I can't believe that people still believe this crap

Here is a recent article from UPI:

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040225-033834-3408r

Let me give you the highlights.

To take such high-sounding abstract concepts about democracy to one-time desert Arabs is somewhat akin to getting an ape to appreciate a diamond. In any case, if the ape does not swallow that diamond -- though in many cases it would -- getting peoples without democratic traditions is like asking people to organize their lives all over again to suit the image of someone else.

Wow, so this person is saying that democracy is a tough thing to swallow. I will agree to that, it requires a amount of personal responsibility to have a functional democracy. I thought everyone new that. Thanks for stating the oblivious.

The statement where people reorganize their lives to suit someone else is false. Yes they will reorganize their lives, but to suit their own image. For example, I can worship the god or even the TV if I want, and can work the job I want, I can elect the government officials I that like or even if I think they look good in a suit I can vote for them. This person shows a lack of understanding about what controlling you own life is.

About the American push for global democracy, the recently imploded Soviet Union and Japan come as examples of nations accepting an alien ideology -- albeit perhaps unwillingly.

Japan is the worlds third or second economy after Germany. Both very undemocratic nations in the past, it has seemed to work well for them, seeing how they have more money and individuals can decide how they want to live their lives. You don't see a lot of Japanese or Germans in the US. You know why because they are happy were they are, and the only reason to come to the US is for more money.

Don't even bring up the Soviet Union as a failed democratic state. It is a failed communist state. We drove them into the ground, and they had no other option but to accept another system of government. Yes, America would like to see Russia turn into a democratic state, only so we done have to protect ourselves from their missiles any more. The reasons the Soviet Union is failing is not because of democracy, it is their leaders.

If democracy is of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," the closest mirror image of that serene state in Russia, existed ironically during the era of Stalin and Khrushchev.

About Khrushchev and Stalin
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/kbank/profiles/khrushchev/

Khrushchev's rise to power coincided with one of the darkest periods in Soviet history: the Great Terror. During the 1930s, Stalin began a series of bloody purges to consolidate his power. The terror spread throughout the Soviet Union, and Khrushchev was part of it, denouncing several fellow students and workers as "enemies of the people" and willingly taking part in the extermination of the Ukrainian intelligentsia.

This person is a moron and has not studied history at all. 40 million people died under Stalin's rule, which Khrushchev was a major part of that.

So, religion undeniably is too strong a component to ignore when pushing for democracy in the Middle East. As strongly embedded as it stands, casting it away for securalism is sure invitation for trouble.

I don't know if this person supports a pure theocracy or even a mixed one (which they are arguing over in Iraq right now), but having a state religion is bad. Although the west views Islam as a tight religion, it is not. Islam have several main sects that also hate each other. The sect in charge would oppress the other sects. Also, a country that lets go of the religion is more likely to let got over several other things which make a country successful (ie the economy).

As a addition to the first point about democracy being had to swallow, that is only because the current rulers don't want to lose power.

What's more the Bush administration knows unlike Japan or the ex-Soviet Union, Iraq or the Middle East did not threaten America for her to be submitted to such indignity.

Iran has nukes, Libya has nukes, Pakistan has nukes, and Iraq was working on Nukes in the early 90's and had bio-weapons programs ready to be started up in months. Not to mention Osama, who is from the middle east. This person is a moron, these countries did not only pose a threat to us, but other countries around them and the world. American should backcharge the world for the work we have done and the lives we have lost. We are saving their asses and they don't even care. In fact they think we are doing the wrong thing.

Vanessa Yeo is a student in journalism at FIS Education Center in Singapore.

That explains it, this person is studying how to write, not history or not what to believe. This person needs to go read a book or two.

cube