I wouldn't. If I were President of the United States, I'd immediately
break relations with all dictatorships. The United States should help
good people, not bad ones. The argument that they aren't the worst of
the worst seems little consolation to the dead and wounded who fought
to bring democracy to people they couldn't even understand.
Put another way, when everybody except for North Korea is an ally,
doesn't that devalue the meaning and value of an alliance with us?
Why wouldn't we want to support democracies and not support dictators?
I don't mean bomb them, just ignore them. Trade with them, but not
on favored nation terms. When they are nice to their people, we'll be
nice to them.
Foreign policy has nothing to do with anybody being nice to anybody
else. The US's support for Musharraf is simply because he has a large
border with Afghanistan and he's broadly cooperating with the US
there. The money is to keep him in power and to ensure his continuing
support.
Well said Dave and refreshingly free of euphemisms. The money IS to
keep him in power and ensure his support. Unfortunately in the
calculus of the place, the money isn't really ensuring his support of
us (or our broad Western goal of capturing bin Laden and cronies.)
His security forces are (and have always been) incapable of operating
in the wilds where the bad guys are. So our monies are paying to keep
him in power, but the actual, measurable support we (the West) get is
more in the form of a parade rather than visible progress in the fight
against terrorism.
US foreign policy is not about supporting democracies unconditionally.
Look at Allende in Chile, and look at Saudi Arabia. How democratic is
the US itself really? You have the Electoral College system precisely
because the Founding Fathers saw a need to have a check on the popular
vote. And when it comes down to casting your vote in the next
presidential election you will realistically have a choice between two
not very nice and not all that dissimilar people.
I'm painfully aware of our shortcomings in the foreign policy arena.
The United States has never had the experience of being a true
coalition partner: experience every major European country (except
Germany) has had in spades. The US itself isn't particularly
democratic, that's very true. And I think the citizens ought to be up
in arms over that. I also think that democracy as a practical
political system is better for humanity as a whole than dictatorship.
I think the idea of 'L'Etat, c'est moi' lives on today. The general
impression that a single man can do better than many men working
together persists despite ample evidence that many hands make work
light. It is this impression, that politics is best left to the
politicians, which is the Achilles Heel of current democratic
thinking.
Is Britain any better? In 2005 Labour won a strong 66 seat majority in
Parliament with 35% of the popular vote on a 61% turnout equating to
about 21% of the electorate.
I understand that you aren't being specifically critical of the US,
but I agree that the democracy we practice isn't the best that it can
be. It's better than despotism. For the people governed under it,
and for the people who interact with it. We do make mistakes, some
very large ones. I happen to feel that supporting dictators is one of
those mistakes.
--buck
