Democracy and Terrorism

In his speech before the United Nations, Bush used the speech to marry the United Nations' goals of defeating poverty and disease with his vision of fighting terrorism by promoting democracy.

Bush used his speech to explain why, in his view, democracy thwarts the growth of terrorism. "Democratic nations uphold the rule of law, impose limits on the power of the state, treat women and minorities as full citizens," he said. "Democratic nations protect private property, free speech and religious _expression."

Writing in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, F. Gregory Gause III said that a review of academic literature and statistics finds little evidence that democracy stops terrorism. Gause, a political science professor at the University of Vermont, noted that the State Department's records show that, between 2000 and 2003, India, the world's most populous democracy, had 203 terrorist attacks while, China, the world's most populous authoritarian state, had none. One study cited by Gause found that "most terrorist incidents occur in democracies and that generally both the victims and the perpetrators are citizens of democracies."

Should someone point out to the president that the terrorism attacks of 9/11 took place in a democracy? Shouldn't he be aware that the bombings in Spain and England took place in democracies?

Does that make democracy wrong? Of course not. But trying to force our version of democracy onto Iraq only increases the dangers of terrorism. We need to get out of Iraq and let them decide what form of government they desire, even if it is different than what we see as "right." We have to stop the carnage and stop kidding ourselves on what the eventual outcome will be of this war other than the death of 2,000 American troops and untold numbers of Iraqis.
We also now need that money and manpower to help in this country with the aftermath of Katrina.