The discussion about whether or not the Iraq war is a failure now or a failure in the future is irrelevant. The Iraq war failed before it ever started. It failed for exactly the same reasons as the Vietnam effort failed.
As people wrote of Vietnam and Iraq, "We are fighting to bring democracy to Iraq (Vietnam). In other words, the point of our fight is to permit the Iraqis to make their own decisions," and, "the Iraqi people and government could still screw this up."
Americans are fighting for Democracy, the right of the Iraqi people to vote themselves into whatever kind of government they want, including slavery. And I submit, that is immoral. There's no such thing as a right for people to vote themselves into a dictatorship, or vote themselves into slavery or vote themselves into any form of absolute or totalitarian government. There is no right to violate rights, even by public opinion poll. There is the power, but no right.
That is why the Founding Fathers of the United States damned Democracy as unfit for a free people. That is why the Founding Fathers of the United States went to the trouble of inventing a new form of government, "a form of government never before seen by man, a form of government never before even conceived of by man." That eliminates Democracy.
If any of you are thinking of posting in support of Democracy, please include an explanation of why you think a majority voting for something makes it moral or proper. For example, please explain exactly why you think it is proper that a majority, for example, of white people, can vote to have black people enslaved and sold at auction to the highest bidder. Please also explain by what moral principle you think it's right for a majority (Gentiles) to vote for death camps and for others (Jews) to be put into gas ovens and exterminated. Democracy properly defined means "Majority Rule," and "mob rule." That is the essential.
If a public vote does not make slavery of black people or extermination of Jews right, then voting for anything does not necessarily make that right either. If you claim voting for a particular form of government makes it right, then you're admitting openly your moral sanction of Adolf Hitler, who was elected to office and then made ruler by the Reichstag. You're openly admitting your moral sanction of the activities of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and in the activities of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, and the activities of Hamas in Gaza. You are claiming their activities are legitimate, because they were voted into office. I disagree. That is why we are even losing in the
US.
That was one of the reasons the Founding Fathers of the United States invented, "a doctrine and system of government in which the governing power is limited by rules of enforceable law, and in which the concentration of power is prevented by system of various checks and balances, to protect the rights of the individual." The odds are that none of you know the concept that sentence defines.
As Emily Lau of the Frontier Party in Hong Kong said, "Under Democracy, your primary human right is the right to vote for your government officials." If your primary human right is the right to vote, then your right to Life (to live life as you choose), Liberty (the right to produce the material values to sustain your life), and pursuit of Happiness ( your right to enjoy the material
values you produced), is to be determined by the public vote.
That means there are no rights in Democracy, only permissions which can be altered or revoked at the whim of voters, or the whim of those who claim to represent the public vote, such as Hugo Chavez, Adolf Hitler, Robert Mugabe and Hamas. If your permission to live is determined by public vote, you better join the biggest most powerful group to ensure that the vote does not victimize you. That is why Democracy is a form of collectivism. But, You can't win an ideological war on negatives. You have to advocate the positives and benefits of what you offer.
If you would look around you and check history, you would see that the civil strife in Iraq is characteristic of a normal, mature democracy. It is a battle for group power. The Iraqi constitution was designed for groups, not individuals. That is why the terrorists, including Hamas, are so thankful for the U.S. support of Democracy. It legitimizes the struggle for power. That's why the Founding Fathers of the United States damned Democracy as unfit for a free people.
If, as so many people say, the battle is primarily intellectual and ideological, then the primary focus should be on "the science of the study of the spread of ideas within a culture, their social acceptance, political recognition, legal enforcement, and the resulting social, political, economic and legal institutions, and their appropriateness to the human mode of existence, from a how-to standpoint." The second question is: How do you spread ideas that are appropriate for human life?. The first question is: What ideas are appropriate?
Democracy is irrefutably not appropriate for human life. It is always unstable and collapses into a physical battle for power, and loot, as the countries of South America have demonstrated for generations.
If you want to win the war against terrorists determined to enforce their religion on the world, you must start by defining your terms in essentials, and start in the United States by rediscovering the form of government that protects rights. Then spread that, among other ideas appropriate for
life.
Otherwise, the Islamists have already won. No matter the name given to the terrorists, the people will eventually vote for them, as in Gaza, because of their cultural background, and for lack of knowledge of a better system.
