Middle East Update: So Much For The Flowering Of Freedom And Democracy

(A short poorly put together post.) Recent developments in the Middle East do not appear to be good. Muammar Gaddafi was killed by the Libyan rebels. While it is a good thing that he is dead the government that will be replacing him won't be such a good thing.

The transitional government leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil called on Libyans to show "patience, honesty and tolerance" and eschew hatred as they embark on rebuilding the country at the end of an 8-month civil war.

Abdul-Jalil set out a vision for the post-Qaddafi future with an Islamist tint, saying that Islamic Sharia law would be the "basic source" of legislation in the country and that existing laws that contradict the teachings of Islam would be nullified.

In a gesture that showed his own piety, he urged Libyans not to express their joy by firing in the air, but rather to chant "Allahu Akbar," or God is Great. He then stepped aside and knelt to offer a brief prayer of thanks.

As noted in earlier post, some of the Libyan rebel leaders are actual terrorist that fought against America in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Islamists have won elections in Tunisia. And America is pulling its ambassador out of Syria.

America will be completely pulling out of Iraq, thus creating a political vacuum that Iran will take advantage of :

With Syria in turmoil, Iran on the march, a more isolated Israel, and Turkey’s ever-more ambivalent policies, now is the worst time to see a diminished U.S. influence in ensuring continued progress in Iraq. A total troop pullout will leave Iraqi security forces much more vulnerable to terrorism, sectarian conflict, and Iranian meddling, and it will leave them much less capable of battling al-Qaeda in Iraq and pro-Iranian Shia militias.

The Afghanistan president said that if there were a conflict between America and Pakistan, that he would side with Pakistan.

It looks like things aren't going so well in Egypt

In the eight months since the Egyptian Revolution, radical Islamic groups are rising to power, the army seems unwilling or unable to stop a growing rash of sectarian violence and the long-standing friendship between the U.S., Israel and Egypt is in serious question.

“I am the enemy of democracy,” Hesham al Ashry said in an interview with Fox News in his Cairo tailor shop. The devout Muslim is a main organizer in a group called the Salafists, which is working to bring Shariah law to Egypt. They, along with the Muslim Brotherhood, have risen quickly in the past eight months to fill the power vacuum left in post-Mubarak Egypt.

The past eight months have given a scary preview of what al Ashry’s opportunity might mean. It was a Salafy Cleric who called for the attack on the Israeli Embassy in Cario, the rocket and suicide bomb attack on a southern Israeli highway which killed 8 and injured more than 40 was launched from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, and it was the Army which intervened in a peaceful Coptic Christian protest killing more than two dozen.

“They (the army) are completely frantic, they are (overwhelmed) by these every week demonstrations…the country is going bust. The economy is going down. They are unable to get it to rest (stop),” Sawiris, who says there is only a 20% chance of next month’s election producing a liberal or secular Muslim government, said.

And it looks like the Vatican has been infected with communist. They are calling for a world central bank to help solve the unfair distribution of wealth around the world

The Vatican called on Monday for the establishment of a "global public authority" and a "central world bank" to rule over financial institutions that have become outdated and often ineffective in dealing fairly with crises.[...]

'The economic and financial crisis which the world is going through calls everyone, individuals and peoples, to examine in depth the principles and the cultural and moral values at the basis of social coexistence,' it said.

It condemned what it called "the idolatry of the market" as well as a "neo-liberal thinking" that it said looked exclusively at technical solutions to economic problems.

'In fact, the crisis has revealed behaviors like selfishness, collective greed and hoarding of goods on a great scale,' it said, adding that world economics needed an 'ethic of solidarity" among rich and poor nations.[...]

"In fact, one can see an emerging requirement for a body that will carry out the functions of a kind of 'central world bank' that regulates the flow and system of monetary exchanges similar to the national central banks," it said.

The document, which was being presented at a news conference later on Monday, acknowledged that such change would take years to put into place and was bound to encounter resistance.

"Of course, this transformation will be made at the cost of a gradual, balanced transfer of a part of each nation's powers to a world authority and to regional authorities, but this is necessary at a time when the dynamism of human society and the economy and the progress of technology are transcending borders, which are in fact already very eroded in a globalizes world."

I don't know how influential the Vatican is. I know at one point it was an influential force in world politics. Today, they might just be a bunch of people wearing clown suits that have no power or influence in the world. But their thought is the prevailing thought among world leaders today.

While the death of Gaddafi and the pulling out of American troops from Iraq might make Obama look good and increase his chances of winning reelection, these and other developments in the Middle East does not appear to be shaping up to be good for America, Israel, the West, or freedom in general. What has been happening in the Middle East is that America has been supporting its enemies whether by fighting a war for them, giving them money, or handing a country to our enemies. So much for the flowering of "democracy" in the Middle East.