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| Arabia |
| Saudi paper blasts US 'democracy program' |
| 2002-12-15 |
| 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 |
| #4 The other day I heard pn the news that Egypt(We gypt the Americans)had denied the use of thier territory by U.S. forces.Well now it seems we have a 2-3 billion dollar carrot/stick we can use.No baseing rights,no money.Egypt can eat camel dung+sand stew.I am reasonabley sure the Yeminies and Djoubuties would just love a 2 billion dollar infusion of cash.I realize the pc liberials might object to this but they can take a handfull of Egytian sand and pound it.Same goes for the rest of the world if you want our help and support we demand yours. (bunch of damned ingrates) |
| Posted by: raptor 2002-12-16 07:06:12 |
| #3 Another distinction between Carter's (Dems) economics and Bush's (Reps). Bush makes a one time $70 mil payment for Afghan peace and Carter decides on a $88 billion program that hasn't resulted in anything except Cairo now has a Metro built by the French and Israel has to build a wall around their country to keep safe. |
| Posted by: Jack 2002-12-16 06:04:53 |
| #2 Actually it's been $2 billion a year since 1978. Thanks Jimmy Carter! |
| Posted by: Denny Wilson 2002-12-15 21:18:17 |
| #1 Wasn't our 2 billion in support of Israel balanced with 2.5 billion in support of Egypt to prevent a war? |
| Posted by: PJ 2002-12-15 14:47:27 |