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Does putting America first mean eliminating the promotion of democracy as a foreign-policy objective? According to a report from the Washington Post, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson seems to believe it does.

Tillerson recently ordered the State Department to reconsider and rewrite its mission statement. A leaked draft of the result is fascinating: All references to democracy have been removed. Otherwise the new document looks similar to the old one. It seems the only real purpose of the revision was to de-emphasize the importance of democracy to U.S. foreign policy.

This suggests that the Trump administration, like its predecessor, has learned the lessons of the Iraq War too well. In Iraq, the U.S. attempted to use military force to install and export democracy. In its rush to hold elections, the Bush administration did not leave time for Iraq to develop the institutions necessary to sustain a democratic system. Though these are mistakes from which policymakers and military planners need to learn, they should not be construed as proof that the promotion of democracy itself which does not require military force is a misguided aim of U.S. foreign policy.

Yet Tillerson continues to provide signal after signal that America is no longer interested in promoting democracy, human rights, or anything else that could fall under the label of our values abroad. In his widely publicized first speech to the State Department, for example, he claimed that promoting American values creates obstacles to the pursuit of our national-security interests.

Honest observers must admit that this is sometimes true. Keeping America safe often requires the help of dictators and tyrants. If we refused to work with such despots in all circumstances, we would be choosing to abandon our own interests; we wouldnt be putting America first.

However, there are plenty of occasions in which promoting American values is in the American interest. First, it is no accident that Americas best alliesaround the worldare established liberal democracies, because these nations do not fight one another. They are able to work together toward common security and economic goals. That is why American presidents have for decades encouraged allies as well as enemies to make democratic reforms, become more accountable to their people, and treat their internal minorities more fairly. These are not only the right things to do, but also important steps to decreasing aggressiveness and accepting the American-led, liberal world order.

There is also plenty of evidence that good, democratic governance fosters predictability for investors and promotes economic development. This, too, is good for America: We want to trade with developing nations, not fight them.

Moreover, the U.S. benefits from being seen as a beacon of democracy and freedom. Our support for free people all over the world wins us friends in a way that hard-edged oppression could not. Indeed, turning our backs on the cause of liberty often means surrendering an important advantage over our adversaries.

There are endless reasons to continue to promote democracy by supporting important institutions, civil-society groups, NGOs, and dissidents abroad. As Ted Piccone, senior fellow at Brookings, has persuasively argued:

The Trump team will soon learn that supporting democratic institutions, rule of law, justice, accountability, and transparency are critical to protecting core U.S. national security interests. Strong democracies, after all, do not go to war with each other, do not spawn refugees, experience less civil conflict and terrorism, have more open and prosperous economies, and have a higher respect for international law and borders. In other words, if you care about defending U.S. national security, its your job to support the spread of democracy.

In continuing to express ambivalence toward democracy and human rights, the Trump administration is making a mistake. It needs to distinguish between failed efforts to export democracy and valuable efforts to promote democracy. Trump is right when he decries the folly of the former. Too often, they get us nowhere at great cost in lives and treasure. But the latter should remain a core part of U.S. foreign policy, because it is in our interests as well as in accordance with our values to encourage the diffusion of freedom and prosperity around the world.

Luckily, it is not too late for Rex Tillerson and the Trump administration to turn things around. An affirmation of the importance of democracy and human rights can and should be reinstated into the final version of the State Departments mission. No America First foreign policy could be complete without it.

READ MORE: Europe Between Trump and Putin The Great Muslim Civil War and Us Whos Ready for Peace? Trumps Unfounded Optimism about the Middle East

Elliot Kaufman is an editorial intern at National Review.

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Democracy & U.S. Foreign Policy: The Link Is Crucial | National ... - National Review

Planet Jackson Hole

DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS: Not 'Not Normal' Planet Jackson Hole I went down to the White House to see Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner give his excuses surrounding the meeting that he, Trump's son, and Paul Manafort, among others, had with Russians, hoping to get dirt on Hillary. This is not normal, echoes ... McCain to Trump: 'Thank Putin for Attacking Our Democracy'Newsmax all 3,934 news articles »

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DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS: Not 'Not Normal' - Planet Jackson Hole

President Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores - a national assembly deputy celebrate after last Sundays election for his new constituent assembly. Photograph: Nathalie Sayago/EPA

Its hard to pinpoint when democracy died in Venezuela. Its been a long, slow, painful though predictable slide to authoritarianism. Now, though, that slide is bringing the country to anarchy and potential civil war, risking a black hole of a failed state in South America in an oil-rich nation.

Was democracys death knell in 2004 when the then president, Hugo Chvez the founder of the Bolivarian revolution expanded the supreme court by 12 seats, from 20 to 32, in order to pack it with loyalists, so undermining the independence of the judicial system?

Was it in 2015 when the democratic opposition won a two-thirds super majority in the national legislature, only for the pro-government electoral commission to block three legislators from taking their seats under false claims of elections violations?

Was it in 2016, when President Nicols Maduro appointed a loyalist Chavista general, Vladimir Padrino Lpez, to occupy the positions of both defence minister and state tsar for food and the economy, and stipulated that all state ministers should report to the general? (Current or former military officers run 11 of Venezuelas 32 state ministries.)

Or was it in October that year, when the electoral commission indefinitely suspended state and local elections leaving Venezuelans without locally elected officials and blocked a constitutional referendum on the government out of fear the governing party would be defeated?

These slow-motion acts eroded the checks and balances of democratic government and accountability and created a military-controlled government, the likes of which the region has not seen since the dark days of juntas and dictatorships in the 1960s and 70s. Worse, with each action the government closed off crucial channels and mediation, competition, choice and accountability until, in October 2016, it shut down the most fundamental claim to legitimacy: elections.

Even if it somehow survived all those though, theres no doubt that Venezuelan democracy was finished off last Sunday: on 30 July, despite popular opposition and international condemnation, the Maduro government ploughed ahead with an election to choose delegates to write a new constitution violating the constitutional right of citizens to say whether they even wanted a new constitution. And, indeed, a broad majority didnt. In public opinion surveys, 80% of Venezuelans expressed support for their 18-year-old constitution, and 75% opposed the entire effort.

The exercise was a farce, intended to distract the country from its economic and humanitarian crisis. GDP has contracted more than 20% in three years, inflation is raging at over 1,000%, citizens face severe shortages of food and medicine, and more than 100 people have been killed during four months of popular protests.

How a new constitution would solve those problems was never clear. In fact, what the constitution under a government that had shown a singular, anarchistic disregard for any type of institution or rule would look like or accomplish was never clear.

What was clear was that Maduro and his allies intended to use the body to assume total control over the national assembly and the government, and to pursue enemies including its general prosecutor, Luisa Ortega. She is a former Chavista who has become a vocal opponent. In the days leading up to Sundays vote, government officials declared proudly that after the balloting process they would turn to pursuing and prosecuting political opponents.

They wasted no time in doing so. Two days after the vote, police rounded up two leading political opponents: Antonio Ledezma, the former mayor of Caracas; and Leopoldo Lpez, the former mayor of Chacao. They had been under house arrest, but were now returned to military prison.

The international community needs to realise that its been played

Efforts by former presidents in the region and the Vatican to mediate a much-needed consensus have permitted the Maduro government to continue its efforts to consolidate power with a fig leaf of legitimacy. The strategy worked. While the region bet on mediation, the Maduro government killed democracy, but for an unknown end totalitarianism? Chaos? Anomie? Its not clear that even Maduro knew or knows.

The international community needs to realise that its been played. Fortunately, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and the European Union have expressed their displeasure with and their refusal to varying degrees to accept the illegal constituent assembly. Now, finally, those countries need to step up. The US has so far avoided the temptation to impose broad economic sanctions on Venezuela, which could have tragic consequences for the population, preferring targeted individual sanctions. The regional community needs to follow that lead and impose sanctions on certifiably corrupt, human-rights-abusing public officials: but also go further by pulling back diplomatic recognition of the government, and tightening the noose around government and corrupt officials assets and bank accounts.

Responding to the accelerating downward spiral in Venezuela requires credible but scaled threats. The past has shown that naive exhortation doesnt work, but nor does the nuclear option of all-out sanctions and an embargo. The US going it alone isnt enough.

The regional failure to act collectively and decisively to threaten costs and present carrots will accelerate the path that Venezuela is on. Its time to step up, collectively and selectively.

Link:
Maduro has stopped torturing democracy in Venezuela by killing it - The Guardian

Ive stayed far away from the new barbarians with their choppers, tank-like cars, home theatres on board, and fridge-shaped super yachts that terrorise sea life. In fact, dolphins escorted us in to Kyparissi, a tiny village on the eastern Peloponnese 60 kms from Sparta, my grandmothers birthplace. German and Spartan; not a bad combination, especially if one thinks democracy is a biological contradiction, which I do. Just look at the Remoaners and youll see what I mean.

Back in the good old days, we Athenians knew how to practise real democracy. All Athenian males over 18, irrespective of wealth or status, had the right to attend the Assembly, which met every nine days and was where they decided how Athens should be run. War, peace, taxes, who remained in power and who was deprived of it were decided by vote. The strength of the system depended on the ferocity with which the Assembly punished anyone who let the side down. Hammond wouldnt have lasted, and Corbyn would have been put to death at the start for high treason.

The system lasted from 508 BC to 322 BC, when the Macedonians ended it. Its magnificence, wisdom and fairness have never been replicated. But Im not here to tell you about democracy, a sham if ever there was one. All one has to do is look at the EU, the most undemocratic institution since the Russian government under Lenin. People actually believe that by paying their taxes to Brussels they will have a say in what the bureaucrats over in that rainy little place decide. It reminds me of the kind of big lie practised by the New York Times, when its own columnists quote a fact invented by its own hacks. (The latest emetic vulgarity is the promotion of freak lifestyles.)

What ruined the greatest democratic experiment ever was the civil war between Athens and Sparta that lasted 27 years, from 431 BC to 404 BC. When I was a child, I rooted for Sparta, a military oligarchy of which both my teachers and family approved. The war was fought because Sparta feared Athenian imperialism and cultural dominance. Does this sound familiar? One could compare Athens to Uncle Sam, except the good uncle exports porn, celebrities, rap music, sci-fi horrors, and other useless mechanisms to keep the masses from thinking.

Athens showed hubris by lording it over islands and states not strong enough to defend themselves, just as America is inviting nemesis by trying to export her corrupted democracy to faraway places such as Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention Syria. Victor Davis Hanson, an American military historian of great wisdom, compared 5th-century Athens to America in the 20th. He also compared the Peloponnesian war to the first world war. Both were needless conflicts that brought about great disasters and change for the worse. Athens suffered terribly from the war against Sparta. Pericles died of the plague that swept the city, which became overcrowded once the Spartans laid siege to its environs. One in four people perished. The splendour that was Athens disappeared, as did its extraordinary achievements never since matched in science, art, philosophy and the art of living.

When I was a child, I lived ancient history and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Leonidas in Thermopylae, with fellow hoplites in Marathon, and with Alexander the Great in chasing the Persians. Those were the first westerners. I never imagined myself as an Egyptian fighting the Hyksos invaders or in combat alongside Sumerians against the Amorites. No siree, we Greeks were the first to share values of justice, the law and humanity; the rest were barbarians, and most of them have remained so. Heroism always took first place. The archers and javelin-throwers who launched their weapons from afar were not held in high esteem because they could kill with little risk to themselves. Eat your heart out, archers at Agincourt and snipers in Iraq. Only those who clashed with swords and spears, defying death and refusing to retreat, were considered honourable. Think of those great men, then spare a thought for the EU bureaucrooks and puke long and hard.

And what about women, you may ask. Well, what about them. We Greeks produced the first and greatest heroine of all time, Helen of Troy. Achilles and Odysseus aside, no figure from that age has won a more worshipful following than Helen. The queen of Sparta became a cult figure and continues to be one. She was Homers finest achievement, at a time when women were viewed in the same way Saudis see women today. The ancient Trojans, watching their sons being slaughtered by the Greeks from the safety of their towers, came upon Helen in her shimmering garments and whispered in awe: Terrible is the likeness of her face to an immortal goddesses. They refused to blame her for the massacre because she was so special. Old Homer sure liked the fairer sex too.

So here we are, back to the present day. Greece is a tiny country living off loans from corrupt bureaucracies and Germany. Clowns are in power and daily face the Acropolis, where giants once stood. I look around me and see nice, hospitable people here in the Peloponnese. Churches are everywhere, which gives me hope. After all, Christianity is the only institution that can save mankind; not Silicon Valley, nor Hollywood. But try telling that to the DC crowd.

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Democracy is dead - Spectator.co.uk

On the last night of 2010, I was at a party in Caracas, Venezuela. Standing on the balcony of a house set high on a hillside, I watched fireworks burst randomly over the metropolis that spread across the valley below. A new year often brings hope of fresh beginnings, but, in that city that year, there were feelings of dread.

The political upheaval brought about by Venezuelas revolutionary populist president, Hugo Chavez, was slipping into economic calamity, political corruption and a wave of street crime. And, as is usual with revolutions gone stale, democratic ideals were being sacrificed so that the regime could cling to power.

One of the other guests at the party, a wry, fatalistic gentleman who had voted for Chavez, told me he now very much regretted his vote.

I was hoping wed get Swedish socialism, he said. Instead, were getting Cuban socialism.

Id like to know how that man and others that I met during my visit are faring now because the difficult situation of 2010 and 2011 has grown exponentially worse in 2017. The current president, Nicolas Maduro, has none of the charisma or cleverness of the now-deceased Chavez, but his impulse to authoritarianism is even deeper. Once a prosperous, relatively stable nation, Venezuela is now broke, thanks to terrible governance and the precipitous drop in oil prices, the countrys primary export commodity. Food and the basic goods necessary for a civilized life are in short supply. Crime is worse than ever. And, rather than taking responsibility for any of this, Maduro simply blames his enemies and uses the crisis as an excuse to censor the media, subvert civil liberties and seize more power.

Under Chavez, elections were still relatively fair. That is no longer the case. In a rigged referendum last weekend, Maduro engineered the election of a compliant constituent assembly that is expected to rewrite the countrys constitution and eliminate the opposition-dominated National Assembly.

Monday, in a White House briefing detailing new U.S. sanctions that are being imposed on Maduros regime, national security advisor H.R. McMaster said, Maduro is not just a bad leader. He is now a dictator.

Street protests that have been raging for months all across Venezuela have become much more violent as Maduro has tightened the screws on what is left of the nations democratic system. Government troops now gun down opposition protesters every day. Tuesday, several leaders of anti-Maduro political parties were arrested.

This deepening tragedy offers lessons for Americans of all political stripes.

For those on the left who cheered the rise of Chavez and turned a blind eye to his dictatorial inclinations and complicity in corruption, one might ask, when will you ever learn? Just as American leftists were dupes for Stalin in the 1930s and 40s, too many dreamy progressives all these years later still allow themselves to become apologists for self-proclaimed saviors of the people who spout egalitarian rhetoric but end up as despots.

For those on the right, Venezuela is not just an example of the failings of socialist revolutions, it is an illustration of what can happen when a crowd-pleasing populist politician attacks the free press, demonizes opponents, proclaims a militant nationalism and creates an alternative version of reality based on self-serving lies. The urge to make heroes out of bombastic demagogues is an affliction that affects people on the right as much as those on the left.

And for American political leaders, as well as the wielders of financial and corporate power, it should be noted that Venezuelas problems began with a failure to address the countrys extreme wealth gap. Until the current troubles reached a crisis point, Caracas was a vibrant, modern city, home to a large, healthy middle class and a very fortunate upper crust of wealthy families. But on the hills surrounding the city a vast barrio of desperately poor people seethed with resentment. Those resentments produced Chavez and, now, Maduro.

The Venezuelan political and economic elite failed to address the inequities and disconnections in their country and now every Venezuelan is being brought low. Growing social disaffection in the United States already helped elect Donald Trump to the presidency and the rips in the seams of our democracy run in every direction. If they are not repaired, Trumps follies may be only the start of the unraveling.

Let Venezuelas agony be a reminder: It can happen anywhere.

David.Horsey@latimes.com

Follow me at @davidhorsey on Twitter

Read more:
Venezuela's descent into dictatorship shows democracy can be lost - Los Angeles Times