Blogging the democratic revolution
This hardly has to be said… but here’s another example of fanatical Islamists going nuts over humor. It’s just like the Danish cartoon controversy. Someone does a parody and suddenly hundreds of people are out on the streets causing trouble! The usual suspect, Hezbollah, is behind the latest street rioting in Lebanon, where a television station broadcasted a mock of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and they apparently got peeved. BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) – Hundreds of Shiite Muslims enraged by a TV comedy that mocked the leader of Hezbollah took to the streets of southern Beirut on Thursday night, burning car…
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez addressing OPEC this morning Source: Associated Press, via Yahoo! OPEC is holding its quarterly meeting in Caracas right now and sure enough, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez and his new best-friends-forever in the Iranian regime have sought hard to cut oil production to drive up prices and stick it to the Americans. That’s gone over like tar sands in the Hummer tank among the OPEC heavies, and these nations, mostly Arabs, who KNOW what the oil cycle is like, and who know that $70 a barrel oil is always a prelude to $8 a barrel oil, have…
No more than three days ago, I wrote: On the political level, despite all of the killings, things have chugged along slowly but surely. Of these developments, however, the most interesting and perhaps the most important has always been the breakdown of the Shiite alliance as each party pursues its own interests in the new Iraq. Up until now it has always been simply on the political level, with parties haggling over minister portfolios and nominations. Now the politics have converged with the violence. With the tough issues coming to the forefront, such as disarming sectarian militias, distribution of oil…
In all the societies of the Arab world in which there has been a serious push for democratic reform, success has been mixed, but in none of them has it turned out so disastrously as in Palestine. Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza last summer and the Palestinian elections earlier this year brought to power the Islamist terrorist movement Hamas, and result which was greeted with wide dismay in the free world. What was less noted was that the favored Fatah, the secular nationalist party of the late Yasser Arafat, is also terrorist. It has maintained its own terrorist wing, the…
From the news: PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia (AP)–The Nonaligned Movement, the world’s biggest bloc after the U.N., emphatically backed Iran Tuesday in its nuclear standoff with the U.S., and condemned Israel for occupying Palestinian lands. Meeting in Malaysia’s administrative capital, the foreign ministers of NAM member nations also demanded that Israel accede to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty without delay and open its nuclear facilities to international inspection. On Iran, the ministers “re-affirmed the basic and inalienable right” of all countries to develop, produce and use atomic energy “for peaceful purposes, without any discrimination and in conformity with their respective legal obligations,” said…
The road to forming a new Iraqi government, from the elections in December last year to its actual formation no more than a week ago, splintering between the country’s different ethnic and religious groups has been everyone’s concern. Sunnis attacking Shiites, and vice versa. Even with the end of the insurgency, the development of death squads supplied by Iran have continued the extra-judicial killings. On the political level, despite all of the killings, things have chugged along slowly but surely. Of these developments, however, the most interesting and perhaps the most important has always been the breakdown of the Shiite…
Turkish PM Tayyip Erdo????an visited Algeria this past week. Meeting with Algerian National Assembly Speaker Amar Saadani on Monday, Erdo????an met with president Bouteflika on Tuesday. After their three hour meeting, the two leaders announced an accord of “friendship and cooperation.” Erdo????an visited a veterans cemetery and the Algerian military museum, surveying artefacts from Algeria’s Ottoman period and praising Algeria’s veterans. “…..The heroes of the struggle for independence in Algeria are the best examples for today’s generations,” Erdo????an said. Erdo????an also made statements in relation to his county’s desired assencion into the European Union, sating that ???????If the EU is…
The SMCCDI has two reports on the protests underway in Iran here and here. Below, some photos of the demonstrations. In my next Iran-related post, I’ll write more in detail about these demonstrations.
Students are protesting in Iran, and according to this report, it’s against Iran’s nuke program. Some of it has turned violent. Police are blamed. GatewayPundit has the scoop, and a tremendous roundup of this big potential democracy revolution here.
The Amir of Kuwait, Amir Sabah al-Ahmad, has dissolved the Kuwait parliament with new elections set for June 29 (the constitution requires that they be held within two months). This follows a week of intense conflict unprecedented in Kuwaiti history brought about in response to a government proposal to limit the number of voting districts from 25 to five. Opposition members of parliament – formal parties are not allowed under the Kuwaiti system – are protesting because, they allege, the new system will allow the government to redraw the boundaries in a way that hugely favors a minority of the…
Confederate Yankee posts an interesting statement originating from Hezbollah in Lebanon, and looks at what it might mean. “Hizbollah is not a tool of Iran, it is a Lebanese project that implements the demands of Lebanese,” Kassem said in an interview in the Hizbollah-controlled southern suburb of Beirut. “Iran is a big country with real capabilities and can defend itself if it is exposed to American danger.” He believes that 1) “Hezbollah has reason to believe that a conflict between Iran and Israel is a near term possibility.” And 2) “Hezbollah believes that the conflict will be of sufficient magnitude…
A quote from Michael Totten’s latest dispatch from Ramallah: ???????What do you think about the prospects for peace now that Hamas won???????? I said. ???????The Israelis have an opportunity,??????? he said. ???????A piece of the puzzle was missing before. Permanent peace must have the signature of the Islamists. Now the Israelis can get it.??????? The Israelis can get it if the Islamists will give it, and if they will give it sincerely. That doesn????????t look even remotely likely any time soon. I asked Yossi Klein Halevi if it was even possible to be optimistic under the circumstances. He said ???????I????????m…
Glenn has found an important source on the doings in Syria, the benighted sub-Axis-Of-Evil tyranny. Intellectuals of all stripes are being rounded up by Syrian goons in the heaviest crackdown on dissidents in years. First in line for government oppression are those who have criticized the Syrian involvement in Lebanon. One by one, name by name, they are disappeared. It’s believed that the international lull in attention of Syria’s role in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is what’s emboldened the tyrants. That underscores the need to turn the heat up on Syria over its murderous practices.…
As part of a new, despot-pleasing goodie package, the European Union wants the United States to sell Iran new airplanes so that it can modernize its decades old fleet. They already fell for this once — back in 2005, the Bush administration signed an order allowing the U.S. to sell aircraft spare parts to the maligned regime as part of an earlier incentive design to halt uranium enrichment. Given that Presidenti Ahmadinejad has already refuted the offer before it has even been presented, doing such a thing wouldn’t make sense. The U.S. may not be officially at war with Iran,…
The discussion began here at Publius when A.M. Mora y Leon linked to a piece at the new Foreign Policy blog, commenting that whenever there are searches for sex material, the vast majority of them come from domain extensions that pertain to highly Islamist countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Just going through the top keywords in our statistics, “Iran”, “sexy”, and “women” are in the top ten. I’ve noticed that these words are generally used in the same search string. As good looking as Persian women are, they only seem to lose out in the search to one woman:…
Like a world-class military, Egypt’s judges are highly professional and technocratic — ardent defenders of the law. That’s why, over the past year, thousands of them have taken to defying the Mubarak regime which has, in turn, sought to corrupt and strangle the institution of the judiciary. They were prevented from overseeing the counting of the results during last year’s parliamentary and presidential elections. A Mubarak tool was chosen to oversee the case of opposition leader Ayman Nour. Two prominent judges were stripped of their immunities and put up for disciplinary hearings after correctly alleging that last year’s elections were…
I have previously remarked on Algeria????????s growing ties to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and President Bouteflika????????s fiery rhetoric towards France on the issue of colonial apologetics. Both of these issues is contrary to Algeria????????s national interest, though on different scales. The first is an issue of independence in foreign policy, which has been a hallmark of Algerian foreign policy since independence. That is, how to balance relationships with international heavy hitters, be they First, Second, or Third World nations, while still maintaining flexibility on the world stage. Today this issue is similar to Algeria????????s domestic politics; will Algeria side…
As you might have heard, the United States resumed diplomatic relations with Libya, one of the most totalitarian countries in the world. To even begin trying to account for how this matches up to the stated “Bush Doctrine” of promoting democracy, and how it will benefit the people of Libya, boggles the mind. It does go to show, however, that the world is a complex place and the administration isn’t single-mindedly ideological when it comes to foreign policy. The reasons for this move therefore have little consideration for democracy, and everything to do with how the attainment of nuclear weapons…
President Bouteflika’s recent comments regarding the French colonization of Algeria have caused quite a stir. His fuss holds the potential to accomplish a great deed; placing such a burden on the world community’s conscience that they feel moved to take meaningful action in Darfur, or at least to make them seriously contemplate it. But it does not seem to be the case that Mr. Bouteflika, or any one else, is going to use this tremendous opportunity to do good. His comments have been a source of reflection for me over the past week or so. Firstly, I am inclined to…
It’s with great sorrow that I learn that the U.S. gov’t caved in to the Mullahs. SMCCDI, a secular , democratic and anti-islamist movement committed to regime change in Iran reports some worrying news. Many Iranian oppositionists had used to support President Bush and now the U.S. gov’t sells its soul to the Islamic regime and announces it won’t grant funds to the Iranian oppositions. If Bush’s popularity has reached a new low, it is not because of being a “warmongering” administration, as some naive pundits claim. No. It’s because it seems very weak in front of terrorists and the…
Defying Mubarak’s goons on May 11 Source: AP via Yahoo! News Hundreds more were arrested in Egypt Friday as a result of the massive pro-democracy protests in this pharaonic tyranny that is proving itself a petri dish for Islamofascists. The intent of the democracy protestors is to stop that from happening by stopping tyranny. These fearless unarmed Egyptians are not only fighting for democratic revolution, they are also fighting binladenite Islamofascism. Not with clubs, as the Mubarakites do, but with the inner fire of democracy, something that dries up Islamofascism like a desert wind. Sadly, the U.S. supports this wretched…
Egypt exploded into riots after police moved in and cracked down on peaceful protestors seeking to defend judges who were trying to defend rule of law. The targets of repression were treated barbarically by police, as the photos in the links below show. Egyptian bloggers who are seeing all of this firsthand suggest that this is a real fight for democracy in this country. Source: Sandmonkey Unrest in Egypt was based on the government’s thuggish sweep and crackdown on all sorts of democracy activists, often under the pretext of hunting terrorists. Since there really are terrorists in Egypt, it’s a…
Iran’s leader, Mahmood Ahmadinejad, Monday sent a letter to President Bush in some sort of effort to communicate with him, and to halt potential action over Iran’s nuclear program. It has a weird bloggerly quality to it, mulling over events, ranting and raving here, whining about always being a victim there, and it’s sort of interesting to read. But the most interesting part (to me) is Ahmadinejad’s clear reference to Venezuela’s dictator, Hugo Chavez. It’s obvious he watches the Chavista soap opera going on in the Western hemisphere, and clearly has discussed the paranoias of Chavez. They fill his thoughts.…
Outside of following the politics of developing countries, I also like to follow the markets. Especially the markets in countries that are up-and-coming or not even on the radar. Markets where a lot of people don’t even know markets exist. Others they would. Places like Mexico have been booming. But so have many places in the Middle East; for example, Saudi Arabia, which introduced the Tadawul stock index in 2001, began at 8000 points and topped 20,000 in mid-February this year. Kuwait and Egypt have also been riding uphill at lightning speed, a lot of this due to rising oil…
There’s something kind of creepy I notice once in awhile when I look up which keywords are bringing in traffic at Publius Pundit. Whenever some group of indecent words comes up, like ‘nude, Ugandan, women’ or ‘naked, Iranian, babes’ or ‘Swedish, sex, slaves’ – more often than not, the person doing the search is flagged from some country like Iran, Saudi Arabia or one of the oppressed Gulf states. What a horrible distinction to be known for! But much as I like those countries and wish for the best for them, much as I wish democratic revolution on them, I…