December 04, 2003
SIDING WITH "SOME QUARTERS":
Democracy Cannot Coexist with Bush's Failed Doctrine of Preventive War (Benjamin R. Barber, December 3, 2003, Los Angeles Times)
The problem for the administration, already clear from the cries of "hypocrisy!" with which his "freedom strategy" is being met in some quarters, is that there is a startling gap between the president's welcome rhetoric about democracy and a policy that allows for unilateral
invasion of other countries when the U.S. feels threatened, whether or not it has actually been attacked. It is this tension between democratization and preventive war that is at issue in Iraq.Bush noted in his speech that democracy spread in the late 20th century because dictatorships collapsed from within or were overthrown by people demanding their liberty, just as the United States seized its freedom from the British in the 18th century. Yet in Iraq, the U.S. is trying to
impose democracy at the barrel of a gun. But we cannot logically be an ardent advocate of the internal struggle for democracy and at the same time assert our unilateral right to invade enemies of our own choosing.
Why? Are we threatening to invade democracies? If not, if we're threatening to invade tyrannies and give them the opportunity to recreate their states as democracies, then where's the conflict? How is what we're doing now any different from what we did to Japan, Germany, France, Grenada, Nicaragua, Panama, etc.?
At a time when many people are saying terribly silly things, this might be the silliest so far.
MORE:
Preemption, democracy and liberty -- the ultimate cause (Ross Mackenzie, December 4, 2003, Townhall)
Many have derided President Bush as a stupid, aimless rich boy. Whether that critique is true, this is: Sept. 11 left him a man transformed. His administration is driven by two doctrines revolutionary in intellectually arthritic Washington: preemptive war and the expansion of democracy's realm. Both doctrines serve America's long-term interests, but principally to the extent that they serve liberty.Posted by Orrin Judd at December 4, 2003 09:58 AM
Where has it failed?
Posted by: David Cohen at December 4, 2003 10:58 AMIt's failed by definition, since:
* Bush planned it.
* Iraq isn't yet a glittering democratic showplace, and likely will never be.
* The Bush doctrine is so obviously at odds with the "make love, not war" paradigm of geo-political relationships.
Ben Barber is a favorite on polisci grad school reading lists, and I suppose is fine enough for an academic audience. But like most contemporary academic political scientists, he has little (nothing really) of use to say about the real world. Such is the state of the discipline today.
Posted by: kevin whited at December 4, 2003 11:17 AMWell, I disagree with his major premise, that Iraq had not attacked or threatened us.
But Orrin's comment also is spot on.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at December 4, 2003 02:27 PMWe are not imposing democracy at the point of a gun, we are deposing tyranny at the point of a gun. There is a difference. To impose democracy at the point of a gun assumes that the to-be democratized people are resistant to democracy, and we are forcing them to adopt democracy against their will. The opposite is true - the to-be democratized people of Iraq want democracy(for the most part), but have been prevented from doing so by the Baathist tyranny. Noone chooses to live under a tyranny.
Posted by: Robert D at December 4, 2003 05:15 PM