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Middle East
Israel behind Bush's drive
2003-11-08
Yup. It's them pesky Jews again...
Cairo: A state-owned Egyptian newspaper on Saturday said US President George W Bush's drive for democracy in the Middle East was an Israeli-inspired idea aimed against countries hostile to Israel. Akhbar Elyom's chairperson and chief editor Ibrahim Saada, a man close to President Hosni Mubarak, said in an opinion piece covering the entire front page that Bush's message was also an attempt to divert Americans' attention from the Iraqi "swamp."
That's Quagmire® to you, buddy.
"I don't rule out that the Israelis were the ones to have advised President Bush to announce this important discovery, that is democracy, and his invitation for implementing it in the Arab world and Iran as well as other countries hostile to both the United States and Israel," wrote Saada. "I also do not rule out that the US Jewish lobby stands behind this invitation that contains attacks against Arab governments with which it (Washington) has old ties," in order to damage those relations. "I tend, indeed, to believe ... that the content of Bush's speech is an attempt to divert the attention of his people away from the tragedy of the attrition swamp in which the US soldiers have fallen in occupied Iraq. But it will he a failed attempt. Nobody's attention will be diverted and it will only lead to more Arab hatred towards the United States and its government."

Oh, I agree. It's probably a losing cause, trying to inject democracy into the Middle East. The inhabitants thereof exhibit an amazingly lemming-like mentality, a disbelief in cause and effect, and a pure and unsullied love for the sight of their fellow man's blood and preferably his entrails as well. Brutal traditions and institutionalized stupidity result in easily led Arab Masses™, willing to believe what they're told by pernicious politicians whose ultimate aim is the retention of personal and family power. They'd much rather be ruled than governed — the prospect of individual liberty (for anyone but themselves, individually, of course) is frightening, not to be borne. Their societies are riddled with holy men of doubtful sanctity and even more doubtful grip on reality. They treat their women as breeding stock and inflict unspeakable cruelties on those who're different, to include the colors of their turbans.

So, yeah. Attempting to lead the Middle Eastern horse to the clear waters of democracy probably won't work, and even if we get it there it probably won't drink, and if it drinks it'll probably spit it out. But still Bush is trying...
Posted by:Fred Pruitt

#6  What I find interesting is how they never take the US at its word. Even when the check clears the bank, there's some moronic conspiracy crap afoot that it is a Jooo plot. They are so accustomed to lying to each other that they are incapable of accepting the truth - even after they've spent the money. Sad / pathetic.

O/T: I worked for a woman at E-Systems many many years ago, a very avant garde woman (and sexy, too) and she had a sign on the office wall directly behind her chair that read:

"Sexual harassment is not only tolerated here, it is encouraged. Grades will be posted in a timely manner."

Does that count?
Posted by: .com (RoPMA)   2003-11-8 9:22:05 PM  

#5  Fred, I think you underestimate the power of "President of the United States" as a speaking platform. It is the only position in the world that can communicate strategy and tactics to the advocates of Democracy all over the world. People are, of course, free to reject what the President suggests. That in no way diminishes the power of the suggestion.
One particular tactical suggestion I noted was "use instant messaging".

I think Mubarak recognizes "the beef" in Bush's speech. I think it scares him. Good.
Posted by: Dishman   2003-11-8 8:38:09 PM  

#4  I don't blame him for trying. I admire him for it. We're probably lucky if there's a 1:100 chance of success -- but who knows? We might hit the lotto, too.

We're actually already showing success in the Gulf States. They're not American-style democracies, but neither are they autocracies anymore. Kuwait had a lot more citizen involvement before Gulf War I.

Pan-Arabism and its accompanying fascist ideology is dead, except in Syria. Libya is becoming African instead of Arab, Morocco's cleaning house, Mauritania has relations with Israel and at least the pretense of elections, and Tunisia hasn't been nutty since the PLO departed. Jordan was actually on our side, almost openly, during the war.

That leaves Iran, with a tottering theocracy; Soddy Arabia, with its besieged princes and its doddering king; and Pakland with its mad maulvis and its Islamic nukes as the core of Islamic lunacy, plus the satellite states like Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Chechnya and Indonesia. Bush has actually accomplished a lot in the past two years.

I think that Egypt, with its hereditary quasi-democracy and its goofy religious establishment will be one of the last Islamic dominoes to fall. I think it will someday, though probably after I'm dead -- and I'm not that old.

I just sometimes despair over the stupidity and the virulence of the enemy...
Posted by: Fred   2003-11-8 7:27:42 PM  

#3  Can you really blame him for trying, Fred? I know, I've got my doubts too, and they're severe; but the alternative, if Bush's "Middle East Democracy Project" doesn't succeed, is to just push the damn button and incinerate a third of a billion people in a nuclear fireball.

Make no mistake: were it to come to pass that pressing that button is the only alternative to having our children live under sharia, I'd press it in a heartbeat- but I can understand Bush's desire to try something less drastic first.
Posted by: Dave D.   2003-11-8 6:42:46 PM  

#2  There's a great quote in Lloyd Biggle's, "The World Menders":
Democracy imposed from without is the sheerest form of tyranny."

I've thought about that a lot, and have to agree. However, I believe most people long to be free, and will embrace democratic government(in one of its myriad forms) if given the chance. That's what scares the bejeebers out of the asshats that rule in most of the countries of the ME.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2003-11-8 4:42:05 PM  

#1  Had an XO on my fist ship that had a sign in his stateroom that read," you can lead a horse to water, but you can not make him drink... but you can drown the fucker." Words to live by.
Posted by: Super Hose   2003-11-8 4:33:50 PM  

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