The liberal argument for war.
Feb. 12th, 2003 03:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyThose of you planning on going on any antiwar marches - do read this. It's not even by me, but it's got a lot of sense in it.
A war of liberation
The war that America is currently trying to justify is not
By Salman Rushdie
November 4, 2002
Source: The Washington Post
NEW YORK: Just in case it had slipped your memory - and as the antiwar protests grow in size and volume, it easily might have - there is a strong, even unanswerable case for a "regime change" in Iraq. What's more, it's a case that ought to appeal not just to militaristic Bushie-Blairite hawks but also to lily-livered bleeding-heart liberals; a case, moreover, that ought to unite Western public opinion and all those who care about the brutal oppression of an entire Muslim nation.
In this strange, unattractive historical moment, the extremely strong anti-Saddam Hussein argument isn't getting a fraction of the attention it deserves.
This is, of course, the argument based on his three and a half-decade-long assault on the Iraqi people. He has impoverished them, murdered them, gassed and tortured them, sent them off to die by the tens of thousands in futile wars, repressed them, gagged them, bludgeoned them and then murdered them some more.
Saddam Hussein and his ruthless gang of cronies from his home village of Tikrit are homicidal criminals, and their Iraq is a living hell. This obvious truth is no less true because we have been turning a blind eye to it - and "we" includes, until recently, the government of the United States, an early and committed supporter of the "secular" Saddam against the "fanatical" Islamic religionists of the region.
Nor is it less true because it suits the politics of the Muslim world to inveigh against the global bully it believes the United States to be, while it tolerates the all-too-real monsters in its own ranks. Nor is it less true because it's getting buried beneath the loudly made but poorly argued U.S. position, which is that Saddam is a big threat, not so much to his own people but to Americans.
Iraqi opposition groups in exile have been trying to get the West's attention for years. Until recently, however, the Bush people weren't giving them the time of day, and even made rude remarks about Ahmed Chalabi, the most likely first leader of a democratized Iraq. Now, there's a change in Washington's tune. Good. One may suspect the commitment of the Wolfowitz-Cheney-Rumsfeld axis to the creation and support of a free, democratic Iraq, but it remains the most desirable of goals.
This is the hard part for antiwar liberals to ignore. All the Iraqi democratic voices that still exist, all the leaders and potential leaders who still survive, are asking, even pleading for the proposed regime change. Will the American and European left make the mistake of being so eager to oppose Bush that they end up seeming to back Saddam, just as many of them seemed to prefer the continuation of the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan to the American intervention there?
The complicating factors, sadly, are this U.S. administration's preemptive, unilateralist instincts, which have alienated so many of America's natural allies. Unilateralist action by the world's only hyperpower looks like bullying because, well, it is bullying. And the United States' new preemptive-strike policy would, if applied, make America itself a much less safe place, because if the United States reserves the right to attack any country it doesn't like the look of, then those who don't like the look of the United States might feel obliged to return the compliment. It's not always as smart as it sounds to get your retaliation in first.
Also deeply suspect is the U.S. government's insistence that its anti-Saddam obsession is a part of the global war on terror. As Al Qaeda regroups, attacking innocent vacationers in Bali and issuing new threats, those of us who supported the war on Al Qaeda can't help feeling that the Iraq initiative is a way of changing the subject, of focusing on an enemy who can be found and defeated instead of the far more elusive enemies who really are at war with America.
The connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda remains comprehensively unproven, whereas the presence of the Qaeda leadership in Pakistan, and of Qaeda sympathizers in that country's intelligence services, is well known. Yet nobody is talking about attacking Pakistan.
Nor does America's vagueness about its plans for a post-Saddam Iraq and its own "exit strategy" inspire much confidence. Yes, the administration is talking democracy, but does America really have the determination to (a) dismantle the Baathist one-party state and (b) avoid the military strongman solution that has been so attractive to American global scenarists in the past - "our son of a bitch," as Franklin Roosevelt once described the dictator Somoza in Nicaragua?
Does it (c) have the long-term stomach for keeping troops in Iraq, possibly in large, even Vietnam-size numbers, for what could easily be a generation, while democracy takes root in a country that has no experience of it whatever; a country, moreover, bedeviled by internal divisions and separatist tendencies?
How will it (d) answer the accusations that any regime shored up by U.S. military power, even a democratic one, would just be an American puppet? And (e) if Iraq starts unraveling and comes apart on America's watch, is the administration prepared to take the rap for that?
These are some of the reasons why I, among others, have remained unconvinced by President Bush's Iraqi grand design. But as I listen to Iraqi voices describing the atrocities of the Saddam years, then I am bound to say that if, as now seems possible, the United States and the United Nations do agree on a new Iraq resolution; and if inspectors do return, and, as is probable, Saddam gets up to his old obstructionist tricks again; or if Iraq refuses to accept the new UN resolution; then the rest of the world must stop sitting on its hands and join the Americans and British in ridding the world of this vile despot and his cohorts.
It should, however, be said and said loudly that the primary justification for regime change in Iraq is the prolonged suffering of the Iraqi people, and that the remote possibility of a future attack on America by Iraqi weapons is of secondary importance. A war of liberation might just be one worth fighting. The war that America is currently trying to justify is not.
Author
Salman Rushdie, author of "Fury" and other novels, contributed this comment to The Washington Post ("The liberal argument for regime change" -- Novemver 2, 2002).
A war of liberation
The war that America is currently trying to justify is not
By Salman Rushdie
November 4, 2002
Source: The Washington Post
NEW YORK: Just in case it had slipped your memory - and as the antiwar protests grow in size and volume, it easily might have - there is a strong, even unanswerable case for a "regime change" in Iraq. What's more, it's a case that ought to appeal not just to militaristic Bushie-Blairite hawks but also to lily-livered bleeding-heart liberals; a case, moreover, that ought to unite Western public opinion and all those who care about the brutal oppression of an entire Muslim nation.
In this strange, unattractive historical moment, the extremely strong anti-Saddam Hussein argument isn't getting a fraction of the attention it deserves.
This is, of course, the argument based on his three and a half-decade-long assault on the Iraqi people. He has impoverished them, murdered them, gassed and tortured them, sent them off to die by the tens of thousands in futile wars, repressed them, gagged them, bludgeoned them and then murdered them some more.
Saddam Hussein and his ruthless gang of cronies from his home village of Tikrit are homicidal criminals, and their Iraq is a living hell. This obvious truth is no less true because we have been turning a blind eye to it - and "we" includes, until recently, the government of the United States, an early and committed supporter of the "secular" Saddam against the "fanatical" Islamic religionists of the region.
Nor is it less true because it suits the politics of the Muslim world to inveigh against the global bully it believes the United States to be, while it tolerates the all-too-real monsters in its own ranks. Nor is it less true because it's getting buried beneath the loudly made but poorly argued U.S. position, which is that Saddam is a big threat, not so much to his own people but to Americans.
Iraqi opposition groups in exile have been trying to get the West's attention for years. Until recently, however, the Bush people weren't giving them the time of day, and even made rude remarks about Ahmed Chalabi, the most likely first leader of a democratized Iraq. Now, there's a change in Washington's tune. Good. One may suspect the commitment of the Wolfowitz-Cheney-Rumsfeld axis to the creation and support of a free, democratic Iraq, but it remains the most desirable of goals.
This is the hard part for antiwar liberals to ignore. All the Iraqi democratic voices that still exist, all the leaders and potential leaders who still survive, are asking, even pleading for the proposed regime change. Will the American and European left make the mistake of being so eager to oppose Bush that they end up seeming to back Saddam, just as many of them seemed to prefer the continuation of the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan to the American intervention there?
The complicating factors, sadly, are this U.S. administration's preemptive, unilateralist instincts, which have alienated so many of America's natural allies. Unilateralist action by the world's only hyperpower looks like bullying because, well, it is bullying. And the United States' new preemptive-strike policy would, if applied, make America itself a much less safe place, because if the United States reserves the right to attack any country it doesn't like the look of, then those who don't like the look of the United States might feel obliged to return the compliment. It's not always as smart as it sounds to get your retaliation in first.
Also deeply suspect is the U.S. government's insistence that its anti-Saddam obsession is a part of the global war on terror. As Al Qaeda regroups, attacking innocent vacationers in Bali and issuing new threats, those of us who supported the war on Al Qaeda can't help feeling that the Iraq initiative is a way of changing the subject, of focusing on an enemy who can be found and defeated instead of the far more elusive enemies who really are at war with America.
The connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda remains comprehensively unproven, whereas the presence of the Qaeda leadership in Pakistan, and of Qaeda sympathizers in that country's intelligence services, is well known. Yet nobody is talking about attacking Pakistan.
Nor does America's vagueness about its plans for a post-Saddam Iraq and its own "exit strategy" inspire much confidence. Yes, the administration is talking democracy, but does America really have the determination to (a) dismantle the Baathist one-party state and (b) avoid the military strongman solution that has been so attractive to American global scenarists in the past - "our son of a bitch," as Franklin Roosevelt once described the dictator Somoza in Nicaragua?
Does it (c) have the long-term stomach for keeping troops in Iraq, possibly in large, even Vietnam-size numbers, for what could easily be a generation, while democracy takes root in a country that has no experience of it whatever; a country, moreover, bedeviled by internal divisions and separatist tendencies?
How will it (d) answer the accusations that any regime shored up by U.S. military power, even a democratic one, would just be an American puppet? And (e) if Iraq starts unraveling and comes apart on America's watch, is the administration prepared to take the rap for that?
These are some of the reasons why I, among others, have remained unconvinced by President Bush's Iraqi grand design. But as I listen to Iraqi voices describing the atrocities of the Saddam years, then I am bound to say that if, as now seems possible, the United States and the United Nations do agree on a new Iraq resolution; and if inspectors do return, and, as is probable, Saddam gets up to his old obstructionist tricks again; or if Iraq refuses to accept the new UN resolution; then the rest of the world must stop sitting on its hands and join the Americans and British in ridding the world of this vile despot and his cohorts.
It should, however, be said and said loudly that the primary justification for regime change in Iraq is the prolonged suffering of the Iraqi people, and that the remote possibility of a future attack on America by Iraqi weapons is of secondary importance. A war of liberation might just be one worth fighting. The war that America is currently trying to justify is not.
Author
Salman Rushdie, author of "Fury" and other novels, contributed this comment to The Washington Post ("The liberal argument for regime change" -- Novemver 2, 2002).
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: Interesting Points
A small lesson of history ...
'Democratisation by force' destroys the very credibility of such democratising effort.
Try 1: Napolean's 'spread the Revolution to Europe!'
Try 2: Communists 'spread the Revolution by the International!'
Democracy needs to be a grassroot effort. The Iraqis themselves would need to decide for themselves, by whatever means they have, to make that effort. Even if that means the abolition of Iraq as a single nation (which is likely, and probably necessary - the Balkan lesson).
We can examine the American record of such efforts in the past:
1) Cuba ... hmm, the US did so well there Castro got in and stayed in.
2) The Philippines ... again, the US did so well that not only did Marcos get in, after he left, corruption rules the country.
3) Hawaii ... well, that was a federal decision after the Kingdom was simply taken. The remainder natives are increasingly marginalised.
4) Vietnam ... the US aborts a cross-border populist referendum to see what future the partioned country(-ies) wanted, and fueled a war.
So, on the whole, no I don't think the US can be trusted to build an authentic sustainable democracy for someone else.
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-13 01:42 am (UTC)And you propoise they do that *how*, exactly, given that whem people have tried that in Iraq they've been shot, tortured, gassed, etc - oh and their friends and families have too, just to p[ut anyone else off the idea.
Perhaps, radically enough, it might be helpful if those capable of doing so were to remove the shooters, torturers and gassers and *then* the people can decide what they want?
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-13 11:44 am (UTC)----
Try this radical idea on for size ... wait for Saddam to die (of natural causes), *then* sort out the democratisation and reconstruction. We have the peversely good fortune that Saddam has been so paranoid about his power that he has left no legacy of inheritance. He's terrorised his own Baathists and murdered his own family. Any heir apparent disappears or dies.
Ne Win at least had the sense to set up a legacy structure and retire before dying ... that plan may have become badly unstuck since his death, but democratisation at least is still in limbo/stand-by.
Pinochet was ultimately unable to keep basic democratic structures from reasserting themselves, decades before his death.
If the people want it, and the strongmen die, democracy can flourish. And no, one needn't murder, arrest, or otherwise externally interdict said strongmen.
Incidentally, the episode at the Baghdad prison in 2002 illustrates some potentially interesting cracks in Saddam's policies and powerbase. But I don't put it past Saddam to have engineered the whole thing
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-15 11:55 am (UTC)*blinks*
I'm left speechless by this attitude, saving but to ask who you relate to most: the Priest or the Levite?
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-15 10:18 pm (UTC)Also, why are you stunned? Frankly the human tragedy argument doesn't hold much water when the verysame superpower able to do so much is willing to look the other way on virtually an unlimited number of other occassions. Whether the tragedies are in countries 'far away' or are far far closer to home.
As far as Saddam is concerned, he is an old man who cannot gain access to the best medicine in the world - in spite of his power and wealth. He might get lucky and live for 40 more years, but that is very very unlikely. He probably only has 20 more at most, and if he shows the least bit of senility, he's at serious risk of being killed/overthrown himself.
That is where Saddam is concerned. As for the Iraqi people, in the absence of much improvement from 'oil for food' deals, then much more can be done to spirit people away to safer places both in patrolled Iraq and beyond.
As far as the development of these horrible lethal weapons, more can be done to strengthen containment AND remove key human capital from Saddam, where possible. Just keeping his illicit operations on the run present logistical challenges which limit the program's overall development. This is especially true for nuclear weapons, slightly less so for biological, and admittedly of only marginal impact to a chemical program. The biggest challenge then is safely and secretly storing the burgeoning stockpile of chemical weapons - not an easy task when one's entire country is routinely monitored. Next, one cannot overlook the valid deterrence of terrible reprisal should these weapons ever be used in a way disagreeable to the international community generally and the US specifically. *The US* will push the button in such an event, this is a political reality (namely to protect the credibility of said deterrence) that supercedes any administration's particular ideology I think.
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-16 09:10 am (UTC)The question was of a story, what of the source?
Why do I have a feeling that if I'd asked if you related to Hermes or Zeus more you *wouldn't* have felt the need to clarify your lack of belief in that religious system and would probably have answered the question as presented...?
Your prejudices are showing...
I simply can't comprehend the attitude which states that waiting for a killer to snuff it because then he'll stop killing people is the way to go..it's alien to me, like the surface of Mars or something. Sterile, hostile, and overall, probably Red *g*.
Isn't it odd that I'm the one who thinks there *won't* be a war (I'm not going into my reasoning as I've got a project to get done for work tomorrow, but some of my reasons include the stuff you list above), but considers it a shame because of all the people who are gonna die as a result of that non-event - whilst you're the one happy to let more death occur, presumably because they're good and far away and so don't really impinge on you personally?
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-16 09:41 am (UTC)Your prejudices are showing...
Hardly, Hermes and Zeus populate what is for all intents and purposes a dead religion. They are stories only, with the odd few who still sacrifice animals to these gods. Nothing like the politically-charged Judeo-Christian tradition we're burdened with today. :-)
I simply can't comprehend the attitude which states that waiting for a killer to snuff it because then he'll stop killing people is the way to go..it's alien to me, like the surface of Mars or something. Sterile, hostile, and overall, probably Red *g*.
Well, speaking for myself, I weave my personal philosophy from Eastern fibres...and that is often alien to Westerners. It is simply untenable to characterise an evil act, like killing people, as 'good' - and defence is an overused, even abused, excuse...and we don't even have that in the Iraqi case. I also believe that whilst one can make oneself feel better for having helped others my killing some, it cannot change the karmically criminal nature of murder, and you will be so much roach in the next life. Worse, a government that places itself as prime beneficiary of such personal karmic sacrifice is tainted...especially when recognition and use of that sacrifice is so superficial, or criminal.
In the superpower case of the US, with such awesome lethal power at its hands, it behooves it to LEAD the world to better applied principles. To act ethically, more now than ever as it is both challenged for its history of dubious policies, and because it lacks an equal.
(and I raise the following as I'm off to the rally in a few)
To the question of the US specifically in this coming war (and I don't for a second believe your position that it's all an enormous bluff - be ready to pay up *g*), I am startled by the enormous mistrust this administration has for the democratic principles it is supposed to stand for...both in the abandonment of habeaus corpus and other basic civil rights, and in the aggressive willingness to kill for said principles - the nature of which changes the very thing one is allegedly trying to protect. This 'faith-based' administration has very little faith. :-)
whilst you're the one happy to let more death occur, presumably because they're good and far away and so don't really impinge on you personally?
You might think that, but you'd be incorrect. Given where I've lived, who I know, and the family I have - I have seen for myself the wide suffering people (and family!) have to deal with on a daily basis. I accept that suffering as both normal and unnecessary. I also accept that the US can do so much more to alleviate that suffering and is also fundamentally incapable of doing it.
To the issue of death, there is no 'good' death, but then there isn't 'bad' death either. There's merely death, and everyone dies. Some achieve more in life than others, and many are unfairly denied opportunities for success in their life.
To delineate what I said before ... to correct such injustice, there is no correction if one proceeds unjustly; just the perpetuation of a cycle of injustice.
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-17 01:57 am (UTC)No, or not deliberately, anyway. You have to confess that "I don't believe that crap" certainly reads like prejudice, whether you intended it to or not.
The indication from your immediate reaction is that you're still defining yourself against that religious set and the immediate reaction appeared to be the knee-jerk reaction of someone who hadn't broken their ties to it; in other words, an apparent prejudiced reaction.
Not going to get into a discussion of the philosophies of eastern religion, because as yo'u're well aware it's possible to justifyt most anything with philosophy, as our relative (irreconcilable, to immediate inspection) positions of 'Allowing crimes to continue is intolerable' and 'crimes are just dandy so long as it doesn't invlove me' indicates.
And as for paying up?
I stand by my postion, as nothing I've seen has convinced me to change my mind. Dependsing on how things go I'll probably be up for another renewal of the bet when it comes due in March - certainly if the situation hasn't changed by then I will be.
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-17 02:34 am (UTC)Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-17 02:44 am (UTC)Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-17 09:11 am (UTC)Prejudice? Well I'm perfectly fine if you or someone else believes in that crap, or if you don't believe in my crap, but I certainly don't believe in that J-C crap. :-)
re: knee-jerk.
LOL! Honestly Wadester, don't read into it.
as our relative (irreconcilable, to immediate inspection) positions of 'Allowing crimes to continue is intolerable' and 'crimes are just dandy so long as it doesn't invlove me' indicates.
Well, I think you mischaracterise my position greatly. A central tenet of my view is that government action inherently involves its citizens, and that is why I take exception to the policy that international law and its conventions should be broken to invade Iraq, unilaterally if necessary. "Not in my name" eh.
Moreover, I have strongly argued that if the US is willing to unilaterally invade Iraq to really only remove one man and his dedicated cronies on the grounds of human rights - then it really should be more even-handed and apply like pressure on Burma, China, Sierra Leone, the Congo, and other places whilst cleaning up its own house (prison system would be a start ... sometimes you'd think you were in a Turkey).
Good ethical behaviour is both necessary due to superpower status, and shouldn't be a luxurious selection of opportunity - but a founding basis of all decisions. As rigourous and dull as cost-benefit analysis.
A large undertaking to be sure, but one that the US should be able to do if it sets its mind to it. An if that has always left crucial reform by the wayside until the situtation grows so awful that it has to respond (as with slavery, international slave trade, Iran-Contra, Watergate, and other aspects of US domestic & foreign policy).
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-18 03:22 am (UTC)I've made that point on several occasions myself - nothing would delight me more to see somehting happen to the unelected Juntas and dictatorships of the world. Of course, this isn't going to happen for many, many reasons - some of which the anti-war lobby recognises, many of which are ignored or perhaps not even considered or thought of.
Overall, I'm prepared to accept a net good from the actions of others, even if I don't agree with their reasoning behind creating that good. Actions are so much more important than words, When people are dying I'll take pretty much any excuse that people use to stop it, as i can't acheive that paudable end myself.
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-18 06:23 am (UTC)To continue in the old manner is to continually invite discreditment of your good deeds. I am reminded, for example, of the extensive and successful aid network the US established in Africa. In the mid-1990s, due to a failure to adequately communicate the good being created by such aid, and during a Congressional battle, all that funding was canceled at a stroke. Killing many burgeoning and successful aid programs, literally throwing people out in the street/wilderness as a result. Funny too that ethnic conflicts started to grow around the same period, esp. in west Africa.
Therefore, it is again massively important for the remaining superpower to not only be 'good' acting, but to harmonise that with 'good' rhetoric.
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-18 03:22 am (UTC)Re: Interesting Points
Examples of success:
Germany: Helped introduce democratic institutions (the Weimar republic never really took root in society) and helped Brought in Democracy and played important part in post-war reconstruction, now world's 3rd largest economy
Japan: Ditto, now world's second largest economy
The former Yugoslavia was breaking up and riven by civil war, yet NATO intevention in Bosnia and Kosovo helped stop vile human rights abuses, and the area is now far more peaceful and people have far more self-determination, though I am sure more remains to be done
My fairly unscientific observations of the pre-requisites for a successful democracy are that it is a system the people need to accept, and have strong institutions prepared to back the system up. Imposed democracy can fail without these, as the political system needs to be seen to be working for the people as opposed to a foreign power.
My understanding is that the Bush adminstration intends to use the post-war re-construction of Germany as a template for Iraq. Ultimately I am sure they want a pro-American democracy, which they hope will be stable and hold the country together, and start the ball rolling for democratic reform in the Middle East. The key to success will be a commitment to supporting the institutions.
I think there probably is support for democratic reform in the Middle East even though it is suppressed, witness the imprisonment of activist Professor Saadeddin Ibrahim in Egypt. Goodness knows how Iraq would have dealt with him. I don't think it is terribly likely that there will be a populist democratic movement in Iraq in the near future given Saddam's brutal repression of his own people.
The one issue I have ignored is the possible break-up of Iraq. As I am sure you know it is an artificial creation of Eurpoean colonialism. I think you are right to say that Iraq will probably break up, if this is what the people want, then so be it. That will likely cause problems with Turkey and Iran's own Kurdish minorities.
The whole problem I guess is that this is a very risky business, but it seems that the Bush adminstration is already set on its course. I just hope they get it right
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-13 01:49 am (UTC)Is Germany still the 3rd pargest economy? I thought they were up shit creek?
Oh, and I can dig you out a copy of Vietman Bloodbath, my fun-filled RPG set in teh Veitnam war, which has a fairly good history of the situation included.
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-13 02:02 am (UTC)No. Country GDP $US billions
1 USA 10,208
2 Japan 4,149
3 Germany 1,847
4 United Kingdom 1,424
5 France 1,307
6 China (exc.HK) 1,159
7 Italy 1,089
8 Canada 700
9 Mexico 618
10 Spain 582
Germany's problem is 4.6m unemployed and rising, with an unaffordable welfare system and unecessarily rigid labour laws.
Vietnam is something I would like to know a little bit more about.
RPG's can be a bit naughty, but nothing beats Nuclear War for sheer bad taste.
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-13 12:02 pm (UTC)1) I really don't think Iraq will be anything like Germany 1945+. For a start, Germany had the benefit of extensive nation-building (a unified 'German' identity post-Franco-Prussian war) and representative-styled government (even if Junkers elite in the Kaiser's court, besides strong local politics) before Nazi gangster took office. Even then the Nazis were careful to keep up the national unity effort, and to build bridges across the 'sausage belt.'
Iraq hasn't enjoyed a similar period of local-to-national representative political development, or genuine efforts to construct a unified cultural identity. Ethnic divisions aren't just simmering, they were openly exploited by Ottoman, British, and Baathist rulers.
Without Saddam, I think it very likely that Iraq will break apart, and possibly have some very vicious ethnic bloodbaths in contested areas ... and that's assuming the neighbours don't jump in, like Turkey, Syria, and Iran.
2) Ditto comments by Wadester on relative economic conditions of Germany and Japan.
I would add that in Japan's case, while the US successfully defeated the militarists and exiled them to the popular fringe of Japanese society (make no mistake, their message of honour and strength still resonates) - it can't be said the nation was very democratised really. The total inadequacy of the representative government to handle its economic affairs for the past decade is validation enough that there isn't enough lively politics in Japan.
3) Agreed, foreign intervention in Yugoslavia helped stop further human rights abuses. But two important things need to be noted. A cross-border refugee situation developed, creating a valid international crisis; and the key to peaceful (well, armistice at least) democracy there was the abolition of the former greater Yugoslav nation.
----
4) It isn't enough to have people 'accept' a system, they have to be a part of it, to be its designers. Be it the widening of loosened priviledge to eventually encompass everyone, as in the UK, or a broader Revolutionary design as with France and the US.
5) "The whole problem I guess is that this is a very risky business, but it seems that the Bush adminstration is already set on its course. I just hope they get it right."
Agreed, but I don't think they'll get it right for the simple reason that NO ONE gets it exactly right. We all might luck out, but I'm considerably more cynical about the outcome.