Pro War in Iraq

Pro War in Iraq
I do not subscribe to the fashionable notion of moral equivalence between all deeply-held beliefs. I believe in the rights of the individual over the collective. I believe democracy is better than dictatorship, both morally and practically. Not necessarily democracy as we or the Americans or the French practice it, but the idea that in every possible practical way, you should let people make their own decisions, and if these decisions need to be circumscribed in any way, then you should only do it with the explicit approval of a majority of the people in question. And above all that a people must be able to change governments and leaders without resorting to force. So my ongoing position is that I am not comfortable with a world in which there are prosperous democracies and failing dictatorships, and we are supposed not to notice because somehow it would be disrespectful of the people living under the dictatorships. I don't buy it. The problem, of course, is that many peoples currently living under dictatorships might, if asked right now, come up with some deeply unpleasant policy decisions. They might even vote against democracy, saying they don't want it. This is the worry in many countries with an Islamic fundamentalism problem: if they can get a majority the fundamentalists are committed to democracy under the slogan "one man, one vote, just this once". That is not democracy. Democracy needs certain conditions to get started. It is an eco-system, not a single tree, you can't just plant it and sit back in its shade. But once it is established, it is hard to uproot. People talk about democracy needing a democratic "culture", but culture is the wrong word, it makes it sound subjective. What it really needs is a universal foundation based on respect for the individual: freedom of speech, freedom of association, primacy of the rule of law, relinquishing the use of political violence, the rights of women to participate fully in economic,