Democracy hypocrisy: "The early suppression of popular government helped turn many Iraqis against the U.S. occupation."
Few subjects generate more official lies than the U.S. government's devotion to spreading democracy abroad. Iraq has been the largest most recent geyser of such deceits. In order to understand future U.S. government messianic democracy efforts, it is worthwhile to review the opportunism with respect to representative government in Iraq.
In a late February 2003 Washington speech, George W. Bush invoked democracy to sanctify his pending invasion of Iraq. He condescended,
The nation of Iraq - with its proud heritage, abundant resources and skilled and educated people - is fully capable of moving toward democracy and living in freedom.
He then showed how the coming war would be a stepping-stone to lasting peace: "The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder."
But his March 18, 2003, memo to Congress, notifying them that he was invading Iraq, mentioned nothing about democracy as a casus belli.
In fact, suppressing democracy was one of the first orders of business for the U.S. occupation authorities. Three and a half months after the fall of Baghdad, U.S. military commanders "ordered a halt to local elections and self-rule in provincial cities and towns across Iraq, choosing instead to install their own handpicked mayors and administrators, many of whom are former Iraqi military leaders," the Washington Post reported. Many Iraqis were outraged to see Saddam's former henchmen placed back in power over them. But a sergeant with the U.S. Army Civil Affairs Battalion running the city of Samarra explained that Iraqis must be content with political "baby steps."
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