Congrats to Tunisia for over throwing their corrupt western backed dictator
I'm so very glad that the good people of Tunisia are in the middle of over throwing our Western backed dictatorship. The West loves to talk freedom and democracy, but the hypercritical truth of course is that we want freedom and democracy FOR US not 'them'. 'Them' get dictatorships installed and told what to do.
I'm hopeful that the people of Tunisia can pull away and form their own democracy, the problem is we in the West probably won't let that happen. The people of Algeria - where Ahmed Zaoui was an MP, tried democracy for the first time in the 90s and of course the moment it looked like an Islamic Party was going to win, the West kicked off a coup and Ahmed Zaoui fled. Hilariously Richard Woods (who is now jaw droppingly on the Independent Police Conduct Authority) wrongfully held Ahmed Zaoui in solitary confinement for 10 months, bad Ahmed for trying to implement democracy. Ahmed of course now runs a kebab shop in Palmerston North, so much for the most dangerous terrorist in NZ.
As far as the West is concerned, it's only democracy when the dictator we support wins.
posted by Bomber @ 4:20 pm
7 comments
7 Comments:
Even setting aside the shocking grammar and spelling, you shouldn't comment on countries you know nothing about. This reads like the drunken rant of an angry idiot.
Tunisia has been under dictatorship since independence, although the first one did institute a lot of reforms regarding women's rights and promoting education under Bourguiba. A mixed bag in an Arab world where freedom and democracy never reared their heads. It was overthrown by a coup from the Prime Minister. Did you want the US or France to intervene and impose liberal democracy on Tunisia from the start? Or maybe Gaddafi's example of a ruthless totalitarian dictatorship that actively funded, trained and armed terrorism across the globe would have been better, given that Libya had already invaded and occupied territory of Chad?
Nobody can pretend Tunisia is some great example, the best can be said is that its neighbours are worse.
However, Algeria has always been a mess. The Islamists in Algeria would have destroyed any freedom and democracy there, like how having the Nazis win an election had the same happen in Germany.
Ahmed Zaoui was a disgraceful situation, but to make the asinine comment that the West only supports dictatorships winning in democracies is ludicrous. The Cold War ended 21 years ago and the shameful Western support for all sorts of thugs ended with it (bearing in mind the Soviet Union, China and the so-called Non Aligned Movement were the biggest supporters of thuggery in other states).
The list of states that saw democracy instituted is extensive, across Latin America Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, Paraguay, in Europe everywhere east of the Iron Curtain has achieved it, except Belarus and the central Asian republics. Most of Africa has fledgling, flawed democracies, it was not the case 30 years ago. In Asia, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan all have thriving democracies where a generation ago was dictatorship. All of those dictatorships folded under a combination of popular revolt and Western pressure.
Yes Fisk lost his credibility with me when he claimed 9/11 might have been a conspiracy. He makes a few unsupported assertions in there (2/3rd of the population working for the secret police? Not even true in North Korea).
However, would it have been fine had Algeria become another Iran? On the doorstep of Europe, ready to foment terrorism in Spain and beyond, and ready to institute totalitarian terror (oh but it's anti-Western, so it's ok to elect a dictatorship).
Support for Saddam ended with the Cold War, hence the end of the war with Iran.
None of those countries you list are in Europe (get an Atlas), but rather Central Asia and to claim the West props them up is a stretch of the truth. They are more than capable of propping themselves up with ample supplies of oil and gas to sell to eager buyers, with extensive support from Russia and China as well.
What would you have the West do? Impose sanctions on them all? Invade? Tell them off periodically? I'd have less diplomacy myself, but it wont change things.
I don't agree with sycophancy to tyrants (and to be fair, Equatorial Guinea IS a disgusting current example), but you can't claim only one part of the world is guilty of this. All are. No country stands up against the regimes in Central Asia. However, the only group of countries that ever do stand up to tyrants are Western ones. Those who oppose Western countries happily trade with them, arm them and provide explicit moral support. After all the West DID stand up to Milosevic in its own backyard, and has been less than friendly to Belarus. You need to be clear about what you want as a policy, rather than ranting off a group of countries that happen to include your own.
I'm not being an apologist for what happened under past Administrations. I can name a long list of thugs supported by Western and non-Western powers, the difference is I'm rather glad the West won the Cold War. Good job, because if it had went the other way, I'd have found it hard to say I didn't like it.
Do you hate current governments because of what their predecessors do? If so, why? None of the last three US Administrations provided any succour to Saddam Hussein, but so many keep repeating it as if time isn't allowed to pass.
The Soviet Union wrecked Afghanistan with the brutal, bloody Najibullah regime and were the prelude to so much of what is going on today, but who demands Russia be accountable for that? Compare that to the litany of hatred against the US for actions in Central America 30-40 years ago, Russia is immune. In other words, selective morality and moral equivalency.
This is your come back? Sweet jesus, so much effort for such twaddle liberty.
Let me get this straight, Fisk has no credibility, where as you ooze it right? After Operation Northwoods many wondered if 9/11 was a conspiracy, writing Fisk off for speaking that thought aloud seems more convenient for your argument than real criticism. I've met and interviewed the man, he is brilliant and I'd suggest he would wipe the floor with a little right wing troll like you.
All you write here is islamophobic hate, an Islamic Algeria democratically elected gives you no justification whatsoever to justify the coup that occurred there, your blind hate of Muslims, (which you really need to see someone about), gives you zero credibility. Who the fuck are you to decide which democratically elected party is acceptable or not? You are exhibiting the exact arrogance from the west that i pointed out in this blog, your audacity and inadvertent default mechanism of superiority is utterly misplaced 'liberty'.
Oh and 'do we want another Iran' - and how did a highly radicalized Iran come about? Oh that's right, it occurred because a US CIA coup replaced a political leader who wanted the oil resource of his nation to go to his people rather than the West. This new American backed dictator created such resentment from his repression that the only force left to fight back was radical Islam. Your utter lack of historical context is hilarious considering your attempt to lecture me on it.
AND the FIS was NOT radical, it was moderate, that's what Ahmed Zaoui was all about, that's why his incarceration and 10 months in solitary confinement was such a crime. You exhibit the same bigotry that put him in jail.
Support for Saddam DID NOT end with the cold war, it ended when he invaded Kuwait, the two are not connected. Your claim is that the west only propped up dictators because it had to because of the cold war, that's bullshit, which I then easily pull apart by pointing out Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan - and what's your comeback to that Liberty? "But you're not looking at Russia's involvement" - I don't need to Scott, you're ridiculous claim was that the West stopped propping up dictators in 1991, I point out the fallacy of that statement and the best you've got is 'but what about Russia' - it's nonsense Scott.
And let's not forget that the US started the war in Afghanistan by sending aid to the mujahideen to induce a soviet invasion and we know this because bloody Zbigniew Brzezinski told us so.
After originally claiming I had written this post drunk, your incoherent apologist bullshit that you call an argument is so piss weak it's laughable.
As for your final desperate point - that I am criticizing the West and not Russia, what a load of arse. I hold us to a higher standard because we (the West) are supposed to be better, we are not a corrupt communist mafia state, yes Russia commits and committed and continues to commit atrocities but that doesn't justify the West to start propping up dictators.
You said the West had stopped backing dictatorships in 1991, that's an outright lie. You are either ignorant or so jumped up and arrogant you thought you could waltz onto this site and push my post around.
You haven't and you can't. Sharpen up love, this is embarrassing.
It is embarrassing Bomber. I was tempted to indulge in a debate, post links to a little Afghan history. This guy hasn't quite caught up with the fact that Fukuyama was wrong, 1989 wasn't the end of history.
'Libertyscott'?
The meddling in Afghanistan goes back to Alexander the great and American involvement precedes Russian, as evidenced by the intercontinental hotels and dams built by those who built the Hoover, Communism imported via Columbia university. I suggest researching the facts "libery" and then extrapolate them across the other propaganda you've swallowed.
And that whole, you have humanitarian and collective philosophies so your an apologist for Stalin and Communism at it's totalitarian extreme is an insipid farce.
It is embarrassing Bomber. I was tempted to indulge in a debate, post links to a little Afghan history. This guy hasn't quite caught up with the fact that Fukuyama was wrong, 1989 wasn't the end of history.
'Libertyscott'?
The meddling in Afghanistan goes back to Alexander the great and American involvement precedes Russian, as evidenced by the intercontinental hotels and dams built by those who built the Hoover, Communism imported via Columbia university. I suggest researching the facts "libery" and then extrapolate them across the other propaganda you've swallowed.
And that whole, you have humanitarian and collective philosophies so your an apologist for Stalin and Communism at it's totalitarian extreme is an insipid farce.
And on that cold war ending note, the end of history and all that....
We won the cold war if that's how you define the collapse of the Soviet Union, but I don't know if you've noticed, perhaps somebody should point it out to you, China owns America, because of it's blind desire to consume and it's blind belief in the promise of the American Dream.
So it seems, without endorsing either option, the battle of ideals is still playing itself out.
"Democracy Instituted" in Iraq....
http://www.juancole.com/2011/01/iraqs-civil-war-grinds-on-with-62-dead-200-wounded-in-karbala-blasts.html
On Tunisia...
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/tunisian_revolution_shakes_inspires_middle_east_20110118/
Wikileaks on Tunisia and American blind eye to dictators..
http://www.juancole.com/2011/01/new-wikileaks-us-knew-tunisian-gov-rotten-corrupt-supported-ben-ali-anyway.html
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