Sorry, but just because it's a BAD democracy doesn't mean that it ISN'T a democracy. Yes, it's sectarian - hell, US politics are often dominated by regional differences in culture largely broken down by geographical lines. Hell, those whacky Iraqis got themselves a Constitution and political parties and everything. Obviously there is a problem with agents of the government acting in the name of sectarian conflicts, even hiding death squads among them (though from what I've heard that has been diminished by political power exercised through al-Maliki's government finally). But the structure and nature of the government is a bicameral parliamentary sytem, a federal republic.
A duck can call itself a chicken all it wants. Just b/c something has the trappings of democracy doesn't mean it is democracy in any functional sense of the word. Iraq isn't what anyone would consider a functional democracy.
Well, if you believe he got 99.9% of the vote it was.... The difference between the two are vast, but the primary one is that the leader of the Iraqi government wouldn't be Prime Minister al-Maliki right now if his group didn't actually win the election. That's a hell of a big difference, wouldn't you agree?
^ Hypothetically, the leader of the Iraqi government wouldn't have been Saddam if he didn't actually "win" the election.
Not responsive to the wants of the people, tyranny of the majority, ties with terrorists, giving large swaths of the country to sectarian militias... Right now, the Shia faction is setting things up for a complete take over of all facets of government on a U.S. pullout. That's the only thing so far it has been effective at. So quite frankly, it just isn't. Outsider observes don't think so and the people (at least the ones I've talked to) certainly don't think so. Just look at poll numbers of those that have faith in their government.
I'd say a democracy in any meaningful use of the word cannot exist in a country occupied by a foreign army where people even hypothetically get scared from voting or into voting a certain way by the use of arms.
Using the voting process as a way of identifying resistors and then changing the voting record retroactively handled that pretty well, don't you think.
Examples? Is large portions of the budget going directly into the politicos pockets? Not being able to provide stable electricity for example with the ongoing insurgency might go to not being a functional government, but isn't an issue of whether said government is a democracy or not. And doesn't that directly contradict your next point - which of course has nothing to do with democracy - it was the argument against it, actually, in terms of the US being a republic. Democracy IS rule by the majority. I'd say that's the most damaging of the factors - not that ties to terrorism innately makes a government not a democracy, but the fact that governmental power has been subverted in order to protect and aid terrorist groups acting against the citizens it is supposed to protect. If that isn't addressed, I'd agree that Iraq is no longer a democracy. They haven't ceded their authority over them, they just can't exercise functional control. There are numerous examples of democracies losing control over sections of their claimed territory. That by itself doesn't invalidate the government being a democracy, though it certainly invalidates its rule over those sections of Iraq. The question is does the government control a substantial portion of territory (it does), and what processes are used to make decisions on how to govern those territories. They'd be complete morons not to - considering the spinelessness of the US populace when it comes to these things. Saigon has a lasting legacy. And again, relative effectiveness isn't the sole determinism of the form of government. An ineffective democracy is still a democracy - as the writers of the Articles of confederation. It may lead to changes in the form of government, but it doesn't mean that during that time period the government wasn't a democracy. Uh huh - and the poll numbers for faith in the US government? As far as outside observers go, the UN did accept the government after the elections, as well as ratify the elections as legitimate. Regardless of what you think of that body, that is the bell weather for government legitimacy.
I'd agree with this as well. However, I see no evidence that force of arms coerced anyone in Iraq into a specific voting pattern. As far as occupation goes, that's a completely irrelevant point, as South Korea, Japan, Germany, and the UK would tell you - all of which have substantial foreign military presences in their nation. Hell, I saw German Harriers taking off from Dulles Airport a decade ago, does that mean my vote didn't count? LOL.
Again, it seems that you casting votes seems to be the end all be all for deciding something is a democracy. For me and most of the world that just doesn't cut it.
Indeed. If that's all democracy means, then democracy is pretty fucking useless. Demiurge's argument is semantic gibberish; he strips democracy of everything that makes it valuable on the one hand, but still wants to draw on the feel-good nature of the term on the other. You can't do both and be intellectually honest. Either you take the whole package as your definition of "democracy," or you lose the right to imply that a government is in any way good or functional solely for being democratic. Without that implication, the democratic status of a government simply isn't worth arguing over, even for Demiurge.
double post. fucking timeout. I would also like to add "Unable to provide decent internet" to my list of things the government has fucked up!
not arguing for the war orthe claims....just sayng that by the same reasoning that the objectives were laid out, they can just as easily use that reasoning to say "goals met" and move on. Make the case there were never wmd's? fine. proving that and establishing there's no risk is an accomplishment of the goal. make the case that what's there now is no betterthan Saddam? (In terms of who is in legal athority I strongly disagree but have it your way) - that doesn't really change that you said you were going for regim change and you changed it. said you wanted a democraticly elected government and you have something like that - certainly enough to leave if you want - no new government is perfect.
If you were giving a grade, say as a middle school teacher, to a class project (the class is the US and the project is Iraq) what would you assign?
Cool. When I was there we were working on fixing the power grids. Dumb Iraqis would rip down the new lines at night and cut them up to sell the rubber and copper. They couldn't see that there was a major benefit to 24/7 power versus making a quick denar. How's that going now, does Baghdad have 24/7 power now?
They probably figured someone else is going to rip them down if they don't, so they'll take the safe bet.
You would assume so if the bank kept millions in cash on hand without any guards or police worth the name and everyone in the neighborhood was unemployed. Doesn't mean you'd rob the bank, but you wouldn't bet against someone doing so.
That one is far more believable. Running pipes is a lot more work than above ground electricity lines.
They weren't getting millions of dollars out of the lines they ripped down. There are police who just don't do their jobs, the people in the neighborhood allow this crap to happen. THIS IS ALL THE IRAQI PEOPLE'S FAULT! It is not our job to hold their fucking hands forever. I really believe our job there is done until they decide they want our help. We can't force democracy on them.
Clearly a political failure in not courting the Italians in our coalition force as well as we should have. Otherwise I'm sure we'd have fixed those problems by now.
Well, the point was that when people have no physical or financial security, expecting good behavior, just like expecting democracy to flourish, is eyes-wide-shut optimism in action. If we had a half million police to spare and the will to create 10 million jobs we could achieve some measure of success in Iraq, but without that success ain't gonna happen.
