Arab Democracy in 2011

In 1981 the withdrawal of Russian support led to dictators being deposed across Eastern Europe.  In 2011 dictators were deposed or challenged across the Arab world, perhaps thanks to social media and satellite TV channels enabling communication despite their government's censorship.

Dictators deposed in 2011

Ben Ali 23 years in Tunisia deposed Jan 14^th
Hosni Mubarek 30 years in Egypt deposed Feb 11^th

Dictatorships still to go as of that year

Ali Abdullah Saleh 32 years in Yemen
Muammar Gaddafi 42 years in Libya
Baath Party 41 years in Syria
Abdelaziz Bouteflika 12 years in Algeria

Plus these “Democracies” in which the Monarch has vast powers:

• Morocco
• Jordan
• Kuwait.

There are also the following absolute monarchies:

• Al Khalifa family in Bahrain
• Al Saud family in Saudi Arabia
• Al Thani family in Qatar
• Qaboos bin Said Al Said family in Oman
• Seven absolute monarchies in United Arab Emirates.

And these democracies which are under foreign occupation:

• Palestinian territories (occupied by Israel)
• Iraq (occupied by US).

And these partial democracies :

• Lebanon (constitution sets limits to avoid sectarianism)
• Ismail Guelleh in Djibouti (scrapped 2 term limit so could stand again).

And these failed states:

• Somalia
• Sudan (South and North separating).

These two Arab countries are regarded as democracies:

• Comoros
• Mauritania (though opposition claim electoral fraud by general who led coup and then won subsequent election).

Even allowing for Western bias it seems there is much further fro the arab world to go.

How the Repubicans win elections

The Republicans have used dirty tactics to beat the Democrats for the past 20 years. How the Republicans Win by Robert Parry describes their successes and their unfortunately all-too-rare failures.
It started as so much that's bad has with the Republican Nixon. In 1968, Nixon's Presidential campaign team asked the US ambassador in Vietnam to delay the conclusion of peace talks with the Viet Cong to help him win the upcoming US presidential race in which he was standing againt the Democratic incumbent President Lyndon Johnson. The Democrats knew this, but even when they subsequently lost, they did not reveal Nixon’s actions out of concern that it would further divide the country.
In the 1972 election, Nixon was re-elected using his clandestine bugging operations that were revealed later that year when Nixon's operatives (the "plumbers") were caught red-handed planting bugs in the Democrat's Watergate building offices. The reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward made certain that this was loudly reported.
In 1980, the Democratic incumbent President Jimmy Carter was defeated by Republican Ronald Reagan. The republicans had agreed with the Iranians an exchange of weapons for their US hostages, but they has asked that the release should not be until after the Presidential election. The exchange duly happened after Carter left office making Carter look like a loser, and letting newly elected President Reagan kick off his administration by welcoming the hostages home. Again the Democrats smelt a rat but didn't have sufficient evidence to accuse the Republicans, and when they did have the evidence in 1992, they backed off to keep bipartisan relationships from being threatened.
In 1988, the Republican George Bush (the elder) used the release on probation of convicted rapist Willie Horton and his subsequent reoffense to defeat his democratic opponent Governor Dukakis.
In 1992, Bush tried illegally to find dirt on his Democratic opponent Bill Clinton in his private passport details. Bush was unsuccessful and Bill Clinton was elected President, and re-elected in 1996.
In 1998, the Republicans used President Clinton's stretching of the truth about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky to impeach him, but did not get the require majority in the senate to remove him from the Presidency.
In 2000, George Bush (the younger), working with his brother Florida Governor Jeb Bush's in his state of Florida, defined enough ballots with “hanging chads" as spoiled to defeat his Democratic opponent Al Gore.
In 2004, Bush mounted a smear campaign against his Democratic candidate opponent John Kerry using a supposedly independent swiftboat veteran’s organisation to question Kerry's honesty and patriotism. Then, in a departure from the norm it was Bin Laden and not the Republicans who finished Kerry's campaign off, by using a pre election video to frighten more US Voters into voting for Bush.
Thankfully the Republicans did not land any successful punches with Obama in 2008.
The Republicans had encouraged the Georgians to attack the Russians, which led to pictures of Russian tanks driving across American TV Screens, a very unhappy sight for most Americans which might have been expected to drive some of them to support the Republican McCain. In a previous post I showed how McCain and the republican Bush administration made this happen. The idea was that McCain would look strong with the swiftness and ferocity of his response, while obama would prevaricate and look bad. But it didn’t work as Obama joined McCain in speaking strongly for the Georgians and against the Russians.
Obama went on to be elected, restoring my faith both in democracy and to some extent in America.

Obama, Gallup, and other pollsters

The latest gallup poll of the American Presidential race, and Gallups comments, make interesting reading. Taken between Aug 28-30, including two days since the close of the Democratic National Convention, it finds Barack Obama with a six percentage point lead over John McCain in the presidential contest, 48% to 42%. A week ago the race was about tied.

CBS news have just published a poll showing Obama 8% ahead of McCain, Rasmussen show Obama 6 points ahead, and HotlineFD 9 points ahead. I think it can safely be assumed that Obama has just experienced a substantial surge.

Gallup often records higher numbers earlier for Obama than other pollsters. Rasmussen and the pollsters usually show these higher numbers for Obama a few days later than gallup. I suspect that this pattern is because Gallup, unlike other pollsters, call cellphones as well as calling landlines to get peoples opinions. This means that Gallup immediately get through to cellphone users still at work or post work play, and record their opinions. These are predominately young Obama supporters (my 70 year old mum can’t use a mobile phone). Rasmussen and the other pollsters only get through to the younger cellphone users a few days later via their landlines when they catch them in, at which point these other pollsters start to record numbers similar to Gallup.

John McCain rides South Ossetia to a lead in the polls

As I mentioned in a previous post, Georgia first attacked South Ossetia ten years ago after South Ossetians expressed a stronger desire to be part of the Russian Federation than part of Georgia. Since then South Ossetia has been recognised as virtually independant, with Georgian and Russian peacekeepers. When Georgia attacked South Ossetia a few days ago, a number of these Russian peacekeepers were killed in the attack. The reaction of the Russians to Georgia's war in South Ossetia seems understandable. But why are the US and UK papers discussing the re-opening of the cold war, rather than recognising how the situation was created, and the justified grievance on the Russian side?

Today John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate for American President said these words about his Democratic opponent Barack Obama: "Behind all of these claims and positions by Senator Obama lies the ambition to be president. What’s less apparent is the judgment to be commander in chief. And in matters of national security, good judgment will be at a premium in the term of the next president — as we were all reminded ten days ago by events in the nation of Georgia."

So McCain gets to say could once again that he would make a better commander in chief than Obama, only this time in between footage of Russian tanks rolling across American screens. The effect has been predictable. After weeks of Obama leading McCain by several points in the race, the two candidates within the past few days have become tied in the opinion polls. The Republican Presidential administration of George Bush must given the Georgians the green light to move against the Russians as they would not have acted without first getting US suppost.

In his first statement after the invasion, McCain took a uniquely agressive stance towards Russia. Obama took a more cautious view. Even George Bush, a man not known for his caution, called on both sides to negotiate. Meanwhile a McCain adviser suggested that Obama’s initial statement constituted appeasement.

John McCain may have encouraged the Georgians to invade South Ossetia through his chief foreign policy advisor, who was also a strategic adviser for the Georgia government.

The first South Ossetian war and Western reporting

In 1991 Georgia attacked South Ossetia for choosing to be part of the Russian federation rather than part of Georgia. That war led to South Ossetia becoming a virtually independent state in 1992, protected by Russian and Georgian peacekeepers.

Georgia's president reignited this war a few days ago when he launched another attack. The new attack by Georgia (population 4.6 million) on South Ossetia (population 70,000) killed a number of Russian peacekeepers and countless South Ossetians. The US and the UK with their newfound respect for national sovereignty chose to take plucky little Georgia's side.

It's pretty poor newspaper reporting that none of this is mentioned in the miles of newsprint dedicated to South Ossetia in the past few days, but instead we have a lot of rubbish about the Russians launching a new cold war. I think I know why the Russians are so pissed off!

We should all be deeply ashamed at the behaviour of our governments. The American government are republicans in the middle of a presidential election, and so they are behaving a little crazy, but what's our own government's excuse here in the UK?

John Simpson was in Georgia during the first war and covers his Georgian experiences in one of his fantastic books which I think was "Strange Places Questionable People". I read it a few years ago. He gives a summary of the first South Ossetian war here.