer fashionable. Given his longevity throughout the 90s, I cannot imagine a better way to do this.

Let me repeat, I am not claiming that invading Iraq was the best of all possible choice. Simply trying to provide an argument that it was a logical step in fostering democracy int he middle east.

[quixotic78]

You know, this entire debate seems very similar to debates about whether there’s a picture of a human face on Mars. If you tell someone, “Here’s a picture of a face on Mars,” and then show them the picture, they’re far more likely to say, “Wow, a face!” than if you were to just show them random pictures of the Martian landscape.

I think far too many people are cherrypicking the data here. In Bush’s Inauguration Address, he spoke about ending tyranny. Given that framework, it’s very easy to pick out scattered data points (e.g., anti-Syrian demonstrations in Lebanon) and use them to support the hypothesis that Bush is indeed ending tyranny, all the while simply ignoring or somehow discounting evidence to the contrary (e.g., pro-Syrian demonstrations in Lebanon).

I might add that this goes both for both “sides” of the debate. If your framework is “Bush is a fuckup, the world hates him,” then it’s very easy to hold up the pro-Syrian demonstrations as evidence, while trivializing the anti-Syrian demonstrations.

I suppose this is just another way of saying “It’s too early to tell,” which is such an obvious point, it’s almost not worth mentioning. (Plus, it’s been brought up about a billion times before.) But I post here because I wanted to say something else, too.

Manny, when you talk about how you’re going to change the world, the heart of this liberal soars. I love the thought of going around the world and righting the wrongs, lifting up the downtrodden, and giving new hope and opportunities to the oppressed. And if the people in charge of the government are for it, then maybe it can work this time. There’s just one hitch, though:

I think you conservatives are generally full of shit. You’re the guys who sold me a war, or tried to anyway, on Grade A Bullshit. Then, as cover, you guys state that the threat of WMDs was simply the easiest to sell. Because of you, launching a war was a lot like launching a new toothpaste, and the deceit used to push one rationale was a virtue. Bah.

Frankly, I don’t trust you. I can picture myself joining with you, only to have you turn around in two years and say, “Our real goal all along has been to build nuclear missile silos* in the Middle East! ‘Freedom’ was just an easier sell. Thanks for your help, though!”

The only thing worse than being opposed to the new Republican Crusade for Freedom is being duped by it.

[sub]*Or whatever crazy scheme you guys actually have in mind. I don’t get the RNC newsletter.[/sub]

[John_Mace]

@PatriotX

I suspect that for many participation in the ‘pro-Syria’ rally was motivated by a nearly spiteful attitude from a perception of external interference. Not so much pro-Syria as anti American foreign policy. If my suspicions are well founded, the rally is a product of our recent foreign policy ventures…

It’s more than that. The Shi’a in Lebanon make up about 40% of the population, but the government has historically been dominated by the Christian, Druze and Sunni factions. So the Shi’a are the classic disafected group who aren’t all too keen about a return to the status quo ante. Yes, they are anti-American at least as much as pro-Syrian, but they are also anti-Lebanon as it was in the “good old days”.