Violence... The story so far

Editorial

Mr. Bush has done his best to spread his version of democracy across the globe, but mainly in Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. So how is it going? Iraq has democracy in name only. Ditto for Afghanistan. Russia, a wonderful quarry that was also in his sights, has removed itself from the realm of the free.

South America? Well it was written off with Chavez thumbing his nose at the Administration. But lo and behold!

What follows is excerpted from The Nation On Line, 03 Dec 2007:

In an election so managed and manipulated that key opposition parties were tossed off the ballot and critics of Putin were jailed, the Russian president has completely consolidated power in himself. The United Russia Party ticket he headed has claimed total control of the national government in voting that opposition campaigner and former world chess champ Garry Kasparov dismisses as "the dirtiest" in Russian history.

"There can be no doubt that, measured by our standards, these were not free and fair elections, they were not democratic elections," says German government spokesman Thomas Steg. "Russia was no democracy and it is no democracy."

And what of Venezuela?

In voting that saw a massive turnout but few serious complaints about irregularities, voters in the South American country rejected Chavez's request for constitutional changes that would have increased his authority and allowed him to serve as president for so long as he continued to win elections. In effect, the voters chose to maintain term limits on a popular leader who was seen as having overreached.

Accepting the results, Chavez held up a copy of the constitution he had attempted to alter and declared, "We will continue constructing socialism but under this constitution."

Thus, in the country where Bush worked with Putin to advance some kind of democracy, there is no democracy.

And in the country where Bush did everything he could to undermine the elected and popular leader, democracy appears to have prevailed.

Emphasis ours.

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It seems from here that meddling in other countries internal affairs can be counterproductive. Further evidence is out there. Look at the last two decades: Taiwan became a democracy of its own accord. China freed the market, threw off a basic pillar of Communism. By allowing people of faith to worship as they please gave the people of China more freedom than they have known at any time since since WWII. Living conditions improved apace. Meanwhile China brooked no meddling into its internal affairs.

Like we said: