OE, why oh why did you have to ask?
Receptionist: Yes, sir?
Man: I'd like to have an argument please.
Receptionist: Certainly, sir, have you been here before...?
Man: No, this is my first time.
Receptionist: I see. Do you want to have the full argument, or were you thinking of taking a course?
Man: Well, what would be the cost?
Receptionist: Yes, it's one pound for a five-minute argument, but only eight pounds for a course of ten.
Man: Well, I think it's probably best of I start with the one and see how it goes from there. OK?
Receptionist: Fine. I'll see who's free at the moment... Mr. Du-Bakey's free, but he's a little bit concilliatory... Yes, try Mr. Barnard -- Room 12.
Man: Thank you.
Read on, and discover the incredible similarities between ican and Mr Vibrating!
No! Instead you will discover the incredible similarities between old europe and Mr Vibrating!
ican711nm wrote:No! Instead you will discover the incredible similarities between old europe and Mr Vibrating!
No, you won't!
old europe: Fine. (makes a note of it) Thank you. Anyway you won't.
old europe: Now, let's get one thing quite clear... I most definitely told you!
old europe: (pressing the bell on his desk) Thank you, good morning.
Democratic Dominoes
People power takes hold in the Middle East
By Ilan Berman
Knight Ridder Tribune News Service
April 6, 2005
What a difference a year can make. Last spring, the White House was weathering a firestorm of controversy, buffeted by mounting casualties in Iraq and growing domestic opposition to the war.
Now, however, officials in the Bush administration appear to have a lot to smile about. The success of Iraq's January 30th elections - and the considerable strides toward mature nation-statehood since taken by Baghdad - have proven critics of the idea of post-totalitarian transformation profoundly wrong. What's more, Washington is discovering that its policies in the War on Terror have catalyzed a wave of pro-democratic stirrings in one of the world's most turbulent regions.
By now, the groundswell of popular opposition to Syria's nearly three-decade-long occupation of Lebanon generated by the mid-February assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri has become old news. Yet Lebanon's "Cedar Revolution" is just the most visible in a series of similar transformations that are now underway in the Middle East.
In Egypt, ailing president Hosni Mubarak, bowing to both U.S. urgings and domestic demands, has altered the rules of the national political game. In late February, the Egyptian leader announced plans for major electoral reforms ahead of the country's looming presidential election in September. If implemented as promised, the outcome of the desired changes would, in Mubarak's own words, provide "the chance for political parties to run for the presidential elections and guarantees that allow more than one candidate for the people to choose among them with their own will."
The countries of the Persian Gulf are also in transition. In Kuwait, mounting calls for women's suffrage have mobilized hundreds of protesters in recent weeks. In Bahrain, the arrest of three Internet bloggers in early March has sparked an escalating series of protests against the regime in Manama, and a new surge of pressure for constitutional reform within the Gulf state. Even Saudi Arabia's puritanical government, bowing to external pressures, has set in motion municipal elections designed to make the country's regional political bodies accountable to their constituents for the first time in history.
Signs of change are also visible in Syria, where the Assad regime's long-standing stranglehold on Syrian hearts and minds is being eroded by a new medium: the Internet. Almost 500,000 Syrians out of a population of 18 million are currently estimated to be using the Internet on a regular basis, and the public's demand for information appears to be progressively outstripping the ability of the regime's instruments of power to control it. As well, a number of Syrian opposition figures, emboldened by the political transformation taking place in neighboring Lebanon, are finally finding the courage to speak out against Damascus.
Moreover, technology has made such civic opposition more possible - and sustainable - than ever before. "Thanks to satellite television channels and the Internet, the people are monitoring what is happening in the world and are beginning to be conscious of their natural rights and of freedom," former Lebanese Prime Minister Selim Hoss recently told one journalist.
To be sure, these democratic stirrings could still yield profoundly undemocratic results. In Saudi Arabia's recent polls, conservative Islamist candidates reportedly made serious political gains. Radical groups like Hamas are expected to do the same when Palestinians go to the polls this month to pick legislative representatives in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. And in Egypt, the influential Muslim Brotherhood - the ideological progenitor of al-Qaeda and its affiliates - is marshalling a mounting challenge to the Mubarak regime under the guise of political participation.
Nevertheless, progress is increasingly becoming palpable. In his State of the Union Address on February 2nd, President Bush emphasized America's desire for a "higher standard of freedom" in the Middle East. If the events of recent weeks are any indication, the Administration could end up getting its wish far sooner than expected. The region, and the world, will be the better for it.
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Ilan Berman, Vice President for Policy of the Washington-based American Foreign Policy Council, is a member of the Committee on the Present Danger.
