The Long Road.

Billy Beck makes a point that I made yesterday:

Doug Mataconis links and quotes Radley Balko on the latest rumblings among the savages:

“This is why ‘spreading democracy’ is such a foolish foreign policy objective. There are lots of places in the world where we don’t particularly want a democracy. What do we do, now that our ally in Pakistan is suppressing dissent, punishing political opponents, suspending the country’s constitution, and declaring martial law?

When a country attacks us without provocation, or shelters the people who do, we should fight back. We should destroy that regime, in our own defense. But we should call it what it is: national defense. We aren’t doing it because we particularly care about the people in that country. Because we don’t. At least not when the choice is our safety and security versus theirs.

By pushing this ‘bringing democracy to the Middle East’ nonsense, we’re now in the precarious position of explaining why we’re going to sit idly by while one of our allies wholly dispenses with democracy, and cements an absolutist grip on power.”

You know, a very thick problem with hypocrisy and mendacity is in explaining oneself when events call authoritatively. Mataconis makes a crucial point:

“Well, the reason is because they need to do it in order to prevent the country from descending in to chaos and civil war. And if that’s what it takes to prevent a nation of 100 million people armed with nuclear weapons from being turned over to fanatics then, well, that’s what it takes and we should just like Musharaaf do what needs to be done. It’s really none of our business.”

Only from where I sit, mind you, considering the whole disaster now so historically deep that the very worst can be expected at any moment with nearly metaphysical immutability, it nonetheless looks like very little or nothing was going to prevent Pakistan from descending into chaos and civil war. It was never going anywhere good that they had nuclear weapons, which rather means that it will be someone’s business when the wrong set of kooks finally gets their hands on the things. Musharraf is on the tiger now, but there is always profit in confusion and I think one should safely bet on intensified Islamoguerrhea against the government and bystanders. The street-bomb-animals can only profit, according to their scales of values, while Musharraf plays the teeter tottering on the pin-point of power. It’s bound to come apart sooner or later for him, and I think it deeply foolish to expect anything sane, let alone responsible, from people among whom the power of government has never been brought near the light of reason.

Well, the idea of it all coming apart for him seems to me less likely than people TRYING to make it all come apart for him. If and when it comes apart for him it will come down to how we reacted to the situation.

The left and the press (A redundancy) just now is taking great pleasure in knee-jerking this into just another Arab strongman, (thereby making Musharraf a tool to beat George Bush over the head with) and there seems to be a number of folks, Balko among them, willing to toss the whole idea of supporting western friendly nations, such as Pakistan has been of late, on the basis of Musharraf’s kicking a few butts over there. But history has some say in this, or should. This is a lesson Iran should have taught us about the necessity for such rulers in such places.  Remember? We got worried about the strongman tactics with the Shah. His replacement should be a lesson to those who worry about strongman tactics, now…. that a strongman is not the worst scenario.

The difference with Musharraf is, he’s trying to move the country in the direction of Democracy, (unlike the Shah) but al Queida seems to have other ideas. And of course the nukes there are a major reason for it. DO we really want to moralize ourselves into al Queida running the show over there?

As I said yesterday:

We can get all wrapping up in moralizing arguments about how we should be supporting Democracy and Musharraf is not play that game. But the bottom line is, out here in the real world, that unless Musharraf wins this one, Democracy doesn’t have much hope, there. As Billy says… getting democracies up and running, depend on the ideas of the people involved;

Impressing the shape of institutions that are founded elsewhere on and the consequences of ideas will not make those institution-shapes work like the real thing. The crucial element is the ideas that make them institutions. Never in my whole life has Pakistan gotten over the idea that the power to rule can be had by the mightiest or shrewdest. What’s the news here?

Again, it comes down to the time to put this stuff together. And that includes the spreading of the ideas behind such institutions at a cultural level, before it’ll work at a governmental level. Think about what what frightens the AQ folks the most… IDEAS. They kill people publicly for holding ideas they disapprove of.  That takes time to overcome.It’s most certainly not going to happen inside of 30 minutes (Minus 11 minutes for commercials).  By definition, that’s the long road. And I wonder if the American people have the courage to see it through.