The neo-cons, I think, view Iraq as an experiment to see if democracy would be contagious in the Middle East the way communism and fascism were contagious in Asia in the first half of the 20th century… the premise being if democracy spreads in the Middle East, countries can get wrapped up enough in the same materialism U.S. consumers are wrapped up in, and be too distracted by it all to hate us. I reckon being a slave to stuff and reality TV is marginally better than being a slave to a delusional third-rate secular dictator who only thinks he has weapons of mass destruction (yes, our propaganda was that good!).
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I’m not sure Bush has thought it out THAT far (”that far” being the implications reality television will play in the new, democratic Iraq)…
That was a half truth, half smart-assery moment.
That’s cool… My comment was half interesting, half time-filler.
Nice. Like most of the blogosphere.
Your post re: Iraq was good. This was supposed to be a long post in a similar vein. I wrote probably 450 or 500 words, and decided it was blathering rubbish except for that paragraph above, which in retrospect only halfway makes sense out of the context of the rest of what I wrote. And that only has value because it’s funny to cynical wonkish nerds like me.
Thomas Frank pointed out in a previous book a few years back that China is trying to achieve capitalism without democracy. Bill Gates is now in the news as endorsing that flavor of Communism. I have to wonder: if the neocons are also looking to free the market and strengthen the government, are they not going for the same thing, both here and in the middle east?
Thanks… have you noticed how little attention the liberal blogs have paid to this today?
Joe,
Thanks for the link. I’d like to hear Gates expound on those views a little more. I don’t hear anything substantive enough about China’s government to have an educated opinion.
Dylan,
Yes I have. Opponents of the Iraq war are in a difficult position, as you already noted. At this point of the process, I don’t think anyone wants to see it fail for the sake of the Iraqis, but a lot of people have good reason to be nervous because it could then become a rationalization for more U.S. crusades.
Also, I’m a little curious as to why the Iraqi election is getting so much attention when the Afghani election got virtually none beyond a 250-word brief the day it happened.