DEMOCRACY, hallowed be thy name!
Democracy is the West's sacred cow; her bovine indifference a mascot for her missionary zeal.
Quite apart from the evils perpetrated by democracies in foreign lands, domestic polity is also at odds with ideology in the archetypal modern democracy, the United States. It as been well said that the US constitution is "one of the most inspirational pieces of empty rhetoric ever penned". Predicated on slavery and cultural genocide, and continuing to this day as one of the most unequal societies on Earth, the United States remains buoyant from the sheer uplift of its sincere sanctimonious bombast; incongruously clutching its bible to its chest and mouthing patriotic solemnities over its ongoing mission to propagate diverse obscenities on both sides of its boarders. ...But lest I fall into hyperbole.
The inspiring notion of rule by an enlightened people has degenerated into a benighted one-party state, to all intents and purposes, whose electoral burden is to service an ideologically entrenched middle class. Government policy means fiddling with the knobs and duping the masses while the real megalomaniacal agenda is relentlessly pursued.

There is no democracy.
We get a twice a decade vote on which elite group of powermongers get to rule over us. They then proceed to ignore the public, scratch each others backs, send other peoples children to die in wars and grow rich on the bribes and corruption that power brings.
Its more of a demockery.

Strange- Sweden and Switzerland, each probably more democratic than all of the war-mongering "democracies" combined, have by far the BEST records of peace with other countries- both remaining neutral in World War 2.

In fact, Switzerland is probably the only country in the world whose constitution requires majority public consent via referendum before the country may participate in any international conflict.

Of course, I hate to rain down on the usual "democracy = USA = (all other aspects of USA) = bad" argument by mentioning any country more democratic than either of ours (which are more like what Mikk described) and their unusually good peace record, but I can't help it!

Probably the highlight of my otherwise lacklustre day, was reading that excellent article, Mr Fisher. Thank you.

One minor concern in consideration of the Myanmar introduction, and the reference to joining the EU, is that with Australia's geographical location, would not ASEAN be another possible alternative? If Australia was somehow able to become the 11th ASEAN member, it could mean a little more sway on the Burmese situation as well as smoothing relations with Indonesia?

Please accept this as a very uninformed opinion, from someone who shares the same year of birth and a fair few letters in the name with ASEAN, and not meaning anti-Europe nor anti-Americas nor anti-Africa, but we just happen to be located in Southern South-East Asia, if not here on our antipodean au/nz ownsome as a continent.

King Hazza,
Deja vu! Haven't we been down this path before, apropos these democratic socialist countries? They're certainly more worthy democracies than our own.
But you're right, I shouldn't just pick on the US; Australia's just as bad. Australia doesn't have the clout to engineer its own foreign policy agenda, so it toadies along with the US.
Meanwhile, we are governed domestically by our own worst instincts.

Summary: "Democratic governments sometimes go to war. Therefore democratic government is a bad thing."

Anyone spot the missing premise? Any Iraqis or Iranians, ex-Soviet troops from Afghanistan, North Vietnamese, North Koreans, Rwandans or Burundians, care to comment?