Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Look, you're usually a fair guy and I routinely rep your posts and while I agree it is far fetched to claim Obama brought democracy to Egypt his speeches have inspired a lot of people and his outside support for pro-democracy protesters has helped their cause. He clearly had as much to do with this as Reagan had to do with democracy in Eastern Europe with his "bring down this wall" speech. That is to say both presidents had peripheral roles but important inspirational roles using the bully pulphit of their office to encourage change.
I get what you're saying but I no more attribute Reagan with the fall of the Soviet Empire than I do Obama with the emerging democratic reforms in Egypt.
They may have inspired these events to some degree, but in the same manner that one cannot force democracy at the point of a gun, one cannot claim responsibility for an event merely upon a single speech. I enjoyed Obama's Cairo speech and thought it was a good thing to see the US addressing the "Arab on the street", but at the end of the day, it is the people who make it happen.
30 years of resentment towards Mubarak by the citizenry came to a head. Did Obama help things, probably, but again, it is the people who risk their lives and imprisonment that make it happen.
From 2007, I offer you this most moving and stirring of blog entries, and as far as I know it was his last. I'm not sure if he is still in prison or dead, but I cannot help but admire this mans courage, and to quote from one of my favorite poems of Thomas Babington Macaulay.
"To all men, death cometh sooner or late, how better to die than facing fearful odds for the ashes of my fathers and the temples of my Gods."
To every gloating and spiteful person among those who envision that the likes of these primitive measures might change my positions, affect me, or force me to stray from walking in the path that I have set for myself, I say: Die in your rage and hide in your burrows. I shall not recant, not even by an inch, from any word I have written. These restrictions will not preclude my dream of obtaining my freedom, for that has been my wish ever since I was a child, and it will continue to run in my imagination in endlessness.
This is just one young Egyptian wanted to be free in a way we take for granted and it seems that if any credit for this revolution is deserved, it is people like Kareem.
Up until the last 10 days, obama had little interest in the Egyptian democracy movement, in fact, he under minded it almost immediately upon taking office.
Windsor tells ABC News that the administration gave roughly “7 million dollars of assistance to civil society, but they made a decision that that assistance would only go to those groups that were approved by the Egyptian government” – contrary to the policy of the Bush administration.
As we discussed earlier today, President Bush in his final budget proposed spending $45 million Egyptian pro-democracy and civil society programs in Egypt.
Says Windsor: “The attitude of Obama administration toward the pro-democracy movement was to put them at arm’s length, and make sure that US interaction with the pro-democracy movement did not in any way ruffle the feathers of a dictatorial regime.”
He cut in halve the funds for the movement.
And now he and his supporters want to claim credit?
It was undeniably the citizens of Egypt who engineered this revolution, and certainly not a lightweight American President whose CIA Chief never saw this coming.
Between the nonstop stream of rebukes he's received from other Middle East nations as well as the Far East & European leaders who universally slammed him and his counterfeiting Treasury Secretary nonstop during his recent trips to the far East & Europe, there's no doubt that most of the world's leaders (allies & enemies) considers him to be horrendously overmatched.
How American it is for people to sit around debating whether it was one American president or another who caused this revolution. Give credit to the people, not some foreign country.
Now just hold your horses, Google has claimed they brought this revolution on.
It was undeniably the citizens of Egypt who engineered this revolution, and certainly not a lightweight American President whose CIA Chief never saw this coming.
Between the nonstop stream of rebukes he's received from other Middle East nations as well as the Far East & European leaders who universally slammed him and his counterfeiting Treasury Secretary nonstop during his recent trips to the far East & Europe, there's no doubt that most of the world's leaders (allies & enemies) considers him to be horrendously overmatched.
Agreed. EVERYONE around the world has considered the management of this situation by the Obama administration to be a completely inept, clumsy, and dangerous display of foreign policy. This was a complete blunder.
It is amazing that anyone would evaluate this situation and actually feel as though the Obama administration not only acted in a competent fashion, but actually had an impact on a favorable outcome.
This was a complete foreign policy embarrassment for the US and nearly resulted in the establishment of another Islamic republic in the Middle East. Obama should be praying to God that the Saudis intervened and ameliorated the situation, IN SPITE OF OBAMA'S ABJECT FAILURE.
looks like his speech in Cairo started the unraveling...without one single bullet....
Egypt
Healthcare
Nuclear weapons treaty
Saved the world economy from the brink
Repeal of DADT
Getting us out Iraq - Afghanistan
Started financial reforms of the federal gov't
Tax cuts for the middle
Is there anything that man can't accomplish? Why, he even unclogged my toilet last night and fixed my TV reception AFTER he saved Egypt and stopped a secret extraterrestrial invasion!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
