A fascinating study by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations:
"A new poll finds that a majority of Americans reject the idea of using military force to promote democracy. Only 35 per cent favoured using military force to overthrow dictators. Less than one in five favoured the US threatening to use military force if countries do not institute democratic reforms.
"The effort to promote democracy in Iraq is generating little enthusiasm. Seventy-four percent (including 60% of Republicans) said that the goal of overthrowing Iraq's authoritarian government and establishing a democracy was not a good enough reason to go to war. Seventy-two percent said that the experience there has made them feel worse about the possibility of using military force to bring about democracy in the future. Sixty-four percent (65% of Republicans) are ready to accept an Iraqi constitution that does not fully meet democratic standards and once the constitution is ratified 57% want to start withdrawing troops.
"A new poll finds that a majority of Americans reject the idea of using military force to promote democracy. Only 35 per cent favoured using military force to overthrow dictators. Less than one in five favoured the US threatening to use military force if countries do not institute democratic reforms.
"The effort to promote democracy in Iraq is generating little enthusiasm. Seventy-four percent (including 60% of Republicans) said that the goal of overthrowing Iraq's authoritarian government and establishing a democracy was not a good enough reason to go to war. Seventy-two percent said that the experience there has made them feel worse about the possibility of using military force to bring about democracy in the future. Sixty-four percent (65% of Republicans) are ready to accept an Iraqi constitution that does not fully meet democratic standards and once the constitution is ratified 57% want to start withdrawing troops.
"Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) comments, 'More broadly, most Americans do not appear to have been persuaded by President Bush's State of the Union argument that promoting democracy is a critical means of fighting terrorism and making the world safer.'"
The results are instructive and reflect a growing unease at using American military power across the globe. However, the Iraqi invasion was never about bringing democracy to the country or the region, so the presumption of some questions was misguided. Furthermore, some respondents expressed dissatisfaction with America's own form of democracy and their inability to shape policy in Washington.
The key message is this: even though the majority of the mainstream media - from the conservative to the more "liberal" - all accept America's role in the world as destined to spread freedom, more people are starting to see the dangerous assumptions of many in government - and the commentariat - who always rush towards the military option. Americans view of themselves is largely distorted through the prism of their perceived importance in the world. Interestingly, many Americans will be unaware of the hatred towards them by individuals in countries supposedly "liberated" by the US.
The results are instructive and reflect a growing unease at using American military power across the globe. However, the Iraqi invasion was never about bringing democracy to the country or the region, so the presumption of some questions was misguided. Furthermore, some respondents expressed dissatisfaction with America's own form of democracy and their inability to shape policy in Washington.
The key message is this: even though the majority of the mainstream media - from the conservative to the more "liberal" - all accept America's role in the world as destined to spread freedom, more people are starting to see the dangerous assumptions of many in government - and the commentariat - who always rush towards the military option. Americans view of themselves is largely distorted through the prism of their perceived importance in the world. Interestingly, many Americans will be unaware of the hatred towards them by individuals in countries supposedly "liberated" by the US.
9 Comments:
(Actual questions asked available at currently http://www.pipa.org/ )
John "I couldn’t justify on its own a military invasion of Iraq to change the regime" Howard seems wussy compared some of the respondents.
28% of independents disagreed with "Democracy is the best form of government", compared to 13% of republicans and 10% of democrats. It's a bit surprising what would be viewed as the middle of the spectrum has stronger views than either Democrats or Republicans.
Only 28% think nearly all countries will eventually become democracies. That seems fairly pessimistic.
Q16: promoting democracy is more likely to be viewed as a very important foreign policy goal in September 05 than July 04.
"Seventy-four percent (including 60% of Republicans) said that the goal of overthrowing Iraq's authoritarian government and establishing a democracy was not a good enough reason to go to war."
They seemed to remove from Q42 (the question asked) "by itself". Just a typo no doubt.
Q44 seems to be a very "with us or against us" question.
You are both mistaken. The whole purpose was the elimination of Saddam and the attempt to ensure another Saddam did not take his place.
That required the attempt of introducing democracy.
So far, it hasn't worked. Oh well.
But it did show how blood thirsty Sunni Islamistism is.
The US goal of "using military force to promote democracy" (a contradiction in itself) is no more credible than the WMDs or 'terror links' excuse. Its about permanent bases and Gulf oil, and always has been.
Turkey isn't bloody? Your forgetting the Armanian Genocide?
There is no Shia majority in Turkey for the Sunnis to murder.
What is happening in Iraq, specifically, and what is happening in the rest of the world, generally, can be atributed to the terrorism generated by the Sunnis
Sunnis seem to get their blood lust up when the 'lessers' get on their high horse and demand equality or seem to be acting against what the Sunni believes to be in his best interest. It seems this Sunni instinct to slaughter the 'other' must be aroused. If their 'superiority' is acknowledged in word and deed, they are happy.
What impresses you is the least of anyones concern.
Oh well?
The means are justified by themselves. Saddam needed to go and "his" countrymen were doing nothing about it.
Dirt seems to care less that Saddam deliberate killed 500,000 children in a PR scheme.
Keep playing in the dirt.
ibrahamav said "Saddam needed to go and "his" countrymen were doing nothing about it."
This is just one of many insults Iraqis have to put up with since this invasion.
Do you know that there were times when Saddam was told by western intelligence about planed attacks against him? The attacks failed, the people involved where tortured and killed.
Iraqis from ALL backgrounds tried to get Iraq a better future under Saddam, many of them ended up in mass graves, others in prison, others learned the hard way by fear to save your life and your family’s life you better shut up when it comes to politics, and some hold on to what ever strength they could find and fled the country.
You should know that I feel very insulted on behalf of all my countrymen who gave their lives for a better Iraq. And what did the western democratic countries do? They sold Saddam weapons, they gave him loans, they did business for millions of dollars; during all the time he was torturing his people but no western government complained. He was pro-west and sold them oil so they had no objections that he was a brutal dictator. Money, oil and business deals was far more important then Iraqis lives and human rights.
Some argue we made a mistake and we are correcting it now, I say you are not honest at all, empty words. You don’t correct this “mistake” by sending napalm like weapons on us Iraqis; you don’t correct this “mistake” by dropping cluster bombs on us, you don’t correct this “mistake” by tortuing us, you don’t correct this "mistake" by saying its better to get the terrorist to Iraq in order for you to have your war on terror in Iraq and by it scarify us Iraqis instead of U.S folks.
You don’t correct you “mistake” and act as you do in Uzbekistan now, the west is behaving in a way that makes me see it as Iraq was in the beginning of the 80:s. Don’t you think that people who loose their loves one from torture boiled to death of the Uzbekistani government are blaming western democratic countries for their support to a brutal leader, for them selling weapons, army training and business deals with their brutal terrorist governments? Or have you so blindly memorized “they hate our freedoms”?
Aren’t the western democracies once again making a brutal leader more strong and powerful in using his terror? How can this be allowed when we at the same time hear Blair and Bush etc say supporting terrorism by financial and other means must be punished? Why aren’t they punishing each other then?
If this hypocrisy ended and we started being honest a lot of people will be better-off!
In Iraq they are even talking about giving a death penalty to anyone found guilty of such support to terrorists. Why are western democracies so blinded to the fact that they say we are against terror and at the same time using terror attacks themselves and giving support to dictators who use terror?
Take a look at China, western democracies are flooding over there, investments are done with the biggest dictatorship on this planet, how is this allowed? Money, money, cut cost, business and wealth back to the west then anything is allowed. Western companies are even helping this dictatorship censoring words from the Internet, words such as human rights, freedom etc, it’s absolutely disgraceful.
I fully believe that doing business with each other is good but not when one partner is a dictator government and the other partner is taking advantage of the dictatorship to become richer. This is exactly what happened in Iraq, why are we doing it again? Doing it in many other countries too? Why is the Blair government selling so huge amount of weapons for years to Saudi Arabia? Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship? When we start being honest a lot of us will be better of!
I'm glad you're insulted. Now maybe you'll learn how to do things right.
Then you can insult me. But until you figure it out, you're screwed.
Weak response to a sob sister whose sole complaint is the lack of credit given to the typical Iraqi rebel who attempted to overthrow saddam, only to be thwarted when the French or Russians leaked their plans?
Hardly.
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