The Sweet Smell of Democracy

Here's a fun fact. Prior to September 11, 2001 in Afghanistan, girls weren't going to school and religious minorities were being persecuted. And yes, men could, under certain circumstances, legally rape their wives.

And you know what? Nobody gave a shit. As a matter of fact, the only country in the world that was prepared to take military action against the Taliban was Iran. We couldn't care less about what the Afghan government was doing to their people.

Furthermore, we were right not to care. Here's a quick lesson in how the world works: If you're going to bitch about how another country acts within its own borders, the only serious option is to go in with military force and change that country's government.

That's morally difficult to do when the West operates on such a blatant double-standard. If the barbarian countries at issue are rich or dangerous, they get a pass. China owns everybody's mortgage, so they can do whatever they want. Saudi Arabia has all of the oil, so they can do whatever they want. Changing the North Korean government might result in someone getting hurt, so they can do whatever they want.

That, my friends, is the way of the world. Over half of the world's population lives under truly vicious circumstances, often created by their own governments. It's as depressing as hell, but what are you going to do? You can't invade everybody, the Bush Doctrine notwithstanding.

From time to time, however, the West finds itself in a Fourth-World shithole and figures that it can change the world. Oddly, changing the world is almost never the reason why we found ourselves in said shitholes, but shit happens.

Remember when going going into Afghanistan was supposed to be about wiping out al-Qaeda? You never hear about them anymore, do you? Remember how invading Iraq was supposed to save us all from the threat of a mushroom cloud? Of course you don't.

In both wars, when the original objective became unobtainable, the objective morphed into something profoundly dumb. We wanted to make everybody free, which is noble, but still dangerous and stupid.

Democracy is great if you're, say, Connecticut. Occasionally your elected representatives will get unnaturally favorable mortgages from Countrywide, but that's usually as bad as it gets. The world would be a much better better place if Chris Dodd was the worst person in the in the world, instead of his current ranking of thirty-second. And yes, I do have a list.

Sadly, the rest of the world just isn't like Connecticut and probably never will be. Almost immediately after the fall of the tyrant Saddam, the Iraqi people used their new freedom to slaughter one another at a rather impressive pace. And because the American military was in they way, they started getting slaughtered, too. Oh, and the Iraqis still don't like Israel very much.

Afghanistan formed a semi-effective, if democratic, government almost immediately after the Taliban were sent next door for some "quiet time." With the aid and comfort of NATO, they utilized their new found freedom by manufacturing tons of heroin and passing some truly bizarre laws.

A law that lets Afghan husbands starve their wives if they refuse to obey their sexual demands has been quietly slipped into effect, despite promises from Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, that it would be reviewed and rigorously debated in the country's parliament.

Women's activists have accused the President of abandoning human rights in a bid to appease hardline clerics who support the law, in exchange for votes in the presidential elections next week.

Mr Karzai ordered a wide-ranging review of the legislation after The Independent revealed that it negated the need for consent within marriage, effectively condoning rape. The law included a requirement that a wife have sex with her husband at least every four days, as well as a range of other measures that imposed drastic restrictions on the freedoms of Shia women.

The story caused international scorn, with President Barack Obama branding it "abhorrent," and Gordon Brown said Britain would "not tolerate" it. Other Nato countries threatened to withdraw their troops unless the legislation was drastically rewritten.

You can say a lot of things about the Afghan "rape law." You can say that it's abhorrent and intolerable. I'd go so far as to say that it's fucking animalistic, and if I held office, I would use those precise words.

But what you can't say is that the law is undemocratic. The parliament and president of Afghanistan were duly elected by the people, and they passed this legal abomination. That nobody bothered to actually read the law is meaningless, as one can glean from America's recent experience with the USA Patriot Act and the 450 current health care reform bills out there. Just because the United States government is devious and/or lazy isn't a reason to question its legitimacy.

By the way, the Afghan law isn't altogether different from the religious zealotry that disallows the good people of Alabama from buying or selling dildos. Not only was the "Dildo Law" affirmed by the Alabama legislature, it was also upheld by the Circuit Court of Appeals. Just because something is retarded at the sub-atomic level doesn't make it undemocratic. Usually, the retardation makes it especially democratic.

Here's another good example of what I mean. The Taliban insurgency - and, by the way, most of America's Afghan allies - are funded with heroin money. As you well know, the price of heroin is unnaturally high because of Western prohibition laws and the continuing Western demand. Our laws are making a titanic fucking mess of their society. The same thing is happening in Columbia, simply because we so enjoy their marvelous cocaine.

Do the Afghans and Colombians bitch at us because our demand for what grows in their countries fuels their own destruction? Amazingly enough, they don't. Does that stop us from our incessant whining about what naturally pops out of their soil and we individually expect to keep coming? Of course not. That would actually make sense, and we aren't exactly winning Olympic medals at that.

On the Grand List of Things That Are Disgusting And Wrong, rape is easily in the top five. But the fact is that we aren't fighting to prevent the Afghan government from letting its people rape each another silly, we're supposed to be fighting for the right to let them make that decision for themselves. At least that's what we've been saying since the spring of 2002. It's telling that the Afghan people don't seem half as upset about their Rape Law as we are.

Democracy is an expression of values. Clearly, the Afghans have a different set of values than we do. For example, they want to rape their wives. But if we impose our values on them, can you still call it a democracy? And if you can't, what are we fighting for, since we aren't even mentioning al-Qaeda anymore?

And what the fuck's up with Alabama, anyhow?