promoting democracy in the Middle East
 

So we now have changed from - it is absurd, naive and ridiculous to think that Democracy is spreading in the middle east. Now that argument has changed to yes- there is a Arab spring - but the elections in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine had nothing to do with it.

Question for the Readers
 

When you get all cultural and semiotic on me like this, it makes me so want to do you.

promoting democracy in the Middle East
 

It's still unclear to me that democracy is "spreading" in the Middle East any more than it has been for a while. If you've never looked in the barn, and then you look and there are cows there, one possible explanation is that the cows just arrived in the barn. Another is that they were there all along, and you never noticed.

promoting democracy in the Middle East
 

Interesting progression:

1. The war will not bring elections.
2. The elections will be a farce.
3. The war and the elections will have no effect on anyone else.
4. Everyone else was already democratic. (Or, they had cows. I'm not sure which.)

promoting democracy in the Middle East
 

Who said "the war will not bring elections"? Who said they'd be a farce? Establishing a democracy takes a lot more than holding some elections. Back when Clinton was President, Republicans intuitively got this, but they've suspended their disbelief for the last few years.

The CSM article I quoted suggests that the war has had an effect on others. Just not quite the one we'd like. Republicans can ignore the way we prop up dictators across the Middle East, but -- oddly enough -- some Arabs notice it. And it turns out that the model of installing a democracy by having the United States invade and capture your dictator and then hold elections for you is not as readily transferable to other countries -- how odd.

"Everyone else was already democratic." Yes, that's about the level of sophistication about the Middle East that lies behind today's conservative thinking.

Question for the Readers
 

I don't buy this. People were seeing appearances of the Virgin in all sorts of place long before a cheese sandwich. The impressionists were also far from the first non-representational painters (if you can call them that, since their work is still far from abstract). Indeed, it is only as a reaction to fifty years of hyper-realism in the French Academe that the early impressionists make sense as not being themselves a representational school. Many of Monet's brush techniques would have been at home in the Netherlands in the 17th century.


(ETA: Wonk is right, though, I love it when you get Semiotic on us. Better than SI.)

Mantra
 

Nothing to see, move on...

I hate motherfucking asshole Tom DeLay

Move along, move along. Nothing to see. Keep on scrolling.

Ty- now is it a scandal?
 

I'm not referring to the situtation in Iraq and elsewhere per say.

Any difference is one of intent, not one of action. That being the case, I think the "good" to come from that intent needs to be factored in the equation. We all may agree that that torture should be prohibited in nearly all cases, but I think that is a different question than the morality of the action.

Ty- now is it a scandal?
 

oversight

Ty- now is it a scandal?
 

I'm defending the proposition that torture is not always morally wrong.

Force is also justified outside of the self-defence context.

ETA: Nice attempt to try to call me a hypocrit, but your point is laughable.

promoting democracy in the Middle East
 

It takes guts to say this to me following your little cow homily.

promoting democracy in the Middle East
 

Serious question -- not intended to be a vote on one side or the other of this debate:

Do you think that Palestine would have had elections but for Arafat's death? And if he had died five years ago, would there have been an election to replace him? If not, what?


I will note that, while I certainly supported the war in Afghanistan it's very hard to say that the county is functioning very well as a democracy -- our attention has been drawn elsewhere, among other things -- and a lot harder to say that it's part of the "Arab spring." (Cue Hank to point out "different towels.")

promoting democracy in the Middle East
 

You have your bees. Let Ty have his cows.

eta: When did you convert?

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/US/03/31....prayer.ap.jpg

security clearance
 

if you are elected to Congress, do you automatically get a security clearance (not necessarily top secret or super-duper-extra top secret, but a lower-level one)? Or just if you are on a relevant committee? Or can someone be denied a set on a committee or whatever because they didn't clear or pass or whatever it's called?

CNN is reporting...
 

the pope has received last rites.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe...pe1/index.html