Re: Chuck Hagel Is Right


Charles Beauchamp wrote:
andrew.b.gross@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Out of curiousity: what led Mr. Hagel, or you, or anyone else, to ever
believe that the Iraqi people were yearning for Democracy? It isn't
part of their history or their culture. It would have made much more
sense to assume that, given their druthers, they would have installed
some sort of Islamic theocracy.

Interesting since they have zero history of Theocratic rule. Nice playing!

That's disingenous, even for you. Iraq has only existed since 1920.
Saying they don't have a "histy of Theocratic rule" isn't saying very
much.

Many people predicted before the U.S. deposed Hussein that he would
probably be replaced by a government that was even worse, which would
likely be theocratic to a lesser or greater extent. It's puzzling that
you would imply that it wasn't a reasonable prediction at that time.

But even if for the sake of the argument I were to concede that a
theocracy was not likely, this still leaves my original question: why
would anyone assume that the Iraqi people were yearning for democracy?
Democracy is a scary concept to people that haven't grown up with it--
talk to any one of the many Russian folks living in Seattle that lived
through the collapse of the Soviet Union, I'm sure you must know some.
This idea that everyone has some sort of innate instinct to prefer
self-rule, with all the responsibility that entails, is demonstrably
false.

.

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