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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FaultLine who wrote (92649)	4/12/2003 3:50:21 AM
From: KLP	Respond to of 281500

USS Cole suspects escape Published: 2003/04/11 14:21:28 The 10 chief suspects in the bombing of the USS Cole have escaped from custody in Aden, local officials said. Security forces mounted a major search operation in the Yemeni port where the 10 had been held since shortly after the attack in October 2000. Chief suspect Jamal al-Badawi is among the escapees who reportedly got out through a prison window early on Friday. Seventeen US sailors died and 37 were wounded when two suicide attackers in a bomb-laden dinghy rammed their destroyer in the port in an attack widely blamed on al-Qaeda. Mr al-Badawi allegedly helped buy the dinghy. The men broke out of a window around 0500 (0200 GMT) and their absence was not discovered by warders for another hour, local officials told AFP news agency on condition of anonymity. Photographs of the escapees have been distributed to police and intelligence agents, the Saudi news agency SPA reports, and houses of the escaped men's relatives have been searched. Yemeni officials said the men may have left Aden and headed for al-Qaeda strongholds in the northern province of Shabwah. Story from BBC NEWS: news.bbc.co.uk Published: 2003/04/11 14:21:28

To: FaultLine who wrote (92649)	4/12/2003 5:39:19 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

That's why the Eastern European countries installed solid liberal democracies so quickly after (only) 40 years of Communism And I think it is worth mentioning what you and I know, but some here might not. "Liberal democracies" in Eastern Europe would mean "Conservative democracies" here.

To: FaultLine who wrote (92649)	4/12/2003 2:01:12 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

and remember, as Fareed said on Rose's show tonight, the European tradition ranges over a 2,000 year period including the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment. That's why the Eastern European countries installed solid liberal democracies so quickly after (only) 40 years of Communism. Interesting point. But "democracy", however it is defined, has an odd history in that period. If you include the Greek city states, seems to me you would argue it comes and gos depend on certain conditions. If you don't include them, on the grounds of severely restricted franchise, then where would one place the first incarnation? Sometimes it's put at Runnymede in 1215, Magna Carta and all that stuff. But talk about restricted franchise. That would better be put as placing limits on the king's power than the advent of democracy. So where would he put it? He might argue that that concept of individualism hangs around such that the individual comes to think of her/his self as separate from society. I think that's often thought of as either the Renaissance or the Enlightenment. Not 2,000 years. Protestant theologians place it with the Reformation and the claim that individuals could interpret scripture without recourse to church authority. So where would he put it? Incidentally, today's New York Times Book Review has an interesting review of Zakaria's book by Niall Ferguson. Worth reading. 'The Future of Freedom': Overdoing Democracy By NIALL FERGUSON nytimes.com