Democracy?

Sorry about the delay between postings.  Unavoidable business trip.

It occurred to me, upon reading my previous postings, that I may be getting a bit too technical.  I invite feedback.  What would you like to see.

This posting won't be technical at all.  I'm sure you're all following the events in the Middle East, since you can't avoid it if you watch the news or read the papers, or follow the net.  What I'm seeing from most of the talking heads is consistent approval of the various "freedom" movements.  After all, it's what the people want - isn't that the purest form of democracy?  It works for us, so why wouldn't it work for them?  They'll work out all the little growing pains, become good, responsible citizens, elect a representative form of government, and all will be well with the world.

Before we all sit around the campfire and sing Kumbaya, we might want to take a look at history.  What mostly happens in "peoples' revolutions" bears little resemblance to our own.  We were revolting against a foreign government, they are revolting against their own.  Our enemies (except for the Tories) were outsiders.  Their enemies are one another.  We seem to forget that some of the greatest mass murderers in history came to power legitimately.  Hitler is an obvious example - he was elected.  Lenin took advantage of a peoples revolt to sieze power, power that devolved to Stalin.  We can go on to discuss Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot and a host of others, but you get the point.

Now, I have no love for Moammar Ghadafi.  I and others were working against Libyan-sponsored terrorism in Europe and Africa all through the eighties and most of the nineties.  But to think that all is going to turn out well there is, to say the least, incredibly optimistic.  Consider this.  Libyans have been some of the most enthusiastic of jihadists.  They've been key members of Al Quada from the beginnning.  Look at the names of some of the ones we've killed or captured.  Many of them end with al Libi.  A hell of a lot of them didn't survive the experience, but those who did are the beneficiaries of what some call "Jihadist Darwinism".  The ones who survived are very good indeed.  To think that they're not salivating, waiting for the main chance to establish a jihadist paradise in eastern Libya is naive, to say the least.  Just across the border they'll be welcomed by the Muslim Brotherhood who, for propaganda purposes, purport to have given up the idea of violent jihad and the establishment of the Caliphate.  Yeah, sure.  Just like Hizballah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

So, democracy?  Only until someone takes advantage of it.