The Fallacy of Wilsonianism/ Bush Doctrine

The previous post is obviously not what I believe but is the mental process by which many interventionists think, including our current President. The reason for this is that "self-determination" has become rather confused with "US-Determinism." The Iraqi's did not choose a democracy. We TOLD them that they will have a democracy and they may set it up how they like within that semantic framwork. The same thing holds true for Afghanistan with their "democracy."

Too often do we associate democracies with human rights and high standards of living. Belarus is a democracy but has very little in the way of human rights. Afghanistan's flowering democracy is still based on sharia. And so it is foreign to our own views of a democracy. We should not cry foul when a nation develops a democratic system that is in opposition to ours when we are the ones who told them they are free to set up said government. This smacks of the highest hypocracy and makes me want to vomit.

The whole idea that we should base our diplomatic ties on human rights is absurd form a practical point of view. Case in point, Pakistan. Pakistan is run by a military dictatorship. Yes they promise to have elections but we all know that they are pretty meaningless. Pervez Musharraf is however an ally with us against Al-Qaeda and similar factions. This makes them acceptable. Yes we are pressuring them to adopt more democratic reforms, but this also matters comparatively little since Pakistan's poeple are not exactly deomstrating in the streets for western human rights. We are selling that government f-16 fighter jets and providing them with foreign aid money (bribe money) to help us. Still they balk at allowing our troops to cross the Afghani border in to Pakistan to pursue terrorists (and yes we do it anyway).

Practicality wins out over human rights any day. In a society that is essentially a theocracy we should expect to see women degraded, and free thought stifled as well as the free practice of religion. Quit complaining. And for the love of God and all that is Holy, quit trying to find dragons to slay President Bush. All future politicians who wish to succeed GW ought to learn this lesson at well. George Washington knew about this danger at our founding. Yes we were a small and relatively impotent nation at the time, but entangling alliances are still entangling no matter one's size.

Wilsonianism and the Bush Doctrine are just adventurism by another name, and are merely another way for us to foist our cultural superiority upon the savages. What fun we shall have when the chickens come home to roost.