Charles Krauthammer on Libya and the Bush Doctrine

[Perd Hapley]

And I know that the shovel is not actually an anti-tank weapon.

Wuss.     

[MicroBalrog]

What you said is this:

In contrast, Iran and Syria are by all accounts weathering the storm of democracy just fine.

Syria is not weathering it 'just fine'. Assad is afraid.

[De Selby]

What you said is this:

Syria is not weathering it 'just fine'. Assad is afraid.

Yeah, you need to judge that comment by the date it was said.  What seems to have changed the calculus for the Syrians was the decision to massacre.  Previous efforts had petered out with minimal intervention.  Why they decided to start shooting now is a mystery, but it may signal a loss of confidence by the military in Assad. 

[Monkeyleg]

Yeah, you need to judge that comment by the date it was said.

You made the comment 19 days ago, not 19 months.

[De Selby]

You made the comment 19 days ago, not 19 months.

It was possible 19 days ago that this would happen, too, as I noted.  It wasn't, however, likely. 

[longeyes]

Bush didn't ignite what's going on today in the Muslim orbit.  All he did was provide the wrong solution ("spreading democracy").

[Monkeyleg]

It was possible 19 days ago that this would happen, too, as I noted.  It wasn't, however, likely.

Here's your post. Where was it "noted"?

fistful,

There's no evidence that anyone in the middle east sees Iraq as "democracy against a tyrant."  There's plenty of evidence that they see it as a military occupation - ie, not democratic.  The only evidence for a "premise" set by Iraq is that the US attacks and occupies Arab countries in the eyes of the Arab public.  The overwhelming majority of them think the US is the problem in Iraq, and that it should leave. (That's in the link as well.)

You don't need to join Krauthammer in his desperation to rehabilitate Bush to explain these events.  The obvious answer is staring us all in the face, and that is the revolution in Tunisia.  It's not coincidence that all of these states fell shortly after Tunisia.

Ironically, the states that GW was most supportive of and dealt with the most are now gone or going - Egypt, Tunisia, and Bahrain, being the prime examples.  In contrast, Iran and Syria are by all accounts weathering the storm of democracy just fine. (Hizbullah doesn't need to; it won a popular majority, and now has control of parliament through means that could've occurred in a European country.)

[De Selby]

Monkeyleg,

I made the comments on Syria in this thread:  http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=28037.msg554631#msg554631

This is fairly consistent - Syria won't be gone before Yemen, that's for sure.  Bahrain needed a foreign army to stay afloat, and it still may fall.  Iran is of course in no danger of falling.

It's also far from clear that these righteous Syrian protestors will win, at this point. 

[MicroBalrog]

And yet Saudi Arabia remains comparably stable.

[De Selby]

And yet Saudi Arabia remains comparably stable.

It's hard to gauge - they've had protests too, but those are shut down swiftly.  The medieval brutality of the regime makes public opinion harder to measure.  It could be stable, but if cracks do open, I do not think it will last very long at all.

[Monkeyleg]

De Selby, please give me the post # where you said that Syria could fall "victim" to the democracy movement. Every post I see of yours says that Syria and Iran will be able to withstand it.

[De Selby]

De Selby, please give me the post # where you said that Syria could fall "victim" to the democracy movement. Every post I see of yours says that Syria and Iran will be able to withstand it.

http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=28037.msg554631#msg554631

Iran and Syria are not great, freedom-loving places by any stretch of the imagination.  They oppress their people and do not govern only by consent.  Still, they're so far ahead of the medieval basketcase that is Saudi Arabia (and all of its allies) that they are honestly the most stable regimes in the region.  They will be the last to go, if they go at all (and I hope they will - I believe in democracy everywhere.)

[Bogie]

Bush didn't start it - it started when mass media was introduced to the medieval society, and started to bring it into the future. Knowledge is power, and shared knowledge is kryptonite for despotic dictators... Of any stripe.
 
The Bush invasions hastened things - and that's not bad. I think that the Bush administrations knew that this was going to happen, and I think that they also were sort of looking for an excuse to do it. The middle east is a sizable portion of the world, and having it stable is good for everyone involved.

[longeyes]

When has the Muslim world ever been "stable" as we in the West understand it?  If autocracy equals stability then, yeah, they've had plenty, and they had that with Mubarek and Qaddafi and Saddam too.  Stable doesn't mean oppression, it means liberty and the rule of law and the precedence of reason.  Expecting that from Islamic nations, given their political and metaphysical convictions, is naive.

[MicroBalrog]

And yet there are Muslim democracies.

[longeyes]

Really?  Where?  Turkey?  Kosovo?  Democracy without protection of individual rights is just one more word for tribalism.

This is where the insanity has led us: David Cameron saying today that "we" should restore the "mosques and minarets that Qaddafi destroyed."  Is he crazy?  We should pay for their mosques and minarets?  This is not politics, it is mental disease.  Or maybe it's just blatant cowardice from a man who's watching his own nation slowly but inevitably turn Islamic?

[MicroBalrog]

We've brought these nations up here again and again. Indonesia, Mali, and yes, Kosovo.

Do they have the same levels of protection for human rights as America has? No, but neither did America, 60 years ago. And yet America 60 years ago was a wonderful place and a democracy, too.

It's ridiculous to declare that these nations have failed because, 12 years after establishing a democracy, they have not yet achieved the levels of freedom it took the United States two hundred years to accomplish. Even the wonderful countries of Western Europe were only sixty years ago engaging in inhuman butchery.

[Monkeyleg]

http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=28037.msg554631#msg554631

Thank you.

[longeyes]

I'm sorry, Micro, you can't distinguish between American and Indonesia.  But I can.

There are things going on in Kosovo and Indonesia and Mali that do not go on here and have never gone on here.  "Liberating" Kosovo was a mistake; unfortunately it's become a liberal precedent for turning over rocks that never needed turning over.

Maybe you envision a great future for Indonesia.  I don't, unless other nations choose to put their manufacturing there because it's cheap labor.

[MicroBalrog]

I'm sorry, Micro, you can't distinguish between American and Indonesia.  But I can.

Please re-read my post.

[MicroBalrog]

Let us observe incredible religious Jihadism that goes on in Kosovo on a day-to-day basis:

http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4cf2d08a82.html

Although the Office of the Ombudsperson assessed there was no legal basis to do so, the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology issued an administrative instruction to secondary schools at the start of the 2009-2010 school year prohibiting students from wearing Islamic headscarves.

[longeyes]

Is that the same Kosovo that is known as the gateway for hard drugs into Europe, shipped from other "friendly" Muslim countries?

Was it not a Kosovar who shot American servicemen just a week or two ago in Germany?  That he was shouting "Allah u akbar" when he opened fire must be just coincidence.

My point is that Indonesia was never like America nor like Europe either.  I reject the equation you posit.  That is not to romanticize any of these countries overmuch, just not to equate them either.

[MicroBalrog]

Was it not a Kosovar who shot American servicemen just a week or two ago in Germany?  That he was shouting "Allah u akbar" when he opened fire must be just coincidence.

And so?

An individual did it. This doesn't condemn the entire country in question.

Is that the same Kosovo that is known as the gateway for hard drugs into Europe, shipped from other "friendly" Muslim countries?

Drug prohibition is morally wrong. I shed no tears for the failure of the Europeans to enforce it.

But besides that - how is that different from Mexico's role?

[longeyes]

I doubt he's the only jihadist from Kosovo, don't you?

We haven't liberated Mexico...though maybe we should...and may yet.

[MicroBalrog]

I also doubt Lindh is the only jihadist from America.

The question is the rate at which such things occur.

Kosovo is famous, among other things, for the pro-American sentiment of its people.

If it is your idea to invade any country from which an illegal product is sold to Americans who wish to buy it, you're going to be fighting a lot of wars.