Blogging the democratic revolution
Hear that poofing sound? It’s the showering, shattering of electronic pixels as one by one, British Intelligence destroys al-qaida Web sites. The move cuts critical communication lines among terrorists. Suddenly they can’t plot and giggle together through sinful Western Internet technology. They’ll have to go back to inscribing on Stone-Age tablets or something. Or give up terror altogether. In war, it’s not enough to just cut financing lines and indoctrination houses like madrassas – communication lines are important, too. It’s so in any war. Britain and the U.S. should have done this a long time ago. This is war and…
GatewayPundit has a letter from Zimbabwe. The locals there are terrified. Houses are being razed left and right and those homeless must sleep in the freezing weather. Soon, all houses will be razed or taken over by the state. The writer argues that genocide is coming. The letter-writer warns that this isn’t business as usual in Africa, it’s something new and truly evil. They need help. Read it here. Hat tip: Instapundit
The best part about CAFTA is upon us – Hugo Chavez has come out screaming on Venezuelan television about CAFTA’s passage. And why shouldn’t he scream about our CAFTA victory? A rich El Salvador, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica are the last things Chavez wants to see. It’s bad enough that these democracies are friendly with the U.S. – now they have free trade rights, too, and as nations they have embarked on a great regional mission to become as rich as America. Why shouldn’t they be? They’re our friends. But for Chavez, it’s pain upon pain.…
Yesterday Robert posted an entry, Pro-Mubarak Thugs Beat Up Kefaya Protesters, dealing with the attempt by democracy activists in Egypt to hold a rally and Hosni Mubarak’s violent reaction. There is also an article in today’s New York Times (registration required) on this, so I won’t go into the details. I wanted to add that there are some new photos of the attacks on protesters. You can see them here and here. (Hat tip: The Arabist Network) I would like to suggest that now is a good time for President Bush to announce that the United States is ending its…
A reader named “Cynic” made a response to my post, The Atlantic Monthly on Yasir Arafat, which raised both a valid factual point and an argument that needs to be rebutted, to explain why it is wrong. Cynic wrote: What is known and not discussed is that the State Department went along with the Arab League and the EU, in the 80s, and ???????elected???????? Arafat, and his PLO, as sole representative of the Palestinians. Now had this not come about, how many lives could have been spared? Imagine if the the families of the dead and the maimed could take…
Fidel Castro’s goons were in for the surprise of their lives when a whole neighborhood in Havana rose up and beat them back with sticks when they tried to confiscate a barrio TV set. A line was crossed. Nobody gets between Cubans and their TV sets. Nobody.
Fausta at BadHairBlog, citing someone named ‘Cake Eater’ has a truly marvellous comparison of the efforts of the McCartney sisters to break the back of the vile IRA terrorists, versus the non-efforts of too many Muslim “moderates” to halt the Islamofascists among them. it’s been speculated that it’s because these moderate Muslims are afraid to speak up, for fear that the Islamofascists will turn on them. Well, it appears that six women—who loved a man as a brother and a fiancee—proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back when it came to the IRA. Robert McCartney, a Belfast…
Any time Danny Glover, Babs Streisand or Michael Moore open their big Hollywood mouths, the media come running, happy to feed these bawl-babies with free publicity. But let Puertoriqueno singer Ricky Martin, declare his intention of improving the U.S.’s image abroad, particularly among Arabs, using his experience as a Boricua, and these media suddenly go silent, desperately silent. To heck with that. Ricky Martin is out to spread democracy and I am going to say something! Check out GOPinion’s full story about this admirable young man here.
Developing countries almost never have civil society organizations, making them vulnerable to tyrants who are always happy to fill the void with … tyranny. Rare indeed are the PTAs, the Elks, the Kiwanis, the Ladies’ Auxilliaries, the Neighborhood Watches, the Surfriders’ Foundations, the Explorers’ Club, the Roadrunners – and all the much-maligned but critically necessary spontaneously organized private groups that are the building blocks of democracy. So it was a joy to read that in determinedly democratic El Salvador, our new CAFTA ally, Salvadoran locals got together to clean up the beaches. And had wild exuberant Latin American fun together,…
It’s the biggest demonstration since the August Recall Referendum. Chavez sicced the firehoses on the thousands of demonstrators. Miguel Octavio has the story and the first dramatic photos here. UPDATE: Daniel has further information here. And Instapundit has taken note, too. UPDATE: Associated Press reports that rocks and bottles were hurled at the thousands of opposition marchers by two dozen chavistas screaming insults. UPDATE: Reuters reports that the chavistas blocked the marchers and set piles of garbage on fire.
Jim Hoft is rounding up all the news on this. In other news, the candlelight vigil against terrorism being organized by Egyptian bloggers was cancelled. Big Pharaoh posts his reaction. Egyptian Sandmonkey is also feeling melancholy, and so is Karim Elsahy. Better luck next time guys, I wish it would have worked out.
An exceptional example of good journalism, the current issue of the Atlantic Monthly has a front cover article on Yasir Arafat, “In a Ruined Country: How Yasir Arafat Destroyed Palestine.” It is very detailed, and I think it would be especially enlightening to those who haven’t followed Arafat closely over the years, but even if you have it is worth reading. Written by David Samuels, it is based not simply on documentary records but on a series of interviews with old Arafat companions following his death. This is what makes it entertaining. You can’t read it online without a subscription,…
The Iranian regime for decades has been a state sponsor of terrorism, both domestically and internationally. Concern is ever the more mounting after the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who may have been involved in, or even the leader of, the 1979 embassy hostage crisis. But how directly involved is the Iranian regime in funding and aiding terrorist groups? Apologists might say that the regime’s money trail and links to groups like Hizb’allah and Islamic Jihad are too obscure to trace and may not even exist at all. Well, they’re apologists, what do you expect? Even if there was ever evidence…
Bahrain isn’t exactly known for its vibrant civil society and liberal democracy, but it has slowly been developing since King Hamad began introducing slow reforms when he took power in 1999. That’s why protests there are so interesting to highlight. Today, 4000 protestors took to the streets because of a law recently passed that would restrict the greater freedom of association that had been earlier granted. I can imagine that wouldn’t sit well with anybody! MANAMA (AFP) – About 4,000 activists demonstrated to protest the ratification of a law regulating political associations in Bahrain, which opposition groups said will restrict…
Forbes presents to you t a list of the 100 most powerful women in the world. This goes without saying, but not only is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice the most powerful woman in the world, but she uses it to advance the most important cause there is: the advance of freedom. She is joined by Ukrainian Prime Minister and Orange Revolutionary Yulia Tymoshenko, ranked third on the list. And Burmese freedom fighter and nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who to this day remains under arrest, ranked number fifteen on the list. This is a tribute from Publius to…
In the wake of terrorist bombings against his country, Egypt’s President Mubarak has declared his candidacy in the upcoming presidential elections. Not that there was any doubt that he’d run for a fifth term, but now he has a platform to go on. President Hosni Mubarak announced his bid yesterday to run in Egypt’s first multicandidate elections on Sept. 7, promising new legislation to “besiege” terrorism and replace the country’s much-criticized emergency laws. Mubarak, 77, Egypt’s leader for almost a quarter of a century and a key U.S. ally in the Arab world, has cast himself as a moderating influence…
With so much talk of the return of the Great Game in Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan’s maneuvers between the powers and its neighbors makes for one of the best case studies. The refugees who took flight from Andijon across the border to Kyrgyzstan following Karimov’s May massacre has been one of those issues that the new government has had to deal with carefully. At once, the new government must raise standards of respect for human rights both for itself and to please the United States, and on the other hand it must not earn the scorn its neighbors and isolation from…
I wanted to highlight this because it’s really very dramatic given how much the international eye has refocused on Serbian war crimes. The wife of one of the leaders indicted for genocide spoke out on regional television stations appealing for his surrender. I can’t even imagine how hard that must be. 29 July 2005 (RFE/RL) — The wife of war crimes indictee and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic appealed to her husband in a broadcast carried by several regional television stations yesterday to surrender to the Hague-based war crimes tribunal. Bosnian and international media said the appeal came as…
CAFTA is often compared to NAFTA, but the roots of the trade pact are very different. They began in 1983 when the great Ronald Reagan launched his Caribbean Basin Initiative. As he fought the march of communism with all his strength, the far-thinking President Reagan also knew that U.S. might is based not only on military power but on economic power and more particularly, the ability to share our hope with others. The American Dream is also the Honduran Dream, the Salvadoran Dream, the Costa Rican Dream, the Guatemalan Dream. Now, with CAFTA, we all share the same dream. CAFTA…
Alexis de Tocqueville, the extraordinary French observer who chronicled how democracy rose and developed in America, is 200 years old today. In the Age of Democratic Revolution & Civil Society, he gave us all a roadmap that is more important than anyone ever realized. Great economists like Hernando de Soto, who first underlined the importance of property rights, got much of his material from American history and much of that he took from de Tocqueville. Alexis de Tocqueville is a true polestar of authentic democratic revolution and a great capital-L Liberal. The Adam Smith Institute blog has a marvellous essay…
It looks like a somewhat promising election is about to go down the tubes. It looks like deposed military strongman Vieira won Guinea-Bissau’s runoff election. But allegations of fraud are coming from the other candidate, Sanha, who is the current ruling party’s candidate. Guinea-Bissau’s former military ruler Joao Bernardo Vieira has won run-off presidential elections, the electoral commission has announced. Mr Vieira, known as Nino, came to power in a coup and ruled for 18 years until overthrown in 1999 by the armed forces. Hours before the provisional results were announced, a spokesman for Mr Vieira’s rival said he would…
Ugandans went to the polls today to vote in a referendum on allowing multiple parties run in elections. Political parties were effectively outlawed 19 years ago, but President Museveni is being pressured by foreign donors, who supply half of the government’s budget, to enact reforms. Turnout was very low largely due to torrential rains and partly due to apathy. Ugandans are choosing whether to allow multiparty politics in the East African country in a referendum Thursday, the first step in reforming the country’s constitution, which forbids political parties from campaigning in elections. President Yoweri Museveni banned multiparty politics when he…
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams in April called on the IRA to lose its arms after getting totally snubbed by the usual supporters in Irish America. Yes, even Ted Kennedy gave him the cold shoulder. This announcement seems several months in the making, though hardly anyone believed the organization would seriously embrace the message. They are saying that it will only work through peaceful, democratic means to achieve independence from British rule, though questions of their current political legitimacy still exist in my mind, given that they achieved their status through the “armed struggle.” But most importantly right now, if…
On Tuesday I discussed how pressure from the ASEAN countries forced Burma to forgo the chairmanship, a notable break from a general policy of nonintervention with regards to any particular country’s internal affairs. The move was cheered by the United States, the EU, and pro-democracy activists everywhere. Representatives from both bodies had threatened to boycott the meeting if Burma was to take the 2006 chair, which would have dealt a severe diplomatic blow as such a thing had never been done before. Speaking of other boycotts, though, President Bush just signed into law another year of sanctions against the Burmese…
in the House. Victory for our hemisphere. The full list of how they voted. Our friend Will has analysis and a good roundup of what other bloggers are saying here. IBD has an editorial saying this trade treaty will benefit businesses across the board, citing the word of Central Americans who are in the middle of this. It is here or here. Sigh. I am too tired to comment. But I am overjoyed.