NationStates Jolt Archive


Elementary, my dear Watson. It's about global hegemony, not democracy, you fool!

Aryavartha
30-06-2005, 03:19
Longish but very interesting article.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GF30Dj01.html
Global Economy
Jun 30, 2005

Revolution, geopolitics and pipelines
By F William Engdahl

After a short-term fall in price below the $50 a barrel level, oil has broken through the $60 level and is likely to go far higher. In this situation one might think the announcement of the opening of a major new oil pipeline to pump Caspian oil to world markets might dampen the relentless rise in prices.

However, even when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed on June 15 to raise its formal production quota by another 500,000 barrels per day (bpd), the reaction of NYMEX oil futures prices was to rise, not fall. Estimates are that world demand in the second half of 2005 will average at least 3 million barrels a day more than the first half of the year.

Oil has become the central theme of world political and military operations planning, even when not always openly said.

Caspian pipeline opens a Pandora's box

In this situation, it is worth looking at the overall significance of the May opening of the Baku to Ceyhan, Turkey, oil pipeline. This 1,762 kilometer long oil pipeline was completed some months ahead of plan.
The BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) pipeline was begun in 2002 after four years of intense international dispute. It cost about US$3.6 billion, making it one of the most expensive oil projects ever. The main backer was British Petroleum (BP), whose chairman, Lord Browne, is a close adviser to Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair. BP built the pipeline through a consortium including Unocal of the US, Turkish Petroleum Inc, and other partners.

It will take until at least late September before 10.4 million barrels can provide the needed volume to start oil delivery to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea. Ceyhan is conveniently near to the US airbase Incirlik. The BTC has been a US strategic priority ever since president Bill Clinton first backed it in 1998. Indeed, for the opening ceremonies in May, US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman attended and delivered a personal note of congratulations from US President George W Bush.

As the political makeup of the Central Asia Caspian region is complex, especially since the decomposition of the Soviet Union opened up a scramble in the oil-rich region of the Caspian from the outside, above all from the US, it is important to bear in mind the major power blocs that have emerged.

They are two. On the one side is an alliance of US-Turkey-Azerbaijan and, since the "Rose" revolution, Georgia, that small but critical country directly on the pipeline route. Opposed to it, in terms of where the pipeline route carrying Caspian oil should go, is Russia, which until 1990 held control over the entire Caspian outside the Iran littoral. Today, Russia has cultivated an uneasy but definite alliance with Iran and Armenia, in opposition to the US group. This two-camp grouping is essential to understanding developments in the region since 1991.

Now that the BTC oil pipeline has finally been completed, and the route through Georgia has been put firmly in pro-Washington hands, an essential precondition to completing the pipeline, the question becomes one of how Moscow will react. Does President Vladimir Putin have any serious options left short of the ultimate nuclear one?

A clear strategy

A geopolitical pattern has become clear over the past months. One-by-one, with documented overt and covert Washington backing and financing, new US-friendly regimes have been put in place in former Soviet states which are in a strategic relation to possible pipeline routes from the Caspian Sea.

Ukraine is now more or less in the hands of a Washington-backed "democratic" regime under Viktor Yushchenko and his billionaire Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, known in Ukraine as the "gas princess" for the fortune she made as a government official, allegedly through her dubious dealings earlier with Ukraine Energy Minister Pavlo Lazarenko and Gazprom. The Yushchenko government's domestic credibility is reportedly beginning to fade as Ukrainian "Orange" revolution euphoria gives way to economic realities. In any event, on June 16 in Kiev, Yushchenko hosted a special meeting of the Davos World Economic Forum to discuss possible investments into the "new" Ukraine.

At the Kiev meeting, Timoshenko's government announced that it planned to build a new oil and gas pipeline from the Caspian across Ukraine into Poland, which would lessen Ukraine's reliance on Moscow oil and gas supplies. Timoshenko also revealed that the Ukrainian government was in positive talks with Chevron, the former company of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for the project.

It goes without saying that such a project would run counter to the Russian regional interest. One reason for Washington's strong backing for Yushchenko last year was to counter a decision by the Kuchma government and parliament to reverse the flow of the Brody-Odessa pipeline from a planned route from the Black Sea port into Poland. The initial Odessa-to-Poland route would have tied Ukraine to the West. Now Ukraine is discussing with Chevron to build a new pipeline doing the same. The country presently gets 80% of its energy from Russia.

A second project Ukraine's government and the state NAK (Naftogaz Ukrainy) are discussing is with France's Gaz de France to build a pipeline from Iran for natural gas to displace Russian gas. Were that to happen it would simultaneously weaken ties of mutual self-interest between Russia and Iran, as well as Russia and France.

On the same day as the Kiev conference, Kazakhstan's government told an international investors' conference in Almaty that it was in negotiations with Ukraine to route Kazakh oil as well through the proposed new Ukrainian pipeline to the Baltic. Chevron is also the major consortium leader developing Kazakh oil in Tengiz. Given the political nature of US "big oil", it is more than probable that Rice, Vice President Dick Cheney and the administration in Washington are playing a strong role in such Ukraine pipeline talks. The "Orange" revolution, at least from the side of its US sponsors, had little to do with real democracy and far more with military and oil geopolitics.

Pipelines and US-Azeri ties

The Baku-Ceyhan pipeline was originally proclaimed by BP and others as the project of the century. Former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski was a consultant to BP during the Bill Clinton era, urging Washington to back the project. In fact, it was Brzezinski who went to Baku in 1995, unofficially, on behalf of Clinton, to meet with then-Azeri president Haidar Aliyev, to negotiate new independent Baku pipeline routes, including what became the BTC pipeline.

Brzezinski also sits on the board of an impressive, if little-known, US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (USACC). The chairman of USACC in Washington is Tim Cejka, president of ExxonMobil Exploration. Other USACC board members include Henry Kissinger and James Baker III, the man who in 2003 personally went to Tbilisi to tell Eduard Shevardnadze that Washington wanted him to step aside in favor of the US-trained Georgian president Mikhail Shaakashvili. Brent Scowcroft, former national security adviser to George H W Bush, also sits on the board of USACC. And Cheney was a former board member before he became vice president. A more high-powered Washington team of geopolitical fixers would be hard to imagine. This group of prominent individuals certainly would not give a minute of their time unless an area was of utmost geopolitical strategic importance to the US or to certain powerful interests there.

Now that the BTC pipeline to Ceyhan is complete, a phase 2 pipeline is in consideration undersea, potentially to link the Caspian to Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan with its rich gas reserves, directing that energy away from China to the West in a US-UK-controlled route.

In this context, it's worth noting that Bush himself made a trip to Tbilisi on May 10 to address a crowd in Freedom Square Rolling Eyes , promoting his latest war on tyranny campaign for the region. He praised the US-backed "color revolutions" from Ukraine to Georgia. Bush went on to attack Franklin D Roosevelt's Yalta division of Europe in 1945. He made the curious declaration, "We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations, appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability," the president said. "We have learned our lesson; no one's liberty is expendable. In the long run, our security and true stability depend on the freedom of others." Bush continued, "Now, across the Caucasus, in Central Asia and the broader Middle East, we see the same desire for liberty burning in the hearts of young people. They are demanding their freedom - and they will have it."

What color will the Azeri revolution take?

Not surprisingly, that speech was read as a "go" signal for opposition groups across the Caucasus. In Azerbaijan four youth groups - Yokh! (No!), Yeni Fikir (New Thinking), Magam (It's Time) and the Orange Movement of Azerbaijan - comprise the emerging opposition, an echo of Georgia, Ukraine and Serbia, where the US Embassy and specially trained non-governmental organizations operatives orchestrated the US-friendly regime changes with help of the US National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House and the Soros Foundations.

According to Baku journalists, Ukraine's Pora (It's Time), Georgia's Kmara (Enough) and Serbia's Otpor (Resistance) are cited by all four Azeri opposition organizations as role models. The opposition groups also consider Bush's February meeting in Bratislava with Pora leader Vladislav Kaskiv as a sign that Washington supports their cause.

It seems the same team of Washington regime-change experts are preparing for a "color revolution" for the upcoming November elections in Azerbaijan as were behind other recent color revolutions.
In 2003, on the death of former Azeri president Haider Aliyev, his playboy son, Ilham Aliyev, became president in grossly rigged elections which Washington legitimized because Aliyev was "our tyrant", and also just happened to hold his hand on the spigot of Baku oil.

Ilham, former president of the state oil company SOCAR, is tied to his father's power base and is apparently now seen as not suitable for the new pipeline politics. Perhaps he wants too big a share of the spoils. In any case, both Blair's UK government and the US State Department's AID are pouring money into Azeri opposition groups, similar to Otpor in Ukraine. US Ambassador Reno Harnish has stated that Washington is ready to finance "exit polling" in the elections. Exit polling in Ukraine was a key factor used to drive the opposition success there.

Moscow is following Azeri events closely. On May 26, the Moscow daily Kommersant wrote, "While the pipeline will carry oil from the East to West, the spirit of 'color revolutions' will flow in the reverse direction." The commentary went on to suggest that Western governments wanted to promote democratization in Azerbaijan out of a desire to protect the considerable investment made in the pipeline. That is only a part of the strategic game, however. The other part is what Pentagon strategists term "strategic denial".
Until recently the US had supported the corrupt ruthless dictatorship of the Aliyev's as the family had played ball with US geopolitical designs in the area, even though Haider Aliyev had been a career top KGB officer in the Soviet Mikhail Gorbachev era. Then on April 12, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld went to Baku, his second visit in four months, to discuss demands to create a US military base in Azerbaijan, as part of the US global force redeployment involving Europe, the Mideast and Asia.

The Pentagon already de facto runs the Georgia military, with its US Special Forces officers, and Georgia has asked to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Now Washington wants to have direct bases in Azerbaijan proximate to Russia as well as to Iran.

The Pentagon has also allocated $100 million to build a Caspian Guard of special forces military, ostensibly to guard the new BTC pipeline, though the latter was deliberately built underground to make it less vulnerable, one reason for its high cost. Part of the Pentagon money would go to build a radar-equipped command center in Baku, capable of monitoring all sea traffic in the Caspian. The US wants airbases in Azerbaijan, which naturally would be seen in Tehran and Moscow as a strategic provocation.

In all this maneuvering from the side of Washington and 10 Downing Street, the strategic issue of geopolitical control over Eurasia looms large. And increasingly it is clear that not only Putin's Russia is an object of the new Washington "war on tyranny". It is becoming clear to most now that the grand design in Eurasia on the part of Washington is not to pre-empt Osama bin Laden and his "cave dwellers".

The current Washington strategy targets many Eurasian former Soviet republics which per se have no known oil or gas reserves. What they do have, however, is strategic military or geopolitical significance for the Washington policy of dominating the future of Eurasia.

That policy has China as its geopolitical, economic and military fulcrum. A look at the Eurasian map and at the target countries for various US-sponsored color revolutions makes this unmistakably clear. To the east of the Caspian Sea, Washington in one degree or another today controls Pakistan, Afghanistan, potentially Kyrgystan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. These serve as a potential US-controlled barrier or buffer zone between China and Russian, Caspian and Iranian energy sources. Washington is out to deny China easy land access to either Russia, the Middle East or to the oil and gas fields of the Caspian Sea.

Whither Kyrgystan?

Since early 2005, when a series of opposition protests erupted over the fairness of parliamentary elections in February and March, Kyrgystan has joined the growing list of Eurasian republics facing major threat of regime change or color revolution. The success of former Kyrgystan premier Kurmanbek Bakiev in replacing ousted president Askar Akayev in that country's so-called "Tulip" revolution, becoming interim president until July presidential elections, invited inevitable comparisons with the "Orange" revolution in Ukraine and the Georgian "Rose" revolution.

Washington's Radio Liberty has gone to great lengths to explain that the Kyrgystan opposition is not a US operation, but a genuine spontaneous grass-roots phenomenon. The facts speak a different story however. According to reports from mainstream US journalists, including Craig Smith in the New York Times and Philip Shishkin in the Wall Street Journal, the opposition in Kyrgystan has had "more than a little help from US friends" to paraphrase the Beatles song. Under the Freedom Support Act of the US Congress, in 2004 the dirt-poor country of Kyrgystan received a total of $12 million in US government funds to support the building of democracy. This will buy a lot of democracy in an economically desolate, forsaken land such as Kyrgystan.

Acknowledging the Washington largesse, Edil Baisolov, in a comment on the February-March anti-government protests, boasted, "It would have been absolutely impossible for this to have happened without that help." According to the New York Times' Smith, Baisolov's organization, the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Rights, is financed by the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, a Washington-based non-profit organization in turn funded by Rice's State Department. Baisolov told Radio Liberty he had been to Ukraine to witness the tactics of their "Orange" Revolution, and got inspired.

But that isn't all. The whole cast of democracy characters has been busy in Bishkek and environs supporting American-style democracy and opposing "anti-American tyranny". Washington's Freedom House has generously financed Bishkek's independent printing press, which prints the opposition paper, MSN, according to its man on the scene, Mike Stone.

Freedom House is an organization with a fine-sounding name and a long history since it was created in the late 1940s to back the creation of NATO. The chairman of Freedom House is James Woolsey, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director who calls the present series of regime changes from Baghdad to Kabul "World War IV". Other trustees include the ubiquitous Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Clinton commerce secretary Stuart Eizenstat, and national security adviser Anthony Lake. Freedom House lists USAID, US Information Agency, the Soros Foundations and the National Endowment for Democracy among its financial backers.

One more of the many non-governmental organizations active in promoting the new democracy in Kyrgystan is the Civil Society Against Corruption, financed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The NED which, with Freedom House, has been at the center of all the major color revolutions in recent years, was created during the Ronald Reagan administration to function as a de facto privatized CIA, privatized so as to allow more freedom of action, or what the CIA likes to call "plausible deniability". NED chairman Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman, is close to neo-conservative Bill Bennett. NED president since 1984 is Carl Gershman, who had previously been a Freedom House scholar. NATO General Wesley Clark, the man who led the US bombing of Serbia in 1999, also sits on the NED board. Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, said in 1991, "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA."

Not to be forgotten, and definitely not least in Kyrgystan's ongoing "Tulip" revolution is Soros' Open Society Institute - which also poured money into the Serbian, Georgian and Ukraine color revolutions. The head of the Civil Society Against Corruption in Kyrgystan is Tolekan Ismailova, who organized the translation and distribution of the revolutionary manual used in Serbia, Ukraine and Georgia written by Gene Sharp, of a curiously named Albert Einstein Institution in Boston. Sharp's book, a how-to manual for the color revolutions, is titled From Dictatorship to Democracy. It includes tips on non-violent resistance - such as "display of flags and symbolic colors" - and civil disobedience.

Sharp's book is literally the bible of the color revolutions, a kind of "regime change for dummies". Sharp created his Albert Einstein Institution in 1983, with backing from Harvard University. It is funded by the US Congress' NED and the Soros Foundations, to train people in and to study the theories of "non-violence as a form of warfare". Sharp has worked with NATO and the CIA over the years training operators in Myanmar, Lithuania, Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine and Taiwan, even Venezuela and Iraq.

In short, virtually every regime which has been the target of a US-backed soft coup in the past 20 years has involved Gene Sharp and usually, his associate, Colonel Robert Helvey, a retired US Army intelligence specialist. Notably, Sharp was in Beijing two weeks before student demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in 1989. The Pentagon and US intelligence have refined the art of such soft coups to a fine level. RAND planners call it "swarming", referring to the swarms of youth, typically linked by short message services and weblogs, who can be mobilized on command to destabilize a target regime.

Then Uzbekistan ...?

Uzbekistan's tyrannical President Islam Karimov had early profiled himself as a staunch friend of the Washington "war on terror", offering a former Soviet airbase for US military actions, including the attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001. Many considered Karimov too close to Washington to be in danger. He had made himself a "good" tyrant in Washington's eyes.
That's also no longer a sure thing. In May, Rice demanded that Karimov institute "political reforms" following violent prison uprisings and subsequent protests over conditions in the Ferghana Valley region in Andijan. Karimov has fiercely resisted independent inquiry into allegations his troops shot and killed hundreds of unarmed protesters. He insists the uprisings were caused by "external" radical Muslim fundamentalists allied with the Taliban and intent on establishing an Islamic caliphate in Uzbekistan's Ferghana Valley bordering Kyrgystan.

While the ouster of Karimov is unclear for the moment, leading Washington backers of Karimov's "democratic reform" have turned into hostile opponents. As one US commentator expressed it, "The character of the Karimov regime can no longer be ignored in deference to the strategic usefulness of Uzbekistan." Karimov has been targeted for a color revolution in the relentless Washington "war on tyranny".

In mid-June, Karimov's government announced changes in terms for the US to use Uzbekistan's Karshi-Khanabad military airbase, including a ban on night flights. Karimov is moving demonstrably closer to Moscow, and perhaps also to Beijing, in the latest chapter of the new "Great Game" for geopolitical control over Eurasia.

Following the Andijan events, Karimov revived the former "strategic partnership" with Moscow and also received a red-carpet welcome at the end of May in Beijing, including a 21-gun salute. At a June Brussels NATO meeting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Ivanov backed Karimov, declaring there was no need for an international investigation of what happened in Andijan.

Tajikistan, bordering Afghanistan and China, is so far the only remaining Central Asian republic not yet to undergo a successful US-led color revolution. It's not for lack of trying. For several years Washington has attempted to woo Dushanbe away from its close ties to Moscow, including the economic carrot of US backing for Tajik membership in the World Trade Organization. Beijing has also been active. China has recently upgraded military assistance to Tajikistan, and is keen to strengthen ties to all Central Asian republics standing between it and the energy resources to the Eurasian west, from Russia to Iran. The stakes are the highest for the oil-dependent China.

Washington playing the China card

The one power in Eurasia that has the potential to create a strategic combination which could checkmate US global dominance is China. However, China has an Achilles' heel, which Washington understands all too well - oil. Ten years ago China was a net oil exporter. Today China is the second-largest importer behind the US.

China's energy demand is growing annually at a rate of more than 30%. China has feverishly been trying to secure long-term oil and gas supplies, especially since the Iraq war made clear to Beijing that Washington was out to control and militarize most of the world's major oil and gas sources. A new wrinkle to the search for black gold, oil, is the clear data confirming that many of the world's largest oilfields are in decline, while new discoveries fail to replace lost volumes of oil. It is a pre-programmed scenario for war. The only question is, with what weapons?

In recent months Beijing has signed major oil and economic deals with Venezuela and Iran. It has bid for a major Canadian resources company, and most recently made the audacious bid to buy California's Unocal, a partner in the Caspian BTC pipeline. Chevron immediately stepped in with a counter bid to block China's.

Beijing has recently also upgraded the importance of the four-year-old organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or SCO. SCO consists of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan and Tajikistan. Not surprisingly, these are many of the states which are in the midst of US-backed attempts at soft coups or color revolutions. SCO's July meeting list included an invitation to India, Pakistan and Iran to attend with observer status.

This June, the foreign ministers of Russia, China and India held a meeting in Vladivostock where they stressed the role of the United Nations, a move aimed clearly at Washington. India also discussed its project to invest and develop Russia's Far East Sakhalin I, where it has already invested about $1 billion in oil and gas development. Significantly, at the meeting, Russia and China resolved a decades-long border dispute, and two weeks later in Beijing discussed potentials for development of Russia's Siberian resources.

A close look at the map of Eurasia begins to suggest what is so vital here for China, and therefore for Washington's future domination of Eurasia. The goal is not only strategic encirclement of Russia through a series of NATO bases ranging from Camp Bond Steel in Kosovo to Poland, to Georgia, possibly Ukraine and White Russia, which would enable NATO to control energy ties between Russia and the EU.

Washington policy now encompasses a series of "democratic" or soft coup projects which would strategically cut China off from access to the vital oil and gas reserves of the Caspian, including Kazakhstan. The earlier Asian Great Silk Road trade routes went through Tashkent in Uzbekistan and Almaty in Kazakhstan for geographically obvious reasons, in a region surrounded by major mountain ranges.

Geopolitical control of Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan and Kazakhstan would enable control of any potential pipeline routes between China and Central Asia, just as the encirclement of Russia allows for the control of pipeline and other ties between it and Western Europe, China, India and the Mideast.

In this context, the revealing Foreign Affairs article from Zbigniew Brzezinski from September/October 1997 is worth again quoting:
Eurasia is home to most of the world's politically assertive and dynamic states. All the historical pretenders to global power originated in Eurasia. The world's most populous aspirants to regional hegemony, China and India, are in Eurasia, as are all the potential political or economic challengers to American primacy. After the United States, the next six largest economies and military spenders are there, as are all but one of the world's overt nuclear powers, and all but one of the covert ones. Eurasia accounts for 75% of the world's population, 60% of its GNP [gross national product], and 75% of its energy resources. Collectively, Eurasia's potential power overshadows even America's.
Eurasia is the world's axial supercontinent. A power that dominated Eurasia would exercise decisive influence over two of the world's three most economically productive regions, Western Europe and East Asia. A glance at the map also suggests that a country dominant in Eurasia would almost automatically control the Middle East and Africa. With Eurasia now serving as the decisive geopolitical chessboard, it no longer suffices to fashion one policy for Europe and another for Asia. What happens with the distribution of power on the Eurasian landmass will be of decisive importance to America's global primacy ...

This statement, written well before the US-led bombing of former Yugoslavia and the US occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, or the BTC pipeline, helps put recent Washington pronouncements about "ridding the world of tyranny" and about spreading democracy into a somewhat different context from the one usually mentioned by Bush.

"Elementary, my dear Watson. It's about global hegemony, not democracy, you fool."

F William Engdahl, author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, from Pluto Press Ltd.
Dark Kanatia
30-06-2005, 03:27
Whatever the reasons the promotion of freedom and democracy abroad is agood thing. Even if it is just a cynical US plot against China to control the oil reserves and dominate Eurasia, the promotion of freedom and democracy is a good thing. Better the US than the PRC.
Sarkasis
30-06-2005, 03:32
We shouldn't promote democracy abroad... or anything else in fact...
We always do a shitty job.
Amerty
30-06-2005, 03:37
Whatever the reasons the promotion of freedom and democracy abroad is agood thing. Even if it is just a cynical US plot against China to control the oil reserves and dominate Eurasia, the promotion of freedom and democracy is a good thing. Better the US than the PRC.

For the most part, freedom and democracy are incompatible.
Dark Kanatia
30-06-2005, 03:38
We shouldn't promote democracy abroad... or anything else in fact...
We always do a shitty job.
I guess Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, France, etc. should have been left alone in 1940's. The US screwed that up bad. Japan's democracy failed pretty well too didn't it. We shouldn't ahve opposed teh USSR either, for we screwed the hooch on that one. As for the Iraqi and Afghani elections they didn't occur.
Sarkasis
30-06-2005, 03:48
I guess Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, France, etc.
They already had democracy before the war. :cool:
Dark Kanatia
30-06-2005, 03:49
They already had democracy before the war. :cool:
But not during the war, which was the way it would have stayed had the US not interfered.

Germany's "democracy" was hardly more than anarchy after the Kaiser was replaced.

Italy was not a democracy before the war, it was a fascism.
Sarkasis
30-06-2005, 03:53
But not during the war, which was the way it would have stayed had the US not interfered.
But it wasn't about bringind democracy, it was about liberating people from the Germans.
Bringing democracy to already democratic western countries isn't an impressing achievement. People had democracy before, because they have achieved it by themselves. Don't ever patronize these people.

But try to bring democracy to China, which has been undemocratic for 3000 years. Or to Uzbekistan. Or to Saudi Arabia. Now that's a real challenge. And I DON'T think we'd so good at this.
Liberate France or Kuwait -- great!
Arm-twisting and regime change in Saudi Arabia and Egypt -- let me laugh my spleen out.
Sarkasis
30-06-2005, 03:54
Germany's "democracy" was hardly more than anarchy after the Kaiser was replaced.
Weimar was glorious... and messy. But glorious nonetheless.
So what.
Dark Kanatia
30-06-2005, 04:03
But it wasn't about bringind democracy, it was about liberating people from the Germans.
Bringing democracy to already democratic western countries isn't an impressing achievement. People had democracy before, because they have achieved it by themselves. Don't ever patronize these people.

But try to bring democracy to China, which has been undemocratic for 3000 years. Or to Uzbekistan. Or to Saudi Arabia. Now that's a real challenge. And I DON'T think we'd so good at this.
Liberate France or Kuwait -- great!
Arm-twisting and regime change in Saudi Arabia and Egypt -- let me laugh my spleen out.
It's working, albeit bloodily and slowly, in Iraq and Afghanistan. It worked well in Japan which was a militaristic monarchy before the US introduced democracy. Germany was not a democracy before WW1, then US interference turned it into one, which failed, then US interference again changed it into a democracy, which is working fairly well. The amrs race with the US and Reagen's and Gorbachev's friendship were two of the major reasons for democratiztion in Russia which had been an absolute despotism throughout it's history previous to that.
Sabbatis
30-06-2005, 23:35
Interesting article, Thank you.

I'm surprised the anti-Americans aren't screaming about this. Too busy worrying about Bush in Iraq.
Aryavartha
01-07-2005, 00:21
Interesting article, Thank you.

I'm surprised the anti-Americans aren't screaming about this. Too busy worrying about Bush in Iraq.

You are welcome.

I am not surprised. Iraq remains a diversion. Too much attention on "Bush lied in Iraq" and too little focus on why he lied.
The Similized world
01-07-2005, 00:42
Perhaps the anti-americans have simply been screaming about this for the last 6 years? Only noone usually get's it if real politics are mentioned. Only tag lines like "Boosh 1z F00k3d!1" seem to get people's attention.

By the way, why is it people think fascist or national socialist regimes is the same thing as anarchy?
Deleuze
01-07-2005, 00:56
For the most part, freedom and democracy are incompatible.
Elaborate. Most historians and political theorists disagree with you.
The Similized world
01-07-2005, 03:00
Elaborate. Most historians and political theorists disagree with you.
I'll have a crack at it.

Because democracy is mob-rule. Democracies without some sort of constitution are probably worse than totalitarian states in respect to personal liberty and social equality.

In pratice democracy can be pleasant. The one I live in is far more pleasant for the majority than a place like USA (although strictly speaking they're both a democracy and not a democracy). Personal liberty tend to suffer under democracy.
If you look at the ones people are fond of living in, they aren't very free at all. Everything from shop's closing time to when, where and what kind of sex you can indulge in is state regulated. As is business laws. Democracy can be socialistic, usually resulting in fewer personal freedoms but more individual economic freedom. Or they can be capitalist, which usually grants more personal freedom but much much less economic freedom and a great deal of social inequality.
Both kinds of democracy interfers with market economics. The capitalist democracy does it by promoting corporate structures via law and subsidising. The socialists does the same but more or less reversed.
Both tend to try and regulate civil institutions, such as churches, schools and the like.

You can say a lot of good things about all the rights people have in such societies and how these rights are inforced and secured. Equally you can say a lot of bad things about how the majority and constitution at all times limit individual and minority freedoms.

Also (I'm gonna get flamed for this), democracies aren't by definition enlightned. If you look at a place like USA where all mass media is corporate owned and all politicians need corporate sponserdhip to gain power, there's every reason to believe that an elite can rule by misinformation & propagandation.
Katzistanza
01-07-2005, 03:34
we screwed the hooch on that one

The term is "screwed the pooch." Forgive me if it was simply a typo.
Deleuze
01-07-2005, 04:18
Because democracy is mob-rule. Democracies without some sort of constitution are probably worse than totalitarian states in respect to personal liberty and social equality.
That's only if you assume that most people in any given nation are more likely to like to restrict individual freedom and keep people down, which I think empirically is not the case (people always revolt against repressive regimes, and generally not with the desire to make a more repressive one). I think a totalitarian state is much more likely to restrict personal liberty, simply for survival purposes. It also makes the state seem like a more important player in the individual's life, setting up the state as an omnipresent force that scares people into obedience.

That being said, you're setting up a strawman. No modern democracy doesn't have a Constitution, which checks against all the things you say.

In pratice democracy can be pleasant. The one I live in is far more pleasant for the majority than a place like USA (although strictly speaking they're both a democracy and not a democracy). Personal liberty tend to suffer under democracy.
You should try living in the United States. It's really not the hell some people make you want to think that it is. It's actually a really nice place to live in terms of what I can and can't do with myself. I'd much prefer it to, say, China or Iran.

If you look at the ones people are fond of living in, they aren't very free at all. Everything from shop's closing time to when, where and what kind of sex you can indulge in is state regulated. As is business laws. Democracy can be socialistic, usually resulting in fewer personal freedoms but more individual economic freedom. Or they can be capitalist, which usually grants more personal freedom but much much less economic freedom and a great deal of social inequality.
Both kinds of democracy interfers with market economics. The capitalist democracy does it by promoting corporate structures via law and subsidising. The socialists does the same but more or less reversed.
Both tend to try and regulate civil institutions, such as churches, schools and the like.
Nowhere in here can you demonstrate why democracies are worse than any other system for freedom. If it's comparatively better, than it's actually the best system for the promotion of freedom. I refer you to Winston Churchill - "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all of the other ones."

Your economic arguments are applicable just as much to any other political system as democracy. Your social arguments aren't a product of the system, just the moral views of the time, as these regulations were more strict as you go backwards in time and systems become more totalitarian.

You can say a lot of good things about all the rights people have in such societies and how these rights are inforced and secured. Equally you can say a lot of bad things about how the majority and constitution at all times limit individual and minority freedoms.
And that makes democracy "incompatible with freedom" how?

I've answered this above.

Also (I'm gonna get flamed for this), democracies aren't by definition enlightned. If you look at a place like USA where all mass media is corporate owned and all politicians need corporate sponserdhip to gain power, there's every reason to believe that an elite can rule by misinformation & propagandation.
Better some rights than none, no?

Also, I suggest you actually look at the US rather than play to stereotypes about it. The press is actually quite free.
The Similized world
01-07-2005, 06:12
First off, let me make it perfectly clear where I'm comming from. I don't have 300 years of education in social studies behind me. I'm personally against Democracy as a form of government because it fails to achive sustainable societies and economies. I offer no alternative as I have none. I'd suggest Anarchism, but actual experience with it makes me doubt it would be any different from a Socialistic Democracy. Also, these are my personal speculations and assumptions. My defence of them? My own limited experience and knowledge.



Because democracy is mob-rule. Democracies without some sort of constitution are probably worse than totalitarian states in respect to personal liberty and social equality.

That's only if you assume that most people in any given nation are more likely to like to restrict individual freedom and keep people down, which I think empirically is not the case (people always revolt against repressive regimes, and generally not with the desire to make a more repressive one). I think a totalitarian state is much more likely to restrict personal liberty, simply for survival purposes. It also makes the state seem like a more important player in the individual's life, setting up the state as an omnipresent force that scares people into obedience.

That being said, you're setting up a strawman. No modern democracy doesn't have a Constitution, which checks against all the things you say.

You asked why a Democracy would limit freedoms. A pure mob-rulership would. I assume most people are willing to oppress/supress others simply because they feel it's in their interest to do so. The majority of people I've ever met, read or heard about wouldn't fight for something as simple as Freedom of Speech - unless it was their own. This isn't really a strawman. It's purely hypothetical. Thought it was obvious, since no Democracy is without some sort of constitution (to the best of my knowledge at least).



In pratice democracy can be pleasant. The one I live in is far more pleasant for the majority than a place like USA (although strictly speaking they're both a democracy and not a democracy). Personal liberty tend to suffer under democracy.

You should try living in the United States. It's really not the hell some people make you want to think that it is. It's actually a really nice place to live in terms of what I can and can't do with myself. I'd much prefer it to, say, China or Iran.

No thank you :) The social inequality and moral relativism of the USA would make me too depressed. Sure, I'd be able to avoid it if I wished. But what would be the point of going there if I did? I am pretty sure Americans themselves are a great people and their nation is, in many many ways, a mindboggling place. Good and bad. But I'd rather not if it's all the same to you. Besides, I doubt they'd let a punker who's and old political activist in.



If you look at the ones people are fond of living in, they aren't very free at all. Everything from shop's closing time to when, where and what kind of sex you can indulge in is state regulated. As is business laws. Democracy can be socialistic, usually resulting in fewer personal freedoms but more individual economic freedom. Or they can be capitalist, which usually grants more personal freedom but much much less economic freedom and a great deal of social inequality.
Both kinds of democracy interfers with market economics. The capitalist democracy does it by promoting corporate structures via law and subsidising. The socialists does the same but more or less reversed.
Both tend to try and regulate civil institutions, such as churches, schools and the like.

Nowhere in here can you demonstrate why democracies are worse than any other system for freedom. If it's comparatively better, than it's actually the best system for the promotion of freedom. I refer you to Winston Churchill - "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all of the other ones."

Your economic arguments are applicable just as much to any other political system as democracy. Your social arguments aren't a product of the system, just the moral views of the time, as these regulations were more strict as you go backwards in time and systems become more totalitarian.

You asked why Democracy was bad for freedom. The Anarchist societies I've lived in have been much more free, but that's a truth with modifications. I never tested the limits of the "freedom". Not really.
In any case, you didn't ask me to demonstrate Democracies are worse than theocracies or some such thing. If you had, I wouldn't have responded.
Just like you recognise I'm most likely right about what I wrote, I can but agree with what you wrote in response. Yea, on a large scale, Democracy is the best we've ever tried. It's safe for all of us, most of us don't go hungry and we have quite a lot of freedom. It still doesn't mean the Democracies we live in don't actively strangle a lot of our personal freedoms in order not to break down.



You can say a lot of good things about all the rights people have in such societies and how these rights are inforced and secured. Equally you can say a lot of bad things about how the majority and constitution at all times limit individual and minority freedoms.

And that makes democracy "incompatible with freedom" how?

I've answered this above.

It doesn't, unless you look at it very black & white. Our Democracies really can't function without restricting personal freedom to some extent. Shit would just break down. In that sense, it's incompatible. In pratice it's not bad at all. "Better some rights than none, no?" Of course. People are often bastards. A little forced restraint goes a long way to make us get along. But only a little.
Frankly it pisses me off I can't have a good fight with someone without both of us getting arrested and sent to jail. I mean, it's not like I walk around picking fights with random innocent bystanders. Just one example...



Also (I'm gonna get flamed for this), democracies aren't by definition enlightned. If you look at a place like USA where all mass media is corporate owned and all politicians need corporate sponserdhip to gain power, there's every reason to believe that an elite can rule by misinformation & propagandation.

Better some rights than none, no?

Also, I suggest you actually look at the US rather than play to stereotypes about it. The press is actually quite free.

Heh. We'll have a bloody great arguement if we get into this methinks. Let's agree to disagree.

NB: I don't really have any qualms about steriotyping the US at this point in time. A spade by any other name and all that... Tone down the "Muahahaha! The World is MINEEE!!!" thing and people will stop badmouthing you at every opportunity.
Katzistanza
01-07-2005, 22:09
I live in the US, it's pretty fucked.

The press isn't nearly as free as people like to believe, and while you have rights in the books, in practice it is quite often a different matter.

There is some stuff that is good, there is some stuff that is really bad. Mostly depends on where you live, your race, and your money status.
Gulf Republics
01-07-2005, 22:23
Any person that believes that ANY nation has ever helped another just out of the goodness of their hearts is deserving of a public beheading.

Why attack the americans for it? They are the best at it solely for their economic size. Any nation in the same position would be doing the exact same thing as the americans do.

The people that write articles like this are nothing but hate mongers.
Neo-Anarchists
01-07-2005, 22:27
The press isn't nearly as free as people like to believe, and while you have rights in the books, in practice it is quite often a different matter.
This line just made me think of something:
There are conservatives who are quite sure that the liberals control all the media. There are also liberals who are quite sure that the conservatives control all the media.
So who really controls it? The Illuminati? The Jews? The Rosicrucians? The Club of Rome? The Interesting Times Gang?!? DEVO?!?!?

Wait, I think the last idea there has some credibility. I mean, just look at those hats...
http://www.vh1.com/shows/series/100_greatest/one_hit_wonders/img/devo_main.jpg
BlackKnight_Poet
01-07-2005, 22:31
Interesting article, Thank you.

I'm surprised the anti-Americans aren't screaming about this. Too busy worrying about Bush in Iraq.


Most likely or popping back a few pints :)
Rambozo
01-07-2005, 22:33
We shouldn't promote democracy abroad... or anything else in fact...
We always do a shitty job.

*nods*

Can you say Vietnam?
The Similized world
01-07-2005, 22:33
Any person that believes that ANY nation has ever helped another just out of the goodness of their hearts is deserving of a public beheading.

Why attack the americans for it? They are the best at it solely for their economic size. Any nation in the same position would be doing the exact same thing as the americans do.

The people that write articles like this are nothing but hate mongers.
"I have a gun and now I'll shoot you dead. Any last words?"
"If I had a gun I would have shot you dead already asshole!"

You realize most of the people complaining don't hold any great love of most other nations, don't you? You accuse people of being hypocrites because nearly all nations act like evil empires, yet people concentrate most their efforst on just one.
You forget they also complain about the others, and you forget you are the immediate threat.

If EU had a common forign policy and the military power to rule the world, people would be bitching over the EU. Sure, people would still complain about the US, but they would consentrate on the EU because the EU would be the immediate threat.

People who object to warcrimes, hegemony and exploitation aren't warmongers. Countries that commit warcrimes, are dedicated to turning most of the world into a hegemony and exploit everything and anything they can get their grubby paws on are warmongers.

If you think people will just sit quietly and watch, think again.
Sabbatis
01-07-2005, 23:27
Anybody read Aryarvarta's post, the guy who started this thread?

It's a little long, but interesting.
Bunnyducks
02-07-2005, 00:18
You should try living in the United States. It's really not the hell some people make you want to think that it is. It's actually a really nice place to live in terms of what I can and can't do with myself. I'd much prefer it to, say, China or Iran.

Why don't you tell us how shitty it is to live in, say, China or Iran? You have obviously spent time in both, so you should be able to.