Mubarak Chides U.S. on ("Nucular") Double Standards...

[Peter Frank]

on edit -- sp

May 20, 3:29 PM EDT

By STEVEN R. HURST
Associated Press Writer



SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt (AP) -- President Hosni Mubarak opened the World Economic Forum in a booming Red Sea resort Saturday with a surprisingly tough speech that signaled deepening strains in the once-ironclad links with Egypt's American allies and benefactors.

The 78-year-old leader implied the United States was running a foreign policy that promoted double standards on nuclear issues, ignored international opposition to the invasion of Iraq and was meddling in the internal affairs of countries - including his own - by pressing for Western-style democratic reforms.

Mubarak also used the biggest gathering of foreign officials and business leaders this country has ever seen to deliver that message to the Americans, who have counted on him as an anchor for their policies in the Arab world.

Mubarak, who has faced repeated U.S. criticism in recent months for failing to follow through on promises of political reform, appears to have turned on the Bush administration on virtually every important Mideast policy issue with the exception of his efforts to mediate an Israeli-Palestinian peace.<snip>

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WORLD_FORUM?SITE=NYBUE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

And Bu$h is our "National Security" President? Remember how in "A Clockwork Orange" the fire department was called to a home, and the firemen came & burned it down? This administration is emerging to be the Clockwork Orange fire dept. Inexcusable.

[Peter Frank]

1. C'mon folks - This is some serious shit...

This signals the breakdown of relations between America and Egypt - an extremely powerful and longstanding (de facto) ally in the Mideast!

Americans are criticized worldwide for being arrogant and bubbleized. I guess you don't need to be a neocon to refuse to venture out of the bubble, and into the real world.

I'm so frustrated I could spit! Stop getting the bulk of your news from American sources (I posted AP & still got nothing).

Our media are compromised where it comes to the bottom line. I don't believe everything in the foreign press either, but Americans must get a global view if we want to preserve our democracy. What we have been spoon-fed is poison.

[confludemocrat]

2. Egypt is a goddamned powder keg and US helped make it that way

propping this guy up because he was accomodating to Israel and despite being a ruthless dictator and lately in order to provide cover for their fuck-up in Iraq, reverse this policy at least rhetorically and start talkin shit about "Democracy" for the middle-east, which has in effect fueled mass movements taking the ideal of real democracy at face value even from us, thereby destablizing his dictatorship and calling attention to what a scam his "election" was. Now they are rounding up people in broad daylight to send them to some dungeon somewhere, looking all brown shirt, people who were simply calling for democracy. Now this 78-yr old fuck is trying to look all anti-US for the people there, too little, too late. US foreign policy is coming unglued right before our eyes-everywhere you look. Good job. And if you think restaffing our foreign policy makers in 2008 with the Jamie Rubins of the world (now working for Rupert Murdoch in the british Fox equivalent-SKY News) is gonna change things...

[Peter Frank]

3. I'm native born American Patriot - D.C. cowboys are Full Fledged traitors

They had a choice.

[Flyer72]

4. There is a point in there though...

All I can say is that americans tend to take any sort of critizism the wrong way - at the same time as not understanding why this happens. It is easy to critizise the US these days because of Bush and his twisted foreign policy.

Egypt that "used" to be an ally has it's own motivations very much like Algeria. And NO - it isn't pretty from a western stand point.

Look at what Democracy brought in Algeria - NOTHING. You need to understand that certain areas are probably NOT suited for democracy! Is that hard to get? The root of the problem is that an Islamist group won an election but was denied power by the military... And that was back in 1991! Algeria is still fighting a civil war, even if it is considered lowlevel these days. You really want democracy in Algeria? I don't.

Look at Hamas who won the election in Palestine. Apparently most palestinians did vote for a party that wants Israel destroyed - and support suicide bombings targeting civilians in the the process. And you are trying to put democracy in Egypt? Oh and Iraq...

Why is the US acting this way? What can the US gain from this? The only thing I can do is to shake my head in disbelief - once again.

Democracy works in the west - but just think about what could happen if Pakistan had an election. That could very much well be the first islamist government - armed with nukes!

[Psephos]

5. So we wall off chunks of the world as unsuited to modern government?

This is like walling off South Central L.A. or the Bronx and saying of them as well that "certain areas are NOT suited for democracy."

What I hear in your argument is that because it's such a struggle to bring positive change, realpolitik demands that theocracy or thugocracy be accepted and then ignored in African and Middle Eastern countries. It sounds a bit like "many brown people are savages and can't be civilized." I overstated that, but there's a hint of it in the argument.

I don't buy it. I'm not dissing you, Flyer72, and you do have a point, but there are better and worse systems of governance, and democracy is better than theocracy. Global effort should be expended to improving the governance of others, and rooting out tyrrany where possible. It will never be perfect or anywhere close, but how is that different from any other human undertaking?

I think it's highly progressive to work on behalf of better lives for others.

Peace.

[Peter Frank]

8. Lets root out the tyranny at home before and make our lives better...

...before considering doing it abroad.

[Psephos]

10. Why must one take precedence over the other?

Or, to be more blunt, are Americans more deserving than others?

Once you get past the idea that because someone lives on the other side of an imaginary line, their problems can be ignored, then you start to see tyrrany at home as just one more part of a larger problem.

I believe that progressives should be concerned with all people, not just those who live nearby.

Peace.

[Peter Frank]

11. We can't have our own tyrants rooting out the international ones...

...which is exactly the situation we're in.

[Psephos]

12. Forget "our tyrants" - it's our own attitudes that have to change

I am not talking about assigning the job to BushCo for heaven's sake.

But your opinions are a good embodiment of the isolationist tendencies that have taken hold among the left. IMO a true progressive wants to see progressive principles and liberties applied to all people, and especially the downtrodden or those who have not gotten a fair shake.

I hear a lot of "yes, but..." from those who talk the talk but aren't willing to walk the walk. Whether or not you're one of those is for you to decide, not me.

For my part, I can't abide the idea that because someone isn't an American, then we shouldn't lift a finger to help them. That's the epitome of the Selfish American principle.

End of story.

Peace.

[Peter Frank]

13. I mostly agree, but we have to recognize who's Pushing the buttons...

These empowered Neo/RW hacks are intentionally pushing the real world into the "good & evil" debate (while the controllers & deciders secretly plan the fate of the American people).

[Peter Frank]

7. Very well said... n/t

[onager]

6. I'm in Egypt right now.

This probably wasn't covered in the Western press and certainly not on Fox, but...

Mubarak said exactly the same thing a few weeks ago to Condescencia Rice's face. On a stage at a public function in Egypt. After she made one of her standard speeches about Egypt needing to do more in the War On Terriers, etc.

Now being on a public discussion board available to anybody...cough, cough...I'm not going to shoot off my own big mouth too much.

But I gotta say, that was a beautiful sight, and it was extensively covered by the Egyptian media. With LOTS of photos and video.

Rice was forced to stand there with that rictus of a grin on her arrogant, uncomprehending face, while Mubarak gave her a public red-assing the like of which I'm sure she has seldom encountered in her sleazy career.

[Peter Frank]

9. Good to hear...

I'm sick of hypocrisy laced arrogance we've been spewing internationally. I've never been more ashamed of my government -- it's just so un-American.