Posted on 05/16/2012 12:26:21 PM PDT by robowombat
Bush: 'Arab Spring' Is ‘Broadest Challenge to Authoritarian Rule Since Collapse of Soviet Communism’ By Elizabeth Harrington May 15, 2012
(CNSNews.com) – Former President George W. Bush said Tuesday that the Arab Spring is “the broadest challenge to authoritarian rule since the collapse of Soviet Communism."
“These are extraordinary times in the history of freedom,” Bush said in a speech in Washington, D.C., sponsored by his presidential foundation, the George W. Bush Institute.
“In the Arab Spring we have seen the broadest challenge to authoritarian rule since the collapse of Soviet communism," Bush said. "Great change has come to a region where many thought it impossible.
“The idea that Arab people are somehow content with oppression has been discredited forever," Bush said. "Yet we’ve also seen instability, uncertainty, and the revenge of brutal rulers. The collapse of an old order can unleash resentments and power struggles that a new order is not yet prepared to handle.”
“Freedom is a powerful force,” Bush said, “but it does not advance on wheels of historical inevitability.” The event at which Bush spoke was entitled “Celebration of Human Freedom.”
While praising the Arab Spring, Bush said its critics adhere to a foreign policy that is “not realistic.”
“Some look at the risks inherent in democratic change, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, and find the dangers too great,” Bush said. “America, they argue, should be content with supporting the flawed leaders they know, in the name of stability.”
“But in the long run this foreign policy approach is not realistic,” he said. “It is not realistic to presume the so-called stability enhances our national security. Nor is it within the power of America to indefinitely preserve the old order, which is inherently unstable.”
Two years after Bush left office, the Arab Spring uprisings swept across the Middle East, leading to major unrest in Syria, Tunisia, Jordan, and Yemen, and the toppling of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.
According to a report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the Egyptian parliamentary elections in January resulted in a massive victory for Islamist parties.
“Of the 498 elected seats, Islamists of varying sorts control nearly 70%, with the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP)-led Democratic Alliance controlling the most at 47% (235 total),” the Feb. 8 report stated. “The Islamist Alliance-list led by the Salafist Nour Party came second with 25% (125 seats).”
“Salafists,” the report states, “who take a conservative, literalist approach to interpreting the Koran, are expected to focus on infusing Islam into domestic and foreign policies.”
Islamist Abdel Moneim Aboul-Fotouh, a former Muslim Brotherhood leader, is also a frontrunner in the upcoming Egyptian presidential election, which will be held on May 23. Abourl-Fotouh called Israel an “enemy” in a televised presidential debate last week, and has said a 1978 peace agreement with Israel is a threat to national security and should be revised.
The former president’s remarks came a day after a poll found that 61 percent of Egyptians want to abandon the Egypt-Israel peace treaty that has been in place for over 30 years, up from 54 percent a year ago.
President Bush made his remarks while announcing the launch of his foundation’s Freedom Collection, which will highlight the stories of dissidents around the world struggling for liberty and democracy.
“America does not get to choose if a freedom revolution should begin or end in the Middle East or elsewhere,” Bush said. “It only gets to choose which side it is on.”
“The tactics of promoting freedom will vary case by case, but America’s message should ring clear and strong,” he said, “we stand for freedom and for the institutions and habits that make freedom work for everyone.”
In his second inaugural address on Jan. 20 2005 Bush said, “We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.”
“So it is the policy of the United States," he added, "to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."
Mr. Bush, have you ever been to Jihadwatch?
Working toward the Caliphate, with W and Zer0 helping. Oh and Hillary too, sneaking around behind the scenes.
When we have the Caliphate, we’ll all remember the peaceful bliss of 1915-1918, or even ‘39 to ‘45.
Dear Bush,
You keep using this word “Freedom”.
I do not think it means, what you think it means.
About what I’d expect from George “Islam is a religion of peace/we all worship the same God” Bush. Frankly, I don’t “miss him yet”.
George H. W. Bush is clueless. How did he ever get elected President?
I think Cheney was better than Bush with better instincts as to the nature of a fight. But Cheney wasn't all that good either, nor in the final analysis was he much of a realist. The enemy was in Afghanistan. the job was not finished, but Cheney was frantic to attack Iraq where Saddam Hussein was a de facto American ally in the struggle against al Qaeda. Not smart nor realistic.
***“These are extraordinary times in the history of freedom,”***
Guess you haven’t noticed, Mr. Bush, but since you left office these United States are anything but free. Care to comment publically on that?
War is not the only issue to fault Bush he was a pussy period when dealing with the Rats, and media.
GW has not changed a bit — he still claims that Islam is a ROP.
And Bush was a big spender who also had a terrible disinclination to secure our Southern border.
Religion of PeaceML/NJ
The Arab Spring is a broad challenge to authoritarian rule by totalitarians. Any movement intended to expand the dominion of Islam should be shunned by the United States.
Twelve years or so ago, I really loved Bush, and even today I give him credit for what he did to keep this country safe. But aside from that, I really don't think the man has a clue.
“....Sharia-loving society that will treat women like dirt, along with anyone that doesn’t agree with them.”
.
Every time sharia law is mentioned, the bad treatment of women is brought up.
I personally don’t give a damn how they treat their women — that’s their business. These same maltreated muslim women hate non-muslims as much as their husbands do.
What concerns me foremost is how Islam treats the rest of the world because, based on historical facts, Islam has NEVER been able live in peace with those of a different religion than theirs.
Against a backdrop of Christians being raped and murdered and churches being destroyed, Jewish civilians being attacked, even priceless antiquities being destroyed by savage forces, he yammers on about "being on the right side."
The “Arab Spring” was simply the substitution of one authoritarian rule for another authoritarian rule. For years, the Egyptian Army was the power behind the regime that governed Egypt. Now the Egyptian army has been thrust aside for the Muslim Brotherhood, not at all a benign, warm-fuzzy instrument for a representative republic. The Muslim Brotherhood is the original backer of groups like al-Qaeda and the PLO, and in fact both those franchises have been largely folded back into the Brotherhood.
The Muslim Brotherhood is at its heart an ideology based firmly on a literal application of the verses of the Koran, and with a large measure of Arabic socialism thrown in. It is only loosely a theocratic organization, rationalizing its use of force upon its own membership in the name of some kind of intellectual purity, the true heirs of the defunct Nationalist Socialist Working-mans’ Party that once held supreme in Germany.
Islam may not be the enemy, but so long as that religion allows itself to be used as cover for thugs and brutal dictatorial Maximum Leaders, they should be treated as an enabler for the enemy and a collaborator.
And remember, it is all right for them to lie and deceive those who are non-Muslim, or even other Muslims if their objective demands the use of taqqiya. Apparently George W. Bush fell for it.
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