Re: How Do You Like Your Democracy Now, Mr. Bush?
- From: "A Brick in the Wall" <NoSpam@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2006 19:23:55 -0500
"Voter" <voter1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:c9r0ksnknjl3$.1v31lnrcg6s.dlg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> How Do You Like Your Democracy Now, Mr. Bush?
> By Juan Cole
> Salon.com
>
> Friday 27 January 2006
>
> Hamas's stunning victory underlines the contradictions and hypocrisies
> in Bush's Mideast policies.
>
> The stunning victory of the militant Muslim fundamentalist Hamas Party
> in the Palestinian elections underlines the central contradictions in the
> Bush administration's policies toward the Middle East. Bush pushes for
> elections, confusing them with democracy, but seems blind to the dangers
> of
> right-wing populism. At the same time, he continually undermines the
> moderate and secular forces in the region by acting high-handedly or
> allowing his clients to do so. As a result, Sunni fundamentalist parties,
> some with ties to violent cells, have emerged as key players in Iraq,
> Egypt
> and Palestine.
>
> Democracy depends not just on elections but on a rule of law, on stable
> institutions, on basic economic security for the population, and on checks
> and balances that forestall a tyranny of the majority. Elections in the
> absence of this key societal context can produce authoritarian regimes and
> abuses as easily as they can produce genuine people power. Bush is on the
> whole unwilling to invest sufficiently in these key institutions and
> practices abroad. And by either creating or failing to deal with hated
> foreign occupations, he has sown the seeds for militant Islamist movements
> that gain popularity because of their nationalist credentials.
>
> In Iraq, which is among the least secure and most economically fraught
> countries in the world, the Dec. 15 elections brought into Parliament a
> set
> of powerful Shiite fundamentalist parties and a new force, the Muslim
> fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front, which gained most of the votes of
> formerly secular-minded Iraqi Sunni Arabs. Some IAF politicians are
> suspected of strong ties to Iraq's Sunni insurgency. In Egypt, last fall's
> election increased representation for the fundamentalist Muslim
> Brotherhood
> from 17 to more than 70 seats in Parliament, making that group a key
> political player for the first time in Egyptian history. Decades ago, the
> party once assassinated a prime minister and attempted to assassinate
> President Gamal Abdul Nasser, but now maintains it has turned to
> moderation. It aims at the imposition of a rigid interpretation of Islamic
> law on Egyptians, including Egyptian women.
>
> Now Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement, a branch of the Egyptian
> Muslim Brotherhood, has come to power in Palestine. In his press
> conference
> on Thursday, Bush portrayed the Palestinian elections in the same way he
> depicts Republican Party victories over Democrats in the United States:
> "The people are demanding honest government. The people want services.
> They
> want to be able to raise their children in an environment in which they
> can
> get a decent education and they can find healthcare." He sounds like a
> spokesman for Hamas, underlining the irony that Bush and his party have
> given Americans the least honest government in a generation, have
> drastically cut services, and have actively opposed extension of
> healthcare
> to the uninsured in the United States.
>
> But the president's attempt to dismiss the old ruling Fatah Party as
> corrupt and inefficient, however true, is also a way of taking the
> spotlight off his own responsibility for the stagnation in Palestine. Bush
> allowed then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to sideline the ruling
> Fatah Party of Yasser Arafat, to fire missiles at its police stations, and
> to reduce its leader to a besieged nonentity. Sharon arrogantly ordered
> the
> murder of civilian Hamas leaders in Gaza, making them martyrs. Meanwhile,
> Israeli settlements continued to grow, the fatally flawed Oslo agreements
> delivered nothing to the Palestinians, and Bush and Sharon ignored new
> peace plans - whether the so-called Geneva accord put forward by
> Palestinian and Israeli moderates or the Saudi peace plan - that could
> have
> resolved the underlying issues. The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, which
> should have been a big step forward for peace, was marred by the refusal
> of
> the Israelis to cooperate with the Palestinians in ensuring that it did
> not
> produce a power vacuum and further insecurity...
> http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012706M.shtml
>
>
>
I fyou can make sense out his response should make you a member of mensa or
working for Miss Cleo.
Q Mr. President, is Mideast peacemaking dead with Hamas' big election
victory? And do you rule out dealing with the Palestinians if Hamas is the
majority party?
THE PRESIDENT: Peace is never dead, because people want peace. I believe --
and that's why I articulated a two-state solution early in my
administration, so that -- as a vision for people to work toward, a solution
that recognized that democracy yields peace. And the best hope for peace in
the Middle East is two democracies living side-by-side.
So the Palestinians had an election yesterday, and the results of which
remind me about the power of democracy. You see, when you give people the
vote, you give people a chance to express themselves at the polls -- and if
they're unhappy with the status quo, they'll let you know. That's the great
thing about democracy, it provides a look into society.
And yesterday the turnout was significant, as I understand it. And there was
a peaceful process as people went to the polls, and that's positive. But
what was also positive is, is that it's a wake-up call to the leadership.
Obviously, people were not happy with the status quo. The people are
demanding honest government. The people want services. They want to be able
to raise their children in an environment in which they can get a decent
education and they can find health care.
And so the elections should open the eyes of the old guard there in the
Palestinian territories. I like the competition of ideas. I like people who
have to go out and say, vote for me, and here's what I'm going to do.
There's something healthy about a system that does that. And so the
elections yesterday were very interesting.
On the other hand, I don't see how you can be a partner in peace if you
advocate the destruction of a country as part of your platform. And I know
you can't be a partner in peace if you have a -- if your party has got an
armed wing. The elections just took place. We will watch very carefully
about the formation of the government. But I will continue to remind people
about what I just said, that if your platform is the destruction of Israel,
it means you're not a partner in peace. And we're interested in peace.
I talked to Condi twice this morning. She called President Abbas. She also
is going to have a conference call today about the Quartet -- with the
Quartet, about how to keep the process on the road to peace.
Steve.
.
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