Spreading democracy for utopia (Iran, Iraq, salaries, middle east)

[Swingblade]

We have spent a lot of our treasure in the lives lost and injuries and about a trillion dollars in funds to spread democracy in the ME. Lets take a look and see what we have reaped :

A coalition of Iraqi human rights groups have filed a lawsuit to try to force highly paid lawmakers to return salaries they received during parliament's five-month recess.
The 325 lawmakers have met only once since they were elected in March 7 polls. During that single 20-minute session in June, the legislators were sworn in and collected a $90,000 stipend. They also have drawn about $22,500 a month in salary and allowances for housing and security.

Groups Demand Iraqi Lawmakers Return Salaries - CBS News (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/05/ap/middleeast/main7026408.shtml - broken link)

How would you feel if you were a soilder? risking your life every day so the law makers that do not legislate or lead pick up vast sums of money. Their leaders can not form a gvt but they were all on board to make sure they were paid. Is this the democracy that we want to spread? the answer must be yes when we consider this :

Billions of dollars are being secreted out of Kabul to help well-connected Afghans buy luxury villas in Dubai. Amid concerns that the money could be the result of corruption, American politicians have temporarily cut off aid to the Afghan government.
Jabarkhel is referring to the huge amounts of money regularly being secreted out of Afghanistan by plane in boxes and suitcases. According to some estimates, since 2007, at least $3 billion (€2.4 billion) in cash has left the country in this way. The preferred destination for these funds is Dubai, the tax haven in the Persian Gulf. And, given the fact that Afghanistan’s total GDP amounts to the equivalent of $13.5 billion, there is no way that the funds involved in this exodus are merely the proceeds of legal business transactions.
Doing Our Best to Boost Property Values in Dubai

Is this what a neo con democracy utopia looks like ? our men and woman risking their lives so they can bilk money out of the country. Where is the outrage for Karzai to be removed? That is where the spread democracy ideology runs into a problem, how can we remove a leader that was elected by the people? I mean that is the main tenet {self rule} that we are trying to spread.
But does hypocricy stop us from trying? It all depends if it is Karzai who we helped place in power the answer is no. But if it is Ahmadinejad the answer is yes. Here is how:
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[SIZE=-1][SIZE=-1]A few days previously, the Telegraph reported on May 16, 2007, that Bush administration neocon warmonger John Bolton told the Telegraph that a US military attack on Iran would “be a ‘last option’ after economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had failed.”[/SIZE]
Paul Craig Roberts: Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated "Color Revolution?"

After the revolution failed and Ahmadinejad was the winner they moved to plan B claiming that the election was stolen. This lie is often repeated by {R} leaders and their duped followers. Is it true :
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[SIZE=-1][SIZE=-1]However, there is hard evidence to the contrary. An independent, objective poll was conducted in Iran by American pollsters prior to the election. The pollsters, Ken Ballen of the nonprofit Center for Public Opinion and Patrick Doherty of the nonprofit New America Foundation, describe their poll results in the June 15 Washington Post. The polling was funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and was conducted in Farsi “by a polling company whose work in the region for ABC News and the BBC has received an Emmy award.”* [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election. [/SIZE]

Paul Craig Roberts: Are You Ready for War with a Demonized Iran?
A miniscule of common sense which neo cons seem to have lacking would tell you that a candidiate that is up in the polls 2 to 1 would have no need to steal a election.

[GregW]

The actions of our Government in the Middle East have very little to do with democracy or governing. We are there to protect Western Oil Company’s access to the petroleum. Iraq was complicated by the personal vendetta between Saddam and the Bush family but was still dominated by access to oil. Afghanistan is simply using our troops to attempt to establish a central government in a Society dominated by warring tribes. The Afghani's appear to not want government of any kind let alone one that would bring on peace or prosperity. The tribes want to be able to collect protection money themselves from the Trans Afghan Pipeline operators without most of it being stolen by Kabul. Again the primary goal of the war is not to establish a Democracy but to establish and protect Western Oil’s access to the huge fields of Central Asia before they are exploited by the Indians or the Chinese. The need to control access to oil deposits is driven by the Industry’s structure wherein the profits are made at the well because that is where the monopoly is created by buying “concessions” from the “government” that controls the area.

As an aside, when Iran formed a “democracy” after the death of the puppet installed by a US coup in 1953, the British Oil company, now BP lost their “concessions” in Iran. Those fields are now controlled by the country of Iran and the right to pump the oil is no longer owned by BP. I expect there will be a tremendous amount of pressure to send “international” troops to restore BP’s monopoly right to pump that oil. We will probably be the pressure applied.

The currently semi functional Iranian Democracy, currently under control of a few Mullahs, will be replaced with a smoothly function descendant of the Pahlavi family by establishing a return of the King. This western dream will not be allowed to happen because the Iranian people are well aware of the coals of the petroleum companies.

Democracy can be SO inconvient.

[Swingblade]

Originally Posted by GregW

The actions of our Government in the Middle East have very little to do with democracy or governing. We are there to protect Western Oil Company’s access to the petroleum. Iraq was complicated by the personal vendetta between Saddam and the Bush family but was still dominated by access to oil. Afghanistan is simply using our troops to attempt to establish a central government in a Society dominated by warring tribes. The Afghani's appear to not want government of any kind let alone one that would bring on peace or prosperity. The tribes want to be able to collect protection money themselves from the Trans Afghan Pipeline operators without most of it being stolen by Kabul. Again the primary goal of the war is not to establish a Democracy but to establish and protect Western Oil’s access to the huge fields of Central Asia before they are exploited by the Indians or the Chinese. The need to control access to oil deposits is driven by the Industry’s structure wherein the profits are made at the well because that is where the monopoly is created by buying “concessions” from the “government” that controls the area.

As an aside, when Iran formed a “democracy” after the death of the puppet installed by a US coup in 1953, the British Oil company, now BP lost their “concessions” in Iran. Those fields are now controlled by the country of Iran and the right to pump the oil is no longer owned by BP. I expect there will be a tremendous amount of pressure to send “international” troops to restore BP’s monopoly right to pump that oil. We will probably be the pressure applied.

The currently semi functional Iranian Democracy, currently under control of a few Mullahs, will be replaced with a smoothly function descendant of the Pahlavi family by establishing a return of the King. This western dream will not be allowed to happen because the Iranian people are well aware of the coals of the petroleum companies.

Democracy can be SO inconvient.

There is truth in both ideas of spreading democracy and protecting oil interest on the reasons we are there. If I am not mistaken in Iran the 3 biggest oil feilds went to the U S,Britian,and China companies. Which makes sense since we were boots on the ground, the British support, and China funding us.
There was a map posted here that showed where our troops were located in relation to the Afgan pipeline. You probally guessed correctly where ever the pipeline was so were the troops. Sure gets me to wondering, and I am predicting we will be there until line is complete and the money is flowing into the right hands.

[sickofnyc]

Originally Posted by reid_g

We have spent a lot of our treasure in the lives lost and injuries and about a trillion dollars in funds to spread democracy in the ME. Lets take a look and see what we have reaped :

Groups Demand Iraqi Lawmakers Return Salaries - CBS News (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/05/ap/middleeast/main7026408.shtml - broken link)

How would you feel if you were a soilder? risking your life every day so the law makers that do not legislate or lead pick up vast sums of money. Their leaders can not form a gvt but they were all on board to make sure they were paid. Is this the democracy that we want to spread? the answer must be yes when we consider this :

Is this what a neo con democracy utopia looks like ? our men and woman risking their lives so they can bilk money out of the country. Where is the outrage for Karzai to be removed? That is where the spread democracy ideology runs into a problem, how can we remove a leader that was elected by the people? I mean that is the main tenet {self rule} that we are trying to spread.
But does hypocricy stop us from trying? It all depends if it is Karzai who we helped place in power the answer is no. But if it is Ahmadinejad the answer is yes. Here is how:
[SIZE=-1]
After the revolution failed and Ahmadinejad was the winner they moved to plan B claiming that the election was stolen. This lie is often repeated by {R} leaders and their duped followers. Is it true :
[SIZE=-1]
Paul Craig Roberts: Are You Ready for War with a Demonized Iran?
A miniscule of common sense which neo cons seem to have lacking would tell you that a candidiate that is up in the polls 2 to 1 would have no need to steal a election.

Spreading democracy...now that's a good one!

Iran Had a Democracy Before We Took It Away

Iranians do not need or want us to teach them about liberty and representative government. They have long embodied this struggle. It is we who need to be taught. It was Washington that orchestrated the 1953 coup to topple Iran’s democratically elected government, the first in the Middle East, and install the compliant shah in power. It was Washington that forced Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, a man who cared as much for his country as he did for the rule of law and democracy, to spend the rest of his life under house arrest. We gave to the Iranian people the corrupt regime of the shah and his savage secret police and the primitive clerics that rose out of the swamp of the dictator’s Iran. Iranians know they once had a democracy until we took it away.
Iran Had a Democracy Before We Took It Away | CommonDreams.org

[Fred314X]

Unfortunately, we didn't do so well spreading the utopia of democracy in Bosnia or, for that matter, Vietnam, either. (And if you go back earlier in the 20th century, you can add the Dominican Republic and Haiti to that list). Neither did our incursion into Iranian sovereignty in the early 1950s lead to paradise in that part of the world. And the last time I looked at my atlas, Korea wasn't united as a result of American military activity either.

When you get right down to it, democracy is not one of our premier exports.

[GregW]

Our Empire has NEVER been about Democracy. It has always been about one way trade, dominance and war.