Great Democrazy Gaads

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   Since his State of the Union speech in January, George W. Bush has been promising that the United States would wage war against terrorism in part by pressing for the spread of democratic values in the Muslim world. 

Apart from his call for reform of the Palestinian Authority, there has been little practical follow-up, especially with those autocratically ruled Arab nations that have produced most of the militants of AI Qaeda. 

Now President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, one of those states, has presented Bush with an important opportunity to prove that his policy amounts to more than rhetoric.

On Monday in Cairo an Egyptian court for the second time sentenced the country's most important campaigner for democracy and human rights, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, to seven years in prison on patently trumped-up charges. Ibrahim, 63, a sociologist and dual Egyptian-American citizen, has for years courageously and peacefully promoted

. . . because Mubarak is unwilling to forgive Ibrahim's greatest offense: publishing an article calling attention to the fact that the Egyptian dictator is grooming his son to succeed him.

Mubarak depends on U.S. support to prop up a regime that is both politically and economically bankrupt. Yet far from accepting Bush's call for liberalization, he is directly challenging it. His jailing of an ailing professor who is both an American citizen and his country's foremost advocate of peaceful reform, at a time when anti-American and anti-Semitic hate speech spews from government~ontrolled media, can only be seen as a calculated slap in the face to a U.S. administration and Congress that support his government with more than $2 billion in annual aid.

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Whisper Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Male Joined: 25 July 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 4752	Post Options Post Reply Quote Whisper Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Great Democrazy Gaads Posted: 28 October 2005 at 4:04am
	Since his State of the Union speech in January, George W. Bush has been promising that the United States would wage war against terrorism in part by pressing for the spread of democratic values in the Muslim world. Apart from his call for reform of the Palestinian Authority, there has been little practical follow-up, especially with those autocratically ruled Arab nations that have produced most of the militants of AI Qaeda. Now President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, one of those states, has presented Bush with an important opportunity to prove that his policy amounts to more than rhetoric. On Monday in Cairo an Egyptian court for the second time sentenced the country's most important campaigner for democracy and human rights, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, to seven years in prison on patently trumped-up charges. Ibrahim, 63, a sociologist and dual Egyptian-American citizen, has for years courageously and peacefully promoted . . . because Mubarak is unwilling to forgive Ibrahim's greatest offense: publishing an article calling attention to the fact that the Egyptian dictator is grooming his son to succeed him. Mubarak depends on U.S. support to prop up a regime that is both politically and economically bankrupt. Yet far from accepting Bush's call for liberalization, he is directly challenging it. His jailing of an ailing professor who is both an American citizen and his country's foremost advocate of peaceful reform, at a time when anti-American and anti-Semitic hate speech spews from government~ontrolled media, can only be seen as a calculated slap in the face to a U.S. administration and Congress that support his government with more than $2 billion in annual aid.