- SAN FRANCISCO -- Once the
United States overthrows Saddam Hussein and "liberates" Iraq,
it will then proceed to spread democracy, human rights, and enlightenment
throughout the Mideast. So vows the Bush administration's national security
adviser, Condoleezza Rice, an academic expert on Soviet affairs.
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- One hopes her preposterous assertion is simply part of
the administration's propaganda buildup before invading oil-rich Iraq.
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- Truth is indeed the first casualty of war. Recall in
1990 the famous tearjerker about Kuwaiti babies thrown from incubators
by evil Iraqi soldiers, a canard that ignited war fever across America,
but turned out to be a total fabrication. Or White House claims to have
photographic evidence of an impending Iraqi invasion of Saudi Arabia. These
claims were also phony, but they succeeded in stampeding the petrified
Saudis into allowing the U.S. to permanently station military forces in
the kingdom, where they remain to this day.
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- If Rice really believes the U.S. will bring democracy
to the Mideast, she must also believe in the tooth fairy. Such naivete
is unacceptable in a senior policy maker.
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- Unsurprisingly, Rice's silly claim was greeted from Morocco
to Iran with profoundest derision by the very people she aspires to "liberate."
In fact, the Bush administration's stated goal of bringing democracy to
the Arabs faithfully echoes claims by Victorian Britain's imperialists
that they were conquering and exploiting Africa and Asia only to bring
the benefits of Christianity and western civilization to benighted heathen.
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- Fifty years ago, Middle Easterners would have believed
Rice. After World War II, they hailed the United States as the symbol of
honest government, decency, generosity and opposition to colonialism. When
America's great president, Dwight Eisenhower, ordered the British, French
and Israelis to end their 1956 aggression against Egypt, the U.S. was a
supreme hero across Asia and Africa.
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- In the ensuing half-century, the U.S. has gone from hero
to supreme villain. America's ever-growing support for Israel was half
the reason, but the other half was the U.S. policy of keeping oil prices
low, and supply high, by imposing despotic surrogate rulers on the region.
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- The U.S. has dominated the Arab world for the past 50
years. What has it done to promote democracy or human rights there, Miss
Rice? Name one democracy, one nation ruled by laws, one nation not run
by the secret police.
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- Take a tour of the Arab states under U.S. "protection."
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- Morocco - A medieval monarchy, as brutal as Iraq, with
thousands of political prisoners tortured and confined in underground dungeons.
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- Algeria - Sunk in a nightmare civil war. When Algeria
held the Arab world's first free vote in 1991, Islamic parties won. The
army, backed by France and the U.S., annulled the elections and has ruled
since.
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- Tunisia - A military dictatorship.
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- Egypt - Home to 40% of all Arabs, and intellectual heart
of the Arab world, is a military dictatorship with a ruthless secret police.
They routinely torture and murder opponents. Many thousands are held in
political prisons, the press is censored and parliament is a sham. As in
the case of Iran under the late Shah Reza Pahlavi, the FBI, CIA, and NSA
all assist Egypt's secret police in repressing opposition and keeping the
military regime in power. Ayman al-Zawahri, 9/11 chief planner, was tortured
for years in Egyptian prisons.
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- Jordan - Decent and well-run, but no democracy. The U.S.-backed
king and his Bedouin army rule a nation that is over 60% Palestinian.
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- Saudi Arabia - A feudal monarchy of 7,000 princes. Political
opponents are muzzled or charged with drug dealing and beheaded. The Saudis
sell oil to the U.S. and its allies on the cheap. In exchange, they get
protection against their neighbours and their own people. Saudi Arabia
buys billions of U.S., British and French arms it cannot use and keeps
$100 billion in the U.S. financial system. Osama bin Laden claims the West
steals Arab oil. He says oil should cost US $300 a barrel, not $20-30 -
true terrorist talk to SUV owners.
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- Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates - all
tiny feudal monarchies inherited by the U.S. from the British Empire. Oman,
another monarchy, is discreetly run by British intelligence, MI6.
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- Arab nations not under direct or indirect U.S. domination
- Libya, Syria, Yemen, Sudan - are also nasty dictatorships (Yemen less
so). Lebanon is a tribal/feudal society dominated by Syria. Saddam's brutal
Iraq was a close U.S. ally from 1979-90.
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- Now, suddenly, Rice and the neo-conservatives who are
pulling the Bush administration's strings, claim they will bring the balm
of democracy to the wretched Arabs.
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- But why now, after half a century of fostering petro-despotism?
Why the sudden conversion on the road to Baghdad? At the very same time
the Bush administration is busy shoring up Pakistan's military dictator,
Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and maintaining a U.S.-imposed regime in chaotic,
"liberated" Afghanistan whose leader, Hamid Karzai, must be protected
by teams of U.S. bodyguards from his own unloving people.
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- In the buildup to the 1991 war against Iraq, George Bush
Sr. promised a Palestinian state. This time around, the whopper du jour
is democracy and freedom for all Arabs, and especially Iraqis. Why, just
recently, George W. Bush promised Palestinians democracy - provided, of
course, they didn't re-elect Yasser Arafat.
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- Eric can be reached by e-mail at margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com.
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