Another Kind of Self-Determination

The Chinese Global Geographic Times, via WORLDMEETS.US, says "America's Iraq Failure is No Failure of Democracy":

Democracy is a good thing for everyone in the world. Americans are no exception and neither are the Iraqis. Iraq's people, like people all over the world, have the right to enjoy democracy - which includes the right to define and develop their own democratic institutions. It should be obvious that the choice of what kind of democracy to choose can only be decided by the Iraqis. The people of every nation have the desire to pursue democracy and must have the freedom to choose the right democratic model consistent with its own conditions.

Democracies differ around the world. The world is a colorful pageantry - so how could the world's democracies be any less so? Democracies are different because each nation's culture, history, values, and stage of social development is different. We can say that the "soil" of the society determines what kind of democratic "tree" grows. Democracy needs nurturing, sure, but most important of all is the soil it grows in.

Democracy cannot be wholly transplanted. Whether democracy takes root and goes on to flower and bear fruit depends on whether the majority of people believe that it's suitable for the country's political, economic, and cultural soil. And whether one looks at history or at current events, the lesson is that forcibly transplanted democracy carried the seeds of its own destruction, and will result in very dangerous consequences..

Read it all (same link). Via the Moderate Voice. I will say I do not see the article, as some do, as solely a defense of the pace of reform in China itself.

Here's another voice on the theme of a people's right to grab hold of freedom at their own pace:

I don't think that unless a greater effort is made by the...[g]overnment to win popular support that the war can be won out there. In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it, the people of Vietnam, against the Communists.

That was John F. Kennedy quoted by former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in his book In Retrospect. Well, you know the rest of the story: the opposite happened, possibly, McNamara believes, hastened by JFK's untimely assassination.

My own position on the Iraq War is extremely complicated and unsettled. I'll try to say a little more about that.