Thursday
Dec162004
WashPost Editorial
By 
Josh Stacher
Josh Stacher
Yesterday the Post published an editorial entitled "Straight Talk".
It seems to getting some play over here. People keep mentioning it to me.
Frankly, it seems a bit hostile and unrepresentative of the current situation. Also dispite criticizing the US Admin for not financially backing reform, the blame was laid on the regimes.
Also, I am unsure if the whole civil society orgs speaking "in the presence of the regimes while the most powerful nation in the world" watched is all that important or translatable into future reform.
Interested to see what you all think
It seems to getting some play over here. People keep mentioning it to me.
Frankly, it seems a bit hostile and unrepresentative of the current situation. Also dispite criticizing the US Admin for not financially backing reform, the blame was laid on the regimes.
Also, I am unsure if the whole civil society orgs speaking "in the presence of the regimes while the most powerful nation in the world" watched is all that important or translatable into future reform.
Interested to see what you all think
Reader Comments (4)
I think it's recycled dog food.
There's nothing in there that we don't already know - and I think it's pretty obvious that Bush needs to put his money where his mouth is. We all know that won't happen, and the author seems to know that just as well.
I don't know...it could be because I hate 'registration required' websites.
Oh, the WaPo is just trying desperately to preserve its credibility ... at the same time, there's also a hope that the Forum for the Future will be akin to the Helsinki Accords in that they lay down a marker, a promise that civil society groups can point to and try to keep the regimes honest.
If the WaPo is trying to preserve the hard line they took a couple of years ago when they slammed Gamal Mubarak after his visit to the US, this is relatively lame. But that original article about Gamal -- one of the first debunking of Gamal-is-a-reformist that appeared in the Western press -- was great.
One thing: why do they always single out Egypt and Mubarak? There's plenty to say about the other Arab dictators, after all. The one that tops my personal list in Ben Ali.
As for it "getting some play over here" I've noticed over the years that whenever Thomas Friedman writes something people think it means the US is being critical. Well, guess what? While the American press and many think tanks and academics have been very critical of the situation in the Arab world, the US government really hasn't -- despite all the talk of reform. US Ambassador to Egypt David Welch, last time I saw him at AUC, answered a question about why he did not take a stronger stance on human rights in Egypt, answered "we don't put pressure on friends." Egyptians need to be more aware that the editorial board of the WaPo is not the equivalent of Ibrahim Nafie, the editor of Al Ahram, who can credibly be said to represent the regime's viewpoint.
That's a good point, Issandr. Likewise, people need to understand that William Kristol and the Atlantic Monthly aren't representatives of the US gov't either, though they do try to influence it. I recently saw an article based on Kristol's Weekly Standard piece alleging that the US was gearing up to attack Syria; I saw another based on James Fallows' latest Atlantic Monthly article alleging that the U.S. was wargaming an invasion of Iran. None of which is to say that those things won't happen ... but they are by no means official U.S. gov't positions.