Democracy is at minimum the right to choose your ruler. Equal rights, secularism, and limited restrictions on personal liberties are usually implied, and some or all of those concepts are objectionable to various segments of Iraq's population. If the majority rules without constitutional protections for minority groups, those minority groups will quickly become disenfranchised and oppressed. If constitutional protections are established, who decides what they are? Should the US arbitrarily decree that women have the right to vote, or that random people can violate religious prohibitions that the vast majority of the population support?

Exactly. Liberal democracy, democracy that lasts longer than one election, was implied.

In any case, according to a recent poll, most Iraqis do support the right of women to vote, drive cars, work, hold office, etc. As for secularism, it is neither an essential or guarantor of liberal democracy. Take the UK, for example, which has anti-blasphemy laws, and whose chief of state is the "Defender of the Faith," but still guarantees basic freedoms for all its citizens. You could make a similar case with Israel. India, on the other hand, which has an officially secular government, deals with Hindu-Sikh and Hindu-Muslim conflict with a distinctly pro-Hindu bias. Egypt guarantees freedom of religion, yet when Islamist radicals murdered the secularist author Farag Foda, the state religious authorities did not condemn it.

Democratic Iraq may well end up with laws against defaming Islam. But then not too long ago, a French author was in legal trouble for saying the Qur'an was poorly written, and an Imam was deported for condoning wife-beating. *shrug*

I'd be interested in that poll, Sine.

I don't think you really addressed my questions. What "basic freedoms", if any, should Iraq's constitution guarantee? I mean, the reason we have those protections is because an arbitrary authority made an arbitrary decision to restrict the majority's ability to govern their country in certain areas. Mort-Hog's claim of ethnocentrism fits in here: the Americans seem to consider the Western democratic ideal synonymous with democracy. The voting public certainly wouldn't consider the restriction of women's rights (which is inevitable, despite the apparently/relatively progressive Iraqi attitude) compatible with the liberation we're supposedly bringing to Iraq, and I doubt the administration would either.

I have to sleep.

[Edit: Funny that that list of links didn't have any pictures there of people getting fed into wood-chippers for disagreeing with the regime and such..]

The dilemma in Iraq is that if a majority democracy is instituted, it gives the 60% Shiia population there the ruling voice as it were, when under Saddam's regime he had the Sunni minority in power as being a smaller group they were easier to maintain control of, and in turn rather strongly oppressed the Shiia population.

Now turn around and give the majority voice to what used to be an oppressed majority, there's rampant possibility for abuse and the 'democratic' venting of that frustration anger whatever against their ex-overlords as it were.

Then throw in rabid firebrands like that young Shiia Imam with his al-Mahdi militia whose name i can't recall suddenly, having such a rampantly anti-Western stance and a very large following among the dispossessed and illiterate and such, Democracy could very well become the 'tyranny of majority' that Fox is ever so very fond of talking about.

As something of a corrolary, note Israel, after the Jews were given their own country and sovereignty, they turn right around and start oppressing and abusing the minorities who live there.. shrug.

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[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"If I said anything which implies that I think that we didn't do what we should have done given the choices we faced at the time, I shouldn't have said that." -William Jefferson Clinton
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[This message has been edited by Dormouse (edited May 01, 2004).]

Heh!

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If you can read this, you need better glasses.

This is a good point, though i wouldn't say that it somehow justifies or makes the gassings ok since they weren't his 'own' people per se.

However, does anyone else but me think that this would be an outstanding time to break the country down? I mean it has basically no infrastructure, no government, honestly no reason to maintain its rather arbitrary habitual borders. Just make a chunk and say ok this is now a Kurdish nation, this is now a whatever other nation, and so forth. Like, seriously, there's enough problems that come of all these different groups being mashed into these little nations with everyone else. Though the whole borders wossname for peoples who traditionally at least through history tended to be pretty nomadic seems a bit artificial and retroactive, like there seems to be every now and then bits in the news about someone going omq this ethnic group is invading, when they just wandered a few miles over some border or other. It'd make a lot more sense to me than the whole Velvet Divorce of Chzekh Republic/Slovakia that nobody except a few military leaders / politicians even wanted.

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[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"If I said anything which implies that I think that we didn't do what we should have done given the choices we faced at the time, I shouldn't have said that." -William Jefferson Clinton
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HELL no. It's just a common missconception, and often milked by the media as such.

Your point about dividing the country to provide the Kurds with their own country is interesting and very valid, but unforunately in the current climate it just wouldnt work. The Kurds have many enemies who would oppose its establishment, most prevalent of whom is Turkey. Southern Turkey has a large Kurdish population who have been severely repressed by the Turks since the area was redivided by France and Britain at the end of WW1. The declaration of a Kurdish state would cause a max exodus from not only Turkey, but also Syria and Iran. Obviously these countries dont want this to happen, as they rely on the Kurds as a part of their economies.

The Kurds had an autonomous area of the Ottoman Empire before WW1, which is now part of modern day Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. The Kurds are currently the largest ethnic group in the world without their own country. What it comes down to is those 3 countries are afraid of what might happen if all those Kurds get together. Their fears are well founded, too, considering the possible repercussions of how they currently treat their Kurdish populations.

It's a nice idea and one I for one would certainly like to see one day, but at present it would cause more problems than it would solve.

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The Massassi-Map
There is no spoon.

So Spork, did you agree with the creation of Israel? Not a confrontation mind you, just a question.
I agree Dormouse. It is an interesting proposition, and one which most people ignore.

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Daddy, why doesn't this magnet pick up this floppy disk?

Heh. I honestly dont know enough about the whole Isreal / Palestine thing to give you an educated answer. But if you want a CNN answer, then no, the Palestinians got screwed*. And besides, look how wonderfully that little division turned out...




* this answer may change upon further enlightenment on the subject.

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The Massassi-Map
There is no spoon.

Sovereign Nation for Jews == outstanding.
Everything else == lose.

Yeah, it was a noble idea at the time.. meh.

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[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"WHEREAS, a body of men calling themselves the National Congress are now in session in Washington City, in violation of our Imperial edict of the 12th of October last, declaring the said Congress abolished;
WHEREAS, it is necessary for the repose of our Empire that the said decree should be strictly complied with;
NOW, THEREFORE, we do hereby Order and Direct Major-General Scott, the Command-in-Chief of our Armies, immediately upon receipt of this, our Decree, to proceed with a suitable force and clear the Halls of Congress."
-By Order of Emperor Joshua A Norton I of the United States of America, Dei Gratia, January 1860
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[This message has been edited by Dormouse (edited May 02, 2004).]