http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0, ... 67,00.html
Yn cynnwys:
To meet a responsibility to someone, you must have something on offer that they want. Certainly, the people of Iraq want electricity, running water and other material assistance. The US should supply it.
Perhaps - it's hard to find out - they also want democracy. But democracy cannot be shipped to Iraq on a tanker. It is a home-grown construct that must flow from the will of the people involved. The expression of that will is, in fact, what democracy is.
But today the US seeks to impose a government on Iraq in the teeth of an increasingly powerful popular opposition. The result of this policy can be seen in the shameful attacks from the air on the cordoned-off city of Falluja.
The more the US tries to force what it insists on calling democracy on Iraq, the more the people of Iraq will hate the US and even, perhaps, the name of democracy. There is no definition of an obligation that includes attacking the supposed beneficiaries' cities with F-16s and AC-130 gunships.
President Bush said recently of the Iraqis, "It's going to take a while for them to understand what freedom is all about." Hachim Hassani, a representative of the Iraqi Islamic party, a leading Sunni Muslim group on the so-called governing council, might have been answering him when he commented to the Los Angeles Times, "The Iraqi people now equate democracy with bloodshed."
