[Dean's World] Rudy Rummel: The Fukuyama-Garfinkle Muddle on Terrorism and Fostering Democracy

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Posted by Rudy Rummel:
The Fukuyama-Garfinkle Muddle on Terrorism and Fostering Democracy
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1144290288.shtml


   Francis Fukuyama And Adam Garfinkle wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street
   Journal titled [1]"A Better Idea". They argue, "Promote democracy and
   prevent terrorism--but don't conflate the two."

   Professor Fukuyama currently Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of
   International Political Economy and Director of the International
   Development Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced
   International Studies. He is best known for his, The End of History
   and the Last Man. Professor Garfinkle is editor of the American
   Interest, and has taught U.S. foreign policy and Middle East politics
   at the University of Pennsylvania, Haverford College, and Tel Aviv
   University.

   Any op-ed by such high-powered academics is worth reading, thinking
   about, and responding to, which I will do seriatim. They wrote:

     As an editorial in The Wall Street Journal recently asked: "Anyone
     out there have a better idea" than the Bush administration's policy
     of high-profile democracy promotion in the Arab and Muslim worlds
     as a means to fight terrorism? Well, yes, there is one. That better
     idea consists of separating the struggle against radical Islamism
     from promoting democracy in the Middle East, focusing on the first
     struggle, and dramatically changing our tone and tactics on the
     democracy promotion front, at least for now.

   RJR: Promoting democracy and fighting terrorism are one in the same.
   Democracies do not as a matter of policy promote or sponsor terrorism,
   understood as murdering unarmed and innocent men, women, and children
   to promote a political or religious cause.

   (Continued [2]here)

References

   1. http://www.opinionjournal.com/forms/printThis.html?id=110008147
   2. http://freedomspeace.blogspot.com/2006/04/fukuyama-garfinkle-muddle-on-terrorism.html