Posted on 02/01/2011 2:55:42 PM PST by ventanax5
The Egyptian multitudes on the streets of Cairo are a stunning sight. With their banners calling for freedom and an end to the reign of President Hosni Mubarak the story these images tell is a simple one as old as time.
On the one hand we have the young, dispossessed and weak protesters. And on the other we have the old, corrupt and tyrannical Mubarak. Hans Christian Andersen taught us who to support when we were wee tots.
But does his wisdom apply in this case?
Certainly it is true that the regime is populated by old men. Mubarak is 82 years old. It is also true that his regime is corrupt and tyrannical. Since the Muslim Brotherhood spinoff Islamic Jihad terror group murdered Mubarak's predecessor president Anwar Sadat in 1981, Egypt has been governed by emergency laws that ban democratic freedoms. Mubarak has consistently rejected US pressure to ease regime repression and enact liberal reforms in governance.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
“In an article of rare scope and insight, Caroline Glick grasps the double ideological illusion that controls American politics toward Islam in general and the Egyptian uprising in particular. On one side, the neoconservatives/Bushites believe that elections will automatically give birth to good regimes in the Muslim world, and so they support the popular rebellion against Mubarak even though in reality it will most likely lead to the creation of an Islamic republic. On the other side, the left-liberals/Obamites believe that anything done by Third Worlders in the name of resistance to Western colonialism is good, and since the protesters in Egypt are resisting Mubarak who is supposedly nothing but a U.S. puppet, left-liberals support them. Thus pro-democracy neocons on one hand and anti-colonialist leftists on the other both cheer developments that will bring about the radical Islamic takeover of the largest Arab country.
How is it that pro-American neocons, who define America as a universal benevolent abstraction, and anti-American left-liberals, who see America as a vicious oppressor of non-Western peoples, end up on the same side? What is it that the two factions have in common? What they have in common is that neither believes in America or the West as a concrete entity. Neither is capable of thinking about the good of America or the West as a concrete entity. And so both promote policies that are harmful to America and the West as concrete entities.
When we further remember that respectable opinion in America is virtually monopolized by the above described neoconservative and left-liberal positions, with no options outside those two insane views, we start to realize how demented, dangerous, and destructive American politics has become.”
What has most confounded Israeli officials and commentators alike has not been the strength of the anti-regime protests, but the American response to them. Outside the far Left, commentators from all major newspapers, radio and television stations have variously characterized the US response to events in Egypt as irrational, irresponsible, catastrophic, stupid, blind, treacherous, and terrifying.Amen! And bump. The idea that nobama is openly backing the Muzzie Bruddahood is insane.They have pointed out that the Obama administration's behavior - as well as that of many of its prominent conservative critics - is liable to have disastrous consequences for the US's other authoritarian Arab allies, for Israel and for the US itself.
The question most Israelis are asking is why are the Americans behaving so destructively? Why are President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton charting a course that will necessarily lead to the transformation of Egypt into the first Salafist Islamic theocracy? And why are conservative commentators and Republican politicians urging them to be even more outspoken in their support for the rioters in the streets?
Does the US not understand what will happen in the region as a result of its actions? Does the US really fail to understand what will happen to its strategic interests in the Middle East if the Muslim Brotherhood either forms the next regime or is the power behind the throne of the next regime in Cairo?
Distressingly, the answer is that indeed, the US has no idea what it is doing.
Obama and Hilery Clinton know exactly what they are doing.
This is nuts,how do you handle Muslims with kid gloves? They only understand Brute force!
Caroline is correct. But I dont see Egypts revalution as necessarily a bad thing. Let the truth of the Egyptians be known. Israel can not rely on the protection of Mubarak forever. The sooner that issue is dealt with the better. Another thing, it is good for Israel to know NOW, as her conclusion states, that American security guarantees are worthless. And just as Egypt was land for peace, the unstoppable arab hatred of Israel and the West, at SOME POINT, will overwhelm the ability of their governments to control it. Like when the PA held elections in Gaza. Hamas won. The MB will take over in Egypt. And Israel can not even think about giving Judea and Samaria to the arabs now. It would be suicide.
Great article by Glick. Even more fundamentally, the entire problem is rooted in the lie that Islam is compatible with Western style democracy. That was one of Mubarak’s criticisms of Bush. The somehow democracy could be made to work in postwar Iraq.
Glick notes the June 2010 survey in Egypt which noted among other things that 82% of the population believed it was correct to kill those who leave Islam. Liberal democracy has no chance of success in such an environment.
I almost wish that were true, as it might be easier to combat their politics.
They can't "know" what they are doing...far too much of what passes for belief among them, simply is not reality, and that my friends is the problem.
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