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Arabs wary of Bush's 'freedom' speech
| Al-Jizzles interviews the Muslim innalekshul in the street with predictable results... |
 George Bush's pledge to spread liberty around the globe has earned a frosty reception in the Arab world, with observers dismissing as hollow rhetoric his insistence on promoting freedom.
| "Nope. Nope. We don't want none o' that stuff!" |
On Friday analysts warned that the US president's ambition to promote democracy would only be regarded with suspicion in the Middle East so long as Iraq is plagued by violence after the US-led invasion.
| "Yeah. Ain't nobody can be free until the U.S. is out of Iraq and the fascists can kill anybody they want again. Now that's freedom, by Gum!" |
An Arab professor of political science drew parallels between the words of Bush and Usama bin Ladin, saying the president had made the word freedom banal in the same way as the al-Qaida leader had the word jihad. "The two men have both invoked their favourite concepts without ever putting them into practice," Assad Abu Khalil, who works in the United States, told Aljazeera.
| Wouldn't it be nice if Arabs and Moose limbs swarmed to the banner of liberty the way the love to do to the banner of jihad? Wouldn't it be loverly if they rounded up those who opposed liberty and human dignity and chopped their heads off? Wouldn't it be wonderful if they blew up the mosques and the homes and the cars of those who want to grind their fellow men into the dust? |
Simplistic solutions
He said Bush's notion of freedom as the solution is just as simplistic as the belief of Islamists that Islam is the solution in a region largely ruled by totalitarian regimes that reject religious extremism. "By wanting to explain all through freedom, Bush ends up explaining nothing. We need to see how the idea of liberty can be translated into effective policies," he said. "The export of democracy is in no way a military operation."
| Sure it is, when it needs to be. Arabs and Moose limbs spend hours wailing about how the region is largely ruled by totalitarian regimes. Liberty is the exact, 180-degree opposite of totalitarianism. How can it not be the solution to the problem? And if oppressed peoples can't throw off the yoke of dictatorship, and we help them do it, what's wrong with that? We're doing you a favor, Assad, but you can't accept it as such. Instead, you leave your goat farm in the Olde Countrie and head off the the liberty of the U.S.A. to bitch. |
In a speech marking his inauguration on Thursday to a second, four-year term, Bush said the United States would support the growth of democracy "with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world".
| There go those totalitarian regimes that largely rule... |
"We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
| That's because the part of the world that's largely ruled by totalitarian regimes or under attack by would-be totalitarian regimes wants to export its problems to the civilized world. |
He did not name any countries specifically not even Iraq - but Vice-President Dick Cheney told US media that Iran was "right at the top of the list" of trouble spots.
| Kinda went without saying, since we're banging Bad Guyz there every day... |
Reform
Critics say he has yet to put any real pressure on US-friendly Arab states to reform and Washington's support for Israel at the expense of the Palestinians has further shredded his credibility in Arab eyes.
| Yeah, there's always Israel, isn't there? Can't have a free society in an area of the world that's largely ruled by totalitarian regimes, can we? And every time the U.S. does put real pressure on those regimes to reform, the people like Assad are busy hopping up and down and rolling their eyes and demanding they be left alone like Iraq was defended before we went in and threw Sammy out. Make up your minds: do you want pressure on the totalitarian regimes or not? It sounds like you're giving a lot of lip service and it looks like you're not lifting many fingers to help alleviate the problem. |
"We don't see any credible handling of despotic regimes in the Arab region," said Egyptian political analyst Muhammad al-Sayid Said. "There are people in the region who are his own dictators working for him."
| I'd say giving Sammy the toss was a pretty credible handling of a despotic regime. There are others that people like Muhammad are more than willing to defend, like Baby Assad and the ayatollahs. It's fun to speak hypothetically, without naming a specific despotic regime you want handled credibly, but we're probably open to suggestions if you can come up with someone more deserving of deposition than the two regimes currently at the top of our list. |
"I'm expecting US pressure on friendly dictators, even if they cannot do anything with some of their foes. They could demand a timetable for democratisation," Egyptian civil rights activist Saadiddin Ibrahim added.
| Like in Egypt? Without demanding, without grasping their own liberty, I guess Egyptians will have to wait until we get around to deposting their despotic regime. We're trying to do it nicely, behind the scenes, but once we're done with Syria and Iran, the Land of the Nile's going to look like it might need some attention. |
Bush had disappointed by not pushing US allies such as Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia to pursue democratic reform, said Ibrahim, who is making a symbolic bid for the Egyptian presidency this year. "One simple test would be to stop inviting despotic leaders to Washington," he said. "Use aid, trade and technology as peaceful pressure on these regimes to bring about the required democratic change," he said.
| Seen Assad in Washington recently? Seen any ayatollahs there? Let's face it, compared to those two, Egypt and Tunisia are pretty pleasant places. |
Liberty
Egyptian writer and analyst Abd al-Karim al-Karimi said Bush's lavish "coronation ceremony" was a throwback to the colonial era and lambasted the president's address for promoting "democracy without content".
| He wasn't crowned, like Egyptian kings used to be. He was elected. There was a certain amount of pomp and circumstance involved with his inauguration, but that's the way we do it. Look on the bright side: he didn't have his predecessor shot or chased out of the country. There weren't any corpses involved in the transfer of power, just a few defaced yard signs. |
"All the world talks about liberty, but what liberty is it? What is the meaning of the democracy and the political liberties that the United States wants to impose in the Middle East? Bush does not say," he told Egyptian television.
| You're not paying attention. Individual liberty involves the right of the citizen to be left alone except when his actions have a negative effect on other citizens. That means no one can tell an American what to say, no one can tell him what religion to practice, no one can tell him how to vote, no one can take his property away from him without due process of law. It means having a government that governs, rather than rules. It means, in the words of Huey Long, that every man is a king. We have no peasantry, we have no serfs, and we have no slaves. We bow to no man. Contrast that with what you've got now, Muhammad. I know you could live like that, but the common folk couldn't handle it, right? |
For Iraqi analyst Abd al-Hussain Shaaban the US administration has lost its credibility to promote democracy after launching an invasion of Iraq that two years on has left the country lacking the most basic security. "The United States is closing its eyes towards dictators who serve its own interests but attacks those that damage it," he added, in a reference to key US ally Saudi Arabia. "The fact that Iraq is in chaos and under military occupation does not bode well for democracy coming to the country and to the Middle East."
Posted by: Fred 2005-01-22 |
