Wednesday, February 13, 2008

"The Democratic Imperative"

Great Britain's Right Honourable (and right HoT!) Foreign Sec David Miliband is hitting Ye Olde Oxford campus today with a demarche of marching orders for changing the world. Sure to make Realpolitikers and Isolationists on both sides of the Pond scream "Foul!"

In a prebill titled "The Democratic Imperative," Secretary Miliband is hot off the trail with Great Satan's delectable Sec of State after touring democratic nurseries in Afghanistan. Miliband underscored that certain world leaders will not sit about as NATO redefs herself as the North Atlantic Trade Org, or as the UN adds the suffix 'fair' to her initials or allowing selfish arroganters to sit about all comfy as tiny baby democracies have their tiny baby heads choked plumb off.

"We've got responsibilities that we're determined to live up to and obligations
that we're determined to live up to and ditto for the Agfhan authorities. That's
something we want to follow through and at the heart of both our strategies is
the belief this has to be done with the Afghan government and in fact led by the
Afghan government, with our support."

Making the case for constant confrontation and selective intervention military wise GB's FoSec sounds like a champion of ideals to take Neoconservatism into the next decade. Blowing off any sure to follow critique about current battles to turn freedom's shaky candles in certain places into blazing torches for freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan, Miliband makes the case that the Free World can handle it - and the sooner she gets fully crunk, aggressive and nonapologetic about it - the better.

"The neo-conservative movement seemed more certain about spreading democracy
around the world. The left seemed conflicted between the desirability of the
goal and its qualms about the use of military means. My plea is not to
let divisions over those conflicts obscure our national interest, never mind
our moral impulse, in supporting movements for democracy."

And how! Yet, isn't there something scary about current ops in Iraq and Afghanistan? Maybe the free world has went too far too fast? Bollocks to that mate!

"In fact, the goal of spreading democracy should be a great progressive project;
the means need to combine both soft and hard power. We should not let the
debate about the how of foreign policy obscure the clarity about the what."

Seeing first hand the probs that intolerance and fear of freedom breed in, oh, say a certain little rats nest in Africa - the torment that time travelling intolerants can provide, Miliband knows where of he speaks.

Last week in Afghanistan, David and Condoleeza were confronted with skeptical press pointing to a most unsuper villan act of terror that seemed like a weak play of 'Gotcha!' Dr Rice fielded that one.

"It frankly doesn't take much courage to blow up a school"

The spiritual sons of El Alamein and Arnhem are sending a message to NATO to pick up the slack - that mainland Europe is vulnerable - that we all need to be in it to win it. After all, why have all these Euro militaries if all they do is prance and parade about on asphalt and use the catchy (in a really dumb way too) logo of "Peace through Dialouge"?

GB currently deploys about 7.7K cats in Ex Talibanland. Deutschland fields about half that - 3.5K and only in stable areas. Kein kriegen Deutschers? The Desert Fox must be rolling in his grave.

"After the end of the cold war it was tempting to believe in the 'end of history' - the inevitable process of liberal democracy and capitalist economics. Now with the economic success of China, we can no longer take the forward march of democracy for granted."

Paddy Wintour the chief Foreign Policy editor at Guardian Uk says Miliband is deathly serious - he's staking it all on a killer case

"Among a string of practical proposals to support democracy, the foreign
secretary will suggest:

· encouraging economic openness as a means of tackling corruption and increasing transparency, including in China;

· a new round of provincial elections in Iraq, to help to bind in former insurgents who want proof of their local influence, and the chance to join the Iraqi security force;

· organisations like the UN or Nato should consider offering "security guarantees" to new but fragile governments, conditional on them abiding by democratic rules;

· support for "civilian surges" for democracy led by "literate, better-educated people able to access information and communicate with others".

David's Democratic Imperatives will argue that fostering democracy in the Middle East "is the best long-term defence against global terrorism and conflict"
"We must resist the argument of the left and the right to retreat into a world of Realpolitik."

7 comments:

Roger W. Gardner said...

Great Great Great! You get better every damn day! And THAT is saying something.
Patton would have loved you GSG!
WE all do!
Your loyal fan,
Roger G. (Rogerbabe)

Paul Champagne said...

Just read your interview in the Pakistani Spectator and I must say

I'm Impressed

Keep up the good work

Karen Townsend said...

Excellent. Your conclusion, as reflected in the quote, is spot on. The only defense, long term, to terrorism is freedom.

Beaman said...

The brave Desert Rats. Glad you put a link to them.

Miliband is correct but could go even further. Dismantling the United Nations would be a start. Then forming a club for democratic and free-press/speech nations that would be given the task of spreading Western values at every opportunity, by any means.

Unfortunately in both our nations, there are relativist 3rd world apologists who scupper any chances to help the very people they claim to protect.

It's rather inhumane for many on the Left to assume people in Africa and Asia don't want, cannot cope with or will never understand, democratic and enlightenment values.

FaisalK said...

Impressive blog!!!

People Power Granny said...

I watched "The War on Democracy by John Pilger" yesterday. Try to view it and let me know what you think. I reviewed it at peoplepowergranny.blogspot.com. I'm also doing a poll on the same subject.

GrEaT sAtAn'S gIrLfRiEnD said...

Very interesting PPG, thank you for sharing.

This could be interpeted as a scathing idictment of the amoral, corrupt cult of stability AKA Realpolitik.

911 incinerated that idea as surely as the nearly 3k innocents who made it to work that day. Ironically enough, many super smart cats seem to miss the good old days.

Just this week, David Miliband - Great Britain's FoSec unveiled a killer proposal for the New Millenium.

"The Democratic Imperative"

Essentially, it's Neoconservatism on steroids - and it is sweet to read.

Regime Changing for short. 3 ways to do it - the fun friendly way - like with mass communications - the internet especially, the old school way at the point of the world famous M 16 and 1K cruise missiles or a combo of goodies and grief.

Either way, the goal is to eliminate all illegitimate, corrupt, intolerant unelected regimes and replace them with tolerant, egalitarian societies with periodic transparent elections, an open, uncensored press, a Nat'l Treasury under public scrutiny, an independent judiciary with elected government oversight, civilian control of the military and unfiltered web access.

It will be far harder to make the case for tolerating rocket rich regimes that torment their own people with honour killings, gender apatheid, torment their neighbours with instability and militias and cannot seem to help but to act out against any democracies in weapons range.

That aside, it seems the "War on Democracy" might be code for returning to Realpolitik. Note all the examples are pre911 (that's how they like it) - they really want to time travel on the way back machine and pretend that detente, stability and coexistence really worked.

Alas, Realpolitik's real record is of wars, genocide and terrorism. In a word failure.

Yet what the Free World Coalition is doing right now offers far more hope for the future than any 'America is the cause of all the world's probs' history rewrites.

Miliband makes a great case for constant confrontation and selective intervention.