More Nations Turn From Democracy - Officials Blame Bush

[Purveyor]

Freedom, President Bush likes to say, "is a gift of the Almighty." But much of the world now believes America's true view is that democracy should be imposed with the muzzle of a gun.

For the first time in a generation, the number of nations turning from autocracy to democracy is on the decline, and nonpartisan officials who work in this field blame Bush.

In Washington, promoting democracy is ever green; it is somewhere on the agenda for every president, Democrat or Republican. But Bush elevated it to a status not seen in decades. Some might question his motivation. After all, he hoisted his freedom agenda at about the time it became clear that no weapons of mass destruction were to be found in Iraq. Suddenly his Iraq policy changed. America would bring democracy to the Iraqi people, and they would serve as a balefire for the larger Middle East.

As everyone knows by now, the results have been disheartening. When Bush and his aides pushed for free elections in Egypt, the government imprisoned opposition candidates and beat up voters. In Lebanon, the administration persuaded Syria to pull its troops out of Lebanon - a good thing - and then pressed the Lebanese to hold elections. The result: an impressive showing by Hezbollah, the terrorist group. Now the Lebanese government has been unable to appoint a president since November.

In the Palestinian territories, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her aides served as campaign consultants to the utterly corrupt and incompetent Fatah Party and then expressed shock and dismay when Hamas, the irredentist terrorist group, won the election. That has brought a cascading series of inauspicious consequences.

And then there's Iraq. What more can anyone say?

---EOE---

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/05/INKGVVSM4.DTL

[DeepModem Mom]

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