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Posted By Josh Rogin
Sunday, April 11, 2010 - 11:49 PM
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President Obama said Sunday that the United States is still "working on" democracy and a top aide said he has taken "historic steps" to improve democracy in the United States during his time in office.
The remarks came as Obama met with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev -- one of the U.S. president's many meetings with world leaders ahead of this week's nuclear summit.
Kazakhstan, which has been touting its record on combating nuclear proliferation, is a key player in the NATO supply network to Afghanistan and currently heads the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Some observers see a conflict between Kazakhstan's chairmanship of the 56-nation OSCE, which plays an important role in monitoring elections in emerging democracies, and its own widely criticized human rights record.
But if the Obama administration saw any disconnect, it kept its criticism to itself.
"In connection with the OSCE, the presidents had a very lengthy discussion of issues of democracy and human rights," NSC senior director Mike McFaul said on a conference call with reporters Sunday. "Both presidents agreed that you don't ever reach democracy; you always have to work at it. And in particular, President Obama reminded his Kazakh counterpart that we, too, are working to improve our democracy."
The Wall Street Journal's Jonathan Weisman asked McFaul to clarify.
"You seemed to be suggesting there was some equivalence between their issues of democracy and the United States' issues, when you said that President Obama assured him that we, too, are working on our democracy," Weisman said. "Is there equivalence between the problems that President Nazarbayev is confronting and the state of democracy in the United States?"
"Absolutely not ... There was no equivalence meant whatsoever," McFaul said. "[Obama's] taken, I think, rather historic steps to improve our own democracy since coming to office here in the United States."
In an interview, Kazakh Ambassador Erlan Idrissov told Weisman, "There was no pressure at all in the meeting," and that Obama quoted Winston Churchill as saying that democracy is "the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
The warm welcome for Nazarbayev underscores the extent to which Kazakhstan, which agreed in January to allow NATO to ship nonlethal cargo through its territory, has become critical to the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan -- especially given the ongoing instability in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, where the U.S. military leases an important airbase.
Nazarbayev has ruled Kazakhstan since 1991, when the country became independent after the fall of the Soviet Union, and his highly centralized rule has been heavily criticized by human rights monitors.
The State Department's own 2009 human rights report on Kazakhstan reported widespread human rights violations, including severe limits on citizens' rights to change their government; detainee and prisoner torture and other abuse; unhealthy prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; lack of an independent judiciary; restrictions on freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and association; and pervasive corruption, especially in law enforcement and the judicial system.
Freedom House's 2010 world survey declared Kazakhstan "not free" and said, "Kazakhstan holds the chairmanship of the OSCE for the year 2010 despite a record of fraudulent elections and repression of independent critics in the media and civil society -- behavior that only grew worse as 2010 approached."
The latest Human Rights Watch report on Kazakhstan was entitled, "An atmosphere of quiet repression."
"Putting the United States in the same category as a country such as Kazakhstan is ridiculous, said Jamie Fly, executive director of the Foreign Policy Institute, a conservative think tank. "President Obama should be using the success of America's democratic experience to encourage foreign leaders to improve their own systems, not implying that we are all in the same boat."
President barry, is not implying, he definitely DOES believe that America is in "the same boat". In fact, he is ensuring more-and-more every day that his belief comes to fruition. What a disgusting amateur.
WE ARE NOT A DEMOCRACY!!! WE ARE A REPUBLIC. LET ME REPEAT THAT............WE ARE A REPUBLIC!!!!! BO needs to be voted out or kicked out.
A republic is a form of democracy - it is called republican democracy. Democracy is a vague word and yes, the United States qualifies as one.
The Difference Between "Democracy" and "Republic"
The difference between "a democracy" and "a republic" is elucidated by James Madison in Federalist No. 10.
I'm wondering if perhaps Michelle Obama's habit of diminishing her husband in her speeches on a regular basis is something she learned from him when he speaks of the United States to foreign audiences.
And Obama intentionally makes that difference. Because Marx also called his vision a "democracy". So, he is correct. We don't have the democracy that he sees, and he is working toward that. F-ing Socialist. He hates the Republic. He wants "Change". Very dangerous man. Very ignorant public. Intentional blind eyes everywhere.
James Madison is not the sole authority on what a democracy is. Most academics who have studied democracy over the years have come to conclusions that would place the United States as one. Maybe it is Dahl's definition of polyarhcy or Diamond’s more restrictive term. The idea that any country in which the citizens do not directly vote for all legislation is not a democracy, is not shared by anyone in the field. It would also imply that democracy has never really existed. You can argue all you want that the United States in not a democracy, but every academic who has written about democracy would disagree.
DG: "Academics" come a dime a dozen, and in all different varieties; one can always find one or more to help lend credence to their pet arguments. There's a difference between Dahl, Diamond, and James Madison: the former are backed up by perhaps hundreds of theses resulting from their opinions, while Madison has the U.S. Constitution and the nation that endures largely because of it.
Obama promised in a campaign speech on October 30, 2008 that "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America." I was demanding to know the answer to this question: "Transforming it into WHAT?" but the lapdog MSM refused to address that, being caught up in the "historic" moment. Nearly a year and a half later, they still aren't asking. And Obama isn't telling, either. But he's proceeding as if he alone has discovered that a wheel that has been rolling pretty darn well for over two centuries will work even better if you put some corners in it.
"I'm wondering if perhaps Michelle Obama's habit of diminishing her husband in her speeches on a regular basis is something she learned from him when he speaks of the United States to foreign audiences."
HAHA that was a good one!
The words of America's most destructive enemy
...the "progressive." Barack Obama is a "transnational progressive," along with George Soros and a slew of other. They intend to "disrupt and destroy" America's authentic popular sovereignty, national sovereignty, and Constitutional rule of law. They must and shall be defeated, as surely as the Soviet and Nazi threats were put down.
Obama was trying to encourage democratic reform
By saying that the US is an imperfect democracy which is constantly trying to improve itself, Obama is not "putting the United States in the same category as a country such as Kazakhstan."
I imagine that when telling other countries how to improve their human rights, many fire right back with, "What about Guantanamo? What about racism in the US?" The kind of prefacing statement used by Obama -- "The US is also working on its democracy" -- preempts that kind of reply.
If you had a friend who was an alcoholic, would you tell him he should shape up and be more like you and that you're perfect? Or would you tell him he should shape up and that you can relate to the difficulties he's having, as you had similar difficulties when giving up smoking?
If you had a friend who was an alcoholic, would you tell him he should shape up and be more like you and that you're perfect? Or would you tell him he should shape up and that you can relate to the difficulties he's having, as you had similar difficulties when giving up smoking?
How interesting you would use those similes, McEnroe.
On March 2, 2010, shortly after BHO's physical exam contained his doctor's warning to lower his cholesterol (and after Mrs. Obama declared her campaign against fatty foods), we had the spectacle of the President indulging in a luncheon of rich "soul food," telling reporters: "I don't want any lectures about my cholesterol. Don't tell Michelle."
As for smoking, you know the score. He's been lighting up in secret since the campaign. Still, he made a big to-do of it when signing into law new taxes on tobacco, citing the danger of the evil leaf.
Now, did you look at the State Dept. report, Mac? When the topic is human rights, any government that soft-pedals restrictions on the free exercise of Scientology, the Unification Church and Jehovah's Witnesses should not expect a concession from a nation whose highest court recently ordered grieving survivors of dead servicemembers to pay court costs to the Westboro Baptist Church of GodHatesFags.com infamy. And pointing to the only black man ever to be elected head of a superpower in the history of the planet and accusing his nation of racism is the epitome of idiocy.
Human rights priorities vs OEF priorities
lol – yes, in retrospect, perhaps I did not choose the best addictions for my analogy.
Okay, so what happens if Obama tells Nazarbayev that the Kazakh government is a horrible abuser of human rights (and that the US is going to seek sanctions against them for said abuses) and Nazarbayev tells the USG to take its OEF supply routes that go through his country and shove ‘em. Then what are we left with? Manas Air Base?
Our country is specifically a Representative Republic. Not a Democracy. Obama doesn't even know what form of government we have. A democracy is mob rule where 51% of the people can deprive 49% of the people of their rights. Thats why our founders specifically did NOT choose a democracy. they chose a representative republic.
This is something that Obama and his mob of Democrat thugs choose to ignore.
Josh Rogin reports on national security and foreign policy from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, the White House to Embassy Row, for The Cable.
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