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Riots erupt in Egypt as protesters demand end to Mubarak regime

Albert Di Salvo said:
1. There is no democratic tradition in the Arab world. None.
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.....Aaaaaaaand right here is where I cut you off because the rest of it merely seeks to defend this shallow idea of the world and the events that have have brought us to February 4, 2011. Before France, there was no democratic tradition in greater Europe either. How dare they have a beginning.


Are you aware that the first Caliphate was democraticaly elected by the elders? Are you aware that every single "nation" in the Middle East has had a large base of support to create democracy since the beginning of European colonialism, but has been denied it, and that along the way too many of them began to turn towards "God" as the ultimate solution for their earthly salvation? - (This seperates the majority from the lost souls that merely wish to serve "God" at any cost.)

You see, the reason there has been "no democratic tradition" in the Arab world is because since the age of modernism, Europeans ensured that democracy was a White Western thing while relying on the support of dictators, thugs, and religious leaders elsewhere in order to provide economic stability for their trades. Along came the Cold War and America gets stuck with the world they created as it battles a very immediate ideology war against a nuclear competitor. We maintained the idea of "stability" at any cost and shelved our own values when we saw it necessary (often mistaken for "easier.")

To use the fact that there has been no Vermont or San Fransisco in the Middle East to assume that their destiny relies on oppression and control is not only short sighted, but absolutely racist and morally decrepit. The only question should be whether or not Sunni Arab Islam is compatible with Western democracy. We see it in Indonesia, but this is far removed from the heartland and they are hardly Sunni loyalists. We see it in Turkey, but they were converts and they are not Sunni Arabs in the heartland. Unlike Saudi Arabia, Egypt has a written history that pre-dates Islam too and are themselves victims of Arab colonialism. They too have every tool that Turkey had to create a democracy that respects religion, but draws a line.

Let me put this in other terms. If you actually think that our security and the "stability" of the Middle East relies upon dictators and religious theocracies, I remind you of the long term relationships that the Shah of Iran and what Mubarak has produced. If we have any kind of immediate evironmental awareness about us at all, we should absolutely be able to identify that in Europe and in the U.S., the people will win in the end. The longer we disallow the people their voice in the Middle East, or merely pretend to support their modernists voices, we make the religious threat in the region worse and worse.

I know what I'm talking about. When you sit on the toilet and ponder on who the smartest man in the world is.....relax....it's me.
:darthgunny (<------ Yes, this is my "smilie" and nobody else can use it without express permission from Kelzie or the artist formerly known as GySgt.)
 
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I'm inclined to agree with Albert di Salvo. The road to democracy is riddled with pitfalls. In American-English tradition, those pitfalls were spread over the course of a thousand years, with increasingly democratic institutions (like Parliament) developing out of a increasingly democratic culture.


I was thinking of France too, but as a negative example. The French Revolution was bloody and resulted in decades worth of dictatorships.
 
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Albert Di Salvo said:
Western democratic theory took a very long time to develop in fertile soil.
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It took the French 70 years to create a functioning "Western" democracy. Along the way they even elected an emporer. Perhaps Arabs can be given more than a few years before you **** on their on going efforts? Maybe your grandchildren will wonder about the Western generation that demanded that Arabs were nothing more than pawns in a dictator's game.
 
MSgt said:
or the artist formerly known as GySgt.
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Hey, where did that guy get off to anyway? Did he get ****canned from the Marine Corp, or something, for becoming a Liberal, or violating DADT?
 


I wish it were true. Obama has abandoned Bush's Democracy Agenda. This is what the Arab World believes:

President Obama, say the 'D-Word' - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

The Arab world may have democracy some day. But I suspect our children's children will be long dead by the time that happens. Anti-democratic forces are on the march throughout the world. China and Iran are authoritarian. Russia is less democratic as time passes. American influence and ideas have been so discredited that America is becoming irrelevant:

Amid Arab protests, U.S. influence has waned

I wish it weren't so.
 

70 years is a long time, especially in the Technological Age. That information and products travel at exponentially faster speeds means that time no longer poses the same obstacle it did in previous centuries.
 
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"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
 

Perhaps if they had a big brother (America/Europe) entity full of people insisting that they were never goiong to be nothing more than what they have been prescribed. Didn't kings and the Catholic Church once prrescribe oppression to a civilization that were never more than peasants for the elite game? Make no mistake. Ralph Peters (among other experts..and I mean expert in the true form) wrote about how Iraq was going to change the world. With an entire region erupting with democratic speeches and China looking to lock down what their people are watching....I'd say the entire world is about to enter a stage it stupidly insisted was never to be.


Morality Games said:
I was thinking of France too, but as a negative example. The French Revolution was bloody and resulted in decades worth of dictatorships.
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Exactly. Think about it. After only 7 years, and the beginning of a regional eruption that themes around democracy, people want every single IED to mean failure. Aren't the stupid French supposed to be the superior human beings in the universe? If they took some 70 years, perhaps we could keep an open mind and give Arabs a little bit of space to trip over some inevitable mistakes along their path to making a more secure and safe world. We have to face this truth....relying on the Mubaraks and the Husseins has been not only morally decrepit, but tactically wrong in terms of long term security.
 
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reefedjib said:
Hey, where did that guy get off to anyway? Did he get ****canned from the Marine Corp, or something, for becoming a Liberal, or violating DADT?
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They promoted him and made him a chief of a 17 man team that is headed to Afghanistan for 365 to be imbedded within a certain Afghani force...somewhere.
 

+ 1,000,000

Damn, MSgt, when you're hot, you immolate those who have no vision!
 
 
MSgt said:
They promoted him and made him a chief of a 17 man team that is headed to Afghanistan for 365 to be imbedded within a certain Afghani force...somewhere.
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Tell him congrats on the promotion and the honor of looking after the men and leading the mission, not necessarily in that order!

What are your thoughts about Afghanistan, its future, our influence and involvement, and Pakistan's sphere of influence?
 
Always like Msgt's posts, but I'm also inclined slightly to the Albert side.

Democratic tradition didn't begin with the American or French Revolutions but with the Magna Carta.
But as you say as well, 70 years is a ling time in the tech age.

In fact, I have aid many times what started the Islamic hostility of the latter part of the last century was Arabs "turning on their TV sets" and realizing they were in fact horribly behind and backwards, shattering their self image.

Now we have Part 2, the onset of Arab TV (jazeera, arabiya, etc) and the internet hooking them all up in information but no ability to voice it at home.

The world moves forward, however bumpily.
Revenge of the neocons.
 
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Islamic ethics of individualism, liberalism, religious freedom, and freedom of speech predates The Age of Enlightenment. The soil is fertile.
 
mbig said:
...Democratic tradition didn't begin with the American or French Revolutions but with the Magna Carta...
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I guess that is a legitimate point. But I wonder where the reduction of the power of the King John over his Barons constitutes a democratic breakout. The Magna Carta was signed in the early 13th century. Things thereafter remained in stasis until the European enlightenment and the English Revolution. Please correct me if I am mistaken. I am happy to learn from someone like you.
 
Albert Di Salvo said:
I think Obama is hanging on to the caboose. He is not the engineer of the Freedom Train. Bush tried that, and was eviscerated by the American left.
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Obama's stance on Egypt is extremely significant, no matter what pundits think about the wane of US influence. But I agree that the freedom wave in the ME is larger than the president at this point. All part of the MASTER PLAN, instantiated by Bush, that you claim was invalidated by the left. I will say again that the left's hatred for Bush caused them to oppose the spread of freedom in the world. That's a complete invalidation of their own ideals. They have nothing to offer the world of value. The left is completely decrepit.

The Democracy MASTER PLAN is alive and well and shaking the region on its own merits without our acquiescence. The freedom movement is set free and running on its own. We cannot stop it even if we wanted too.
 

I thought it was Robin Hood. Damn.
 
I noticed that today there were a lot more women in the crowds. I suppose that our progressive handlers of this uprising are listening to Fox News and made the correction to make this look like a real public effort.
 
Albert Di Salvo said:
With all due respect, this is not the way to conduct a debate.
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Whatever, dude. You can read. Here, I'll quote.

 
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reefedjib said:
When Bush realized US Foreign Policy had to change to the Middle East, he also realized the only counter-strategy to terrorism and fundamentalism is Democracy.

Democracy is the antidote to fundamentalism.
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Is that why he doubled military aid to the Arab world?
 
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OK, sure. No problems. The point here is that "seeds" were planted. Before Iraqi Freeedom where and what were the seeds? Before Tunisia where was the "enlightenment" for change? It's not like they are blind to the West and to all the prescriptions that have not only made us prosperous, but individually free to express and worship. Do you think Muslims across the region have religious freedom? Ask the Shia outside of Iraq and Iran what they think about that. Ask the non-Arab and Chrisitian victims in Sudan what they think. Ask any tribe within a Sunni government that question. What if this historical awakening and probably most important era in future's history is occurring right before your very eyes? America didn't become so great because it was too afraid to gamble and push so heavily upon our capacity to promote individual expression, creativity, and a basic human rights. Why then, do we insist that only keeping it and not promoting it elsewhere will result in our doom?



Albert Di Salvo said:
I will not address the notion that the consensus of a handful of elders in selecting a Caliph constitutes democracy. I don't feel the need.
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It's merely a base in which to show that they have the capacity for it.
 
Red_Dave said:
Is that why he doubled military aid to the Arab world?
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Yes. At the same time he helped Saudi Arabia strengthen its fight against Al-Qaeda (and SA really went after them!) and influenced SA and other ME countries started limited reforms.

Political Reform in Saudi Arabia


 
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