What price democracy without LAW ?

Submitted by Jon (France), Mar 24, 2005 at 11:14

The notion that democracy provides a route for reforming terrorists is completely ludicrous. These people have built, at least in their own recent past, their entire identities, their "life styles" and all their self esteem in the organisation and the realisation of killing kids, non combatant women, teenagers on a night out, pensioners having a family diner in a beachfront hotel, and so on ad nauseam.

The first thing we must, as a moral imperative, ask of their leaders is their explicit renounciation of the use of force, and the handing over of their weapons to a legitimate authority.

Thereafter such people, and the societies, must be given the opportunity to develop a CIVILIZED system of law, and the structures required to enforce the social compact these potential reformed individuals and groups have explicitly adhered to. In order to qualify for ANY financial support from the world's donor countries (or rather from the tax paying citizens of these donor countries) such a legal system must past OUR muster as far as it's fairness, its equal treatment of the majority (women) and any minorities (Christians, Jews, Hindus, and even Communists) who might be around.

To define a nice user friendly democracy, and provide some easy to use voting machines is just not enough.

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