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Egyptian Protesters Did in 2 1/2 Weeks What the American Military Could Not Do in 9 Years of War ... Bring Democracy to the Middle East
I've previously noted that the Egyptian revolution shows that the us-versus-them narrative of the war on terror is false.
The events in Egypt also prove that democracy does not come from the barrel of a gun.
The
fact that the Egyptian protesters have made more strides away from
tyranny and towards democracy in 2 and 1/2 weeks than the American
military has been able to do in 9 years if Afghanistan and 7 years in
Iraq proves it.
Obviously, there is a long way to go. The military has to hand over power
and let elections take place. But Egyptian people have taken a giant
step in the right direction, while America's offensive military
campaigns have caused more harm than good, destabilized the region and created new terrorists.
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What badly written, nonsensical cobblers.
You're probably also a fan of the notorious homicidal Albanian nun, Mugger Theresa.
By the way:
Ghandi was a wheel-spinning racist cunt
These people--the natives of the oldest civilizations, from Egypt to the nomadic reaches of Afghanistan, take great pride in the superiority of their cultures vis a vis the West. It is why Americans or Russians cannot stay long to display military power. We are but breaths of air in comparison. It was why we were advised to have Muslims take a lead role in fighting the Taliban. It is why it took three years before enough of the Western Iraqi tribal leaders decided the AL Qaeda and Persian-led Shia were less desirable than the infidel Yanks. Petraeus' gamble worked ONLY because it wasn't used right away. Any sooner, and it wouldn't have been effective simply because the Sunnis hadn't suffered enough before the Spring of 2006.
The Kurds have simply been semi-autonomous once Saddam's foot was taken off their necks--they have other, much older fish to fry in the Eastern Turkish lands, so we haven't heard much from them.
Back to Egypt: it seems the military under Mubarak has developed a sense of conscience. It is the ONLY reason why we didn't have Hungary (1956) redux, or a repeat of the crushings IN EGYPT itself beginning in 1962, post-Nasser, and 1987(?), post-Sadat.
Protestors can succeed only if there is a moral hand somewhere in the chain of command, a staying hand that allows them to live. Where did the protestors of Pol Pot, Stalin, and Mao wind up?
And, I agee with the others--it's too soon what democracy would look like in Egypt and whether we'd like what we eventually see. There don't appear to be Soviet mullahs in Egypt with their henchmen in key posts in the military. SO perhaps it will work out.
"Petraeus' gamble worked ONLY because it wasn't used right away. "
Umm, a big part of turning the tribes against the foreign islamonutters was just adapting to the fact they are tribes, i.e. corrupt and bribable.
As to the current egyptian population taking pride in the ancient culture beneath their dirty streets and evident as pyramids and temples and mummies, well, their lineage doesn't go back that far. Also, they are Islamic, and as such all of that ancient history is basically evil. Not getting the pride element you say must exist because of stuff that predates their ancestors arrival by a few thousand years. Maybe some of them do think that way...imagining some link to this ancient past....but then we have the counterexample of the buddhas at Bamyan, and the systematic excavation of everything predating Islam from under the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and so on.
Lucky for you that insanity doesn't hurt.
Otherwise you'd be screaming all day - and all night
Love your work, but I would still call it a military coup, right now.
Exactly...meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Meet the new puppet, more pliant than the old puppet.
Yeah, I think you have to hit the hopium pipe pretty hard to see a military junta and coup as 'democracy'.
The King is dead. Long live the King.
Let's hope so.
+1. Let's hope so.
It hasn't even been two weeks yet, and half the people are envisioning Kumbayahland, while the other half aee Isreal in a smoking heap of rubble.
There is no Democracy yet.
There is no Islamo-fascism yet.
There is no war with Isreal yet.
Take a deep breath, people. This is a really long movie and they haven't even had to switch film reels yet.
Depends of food prices, weather, and what the world's central banks and larger governments do. People may think long term, but they must eat in the short run, and shit gets real quick in these countries where so many people are near subsistence levels of income and much of the food supply is imported. Scarce food will flow to richer countries first. Like, oh, Israel. And within the poorer ones the richer will eat. This sorta thing creates tensions.
Unlike GW, I don't hold out much hope in my lifetime for "democracy" as we in the west know it in Egypt.
It will likely be a very long process of peering into the abyss before the bottom comes into focus for them, the people.
Much like Iran, these things will have to be sorted out by them...Iran, I think will be farther along the "democracy" trail long before Egypt ever gets on the trail, simply because Iran now see's the bottom...I hope.
Agreed. As to Iran's readiness for "democracy" the impopularity of the mullahs there reminds me somewhat of the well earned impopulariy of the Catholic hierarchy during and after the French Revolution. The Mullahs in Iran have been so overtly corrupt, inhuman, and abusive to the country that they have succeeded in throwing a lot of the population against the mullah's sick, preposterous Islam. Most of the population there was born after the revolution, and what they've gathered about their history is that the time of the Shah was a golden era compared to what radical Islam brought. I am for decapitating their government, internal security forces, and a number of their mullahs as soon as they even look at us funny. The Iranians are ready to take care of the rest, quickly making a mockery out of what we did in fact acheive in neighboring Iraq. Again, the Iranians look down on their Iraqi Arab neighbors, and would out do them modernizing in a heartbeat.
I would suggest that real change would have occured if Mubarak had walked among his people, invited a half dozen to paying positions as political observers with access to all meetings.
Then allow the protestors a few days to select another half dozen to also be part of the transition team.
Until a CIA installed puppet can bring in more IMF loans.
For the transition to..what exactly?
Isn't that the point, that Mubarak resigned to an aimless mob when it may have been better for the country if he had passed on his knowledge? Might have been an opportunity there for Mubarak to give back some of the billions he apparently has plundered over the past 30 years in exchange for not having to presumably look over his shoulder.
I see a South Park episode in the making, a government being forced to immediately resign to...nobody.
He resigned to the military, which is the main security instrument of the egyptian state. Not getting where he resigned to "nobody." Let's pray, but also and especially act accordingly, so that the military directs this thing in a Kemal Ataturk sort of direction and not a Khomeini type of thing. Egypt is the biggest arab country by population, and its cultural center in many ways. This is a chance to distance the infected arab world from its wretched moronic past and present toward something more human.
good point.
well said/written.
Democracy ? Hope you are ready to eat those words. BTW you are no GW.
military coup = democracy .... riiiiiiight. good drugs gw.
Which just goes to show that no outside power can transform a native people, just repress and control through force and intimidation. When people want real change, change will come by their own hand. As long as people want other people to do the hard work of change, all they will get is exactly what they don't want.....meaning more of the same thing.
I guess we won't talk about those pesky Native Americans...? We did a number on them, didn't we? But then they weren't changed as much as wiped out.
vxpatel, you seem to be on the wrong thread..native american's never saw you do a number on them or anyone still living..what does it have to do with this century?
You seem to be out to lunch...the topic is democracy, change...etc. And btw, have you been to any Indian reservations...ever? This century or last? The genocide continues.
what genocide?? self destruction by alcohol and drugs and self imposed poverty? or the mega dollars made by casino Indians??
your focus and blindness perhaps missed those tribes who do very well skinning the American public ..love the noble savage..well pal there are none.
let me guess...you were an alter boy and are now a scout leader? and you think sarah palin is a viable candidate...
llike i said, ever been to a reservation?
Ben 'Shalom' Bernanke must have really wanted change then. Or his handlers did.
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Afghanistan used to be Buddhist until the Muslim invaders killed all the monks and forced the population to convert to Islam. They blew up the ancient giant Buddhist statues in Bamiyan not too long ago
Why junk him? Historically accurate. They used dynamite to destroy the statues. Are the new 'Democrats' now in power in Egypt going to dynamite the Sphinx? After all, it is an "idol" of sorts. What about all those pre-Islam statues and monuments? Blow them up as well, build a mosque on top of the rubble?
You people do know that for the most part, the current people in Egypt are not the people who built the pyramids, right? They are Arab invaders who intermixed with Egyptian converts to Islam. The Copts are the one people in the area who did not interbreed with the Arabs, so they are the most likely to have been decended from the early Egyptians. Of course, in the Alexandria area, Greek blood added to the mix is a given.
Ahh... Islam. The religion of peace. Naturally, after they kill all dissenters, there is peace.
Hopefully you don't mean just Islam...you mean all organized insititutional religions...
Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judeasim...Unless of course you also believe in the Virgin Birth, Noah's Ark...and other fairytales...in which case you should first be pittied...and then cruxified.
Including the cult of atheism which murdered 25 million people in the USSR
The cult of statism, more accurately. People who believe in nothing will believe in anything some Great Person once wrote. Neurobiology shows that people will indeed believe in something. International socialists(the left) and nationalist socilialists(also a monster that arises from the left) erect the state into the One Higher Purpose almost always at the expense of some other faith. I'd admit there are probably ten or fifteen percent of the population who have no innate tendency to believe in a Higher Power or godlike spiritual Presence or whatever, but for the rest of the population they will have a faith. The question is, what is that faith going to become. Any of the big religions besides Islam is a less worse choice.
reminds one of Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews...etc. etc. etc.
Does it not?
Fuck em all.
Seems like they don't care for retail-sucker holidays either.....
http://alarabiya.net/articles/2011/02/13/137393.html
If they don't approve of Valentines - they're definitely not going to like this one...
http://www.steakandbjday.com/
They practice the Limbaugh Doctrine: Peace results from victory.
Oh really? Iran used to be zorastrian, until muslim arab invaders forced them to switch or die. Now Iran is largely Muslim, since something like a thousand years. The british spent two centuries in India, and now they wear those wigs, have a parliamentary democracy, play cricket, and use English as their common language.
GW was talking about 9 years, not two centuries transforming India or a thousand years of change in Iran. And despite some of the English customs adopted in India, is still retains it basic Indian culture. So I guess what we're really discussing here is the definition of "change" and how willing the native people are to adopt the invaders culture.
Would you like fries with those chicken McNuggets?
or a thousand years of change in Iran.
It is instructive to go back and read the pronouncements immediately following the ouster of the Shah. Declarations of the Ayatollah being a moderate holy man were crowed from the rooftops. This triumphalism might be premature... let's not get ahead of ourselves this time.
Agreed, but with the nuance that, actually, our interests as a free people would served by being proactive in the matter. Forced pluralism and forced secularisation are the way forward.
The French followed their revolution with Robspierre, the Jacobins, and Napoleon. It was nearly 40 years before a real "republic" was formed. And France was mostly Christian and had been through the Enlightenment. Egypt and Yemen, not so much
Turkey has been a secular government for nearly a century, but every few years the Islamists try to grab power. If Egypt can become another Turkey, then they've hit a home run.
"Turkey has been a secular government for nearly a century, but every few years the Islamists try to grab power. If Egypt can become another Turkey, then they've hit a home run."
And now they have gained power, through the ballot box. The way the government and government institutions of Turkey became and remained secular was by military and police enforcement of that principle as set forth by Kemal Ataturk. Even in the 80's when my wife was studying there, the military prevented women in muslim garb from entering the universities. And so on and so forth. But now the tables have turned. In Turkey today 130 odd members of the military are being framed for the crime of doing what was long understood to be their job, i.e. on of the main things they were there to protect against, arrival of islamists to political office. Back when my wife was studying there Erdogan was banging around in politics, but was considered a crazy extremist. Now, thanks to the demographic shift driven by high rates of reproduction among conservatives and low ones among westernized pro-secular populations, Turkey is going islamist, by democratic means. It is a fait accompli that it will get worse there, given the demographics. Europe faces the same problem within a few decades, and already has grave political, economic, and social problems directly related to the huge presence and growth rate of immigrants from Islamic countries.
point being they're more likely to become an Islamic state, something the US PTB don't want.
....basic Indian culture.
Such as killing their daughters and wives and falling off trains.
When I read crap like that, I am thankful for websites like this
http://www.completebollocks.co.uk/about.html
GW and CD, so, like in 18 days, all of this magically happened?
- Ned
GW and CD, you are such credulous and gullible fools like most of the intellectual dilletantes besotted with this media circus posing as informed opinion. now that the CIA sponsored stealth military coup has been accomplished, the rabble is being steadily push out of their glorious liberation square to return to the grinding poverty with the 30 year state of emergency still firmly in place. The IMF, World Bank, WTO, and the Rand Corporation are evidently as pleased as you are with this charade of democracy in the latest globalist laboratory of economic and political control. by any definition, military rule is called "martial law". I suppose you would welcome a similar eventuation in the US. try reading some intelligent and in-depth commentary. it might broaden your woefully limited perspective.http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/print/Creative%20Destruction%20Washington%20Style.pdf