Rice Alarms Reformist Arabs with Stability Remarks

[Rose Siding]

CAIRO (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has alarmed many reformist Arabs with comments suggesting a new U.S. approach that promotes rapid political change without regard for internal stability.
....
"This a very dangerous scheme. Anarchy will be out of control," said Hassan Nafaa, a professor of political science at Cairo University and an advocate of gradual change.

A liberal Arab diplomat, who asked not to be named, said: "They seem to be supporting chaos and instability as a pretext for bringing democracy. But people would rather live under undemocratic rule than in the chaotic atmosphere of Iraq, for example, which the Americans tout as a model."

U.S. policy in the Middle East has traditionally given priority to the stability of cooperative governments such as those in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, while turning a blind eye to the way those governments treat their peoples.
Mohamed el-Sayed Said, a liberal who has challenged Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to his face over authoritarian government, said Arab societies were too fragile for the kind of rapid and unchecked change that Rice appears to welcome.
....
Mohamed el-Sayed Said said Rice's approach appeared to have links with a trend in right-wing Israeli thinking that favors destabilising Arab governments and societies.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=8022839&src=rss/ElectionCoverage

[bemildred]

1. "They seem to be supporting chaos and instability"

Well, yeah, that's exactly right.

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. In all fairness to the Arabs, the dimwitted Republican voters who

support Bush & co. haven't figured this out.

[bemildred]

9. Well, I can understand the confusion of a former stooge,

who now, suddenly, finds that he is dispensable.
American voters, collectively, are the product of fifty
years and more of brainwashing, and they would believe
it was raining on a sunny day if the mighty wurlitzer
said so. This piece here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1349899

says Bush won a "decisive victory" in Florida, that is a flat
out lie.

[leftchick]

20. I know...

Ya think??

[Just Me]

22. Their SOP for acquiring power!!!

They create chaos/instability at home and abroad in order to expand their power.

How long are people going to remain in denial about these radicals?

[UL_Approved]

37. I kepp posting a link to this, but I can't stress it enough

I apologize if I am saying something to those in the know for yet another time. But it is no less important.

This site is something that I came across recently, and it has some of the best stuff about what we discuss.

Yes, this chaos control technique is very familiar. Yes, they are doing it. And if you look closely, the USA is using Taliban/Al-Qaeda anarchy techniques for power expansion.

We ARE the terrorists. They ARE us. All our leaders know what they are doing, and we need to stop them. They have infested a democracy, tribal kingdoms, monarchies, and other such ruling states. The explanation is all to clear: total world domination.

The link:

TruthStream.Org - Streaming the TRUTH to the American People

[scarletlib]

2. evil feeds off of chaos and anarchy

chaos and anarchy breed violence and fear. bushco just loves that. it is a vampire administration feeding off of blood and fear. a middle east in chaos and anarchy is just another pretext to exert overt US influence in the region.

[burythehatchet]

3. so Star Wars its not even funny

[Spazito]

4. My, my, I see Ms. Rice's 'diplomatic' skills are on full display

yet again.

[madrchsod]

5. karen get the towels

condi just shit on the floor again.....

[Spazito]

6. ROFLMAO!!

It's just a damn good thing I didn't have a mouthful of coffee when reading your post or I would have lost another keyboard because of DU!

[xultar]

10. When she backpeddles through that shit she's gonna slip and fall

and-er-a I'm-a gonn-a laff-a my-a ass-a off!

[Tesla]

38. now we know why she got the BOOTS!!!

she wants to charm the crap of them!!!

[BadGimp]

14. ROFLMAO

thx for that

[Malva Zebrina]

7. they only have a little less than four years to do it

that's why the hurry up and the excuse that it is "internal dissension" that impedes the great Bush doctrine of bringing Democracy to the middle east and not the insane Straussian-Machiavellian approach that seems to dominating our foreign policy and perpetrated around the globe by the whore Rice. (I won't even give her the respect of using her title(s).)

Just go on a killing rampage, establish Halliburton et al in each country that is so corrupted and backwards as to not have a democracy like ours, and be responisble for hundreds and thousands of deaths of innocent human beings in the process. Matters not--we won't count em and out of sight out of mind.

I strongly feel that a revolution in this country is the only means left to we the people to stop the insanity.

[tanyev]

11. They are going to reap what they sow.

And they probably do not care up to a point, but when the whirlwind gets beyond anything they can control, I think they may be sorry.

[RamboLiberal]

33. Bad part is WE will reap what they sow

Innocent citizens that will die in a terrorist attack, soldiers that will die in those countries, and the rest of us who will watch this country go deeper in to debt to pay for this shit and watch our and our children's futures being mortgaged.

[ananda]

12. destabilize to free

Destabilizing? But but.. we're bringing them freedom and democracy.

We're the -good- guys.. can't you tell?

We kill, maim, and destroy your cities -for your own good-.

Sue

[mmonk]

13. Truth finds a way

Stability=US friendly with cheap oil access
Instability=people decide their own fate and that of their oil

[w4rma]

15. "Look, our strategy is to create chaos, to create a vacuum."

You’re Invited to the War Party (“Bush at War” book review)
By Georgie Anne Geyer

Ever since his Watergate revelations, which helped evict a president and change the United States for all time, for better or worse Bob Woodward has stood as the major force in a new genre of journalism. He talks, wheedles, and, using government officials’ personal ambitions and dreams of political eternity, implicitly threatens his way into the often closed corridors of power—there, he is a master at getting a certain number of figures who try their best to remain aloof and unknown to tell their stories. The proposition, understood if not explicitly spoken, is that this book, as his former ones, will tell the story—you miss out on leave on this journalistic port, fellow, you miss the whole historic ship!
…
First of all, Bush at War is really about the decision-making process in the upper levels of the Bush administration—the White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon—from the exact morning of Sept. 11th. It begins with a profoundly worried George Tenet, head of the CIA and, from all of the space he gets in the book, obviously one of Woodward’s best and favored sources. That very morning, Tenet is wondering about when Osama bin Laden, whom he has been desperately tracking, will strike the U.S. Then “it” happens—and from then onward, the book delineates day-by-day, and sometimes hour-by-hour and minute-by-minute—what supposedly went on in meeting after meeting. From all accounts that I know of, Woodward’s interpretations are exactly right; it is the quotes that are so bothersome.
…
Another time, he says to Woodward, “I’m the commander—see, I don’t need to explain—I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.”

At still another point after the Afghan war has started, the president says to his staff, “Look, our strategy is to create chaos, to create a vacuum.” And Woodward ends the book with another quote from the president, in which he again reflects the obsessive chaos theory of the neoconservatives surrounding him like sentinels and for whom Iraq has become the sina quo non of political existence: “We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of our great nation.” Whew.
http://www.amconmag.com/01_13_03/geyer7.html

[donkeyotay]

16. Those quotes really say it all

“Look, our strategy is to create chaos, to create a vacuum.”

“We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of our great nation.”

President Bush. Your pious, God-fearin', sanctity-of-life fella.

[oblivious]

32. Yes, those the the two most notable quotes of his career.

They explain all the aggression so far. They should be monster headlines around the world.

[Gloria]

17. Voice of Russia to the ME this am was talking about Bush and

instability. Wish the signal was a little stronger, but Russia is on the case already in the ME.

Were also talking about the various "revolutions" in the former Soviet bloc nations. I posted a story about their new "soft" line a week or so ago, and it was evident today, talking about how these countries have to decide for themselves what they want....

[bemildred]

18. Russia will not under any circustances allow itself to be provoked.

The US "initiative" in Central Asia will fall of it's own weight,
it's inherent illogic, and the natural influence of the larger
powers that are in the region will reassert itself. Russia can
afford to play the good guy.

[Gloria]

23. Yes, Russia is encouraging cultural programs, etc. rather than

their old tactics. It should be interesting...

[Zorra]

19. Dear Condi: We did not find any WMD in Iraq, you are so FOS.

Rice, paraphrased: "We felt we had to do something, even if it was wrong; things might be better than they were, but then again, they might not":

Rice's remarks went one step further, suggesting the United States was willing to take a gamble on "democratic institutions" having a "moderating influence" in the region.

"Can we be certain of that? No. But do I think there's a strong certainty that the Middle East was not going to stay stable anyway? Yes. And when you know that the status quo is no longer defensible, then you have to be willing to move in another direction," she said.
snip----
Rice, asked about the prospect of Islamist victories through reform, said that would not be desirable.

But she added: "It is really as opposed to what at this point? It isn't as if the status quo was stable the way that it was ... The only thing the United States can do is to speak out for the values that have been absent, liberty and freedom there, and it will have to take its own course."

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=8022839&src=rss/ElectionCoverage

I'm confused. On the surface, it seems she is saying that they spent $160 billion plus of our taxpayer money and mortgaged our collective national future, killed tens of thousands of people including a bunch of our own troops, permanently maimed probably 100,000 others, completely destroyed the infrastructure of an entire country, and they are not sure if it was the right thing to do, and that there is a possibility that things are going to be worse than before.

The thing is, Iraq had no WMD, and, although Saddam Hussein was, domestically, a brutal thug, Iraq was very contained at the time of the invasion and represented no threat, or at most a very minimal threat, to our national security.

Some possibilities:

A: Do these people live in fantasy land, and really still believe that Iraq had WMD, and were some type of legitimate threat to US national security, despite all evidence to the contrary? Are they again trying to justify the invasion of Iraq on this proven fantasy?

B: Was the real intent of the war to foster further chaos and destabilization the ME, as previously posted in this thread?

C: Is the war now costing so much political and economic capital that the US has to pull out before our country is completely economically destroyed, international diplomatic relations become irreparable, and republicans will be swept from office over the next four years because of critical mismanagement of government if we don't pull out of Iraq soon and cut our already insurmountable losses?

Now I have a headache. I usually get one when I read PNAC doublespeak.
:banghead:

[BeFree]

30. It's as easy as A, B, C

Only is goes like this:

O I L

Saudi Arabia is dead in their sights. Not only is there a festering religious situation, they have the most oil in the region that has the most oil.

Bushco does feel as if they are protecting America. They are going for the oil so that this country can continue, with greatly oiled ease, to freely move about.

Ya know, it's one of our most cherished freedoms, this idea that we can go anywhere, at any time. Oil is what makes that idea possible.

Having said that..... one does have grave concerns with the way they are going about 'saving' America. Clinton, imo, went about it relatively peacefully, this bunch is nothing but warmongerers who have whipped America into a modern day lynch-mob. They are the PNAC.

[fromBrooklyn]

21. Klassy Kondi!

Puts her foot in it again, but I can sympathize, I still don't know when to shut-up.

[oasis]

24. Condi rolls the dice while others will live or die on the outcome. That's

how the Bush Doctrine operates.

[MissMarple]

25. "We suspect these ideas came from Israel."

Hey, she just comes right out and admits the truth. It really makes one wonder what the Bushies know about the Middle East and its' complexities. They are so focused on Israel all the other countries can endure the chaos, instability, the outright anarchy they create, just to stir things up "for democracy". Now isn't that special? :eyes:

God spare us from the "good intentions" of stupid people.

from the article:

"Helena Cobban, a writer on Middle East affairs based in the United States, said: "She (Rice) reveals a totally cavalier attitude to the whole non-trivial concept of social-political stability in Middle Eastern countries."

"So it looks as though Arc of Instability may now actually be the goal of U.S. policy, rather than its diagnosis of an existing problem," she added.

Mohamed el-Sayed Said said Rice's approach appeared to have links with a trend in right-wing Israeli thinking that favors destabilising Arab governments and societies.

"We see an emphasis on destruction and we see that Israel is willing to push Arab societies to the abyss without caring for stability. We suspect these ideas came from Israel," he added."

[charlie]

26. Prepping us for a pullout?

First Novak's article and now this. Gotta have the troops refitted and ready for the summer blockbuster in Iran. Chaos and a collapsed state in Iraq? We meant to do that. You can thank us later.

[baldguy]

27. Rice Alarms Reformist Arabs with Stability Remarks

CAIRO (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has alarmed many reformist Arabs with comments suggesting a new U.S. approach that promotes rapid political change without regard for internal stability
....
The Bush administration has argued that political violence and hostility to the United States in the Middle East are the result of internal repression, rather than of U.S. policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the main Arab grievance.
....
Helena Cobban, a writer on Middle East affairs based in the United States, said: "She (Rice) reveals a totally cavalier attitude to the whole non-trivial concept of social-political stability in Middle Eastern countries."

"So it looks as though Arc of Instability may now actually be the goal of U.S. policy, rather than its diagnosis of an existing problem," she added

more
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050329/pl_nm/mideast_stability_dc

Welcome to the terrorist factory, brought to you by the BFEE.

[bluestateguy]

28. She's so overrated

I really find her to be of mediocre caliber in everything she does for this administration.

She's more overrated than Derek Jeter.

[KamaAina]

29. You're right. Condi wouldn't dive headfirst into the seats for a foul ball

no matter how nicely Bush** asked her to.

[Rex]

31. We shall pave over the Earth!

Rice is doing her best to destabilize the rest of the Middle East. When will people realize that Rice is insane?

[oblivious]

34. That quote in the context of the recent Qatar attack makes me wonder.

From your OP:
A liberal Arab diplomat, who asked not to be named, said: "They seem to be supporting chaos and instability as a pretext for bringing democracy.

This Qatar attack seems to coincidentally favour Rice's approach.

How did an Egyptian computer programmer get access to what was apparantly a sophisticated bomb in a place as tightly controlled as Qatar?

Why this attack at the same time The US is getting ready to release its list of 25 potentially unstable countries it may have to invade? I know it doesn't make sense with Qatar since the US practically owns Qatar anyway, but whoever did it had incredible timing from Rice's perspective. They really did her a favour, emphasising her point.

The Qatar govt has dismissed the new group claiming responsibility as just a propaganda stunt. Who did it then?

edit: spelling

[Tinoire]

35. "Rice Alarms World with Stability Remarks" is more like it imo n/t

[ProgressiveConn]

36. Well US support of a dictatorship will do one thing for damn sure.

Kill off the third and most successful lie about Iraq. That we went there bringing democracy.

[Tesla]

39. they "mis-spoke"

when will we understand the difference??

they don't lie!

ask any republican!