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Last updated on March 6th, 2018 at 12:30 am
The Guardian’s Simon Tisdall seems delighted that someone has finally stood up to democracy’s brutal progress:
Groundbreaking elections in Afghanistan, Ukraine, Palestine and Iraq, extolled in President Bush’s “dawn of freedom” inaugural address, have encouraged western hopes that democratic values are gaining universal acceptance.
But this winning streak, if that is what it is, will come to a shuddering halt next month in Zimbabwe.
President Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF party look poised to steal parliamentary elections on March 31 in the same violently fraudulent way that, say Zimbabwe’s opposition and international observers, they stole past polls in 2000 and 2002.
Hooray! Writes contributor J.F. Beck: “Jesus H. Christ, how did Bush come to be responsible for an entrenched dictator like Mugabe rigging an ‘election’? Why doesn’t the EU do something?�?
- Poor guy. Probably misses the days when the commies seemed unstoppable.Posted by Mr. Blue on 02/16 at 09:06 AM • permalink
- How does Simon know Mugabe isn’t next?Posted by Aaron – Freewill on 02/16 at 12:29 PM • permalink
- Everyone knows the USA does too much or too little, and if by some miracle there is a good outcome, it was in spite of the USA, not because of it.Posted by Mystery Meat on 02/16 at 01:28 PM • permalink
- No, actually, never heard of it.
There hasn’t been a country with that name since, well, ever. There was a League of Nations territory ruled by the UK from 1918 to 1948; and before that European maps of the Middle East used that name for a vaguely defined region, sort of like “Gippsland” or, well, “the Middle East”, but an actual country? Not in this timeline.
- Actually, I bought my son a globe for Christmas from the Australian Geographic store ( blow up one he could use as a beach ball). I did it to generate an interest in geography.
In showing him where the countries are located, he wanted to know where jesus was born. “over here,” I said, “in Isreal”.
Only to discover, that on this globe (printed in 2000), there is no Isreal, only a very large country known as Palestine. How can this be so????
- Yes. It is. Not in the part that is governed directly by Israeli law; it’s just inside the sometimes-’autonomous’ territory, that Israeli governments occasionally delude themselves into thinking they can allow the Arabs to run, more or less, until it all falls to pieces and the army has to come in again. Bethlehem is a literal stone’s throw from Jerusalem, or an easy shot, as the residents like to demonstrate.
Officially, it’s not part of any country, but Israel has legal responsibility for it; any power exercised by the locals is theirs only by authority of the Israeli government. Israel is also the only country that has any claim on the area, and could annex it, but for various political (and IMO foolish) reasons it has not chosen to do so.
