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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (244125)	7/29/2005 4:42:54 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577893

In short, Iraq is not the only country in this neighborhood struggling to write a new social contract and develop new parties. The same thing is going on in Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Gaza. If you like comparative politics, you may want to pull up a chair and pop some popcorn, because this sort of political sound and light show comes along only every 30 or 40 years. This article is misleading. It appears to people who haven't paid too much attention to politics in the ME in recent years that great change is in the air. Its a like a gardener who thinks a dying plant he hasn't looked at recently might make it when he sees the plant's desperate and feeble attempt at new growth. In reality, the prognosis for the plant is still negative. In fact, you need look no further than Iraq. The insurgents like the American colonists are fighting a tough fight but unlike the colonists, they are not fighting for democracy but rather against it.......they want to return to a Sunni dictatorship. And the people who are fighting for democracy are fighting so passively that they need the US military just to maintain the status quo. Democracy is a populist movement. If its not popular among the people, how can it ever take hold? Since I was a kid, people have talked about a democratic revolution that will sweep the ME countries. Several times some of the countries seemed on the verge only to fall back into dictatorship or theocracy or both. I see four things working against democracy in the ME: a long tenure as colonies........its seems to have sapped them of their self determination; extreme poverty......few nations in the ME are oil rich....the ones that aren't don't have anything of real value to take its place; the extreme poverty limits educational levels which would be useful in a democracy; the centuries of corruption is very crippling to progress and finally, the extreme weather conditions and shortage of water.I think these negatives can be overcome but I think the extreme poverty and entrenched corruption make that particularly difficult.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (244125)	7/30/2005 7:24:56 AM
From: Elroy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577893

This is interesting. Foreigners banned from madrassas gulf-news.com Islambad: The 1,400 foreign students attending Islamic religious schools in Pakistan will be ordered to leave as part of a drive to cut religious extremism, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf said on Friday. Musharraf also pledged to enforce a ban on anti-Western hate speeches being played over Mosque loudspeakers or through audio recordings.