Originally Posted by willravel

Note: Please feel free to move this to Philosophy if the conversation heads in that direction. I decided with all of it's real world connections, this question would yield better responses in Politics.

America wants to spread freedom. As we have turned on our televisions over the past 40 years or so, we have seen the great American superpower involved directly in the internal affairs of other countries in the name of freedom. As we are a relatively successful free democracy in the minds of our government, it is all right for us to introduce freedom to others, in the wide-eyed hope of bringing them the success we've been fortunate enough to have. Iraq was not the first time America has tried to switch another government to a free democracy. While we have had our successes (Japan, Germany), we have also had our failures.

Iraq could easily go either way at this point, and on the eve of the outcome of their first democratic election, I am considering what freedom means when it is forced upon a people. Bushco would have us believe that their freedom is a benevolent gift from the heroes of the world. Obviously, that is not entirely true. In the effort to free Iraq, we killed and injured hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians. As a matter of fact, the citizens of Iraq never once asked for help in the possible coming revolution. We went in there (originally for WMDs and connections to al Qaeda, only to find that those were fictitious) to liberate their people from a dictator. Saddam has done some atrocious things. He needed to be removed for the good of the Iraqi people, but why did America do this? Is it our freedom to free other people? Does that interfere with their freedom?

In order to answer this, we must first explore what freedom is. Is freedom an abstract word like happiness, rich with favorable associations? There are many unpleasant things in human experience from which we would like to think ourselves free. But abstract words have only abstract meaning without reference to real situations. You must be free from or of something specific. We want to be free of tyranny? Of course. We want to be free of domination by someone else? Basically. Freedom represents that ability to live live without having to serve something that does not represent you. Freedom is not always the lollypop licking, flower planting word of the good people, though. Hitler loved to use the word freedom when he shaped war torn Germany after World War I into his empire. Clearly the word freedom does not have to represent the best of intentions.

Let's be more specific. What does freedom mean to a country like Iraq? Well, the idea that they were not free before suggests that a dictator (Saddam) prevents freedom in some major way, so let's get rid of the dictator and his followers. Now we are dictator-free. What is next? Well, we need to rebuild, because in our effort to free these people and give them a better life, we have destroyed lives and homes and businesses and such. So we rebuild. Now what? Well they need a government, so let's give them a Democracy (because it is the more free government, of course). We hold elections there... Wait a minute. This is our freedom. What if freedom means something else to the Iraqi people? We've already covered that freedom is different to different people. We know freedom can be good or bad. We know that freedom has failed in the past. America has even done it's part in taking apart a few democracies before.

Let's look at some successful and true democracies in order to see what might be best for Iraq. France, Germany and Canada are probably some of the best examples of democracy on the planet (everyone has their faults, but on the whole, they are the most successful). Wait a minute. Those are the same countries who told the US not to go to war with Iraq. They pleaded with us not to strike. America ignored them. We even changed french fries to freedom fries in defiance. I guess we can't use them as examples of freedom. We can't use Haiti or Venezuela either, as America deposed the democratically elected President of Haiti and tried to depose the elected leader of Venezuela. This is beginning to paint a different picture. Has France, Germany, or Canada tried to force democracy on anyone lately? I don't think so. They seem to seek peaceful resolution at all costs.

Let's get back to the questions above. Is it our freedom to free other people? Does that interfere with their freedom? I think not. Bush's promise of freedom was made from behind a bulletproof podium under the eyes of snipers and police dogs. It was made with missile batteries in plain sight and heavily-armored police menacingly occupying every corner of central Washington. In various parts of the world, Americans were keeping thousands of people in cages as he spoke. Torture, centuries after being banned in England, came to America's service in the fight for freedom. A plane, returning an Australian (that could not be found guilty of one illegal act) home after his release from Guantanamo's grotesque tortures, was refused passage across American airspace because the Australians refused to keep him shackled. Our freedom seems not to be freedom. If better democracies than us are not doing this, what gives us the right to impose "freedom"?

Freedom forced is freedom faked.

"The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." - George W. Bush