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Down The Toilet
Without a very high level excuse from U.S. officals, this will escalate into a storm on Karzai’s residence.
Three more dead in Afghan anti-US protests
Three more people were killed in eastern
Afghanistan in protests against the alleged US abuse of the Koran, raising the death toll from three days of unrest to seven, officials said.
…
The demonstrations have now spread to 10 provinces in Afghanistan, with total casualties of at least seven dead and 76 injured, he added.
On Thursday there were repeated demonstrations in the capital Kabul as well as the provinces of Nangarhar, Parwan, Kapisa, Takhar and Logar.
The protests were sparked by allegations in Newsweek magazine last week that interrogators at the US military detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, desecrated a Koran by stuffing it down a toilet to rattle Muslim prisoners.
Newsweek reported:
interrogators, in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Qur’an down a toilet and led a detainee around with a collar and dog leash
While more protest rises in Pakistan, the parliament there is asking for legal action. The babble of a State Department spokesman will not be enough to calm this down.
lonesomeG,
The population of the EU doesn’t want, overall, to side with the US. That attitude may be seen as noble or insular, misguided. I think most would even agree to accepting Russia and boosting it, etc. They are happy with their lives (mostly, specially when they make comparisons..) and see no need to kill Muslims, invade Syria, etc. – or object to it on moral grounds.
I see Chirac (and others) position against the Iraq invasion as more a question of strategy than ultimate aim. Of course the Americans played that stance up as sneaky treachery and as resting on cupid commercial interests. True enough, in a way – strategy. Chirac and others preffered to leave Saddam in place and deal with him, and saw the danger and disruption invading Iraq would create. Cautious back benchers! Who can object to and critisise the actions of the front runner….America’s desperation is theirs, at heart, but they prefer not to reveal that, facing their citizens.
The EU does not have the military to play, that is threaten. It is still counting on Big Brother, but striving for independence nonetheless. The independence is tied up with the scope and size of the EU – the recent enlargment was too rapid, not well thought out, a scramble for economic expansion, territory, supported by the US, because the US can control the EU. The bigger it is, the better. And the EU imagines….who knows.
On another level, all (footnotes skipped) the Western elites are striving to dismantle social services, health care, pensions, etc. in favor of a dog eat dog society. On that point, they are aligned with the US, but are more than a bit ‘behind’. Many truly believe in the ‘knowledge society’ either because they think third world countries will take over production and the controls will remain in Europe, fat cats pushing the accounts, burbling about trickle down, better education, democratic advances, or because they see no other way to go – acceptance of historical inevitability – a need to compete to keep one’s head up and ensure survival. The march of the future! I think many, too, are simply puzzled and don’t know what to to do. They desperately want to reverse what is happening but can see no way foward, of for that matter, back.
Some – and they are in power – are getting their kicks, their contacts, their status, their invites, their life blood, from money making greed and TV type status. They are on the gravy train of their own making and competely adhere to to the spread of -quote- the free market and democracy. Jerome posted about the cancer of French umemployment, Chirac’s duplicity and multiple faces…it is quite typical.
I agree with the Asia Times. A waiting game, on the face of it…But I’m betting a round of drinks that the EU will stick with the US. The EU will never face up to the US squarely, it cannot. It will pussyfoot about, like a tired mistress who still has a hold, looking for other lovers on the side. It will bend to US demands, reluctanctly and hypocritically, pretending to false fears, as it cannot do better on its own and won’t move forward with new alliances, as the elite is not too concerned.
Eurasia is huge!
Posted by: Blackie | May 13 2005 20:24 utc | 17
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