Democracy and the post 9/11 world
Amid the mud slinging and fear mongering of America’s current democratic process, it is worth stepping back a little to survey the political arena since 9/11 with cooler heads.
George Bush has much to answer for but is not as thoughtless as numerous Americans make him out to be. In fact, many seem more blinkered than Bush and confused about what it means to be an American among today’s global cultural and economic rivalries.
For an outsider, it is awful to witness the self-absorption of voters governing the giant American bull, under whose shadow non-Americans in our planetary china shop must live, willy-nilly, for some time to come.
American voters cannot flee responsibility for their political choices. They are accountable for those who govern them and their votes affect the entire world’s people. Trying to turn the forthcoming elections and post 9/11 policies into parochial matters is like burying the head in sand. All politics may be local in every country but not so in America in this epoch of global terror.
Credible evidence shows that democracy is the best way for humankind to evolve towards freedom from oppression. Preventing it in non-European countries is a prime goal of the current breed of terrorists. That makes Bush’s combat for democracy vital for all of us, although it does not excuse the apparently deceitful behavior of his administration in recent years.
Only the future will tell whether American democracy is a universal model or foreign cultures must innovate new forms. But everyone on this crowded planet merits the chance to build better lives based on political freedom.
Hundreds of millions became free from colonial and totalitarian oppression in the 20th century’s second half. This century’s early decades should bring freedom from oppression by their homegrown despots. Without Bush’s doggedness, they would be denied the chance to start the long process of molding democracy to their own mores.
To Bush goes the credit of bringing the pursuit of democracy out of the closet after half a century of American deference to tyrants and dictators. The US deferred to those wolves to protect Americans and the world from Soviet totalitarianism. An end to that connivance is in itself a relief for millions around the world.
As with any unprecedented endeavor, the path is strewn with minefields. America, including Bush, has still to discover how to provide effective and bloodless support for democracy in non-European cultures. Yet, it is a leap for humankind that Bush is braving enormous cost in American blood and treasure to center on democracy.
Whether or not Bush prevaricated or bred incompetence, American parents deserve gratitude for sending their young to death’s door so that others might start their own journeys to political freedom.
American taxpayers deserve gratitude for allowing a President, elected by a hair’s breadth, to spend nearly $500 billion of their hard-earned money on foreign wars with no end in sight. Those dollars would otherwise have gone to health care, education or other services for Americans.
These parents and taxpayers are voters in the upcoming elections. They undercut their ongoing sacrifices by tearing themselves apart over “How did we get here�, instead of “Why are we here?�, “How should we proceed?� and “Where do we want to be?�
“How did we get here?� Probably through misunderstandings, mistakes, half-truths and lies. A number of mea culpa and reparatory actions may be required to correct the destructive way in which the Iraq war is proceeding.
But current frustrations should not undo “Why are we here?� The world has changed and the clock cannot be turned back to the 20th century. There are about 300 million Americans living in a sea of more than 6,000 million people. Despite its ocean moats, America can no longer be a prosperous island unto itself while over 4.5 billion people live on less than $12 a day, including a billion humiliated by less than $2 a day.
No military may be capable of defeating the US but the diseases of the poor and the rage of the envious will eat into its bones. Poor immigrants will continue to overwhelm America’s borders in search of hope. The enraged will smuggle dirty weapons and hatred to infect the marrow in America’s spine of civil liberties.
Bush has realized this. He understands that the American people cannot be protected without lifting the yokes of political oppression and its handmaiden of chronic poverty from as many foreign peoples as possible, at whatever pace feasible.
Democracy is the only desirable tool for this because local people can mold it to their own needs. All other forms of governance entail more coercion with fewer means to make readjustments or obtain redress.
Bush’s motives are not altruistic. He is among the first Americans to realize that the US can no longer safely peer over fortified walls at the world’s teeming and huddled masses. Americans must share what they do best – protect human freedoms. In that, his determination expresses America’s founding spirit.
In squabbling over trees, American voters are losing sight of the forest. In it lurk demons, tied to history, religions and cultures, who cannot countenance an American people driven by enlightened self-interest. They want, by any means, to sow confusion among American voters.
That confusion is evident in the vicious partisanship of political debate and the crude use of fear to win votes. In tiny steps, victory is slipping away to those who want the world’s chief multi-cultural society and haven of freedoms to shackle itself with dread of strangers.
This imprudent use of fear is, perhaps, Bush’s greatest mistake. He has the vision required to secure his people by nurturing democracy everywhere but his character’s blind spots have put execution on a dangerously flawed path. None other than American voters can help to put him back on track.
The issue now is, “How should we proceed?� That depends on striking the right balance of pain to America from the Iraq war, Afghanistan, the war on terror and homeland security. Right now, the pain looks like an abscess straining to burst.
Yes, exiting Iraq, reinforcing homeland security and getting a handle on immigration are urgent needs. But unlinking them from the necessity of more democracy worldwide will simply put band-aids over festering wounds.
The wounds are festering and serious infection is round the corner because American voters are confused about “Where do we want to be?� This goes to the core of America’s adjustment to the 21st century world where several previously quiescent nations are now increasingly ambitious. Therefore, the possibilities for fear, distrust and war are manifold.
Against this backdrop, do American voters want to be self-righteous flag bearers of America’s “manifest destiny� or conscientious and caring members of our global family?
This family is struggling to dethrone oppression of human freedoms. American voters can take its pain to heart or put up a “Please do not disturb� sign. The latter is a ticket on the Titanic. America’s great ship may use every high technology and ingenuity to avoid the icebergs, but they will find ways to pierce its hull.
It is time to look above the tree line and come together behind an agenda of democracy to figure out less bloody, less costly and more intelligent ways of carrying it forward. Those who wish to hold Bush, his administration and his party accountable for arrogance, folly and incredible mistakes since 9/11 should go right ahead with their tough intent.
But American political practices sullied by rabid baiting of opponents are certainly not encouraging the 4 billion people beyond the West and India for whom democratic processes are alien to their history, culture and belief systems.
If significant segments of those people see democracy as little more than horse-trading among power hungry contenders, they may not risk standing up to their political and religious tormentors. If they do not step up, Americans will be less secure. American youth and treasure will have to be sacrificed to wars of attrition for decades to come.
Even US wealth may not be up to that challenge for long. This is already happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In summary, it is no longer safe for American voters to puff their chests and eulogize their democracy while ignoring the wider world. They must also be seen to act purposefully with cool heads instead of letting avid politicians suck them into the paralyzing quicksand of partisanship and parochialism.
On their quality as voters hangs their safety as Americans. And the peace of the post 9/11 world hangs on their courage to pursue enlightened rather than insular self interest.
12 Responses to “Democracy and the post 9/11 world”
I think a good telling point is, if a politician stands up and says that his opponent voted for money to go to say Ethiopia children while there are children who are homeless and hungry here in the United States.
It will be factually acurate. But this is why we have to educate why a child starving in Ethiopia is also of considerable concern to the west.
To harp from the other thread, you’ve got to educate. I think most American’s – if shown why – would also vote to help save that African Child. Yet that we can save that child, while not giving away our entire country. And still save our children too. For in the long run it is vital for our own security and economy.
In the ‘70’s this nation became radicalized over the Vietnam war, starting with the left in American colleges and Universities in the anti war movement. When you read the experiences of right wing commentators it was in their college years they became radical in response to being ostracized and their views denigrated. We have been at each others throats ever since. Unlike parliamentary systems we have only two parties to choose from, there are no center/left or center /right parties to vote for so we seem to always be struck in the middle of the extremes. Until we can somehow figure out a way around this either by gaining more influence in the nomination process or even by creating a third party the US will be the “bull� in the china shop ranting and raving as we pull one way then another and can never seem to come up with a logical direction.
There’s one major problem with your post. Bush is either lying about his so-called belief in democracy, or he is so incompetent in its execution as to render the project a mockery. Taking your point regarding democracy as the tonic for terrorism – a connection seemingly belied by the Pakistani Britons of 7/7 who grew up in a highly democratic society but still turned to terrorism – we have to hold our leaders accountable. Preaching, but not delivering, real democratic reform is not only not enough. It’s actually worse because it raises expectations that inevitably get dashed in the midst of poor planning and pie-in-the-sky idealism. One of the problems we’ve faced in Iraq is the expectation among ordinary Iraqis that their lives would vastly improve after Saddam. Considering the widely held “Man on the Moon” syndrome (where people wonder how a nation that can put a man on the moon can’t keep basic order or deliver basic services), we should have been extra careful not to raise expectations. But we weren’t, because our leaders were foolish ideologues who never thought through how difficult it was actually building a democracy. Sadly, people like you who earnestly hope for democratic renewal in the third world will be summarily disappointed. The Bush Administration cannot and will not deliver.
But can the Democrats? The real risk is that both parties turn away from the Iraq debacle and head down the path of head-in-the-sand isolationism. This seems to be a major worry of your post. And I share your worry. I am still a liberal interventionist. Though I hold no illusions that democracy will eliminate terrorism, I believe in democracy because it is fundamentally right. But getting out of the cynical morass that is Iraq, and into a genuine JFK/Truman-style aggressive, principled and competent idealism is going to be very difficult. It’s why I support Mark Warner, for example, and not Russ Feingold (Hillary has it right on this too but she’s got other problems IMHO). Americans shouldn’t turn from moronically executed democratic expansionism into harsh isolationism simply because Bush gave democracy a bad name.
incase anyone else is interested as I am on reading more about Warner. Link here
I’ll read up on just about anyone. (except Hillary, my mind was made up on her when I met her). May not like or agree with items about them. But I will take a look.
For an outsider, it is awful to witness the self-absorption of voters governing the giant American bull, under whose shadow non-Americans in our planetary china shop must live, willy-nilly, for some time to come.
Well said.
Except that the voters don’t govern; politicians do. Research has demonstrated that American voters don’t understand very well what the politicians are up to.
American taxpayers deserve gratitude for allowing a President, elected by a hair’s breadth, to spend nearly $500 billion of their hard-earned money on foreign wars with no end in sight. Those dollars would otherwise have gone to health care, education or other services for Americans.
This simply doesn’t figure to go over very well with the American taxpayers, either those who have or still do support the war or those who don’t. Most of the voters who supported this war had no idea what the cost would be because the Administration led them to believe there would be much less to it than there turned out to be.
Bush has realized this. He understands that the American people cannot be protected without lifting the yokes of political oppression and its handmaiden of chronic poverty from as many foreign peoples as possible, at whatever pace feasible.
Unfortunately, it makes all the difference in the world that he didn’t start talking about this with respect to Iraq until other casi belli proved to be fictions. As a result, we don’t really know whether Bush realized something or whether he was casting about for a fig leaf to substitute for justifications that were no longer valid.
And even assuming the best, it’s a tricky business to bring democracy to peoples who haven’t had it and don’t know its ways, particularly when there are warring factions and religious fanatics about. America has been extremely fortunately to have had so little of this sort of thing to deal with, but the downside is that it renders Americans extremely naive in terms of understanding how some country thousands of miles away will get from where it is to where it would be better for them to be, not to mention the problems of agreeing about “better for them” means.
What I like about Warner is his pragmatism. I don’t agree with him on everything. But I think he has the economy right (supports expanding the high-tech economy into rural, impoverished areas), is culturally acceptable (he even SPONSORED a NASCAR team, and is centrist on abortion), is responsible on foreign policy (criticizes Bush but doesn’t believe in irresponsible withdrawal), and has a great resume as the creator of Nextel. What I really like about him is that he’s generally positive – of the Clinton variety – without the smarminess or sleaze.
I agree with the author that spreading true democracy is an antidote to tyranny, and that Bush undertook a noble goal by trying to bring it to the people of Iraq. But in this case execution is everything. And the execution has been a dismal failure. In an experiment that was important both to our longterm security and to the people who had long suffered under Saddam we failed miserably.
The best we can hope for is that with the help of our soldiers and our tax dollars, the sectarian conflict in Iraq will be contained, and not boil over into full-blown civil war. It may be well into the next generation before we know if there will be any positive effects from our efforts to the region.
We do know that there are already negative effects-our prestige has been damaged by scandals like Abu Ghraib and the many atrocities that usually accompany a long war. Our military is strained from the burden of fighting two wars at once, and anger at Americans in the Muslim world has grown.
Cheney was on Meet the Press tonight admitting some of the more glaring errors. My question is —why did it take him three years to admit them? Of course now that the Democrats are poised to retake the House in two months, I must accept the cynical response that Republicans know there’s a credibility gap about the war in Iraq, and they are trying damage control, before it is too late!
I am quite amused reading the post and the comments, especially as these come in the wake of shocking revelations in the Senate that the US administration had been lying about Saddam Hussein and al Quaeda connection just to invade Iraq.
All the great and sophisticated arguments about President George Bush being a ‘crusader for democracy’ in the world fall flat on their face. The world media/journalists have intentionally played down the ‘lying dimension’ of the present American Presidency.
We are setting some real great standards/examples in the world by proclaming that liars are the greatest protectors of democracy in the world.
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