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发帖数: 30882 | 1 美国民主为人民吗？ 2012-03-16 10:44:15
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2012/03/02/why-cant-americans-h
Why Can’t Americans Have Democracy?
by Paul Craig Roberts, 2 March 2012
Syria has a secular government as did Iraq prior to the american invasion.
Secular governments are important in Arab lands in which there is division
between Sunni and Shi’ite. Secular governments keep the divided population
from murdering one another.
When the american invasion, a war crime under the Nuremberg standard set by
the US after WWII, overthrew the Saddam Hussein secular government, the
Iraqi Sunnis and Shi’ites went to war against one another. The civil war
between Iraqis saved the american invasion. Nevertheless, enough Sunnis
found time to fight the american occupiers of Iraq that the US was never
able to occupy Bagdad, much less Iraq, no matter how violent and
indiscriminate the US was in the application of force.
The consequence of the US invasion was not democracy and women’s rights in
Iraq, much less the destruction of weapons of mass destruction which did not
exist as the weapons inspectors had made perfectly clear beforehand. The
consequence was to transfer political power from Sunnis to Shi’ites. The
Shi’ite version of Islam is the Iranian version. Thus, Washington’s
invasion transferred power in Iraq from a secular government to Shi’ites
allied with Iran.
Now Washington intends to repeat its folly in Syria. According to the
american secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, Washington is even prepared to
ally with al-Qaeda in order to overthrow Assad’s government. Now that
Washington itself has al-Qaeda connections, will the government in
Washington be arrested under the anti-terrorism laws?
Washington’s hostility toward Assad is hypocritical. On February 26, the
Syrian government held a referendum on a new constitution for Syria that set
term limits on future presidents and removed the political monopoly that
the Ba’ath Party has enjoyed.
The Syrian voter turnout was 57.4%, matching the voter turnout for Obama in
2008. It was a higher voter turnout (despite the armed, western-supported
rebellion in Syria) than in the nine US presidential elections from 1972
through 2004. The new Syrian constitution was approved by a vote of 89.4%.
But Washington denounced the democratic referendum and claims that the
Syrian government must be overthrown in order to bring democracy to Syria.
Washington’s allies in the region, unelected oil monarchies such as Saudi
Arabia and Qatar, have issued statements that they are willing to supply
weapons to the Islamist rebels in order to bring democracy–something they
do not tolerate at home–to Syria.
For Washington “democracy” is a weapon of mass destruction. When
Washington brings “democracy” to a country, it means the country’s
destruction, as in Libya and Iraq. It doesn’t mean democracy. Libya is in
chaos, a human rights nightmare without an effective government.
Washington installed Nouri al-Maliki as president of Iraq. He lost an
election, but remained in power. He has declared his vice president to be a
terrorist and ordered his arrest and is using the state police to arrest
Sunni politicians. Syria’s Assad is more democratic than Iraq’s Maliki.
For a decade Washington has misrepresented its wars of naked aggression as
“bringing democracy and human rights to the Middle East.” While Washington
was bringing democracy to the Middle East, Washington was destroying
democracy in the US. Washington has resurrected medieval torture dungeons
and self-incrimination. Washington has destroyed due process and habeas
corpus. At Obama’s request, Congress passed overwhelmingly a law that
permits american subjects to be imprisoned indefinitely without a trial or
presentation of evidence. Warrantless searches and spying, illegal and
unconstitutional at the turn of the 21st century, are now routine.
Obama has even asserted the right, for which there is no law on the books,
to murder any american anywhere if the executive branch decides, without
presenting any evidence, that the person is a threat to the US government.
Any american anywhere can be murdered on the basis of subjective opinion in
the executive branch, which increasingly is the only branch of the US
government. The other two “co-equal” branches have shriveled away under
the “war on terror.”
Why is Washington so determined to bring democracy to the Middle East (with
the exception of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Emirates), Africa,
Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, and China, but is hostile to constitutional
rights in america?
The rights that americans gained from successful revolution against King
George III in the 18th century have all been taken away by Bush/Obama in the
21st century. One might think that this would be a news story, but it isn’
t.
Don’t expect the Ministry of Truth to say anything about it. |
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