Xenocidebot's Xenocideblog

AJE: “The triviality of US Mideast policy” February 1, 2011

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/01/201113191947648929.html

If you’re a U.S. citizen you should find this opinion piece interesting. The entire “event” in Egypt right now is pretty enthralling, and it’s interesting to see the sentiment of people in the U.S. and North America (and to a lesser extent the EU) regarding it. Specifically sentiments like these, lifted from related forum discussion :

You try to make a safe world and eliminate even more radical factions, then you perfect democracy.

Democracy should always be the first priority.

Maybe the reason Robert Grenier hasn’t heard his “ringing endorsement of freedom” or “statement of encouragement to those willing to risk everything to assert their rights and their human dignity” is because our populace is divided between the idealists he’s seeking and people concerned there won’t be a democracy to implement if the situation gets out of hand. And while Grenier’s right that these are “values which the US nominally regards as universal”, he seems to forget that some people may simply want to see the region survive before concerning themselves with political ideals.

I think too often people forget that the U.S. is a federation of states, a huge body of places as different from one another in some respects as England is from Spain. Washington can never really make a strong statement on anything if the general populace is divided on it, and the masses are split pretty evenly between idealism vs. pragmatism on this.

Though I’ll admit, I could go for a little idealism right now.