A Dangerous Gift

In a speech last November President Bush described the absence of democracy in the Muslim world as a leading cause of terrorism. He went on to say that he as taken it upon himself to change this situation and thereby deliver us from the threat of Al Qaeda. For some time, Washington’s rhetoric has led us to believe that democracy stops terrorism and guarantees liberty. We naturally conclude that we’ll be far safer, if only we teach those poor backward Muslims how to use a ballot box.

The truth, unfortunately, is that democracy alone does not guarantee freedom or liberty. In fact, democracy has often been a key factor in some of the worst human rights abuses the world has seen. After all, it was a democracy that allowed the slave trade to flourish. It was a democratic legislature that passed into law the theft of land from native American tribes and presided over their subsequent genocide. It was a democracy that elected Adolph Hitler. The only freedom that 7 million Jews received from democracy, was freedom from the burden of living.

The sad truth is that on it’s own, without an enforced constitution that protects human rights, democracy is simply the majority deciding how the minority should live (or if the minority should live at all). It was President Thomas Jefferson who said, "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine". As such, we should not think that a democratic decision is automatically ethical or just, because it was made by a majority. Can we say that freedom and liberty will be served by allowing two wolves and a lamb to vote on what to eat for dinner?

The problem with telling Muslims that they must institute democracy, is that (surprisingly), they all believe in Islam. Islam is not only a religion, but also a political system. It tells Muslims how to govern all aspects of their lives and that includes the governance of each other. By forcing Muslims to accept democracy, we are forcing them to accept man’s law over God’s law. In democratic countries, judges do not refer to the Bible, the Torah or the Quran. Instead they refer to the laws of a political majority without regard to whether those laws can be considered truly just or ethical.

Consider that when the majority makes laws at will, almost anything goes and all ideas of justice and ethics are easily forgotten. As well as democratic laws that can be oppressive if not genocidal, democracy has given us laws like; In Connecticut, it is unlawful to walk backwards after sunset. In Idaho, it is illegal for a man to give his sweetheart a box of candy weighing less than fifty pounds. In Washington, it is illegal to ride an ugly horse. In Kansas, no one may catch fish with his bare hands.

Yet, somehow Washington has decided that this fallible system is to be forced on millions of Muslims.

In "The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty", authors Peter and Rochelle Schweizer quotes a Bush cousin as saying, "George sees this as a religious war. He doesn’t have a politically correct view of this war. His view of this is that they are trying to kill the Christians. And we as the Christians will strike back with more force and more ferocity than they will ever know".

This war is not, ’The West vs. Terror’ but ’The West vs. Islam’. President Bush has dragged America into a religious war of epic proportions.

I wonder how Americans would feel if King Fahd of Saudi Arabia said that the absence of Islam in America was wrong and has served to propagate global terror? What would our reaction be if Osama Bin Laden said that he wishes to change our chosen way of life?

Oh, he has already?

In the face of the monstrous debacle that the Iraq war has become, we are often told that if nothing else, ’at least we are giving the Iraqis the gift of democracy’. The logic is that even though we have failed in all of the war’s other objectives, the advent of Iraqi democracy should redeem President Bush and, ironically by a democratic guilt of association, all of us.

To understand the true consequences of Iraqi democracy, one must understand Iraq’s history. Modern day Iraq did not exist until just after the turn of the last century. It is not even a hundred years old. After the fall of the Ottoman empire, the British cobbled together the known oil rich areas in the region and gave it a single name, ’Iraq’. They then proceed to govern this new country with no thought to the rights and freedoms of the different groups and tribes that suddenly found themselves within it’s borders. The result was a host of oppressive occupations, revolutions and despotic dictators which brought cheap oil to the West, and everything save freedom and liberty to the Iraqi people.

Because of the haphazard way Iraq’s borders were drawn up, Iraq consists of three main ethnic groups. The majority (61%) are Shias who, along with the Kurds (17%), were brutally oppressed by Saddam Hussein and his minority Sunnis (22%). Thanks to Saddam and his Sunni cronies, according the Shias, the only good Sunni is a dead Sunni.

The Kurds want to declare an independent homeland in Northern Iraq. After decades of brutal oppression by Saddam, they are desperate for a state of their own. Who can deny them such aspirations? There is just one problem however. The center of their ancestral homeland just so happens to be the most oil rich region of Iraq. The Turks (who have never really liked the Kurds) have said that they will invade Iraq if the Kurds declare their own state.

So now we know why Saddam was such an evil and brutal dictator. It was the only way he could keep Iraq together. He was the lid on a boiling pressure cooker. Now that the lid is gone, Iraq is left in turmoil with each group at the other’s throats.

Knowing what we know, how will democracy improve the lot of Iraqis? Given a truly free and unconstrained democracy, the first thing that will happen is that the majority will vote to slaughter the minority. The oppressed Shias will do everything they can to prevent the Sunis taking power and the Kurds taking oil. Perhaps this was why Paul Bremmer called emergency meetings when the Shia leader, Ayatollah Sistani demanded democratic elections? Perhaps this is why many Sunnis are now trying to move to Jordan and Syria? Perhaps this is why the Kurds have tried to negotiate a semi-autonomous province in Northern Iraq, with a view to declaring a sepertate state shortly after the Americans leave?

We do know that the only way these three distinct groups can be made to live with each other, is through brutal oppression, not democracy. Thankfully, Washington lacks the will to be as oppresive as Saddam Hussein. However, it finds the idea of a civil war and resulting break up of Iraq similarly unthinkable, as it will disrupt the supply of Iraqi oil.

My guess is that having now realised Iraqi democracy is unfeasible, Washington has privately accepted that Saddam really was better for Iraq (well, better for oil exports at least). It thus comes as no surprise that Saddam (a former CIA stooge, Baath party thug and terrorist) now finds himself replaced by Prime Minister Allawi (a former CIA stooge, Baath party thug and terrorist).

It would certainly explain why Allawi has now claimed the right to declare martial law, started restricting the press and has been accused of personally executing civilians.

At the last minute, Washington lost it’s nerve and slammed the brakes just before it was about to drive over the cliff of Iraqi democracy and into civil war. In forcing it’s will on Iraqis, thousands died.

Not content with the fiasco of ’democratizing’ 25 million Iraqis, I read recently that President Bush intends to democratize the ’broader Middle East’. From Morocco to Pakistan, President Bush plans on forcing his ’gift’ on about 615 million Muslims.

The last time one man managed to force his will on anywhere near as many people, his name was Genghis Khan.

Millions died.