The illusion of the Arab Spring

[Christians4LessGvt]

The first fundamental truth about the "Arab Spring" is that there never was one. The salient fact of the Middle East, the only one, is Islam. The Islam that shapes the Middle East inculcates in Muslims the self-perception that they are members of a civilization implacably hostile to the West. The United States is a competitor to be overcome, not the herald of a culture to be embraced.

The Illusion of Islamic Democracy

[Xavier_Onassis]

Islam is a powerful influence, but there are various forms of Islam that have different views of the West.
Islam is not the only influence, and maybe not the most powerful. What is required is diplomacy, not war.

[Christians4LessGvt]

What is required is diplomacy, not war.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Oh, ha, ha.

A stupid cartoon is a poor rebuttal.

[Plane]

How does this stack up in reality?

There is an Egyptian embassy in Washington DC isn't there?

Lets count up the violent mobs on the street in frount of the Egyption embassy in Washington and compare the number to the violent mob in frount of the American embassy in Cairo.

  Then of course subtract a few from the violent American croud , to correct for our greater population.

    Whichever country has the larger percapata violent mob, wins.

[Plane]

http://www.egyptembassy.net/

[Xavier_Onassis]

That makes no sense.

Americans are never in the habit of demonstrating at embassies.

The situation is not identical at all.

[Plane]

That makes no sense.

Americans are never in the habit of demonstrating at embassies.

The situation is not identical at all.

What is the reason that Americans are practicly all too mature to engague in such childish behavior?

[Xavier_Onassis]

It is not a lack of childish instincts. We have a lot of people who do childish things. Wearing a Wisconsin Cheesehead hat, painting one's body the colors of one's team,  and of course, neck tattoos. Goth clothing is pretty childish. Go to any gun show and you will see all manner of personal decorations that no one's mother would approve of.

We just do not demonstrate at embassies, that's all. At one time, some demonstrated against Apartheid South Africa and were even arrested. But no one tried to jump the walls and murder an ambassador.

It is our constitutional right to be childish.

[Plane]

That isn't even a guess at the reason.

[BSB/Hero/Genius/MovieStar]

Opening post: "The United States is a competitor to be overcome, not the herald of a culture to be embraced."

Well gee, too bad Bush as his neo-con buddies didn't know this. If they had they wouldn't have bothered to invade Iraq and try to bring democracy to the Muslim world.

BSB

[Xavier_Onassis]

Americans clearly participate in childish behavior. Just demonstrating outside embassies is not one of them. There is no reason to demonstrate at the Egyptian embassy. The Egyptian government defended our embassy. It would make no sense to demonstrate against disorganized Egyptian groups.

Egyptians believe that the offensive trailer that is still being shown on YouTube is sanctioned by the US government, since no one in Egypt, including the Turks and the Brits that once ruled Egypt, would never have permitted such a thing.

There is a difference between an intellectual debate over the merits of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and a piece such as this, which is clearly designed to be deliberately offensive to Muslims in the most sophomoric way possible.

It is similar to the images of the Virgin Mary in elephant dung and "P!ss Christ" that, as I recall, the ratbag right wanted to eject from the exhibitions.

I am personally all for anyone being able to publish anything. But I can see how the Egyptians could be offended.

I recall that rather a lot of Americans demonstrated against apartheid in South Africa in NY and DC. But probably the demonstrations against institutions investing in the RSA were a lot more effective.

[Christians4LessGvt]

[Xavier_Onassis]

A dumb cartoon.

Only a very small proportion of Egyptians would bother to burn a US flag or commit any acts of terrorism.

The US will be sending bags of money to Egypt NO MATTER who the US president is. The Egyptian government could not maintain order without aid from the US. Most Egyptians sympathize with the Palestinians. One way to unite a country is to point out and attack a common enemy. The logical common enemy of Egypt is Israel. US aid to Egypt seems to be a necessity for the foreseeable future.

Of course, smart Egyptians and most Israelis know this one thing about Egypt: one man with one rather small bomb could defeat Egypt by bombing the Aswan Dam. Israel would likely not hesitate to bomb the Aswan (by agent or by drone or plane) if they thought Egypt was about to invade Israel.

One bomb at Aswan and within 30 hours, most of Egypt would resemble New Orleans after the flood: New Orleans X 1000.

No US president wants to be responsible for the death of millions of Egyptians.