Article

2005-03-08 Britain

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Posted by Sobiesky 2005-03-08 00:00:00 AM|| || Front Page|| [11131 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 It seems that at least some people on the left are starting to ask that question. Peter Mansbridge, the CBC uber-leftie anchor and political commentator, coincidentally, did comment today:

Maybe Bush was right.

In less than a year, we've seen relatively free elections in Afghanistan and Iraq, a hint of democracy in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the death of Yasser Arafat and the election of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian who seems bent on finding peace with Israel. And most recently, the remarkable scenes in Lebanon where people power has again stared down the guns of seized power. Is freedom really on the march across the Middle East, as George W. Bush and those who've helped design his foreign policy giddily suggest? Actually, that theory is now gaining support from unlikely sources.

Remember Walid Jumblatt? He was a familiar face in the media of the 1980s as Lebanon went through its agonizing civil war -- a long-time Druze parliamentarian, he was often heard railing against the U.S. for intervening in the mess that was his country. Now, his thoughts have a different tone. Last week, he told the Washington Post: "It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting, eight million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world." Strange is right, because this is the same man whose visa to the U.S. was pulled after he had called Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defence, a "virus," even publicly wished for his death -- all for that same policy that led to the invasion of Iraq two years ago this month.

It is early in this process, but Jumblatt, a controversial figure at the best of times, isn't hesitant with his prediction of where all this is going. To him, what's happening here is similar to those history-making November days 16 years ago. In fact, he made the direct comparison by claiming that the people in his world "all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen"

Posted by Sobiesky 2005-03-08 12:24:37 AM|| 2005-03-08 12:24:37 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 The Big Freaking DUH Crowd finally grasps that 2+2 does not equal 5, regardless of what the cool people say.

Posted by 2b 2005-03-08 4:20:21 AM|| 2005-03-08 4:20:21 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 BTW...great post, Steve!

Posted by 2b 2005-03-08 4:47:05 AM|| 2005-03-08 4:47:05 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 this is as delusional as western press saying democracy is taking hold in the Mideast. You guys will believe any propaganda put forth by the Bushies. Save this post for a year and see what the spin will be then. Democracy is a pretext for clouding of the minds of you middle class underfunded and moral baited so-called republicans. Read a few history books and a few political sciece texts on propaganda. The concept that there is an eruption of democracy in the middle east is being set up like a soph,ore's work on a propaganda thesis. Democracy in the Middle East is the Willie Horton story of the moment.

Posted by jurisesq 2005-03-08 6:46:08 AM|| 2005-03-08 6:46:08 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 Lol! You're supposed to make lemonade when your world-view keeps coming up lemons, juriseq. Need some help there, little one?

You're today's proof of RC's Good News Law. Congrats!

Posted by .com 2005-03-08 6:49:27 AM|| 2005-03-08 6:49:27 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 .com you are too poor to even fully enjoy the tax cut. Go vote against yourself, your mal-education is showing. while you are at it send your child over to Iraq or join the army and volunteer to find roadside bombs. It makes sense. Democracy will flourish.

Posted by juriseqs 2005-03-08 8:14:29 AM|| 2005-03-08 8:14:29 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 Where do you get your nonsense, fool? Time toddle off, wanker. You make no sense.

Posted by .com 2005-03-08 8:21:57 AM|| 2005-03-08 8:21:57 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 Must be terrible to find out your whole philosiphy is wrong,juri.

Posted by raptor 2005-03-08 8:42:05 AM|| 2005-03-08 8:42:05 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 juriseqs thinks he and the LLL's are smarter than everyone else. I hope they keep the attitude - then they will never win another election.

Posted by SR71 2005-03-08 8:45:50 AM|| 2005-03-08 8:45:50 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 Wow, jurisesq, you are sooo sophisticated! And the Bushies are so good at evilly manipulating the poor idiots in Iraq, Afganistan, Kuwait, Paleostine, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Libya, Soddy Arabia, Ukraine, and various -stans! And all for the oil, too!

Posted by Spot 2005-03-08 8:46:22 AM|| 2005-03-08 8:46:22 AM|| Front Page Top

#11 Yeah .com you too poor for tax cuts.
BTW bushitler etc. etc.

aller way with LBJ!

Posted by Shipman 2005-03-08 9:05:29 AM|| 2005-03-08 9:05:29 AM|| Front Page Top

#12 Whassa matter, juriseqs? Still made because we destroyed your idol, the USSR?

Posted by Jackal 2005-03-08 9:08:33 AM|| [http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2005-03-08 9:08:33 AM|| Front Page Top

#13 You're today's proof of RC's Good News Law. Congrats!

Amazing, isn't it? What's frightening is that it works not because I'm particularly perceptive, but that the loons are that predictable.

Posted by Robert Crawford 2005-03-08 9:24:51 AM|| [http://www.kloognome.com/] 2005-03-08 9:24:51 AM|| Front Page Top

#14 Indeed they are, bro, lol! ;-)

Posted by .com 2005-03-08 9:26:50 AM|| 2005-03-08 9:26:50 AM|| Front Page Top

#15 But you did make the call, lol!

Posted by .com 2005-03-08 9:27:37 AM|| 2005-03-08 9:27:37 AM|| Front Page Top

#16 learn something about Islam instead of being just yes men for each other --we Christians got it wrong again --the Crusades are always failures. better to isolate them and ignore than to invade into the middle and surround ourselves. Been to a good flaggelation religious rite. I am the most conservative on this board. You guys are the radicals.

Posted by juriseqs 2005-03-08 9:41:33 AM|| 2005-03-08 9:41:33 AM|| Front Page Top

#17 I am the most conservative on this board. You guys are the radicals.

WTF?

Posted by Steve from Relto 2005-03-08 9:43:05 AM|| 2005-03-08 9:43:05 AM|| Front Page Top

#18 ROFL!

Thank you sooo much. Yep. You're the man, or woman, all right. Yewbetcha.

Just wondering, but do you like travel with a warning sign or something? Y'know, like at the pool, to let people know how deep you are? I think that would be a good idea for an expert, such as yourself.

Posted by .com 2005-03-08 9:46:20 AM|| 2005-03-08 9:46:20 AM|| Front Page Top

#19 yea steve you are confused because it is more complex that a flag wave

Posted by juriseqs 2005-03-08 9:47:20 AM|| 2005-03-08 9:47:20 AM|| Front Page Top

#20 I do believe we have a bona-fide wank-o-matic. Passed all the tests so far... looks promising.

Posted by .com 2005-03-08 9:49:33 AM|| 2005-03-08 9:49:33 AM|| Front Page Top

#21 What's wrong with being a radical for freedom and self-defense?

And what would you rather "conserve"? tyrants and socialists?

Posted by Kalle (kafir forever) 2005-03-08 9:53:18 AM|| [http://radio.weblogs.com/0103811/categories/currentEvents/] 2005-03-08 9:53:18 AM|| Front Page Top

#22 rather conserve our children and treasure

Posted by juriseqs 2005-03-08 9:57:03 AM|| 2005-03-08 9:57:03 AM|| Front Page Top

#23 Um, juriseqs? You'd conserve our children by giving carte blanche to people committed to our destruction whatever we do? And you'd conserve treasure by paying it as dane-geld? If we extend the had of peace to al-Qaeda they'll chop it off.

Posted by Steve from Relto 2005-03-08 10:00:30 AM|| 2005-03-08 10:00:30 AM|| Front Page Top

#24 Whoops, that should be "hand of peace".

Posted by Steve from Relto 2005-03-08 10:01:39 AM|| 2005-03-08 10:01:39 AM|| Front Page Top

#25 "conserve" at what price? liberty? life?

This is WW IV, not imperialist hubris. Either we win this and freedom spreads through the Moslem world, or we will have a major nuclear war v.soon.

Posted by Kalle (kafir forever) 2005-03-08 10:01:44 AM|| [http://radio.weblogs.com/0103811/categories/currentEvents/] 2005-03-08 10:01:44 AM|| Front Page Top

#26 Sheesh, juriseqs, your pronouncements should be arrested for violating the fire code. All those moldering strawmen are certainly a hazard.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2005-03-08 10:15:41 AM|| 2005-03-08 10:15:41 AM|| Front Page Top

#27 Juriseqs, you are an illiterate authoritarian wannabe with no apparent knowledge of logic, rhetoric, or argumentation. You have not tried to justify or support any of your claims and pronouncements. It is you, not we, who are deficient in education and knowledge.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2005-03-08 10:20:37 AM|| 2005-03-08 10:20:37 AM|| Front Page Top

#28 Isn't it fun now that the left has been exposed to be the dupes and fools that we always knew they were. Poor juriseqs and his buddies are left with Michael Moore, Ward Churchill, Howard Dean, Chirac, Castro, Bill (I love the Mullahs) Clinotn (and soon) Chavez et. al, as their vaunted champions of wisdom. Their belief in the UN, that institution whose leaders are $21 Billion dollars richer from stealing food and medicine from the needy and pushes paper over 5 star lunches as women get raped and entire communities slaughtered. But hey, the do watch it all go down - that's something.

The juriseqs of the world like the UN because it allows them to do absolutely nothing for the desperate, yet still claim to be their champions. So ... comfortable.

They say you are as good as the company you keep. The left has got to be looking around these days and feeling just a bit uncomfortable.

Posted by 2b 2005-03-08 10:22:49 AM|| 2005-03-08 10:22:49 AM|| Front Page Top

#29 It's kinda funny listening to Juri talk about propoganda in the western press put forth by the Bushies. I guess he means the pro-Bush outlets of ABC, NBC and CBS. Maybe he means the NY Times, LA Times, SF Chronicle, Wash Post. Perhaps he means all the right wing Hollywood propoganda that make it to the theaters. Too bad the Bushies are losing their biggest propoganda pusher - Dan Rather!

Posted by Angitle Fleth2925 2005-03-08 10:58:45 AM|| 2005-03-08 10:58:45 AM|| Front Page Top

#30 Former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite suggested Monday afternoon that Dan Rather stayed in the chair too long.

No joke!!!

Posted by D 2005-03-08 11:07:31 AM|| 2005-03-08 11:07:31 AM|| Front Page Top

#31 It' not just The Independent:

Even Le Monde Al-Jazzera on the Seine is asking the question. Things are moving in the Middle East: should we thank Bush?

But after We are All Americans headline did not agree w/the body of the article, bah!

Juri? After the 2nd plane hit the WTC, it was not complicated.

You don't get it, and most probably the Jacksonian America.

You also don't write like an American. You don't get US, dude, never did, never will. You cannot isolate or ignore them.

This isn't the 7th century. Even if the world got off of oil, it wouldn't help, it would make things worse.

Posted by anonymous2u 2005-03-08 11:26:23 AM|| 2005-03-08 11:26:23 AM|| Front Page Top

#32

Patrick Henry March 23, 1775: "...Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the ~~north~~ [Middle East] will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

juriseqs 2005-03-08: Run away! Run Away!

Posted by Hyper 2005-03-08 12:46:24 PM|| 2005-03-08 12:46:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#33 What's this we Christians nonsense, Kemo Sabe? I'm not at all certain, if we did a hand count, that Christians of whatever flavour are even a simple majority on this site. I know I'm not, nor is .com (who, poor darling, is living off the obscene wages he earned those endless years in Saudi Arabia), nor liberalhawk, nor Master of this pocket universe Fred. That's of those posting to this thread that I'm sure of. And certainly this has never claimed to be a Conservative or Republican site. We've got bigger fish to fry.

You owe us an apology, juriseqs.

Posted by trailing wife 2005-03-08 12:54:55 PM|| 2005-03-08 12:54:55 PM|| Front Page Top

#34 Juriseqs, I don't know what branch of Christianity you claim to speak for, but you sure don't speak for me.

Also, looking at your handle, may I make the assumption you are a lawyer? If so, please have your paralegal spell and grammar check your posts before hitting the "submit query" button. If your legal briefs are anything like what you have posted here, you are single-mindedly bringing down the intelligence level of the bar every time your words hit paper.

Posted by Desert Blondie 2005-03-08 2:12:40 PM|| [http://azjetsetchick.blogspot.com] 2005-03-08 2:12:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#35 Juriseqs: Well, I *AM* a Christian. I never made any bones about that, and I'm sure the long-timers on this board know it too.

You are A FAKE. Someone PRETENDING to be a Christian to gain cheap talking points.

If there is anything more Christian that happened in this decade, it was the liberation of Iraq by Americans. We indeed spent lots of money, treasure, and blood to free a people who were propagandised by the SAME sources from which YOU drink, to hate us. We did so to FREE them, and give them the SAME blessings of liberty that we, INCLUDING YOU, enjoy.

You selfish, self-centered, I-am-the-center-of-the-world FAKE. Only SELFISHNESS made you side with A TYRANT, and AGAINST the long-suffering people of Iraq.

Christians have a SEMBLANCE of principle. To complain that we were bad for propping up a tyrant, and THEN to complain when we REPENTED of such a belief and PULLED HIM DOWN is to reveal a LACK of INTEGRITY, PRINCIPLE, CONSISTENCY, and FAIRNESS. You are to America what the Pharisees were to Jesus: willing to twist principles and laws to condemn the blameless, only to wind up creating a situation that condemned themselves.

Either go into your closet and repent, or just GO AWAY.

YOU are the hypocrite the non-Christians of this board cite as a reason not to consider Christianity.

I'm sure to be very misunderstood when I say the following: Bad crap is coming down the pike for you, Juriseqs, and you'll need help to haul your ass out of the fire. This is a WARNING, not a threat. My natural man wants me to say nothing about it, so you'll just thrash around with no clue as to how to get out of it, but I guess the same Spirit that approves of giving liberty and freedom to the Iraquis, at the cost of one's money and children, insists that I throw you this lifeline on the possibility you'll grab it and save yourself a lot of heartache.

Email me when you've had enough pain...

Posted by Ptah 2005-03-08 3:51:24 PM|| [http://www.crusaderwarcollege.org] 2005-03-08 3:51:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#36 LOL DB! And I agree with respect to the Christianity angle the EVERY LLL seems to grasp when they feel the argument slipping. It's always about Jerry Fawell or Pat Robertson or pedophile Priest, never about the teachings of Jesus christ and what that means. I have never met Falwell or Robertson and probably couldn't pick them out of a crowd. I am a practicing Catholic (can't seem to get it right) and I know the difference from right and wrong. I don't consider myself hollier than the next man and I don't like any LLL trying to tell me what they think is 'unchristian' or 'christian' in nature. Also (without knowing) I would put up the credentials of everybody at Rantburg against any group on the left. If Ward Churchill (Chief spouting Bull), Ted Kennedy, Nancy Polosi, Babs Boxer, and Howard Dean are their 'Smart Leaders' then I feel pretty good about our 'Dumb' Leaders. Keep up the good work Counselor maybe you can lose twice as many seats in 2006.

Posted by Cyber Sarge 2005-03-08 4:06:25 PM|| 2005-03-08 4:06:25 PM|| Front Page Top

#37 Left Surrenders, Film at 11

Sure it's worth viewing?

I'm inclined to say no....

Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2005-03-08 6:27:09 PM|| 2005-03-08 6:27:09 PM|| Front Page Top

#38 You guys are the radicals. Bingo! He gets it. We are the people who want to fix some serious problems before they get any worse. The Left are the conservatives wishing things wouldn't change.

I'm a card carrying atheist and I suspect we may be a majority of the regulars.

Posted by phil_b 2005-03-08 6:40:32 PM|| 2005-03-08 6:40:32 PM|| Front Page Top

#39 Good for you 2b! I bet you save a lot of money in December. I only ranted about christianity because LLL love to preach on it when they are losing an argument (such as the experts they are). Usually it starts out on what Fawell or Robertson said on some show that outraged just about everyone and how I must agree and follow their thinking. The fact that you are a atheist and I am not proves that not all conservatives walk in lockstep, and that we can (and do) think for ourselves. Wonder if rantburg ever ran a demographics survey? that would be interesting to see.

Posted by Cyber Sarge 2005-03-08 7:04:54 PM|| 2005-03-08 7:04:54 PM|| Front Page Top

#40 Ima Native-America church here. Think hard at me towards North Florida if you need a clue.

Posted by Shipman 2005-03-08 7:19:15 PM|| 2005-03-08 7:19:15 PM|| Front Page Top

#41 I'm a card carrying atheist and I suspect we may be a majority of the regulars

Probably no card carrying agnostics, Phil. But it's a guess, nothing more. I don't consider one's religious affiliation, including yours, that important, except for moon-god cultists.

Posted by Sobiesky 2005-03-08 7:24:11 PM|| 2005-03-08 7:24:11 PM|| Front Page Top

#42 rather conserve our children and treasure

This 'un is all kinds of confused. First we get 'it's all the Saudi Arabia's fault' and 'a secular Saddam weren't so bad'.

Then it's 'let's invade Saudi Arabia/Iran'.

Now it's 'Democracy isn't breaking out all over. It's all a fake. Let's stay home, ignore them and count our pennies'.

Go play elsewhere. You're wasting bandwidth and annoying the grownups.

Posted by Pappy 2005-03-08 7:58:05 PM|| 2005-03-08 7:58:05 PM|| Front Page Top

17:52 Xbalanke
17:52 Xbalanke
17:04 Crerert Ebbeting3481
17:03 Crerert Ebbeting3481
23:54 Brett
23:49 Sobiesky
23:45 Frank G
23:28 SC88
23:02 Raj
22:45 Frank G
22:39 Ted Kennedy
22:38 Paul Moloney
22:33 CrazyFool
22:22 Frank G
22:19 phil_b
22:18 2b
22:18 Aris Katsaris
22:16 Paul Reubens
22:16 trailing wife
22:14 Frank G
22:13 Eric Jablow
22:10 trailing wife
22:06 Atomic Conspiracy
22:06 Frank G