TAO:
325mg aspirin and 1000mg fish oil daily. Fries my brain, I’ll tell ya!

TD3:
I get it.  Your political “take” is valid because it’s…..yours.  My political “take” is invalid because it’s….not yours.

No logic, no reasoning, no dissection of my argument to demonstrate its fallacy (which you assume it has).

So….why are we supposed to leave Afghanistan, one of the world’s poorest countries, alone, but not leave Egypt, which is far, FAR wealthier, alone?
Aha! It’s because of….ISRAEL!!!!  (now would someone please explain the logic of that????)

Huge forces are at work in the world today. Technology is active in all of those forces—democracy, autocracy, development, stasis, cultural changes.  New desires are active along all the highways of communication from one continent to another, from cities to tribal villages. It may be safe to say that, in spite of consolidation of military power, the deeper undercurrent of change is toward awareness (dim to clear) of democratic possibilities.  Nobody knows for sure about the uncertain future.  But in places like Iran and Egypt questions of personal and human rights have not been widely asked there before.  The answers will probably not be dictatable much longer.  That’s my guess.
  One of the great anomalies of the region is Israel—a country from which democratic values were more or less expected and promised, and yet have failed utterly in behavior and attitudes, if not in principle—and that with US support.  It is one of the few places in the Middle East where the clock seems to be turning backward.  Again, my guess.
  ElBaradei may bring in a breath of fresh air based on experience.

This Old Indian stipulates rfidler’s plainly much better informed views on everything “drug-induced.”

HokaHey!

TAO:
Sorry, just stereotyping. You know the technique.

I just get a kick out of your stream-of-consciousness rnu-on posts. Seem drug induced.

What’s with rfidler’s “peyote” fixation?  Twice now, at-least, s/he trots-out this canard, and indecently exposes us all to an example of cultural ignorance not really all that “lovely to look at,” to tell the truth. It does, however, perhaps suggest the kind of light in-which the quality of rfidler’s own offerings here in-general can best be viewed.

Come-to-think-of-it, this Old Indian gets the distinct impression, from his/her ‘commentary,’ of someone living in a glass house….throwing-stones-wise.

HokaHeY!

ITW to TD3:

Excellent post!

ITW & rfidler,

Again, both if you have your zionist blinders and good amount of sophistry and obusfuscation.
Smart guys like you can not be that ignorant of history, both old and modern, and the realities of the geopolitical map in the world right now.
Please stop your blatant sophistry and obfuscation because it is not working with me.

TD3:

Egypt is a SMALL country??????? It has 77 million people!

That’s more than ANY country in Europe other than Russia (141 million) and Germany (81 million)!
Egypt is bigger than:
France
Britain
Italy
Iran
Turkey
South Korea
South Africa
Ukraine
Spain
Argentina
Canada
Taiwan
Australia
Greece
BeNeLux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg)
ALL of Scandanavia

Egypt, by population, is ranked 16th largest in the world.

Unrealistic to expect a nation of 77 million, nearly the size of Germany in population and approximately 3x the land mass to be able to help itself?  Is it only Europe, the USA, China and India that are expected to be able to handle their own problems?

Better to sit back and whine that it’s all the fault of the Americans and the Jews than cleaning up your own mess.

Let me guess, TD3—at the same time you are saying we should leave Afghanistan to the Afghans, right? (which I agree with).  So WHO’s the sophist and hypocrite here? Is it ME who wants the same for BOTH Egypt and Afghanistan, or YOU who wants “special treatment” for Egypt, a nation far, FAR wealthier by every measure than Afghanistan?

Stop letting someone else do your thinking for you, and stop knee-jerking!  LOTS of Arab nations are corrupt and a mess—most of ‘em.  And they ALL seem to blame little tiny Israel, rather than facing their own failings, corruption and incompetent leaders.

rfidler

Re TAOwalker: You’re wrong. He just has some great peyote.

Hokey Hi.

Hahaha ,but there is no denying his sense of humor.

cheers

truedigger3:

“there is no doubt that the creation of Israel, has thrown a monkey wrench into Egypt and the Middle East progress and retarded it for many many years and sucked a lot of energy that would have been used for progress and it was a big factor in the emergence of radical reactionary Islamic movements as a backlash.”

I think that’s ITW’s point. If the Muslim world would just get over the fact of Israel’s existence and look to solving its problems instead of blaming everybody else for them, the Muslim world would be far better off.

radson:

Re TAOwalker: You’re wrong. He just has some great peyote.

Hokey Hi.

Inherit The Wind wrote:
“How about THIS idea, Sinbad?  Egypt’s problems are the fault of Egyptians. Egyptians need to fix Egypt. Not America. Not Israel. Not the UN.  Egypt needs to fix Egypt.”
_____________________________________________________

I know you are a smart guy but a zionist and a sophist to boot, because your above statement is so dumb, naive and shallow that I can not believe you really mean it, so it must be one of your customery sophistry which I am now quite familiar.
In a fast moving world which is controlled by powerful nations each with ts own agenda, the fate of any small nation is determined by the interaction of these powerful nations and which one of them will have its agenda winning.!!
I don’t say that Egypt or the Egyptians are perfect, and I don’t deny that the Egyptians should do better,  but there is no doubt that the creation of Israel, has thrown a monkey wrench into Egypt and the Middle East progress and retarded it for many many years and sucked a lot of energy that would have been used for progress and it was a big factor in the emergence of radical reactionary Islamic movements as a backlash.

Watch Sinbad bob and weave, shuck and jive and try REALLY HARD to get around the obvious implications of what he already said!
Watch Sinbad try to cover his sorry @$$ by calling ITW a “Zionist”—as if that hasn’t been tried before.

Notice that Sinbad wants to avoid the use of the word “Taliban” as if that changes his advocacy of a Shariat-based totalitarian religious regime.  “Taliban” is only one implementation of such a regime—but it’s a convenient shorthand for ANY Sunni absolutest religious regime that demands total conformity.

Notice how Sinbad dodges the false claim he made that Egypt’s problems are the fault of….THE JEWS!

How about THIS idea, Sinbad?  Egypt’s problems are the fault of Egyptians. Egyptians need to fix Egypt. Not America. Not Israel. Not the UN.  Egypt needs to fix Egypt.

Grow up and stop blaming others for your problems.

By Inherit The Wind, March 7 at 12:54 am #

“So Sinbad is telling us that Egyptians really WANT to live under an Egyptian Taliban rather than the corrupt but not COMPLETELY totalitarian Mubarrak regime.”
===================================================
So here you go again to prove that you are the consummate misguided any distorting Zionist you’ve always been! As if being a Zionist propagandist and “distortionist” is not bad enough, so now you add to your Zionist credentials the claim to be a be a follower of faithless Atheism.

But I am confused as to figure out whether it’s Zionism or Atheism that dictates to you to openly lie and distort people’s statements and put false words in the mouth of someone who did not utter them.

You are obviously out of order and out of basic decency and morality when you claim that “Sinbad is telling us that Egyptians really WANT to live under an Egyptian Taliban rather than the corrupt but not COMPLETELY totalitarian Mubarrak regime.”

I am too smart and too intellectual as to bring the word “Taliban” in a discussion where it does not belong. However, you are too foolish, paranoid and trouble-stirring to force the word “Taliban” where it wasn’t even remotely a part of the discussion.

One thing we can say about AlBaradei is that due to his experience at the U.N. he is probably more capable of most in “running interference” between the Muslim and the non-Muslim world.  Such skills are badly needed as rapid changes are demanded from both “sides” due to increasing contacts. He may have problems because of this, but hopefully he will take on some important inter-cultural work there that will ease tensions between radical and moderate Islam, and between Islam, Christian Copts, and the so-called “West.”

A nation with Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist majority will draw upon that faith. It’s the way people are. Likewise, an overwhelming Muslim majority nation will look to Islam to guide its society. So get used to it, ok?

So Sinbad is telling us that Egyptians really WANT to live under an Egyptian Taliban rather than the corrupt but not COMPLETELY totalitarian Mubarrak regime.  People only are willing to live under a Taliban when they fear the alternative is death—and the Taliban has made it VERY clear that any opposition to them will be met with…..death.

By Samson, March 6 at 7:31 pm #

LOL ... Saying that Egypt is against ‘Islam’ makes about as much sense as saying that Italy is against Catholicism.  Egypt has to be what, 95% Islamic?  Heck, that’s probably low.
===========================
Hi, Samson, don’t play the smart asshole! I know you’re commenting on my comment. I didn’t say Egypt is against Islam, but that the political establishment in Egypt, aided by the US and Israeli political establishments and billions of American tax-payers money, is against the sentiments and desires of their overwhelming Muslim majority population! Musni Mubarak and his elk and supporters don’t represent Islam; they are in fact the antitheses of what Islam stands for. If you don’t know these basic facts then you’re the ultimate ignoramus!

And to correct your ignorant statistics, Egypt is 92% mostly Sunni Muslims; the other 8% are Christian Coptic.

Robert Fisk wrote that ElBaradei said:
“if you move i nto a democratic system, everything else will fall into place.”
_____________________________________________________

Yeah Right!!!
If ElBradei said that, and he really meant it, and he was not just blowing hot air, then he does not know what he is talking about and definitely, he is not fit to govern Egypt.
I am afraid that if Mubarak was replaced by ElBaradei, then what will happen in Egypt will be a mirror of what had happened and is happening in Pakistan after Musharaf was replaced by “Democracy”, where chaos and blood shed is almost a daily occurence.
Western style Democracy does not work everwhere, as a matter of fact it is not working here either. What we are having is a rule by the finance/corporate elite and the latest economic debacle with its bail-outs plus the health care “reform” fiasco proved that beyond any doubt.
It is ironic tha ITW with his zionist blinders, and Arabian Sinbad with his Islamist Fundamenalist blinders, are both attacking Egypt, and both of them are completely ignorant of the current world situation and the realities of the murky plolitics of the M.E.
Strange bedfellows indeed.

Samson, Egypt, now,  gets about 1.3 billion Dollar/year mostly in the form of militay aid.

TAO you have a contagious sense of humor and an eloquent grasp of society ,your prose is colored with a brush of sports and your philosophies are unwavering .
Hoka Hey

““And what keeps middle-aged men wanting power in a country whose
crippled society, increasing sectarianism, brutal police force and endemic
corruption are only compounded by an electoral system widely regarded as a
fraud?”“

Aren’t you speaking about the United States?

ElBaradei (The American president and status quo) say they are trying to make
the connection between economic and social development and political reform,
(quite a losing battle these days) and that “if you move into a democratic
system, everything else will fall into place”. But why should the Mubarak
father-and-son (American presidential family succession and the career
lawmakers) team try to change the system?

No reason.

Robert Fisk quotes Mohamed ElBaradei as saying, “if you move into a democratic system, everything else will fall into place.”  Has anyone else here noticed that the “place” into which “everything else will fall….,” at-least if the world’s self-proclaimed premier “democracy” is any example, appears to be the blood-stained ‘hands’ of a steadily shrinking (toward 1%) of the ruling 2% of its inmate population?

Of course the wonderful thing about “democracy,” at-home and abroad, is the ease with which its “....huddled masses” can be assigned blame for the institutionalized degradation they’re kept in….by those self-chosen few who run the eCONomic ‘operating system’ to their own de-light, and never join the commoners in ‘the-huddle,’ but only call the ‘plays’ from their “owners” sky-boxes high above the actual fray.  So it seems sensible to wonder what the Egyptians need with even the superfluous pretense of “democracy,” since they already enjoy in full measure the “global” status quo….everything-falling-into-place-wise.

Sometimes the “magical thinking” around here gets so thick you can almost cut it with a ‘knife.’

HokaHey!

LOL ... Saying that Egypt is against ‘Islam’ makes about as much sense as saying that Italy is against Catholicism.  Egypt has to be what, 95% Islamic?  Heck, that’s probably low.

The Egyptian government has strongly oppressed a group of Islamic activists that it calls radical and that it senses is a threat to its own power.  Pretty much like its oppressed any other threat to its hold on power in the last 40 years or so.

But, expanding that into saying that the Egyptian government oppresses Islam in general is quite ridiculous.

We send Egypt how much aid?  I think its some $3 billion a year.  Second only behind Israel in how much US taxpayer dollars they rack in as we ‘defend democracy’ in Egypt.

Makes a lot of sense since Egyptian-style democracy looks a lot like Chicago-style democracy.  Soon I’m sure we’ll hear about a third generation Daley who wants to be Chicago’s mayor some day.

Inherit

Besides the Pyramids and the Suez Canal what other interest does the West have with Egypt ;does the Sadat peace deal have such importance in the region ,with regards to peace being achievable,between
belligerents that money is utmost in maintaining the agreements.Somehow the Tunnel complexes with the border with Gaza ,become perplexing in them self;if Israel and Egypt are at peace -so to speak -why
all the tunnels ,especially with the blockade that is being imposed by Israel .Could this issue not be alleviated with Egyptian cooperation since both countries have a peace deal amongst themselves.Who
becomes the next leader of the Nile after Mubarak will be the recipient of calculated Democracy and the populace will will will ,well you know the end of that story.There is something that intrigues me and since
you probably have more Biblical knowledge than me ;why would Moses and his followers have to wander around in the desert for so many years after having split the Red Sea when they were the ‘good guys’ .

NATURALLY!  It’s all the fault of….Israel (and the US).  Egypt has 77 million people, Israel has 5.  Sadat was a side-kick of Nasser, who, BTW, imprisoned and executed the philosophical father of Wahhabi thinking. (the Wahhabi schools are behind the radicalization of Sunni Islam.)  Nasser, not Sadat, was first to try to suppress Islam.

Sadat, at least, ended your endless wars with Israel, removing one major threat to Egyptian sovereignty and for that he was murdered.  He had no love of Jews—He owned a house stolen from Jews by him.

Is there NO end to the refusal to accept responsibility for a large nation’s own troubles?  Do you really think a little nation of 5 million has some sort of demonic power to disrupt the STRONGEST Arab nation in the region?

Mubarak is not Israeli or American.  He’s Egyptian.  He’s YOUR problem, and he’s not “propped up” by the USA or by Israel.  Deal with it, grow up,  and stop blaming Jews for your own failures.

Robert Fisk got most of his facts wrong in regard to the modern history of Egypt and particularly in regard to Islam and Muslims. He missed the basic fact that the political establishment is vehemently against Islam and its activists, and the only permanent feature of the rule of Sadat and Mubarak is that they are the oppressors of the Muslim majority. Both Sadat and Mubarak, despite their manipulation of the people’s Islamic sentiments for political ends, are in fact the sworn enemies of Islamic principles.

Egypt’s political, social and economic problems started mainly with Anwar Sadat’s ascending to power and its political establishment’s distancing itself from its Arabic and Islamic roots and it’s unholy alliance with both the United States and Israel.

I lived and studied in Egypt during the time of Naser in the mid 60’s and Egypt, despite not being a prosperous country, was a very proud nation and had great potential for a better future. Things has gotten worse with Sadat and Mubarak who sold their souls cheaply for a 2 billion American dollars, which go mainly to the political establishment and to increasingly support a police state with the close help of Israel.

I have to smile when I read articles concerning corrupt elections around the world.  Is our system any better?  No, I think not.  Corruption in America…it’s the way we do business.