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The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest
Vol: 42 Issue: 1 - Tuesday, March 01, 2005--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The New Middle East
For two years, the administration has been trying to convince the Left that the Iraqis didn't really prefer life in a brutal Arab dictatorship to living in a free-market democracy with basic human-rights guarantees.
Some have been a particularly hard sell -- John Kerry, for example, who reacted to the Iraqi elections by warning that 'Americans shouldn't read too much into' the election results.
Iraqis faced death threats; Americans faced long lines and inclement weather. American voters broke records for a voter turnout approaching fifty percent in November, compared to the 2/3's of the Iraqi electorate in January.
What would constitute reading 'too much' into that? Or, what are we NOT supposed to read into that?
It is an article of faith among Western liberals that the Arabs are incapable of democracy.
Writes liberal British journalist Robert Fisk in a column entitled, "The Fantasy of Democracy in an Arab State";
"For democracy, read fantasy. Iraq is getting so nasty for our great leaders these days that anything - and anyone - is going to be thrown to the dogs to save them. The BBC, the CIA, British intelligence - any journalist that dares to point out the lies that led us to war - gets pelted with more lies. The moment we suggest that Iraq never was fertile soil for Western democracy; we get accused of being racists. Do we think the Arabs are incapable of producing democracy, we are asked? Do we think they are subhuman?"
Good questions. I was asking myself the same kinds of questions. Are the liberals racist? That question would draw gasps of disbelief from most liberal audiences, but there is probably no political persuasion more inherently racist than that of the 'progressive' liberal.
Allow me to side-track a moment and examine the assumptions inherent in the liberal political agenda as it expresses itself in the US.
To a liberal, ‘affirmative action' is necessary because without making race-based concessions, few blacks could get into college. IQ scores are irrelevant because blacks can't understand ‘white-based' questions.
Hispanics are either incapable of learning English, or of learning IN English, so many 'progressive' schools teach Hispanic kids in Spanish.
There are whole communities in America where Spanish is the defacto official language. To the liberal worldview, that is 'multiculturalism'. (It also keeps them from seeking success outside their community, since they speak a foreign language)
'Racial profiling' is wrong because it makes the ethnic group being profiled feel discriminated against. The result is that we search blue-haired grannies so that Muslim males of Middle Eastern descent between the ages of 17 and 34 won't be offended when we search them.
Most minorities are 'oppressed' by rich, fat white men of European descent, most Christians are religious fanatics and most rich white men are Republicans.
It is perfectly legal to discriminate against white males in favor of non-white females, illegal to mention of the Bible, but legal to study Islam in public schools, acceptable to have all-black or all-Islamic groups, but unacceptable to have all-white or all-Christian groups.
Can you imagine the outcry of racism that would erupt over a National Association for the Advancement of White People? Or a TV network called the 'White Entertainment Network"?
So, let's see if we can connect the dots; Blacks are not smart enough to learn without affirmative action guarantees.
Hispanics aren't smart enough to learn English.
Muslim males between the ages of 17 and 34 aren't smart enough to figure out that zeroing in on probable threats protects them as much as it does any other intended victim.
Whites are racists by default who must be suppressed at all costs, including open discrimination. Christians are generally religious fanatics whose agenda is a threat to American freedoms.
Arabs are incapable of grasping the fundamentals of democracy and self-government.
And liberals aren't racist.
Before I am misunderstood, I don't advocate a 'White Entertainment Network' or a 'National Association for the Advancement of White People' or even feel any particular affinity for 'white' people, (since I am not exactly sure what 'white people' are -- I am kinda pinkish).
It has nothing to do with skin color or culture.
It has everything to do with how 'progressive' thinking can make it perfectly acceptable for otherwise educated men like John Kerry or Ted Kennedy to spout such racist propaganda as 'Arabs are incapable of democracy' without anybody looking to see if their sheet is untucked.
The Iraq elections shattered that assumption, just as its aftermath is beginning to shake the foundations of some of the Middle East's most enduring dictatorships.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced Saturday that Egypt will hold its first direct, multiparty presidential elections. (Murbarak has led Egypt unopposed since 1977.)
Elections have been held in the Palestinian territories, and even the Saudis are permitting limited democratic elections for some government offices.
Pro-democracy demonstrations in Beirut forced the abrupt resignation of the Lebanese government. Syria is facing the possibility of a popular revolt.
A Lebanese withdrawal would throw tens of thousands of Syrians out of work and cut Damascus' most important economic lifeline.
In Lebanon, Druze opposition leader Walid Jumblatt, a frequent critic of the United States, told the Washington Post, "It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world."
He added: "The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it."
It looks like the Arabs might be capable of democracy after all.
Assessment:
Jumblatt's comparison is an apt one. The situation in the Middle East resembles nothing so much as it does conditions in Eastern Europe as the Communist empire began to crumble.
It was CNN's global reach that helped to knock down the Berlin Wall. When the Eastern Europeans saw images of life in the West, with full supermarkets, modern conveniences and no lines, the Soviet Union's fate was sealed.
For the traditional dictatorships of the Middle East, it was the Iraqi elections.
As was the case with the fall of the Soviet Union, what rises to replace the Islamic Empire may not always be an improvement.
The fall of the Soviets ended the Evil Empire, but the world was safer during the Cold War than it is today. They had nukes, we had nukes.
If a nuke hit us, we'd know where it came from, and could respond by totaling annihilating the source -- and vice versa.
It was known by its acronym, MAD, for Mutually Assured Destruction. Nuclear war meant humanity's suicide. We were as mutually safe from attack as we would have been if neither side had nukes -- maybe even safer.
The fall of the Soviet Union brought freedom, but it ended a fifty-year period of relative safety.
The collapse of the Middle Eastern Islamic dictatorships will bring with it some anticipated consequences, not the least of which will be new alliances.
And not all the Islamic dictatorships will be replaced with secular governments. In addition, for every new government that looks to the West, there will another looking to the East.
Ezekiel lists Persia [Iran], Ethiopia and Libya [Islamic North Africa] as Gog's principal allies, together with the 'house of Togarmah' [the Kurdish areas of Turkey and Iraq] 'many people with thee'.
Ezekiel notes that "Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof" are not part of his band. Sheba and Dedan are modern Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. [Tarshish was the western-most trade center of the known world in Ezekiel's time]
I noted at the beginning of this year that, "More so than in any previous year, 2005 looks like the year the Bible's prophecies will start to come together in a manner so obvious that only a blind man could miss them." (Jan 2)
The realignment of the Middle East is part of that process.
"And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh." (Luke 21:28)
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