Democracy in America. What Democracy?

Democracy is defined, as “a government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.”

For decades now, the US government has been on a worldwide campaign to establish the country as the de facto bearer and the cradle of Democracy. The gospel of Democracy in the United States is spread much like wildfire across the continents. The bell of democracy, rung from Washington, heard around the world, invites anyone looking to escape tyranny to come to America to inhale the air of freedom.

That widespread belief has the US Government thrown away the “piecemeal” propagation approach of such novel concept; it has conceived and crafted a brilliant method to partake Democracy with the rest of the world, in “mass produced” fashion.

With the goal to bring, to introduce, to implement or to force democracy on other nations, the US government has engaged, in the past few decades, in various wars, both overt and clandestine. From the Persian Gulf War in 1987-88 (Operation Earnest Will) to the Iraq War in 2003 (Operation Iraqi Freedom) the provided rationale remains the same, that all countries should warrant freedom to their people, the freedom to speak, the freedom to organize, the freedom to voice their opposition, the freedom to elect (and remove) officials, without any fear of retaliation.

Such rationale – although simply a marketing pitch for consumption by the general public – is the driving force, the catalyst behind removal of unfriendly, uncooperative and unwanted governments, through wars and assassinations.

In 2003, with the Book of Democracy in hand, the Bush administration took the country to war with Iraq; totally unprovoked by the Iraqi government, and unable to find the “pile of weapons of mass destruction” used as a premise for the war, the Bush administration re-branded the message (as Operation Iraqi Freedom) that the war was to liberate the Iraqis of a brutal dictator. In a speech preceding the beginning of the bombing of Iraq, President Bush declared that the “war against Iraq would bring peace and Democracy to the Middle East, and liberate Iraqis from repression.” based on an article published by commondreams.org .

Notwithstanding the false pretense for war, the tens of thousands of Iraqis that lost their lives and the millions that were displaced from their home, the notion of Democracy was merely an afterthought, following the major bombings. — apparently the Book of Democracy was dropped with the first bombs — Instead, the world watched in dismay the demagoguery of a staged election by the US administration. According to an article published by Global Research , “What occurred in Iraq on Jan. 30, 2005 was an American-brokered event, not an expression of Iraqi national unity.”

Ironically, those who are in charge of strategizing wars for the US Government do not believe that wars are capable of bringing Democracy to any country.  In an Op-Ed written by General Wesley Clark, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (1997-2000) during the Kosovo War, and published in the Washington Monthly, “Democracy can’t be imposed — it has to be homegrown.” Such statement is a direct condemnation of all wars waged by the US government against foreign government under the pretext of “democratizing” the country.

Apparently, the notion of democracy may have lost its meaning in Washington.

Its true definition however seems to align with the framework intended by the founders of the nation. In the past two decades, the notion of Democracy in America has been nothing but an elusive idea its citizens have been hanging on to.

From the 2001 election where flagrant and blatant frauds in Florida ballots brought the system to a complete halt to the 2012 presidential election where disregard for the people wishes was in full display. Democracy was non-existent.

That was only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to trampling Democracy. Police brutality during the Occupy-Wall-Street movement was nothing short of barbarism. And yet, most of the perpetrators paid no price for trampling the Democracy the US government is so eager to take to the rest of the world.

What democracy, one might ask?

In a January 2004 lecture at Stanford University, Democracy is defined as a political system for choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections; the active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life; protection of the human rights of all citizens and a rule of law, in which the laws and procedures apply equally to all citizens.

At first glance, it seems that the notion of Democracy is not present in the country. If that is indeed the case, how does the US government justify waging wars to implement a system it doesn’t have or practice? In Part 2, we will analyze the components that make up a democratic system and parallel it with that of the US.