None of this surprises in light of our ACTIONS as opposed to our words in the region. Look at our “allies” there. Saudi Arabia is a heredity autocratic oligarchy that oppresses women openly and allows virtually no political freedom beyond purely symbolic local elections. Egypt is an individual autocracy, with Hosni Mubarak, the dictator, talking openly about passing rule to his son without elections. In his own recent symbolic local elections, Mubarak declared the Muslim Brotherhood, the major opposition party, illegal and banned it from ballots. Our allies the Gulf Emirates are run by, well, Emirs. Emirs are monarchs. No democracy there. Jordan is also a monarchy, albeit more moderate than the others. Afghanistan is just a disastrous mess and can’t be called anything but a burgeoning anarchy. Iraq you know.
The only democracy is Israel, which is a democracy for Israelis. However, Israel in fact rules Palestine and is committing slow motion destruction of the Palestine people in the Gaza strip and to a somewhat lesser extent the West Bank. What Israel is doing is patently not democratic and not aligned in any imaginable way with what used to be unquestionable American values.
In addition to our choice of associates, those we reject in the Middle East also illustrate that our goals there do not include democracy. We initially heralded the Democratic elections in Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, and those symbolic local elections in Egypt. The administration beamed that democracy had indeed taken hold in the Middle East and they lauded the free and fair elections in those nations.
Until the results came in. Lebanon’s free elections swept in huge numbers of Hizbullah parliament members, forcing the granting of cabinet posts to Hizbullah leaders. In Egypt, candidates in the radical Muslim Brotherhood, even though they could not run under their party’s name, still won a near plurality of local elections. Finally, and most fittingly, the terrorist organization Hamas won outright in the Palestinian territories. Of course, we and the Israelis immediately rejected the results of Palestine’s “free and fair” elections and instantly ordered and supported draconian sanctions on the Palestinian people for daring to vote for the party of their choice.
America no longer promotes democracy in the Middle East and South Asia. You never hear the administration pressing these nations to hold free elections anymore. They know what free elections will bring: power to leaders who are either adamantly opposed to the United States, or at least and more likely, not willing to unquestionably do the bidding of the United States and our global corporate masters. Pakistan’s aggressive implementation of its long-standing military rule is only the recent and most dangerous example of our opposition to democracy and support for those who obey us.
The administration seeks in the Middle East and South Asia solely and exclusively to impose its will for its purposes regardless of the will of most of the citizens and regardless of the overall public good of the people. That is only democracy to the extent they believe it is democracy at home as well. Bad news, folks; really bad news.
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