Palestinians kill Palestinians for protesting U.S.

Doesn't this go against the idea that Arafat and other Palestinians always promote terrorism and make no efforts to achieve peace?

 

arafat sucks in every palestinian's eye and killing 13 year old kids doesn't help.

world needs democracy=arafat doesn't represent the view of palestinians.

who needs enemies when these are your leaders.

 

You aren't implying that the Palestinians actually want democracy, are you boy? That would be a new development, and the first ever in the Arab world...

But you're right, Arafat doesn't really represent the Palestinians any more. He's renounced terrorism and become conciliatory, and they aren't too happy about that. The Palestinian Authority is trying to reign in the protesters because Arafat is - rightly - scared sh*tless right now.

 

oh if you read any history you'd see in the early 90s algeria had an election. of course france didn't like the results because the people voted too 'islamist'ically and they helped the military overthrow the rightful regime. the military has since been involved in butchering aroudn 40,000 algerians.

and this is one of the problems of the middle east. the west doesn't want democracy because the new regimes might be antiwestern which would cause a lot of oil to become a lot more expensive. so we overlook the humanrights and the political suppression by force of those 'moderate' leaders because god forbid we have to pay 10 more cents for gas.

 

You're actually probably right: we don't really want them to have democracies, because they would almost certainly be anti-Western, because their people truly do hate us. They'd probably declare any treaties they have with Israel void and attack them again. Oh, what a shame that would be, right boy?

Of course, I don't think we have to worry about them becoming democracies. No democracy has ever worked in a ME country, and probably never will as long as those countries have rich, despotic Arabs as their leaders. They would more likely replace the oppressive pro-Western regime with an oppressive anti-Western regime, and I fail to see how that would benefit anyone.

Oh, wait, that already happened once - Iran. Yeah, that worked out real well... Of course, that's more feudalism than democracy.

 

This more than anything is great to hear. Also must give props to Pakistani leaders who are bucking the coward trend and openly supporting the US actions despite it causing all sorts of unrest in their nation. But for Russia and China to back us up is even better.

 

It's not all that surprising if you think about it, DoD. You know Russia's history with the Afghans and the Chechens, and the Chinese also have problems with Pakistani and Afghani extremists working their oilfields in the Gobi. China's "support" is really limited to not condemning us, as is their usual stance in every foreign policy issue, and that's fine. I'm actually surprised that the Russians aren't doing more, though; I guess this is their way of saying "I told you so" with respect to our stance on their war in Chechnya...

 

treeman,

You're absolutely right, but at this point if I have some of the most powerful nations in the world, for whatever reason, siding with me, I'm happy. The fact that they're not denouncing us or our actions is a huge leap forward because now all we have to worry about are the idiots that run small regimes that support bin Laden not suporting us or the ones that are too entrenched in the ways of the Middle East to say "what the US did was ok". And to be honest with you, I couldn't care less about them.

 

Whats there to talk about? Take supporting the freakin terrorist and everything should be fine!

 

DoD, I wouldn't expect China to be as "supportive" when we start moving down the list (ie, when we hit Iraq next). Russia will remain quiet, but as soon as we're not indirectly helping the Chinese with one of their problems, I expect them to go back to the same old games...

Although, personally I couldn't care less what they think either. And I care even less about what the idiots who support Osama think.

 

Kashmir. It's time for both sides to seriously consider stopping the fighting there (especially since both are nuclear powers), and Pakistan in particular to stop sending Taliban terrorists to fight there. I'd guess that Musharaf realizes that that particular source of "freedom fighters" is about to dry up.

 

whats happening in kashmir is really now political. though i strongly believe the kashmiris should be allowed to have independence however i doubt the pakistani government gives a rats ass about them. they just want to use this to excuse their 70%+ spending to the military.

freaking educate your people and you'll have less problems.

 

Treeman, I got to hand it to you. At least you admit what most conservatives don't. They are only for democracy if produces conservative results. They are willing to have despotic leaders kill many thousands if it means overthrowing a democracy they don't like.

However, your reasoning is circular when you say :

No democracy has ever worked in a ME country, and probably never will as long as those countries have rich, despotic Arabs as their leaders.

You fail to account how we actively work against democracy and support those "rich despotic Arabs" so that we won't have to risk a regime that won't sell oil as cheap or not be as friendly to us.

 

As liberal as glynch is, we don't often agree, but this one really hit the nail on the head. I didn't see us demanding that the Kuwaiti Sheik give up his country and install a democracy. Our policy has long been whatever is best for the US in that region. If that means an aristocracy (Jordan) or an outright ownership (Kuwait), that's ok as long as the oil keeps flowin' fairly cheaply.

 

Jeff & glynch:

When did I ever say I was a conservative? You guys probably has the idea that I'm some bible-thumping anti-abortionist gun dealer or something. I'm not religious, am pro-choice, favor educational spending, am generally pro affirmative action (except in clear cases of discrimination). I am a gun owner, so it would be a little hypocritical of me to want to ban guns, but I do favor more strict controls (like mandatory triggerlocks, prosecution of owners for unsecured weapons, etc).

How conservative does that sound??? I simply think it's ridiculous to not defend yourself if you've been attacked. I guess you could call me a conservative when it comes to defense. That's about it.

As for democracy in the ME, I suspect we'd actually give it to anyone who actually asked for it (or at least not impede it). No one has. Of course most populations want to overthrow the despots we support over there. But their alternative is usually something resembling the Taliban, and that is unacceptable on a large scale. The Taliban (an individual national extremist govt) itself has shown itself to be unacceptable - think of the threat if the entire ME drafted such a form of govt? And yes, it is primarily because of our dependence on oil.

Would it surprise you if I said I think we need to kick that dependency and develop alternate forms of energy? I'm not a Green, but I can certainly agree with them on that score (except nuclear power - it is perfectly clean and safe if you build the reactors right, staff them with competent people, and dispose of the waste correctly)...

 

again the algerians had an election and france along with us approval allowed the military dictator to overthrow it and kill innocent people.

the kurds have for a long time asked help to overthrow saddam and in some cases the turkish regime in their homeland too. of course turkey is great and secular and all that crap though of course they don't allow freedom of religion because in universities women can't wear scarfs. and their political parties are banned by the military every other day.

oh and i don't need to remind you of the cia coup that helped the brutal shah get in power in 1953 do i? it did replace a democratically elected government.

the taliban are a farely recent phenomena. they overtook kabul in 96. algeria was long before that around 91/92. and iran was in the 50s so obviously we couldn't have had a fear of taliban-esque government if there was no precedent for it could we?

 

no doubt they've done numerous great things

i think its amazing the way america responded to WWII and how it rebuilt german and japanese economies. that was one thing it wanted to do after WWI to germany but the europeans didn't want to.

i hope to god this is whats done to afghanistan.