[To my Iranian brothers and sisters who think that America supports the pro-democracy movement in Iran because of its principles: Here we have Egyptian authorities beating down pro-democracy activists and the journalists covering their demonstration in Cairo. You will not hear a peep from Congress, the White House, or DC for that matter. The reasoning is simple: if you’re a dictatorship, even a ruthless dictatorship, but in tune with US foreign policy and good for American business interests, then we won’t interfere in your dictatorship, i.e. the Egyptian regime. But if you’re a government that opposes our meddling in your region and closes off your markets to our business interests, then we’ll oppose you using any and all methods at our disposal – all under the cover of democracy.]
BBC: Baton-wielding Egyptian police have broken up a pro-democracy demonstration in Cairo. Riot police beat and dragged protestors away from outside the upper house of Parliament, put them in trucks and took dozens away. Demonstrations are illegal under Egypt’s stern “emergency lawsâ€, which have been in place for 30 years. The protesters were calling for a change to the constitution that they say would make elections more fair. The demonstration was called by the 6 April youth movement, which backs the presidential candidacy of Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog. “It’s an insulting image for Egypt,†opposition politician Ayman Nour told reporters. “Hundreds of soldiers are denying the right of a few dozen civilians trying to express their desire to amend the constitution.†Mr ElBaradei was not at the demonstration but he has said he would run in elections planned for next year if there were changes made to the constitution allowing fairer polls. Opposition parties are in effect banned by the government’s use of the tight restrictions on the political process in the Egyptian constitution. Journalists covering the protest were also beaten with police batons, and photographers’ cameras confiscated.
Pouya,
Check this out. It’s to some extent related to your post…this is sad. Just put these words together and see if it makes any sense: Saudi Arabia, TV Sorcerer, Committee on Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice, Beheading?!?!
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/02/saudi-arabia-delays-execution-of-tv-sorcerer/
You mean to tell me America’s foreign policy is not genuinely motivated by human rights? Can’t be. I was told in my high school history books we always promote democracy and human rights everywhere. That we care for people around the world. lol.
Dan Cooper says:
The US invasion, occupation and destruction of a modern, scientific-cultural civilization, such as existed in Iraq, is a prelude of what the people of Iran can expect if and when a US-Israeli military attack occurs.
The imperial threat to the cultural-scientific foundations of the Iranian nation
has been totally absent from the narrative among the affluent Iranian student protesters and their US funded NGO’s during their post-election ‘Lipstick Revolution’ protests.
They should bear in mind that in 2004 educated, sophisticated Iraqis in Baghdad consoled themselves with a fatally misplaced optimism that ‘at least we are not like Afghanistan’.
The same elite are now in squalid refugee camps in Syria and Jordan and their country more closely resembles Afghanistan than anywhere else in the Middle East.
The chilling promise of President Bush in April 2003 to transform Iraq in the
image of ‘our newly liberated Afghanistan’ has been fulfilled.
And reports that the US Administration advisers had reviewed the Israeli Mossad policy of selective assassination of Iranian scientists should cause the pro-Western liberal intellectuals of Teheran to seriously ponder the lesson of the murderous campaign that has virtually eliminated Iraqi scientists and academics during 2006-
2007.
The Iraq war was driven by an influential group of neo-conservative and neo-liberal
ideologues with strong ties to Israel.
They viewed the success of the Iraq war(by success they meant the totaldismemberment of the country) as the first ‘domino’ in a series of war to ‘re-colonize’ the
Middle East (in their words: “to re-draw the mapâ€). They disguised their imperial ideology with a thin veneer of rhetoric about ‘promoting democracies’ in the Middle East (excluding, of course, the un-democratic policies of their ‘homeland’ Israel over its subjugated Palestinians).
Conflating Israeli regional hegemonic ambitions with the US imperial interests, the neo-conservatives and their neo-liberal fellow travelers in the Democratic Party first backed President Bush and later President Obama in their escalation of the wars against Afghanistan and Pakistan.
They unanimously supported Israel’s savage bombing campaign against Lebanon, the land and air assault and massacre of thousands of civilians trapped in Gaza, the bombing of Syrian facilities and the big push (from Israel) for a pre-emptive, full-scale military attack against Iran.
http://www.lahaine.org/petras/b2-img/petras_iraq.pdf
Israeli forces have uprooted thousands of trees in their raids on Palestinian territories to inflict still another blow at the nation’s crashing economy.
Palestinian sources accuse the Israeli regime of destroying some 400,000 trees during their incursions into territories under the Palestinian Authority’s rule in the last two years.
They describe the damage as a systematic move aimed at mounting financial pressure on Palestinian families, especially those living off their farms and orchards.
Israeli settlers often join the campaign by raiding and burning West Bank olive orchards and gardens, while a separation wall Israel has been constructing across the West Bank furthers the burden posed on the Palestinians.
The structure zigzags 709 kilometers (435 miles) through the West Bank, isolates Palestinian orchards and cuts the locals from hundreds of hectares of their land. This is leading to the total isolation of the Palestinian Plains — the fruit basket of Palestine — in the Jordan valley area.
Water shortage is another dire strait the West Bankers are faced with, as large portions of water resources supplying most of the water consumed in the West Bank remain in Israel’s hands.
On Wednesday, Israeli Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau threatened to cut off industrial or agricultural water supplies to Palestinians in the West Bank for Palestinians’ refusal to connect to Israeli water treatment plants.
The threat comes as international organizations say Israel’s water supplies fall short of Palestinian needs while the Palestinian Authority has failed to provide the region’s water sector with decent infrastructure and required institutions.
Your point proven
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100412/pl_nm/us_kyrgyzstan_usa