Neocons Take Credit For Egyptian Uprising

[Avant Guardian]

Elliot Abrams, a former deputy national security adviser on Middle East affairs and a key architect of the Iraq war, is one of the several foreign policy hawks that see the situation in the streets of Egypt as proof that President George W. Bush's democracy promotion initiative worked. The logic Abrams — who was known as Bush's "democracy czar" — employs is as simple as it is hackneyed and offensive because not only is there strong evidence that Bush didn't always believe in democracy in the Middle East, but the whole line of thinking is tinged in a vile yet subtle form of racism.Egyptians didn't understand freedom, didn't see the problem with autocracy, torture, repression, decades of emergency rule, censorship and had to desire for freedom, the argument suggests, until a white guy from Texas showed them what liberty was all about. That's not likely.

But what are the chances that that Bush's call for democracy in the Middle East played a role in the uprising in Egypt? Not likely, either. Mubarak and Bush enjoyed a remarkably close relationship. In fact, as Bush admits in his new book, Mubarak helped convince him that Iraq possessed biological weapons. Most telling, in 2008, when Bush traveled to Egypt, he missed the perfect opportunity to implore Mubarak to step aside and instead praised the dictator for all that he'd done promote nonexistent democratic reform. "Our friendship is strong," Bush told Mubarak. "It's a cornerstone of - one of the main cornerstones of our policy in this region, and it's based on our shared commitment to peace, security and prosperity."

...

Bush's democracy agenda was a huge failure for a number of reasons, but not least because it featured as its main advertisement the smoking ruins and charred bodies of Iraq. There was also the Bush administration's tendency to pull the plug when it became obvious that democracy might mean the political victory of people the U.S. didn't like, as happened in Egypt. Or, as in Gaza, to try to reverse the outcome through a coup, a disaster in which Abrams himself played a key role.

http://politicalcorrection.org/fpmatters/201101310005

[JohnnyRingo]

1. The sun rose in the East this morning...

Thank goodness GWB had the foresight to invade Iraq for us.

[SpiralHawk]

2. Mubarak helped convince George AWOL Bush that Iraq had WMDs? WTF?

These Torture-freaks had a Lie orgy with each other to deceive America & decent Americans into a needless war against a 9/11-innocent nation that just happened -- conveniently -- to be a JUICY target for a Republicon oil-profits CRUSADE.

Here we are, years later, still paying the price in terms of maiming, death, destruction, budget ruination, and Feathered FatCat (R) SnakeNests.

Ptooooey on all dat.

[Jack Rabbit]

3. How does he explain Neocons like Bolten who oppose the uprising?

Actually, Mr. Abrams is a day late and a dollar shy with this. The truth is that Neoconservatives don't like democracy. Abroad they like to impose "strong men" like Mubarak on local populaces and at home they like imperial presidents who claim the right to invalidate acts of Congress with signing statements and trample on the Bill of Rights.

[Avant Guardian]

4. Or Beck and his idiotic theories

Thing about republicans, it doesn't matter what they say at any given time. Down the road they will all start tooting the same horn. Republicans can flip flop on anything and nobody notices, well except us.

[treestar]

5. Americans - we are crazy narcissists

It's all about us.

The other night, Michael Savage, who apparently does not like this revolution, said it was started by conspiracy of the Obama Administration.

It's coming from everywhere - good or bad, credit or blame.

[yellowcanine]

6. Abrams was Bush's "Democracy Czar"? Isn't that kind of an oxymoron?

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

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