Democracy push called risky
Global promotion could backfire, congressman says
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansas...s/13891919.htm
(Gold9472: Think of it... an entire "Democratic" world. All voting on easily manipulated diebold machines. This would give the PTB carte blanche as to who they put into power where.)
By WARREN P. STROBEL
Knight Ridder Newspapers
2/17/2006
WASHINGTON — A leading House Republican warned Thursday that President Bush’s promotion of democracy worldwide could backfire, producing chaos rather than stability.
“There is no evidence that we or anyone can guide from afar revolutions we have set in motion,” said Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, chairman of the House International Relations Committee.
Rather than a quick fix to America’s problems overseas, pushing democracy in places that have no history of it “may, in fact, constitute an uncontrollable experiment with an outcome akin to that faced by the Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” Hyde said.
His remarks at a hearing with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reflected a growing unease on Capitol Hill over the direction of U.S. foreign policy after January’s Palestinian parliamentary elections, won by the radical Islamic group Hamas.
The statement by Hyde, 81, who is retiring at the end of this year, did not mention Bush or Rice, and aides said it was meant as a caution, not an attack on the White House.
Nonetheless, the remarks were the most stinging critique to date of Bush’s central foreign policy initiative by a ranking member of his party.
Rice did not respond directly but cited democratic advances in places as varied as Liberia, Haiti, Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan.
Reply With Quote