WhatFinger


Why calls for democracy in the Middle East can no longer be taken seriously

The Arab Spring Hollows Out



America woke up on Friday morning to more images of adult children torching things and calling for death on several continents over a ridiculous and poorly made movie that mocks the religion of Islam. Shortly after, President Obama and Hillary Clinton expressed their admiration for murdered ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens as his body arrived back in the United States.
It was nice how they talked of his bravery, but I can only sit here and wonder what the point of any of this is. Stevens died trying to bring freedom to Libya and worked tirelessly in helping its citizens oust Muammar Qaddafi, I get this and I admire him greatly. I also understand how so many people were inspired by the Egyptian protests and have stood by the revolution even as its aftershocks become more disgusting by the hour. They believe all human beings deserve freedom and the right to chart their own future. But if Qaddafi and Mubarak were terrible dictators who needed to go, I want to know why in the name of all human rights and the real “war on women” the United States is granting a visa to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak yet again at the UN General Assembly, complete with security brought to him by American taxpayers. As crazy as it sounds, Americans will be paying to protect Ahmadinejad even though the same tax dollars were used to battle Qaddafi last year in a seven-month bombing campaign that climaxed with the Libyan dictator's death and Hillary Clinton's declaration of “we came, we saw, he died.” Things will be a lot easier for Ahmadinejad though. In just over a week, the ugly theocratic puppet will probably deliver another stupid diatribe on an international stage, one that will almost certainly laud the madness in Egypt, Libya, and beyond while praising the “bravery” of the protesters as the Iranian people remain silenced, banned from taking to the streets under the threat of violence, and faced by a government that executes more people per capita than any society on earth. There is absolutely nothing Qaddafi and Mubarak have done to their innocent citizens that Ahmadinejad and his clerical masters have not done to theirs, so how could the Obama Administration and the UN allow such hypocrisy?

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None of this — the “Arab Spring”, calls for democracy in the Middle East, and other false hope — can be taken seriously anymore. It should sadden us all that an American Ambassador died trying to rebuild Libya after Qaddafi’s overthrow, but the government who entrusted him to do so is allowing a regime figurehead significantly worse than Qaddafi onto American soil (and most likely into a luxury hotel) to speak as the legitimate representation of the Iranian people. Since the crackdown that followed the fraudulent Iranian election and subsequent street protests back in 2009, Ahmadinejad has been to the US almost half a dozen times; all this while the UN and the Obama Administration have actively tried to force out leaders who step on the rights of their citizens to stay in power. Mubarak, Qaddafi, and the former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo are a few. President Obama, in the midst of all the politics and incompetence that are suffocating the United States, I wish you would speak out against this. Show that you can be a leader and that your claims of “advancing freedom” you made at the Democratic National Convention are real and not just an attempt to gain votes and support. This is the time for you to step in. If you were saddened by the errant arrest of a Harvard professor, you should be in tears over the arrival and legitimization of a cruel dictatorship in the nation you claim to fight for. Given the situation in the world, denying Ahmadinejad a visit to the US is not enough, actually. If justice really existed, he would be approved for entry into the US and then taken into custody upon arrival at the airport — where the names of some of his regime’s victims would be read out to him before being hauled away in a police van. If these hopes can inspire a writer with an overactive imagination, they should burn with a far deeper passion in the heart of a president.


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Corey Hunt -- Bio and Archives

Corey Hunt is a freelance journalist, blogger, and human rights activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Born in Concord, Massachusetts, he grew up in New Hampshire and moved to California at the age of 16. He recently spent time with Kurdish Peshmerga forces in northern Iraq and with refugees on the Turkey-Syria border, near the flashpoint city of Kobane. He has also authored numerous drug war dispatches from Mexico and studied Islam while visiting both India and Nepal. Other travels he has undertaken include Colombia, Venezuela, and Sri Lanka. He is a vigorous supporter of Iranian democracy, especially since 2009. His website can be found at coreyhunt.wordpress.com.


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