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Iraqi Civilian Deaths ... caused by Bush's unprovoked war

 

Democracy in the new Iraq is a myth
(Peter Preston, The Guardian, February 10, 2003)
There is, alas, something ludicrous here. The president of the hanging chads sees Iraq as the Switzerland of the Middle East, exporting freedom's ways to its neighbours. And yet nobody laughs out loud. . . . On the contrary, planning and daft promises proceed apace. After the war (say, in about six weeks) General Tommy Franks will move in as supreme administrator of Iraq - your friendly foreign military dictator. Then, a year or so later, there will be some Kosovo-style tandem, a UN-civilian governor standing beside a Yank in braid. And two/three/four years on? . . . The White House model, he [Stanley Kurtz of the Hoover Institution] says, is Japan after the second world war, with Franks as a MacArthur retread. But democracy - without roots, succour or tradition - doesn't grow overnight. There was, however imperfectly, a democratic legacy in Japan left over to build on. There was vibrant political debate and - by the 1920s - full male adult suffrage. And, crucially, there was a "sophisticated and modern bureaucratic class on hand to accept and implement the democratic reforms". . . . But where are those foundations in Iraq after 35 years of Saddam? Kurtz and other similarly glum American academics promptly spiral away into a distant future, three or more decades on, when new US schools and universities in Baghdad have produced the new young Iraqi elite they seek. . . . This isn't a Bosnia or a Kosovo - small territories with small populations. This is a big country, 23 million strong, divided by race, religion and bloody history and about to overdose on cruise missiles. This is a country of separatism, feuds, poverty and infinite corruption.

[Comment: Contrast the above article with the fantasy world of CNN's Wolf Blitzer: Democracy domino effect?. The last time I heard anyone supporting a "domino theory" was when Dr. Strangelove Kissinger told us that if Viet Nam fell to the communists then all of Asia would not be far behind. I wonder what these guys are smoking?]

posted by Lorenzo 2:38 PM