"There is another issue: even the most dedicated scholar/advocates of "democracy promotion" recognise that there is a "strong line of continuity" in US efforts to promote democracy going back as far as you like and reaching the present: democracy is supported if and only if it conforms to strategic and economic objectives. For example, supporting the brutal punishment of people who committed the crime of voting "the wrong way" in a free election, as in Palestine right now, with pretexts that would inspire ridicule in a free society. As for democracy in the US, élite opinion has generally considered it a dangerous threat which must be resisted. But some Iraqis agreed with Bush's mission to bring democracy to the world: 1 per cent in a poll in Baghdad just as the noble vision was declared in Washington."
Free elections when they vote the "right way."
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