The Telegraph UK: "What Is Happening In Egypt Is Not Our Business"

[Hissyspit]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100073950/what-is-happening-in-egypt-is-not-our-business

Peter Oborne is the Daily Telegraph's chief political commentator.

What is happening in Egypt is not our business

By Peter Oborne World Last updated: January 28th, 2011
444 Comments

An onion is used to revive an unconscious Egyptian protester (Photo: Getty)

- snip -

We must resist that temptation. The future of Egypt, Tunisia and other Middle Eastern countries is not up to us. Over the coming days we are likely to hear from a number of commentators who will claim that we must intervene in order to prevent victory for “international Islam” or some other bogeyman. It is very very important that we ignore these voices.

Remember the example of Algeria, where in 1991 an Islamic movement secured victory in democratic elections. The West refused to accept the result and, as a consequence, plunged that country into a decade of civil war in which more than 160,000 people were killed.

The lesson is straightforward: that America, Britain, France and other Western countries do not have a legitimate role in determining what kind of government Egypt and other countries around the world choose for themselves.

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[Hissyspit]

1. Jeff Cohen: "Fear Extreme Islamists in the Arab World? Blame Washington."

http://warisacrime.org/content/fear-extreme-islamists-arab-world-blame-washington

Fear Extreme Islamists in the Arab World? Blame Washington.

Submitted by davidswanson on Sat, 2011-01-29 23:08 Africa Asia Middle East
By Jeff Cohen

In the last year of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. questioned U.S. military interventions against progressive movements in the Third World by invoking a JFK quote: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

Were he alive to have witnessed the last three decades of U.S. foreign policy, King might update that quote by noting: “Those who make secular revolution impossible will make extreme Islamist revolution inevitable.”

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In Afghanistan, beginning before the Soviet invasion and evolving into the biggest CIA covert operation of the 1980s, the U.S. armed and trained native mujahedeen fighters -- some of whom went on to form the Taliban. To aid the mujahedeen, the U.S. recruited and brought to Afghanistan religious fanatics from the Arab world -- some of whom went on to form Al Qaeda. (Like these Washington geniuses, Israeli intelligence -- in a divide-and-conquer scheme aimed at combating secular leftist Palestinians -- covertly funded Islamist militants in the occupied territories who we now know as Hamas.)

This is hardly obscure history. Except in U.S. mainstream media.

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[OHdem10]

3. And guess who actually went to Afghanistan and fought with

Mujahedeen---yep the infamous Osama BinLaden.

[polly7]

2. Great article,

I wish I hadn't checked out the comments though, wth is wrong with some people. Ignorant and depressing.