Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
Carl,

You are a victim of effective propaganda. Think about it. When a populace is ripe for change it will take whatever bus pulls up to the stop. But once the dust settles, the ideology is typically moot. Look at all of the primarily Protestant countries today. Not all that radical, just a bunch of largely democratic capitalists. Look at all of the primarily communist countries today. Similarly, these too are morphing into a bunch of captitalists. They have a way to go on human rights, but these things take time.
Bob, are you actually arguing that the path these countries took is for the best? Can you really say that ideology is moot? You do realize that for a long time no one had a clue about the horrors that were being perpetrated by Stalin and Lenin, and actually fell for the Soviet propaganda about how successful and happy the USSR was. The UK, Germany, France, Italy - all were considering adopting socialism/communism. At the same time, Stalin was killing millions of his own folks. This was not because the folks got on whatever bus pulled up to the stop- it was because Lenin intentionally undermined the Russian government.

Same with the Islamists. They are not the enemy, they are merely driving the bus. All we have to do is provide those same populaces with an alternative to the Islamist bus. Tunisia is leaning away from the Islamists, and I suspect Egypt will as well. No one wants to sign up for a bad deal, but they will to get out of a worse deal.
I don't think the Islamists are driving the bus. They are attempting to fulfill their interests... by shaping the narrative and seizing power. They haven't been effective anywhere where they haven't had massive external support. That isn't the same thing as being in charge.

I agree with Dayuhan and the other folks - we cannot "provide an alternative" in some deux ex machina way. We can encourage, support, help... and I agree with you that we should strive to always set the example. But we can't stop working with every government in the world that doesn't conform to our notions of democracy... we would end up isolating ourselves and would actually be less effective at supporting democracy worldwide. The best thing we can do to help is be ourselves, keep talking to the folks in these countries, and try and build as many economic, social, and military ties with them so that if things do change we have some personal relationships and a basic level of trust to start from. As you say, it must be the people's choice- and if you look at history they are far more likely to choose freedom and democracy if they have a basic level of economic well-being first.

Finally, I agree with Dayuhan about the arrogance element... it took us (the United States) over 200 years to fully reach the basic level of freedom that you are arguing we should "provide" to the people in the Arab world... In the meantime we severely repressed multiple ethnic groups, most of which conducted what most folks on this esteemed board would term insurgencies. Oh yeah, and one of those insurgencies resulted in a full-up civil war that cost the nation 700,000 casualties. All in the name of ideology...

If we applied the same patience to our dealings with other countries, we would be a lot better off and avoid a lot of the interventions Dayuhan warns against. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it after all...

V/R,

Cliff