7 posts tagged “democracy”
Atlas Shrugs posts some excerpts that demonstrate the true nature of the United Nations. It has become a club of anti-Semitics (Atlas Shrugs term is apropos – Judeophobics). The UN was creator by the victors of WWII that wished to have a global organization that promoted peace and human rights for the inhabitants of planet Earth.
As the Western Democracies became the minority to Third World dictatorships and eventual petro-dollar strong Mohammedan autocratic nations, the UN has become a global organization that dumps on the Middle East’s only viable Western Democracy with full equal Rights to all citizens of race, creed and faith – Israel.
Indeed Israel was created out of the Western Guilt of allowing the Holocaust to proceed thus the Land Israel became a nation in which people of Jewish origin (practicing and non-practicing Jews) have a haven in which their government would not persecute them for being Jewish.
Jump from the modern Israeli nationhood of 1948 to the present and one can view a series of wars perpetrated by Jew hating Arabs (mostly Mohammedan but also a few secularist and dhimmified Christian Arabs) to exterminate the Jews of Israel as if they were vermin and not people. Hello memories of the Nazi “Final Solution.”
Look at the properties of anti-Semitism today. There is an emerging rise of anti-Semitism in Europe again. My opinion this is occurring because of the Leftist susceptibility to embrace the propaganda of Mohammedan victimization propaganda. That propaganda basically vilifies Israeli harshness toward Arabs that call themselves Palestinians yet horrifically fails to explain it is an Israeli response to terrorist action against Israel. The Mohammedan propaganda also fails to mention these Arabs not only support the terrorist acts they also aid and hide the terrorists from Israeli justice. Thus Israel often reacts to punish families or neighborhoods of the terrorists because is all the horror of accomplice to murder.
The West does not hear or read this part but only reads, hears and sees the propaganda of Mohammedan victimization.
Another seed of the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe is the influx of Mohammedan immigrants that have flocked to Europe with hatred and animosity in their hearts already planted against Jews.
And worst of all the United Nations of has become a disseminator of anti-Semitism due to the inherent nature of the majority of haters of Democracy and Jews that have rendered the original creation of the UN as a mockery.
I like the quote given in Atlas Shrugs tagged to John McCain concerning the UN:
John McCain has it exactly right when he talks about replacing the UN by a union of democracies —a suggestion I have myself repeatedly made over the years.
Robert McMahon writing for the Council on Foreign Relations concludes in a recent article that the Bush Administration is modifying the Bush Doctrine. To act preemptively in international crisis is still stalwart; however the concept of exporting democratic principles is being modified. Not all cultures are amenable to receive Western style democracy when the culture is theocratic and anti-Western culturally.
This is the difficulty that has slowed American progress in Iraq (combined with utilizing political correctness as a viable option to schmooze the indigenous citizens). Thus the experience in Iraq and the current crisis existing in Pakistan – Islamists versus Mohammedan moderates (if there is such a thing) is effecting a modification of the Bush Doctrine.
That modification is a resurgence of Political Realism to a certain degree within the Bush Doctrine. Thus preemptive action to secure America’s National Interests still remains; however applying Political Realism as a measured viability in transforming a repressive regime into the infrastructure of democratic principles must weigh in to America’s National Interests. If democratic principles are rejected on a grass roots level of a culture in a nation then Political Realism options to ensure American National Interests and Security must be utilized.
The old adage power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely is a truism under a one man rule even if its initial inception was benevolent. In a Western Democratic Representative government that possesses immense power, the power is managed collectively via voters choosing elected officials to manage the power. The corruption aspect is more difficult to corrupt power when the infrastructure has the checks and balances of democratic principles.
Nonetheless America is a mega-super power globally which means there are regional mere super power nations that do not wish to deal with American hegemony. The principle super powers that attempt to derail American National Interests for whatever reasoned regional conflict with another National Interest are Russia, China and remarkably the collective of the European Union.
Regardless of accusations of Third World nations and Leftist influences of the mere super powers, American National Interests does not include imperialism. Imperialism implies conquest to rule foreign nations. America has never had an interest in neo-colonial imperialism since the twentieth century and very little of that thinking prior to the twentieth century. The closest America came to imperialism was the concept of Manifest Destiny, which acquired land from the east coast toward the west coast at the expense of Native Americans and Mexico.
The National Interests are the end goals of the USA. US strength gives the appearance of a global hegemony of American Empire. Since the USA has no interest in ruling other lands that is an erroneous perception. The USA has a National Interest in maintaining mega-power to meet outside security threats and the National Interest of maintaining global prosperity that affects the economy of America and the pursuit of happiness for American citizens.
The Bush Doctrine meets the parameters of America’s current National Interests. The use of preemptive military action that rocks the global boat and the exporting of an infrastructure of democratic principles which promote global coexistence are the central points of the Bush Doctrine.
Communism has been derailed as a repressive government in which democratic principles have been inculcated into a nation’s culture. That is the legacy of the Reagan Administration.
There is a new ideology threatening global peace and affecting the National Interests of America. Well new in the sense of twenty-first century, actually the ideology has been around since the seventh century. That is the terrorist principles of Theo-political Islamism or Islamofascism. Islamofascism is the fringe interpretation and enforcement of the Scriptures and Traditions related to the founder of Mohammedanism (Islam) – Mohammed. Mohammed was a cruel Arab that utilized delusional visions or manmade ideology in the wrappings of religion to carve out an empire and maintain the empire by forcing the conquered to Mohammedanism or become a sub-human in submission to the Theo-political ideology or die. This effectively maintained a platform to control large amounts of land providing wealth to the ruling elites that followed Mohammed’s demise. In Mohammedan lands this system is maintained to this day which has indoctrinated the Mohammedan follower of hateful intolerance of non-Mohammedans and cruel barbaric punishment to Mohammedans that break the cultic code. This harshness is particularly devastating toward women who do not even realize the cruelty until they become the victims breaking the medieval code (Sharia Law) wittingly or unwittingly.
Two things threaten global peace and thus include American National Interests:
1. The largest deposits of OIL that are extracted to be refined are in the Mohammedan controlled Middle East. Currently oil is the black gold energy source that powers the majority of what people use that need energy. The primary examples are automobiles, jets and military vehicles. Without refined oil the global economy could sink into a depression reminiscent of the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Western European nations and China are highly dependent on this oil. The politics of oil has influenced democratic Europeans to support Islamist causes. China has developed a huge market in military arms for oil with Middle Eastern nations; particularly rogue Islamofascist nations as Iran and Syria who in turn supply Islamofascist transnational terrorists as al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and more.
2. The second threat on American National Interests is the growing influence of Islamist-American organizations that receive and send funding to foreign Islamist terrorists or supporters of terrorism (such as Saudi Arabian Wahhabism and Egyptian based Muslim Brotherhood). Currently this is a larger threat in Western Europe where secular humanism has created a huge vacuum in spiritual matters and the large populations of Mohammedans are actually filling that vacuum rather than the traditional Christian Church (Catholic or Protestant).In America there seems to be a union of religious Islamism and non-religious Secular Humanist with the mutual goal of obliterating the foundations and morality of Christianity. Islamist-Americans and foreign Islamists are infiltrating American Government and bureaucracy to attain sensitive information and deliver it to Islamist terrorist enemies of America.
Natan Sharansky’s book “A Case for Democracy” was the public paradigm of President Bush’s reason for the end game of the occupation of Iraq after removing Saddam Hussein from power. The essence of the paradigm is that where Democracy is allowed to prosper repressive regimes and the legacy of repression becomes dismantled.
Sharansky is an Israeli citizen now and even involved in the Israeli government; however at one time Sharansky was a citizen of the former Soviet Union. When Sharansky applied for immigration to Israel, the Soviets denied him claiming he knew too many State Secrets.
Sharansky became closely associated with Andrei Sakharov (nuclear physicist) as dissidents to the autocratic Communism. Sharansky’s involvement with the dissidents earned him a conviction as a spy and treason. He was sent to a Siberian gulag where he was badly mistreated.
After more than ten years in the gulag, international pressure secured Sharansky’s release and immigration to Israel. Shortly thereafter the Soviet Regime collapsed and a Russian government attempted to transform into a Democracy. (Putin is currently eroding Democratic Institutions in Russia).
Thus the paradigm that Democracy always overcomes repressive institutions in a nation if given the opportunity to succeed. This paradigm made sense to me as well; unfortunately it is not an absolute theory. Evidently culturally ingrained repression in which religion and statehood are considered one makes the paradigm of Western Democracy to not take hold in Mohammedan nations.
Now there appears to be another dent in Sharansky’s paradigm for Democracy. Democracy only functions as well as a nation’s people elect strong leadership over weak leadership. The Leadership in Democracy makes a nation strong or weak. Strength or weakness is often the difference between successful or failed policies. In some cases Strength or weakness is the difference between existence and obliteration.
Since Israel’s successful founding as a modern Jewish State in 1948, successful democratically elected strong leadership enabled Israel to stave off Mohammedan nations from executing a second holocaust upon the sliver of land known as the Jewish State of Israel. NOW Israel’s weak leadership led by Ehud Olmert as Prime Minister is endangering Israel’s existence with foolish plans that are slowly eroding Israel’s existence based on the trust of EU Democracy in which their citizens are becoming more and more anti-Semitic and pro-Mohammedan as well as America in which a growing number of Democrats and RINO Republicans are becoming pro-Arabic in foreign policy. Couple Olmert’s weakness in not discerning his Western foreign Democracy's agenda with the insanity of trusting Arabs with land for peace will lead to destruction.
In an article written in the Jewish World Review, Carolyn Glick is astounded that the Olmert government has survived considering the huge mistakes and deluded future plans he proposes for Israel.
Glick reports that Olmert is about to give away Judea, Samaria (Israeli for the West Bank), Jerusalem and divide Israel to enable so-called Palestinians a contiguous sovereign nation. That is an agenda that will do Iran’s Ahmadinejad’s work for him: Israel will self-destruct under the weight of deluded trust in the honesty of plenteous Arabs committed to end Israel’s existence.
When 9/11 occurred, only the Neocons had a plan to address terrorism. The Clinton strategy was immersed in treating Islamofascist terrorists as international criminals rather than enemy combatants determined to alter America’s way of life.
Neocons influenced President Bush to take down Islamofascist regimes to introduce democracy as a way of politically combating the seed bed of terrorism. Ironically there has been more success with this in Afghanistan than in Iraq. I say ironic because Afghanistan's people are steeped in the violent ideology of Wahhabi and Taliban interpretations of Mohammedanism. That populist is the epitome of a fundamentalist Mohammedan.
Iraq though Mohammedan; faced a quarter century of Baathist-Socialist Mohammedanism. Old Saddam Hussein attempted to enforce a degree of secularism into the Mohammedanism of Iraq. The Shi’ites hated him for it. It is in Iraq that America currently faces the greatest challenges concerning the introduction of democracy. Radical Mohammedans have flocked to Iraq to fight American soldiers as if it was a Jihad against an invading Crusader army.
This is unfortunate because America's desire was to build a democratic rule of law under the aegis of a stable government. Iraq is so divided by Radical Mohammedanism from foreign Sunnis and Iran influenced Shi’ites, I am of the opinion that Western Democracy will not take hold as the rule of law in Iraq.
Thus there is the appearance that the Neocon strategy of transformation in the Middle East is a failed strategy. Since it was the Neocon baby, it is the Neocons that are the stigma and scapegoats of a failed nation building strategy.
Something to consider: who had a better or even an alternative plan? Answer: NO ONE!
Neocon strategists have developed another plan. I have not heard a person who identifies himself as a Neocon say the nation building democracy plan is currently a failure. There is a certain amount of political hubris as there is with all political ideologies. Do not think for a minute that Left Wing thinking is devoid of hubris. After all Left Wing utopianism is alive and strong even after the collapse of the Communist Soviet Union as a failed structure for governing people. That also is hubris.
In America the Left Wing plan for the War on Terrorism in Iraq is to cut-n-run enabling the appearance of victory to Islamofascism and radical Mohammedanism. That strategy will only allow the continued growth and eventual domination of the radical reactionary interpretations of Mohammed, the Quran, the Hadiths, the Sunna and Sharia Law and so on. The concept of a moderate Mohammedanism is shrinking daily in the Mohammedan dominated nations and Mohammedan minorities in Western lands. Clearly the cut-n-run strategy is will mess up the global future of Western Civilization.
The Neocons and (smart) Conservatives are calling for a “troop surge” to alter strategy to confront terrorists with a more root out the rodent vermin goal. Then extricate American troops. If democracy latches on in Iraq or Afghanistan, it will be a Mohammedan cultural version. Civil Rights and Liberty as we know will not exist in a Mohammedan democracy; however a better rule of law may develop that goes after radical terrorists in ways that only a Mohammedan can comprehend.
Or despotism may win the day because medieval thought patterns may be too entrenched in Mohammedan culture until a moderate transformation (hopefully) over takes the radical. Then America will back to the old fashioned client States. The Client States will receive American support for existence as long as they quell the radicals in their nation. Both versions may not be amenable to American and Western National Interests.
President Bush has assigned General Patraeus to replace General Abizaid as the Commander land troops in Iraq. He will employ the NEW military strategy and we will see where the chips fall. If the Democratic Congress interferes with Patraeus, the new strategy will certainly fail. Let us think long term and not short term. The short term will result in long term anguish for America and the West. The Short term will embolden current minority Mohammedans to embrace its radical nature, placing the so-called moderate on the shelf of insignificance.
Victor Davis Hanson surmises America has two choices concerning Iraq and Afghanistan:
1. … [W]e can withdraw ground troops and return to punitive and conventional bombing - tit-for-tat retaliation for each attack in the future. That way, the United States stays distant and smacks the jihadists on their home bases below. Few Americans die; terrorists sometimes do. The bored media stay more concentrated on the terrorists' provocations, not on our standoff response from 30,000 feet in the clouds.
2. American forces, at great danger, can continue to change the political and economic structure of the Middle East in hopes of fostering constitutional governments that might curb terrorism for generations. This current engagement demands our soldiers fight jihadists on their vicious turf, but by our humanitarian rules. For this, we must pay the ensuing human and materiel price - all broadcast live on the evening news. (Hanson)
Basically Hanson is saying one path is easy but could lead to increased antagonism from Islamofascist terrorists. The other path is hard yet if successful, could lead to further American soldiers dieing but aiding in a transformation of an economic poverty structure wrapped around despotic rule.
The first option is of little gamble and risk yet would perpetuate a hatred of the West and continued Islamofascist influence toward Mohammedans accepting the radical version preached by Wahhabists and Twelver Shi’ites. My opinion this road will eventually lead to a global confrontation that Mohammedans cannot win due to resources, however they will be able to exact great devastation as the result of oil acquired money buying WMD capabilities.
The second path is directly abhorrent to the politically correct Left in both Europe and America, as well as a growing amount of pro-Arab Republicans. Why? It requires a gamble of long term blood, money and resources that may or may not succeed. I personally am leaning to the opinion that Western Democratic principles cannot even be accepted by a so-called moderate Mohammedanism. The absolute revulsion of anything not Mohammedan is a superiority complex programmed into their religious/civic ideology from the days of their so-called prophet.
I think the West should embark on a path that the Third World certainly would call imperialism. That is to force a form of democracy on the Middle East that Mohammedanism could live with even though it would still be repugnant to the West. A Mohammedan democracy would be a theocratic democracy in which women and non-Mohammedans would suffer a second or sub class status. However there would be a rule of law. This is the compromise the West should embark on political experimentation.
Then there is the issue of Mohammedan immigration to the West. Again, this is not a politically correct solution; however it is solution that has worked in the past to protect European culture. Mohammedans should be welcome in the West as long as they do not expect to be treated differently than Western Culture. I say Western Culture because Europe currently is more secular and humanistic and America is more religious with a leaning toward (gag) secular humanism.
Secular Humanism is as much unacceptable to Mohammedan thought as it is to the Christian Right in America. Sharia Law cannot be accepted as one rule for Mohammedans in the West while the West continues with its Western Heritage of Liberty and Rights. Eventually the West would fall to pieces into a Dark Age of lawlessness as Westerners became fed up with Mohammedans and visa-a-versa.
Sounds harsh huh? I do not about you but I am not willing to give up special privileges to Mohammedans in my nation at the hurt of my Christian heritage. And though a Secular Humanist does not see it now because of a pathetic politically correct passivism, I doubt the Left is willing to give up the agenda of a humanistic society. If the West wakes up, the Slanted Right and The Slanted Left actually have a mutual enemy: it is radical Mohammedanism.
Is it time to leave Iraq? Alan Caruba writing in Human Events Online believes this is the case.
Caruba reasons the introduction of Democracy to Iraq failed thus it is time to bail.
Indeed, democratic institutions are something that apparently cannot take in the Western tradition in Mohammedan culture. Nonetheless no one else was willing to address the radical Mohammedanism in the Middle East except George W. Bush. Thus Bush should be given kudos for the attempt.
If the democratic institutions could have overcome the intolerance of Sharia Law and Mohammedan traditions, then radical Mohammedanism would have to rethink its strategy. The experiment has failed. The Mohammedan mindset is too indoctrinated in intolerance, a superiority complex over all other cultures and hatred to embrace democratic institutions.
So should we bail on Iraq before American troops are so involved that years turn into decades? NO!
The strategy needs to change to be molded to new expectations. Simply bailing on Iraq could lead to greater problems than exist now. For one thing the radical Mohammedans will view leaving as a victory validating terrorizing innocent lives to accomplish ends.
The majority crowd in Iraq is Shi’ites and Kurds versus the Sunnis that benefited from Saddam Hussein’s brutal genocidal rule. The new plan should be to enable an Iraqi government that is friendly to America because America liberated a significant population from the rule of terror by Saddam Hussein.
A Mohammedan version of Democracy will work in Iraq. Democratic Institutions molded to conform to the ghastly intolerance of Mohammedanism will work. That will be a Democracy absent of Rights and Liberties. That will be a Democracy in which Mohammedanism will be a State religion and those citizens belonging to a minority religion will be second class citizens.
The key is to establish stability in government. When that moment is satisfactory, it will be time to leave and leave rapidly. The reason being is that a Mohammedan Democracy will eventually evolve into a power struggle in which a personality cult or a specific group will assume the instruments of power that rules.
Another consideration is to build a nation state that is able to stand up to the psychosis known as Iran. The Iranian government is a terrorist factory planting money in non-nation terrorist organizations. Hello! That is the very thing Saddam Hussein was doing after he lost the First Gulf War.
Unless America is willing to lay down and allow Iran to have its way, it is better to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan to surround Iran for the day that psychotic nation becomes bold enough to do something stupid, such as attack Israel or American troops in the Middle East.
As Iran increases in nuclear power that day will ever come closer and closer.
I consider myself more of a neoconservative than a mere conservative, even though neocons have a target pasted to their brains these days. The fact of the matter is I was a Slanted Left kind-of-guy in my youth with a huge belief in the Collective solving the ills of global poverty and human rights.
My slow transference toward the Right was the result of a few things, viz. that the Collective tended to be authoritarian and despotic rather than possessing Liberty, Freedom and Prosperity. I don’t know, I may have a bit of the Collective in my blood, however definitely not the vision of Marx, Lenin and Mao.
If there is ever a valid Collective it will under the auspices of the Liberty, Freedom and Morality that finds a foundation in Christianity.
Saying that, here is a wonderful essay about neocons from James Lewis:
JRH
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Why Isn't the Whole Left Neoconservative?
By James Lewis
December 21, 2006
American Thinker
Now that neocons are being slow-roasted in effigy all over the world, this may be the right time to ask the question: Why isn't the whole Left neoconservative? Remember that neocons like Norman Podhoretz and Daniel P. Moynihan were former left-wingers who saw the light --- which only seems like common sense, after witnessing Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the Kims (Dad and Junior), and the whole mass-murdering gang of cutthroats.
After the Soviet Union crashed and no one could possibly ignore the bloody mess the Left kept making over seventy long years. So why didn't all the decent Leftists just read their Milton Friedman and grow up?
That's what the so-called neocons did, and more power to them. I take it as obvious that they were correct and morally decent, in learning to see how wrong they had been. They grew up. My question is: What happened to all the others?
Or to ask it a different way: Why is it that in Britain, of all countries, a BBC4 survey showed that the greatest philosopher of all time is considered to be ... Karl Marx? A hate-filled parasitical scribbler who spent his life in the British Museum, stoking the fires that killed 100 million people in the 20th century? What is wrong with British education that the plain facts do not shout out for themselves?
The fact that the Left never, ever learns gives the lie to all its high-falutin' claims of "idealism," "progressivism," and superior morality. There is one and only one reason the Left isn't blamed for its misdeeds: It still controls the organs of propaganda, following der Übermenschlicher Karl. Thus some 90 percent of our media functionairies are left wingers. A predominant percentage of professors and teachers are, too.
To hold on to their beliefs leftists must shut down any competing ideas, which is precisely what they do. Just take your favorite leftist friends, and tell them some obvious fact they don't want to hear. You can see it working right in front of your eyes: They just won't hear it. Like the stone idols of the Bible, they have eyes, but cannot see; ears, but cannot hear. (Ps. 115) As long as they control the dominant media, our society will keep teetering at the brink of destruction.
All this is relevant today, because the Western world has just realized (again!) that multiculturalism, the latest mass delusion from the elites, comes down to societal suicide. Ooops! In exchange for the Multiculti Cult we get the Twin Towers on 9/11, carnage in London, Madrid, Mumbai, Bali and Baghdad, nightly riots in the banlieus of France, hateful anti-Americanism throughout Europe and America, and yes, the rise of yet another version of Left Fascism, this time marked by loudly voiced race hatred and anti-Semitism. Who could be surprised? Yet nobody blames the snake-oil peddlers for those deadly toxins.
Europe is still suffering from the intellectual monopoly of socialism. "Sophisticated" Europe doesn't see any respectable alternative to the Left, since conservatism is constantly and deliberately confounded with fascism. The American Left tries to ape the Euromyth that any decent and moral person must be a Leftist --- but so far only American professors believe it. Since in the tunnel-vision of the anointed there is no alternative to themselves, if one fairy-tale of Earthly Paradise is seen to crash, another one must instantly take its place. That is why the commissars of Post-Modernism and Multiculturalism suddenly rose to power all over the West in the 1970s and 80s. The faithful had to find a new way to justify their idee fixe.
Such mental fixedness is utterly irrational. A psychiatrist would have to ask whether the people who keep peddling the same toxins over and over again are themselves deeply malevolent and destructive: Whether unconsciously they really want to murder their societies. Why else would they keep pushing toward chaos?
So I ask again: Why isn't everybody on the Left a neocon? Why isn't Hillary? Chomsky? John Kerry? All those Sixties leftovers who never learned --- why are they so intellectually stuck? Have they no decency?
So hurray for the Neocons, say I, and long may they bug the Left.
James Lewis blogs at Dangerous Times.
© American Thinker 2006
Hat tip to Dissecting the Left.