Democratic Underground - Why I worry about our getting out of Iraq and leaving the Middle East alone.

This is an article from 2005, pretty pleased with what we had done in Iraq, urging it not be a one party effort to continue the spread of Democracy in that region. This article has bothered me, and continues to do so. Actually I guess you would call it a memo. It bothers me because it sounded in March of 05 just like Joe Lieberman sounds today.

I really fear all our Democrats feel this way, aside from a few of the new ones and the Progressive Caucus.

Advancing Democracy

March 4, 2005
Idea of the Week: Advancing Democracy

The last couple of months have witnessed an important, if fragile, upsurge of pro-democratic activity in the Arab Middle East, a region of the world where the absence of political and economic freedom has helped produce the stagnation and isolation that has contributed to the rise of Islamic Jihadism.

..."After decades with virtually no open democratic activity in the region, the quick succession of these events suggests they are connected, and could produce still more breakthroughs as the long-suppressed democratic forces of the Arab Middle East gain strength and courage. It is vitally important for the United States to do everything possible to promote this trend.

The memo does mention being disturbed that the right wing was equating these successes just to the military campaign in Iraq. But then they go on to criticize the "left" for not understanding the great importance of this Democracy spreading. In fairness they don't advocate for military use as much as other ways.

But this has been the goal of the policy makers in both parties. I have no doubt of that.

Meanwhile, some on the political left, in an ironic endorsement of these theories, have been slow to embrace the pro-democratic trend in the region, reflecting a general temptation to reject anything Bush supports, even if it reflects long-held Democratic and democratic values and traditions.

The truth is that the Bush administration deserves some credit for adopting the right stance toward democracy in the Arab Middle East -- even if it harnesses universal values like democracy and freedom to a foreign policy asserting America's unilateral and claim to interpret and apply those values. But Bush's pro-democracy push relies far too much on military force and mere rhetoric, as opposed to a real, consistent, constructive, and multilateral effort to systematize democracy promotion and economic engagement as central features of U.S. foreign policy.

I read that bold part to say that Bush is right in his goals in the Middle East. He just went about it the wrong way. The memo discusses forming an agency to be called the Democracy Movements and Transitions agency. Actually there are a couple of groups that sound like that. One is called NED..the National Endowment for the Democracies. Some of our Democrats serve as leaders of that group.

The other is something like Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Many Democrats serve on that board as well.

The memo ends with this paragraph:

Promoting democracy, particularly in the Arab Middle East, is too important for this country's strength, security, and credibility to be carried out in a half-baked or half-hearted matter -- and also far too important to be copyrighted by any one political party. Certainly Democrats, as the name of our party suggests, should be front and center in this effort.

I read a couple of paragraphs written today, I think. They are at the centrist Democratic Strategist. Actually the person is right. I am an older grassroots, netroots person, only a real activist for the last couple of years. And I am capable and intelligent and able to see the evil we have done in the Middle East quite clearly. I am only sorry the author chooses to be so skeptical of my capability.

http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/strategist/2007/01/talkin_bout_my_generation.php

It is this lack of historical appreciation – this lack of understanding of political imperatives – and its attendant lack of patience that unites the New Left of the 1960s with the netroots today. It is the promise and peril of political naïveté—the admirable impulse that led me as a 22-year-old college senior in 1995 to hunger strike for 5 days for what I thought to be an important cause, an impulse the potential destructiveness of which is laid bare in the disclosure that the cause was establishing an Asian-American Studies program immediately rather than waiting for the university bureaucracy to vote on it.

.."New Democrats—young and old—fear that the New New Left—young and old—will miscalculate in addressing each question, or worse, will not even acknowledge these are legitimate and crucial questions. (How does Matt know, for instance, that the "new movement" is a majority, non-silent or otherwise?) Like other committed Democrats, we hope for their success and will work and fight alongside them on many endeavors, but we will also point out that whatever '60s activism achieved, it also handed the country to the Republicans for more than a generation. The netroots better be prepared to tell us what we'll get in return this time around to justify such a result.

Hey, Scott, you put us down throughout your article. Then you say we need to tell you what you will get in return for working with us?

How about a group of people that holds its party to higher standards? How about you get from a glimpse of the "real" reality. Yes, you are referring to your opinion of the netroots. But that kind of attitude toward the people of the party is just about why we got bogged down in a foreign country based on lies.

I can guarantee you our "political naïveté" would probably have kept us from invading a country that was no threat.

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