December 15, 2005
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DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ
The larger-than-expected turnout in Thursday's election seems to indicate that Iraqis are optimistic about a political solution to their troubles. Probably a large factor is their desire to run their own country their own way and hurry us on ours.
This was expressed last month at the meeting of the Arab Foreign Ministers in Cairo. they (including Iraq's), were unanimous in their desire to see us gone from Iraq. If our present administration is displeased with the results of the election - if the "right people" were not democratically elected or if those who were elected decide against cooperation with us, will we honor the democratically expressed will of the Iraqis, will we honor their decision or try to pressure them into another path?
The following (probably apocryphal) story has been floating around the internet, it underscores the problem of confusing moral values with democracy and the confusion our present administration has with its stated goals:
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A young Iraqi woman was kidnapped in Baghdad. Her family received a ransom notice stating that she would be raped and killed if the ransom was not paid. The family paid the ransom and the daughter was released, but she had been raped. The honor of the family required that she should be killed.
The father and brother could not bring themselves to do the deed. A cousin, who is a member of the police force in Baghdad was present at the time, and since he had just come from work he had his service revolver. He volunteered to kill the woman, and did so. She was buried, and the family's "honor" restored.
When interviewed, the cousin stated that Iraqis are a tribal people and this is a tradition that goes back generations. He said that the tradition is stronger even than the dictates of the Quran and Islam, and that the rage runs deep.
Americans are fighting and dying to bring "democracy" to the tribal peoples of Iraq. A voice in my heart tells me that they are clearly not prepared or even remotely ready for democracy.
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These people are "democratic". They were not complaining about the terrible wrong done them by the government - they were doing their moral thing.
If the Iraqis vote for a legislature that endorses or condones this moral attitude, do we grit our teeth and support them, or - to quote G.W.Bush, kill "twenty or thirty thousand" more?
Comments (3)
Wow - major review time of my old posts? I saw in my log tracker that you pretty much went over everything. I hope you aren't taking the armchair psychologist thing too seriously
I don't think that we undersand the culture of Iraq. That has been a problem from the start. It is easy to see why much of the world considers Americans to be an arrogant people when you see us trying to impose our culture on the people of Iraq because it is the "right" thing to do. We have no right to expect everyone in the world to be just like us. It is time that we learned that. I hope that we do respect the outcome of the elections in Iraq. I have serious doubts that the present administration will do that, however.
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