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This article (regarding an Afghani convert to Christianity) calls into question our success in establishing a free Afghanistan.
It was right to overthrow the Taliban-- but things like this make me wonder if we really made any difference at all.
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Not that I am in any way endorsing the murder of someone just for converting. But is it truly a free nation if they are forced to follow our code of conduct?
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So, do we impose our conception of "basic freedoms" on them against their will? Is that then freedom?
What about us? We still have the death penalty, which most "free" countries regard as barbaric and a violation of basic freedoms. Are we then not free?
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That all depends on if you put it in or not. I suppose I should have spelled it out. "A Constitution with freedom of religion, including the right not to believe with equal rights and protection for all."
That better? (I'm sure someone with a more silvery tongue could phrase it better, but you get the idea =)
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But why should, say, the people in Afghanistan adopt such a constitution, other than us making them?
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Democracy has nothing inherent which associates it with freedom. The two concepts are related only through the philosophy which came to dominate our country and spread throughout the world.
With that said, the US only involves itself in conflicts for a reason. It is in our national interest to make sure that Afghanistan becomes a democracy with guarantees of basic freedoms. Otherwise all we will have done is exchange one hostile regime for another.
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Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose.
If that statement is true, then so should your right to freedom of religion end at the entrance to my church. This holds true for a Christian Arab in Afghanistan and a Homosexal Couple in Love in the US.
Afghanistan is Free. Afghanistanees, however, may not be.
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Dan, if by that you mean that the law should not require churchs to marry gay people... You're right.
But if by that you mean that the fact something is against your religion means that the law should be empowered to prevent people, who may or may not be of your religion, from doing that action. Then you're wrong.
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Why should the Afghani adopt a doctrine of freedom of religion? A very large number of them seem not to want to.
If it serves our interest to make sure that they are a democracy with our ideas of basic freedoms, what are we justified in doing to ensure this? Can we force them to adopt what we think they should and watch over them to make sure that they keep to this? Is it right that be free only so long as they agree with us?
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Why should the US have abolished slavery when a very large number of them seemed to want to keep it?
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I think you're missing the thrust of my points, Pix, which is not suprisingly considering that I haven't really made them at all explicit. Suffice it to say, I don't believe that the law that says you should be put to death for converting from Islam is right or should stand.
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I feel an argument of topcial weight coming on.
Do we have a responsability, as liberators, to make sure that the government that is installed in the countries we liberate is "good?"
This ties in to another topic on this site-- countries where we've taken a light hand (Iraq, some South American countries) post-conflict, seem to suffer from harsher follow up governments than countries that we take a heavy hand (Japan, West Germany).
With this in mind, maybe we SHOULDN'T be so liberating.
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Well we all know the founding fathers really meant all White, male, Christian, property owners are created equal.
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Scott, Are you saying that these people shouldn't be able to decide for themselves what sort of government they should have or the rules they are going to live by?
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quote:Are you saying that these people shouldn't be able to decide for themselves what sort of government they should have or the rules they are going to live by?
Shall we play at questions?
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I think these are important questions to answer. If you don't, I'm not sure why you started the topic.
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quote:Are you saying that these people shouldn't be able to decide for themselves what sort of government they should have or the rules they are going to live by?
Shall we play at questions?
Are you familiar with question tennis?
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Squicky -- I'm not guilt-free of this either, but it's pretty annoying when I try to have a conversation with somebody and they'll only respond with questions.
If you think it's important that these questions be answered, why don't you try answering some of them?
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Just think, if we hadn't turned over the government we'd have a chance to maybe shape things a bit. Of course, now we've returned their sovereignty, so any effort to step in heavy-handedly would be an international incident. Aren't we thankful we returned their sovereignty so quickly?
Stepping back from the sarcasm a bit, we botched Afghanistan horribly, both now and in the past. For instance, you want to know who the Taliban are? Fighters trained with funds from us, by Pakistan, to fight the Soviet invaders. You want to know why they were the ones who came out on top instead of the many more level-headed people who did (and do) exist in Afghanistan? Because when the Soviet's pulled out, we ignored Afghanistan instead of helping them rebuild.
Well, we've done basically the same thing again. We did make sure they had fair elections . . . for a nearly powerless government. We did not help them create social and political institutions to make democracy and freedom meaningful, we did not do any substantial work to undermine the fundamental problems of the region (independent warlords living off drug money), and we have basically left once again, though we're paying slightly more attention than last time.
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Oh, and as for the reason we invaded, there's really only one (a good one, mind you): the Taliban would not turn over bin Laden or stop harboring Al Qaida (where harboring in this case constitutes very substantial aid, well beyond what other countries were/are doing).
Of course, when we toppled the Taliban we took upon ourselves the responsibility of establishing a meaningful, effective system of government for the country, one we have brutally failed at.
National security isn't a particular concern any more, the military bases and influence we have guarantee the country is no longer a substantial resource for terrorists. They can oppress freedom all they want and it won't impact our security.
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And I agree. We should have invested more heavily in infrastructure and business there. I understand that there's very little resources that would hold US interests there, but for all the talk about stamping out terrorists, and supporting the war on terror with American citizens' pocket money (rightly so), we've done very little to stamp out what we KNOW has been a terrorist breeding ground.
Porter:
Will you explain the rules to me?
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These aren't really the sort of questions that can be answered definitively. If I have a major point, it's that.
These are very hard issues and, in our current climate, I don't see them being acknowledged, let alone dealt with. Democracy does not equal freedom. Freedom of self-determination will, barring a really advanced population, invariably run afoul of others rights of self-determination. Without some level of maturity and responsibility, self-determination is a bad thing for people to have. The one-perrson-one-vote idea does not, on superficial inspection make much sense. The things we accept without thinking as "basic rights" are not held as such by many other people in the world. Many of these people don't even necessarily want freedom for themselves, let alone for other people. So to ensure freedom for the few, you often have to force things against the freedom of self-determination of the many, often against their will. There's a word for people who take over a country militarily and then stick around to force the citizens of that country to live by rules they don't want.
All of these are crucial issues to determining both what freedom actually is and what our role should be in spreading it. But we don't have these conversations because we've got all these pat, hard-wired answers.
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Scott, You're point seems to me that because the Afghani aren't using their democratic freedoms of self-determination in a way you like, they shouldn't have them. I don't know that freedom to do what they want as long as they don't do things we don't like is a good definition of freedom. So what do you mean when you say that Afghanistan isn't free?
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Would you accept playing Guildenstern in a stage production as equivalent experience?
quote:So what do you mean when you say that Afghanistan isn't free?
I think religious freedom is integral to "being free."
As Afghanistan stands now, I'm afraid we may be unwillingly supporting the formation of a government (again) that is antithetical to basic human rights.
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To your definition of basic human rights. They don't see it that way. The choice you have, then, is to either force them to adopt your definition - which I don't think is freedom - or let them determine things for themselves, in which case they won't support religious freedom (whatever that nebulous term means).
In your opinion, is either scenario going to result in a "free" Afghanistan?
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quote:The choice you have, then, is to either force them to adopt your definition - which I don't think that is freedom - or let them determine things for themselves, in which case they won't support religious freedom (whatever that nebulous term means).
Those aren't the only options, of course.
What I love about western culture is that the good bits stick just as well as the bad bits. Infusing the country with money (piped into infrastructure and technological improvements) and human rights WOULD have gone a long way to making our ideologies acceptable.
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But we didn't do that. In my opinion, one of the reason why we didn't is particularly because the people planning this out hold many of the naive ideas regarding democracy and "freedom" that I'm decrying here. If I was in the councils leading up to our invasions and I started raising these questions, I get the feeling I'd quickly be looking for a new job.
edit: And that leaves apart the question, what if we are unable to persuade them to adopt our ideas of basic human rights? Is it freedom to let them determine things for themselves or is it freedom to force them to live according to our defintions?
Of course, on the topic of religious freedom, do I recall correctly, Scott, that you believe that it's okay for you to push for other people to be treated as second class citizens based solely on your religious beliefs? I remember us having a somewhat involved conversation about that. I'm not sure where the line is in your definition of religious freedom where you are allowed to impose your religion on other people, but the Afghani are apparently violating religious freedom by imposing their religion.
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quote:How do you know if you played Guildenstern or Rosencrantz?
What's the difference?
quote:on the topic of religious freedom, do I recall correctly, Scott, that you believe that it's okay for you to push for other people to be treated as second class citizens based solely on your religious beliefs?
Well, that's one way of putting it, I guess.
"It's like you're my conscience, [Squicky], only less annoying."
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Afghanistan hadn't been successfully invaded since Alexander the Great, IIRC. Since then, every army that has ever tried, until us, has been beaten bloody (although, to be sure, when the Soviets tried the Afghans had a bit of help from us).
If Iraq--which has not been so unforgiving, historically--has turned into a quagmire for our troops, I question whether we could have had more success in Afghanistan had we stayed there. Is it possible that we did the best that could be done by ousting the Taliban, installing some semblance of a government, and high-tailing it out before some warlord decided to attack our troops?
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It is, but nobody wants it. Sure the opium is good, but not good enough to take care of the headache that comes along with it. Not to mention the heartache, the gut ache, and the general pain in the...
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Mabus: that's a bit of a misdirection. There's nothing particularly unreformable about Afghanistan, its just usually either valuable to nobody not Afghani or valuable to two parties at once, leading the second to apply pressure if one invades. Also, the warlords have no incentive or ability to pose a serious threat to US troops, much as any conventional force in the region (and the warlords aren't particularly impressive examples; they're local bullies).
Additionally, Iraq most certainly has been that unforgiving as well. It used to be called Mesopotamia; read up on the two British occupations in the last century. They didn't even leave due to an opposing force! However, their failures are fairly well understood (hint: we're repeating some of the failures that have been studied in-depth), and largely due to decision making improperly influenced by extraneous factors.
Colonialism caused many problems, but its worst tend to be those involved in its cessation. They way Europe (particularly GB) went about ending its colonial efforts led to many millions of death in the short term, and have caused problems costing significant numbers of lives even today (Kashmir, anyone?). Almost all those problems can be traced to providing insufficient support for equitable social and governmental institutions in the regions, to withdrawing and letting the natives sort the details out. With Afghanistan we've soundly committed that mistake twice (after the Soviets pulled out we ignored them, and now we've dropped the ball again), and we're looking to make it with Iraq as well (current scholarship is starting to come to a consensus that the Iraqization of the security forces there is increasing sectarian tension, not easing the situation).
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