Posted on 02/12/2011 5:54:04 PM PST by Wpin
Bush adviser says Obama should have listened to the former president
For decades, the Arab states have seemed exceptions to the laws of politics and human nature. While liberty expanded in many parts of the globe, these nations were left behind, their "freedom deficit" signaling the political underdevelopment that accompanied many other economic and social maladies. In November 2003, President George W. Bush asked these questions:
"Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom and never even to have a choice in the matter?"
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Well, speaking of prayer, I think the answer is to convert them to Christianity. But I’m not sure how that can be done, since they kill anyone, especially their own family, who is caught converting.
Nothing there mentions the infighting that often went on between them and the friendships that were destroyed in giving birth to a nation.
Nothing but flowery words carefully crafted for an official document.
There’s a reason there were federalist AND anti federalist papers.
When you have a government that is viewed as secular running the show and the general opinion in the poll is the opposite, I think it says quite a lot.
The next acts in this drama might be:
1. Pressure from the street for the military to turn power over to some type of civilian committee.
2. The Military leaders (Junta) resist citing the stability they bring. In reality they fear the street.
3. The street pushes back with escalating strikes and demonstrations.
4. The Army sends in troops to maintain order.
5. Siding with the street factions (the Colonels) of the army will then attempt to remove the Junta.
If he wasn't a Constitutionalist, his choice of entirely Constitutionalist judges and justices makes no sense.
Those silly facts always mess up the talking points of you Bush-was-a-liberal folks, don't they?
I don't think the street will wait until scheduled elections. The Military are buying time so that they and the the others that profited from Mubarak's regime can get their money out of the country.
There, fixed it.
“Nothing but flowery words carefully crafted for an official document.”
That’s an interesting way to characterize one of the more famous American political letters. For starters it wasn’t an official document of any sort. The Federalist Papers were newspaper articles arguing in favor of ratifying the Constitution.
In Federalist 2 John Jay stresses the common culture and language and heritage of the Americans who fought the Revolution. It’s an original source document that contradicts your assertion of ‘radical diversity’ among that generation.
“Nothing there mentions the infighting that often went on between them and the friendships that were destroyed in giving birth to a nation.”
There’s no reason for Jay to have spoken of infighting and broken friendships in his argument for ratification, neither of which would support your diversity argument in any case.
Palestinians "democratically" elected Hamas in Jan, 2006.
Germany "democratically" elected Hitler in 1933.
The U.S. "democratically" elected Obama in 2008.
This proves your point even more. When a nation as a whole is ignorant, mislead, or even evil, free elections can put terrorists, genocidal dictators, and statists in control at the expense of individual safety and liberty. So question: should we be more concerned about free elections in other nations or the threat to liberty and safety in our own nation? My answer: as we oversaw the forming of democracy in Iraq, we must be sure that "free elections" don't result in a false freedom. Democratic elections that result in the enforcement of sharia law is not true freedom. Democracy and sharia are not compatible. This is why we cannot support "free elections" in Egypt when the filling of the void by the Muslim Brotherhood is a foregone conclusion. The Muslim Brotherhood is a threat to true freedom and safety in our own nation. What will our soldiers say when they are shot down with the anti-aircraft missiles Egypt purchased earlier from the U.S.? "It was a free election?"
“If he wasn’t a Constitutionalist, his choice of entirely Constitutionalist judges and justices makes no sense.”
OWF, does the name ‘Harriet Miers’ ring a bell?
Surely even someone completely drunk on the glorious greatness of Dubya will still admit that Harriet was really just a Crony, and not a Constitutionalist.
Turkey became a secular republic in 1922. That experiment in democracy has been running into Islamist trouble since 2002.
Ok, correction: Hitler assumed power but was approved of by 90% in a poll, not an election.
Freedom is something every human being craves. It's absolutely instinctual. Now whether they have the courage to overcome the radicals remains to be seen.
It could turn out badly, very badly indeed: a government of Islamists who will gleefully send yet another country into total penury while screaming about the delights of jihad. It might be a great outcome, a secular representative government under the rule of law that will turn its back on poisoning its children with hatred. Most likely, however, it will be somewhere in between, an Egyptian solution that will muddle along as representative governments tend to do, satisfying none of the purists and the theorists, doing what it can. Bush was right, at least, about Iraq, where all the Bush-bashers can do now is to desperately try to misrepresent the current government in the blackest possible terms to avoid admitting that for once, nation-building stemmed the tide. It was not an ideal solution, but it is an Iraqi solution and it muddles along.
It could also be Iran, and 0bama could be Carter. Our part of the outcome depends on how sharp the State Department and the Executive for which it works can manage to be. In the case of Iran that meant 444 days of unjust imprisonment that is yet to be avenged. In the case of Egypt, State appears just as brittle as before with an additional dose of steadfast denial. If anyone in the current U.S. government has a clue to what is really happening, it isn't obvious. So we muddle along too.
Actually the evidence to date is that those in the Administration not only don’t have a clue, even worse they are the height of anti-cluefulness. Ignorance would be preferable to their belief in things that just aren’t so. To prove my case, I offer as Exhibit 1 DNI Cropper’s statements on the Muslim Brotherhood.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2671766/posts
There is lots of Biblical prophecy that points away from this. God's gift to man? Really? The only Gift to man is Jesus Christ and His return.
LOL OK fine they were all robots who never disagreed about anything.
Yeah...
Like WE'RE doing a very good job of it!
Oh my... God gave us the gift of life and of free will. Free will is our right, God made us free. That is his gift to us.
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