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Subject: Iraq - Better Off without Hussein, or is it more Stable? THAT is the Left's Question
swhitebull    1/15/2007 2:20:40 PM
He who controls the language controls the debate - or Why the Left has to constantly change its terms. From DA Prosecutor Andrew McCarthy: The Stability Dodge The anti-Bush Left’s ploy to avoid defending Saddam’s Iraq. By Andrew C. McCarthy When last we noted CBS News, it was trying to topple the Bush administration in the 2004 campaign, courtesy of Dan Rather’s ham-handed document fraud. If you want to indulge a fiction, you can attribute the consequent firings to corporate embarrassment over Rather’s arrant partisanship. I’m sticking with corporate outrage over the scheme’s inept execution, “progressive” causes — such as cashiering a Republican administration — being de rigueur among the dying paleo-media. Yet, for some reason, President Bush decided it would be in his interest to make 60 Minutes, CBS’s miso-Bush news magazine, the first media filter for his personal defense of the new Iraq strategy announced last week. The result was predictable. Gobbling the spin, er, I mean the “excerpts” CBS “emailed to reporters” a day-and-a-half before the Bush interview aired, Bloomberg News rushed to publish a bombshell confession: The president had admitted that Iraq is “Now More Unstable Than Under Saddam.” The Drudge Report, similarly, broke the story that Bush believes his “Decisions Have Made Iraq More Unstable.” These breathless assertions turn out to be slippery in the signature CBS fashion. As John Podhoretz pointed out on NRO, the president, in fact, had not conceded that Iraq is now “more unstable” due to his policies. To the contrary, though 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley tried his level best to put these words in the president’s mouth, Bush had not taken the bait: Pelley: But wasn't it your administration that created the instability in Iraq? Bush: Our administration took care of a source of instability in Iraq. Envision a world in which Saddam Hussein was rushing for a nuclear weapon to compete against Iran... He was a significant source of instability. Pelley: It's much more unstable now, Mr. President. Bush: Well, no question, decisions have made things unstable. The president flatly rejected the suggestion that his policies had “created the instability in Iraq.” Moreover, while he did not deny that his decisions had made some things unstable, neither did he agree that things were “more unstable now.” Quite obviously, whatever is newly unstable has to be weighed against Saddam Hussein, “a significant source of instability” now removed. That this somehow becomes another misleading episode of Not-So-True Confessions says a lot more about the media than it does about Bush. Still, the media hyperventilating raises several worthy points. First, let’s play the Left’s game and grant, at least for argument’s sake, that Iraq is now less stable than it was under Saddam. What exactly does that prove? Let’s say a tyrant maintains order by resort to barbarism, and his overthrow results in instability, even violent instability, on the hoped-for road to a better future. How does the instability make the overthrow a bad thing? Does the fact that there was more instability in revolutionary America than there had been in colonial America mean the Revolution was a bad thing? Second, if, as the Left and its media enablers maintain, the president is a blithering idiot, why should it matter so much to them whether, in his judgment, Iraq’s instability was greater before or after March 2003? Objectively, Iraq either is or isn’t more unstable now than it was before. One person’s subjective take on that — even if that person happens to be the president of the United States — is not dispositive. After all, did the media accept that we were winning the war until recently just because the president said so? When did he suddenly become their compass? The game behind the game is nevertheless worth exploring. The president’s critics are suddenly manic about Iraq’s comparative stability. Why? Because the Left is always two steps ahead of the Right when it comes to the power of language. In framing a debate, the well-chosen label often obscures blood-and-guts reality in a fog of airy abstraction — especially when the public is weary or prefers to look away from life’s grimness. The creepy gore of “abortion” gives way to the humanist majesty of “choice”; the pervasive criminality of “illegal aliens” melts with the plight of “undocumented workers”; “terrorists” are “freedom fighters,” and their “apologists,” “civil rights organizations.” On it goes. No matter how ugly Iraq has gotten through the last four years, the Left has always gotten its clock cleaned, and its momentum stalled, by a single, show-stopper: “So, you’re saying we’d be better off if Saddam Hussein were still in power?” It has cost them one election, and they’ll be damned if it’s going to happen again. So now, the antiwar intelligentsia has decided that stable will be its euphe
 
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Herc the Merc       1/15/2007 2:29:15 PM
Well the reality is post Saddam NK tested a nuke and Iran started pursuing nukes more aggressively. Saddam had no capability of making the bomb or no plans--its easier said than done.
 
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swhitebull    Herc   1/15/2007 4:27:55 PM
And that has WHAT to do with the questions regarding Iraq? Which was the question. Those events happen in their own continuum, and guess what, the Left would be bashing Bush for NOT taking care of Hussein in that case, regardless.
 
swhitebull
 
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flamingknives       1/15/2007 5:18:46 PM
When the "right" bashes the "left", or vice versa, it always boils down to reducing the other side's argument down to an extreme position and then defeating that. The implication is that the entirety of the people who do not agree with the protaganist's point of view are also therefor defeated.

It's pretty much a strawman argument with added generalisations.

For example, I could voice an opinion such that Saddam could not be left where he was (and should not have been in 1991) and something had to be done. The "right" crowd would no doubt condone this, the "left" might well object.

If, however, I were to then suggest that the way in which the US Armed Forces, commanded by Pres. Bush and the Republican party, moved to conduct the operation was shoddy, verging on the criminal, then the positions of the classical parties political would become reversed, since I'm levelling an attack at the "right's" paragons of virtue

And that is my position. Getting rid of Saddam & Co.: Good. Conduct of the operation: Bad, based largely on wishful thinking. It doesn't correspond to any given party political, which is a good thing, as those intitutions are probably the worst things that can possibly happen to a democracy. IMHO, naturally.
 
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PowerPointRanger    Of course its more unstable   1/16/2007 1:30:28 PM
Democratic governments were designed to be unstable.  It's the dictatorships that are stable. 
 
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jastayme3       1/17/2007 2:25:48 AM

Democratic governments were designed to be unstable.  It's the dictatorships that are stable. 

Actually dictatorships are brittle not stable; once they no longer intimidate they go.  Democratic governments are not designed to be unstable. They are designed to give a means for competeing for power other then assasinating each other, thereby making for more stability.

 
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eu4ea       1/17/2007 4:45:05 AM
Indeed. 

The life-span of a dictatorship is quite short, no more than 20-25 years - as indeed was Saddam's dictatorship.  Most of them are significantly shorter, and only a relatively a few outliers (Castro, Franco, Suharto) get past that. 

Democracies, on the other hand, live quite a bit longer - there are some really ancient ones around, in addition to a crop of post-WWII that are still going strong, and a significant number of later but firmly established ones (Spain, Portugal, the Baltic states).

 
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Plutarch       1/17/2007 12:52:44 PM






Actually dictatorships are brittle not stable; once they no
longer intimidate they go.  Democratic governments are not
designed to be unstable. They are designed to give a means for
competeing for power other then assasinating each other, thereby making
for more stability.



Actually dictatorships are more stable as democracies have more problems assimilating people, and there are more competing factions in a democracy that lead to wild power shifts. Read Federalist No. 10 for an excellent critique of democracies.  The Founders of the US understood how dangerous and unstable democracies can be as they are too close to the passions of the people and set up separations of power to ensure that the US would not succumb to democracy.  Over the years some of these checks have been taken down (popular election of Senators, etc.) but the quality of elected officials has not improved.  Dictatorships may be brutal but they are separated from the passion of the people, and in Islamic countries this could be a good thing. 

 
 
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PowerPointRanger    Define stable   1/24/2007 6:57:36 PM
If one looks at Italy, for example, the govenment changes about even 18 months.  Compare this to ancient Egypt, where the Pharoes ruled for 4 thousand years...
 
A certain degree of change is obviously a good thing as it allows for the government to adapt to changes in the world.  Too much change, however, can lead to impotent governments which are unable to implement policies before they fall.
 
 
 
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Pseudonym       1/24/2007 9:19:39 PM
"Actually dictatorships are more stable as democracies have more problems assimilating people"

Well I think you might wish to add how the stability is brought about.

Brutally.

Is brutal suppression of all minorities or possible enemies of the state stability?

I guess you could call Saddam's gassing the Kurds an act of stability.
 
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jastayme3       1/24/2007 10:41:32 PM

If one looks at Italy, for example, the govenment changes about even 18 months.  Compare this to ancient Egypt, where the Pharoes ruled for 4 thousand years...

 

A certain degree of change is obviously a good thing as it allows for the government to adapt to changes in the world.  Too much change, however, can lead to impotent governments which are unable to implement policies before they fall.

 

 

I think a dynastic state would count as a third category. If it has enough mystique a dynastic state can go on for quite a while because it's nature provides a primative "constitution" which people obey out of a sense of duty. Saddam's type bears resemblance to a wolf-pack where the chief always has to be toughest. Still dynastic states have a tendancy toward brittleness as well at times.
The Pharoahs were really a special type of dynastic state often called a "hydrolic despotism" dependant on control of the primary resources within a wide valley which allows them to gather forces quickly. They also often control(or live symbiotically with) the religious establishment. This form can live for a long time assuming no outside interference.
Then there is an ideological state, which can actually go quite well for a time. But it depends on the official ideology being believed and the force being feared. There havn't been enough ideological states to really test their viability as sovereign states-most of the Communiest states were vassals. 
The American government had advantages in having a large degree of experience in democracy at the local level and at the same time not having the backlog of anachronisms*  that most countries had. It also had a geographical position that did not necessitate giving undue influence to the military. With all those advantages it is not supriseing it worked as well as it did.
The record of democracy as opposed to other forms is iffy. I would reckon the best for "stability" defined as orderly succession and lack of power struggle, is the "hydrolic despotism". This form really doesn't exist any more because of globalization. Probably the closest to it is the ideological state.

*There was no possible way to rebuild civilization in Europe without appeasing the local warlords and therefore feudalism should not be scorned more then necessary. However by that time it had in most places become something of a liability.
 
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