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

To: Elroy who wrote (265639)	12/22/2005 3:04:58 AM
From: Elroy	Respond to of 1577019

Actor who ran over man opens driving school by Mazhar Farooqui, Staff Reporter gulf-news.com The actor, who ran over four pavement dwellers in their sleep after a row with his then girlfriend and Bollywood diva Ashwariya Rai in 2003, has been made the face of the Belhasa Driving Center's road safety campaign.

To: Elroy who wrote (265639)	12/22/2005 5:57:24 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1577019

I hope you are right. With the exception of Lebanon, the strong and mostly autocratic leaders of the other countries have a strong lock on their people. Not sure why you say this. I would say North Korea (for example) has a "strong lock" on its people, but I don't think the same is true it Egypt, Jordan, Syria, etc. Let's look at the three country. The Ba'athists have been in control of Syria since the 1940s. There is nothing to indicate that that is changing. Yes, there is talk Bashar might be replaced.....if that happens, its not about to cause an upheaval. He's only been in power 4 years and I don't think he's all that charismatic and loved by the Syrians. Jordan is controlled by one of the longest running monarchies in the ME. The Husseins are more enlightened then the Saudi monarchy but not by much. Hell, the last Hussein before the current one married an American......you would think that would have pushed him much closer to democracy. The current Hussein is much more conservative than his father and democracy looks less likely now for Jordan. Egypt should be the one closest to democracy but it isn't. Unfortunately, it has a history of very corrupt,self serving leaders. Again, I see little reason for things to change. To want democracy, people have got to want to fight for it........I don't see that kind of fervor in the Arabs at the present time. In fact, I see more fervor for theocracies. Ironically, I think Iran was closest to having a democracy of any of them......its people are better educated, more professional, more prosperous. It looked like democracy could happen through peaceful means. However, with its new leader in place, Iran has gone backward at least ten years.....it makes me sick. You could probably have said the same thing about Russia in 1987, and three years later it had collapsed. No. I don't agree. Russia overextended itself economically. We didn't realize that because of all the propaganda being put out by our gov't. However, during the 1980s, there were European political and economic analysts who questioned how Russia was able to keep going given the costs of running its empire and the problems it was having in Afghanistan. [For the record, I think Bush is pushing this country into the same negative financial position. Iraq is a huge drain that the GOP/Bush are just now beginning to recognize.] Russia was crumbling from within for a long time before we saw it. And the Russians are far more sophisticated than the people in the countries we are discussing. Even with that, look at democracy's success in Russia......or the lack thereof. Sorry, but Russia is a very bad example. In any case, I suscept its democratic days may be coming to end in the near future. I'm not expecting numerous regional revolutions within a year, but over the course of the next 20 years the political landscape could change dramatically, especially if Iraq starts the ball rolling. There has been a strong democracy in the ME for over 50 years. It has changed nothing. In fact, the Arabs find Israel and all that its accomplished repugnant. As for Iraq, we will be lucky if Iraq is stable in ten years. Until then, Iraq will be a beacon of chaos and upheaval. With the exception of the Saudis, all the ME countries have relatively open societies with free press and normal levels of exposure to the outside world. The dictators in the region are pretty weak, as far as I can tell. I wouldn't be shocked to see a Ukraine-style revolution in Egypt within 5-10 years (next election, when Mubarak should be finished). Who knows about these things, though. I don't understand what you mean by free press. When I studied the ME three years ago, we were told by the professor who grew up in Palestine that the only truly free press was al Jazeera. And still, that it is under the potential thumb of the prince. I can't read Arabic so I can't be sure his position is correct so I ask you what makes you think they are free.