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October 24, 2006

Democracy May not be for Everyone

Americans who still cling to the belief that we have made Iraq a better place by freeing women, ending the rape rooms, and ousting a brutal dictator might be surprised to learn that daily life in Iraq has become hell on earth. The rest of us, hopefully, know better. I don't number with those who blame this hell entirely on the United States because nobody is making these radicals brutalize each other, but it certainly leaves me hoping we didn't see this nightmare coming – it would be worse to me that we would expect it and plunge forward anyway than that we would be so idealistic and incompetent that we are now surprised by the mayhem.

The state of daily life in Iraq tends to lend credibility to the notion that in some parts of the world, people are so incapable of reining in their hatred of other sects or tribes or groups that only an iron-fisted dictator can maintain the peace. Probably not a sadistic dictator like Saddam Hussein and his sons, obviously, but I have my doubts as to whether democracy can succeed in a place where people hate each other so much that they will power drill dozens of strangers to death each day simply for interpreting the same religion differently.

Posted by Becky at October 24, 2006 11:05 AM