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Saudi paper blasts US 'democracy program'
Tehran Times Following U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's remarks on Thursday on a U.S democracy initiative in the Middle East, a Saudi newspaper wrote on Saturday that Arab nations are not in need of U.S. plans for reform. "Certainly not! Why would we want to change perfection?" The Arabic-language daily Al-Riyadh stressed that Muslim and Arab nations have always considered Washington to be the major supporter of the Zionist regime, adding that this is the reason why they never favor U.S. plans in their countries. "Certainly not! Once something's been done by Zionists and infidels and other trashy people, why, we couldn't do that, even if it did redound to our own benefit! The very idea!" The daily added that Arab nations believe that the White House is only pursuing its own objectives. So we should stop and pursue someone else's objectives? That doesn't make any sense... Al-Riyadh wrote that the Bush administration had proposed the $29-million plan to change the political, economic and social structure of the region. It added that Powell has raised the issues of removing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and the war on terrorism in the hope of effecting such changes. And they're only the first — hopefully hardest — steps. There will be more... The daily wrote that the U.S. had imposed itself on Germany and Japan after World War II in order to prevent socialists from gaining control of those countries, but stated that the socialist camp has collapsed so Washington now has no excuse to threaten the Arabs. In both cases we dismantled the dictatorships that were in place and replaced them with systems that were more democratic. Both have actually been very successful experiments, too. The places where we didn't do that have been less successful. Al-Riyadh called on Arab nations to establish their own reform programs and said they should never accept the U.S.-imposed reforms plans. "The White House has proven that it is pursuing covert programs in addition to its overt campaigns," it wrote. We can only hope... Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2002-12-15 |
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