Is Democracy Over-rated?

[Readie]

I don't think that Afghanistan was to depose the Taliban. Rather it was a reponse to 9/11 and aimed at detroying Al Qaeda and capturing Bin Laden.

Wiki Says:


I think the main objective was the petroleum infrastructure. Interesting that they used the word "compliant" when referring to the government they wanted to create.

There was no UN resolution to invade Iraq. That would need the Security Council to agree, and with China and Russia opposed that could not occur. In fact the UN has labelled the Iraq invasion as illegal.

I also don't think that the war planners thought very far ahead.


So, it was partly to do with ending Hussein's reign.

Go back even further and look at the regimes of horror that 'we' did nothing about.

Pol Pot in Cambodia
Idi Amin in Uganda
Josip Tito in Yugoslavia
Laurent Gbagbo in the Ivory Coast

The thing that these despots did not have was oil and it was politically convenient to look the other way.

This man had oil... King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and we still looked away.

Edit: Chris the the mods team. This is my only post on this subject. I felt it had to be said before we get on the moral high ground.

John

 

[michaelmaltby]

I reckon its the road tax (emission based) that penalises big low tech engines that are great..but not 'green'.

A Jeep will cost £460 per year in the UK which equals :-
$740 Canadian dollars
$720 USA dollars
E536 Euros.

No ...not quite. Gas is presently CDN$1.19 per liter and vehicle licenses are pro-rated by engine size (in cylinders), Vehicles of a certain age must pass emission standards before being licensed every 2 years (on the owner's birthday).

MM

 

[michaelmaltby]

"... Corruption was also an issue in Communist countries, and is partly why those systems didn't work."

I agree. Corruption (like the Mafia) is a social acid that destroys the integrity of the system - any system. The Soviets had a complete parallel economy running ..... dolls within dolls, so to speak.

MM

@Nuuumannn - I was being a bit over-the-top with my tribal inclusiveness, genetic solidarity schtick

 

[Readie]

I reckon its the road tax (emission based) that penalises big low tech engines that are great..but not 'green'.

A Jeep will cost £460 per year in the UK which equals :-
$740 Canadian dollars
$720 USA dollars
E536 Euros.

No ...not quite. Gas is presently CDN$119.00 per liter and vehicle licenses are pro-rated by engine size (in cylinders), Vehicles of a certain age must pass emission standards before being licensed every 2 years (on the owner's birthday).

MM

$119 dollars per litre?

There is talk of making the emission vehicle test ( the dreaded MOT) bi yearly...but,for now its an annual event and passing it is hard and getting harder. The number of useable vehicle that fail on emissions would make your eyes water....
Mind you 12 months MOT adds a lot of value to an older vehicle.
John

 

[nuuumannn]

I don't think that Afghanistan was to depose the Taliban. Rather it was a reponse to 9/11 and aimed at detroying Al Qaeda and capturing Bin Laden.

And these too from Wiki:

"The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001,[35] as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front (Northern Alliance) launched Operation Enduring Freedom. The primary driver of the invasion was the September 11 attacks on the United States, with the stated goal of dismantling the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization and ending its use of Afghanistan as a base. The United States also said that it would remove the Taliban regime from power and create a viable democratic state."

"Following the invasion, the U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had ended its nuclear, chemical, and biological programs in 1991 and had no active programs at the time of the invasion but that Iraq intended to resume production once sanctions were lifted. Although some degraded remnants of misplaced or abandoned chemical weapons from before 1991 were found, they were not the weapons which had been the main argument to justify the invasion. Some U.S. officials also accused Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of harboring and supporting al-Qaeda, but no evidence of a meaningful connection was ever found. Other reasons for the invasion given by the governments of the attacking countries included Iraq's financial support for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, Iraqi government human rights abuse, and an effort to spread democracy to the country."

So, I was right to state that invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan were to impose democracy on the population.

There was no UN resolution to invade Iraq. That would need the Security Council to agree, and with China and Russia opposed that could not occur. In fact the UN has labelled the Iraq invasion as illegal. I also don't think that the war planners thought very far ahead. So, it was partly to do with ending Hussein's reign.

You got me there. Yes, the war planners got it so wrong, but they had an agenda of their own design to meet. I would state that overthrowing Hussein's rule was the biggest deciding factor behind the US led invasion.

Nuuumannn - I was being a bit over-the-top with my tribal inclusiveness, genetic solidarity schtick

Hey Mike, sorry, didn't mean to be snippy; I had my grumpy undies on.

$119 dollars per litre? Time to dust off the ole push bike and get cycling, I think...

 

[Njaco]

Readie, no problems. Its still fairly civil in here. I'm holding my tongue. If you check the old "Political" section I was very active in it but the Mods made a very, very good decision to remove political talk outside the realm of WWII. So far the thread has been smooth.


But we are watching!

 

[michaelmaltby]

"... the Mods made a very, very good decision to remove political talk..."

The political "envelope" ? . My favorite envelope is the "ugly" envelope. Sunny is the custodian ....

MM

 

[Njaco]

 

[buffnut453]

Re dictators who were "tolerated" by the West...as I inferred earlier, democracy often suffers from an excess of politics at the expense of sufficient morality. It's funny how often we are willing to accept dictatorships in countries that aren't sufficiently "interesting".

To expand on the "imposition" of democracy, I wasn't just thinking about Iraq and Afghanistan. However, to cover those specific conflicts first, I think both suffered from the same problem - we planned the war but failed to plan the peace. In neither case was it explicit that we would "impose" democracy on those nations, indeed that was never a stated objective, but it was obviously in the best interests of several nations to have governments in both Iraq and Afghanistan that were favourably disposed to the West.

Aside from Iraq and Afghanistan, there are other examples of pressure, both political and financial, applied to governments who don't conform to western ideals of democracy. Sometimes that pressure is warranted because of blatant human rights issues or because the country is a demonstrable regional or global threat. However, there are many other occasions when the West turns a blind eye to atrocities which hurts democracy as, to the rest of the world, it seems we are hypocritical.

 

[michaelmaltby]

Hey Njaco, I know you weren't too fond of my "quirk" reference in a parallel thread .... but .... it was said with great affection and sensitivity .... I refer you to this timely source for my inspiration. (I am not normally a big fan of high-brow magazines, but this is well written and hilariously funny, and my German friends like it too, )

It's the Economy, Dummkopf! | Business | Vanity Fair

MM


"... However, there are many other occasions when the West turns a blind eye to atrocities which hurts democracy ..."

He's a bast**d but he's our bast**d. It begs the case for Family Planning.

 

[Njaco]

No offense taken. I have thick skin and head!

That was good.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Does Canada / USA Germany have such 'road tax' costs?

The Germans do, but I do not have to pay any of those due to the Status of Forces Agreement between the US and Germany. As for gas, I pay around 70 Euro cents for a litre of Super Unleaded Gas (98 octane).

I do have to pass the German emissions test though, but that is not a problem because the new Jeeps are all within tolerences.

Edit: Chris the the mods team. This is my only post on this subject. I felt it had to be said before we get on the moral high ground.

John

No worries. I am just monitoring everyhing. As a veteran of the Iraq War I have my won beliefs based off of what I saw, but I am going to leave that out of this discussion because of the forums political policy.

 

[Readie]

Readie, no problems. Its still fairly civil in here. I'm holding my tongue. If you check the old "Political" section I was very active in it but the Mods made a very, very good decision to remove political talk outside the realm of WWII. So far the thread has been smooth.


But we are watching!

Fair play Njaco.
I know you are too

John

 

[Readie]

The Germans do, but I do not have to pay any of those due to the Status of Forces Agreement between the US and Germany. As for gas, I pay around 70 Euro cents for a litre of Super Unleaded Gas (98 octane).

I do have to pass the German emissions test though, but that is not a problem because the new Jeeps are all within tolerences.

QUOTE]

That is a massive advantage Chris.
The denizens of Britain get hammered each and every way with motoring. Thats why the boring euro 'green' boxes are so popular and the dreams of the old motors so strong.
Oh well...

Big strike day tomorrow.

John

 

[davparlr]

First, I address the topic. Democracy causes a softening of variations of government impact on the common people. All governments vary between good and bad. Totalitarian governments, when good, can be very good for people, but when it is bad it is intolerable. Usually, it tends to go to the bad side of the force. Democracies, when good, only tend to be just good because of bureaucratic inertia , but when it is bad, it tends to be replaced. So the transition between good and bad all revolve around some mean and not going in either direction very far.

Now to get to the fun topic, jeeps. My love for jeeps go very deep. My family had CJ2s (civilized WWII military jeeps) as I grew up. We used it as a farm tool, but mostly for fun. And fun we had, running the pristine white sand dunes of then mostly unpopulated Perdido Key, west of Pensacola, or plowing through the mud in the famous Florida swampland (yes, they will get stuck!). As a farm tool we plowed, they are not very good at it, too light, and other tasks. One of the things we did was pull stumps. We would wrap a chain around the stump, tie the other end to the jeep frame, lay excess chain on the ground, put the jeep into four wheel drive and floor the throttle. We would hit the end of the chain with a jolt. That jeep was practically indestructible, except for rust.

I also learned to drive in a jeep. My brother inherited it when he turned 16, it was totally cool. What did I get when I turned 16? A 1954 Ford four door, sigh. Anyway, it got me to school and to the beach, so I can't complain too much.

In the two pictures, you can see the old CJ2 (that's me leaning out the right side), note rust on the side and big surplus aircraft tires, and in the background of the other picture you can see an early jeep station wagon we owned. It was two wheel drive, so not as good in the sand, with a lot of pushing.

 

[Readie]

View attachment Internet Explorer Wallpaper.bmp


Here's my much loved Mexico that I described earlier at Werrington Hillclimb in 1988.
spot of 3 wheeling
John

 

[parsifal]

Great story Davparlr

 

[parsifal]

Readie, no problems. Its still fairly civil in here. I'm holding my tongue. If you check the old "Political" section I was very active in it but the Mods made a very, very good decision to remove political talk outside the realm of WWII. So far the thread has been smooth.


But we are watching!

ah yes, the bloody and violent bearpit threads. I remember them well. The mods certainly made the right call to ban them

 

[Njaco]

Love that Dav!!!

 

[michaelmaltby]

"... The mods certainly made the right call to ban them..."

From recent comments like that, Parsifal, I think your sniffing around to be promoted Moderator .....

That wouldn't be a good thing now would it, son - you'd shut us down with historical detail ....

MM

Yes, Dave, terrific story.