Why Democracy Sometimes Fails

The terrorist organization Hamas has set itself up for a very difficult rule over the Palestinian people. The defeated Fatah party is already refusing to have any role in any coalition government with Hamas, setting all responsibilitity solely for all their actions upon the shoulders of Hamas.

And Israel is responsible for the supply of electricity, water and trade of other goods to the Palestinian Authority government. With a mutual refusal of both Israel and Hamas to even accept the legitimacy of each other, Israel is a position to quietly cut all of the vital electricity, water and trade with the Palestinian Authority and simply to let the terrorist state wither away within days from lack of drinking water, electricity, medicine and food supplies.

And any terrorist acts that are now linked to Hamas now have the stamp of state sponsored terrorism upon them. Under accepted standards of international law and other accepted international standards, Israel would be within their power to now use the total weight of their military to absolutely crush the Palestinian state with their military in response to any terrorist acts linked to this state as now constituting an official state sponsored act of war. Israel would be within their powers to carpet bomb or to completely exterminate the Palestinian state in response to any state sponsored role in terrorism seen as an official act of war. The small isolated acts of criminal violence of Hamas now bear the full weight of state responsibility now, a major change in status that has seroius consequences that cannot be understated.

And many of the elected leaders of the new Hamas government prove no ability to rule or to run a government. One elected member of this government was a mother who encouraged three of her six sons to become suicide bombers, and does not rule out encouraging the other three to also do so. She has no government experience at at. Many of the voters for the Hamas candidates as well as members of the Hamas government lack the educational skills and other basic abilities to be able to run a viable government as well.

It is unfortunate that the Bush doctine that promotted democratic elections throughout the MidEast, but failed to recognize that unless a minimum level of social progress is attained by a society, such as minimum levels of employment, education and income, that many states do not have a citizenship with high enough levels of understanding to elect moderate and reasonable governments. Even Rev. Pat Robertson was critical of the failed Bush doctrine to push for elections in MidEast societies not yet really socially advanced enough for elections as a form of "misguided idealism".

There simply has not been the level of education opportunities offered in many MidEast states, or the growth of jobs or employment opportunities to allow for an educated population to wisely vote in elections. In South America, some states have elected far leftist leaders because these socities also have not had the level of social advancement high enough to allow for an educated population to make wise choices. In Bolivia for example, a native South American Indian who is a supporter of Fidel Castro recently won the Presidential election there. In many of these states some of the native tribes of Indians still live in very primitive and almost stone age conditions. A new film, END OF THE SPEAR details an incident in which some Americanmissionaries were speared to death by a primitive tribe in South America who had such a high level of murder in their society that every family within this tribe had lost at least one familiy member to mutual murder. While this society has improved somewhat sinnse this 1956 event, it is certainly in no position for many members to be wisely casting election ballots.

And in some cases, these new leaders in South America even strongly defend the rural population growing the plants that are used in cocaine, because no other form of viable agriculture exists. Even the Vatican has offered some surprising support in the past for these farmers, as little ecomoc opportunity exists, although the serious dangers of this illegal drug business and the climate of violence it creates are strongly condemned by all responsible persons. The wealthy nations have completely failed to offer a society such as this any help to build a just and productive society. The best the West has done is to continue buy cocaine and to self-perpetuate a cycle of violence and drug abuse. This offers little real cash to the poor farmers of South America, and only creates a few wealthy South American crime lords and drug abuse among the young of America and crime in the U.S.

Bringing democracy to poor and developing nations sounds like a great American ideal. But without the local leadership to improve the living and social standards of the citizens, or the desire of the wealthy nations of the world to bring a sharing of wealth or social development to a very poor area, it is indeed a "misplaced idealism" from the Bush Administration that elections can be held in very poor areas without any U.S. or other G8 nation commitment to upgrading the social life of those living there. Just like the concept of "cheap grace" it is a form of "cheap democracy" for the U.S. to promote elections in very poor areas without the effort to improve the living situations there. In the case of the Hamas victory, it is a terrible example of that failure. A poor area not at all ready to make democratic choices made a very poor choice of a terrorist organization run government and now has put itself right into the center of dangerous conflict that may result in serious conflict with Israel at least and serious war with Israel at worst. Sometimes democracy is just not the best way to achieve a government rule or management. Without voters with at least a minimum level of social attainment, democracy simply fails.