Wars are not fought, thousands of American lives are not sacrificed and billions of dollars are not spent for the sake of safeguarding the civil liberties of one precise foreign people. Otherwise, it would happen oh so much more often and would not be sustainable.
Wars are fought, American lives are sacrificed and billions of dollars are spent for the safeguard of national interests.
The US has major national interests in the Middle East. The Middle East produces alot of oil. If it didn't, we would not care anymore about it than we do about sub-Saharan Africa. Oil is a serious national interest. It's the energy behind much of our economy and lifestyle. Our economy and way of life is dependant on Middle Eastern oil.
The US doesn't have many friends in the Middle East. It has Israel (quite another debate) and a few deals with regional dictators (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan to name a few).
The Bush administration thought that if you remove an unfriendly Middle Eastern dictator and gave the people the power to choose (with some direction), the country would turn into a US friendly democracy. This is why it is perceived that "democracy" in the Middle East is good. Not for the good of the people, for the good of the US.
It was foreseeable that this would not work, because it's basic assumption is that Middle Eastern peoples want a US style civic government and that by the removal of the dictator by US military action, such a government would emerge. The vast majority of the Western world disagreed with this. In fact, it is much more probable that such people would resent US military action on their soil and, if left free, would elect an Islamist government (or that Islamist regimes would push their way in). Who did the Algerians elect (a now militarily banned Islamist party)? Who would the Egyptians elect (in high probability parties deeply allied with the Muslim brotherhood -the movement from which much of Al Quaeda sprawled)? Who would the Pakistanis elect if Musharaf gave them the chance? Who would the very conservative Wahabi majority of Saudi Arabia elect if given the chance? To think that a liberated Iraq would turn pro-US after a military invasion is, at the very least, an incredible gamble against the odds.
Democracy in the Middle East is not a goal in of itself. Protecting US interests is. The invasion was based on naive assumptions which, predictably, turned out to be false.
If you are in the business of "Americanizing" and controlling the Middle East, at least realize what it entails. Be prepared for massive military, monetary and human life commitments for at least a generation. Kinda disappointing to think that some figured it could be done in a year or two or three or four…….
To answer your questions directly:
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Originally Posted by gackle
it appears to me that your position is that we didn't invade Iraq because of the atrocities being committed by Saddam Hussein: but we invaded because we wanted to create a democracy in the Middle East:
So if I have that correct, then you're saying that Bush doesn't care about the people in Iraq, but has some motivation to see them in a democracy. Given that democracies are created for the best interest of the people I fail to see the logic behind your arguement and I'd be interested in understanding it.
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As stated above, democracies are created so that the will (not necessarily best interest) of the people will be reflected in government. From a US standpoint, this is good if the "will" of the Iraqi people is to establish a US friendly government and bad if it is otherwise. I think Bush thought the former would happen, many others (particularly outside the US at the time) thought otherwise. Events have shown that Bush was wrong.
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Originally Posted by gackle
Why do you support Afghanistan and not Iraq? They both freed their people from terrible regimes. In Afganistan women now no longer have to be slaves behind their burkas.
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Afghanistan's Taliban are directly linked to the terrorist attacks against the US and other western countries. The country was an unstable medieval mess, being run by religious fanatics and terrorists, most notably Oussama Bin Laden himself. It was a grave danger to the US to allow the situation to continue. Iraq was not. The invasion of Iraq was a messed up social studies project run on bad assumptions.
Rebuilding Afghanistan is more than enough work for the US. We didn't need to invent a much heavier situation in Iraq.