Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Blame the US or the Afghanis? #@$% it, Let's Blame Newsweek!

Counterpunch has a good take on the "Blame Newsweek!" movement.

It's somewhat different than the Lawrence Auster take I mentioned earlier, because it denies that the Qu'Ran flushing stories were the main cause of the riots and suggests that US policy was to an extent the cause (as opposed to Mr. Auster, who seems to believe the storyline that the reported flushing was the cause of the riots, but that the riots demonstrate a lack of readiness for democracy in Afghanistan and Pakistan).

Either way, the riots suggest that the US project for the region is not going to go smoothly, whether because the US is behaving so offensively that it is creating the conditions for riots or because the Afghans and Pakis at like spolied children and are not ready for representative government. Whether you blame the current US government or the rioters for the riots, they do not bode well for the prospects of demopcracy breaking out any time soon - or, for that matter, of pro-American stability breaking out in Afghanistan or Pakistan (let alone Iraq).

So let's ignore the riots and blame everything on Newsweek, who forced, forced those poor Afghanis to riot.

That is all.

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