Good Coup

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http://www.newsweek.com/id/233852

If the military ousts a dictator is that a bad thing?

In the article (in which the author put me off a bit with his brief reference to Malthusian theory when talking about how bad things were in the country) what the military did is portrayed as being "as bad" as the president who was concentrating power in his office and possibly rigging elections and referendums to remove term limits-that is make himself potentially "President for Life."

Military coups are often bad things-as with Chile where an honestly elected president was killed and a dictatorship that tortured and murdered its political opponents was put into power.

But, as the 2nd person to comment on this article pointed out, is it possible the first actual coup was lead by the president and this was simply a defensive response by the only internal governmental group that could act.

And even if a coup is launched against a government that has been around long enough to be viewed as legitimate there are places where the government is bad enough that it may be a could thing. Take a North Korea. If a group of generals (granted they may be running much of things anyway) threw down the current government there and started to remove the weapons aimed at Seoul (the major S. Korean city close to the border of the 2 nations) and opened up their nation (allowing N. Korean citizens to see what the rest of the world was actually like and visit cut off family members) then isn't that likely to be a good thing?

Many military coups against a dictator simply result in putting another dictator in power that ends up being about as bad.

But if a coup doesn't, and even starts holding honest elections, it is arguable that a coup could have positive results. Perhaps serving as one of those things where there are exceptions to a rule (that coups are bad).

 

Holding (fair) elections is certainly not the most common consequence of a coup. Coups usually lead to facist regimes. You're right to refer to Malthus in such a context.

Not to mention the fact that the CIA was involved in what happened in Chile. Henry Kissinger is a living proof that one can work to depose a lawfully elected president (Allende), fully support a bloodthirsty dictator (Pinochet) and still become the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Ironically, that coup happened on 9/11... on September 11, 1973.

 

If the person in power uses extralegal measures to stay in power (disolving the constitution, manipulating votes, etc.), then extralegal measures to remove them are worth considering. They're not necessarily good, but worth considering.

 

Extralegal measures by the people are one thing, extralegal measures by the military is another. Military coups are 99% of the time a very bad thing. Even if the president is a oppressive tyrant a military coup won't be likely to end in anything better. A coup by nature destabilizes the political system and the military hierarchy is by nature very non-democratic and military leaders usually lack the patience or experience to deal with political debate and democratic institutions. A military coup is likely to replace the tyrant with another tyrant or a junta of tyrants. By far the best method to remove tyrants is to pacify the military and use existing democratic institutions (most countries have at least some democratic institutions) and peaceful opposition movements to reform the political system.

 

Morg, that entirely depends on the military and their motives. In this case, it sounds like the military arrested the Prez, stepped back, and let the established political process continue.

Moreover, I'd argue extralegal measures by a single, major, powerful national figure is something entirely different from extralegal measures by the people as well. It's not like the people voted for him even though he wasn't eligible or something. He flat out grabbed power through grossly illegal measures, and abused his powers to do so. It was actually he who destroyed the political process.

 

If I read the article correctly, the move back to civil governance has not happened yet. So what the ambitions of the military leaders are is still open. Supporting military coups in foreign nations is utterly irresponsible policy and should not really be practiced by anyone. It's playing with the lives of the said nation.

I would also point out that generals in developing nations often have a very different experience in dealing with civil leadership than say US generals. They are a political force in their nation and have leverage over politics, US generals are more or less chained by the political leaders and the praxis is that they don't get political until they retire. The military leaders of developing nations also have order as their primary concern and not the democratic institutions of which they often could not care less about.

Obviously you'll find some exceptions to the rule, but you really won't know the ambitions of these men until they are in power and at that point it might be too late.

 

This entirely depends on your definition of 'support'. If you mean suggesting it should happen ('They just need a good, old-fassioned coup) or even providing material aid to one, I'd agree. If you mean looking at what's going on and positively assessing it ('Looks good so far, now just keep up the good work'), I have to disagree.

 

Obviously you can assess the situation and say that but such things should become after actual reforms are made and not right after the coup when power still lies in the hands of a military "interim" government.