Foreign Military Interventions Resulting In Democracies
Dean
Gosh, Dave. We only have to look back at the Clinton Administration's biggest and most admirable foreign policy successes, those "non-humanitarian euro-imperialist military adventures" with NATO in the Balkans that resulted in: Bosnia-Herzegovina, now a functioning democracy much freer than at any time in its history (and a mostly-Muslim country, by the way) and Serbia, now actually ranking as a genuinely liberal democracy.
In fact, with the exception of the still-troubled territory of Kosovo, the Balkans today are more free, more democratic, and less violent than at any time in their history.
All due to--let's all hear it--foreign military intervention and occupation with a goal toward establishing democracy and freedom.
Or is the argument that you can only succeed at these sorts of things if you do it with NATO?
Also, by the way, remember all the Republican hypocrites who witheringly attacked Clinton for his supposed massive screwups in the Balkans? And loudly predicted that the area was so full of ethnic and religious hatred and a culture of corruption and death that only a brutal dictator could ever keep order there, and that this was none of our business? Yet, with only a decade or so's patient application of military force and aid in establishing democratic institutions, look at the result.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Foreign Military Interventions Resulting In Democracies
- Challenge to Aziz (And Anyone Else Who Would Pick Up the Gauntlet)
- atomic principles
By the way, we turn out to have been wrong about the scale of the killing there. Yet somehow, "Clinton lied us into his imperialist wars in the Balkans" rings just a little hollow, nyet?
I know perfectly well that many of not most opponents of what we are still doing in Iraq don't claim America's a genocidal imperialist power or that you can never "impose" democracy with military force (as if fundamental human rights are an imposition). But some, quite obviously, do claim such things. They are simply wrong. The fact is that many, many military interventions to stop brutal dictators and establish democracy have been very successful. That's all.
If you don't believe in nation-building, why not, when there are so many wildly successful examples of it? It's not because everything isn't sunshine and roses in all of Iraq after a piddling handful of years, is it?
Yes, but the Clinton/NATO foreign policy was not to try to keep the artificial country of Yugoslavia together. It allowed Yugoslavia to dissolve into countries somewhat along ethnic and religious lines, and helped to stabilize the borders between those countries.
I’m not convinced this policy was a great success. It was more of a modest success that has stabilized the region for the moment, but that is certainly progress.
Dean, rather it seems like you have missed the postings, and the accompanying threads in which I took part significantly. In both Aziz's and Dave's thread we've reach a finer level of detail than whether "many military interventions to stop brutal dictators and establish democracy." The question seems to boil down to whether establishing democracy should ever be the primary goal of a military mission and whether a foreign led intervention is supporting already existing developments in favor of democracy on the ground, as in Italy or Panama, or has little established to work off of, as in Iraq.
I believe I've spelled out my philosophy quite extensively in Ali's, Aziz's, and Dave's thread. As Rosemary said before, we should try to centralize this debate. But for the benefit of those just reading this thread, I'll try to summarize. I don't believe in nation-building for its own sake. Sometimes you defeat an enemy (who has attacked you or an ally) and it collapses to the extent that you need to help a new government develop. Then I think you are forced into the not-so-fun job of nation building (or at least stabilizing).
First, as another poster upthread pointed out, the United States and other powers allowed Yugoslavia to devolve into ethnic states. Iraq, actually, has something similar happening already in Kurdistan, which is luring in new investors. If we follow the Balkans model here, then the Unites States, by your analogy, should allow Iraq to split into component parts.
Second, Yugoslavia had a number of "great powers" acting on behalf of local populations, with the United States and the West acting on behalf of Croats, Bosnians, etc., and Russia acting on behalf of the Serbs. Do similar proxies exist in Iraq? And if so, are those "great power" proxies negotiating with each other? Subpoint: To the extent that the proxies exist here, they include Iran and al-Qaida, which are openly hostile to the invading power (US). In Yugoslavia, Russia was adversarial, but seldom (if at all) openly hostile.
Third, you have significant geographic differences between the two nations; Yugoslavia had an area of 98,766 square miles, and population of 23.7 million as of 1989. Iraq, meanwhile, had an area of 169,234 square miles, and an estimated population of 26.8 million as of 2006. The population densities are worth noting as well -- Yugoslavia's 240.2 people per square mile to Iraq's 171 people per square mile. Even if one accepts the validity of nation-building through force, Iraq's area and population density, in particular, demand a different force configuration than Yugoslavia's did.
That's all I have for now, I'm afraid ...
--|PW|--
And yeah, I'd consider hosting this whole thing on the Iraq War wiki. Which I've been neglecting lately. Although there, there is a specific editorial position: answering critics of those of us who thought it was the right thing to do and still do think it. So your role in that discussion would I think be that of the "honorable critics." Which is fine, we want that. But those wanting to turn it into a free-for-all would be off-base. Those of us who think it was and is the right thing to do are making our case and answering our critics. If someone else wants to go off and start their own counter-wiki, that's cool too, and I might take part in that. I just don't want this wiki our group created to develop into a food fight. Am I making sense?
Go ahead. That's not out of bounds at all. I think you might be surprised that there are actual well-thought-out answers to a lot of that. I've routinely found that Iraq war critics are often stunned that someone's actually thought about their criticism and already has an answer. On the other hand, you might pose something that is a very difficult challenge for which there is no good answer. That's okay too.
The only thing the signup instructions ask is that you respect the editorial position. Which basically translates to "don't be an asshole about it."
The signup is right here. Feel free.
Serbia is plurality Muslim? When did this happen?
Unless there has been unprecedented conversion or ethnic cleansing since 2002, I find plurality Muslim to be hard to believe.
Honestly, no. I remember wag the dog, and some people making jokes that that was similar to the situation that we were in enough that it gave one pause for a moment, but that's about it.
Then again, I also remember the republicans I knew at the time generally (if perhaps cautiously) praising Clinton for his backing of NAFTA. Somehow, I kind of forget all of the monthly/yearly anti-Clinton marches, and the "Clinton lied, people died" and "no blood for blow jobs" bumper stickers, signs, etc.
Maybe it's because I've never listened to talk radio?
I remember there being a big visceral dislike of Clinton as a slimy waffling poll-driven political hack, but even Doonesbury drew Clinton as a waffle. IIRC, "slick willy" was a complementary name used by his friends.
Maybe it's just that I was too young at the time, but I don't remember people passing out cartoon books promising that Bill Clinton died on every page, featuring one page entitled "Bill Clinton vs. Satan" which was a picture of Bill Clinton punching himself. (I've seen such an anti-Bush comic.)
According to CIA World Factbook, Bosnia &Herzogovinia is 48% ethnically Muslim (i.e. "Bosniak"). But Serbia is only 3.2% Muslim. My mistake.
Please.
All this shows is that *at best* its a case by case basis, certainly doesn't establish a policy.
Clinton's Balkan adventures are only fairly recent examples.
And by the way, had the French military machine not helped the early American rebels, the US might still be a British territory. (No offense to the Brits).
So you need to throw off this bullshit racist Marxist paradigm you've embraced: foreign military intervention is common in bringing about democracy. You may not like it, but it's just a fact.
Albanians remain seriously agitated and Serbians remain seriously pissed, truce is uneasy and NATO contingent is absolutely necessary to suppress an eruption of hostilities. In addition, fate of Kosovo remains a major point of contention between US and Russia, involving some other thorny issues with fate of ethnic minorities in Balkans and Caucasus.
Dean,
Some of us have made the distinction (again and again...) between foreign-led-and-initiated revolutions, and those that have arisen spontaneously in a country but given support by an outside power. I think this distinction is critical. You may not; but I don't think you are being very careful if you just lump all examples of foreign aid during a revolution together without examining the differences.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.