Online now from Vanity Fair, an inside look at how the Bush administration actively undermines democracy that doesn't look pro-Western.
http://www.vanityfair.com/...
I've recognized a couple of things about the freedom agenda. The first is that, I do believe it's sincere, I do think that Bush and Republicans think that, well, if you let people vote, they'll vote for American values because everybody loves us. They did want to push democracy, the desire was real, it's just that they were stupid enough to believe their own propaganda about what might happen.
Updates - per my diary comments, I'll add more content.
The gist of the article is how Bush and Rice in particular pushed for elections in Palestine, somehow didn't realize that Fatah would lose, even when Fatah TOLD them they would lose, and then seemed shocked at the election results.
Then, instead of just living with a Hamas victory, they engaged in "Iran Contra 2.0", paying for arms that Fatah was supposed to use to challenge Hamas militarily. That planned backfired when Hamas ran Fatah out of Gaza and stole all the weapons that we bought for them. Now Hamas can fire rockets into Israel from Gaza with impunity, and when Israel invades, Hamas will shoot at them with guns we bought for them.
It's really a quite nice little summary of the Bush administration, when you think about it. Can more incompetence possibly be shown in one simple story?
It's actually just funny now. Unless, of course, if you have to live in this world, then, not so much.