Is Promoting Freedom and Democracy worth it?

Ray · 03-18-2005, 22:07 PM

The spreading of Freedom and Democracy is not an issue that is novel to the US, except that it has of late reached a high publicity. US has always historically funded organisation that devoted itself to these two principles.

Freedom and Democracy does not come cheap.

However, now the emphasis is heavily tilted towards the Moslem world. Other areas are not receiving the same attention including those who have changed sides recently and may return to the old fold unless there is a cognitive difference experienced in their daily lives since hope and aspirations have gone way beyond practical indices.

Therefore, how does it auger for the concept and march of Freedom and Democracy worldwide, if non Moslem states where progress was initiated fail because of lack of funding?

Would it be adequate if only the Moslem world turned a leaf?

The news article below from MSNBC explores some of the issues.

Quote:

Funds scarce for U.S. to export freedom
Outside Middle East, American efforts lag
By Peter Baker
Updated: 11:21 p.m. ET March 17, 2005

In the weeks after a popular uprising toppled a corrupt government in Ukraine, President Bush hailed the so-called Orange Revolution as proof that democracy was on the march and promised $60 million to help secure it in Kiev. But Republican congressional allies balked and slashed it this week to $33.7 million

The shrinking financial commitment to Ukrainian democracy highlights a broader gap between rhetoric and resources among budget writers in the Bush administration and on Capitol Hill as the president vows to devote his second term to "ending tyranny in our world," according to budget documents, congressional critics and democracy advocates.

The administration has pumped substantial new funds into promoting democracy in Muslim countries but virtually nowhere else in the world. The administration has cut budgets for groups struggling to build civil society and democratic institutions in Russia, Eastern Europe and Asia, even as Moscow has pulled back from democracy and governments in China, Burma, Uzbekistan and elsewhere remain among the most repressive in the world.

• Special report: The Bush administration
Funding for the National Endowment for Democracy has remained flat for the past two years except in the Middle East, while separate democracy-building programs have been slashed by 38 percent in Eastern Europe and 46 percent in the former Soviet Union during Bush's presidency. The venerable beacons of American-style democracy, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, are receiving no sizable increases.

Lorne W. Craner, who until recently was assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, said the shifting priorities are a logical byproduct of the post-Sept. 11 world, in which fostering democracy in Muslim communities came to be seen as a means to combat terrorism.

"People in other regions for two or three years after 9/11 said, 'You're not giving us as much attention as we deserve,' and I think that was a fair critique and the reason was we were creating a whole new policy for the Middle East," Craner said. "A lot of people's time was taken up by the Middle East that, but for 9/11, would have gone to other areas. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so. Certainly I would say we needed to pay more attention to the Middle East."

The focus on Iraq, he added, will be critical to setting a role model for other regions as well. "If Iraq doesn't work," he said, "a lot of people are going to say, 'Is that what you mean by democracy?' "

But others took issue with the selective aid. "The president is not putting his money where his mouth is," said Tom Malinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch. While giving Bush credit for investing in democracy in the Middle East, he added, "There are just big country-by-country, region-by-region differences when it comes to the administration's commitment to democracy promotion."

"There are a number of countries that aren't getting much democracy aid," said Thomas Carothers, director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's project on democracy and the rule of law. Carothers pointed to mass arrests of protesters seeking restoration of democracy in Nepal this week. "There are places like that where we're losing because they're on the edge of the world and people aren't paying attention."

Widespread funding cuts
Among groups that will lose out is the Asia Foundation, which works to reform legal codes, foster civil society and promote women's rights in places such as Indonesia, where it is credited with helping the transition from decades of dictatorship. The Bush budget for the 2006 fiscal year cuts the foundation's grant from $13 million to $10 million. "Any cut at that level would be very difficult for our program," said Nancy Yuan, a foundation vice president.

Also facing cuts is the Eurasia Foundation, which has been told that the final installment of a $25 million grant to set up a U.S.-European-Russian democracy program in Russia may be delayed despite President Vladimir Putin's moves to clamp down on political opposition. "We can't give up," said Charles William Maynes, president of the Eurasia Foundation. "It would be disastrous if we do."

The International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), the main U.S. agencies that teach political activists how to conduct fair elections, devote about half of their budgets to Iraq and the Middle East, according Craner, who is now IRI president.

Measuring how much Washington spends on democracy promotion is difficult because the money is scattered among programs and much of it is embedded in grants by the U.S. Agency for International Development. But recent trends have been clear. USAID spending on democracy and governance programs alone shot up from $671 million in 2002 to $1.2 billion in 2004, but almost all of that increase was devoted to Iraq and Afghanistan. Without those two countries, the USAID democracy spending in 2004 was $685 million, virtually unchanged from two years earlier.

Bush broadened his focus beyond the Middle East in his second inaugural address when he issued a manifesto to promote democracy around the globe, declaring it U.S. policy "to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture."

The budget he submitted to Congress two weeks later, however, included no huge new investment in such institutions beyond the Muslim world.

The National Endowment for Democracy, which funds the IRI, the NDI and other programs, received $80 million, twice its budget of two years ago, but the entire $40 million increase went to Bush's Middle East democracy initiative, leaving everything else flat. Voice of America received an extra $10 million, but it was devoted to expanding programs in Persian, Dari, Urdu and Pashtu aimed at non-Arabic Muslim listeners. The only other broadcasts to get major funding increases were those aimed at Cuba, which went from $27 million to $37.9 million.

At the same time, funding for the Support for East European Democracy Act was sliced by an additional $14 million, to $382 million. The largest part of this program is aimed at Serbia, still in transition from the era of Slobodan Milosevic. And funding for the Freedom Support Act focusing on Russia and 11 other former Soviet republics was slashed by $78 million, to $482 million, down from $894 million in 2002.

‘Not well organized right now’
"The U.S. government is not well organized right now to realize the administration's rhetoric on democracy," said Jennifer Windsor, executive director of Freedom House, an organization that promotes democracy abroad.

The cuts to the Freedom Support Act have drawn criticism from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.); his panel this month adopted a statement urging the administration "to consider the harm its proposed cuts in funding assistance could have on U.S. interests in stability, democracy and market reform" in the region.

The funding reductions come at a time when such programs have enjoyed successes in Georgia and Ukraine, where U.S.-trained activists helped push out unpopular governments. To help consolidate the gains, Bush attached $60 million for Ukraine to his supplemental appropriation bill funding the war in Iraq, with money earmarked to promote judicial independence, youth participation in politics, legal protections for press freedom and preparations for parliamentary elections.

But even as Bush plans to host new Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, the House cut the funding request nearly in half.

Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, said he focused on programs that will help Yushchenko in the short term and promised to revisit Ukraine in upcoming budget deliberations for fiscal 2006.

"There's finite resources," Kolbe said. "There's never enough to do what you want to do, but I think we're making a good effort."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7225614/page/1/

dalem · 03-19-2005, 05:14 AM

You do what you can with what you have. Right now the M.E. is the area most in need of the kick in the pants we can provide.

-dale

Ray · 03-19-2005, 05:50 AM

dalem · 03-19-2005, 14:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray

Uh oh, Ray has been possessed by the Spirit of lull!

Exorcism time.

"The power of common sense compels you! The power of common sense compels you!"

-- when the heck did I become a "senior member"??? What's that about?

-dale

Synikul · 03-19-2005, 14:55 PM

Promoting freedom increases our own security, so it's worth it.

Confed999 · 03-19-2005, 16:22 PM

There are only so many people and resources available. If more of the world felt the same way, freedom would come much faster.

**Officer of Engineers** · 04-05-2005, 01:59 AM

As I read this, shades of the White Man's Burden comes to mind.

The Chap · 04-05-2005, 02:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Synikul

Promoting freedom increases our own security, so it's worth it.

The freedom to or the freedom from? Most continental Euro nations would (esp. the French) would vote to nuke the US. But they have no balls. So instead they simply attempt to undermine trans-atlantic models of classical Anglo-Saxon democratic rights being spread by economic or military inervention. The stated opinion of many in bruges is to provide an alternate yet nominally democratic power bloke that can project a Napoleanic as opposed to Common Law code globally.

Needless to say, this makes me as happy as a Frenchman seeing another English word in his dictionary.

They're stll exceptionally cross that the US was founded along British concepts of freedoms assumed and not theirs of rights granted. So sod'em.

lwarmonger · 04-05-2005, 18:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Officer of Engineers

As I read this, shades of the White Man's Burden comes to mind.

A common trait of the dominant power is to assume that it's way is correct. Naturally, well meaning people in the dominant power will try to help others help themselves by spreading that way of doing things. It is only natural. Personally, I feel that if others wish to emulate the American way of doing things, then more power too them. But the isolationist in me dislikes the committments abroad that this generates (

).

Confed999 · 04-09-2005, 12:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lwarmonger

A common trait of the dominant power is to assume that it's way is correct.

When is slavery the correct way?

Ray · 04-09-2005, 15:14 PM

Quote:

Uh oh, Ray has been possessed by the Spirit of lull!

I was about to reply with a Smiley, but didn't lest you thought I was Lull reincarnate!

Ray · 04-09-2005, 15:17 PM

Chap,

The French have no balls, and....

the British have nuke subs which don't work.

I read this in a report that the missiles have heavy outers and some flap or the other would inhibit them from reaching the target.

Therefore, what's the EU vs USA all about?

How is Freedom to be protected?

**Julie** · 04-09-2005, 16:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray

Therefore, what's the EU vs USA all about?

Mostly credibility.

The Chap · 04-18-2005, 20:36 PM

Brit subs don't work?

Probably true

Hell of a bet however!

How is freedom (I really would like a definition - most African colonies won the freedom to starve etc.) defended. By the USA. As far as my definition goes.

Also a Ghengis Khan mountain made from the skulls of the legal profession. That would guantee a little more liberty.

Confed999 · 04-18-2005, 21:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Chap

How is freedom (I really would like a definition - most African colonies won the freedom to starve etc.) defended. By the USA. As far as my definition goes.

I really don't understand what you're saying. Gotta toss in 2 cents though. How many colonies has the USA held vs. how many colonies held by the British? Then, why are they starving, fighting each other, etc., and how would freedom be blamed?

Main Entry: free·dom
Pronunciation: 'frE-d&m
Function: noun
1 : the quality or state of being free: as a : the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action b : liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another : INDEPENDENCE c : the quality or state of being exempt or released usually from something onerous <freedom from care> d : EASE, FACILITY <spoke the language with freedom> e : the quality of being frank, open, or outspoken <answered with freedom> f : improper familiarity g : boldness of conception or execution h : unrestricted use <gave him the freedom of their home>
2 a : a political right b : FRANCHISE, PRIVILEGE

03-19-2005, 16:22 PM	#6 (permalink)
Confed999 Staff Emeritus Join Date: 09-10-03 Location: Florida Posts: 10,681 Country:	There are only so many people and resources available. If more of the world felt the same way, freedom would come much faster. __________________ No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

04-05-2005, 01:59 AM	#7 (permalink)
Officer of Engineers *Military Professional* Moderator Scotch taster Join Date: 08-06-03 Posts: 16,554 Country:	As I read this, shades of the White Man's Burden comes to mind. __________________ Chimo

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
In China, Talk of Democracy Is Simply That	Ray	Current Affairs	1	04-22-2007 09:55 AM
Can we think a democracy without freedom or a freedom without democracy?	AlpErTunga	World Affairs Board Pub	4	01-30-2007 19:14 PM
Campaign to split UK 'may fuel race tensions'	Ray	Political Discussions	48	01-30-2007 12:13 PM
Who is really afraid of democracy?	Ray	Current Affairs	3	05-14-2006 04:52 AM
President Outlines Steps to Help Iraq Achieve Democracy and Freedom	Leader	International Defense Topics	2	05-25-2004 20:13 PM

03-19-2005, 05:14 AM	#2 (permalink)
dalem Lord High Hullabalooster *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 11-23-04 Location: Columbia Heights, MN Posts: 8,518 Country:	You do what you can with what you have. Right now the M.E. is the area most in need of the kick in the pants we can provide. -dale

03-19-2005, 05:50 AM	#3 (permalink)
Ray Postmaster General *Military Professional* Join Date: 08-20-03 Posts: 27,117 Country:

03-19-2005, 14:55 PM	#5 (permalink)
Synikul Regular Join Date: 04-18-04 Location: Columbus,OH Posts: 43	Promoting freedom increases our own security, so it's worth it.

04-09-2005, 15:17 PM	#12 (permalink)
Ray Postmaster General *Military Professional* Join Date: 08-20-03 Posts: 27,117 Country:	Chap, The French have no balls, and.... the British have nuke subs which don't work. I read this in a report that the missiles have heavy outers and some flap or the other would inhibit them from reaching the target. Therefore, what's the EU vs USA all about? How is Freedom to be protected?

04-18-2005, 20:36 PM	#14 (permalink)
The Chap *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 08-18-04 Location: UK Posts: 1,204 Country:	Brit subs don't work? Probably true Hell of a bet however! How is freedom (I really would like a definition - most African colonies won the freedom to starve etc.) defended. By the USA. As far as my definition goes. Also a Ghengis Khan mountain made from the skulls of the legal profession. That would guantee a little more liberty.

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)