Exporting Democracy
One geopolitical trend can safely be said to have failed – the West’s desire (backed by military force) to export democracy to the non-white members of the human race.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya – and now Syria.
The track record is abysmal. And while “we” were cheering on the rebels in Libya, it now seems the resultant situation is much worse than under Gaddafi. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the US is attempting to spin a defeat into a victory by announcing they are pulling out next year. Iraq of course is a mess.
The Syrian situation is very interesting. On the face of it, it appears to be a revolt against just another Arab dictator. However, this revolt is continuously presented in the Western press as a “protest” movement. On the other hand, Syria maintains it’s an armed revolt and that any state would attempt to put down such an uprising.
And that is certainly true. I cannot imagine any Western nation would tolerate an armed revolt – and if confronted by one would no doubt do exactly what Syria is doing.
None of this is supposed to justify the monopolistic power of states at all, as I’m an anarchist, but given the reality on the ground it appears that Assad is acting like any other “glorified’ leader in the world, democratic or otherwise.
Alexander Cockburn has exposed the hypocrisy of all this in his essay:
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