The Development of Democratic Institutions in Arab Culture

[PanzerJaeger]

Here we disagree. The neo-cons made a lot of big mistakes, but the belief in universal aspiration wasn't one of them. It was the belief that one nation can impose those aspirations on another for their own good.

In my opinion, the aspirations to human rights and liberty are universal, but must be earned by the people that then cherish and them. Sometimes this is through conflict, sometimes by enlightenment, but always by a great and personal struggle. It may take a shorter or longer time, and the character of the implementation may look very different in each culture.

Other - no matter how well intentioned - imposing those values by force of arms simply cause resentment and ultimately rejection for yet more generations. By far the best "imposition" is by living the values at home, and the myriad benefits that invariably arise become the driver for aspiration elsewhere.

I agree - intervention, even with the best intentions, isn't good policy. And yet we've seen human rights and liberty imposed on peoples from Europe to Asia by force of arms. It is possible if a significant percentage of the population actually wants it. I'm just not sure there are that many people in the region who really do want it. Wanting a change in leadership is not the same thing as embracing democracy.

From Iraq I to Libya today, the biggest impediment to Arab democracy hasn't been the Great Satan or even Arab dictators, but the Arab people themselves. Time after time, when their dictators have been at their weakest, ordinary Arabs have stepped up to defend them and kill other Arabs. And when the West actually did all the hard work and deposed a genocidal Arab dictator, instead of embracing democracy and human rights as the Germans did after the Second World War, individual Arabs in great numbers rose up at significant personal risk to attempt to sabotage the creation of a democratic state and return the nation to chaos and strongman oppression.

Yeah, whatever.

And what did we do when the Shi'ites rose up in resistance after listening to Radio Free Iraq, hosted and serviced by the Americans? What happened to the Kurds in North Iraq who were tortured to death? Do you think those "pockets of resistance" are fighting the Coalition forces just out of spite?

The US never promised or even suggested that it would aid such a rebellion, as it was against the UN resolution. The propagation of such myths is part of the reason why many Americans felt a special responsibility for liberating the country.

In any event, we were a little busy assessing the scale of the Iraqi Arab atrocities committed against other Arabs in Kuwait.

Here's a tougher question. Where were the Iraqis? Saddam didn't jump in a helicopter himself and quell those uprisings.

The Coalition had just obliterated a good portion of the Iraqi military and they still couldn't topple the regime? Why? The sad truth is that the uprisings were pathetically small and Saddam still enjoyed a significant level popular support throughout most of the country. Sound familiar?

Let's face it, when the Iraqis who desperately needed freedom and we were sick of seeing their families being murdered in shady prisons all over the country, when we told them to rise up against the Ba'athists and take up arms, we suddenly pulled back and instead of laying siege to Baghdad and ousting Saddam Hussein, we just slapped sanctions on the country that hurt not the government, but the kids who were dying of depleted-uranium induced cancers in Basra. What was on the list of forbidden goods to enter Iraq? Syringes not the least, but the list extens to thermometers, scientific magazines, toilet paper, tissue paper, soap, shampoo, miroscopes and much, much more.

Why was it our job to lay siege to Baghdad? We acted in defense of the rest of the Arabian Peninsula and crippled the Iraqi military - couldn't the Iraqis have carried a little bit of the weight themselves?

And we all saw what happened when they were belatedly delivered a chance for freedom and democracy on a silver platter - a rare chance peoples in dozens of third world crapholes would love to get. You'll note that the initial toppling of the regime was remarkably bloodless for the average Iraqi and the nation's infrastructure. America was ready and enthusiastic to help the Iraqis create a democratic state and rebuild their nation after years of rot under Saddam. Unlike the Japanese who faced a similar situation decades before, the Iraqis chose the path of the petulant child, and their temper tantrum led to untold levels of death and destruction. Fun stuff.

So do you honestly believe that the Iraqi insurgents have no reason at all to possibly dislike the West?

No valid reasons, yes. If you're trying to create the impression that Iraqi insurgents fought due to bitterness over sanctions, then they were fighting the wrong people. When the effects of the sanctions on the Iraqi people became clear, the UN, specifically prodded by the US and British, took steps to address the situation. There wasn't much that could be done to help the Iraqis under regime control except...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The government of Iraq also bears considerable responsibility for the humanitarian crisis, however. Sanctions could have been suspended years ago if Baghdad had been more cooperative with UN weapons inspectors. The progress toward disarmament that was achieved came despite Iraq's constant falsifications and obstruction.

Also significant has been Iraq's denial and disruption of the oil-for-food humanitarian program. UN officials proposed the relief effort in 1991 when evidence was first reported of rising disease and malnutrition. The idea was to permit limited oil sales, with the revenues deposited in a UN-controlled account, for the purchase of approved food and medical supplies. Baghdad flatly rejected the proposal as a violation of sovereignty. Concern about worsening humanitarian conditions led the Security Council to develop a new oil-for-food plan in 1995. It increased the level of permitted oil sales and gave responsibility for relief distribution in the south-central part of the country to the Iraqi government. Again Iraq rejected the program, but after further negotiations, Baghdad finally consented in 1996, and the first deliveries of food and medicine arrived in 1997.

The oil-for-food program was never intended to be, and did not provide, the needed economic stimulus that alone could end the crisis in Iraq. But it was a bona fide effort by the Security Council to relieve humanitarian suffering. If the government of Iraq had accepted the program when it was first proposed, much of the suffering that occurred in the intervening years could have been avoided.

The Security Council has steadily expanded the oil-for-food program. In 1998 it raised the limits on permitted oil sales, and in 1999 it removed the ceiling altogether. Production has risen to approximately 2.6 million barrels per day, levels approaching those before the Gulf War. Oil revenues during the last six months of 2000 reached nearly $10 billion. This is hardly what one would call an oil embargo. Oil exports are regulated, not prohibited. Funds are still controlled through the UN escrow account, with a nearly 30 percent deduction for war reparations and UN costs, but Baghdad has more than sufficient money to address continuing humanitarian needs. Said Secretary General Kofi Annan in his latest report, "With the improved funding level for the programme, the Government of Iraq is indeed in a position to address the nutritional and health concerns of the Iraqi people."

Not only are additional revenues available, but the categories for which funds can be expended have been broadened to include oil production, power generation, water and sanitation, agriculture, transportation and telecommunications. The program is no longer simply an oil-for-food effort. The emphasis has shifted from simple humanitarian relief to broader economic assistance and the rebuilding of infrastructure.

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Despite these improvements, Baghdad has continued to obstruct and undermine the aid program. Iraq has periodically halted oil sales as a way of protesting sanctions. During the first half of 2001, oil sales were approximately $4 billion less than in the previous 180-day period. According to Annan, the oil-for-food program "suffered considerably because...oil exports...[have] been reduced or totally suspended by the government of Iraq." In June and July 2001, as the Security Council considered a new "smart sanctions" plan, Iraq again withheld oil exports to register its disapproval of the proposal. The result was a further loss of oil revenues and a reduction of the funds available for humanitarian needs.

The differential between child mortality rates in northern Iraq, where the UN manages the relief program, and in the south-center, where Saddam Hussein is in charge, says a great deal about relative responsibility for the continued crisis. As noted, child mortality rates have declined in the north but have more than doubled in the south-center. The difference is especially significant given the historical pattern prior to the Gulf War. In the 1970s child mortality rates in the northern Kurdish region were more than double those in the rest of the country. Today the situation is reversed, with child mortality rates in the south-center nearly double those in the north. The Kurdish zone has enjoyed a favored status in the relief program, with per capita allocations 22 percent higher than in the south-center. The region contains most of the country's rain-fed agriculture. Local authorities have welcomed the continuing efforts of private relief agencies, and have permitted a lively cross-border trade with surrounding countries. But these differences alone do not explain the stark contrast in mortality rates. The tens of thousands of excess deaths in the south-center, compared to the similarly sanctioned but UN-administered north, are also the result of Baghdad's failure to accept and properly manage the UN humanitarian relief effort.

Saying that the First Gulf War was an accessory to the attacks of 9/11? Did you just try to link Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden? Excuse me, but you make no sense whatsoever. The only way you might suggest the two are linked was that when Saddam Hussein invaded Iraq that Bin Laden offered to fight for Saudi-Arabia but was rebuked. Okay, big deal.

9/11 had everything to do with the First Gulf War and nothing to do with Saddam. It seems if you act in defense of some Arabs, you get blown up by other Arabs.

Oh yeah? Where were the beloved Geneva Conventions when the Iranians were gassed by the thousands during the Iran-Iraq war? When it was convenient to not talk about human rights, we didn't. Where was universal freedom when Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down, supposedly "accidental"? Only when Hussein paraded captured British pilots in Baghdad did we feel it necessary to cling onto the Conventions. Only then.

So if you think that the Arab population has no reason to hate the US, go ask the parents of the thousands of children that died of leukemia after touching pieces of shrapnel who died in Baghdad and Basra and all over Iraq. Imagine me and my family being tortured. You walk in with a gun, shoot my father, sister and mother. Then you talk a bit with the torturer about how evil those practices are, take some of his torturing equipment as well as my toilet and my bed, then leave, then come back some ten years later, decide to then shoot the torturer, imagine how I'd feel. How'd you feel?

Cause and effect, my friend, cause and effect. The German who has an argument with his wife and storms out of the room, slamming the door and triggering an American bomb lodged under the floor to blow her up doesn't hate the US - he hates Hitler. Iraq invaded and ruthlessly pillaged an Arab neighbor and was bombed accordingly. The deaths of teh childrenz sucks, but they lie at the feet of Saddam and the ordinary Iraqis who gleefully raped and killed the people of Kuwait.

A little more than a decade later, America took the extraordinary step of removing the regime and instead of thinking "wow, I'm grateful the Americans finally removed this horrible person who has caused us so much grief and want to help us establish a free state", the average Iraqi thought to himself "let's blow some up!"

I've become more and more convinced that the Arab Street just isn't ready for democracy. They may want a change in leadership, but their culture is structured in such a way that they are not capable of establishing a modern civil society.

Another reply to this. In Iraq, nobody requested outside help at the time. Take a look at this video from Benghazi today, and take a look at the flags in the background

Oh but they did. There were constant calls by Iraqis to liberate the country. It was, after all, our duty after mercilessly betraying them in 1991 and imposing a child-killing humantarian crisis on them thereafter. Freeing Iraq became our responsibility, and a moral imperative that could not be ignored any longer.

That's another element of the Iraq saga that gets conveniently left out of the current narrative. Look up Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. I would suggest Aram Roston's The Man Who Pushed America to War; The Extraordinary Life, Adventures, And Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi.