Democracy-Building: Hint #20167

Supposing, for a moment, that we are to take the Coalition of the Willing seriously when they aver that they wish to 'build democracy' in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As we all know, the parliaments of Iraq and Afghanistan are not the prime movers of this equation. The fate of these nations rests not with Baghdad, or Kabul, but with Washington.

It therefore follows that, if we take the CoW seriously, we should be seeking to give Iraqis and Afghans the vote. In US elections. This might substantially alter some of the rhetoric and policy-making that emerges from DC.

We might go further, and argue for a US vote for all citizens whose countries host the US armed forces, or are subordinate to the US as their primary source of 'aid' and trade. This would, of course, encompass most of the world, and create a sort of global state.

The power-brokers in the US would obviously have some objections.

But then again, as a Frenchman once said, 'Nous somme tous Americains'. Leaving aside the problematic status of this 'Nous somme', this statement means, more or less, that this 'war' concerns us all. We are all 'other' to the terrorist hordes, all linked together in our primal struggle for survival, all bound by the same neoliberal logic of the marketplace.

Consequently, 'we' are all Americans now. Leaders and ideologues of the USA loudly proclaim their democratic credentials.

Is it not therefore time that we were afforded our basic democratic rights?