Scotty

Compared to what happened in Iran it IS stability.

The U.S. has an interest in the stability of that region. Withdrawing support and allowing Mubarak to be overthrown by - let's face facts here - someone VERY unlikely to have democracy and human rights in mind - is not going to be in either American interests or the interest of stability in the region. They encouraged South Korea to transition, and that worked out quite well. Mubarak simply ignored them, and the US didn't feel it could force the issue given the nature of the local turmoil.

There are tens of thousands of protestors but tens of millions of Egyptions, most of whom are not out protesting anything. Who is to say what they want or think or feel?

The problem with 'interim governments' in that part of the world is they tend to stck around a while, or else simply prepare the ground for their friends to take over. And in any event, what legitimacy does the 'opposition' have, when you get right down to it? Who exactly do they represent? Who are they? What experience do they have? What are their motivations? Who is behind them?

They have very cleary enunciated their desire for him to leave NOW, and are putting enormous pressure on him through a variety of channels to do so. So again, where is your argument? Your characterization of the way the U.S and U.K. feel about democracy has very little acquaintance with reality. On whose part? I said, that, if people were going to say that democracy as the will of the people ought to be respected regardless of what we think of the choices then we ought to respect those who wish Mubarak to stay just as much as those who think he should leave. I don't consider that to be particularly bizarre. One could, in Egypt, assess the likelihood of what will befall him and his people in a possibly chaotic aftermath of Mubarak leaving and make the choice that you'd rather have him stay. We might not think that choice was correct but it is THEIR choice. And what on earth do "American made weapons" have to do with that? If they were Chinese made weapons would that have some bearing? Some people are terming the Muslim Brotherhood moderates because they don't advocate violence. I think 'moderate' in terms of autocrats is that if you bitch about the president in a restaurant the secret police don't show up and drag you and your family off to prison to torture you all to death - as was the case in Iraq under Hussein, or the case in places like North Korea.

I disagree. There was no political intention, no consulting the forebrain at all. It seemed to be a raw,animal expresion of hate and rage. Obviously not. I was suggesting that the act of a single man, or a single organization which never consulted its populace was not the same as the act of a populace engaging in violence on a raw, personal level. I would certainly say the men who did such things were barbaric. But I would say that the men far away in Washington had an emotional distance from such things and probably had an ability to look at the broad view and ignore the dirty, nitty-gritty details. Note that this does not infer they are nice people. Calling people barbarians doesn't necessarily infer they're NOT nice people. It's not a moral judgement, so to speak, but an intellectual one.

If I look at a woman and call her beautiful it doesn't automatically mean I'm going to try to seduce her. And if I look at a people and call them barbarians it doesn't imply I'm going to start killing them either.

I disagree. Where you have a rogue state you have varying arguments about what to do about it. I seem to recall that sanctions were all the rage when the enemy was South Africa. Nobody then talked about this as harming children, or, in fact, causing the least disturbance among the ordinary populace. Suddenly, sanctions are cruel. But if the alternative was war, then perhaps not. It's not like sanctios were put in place with the deliberate intent of harming children. And there are plenty of arguments to be made that the regime was responsible for that more than the sanctions, as it had it within its power to do much to aliviate harm to the general population and chose not to bother. Why are you arguing against terming people barbarians when you yourself are, in effect, calling them primitives from the stone age?

Gee, thanks... Except the US HAS said "Mubarak has to go right now" So now where is your argument? This characterization of conservatives as selfish and thoughtless in comparsion to the caring and compassion of the liberal side has its exact counterpart in an equal cliche - namely that conservatives think about things in a hard headed way and liberals are all just naive, weepy and emotional waifs. In other words, the cliche 'the left cares, the right doesn't' is the equivilant of 'the right is shrewd, the left is stupid'. That is about as shallow as political discourse gets.

Okay, i went and looked. There was not a single instance there of when or where Canada had played an "honest broker" with regard to anything. All there was was breathlessness that Canada had, for once, voted "no" against a particularly one-sided denunciation of Israel. Which is basically all that has changed. We're doing that more often. I'm not sure what you mean by the above. The question asked was why some conservatives might be less than wholeheartedly in support of instant regime-change in Egypt. Saying it's not the West's call to make really doesn't seem relevent to that. We still have preferences, and we still express those preferences. And playing "might could" is what everyone does preceding most decisions, if one is thoughtful. So therefore, the answer is that some people considering current events in Egypt and past events in the middle east are less than enthusiastic about this because they believe that on the basis of their knowledge a regime change is likely to result in a worse government, not a better one.

Well, for my part, I had hoped that with the United States present in force there was an opportunity to set up something that more closely resembled a rights respecting democracy. After all, they did it in Japan. And South Korea has graduated, under decades of American occupation, to a true democracy as well. I knew democracy was a foreign flower in a very hostile environment, but with the US there I thought it might well prosper. I had not counted on the decade of guerrila war, both against the Americans and between the various religious factions throwing a wrench into the works. I think Egypt is probably actually a less hostile environment for democracy to grow and prosper than most places in the middle east. But Mubaraks leaving creates a huge power vacuum and I see no one prepared or organized and able to step into that vacuum except the Muslim Brotherhood and the mullahs. With time, that might be remedied. My preference thus is for Mubarak to hang on at least until September, to give time for various parties and groups to organize for an election. Even then, unless the Egyptian Army can play a stabilizing role similar to that the Turkish army has played over the years, I don't know if a moderately inclined democracy can survive without being taken over by Islamists.

People have been basking in self aggrandizing praise over Lester Pearson's activities for quite some time now. But I can't seem to recall a situation since then where Canada played any kind of important diplomatic role as an "honest broker". Perhaps you could produce a list...? Let's say the slight possibility that an actual democratic government with any degree of stability will emerge and have staying power might be trumped by the unmitigated disaster an Islamist inspired regime would likely produce in the region.

Perhaps conservatives are looking at the broader picture, and looking past the immediate visceral satisfaction of seeing a dictator brought down. Perhaps they remember Iran and are extremely leery of a repeat. Perhaps it's because no one has yet determined what sort of government might take the place of Mubarak, but the odds seem high it will be far less pro-west than the current regime, while at the same time have no greater respect for human rights.

The notion that if you consume more Internet traffic, you should pay more seems like a fair argument. The question then becomes, what is a fair price for those extra gigabytes of data? What is a fair price for internet service

Thus its in the interest of Bell and Rogers to charge the consumers $2-$5 per gig for a service which costs them between 1-3 cents to provide. And this is good?

I don't know how you can tell people that they're religious beliefs are wrong, especially when their religious beliefs include physical violence against anyone who questions their religious beliefs.

We pay among the highest, if not the highest prices in the world for our telecommunications services, be it cable, satellite TV, cell phone service or internet. Why should we not complain when the reason appears to be government regulation which allowed the creation of and sustains the existence of a business model were oligarchies control what we pay, and profit nicely from it. The same could be said about our banking industry, btw, enormousy profitable because banking regulations shield them from outside competition.

But if the people of a nation or culture believe these things, believe them strongly, should we not call them barbarians?

Perhaps because these are deliberate efforts with a political goal carried out by a functionary, as opposed to the masses of hysterical bloodshed and slaughter in the streets by ordinary people purely out of hate or becaues they heard a rumor that someone had dishonred the Koran or thrown a pig into a hindu temple or just out of hate. What was it, a hundred thousand or so died during independance, attacked by mobs and gunmen as they tried to make their way north out of what was to become modern India into what is now Pakistan? I recall reading an article about a riot in India a few years back. I believe it was an anti sikh riot, but it oculd have been anti-muslim, and the tale involved screaming men with swords and torches burning whole neighborhoods, throwing sikhs into fires, throwing babies into the air and beheading them with swords, etc. etc. How can you describe that as anything but barbarism?

The problem is that when the violent reactionaries can intimidate the rest of a society they basically get to set the agenda, the goals, the laws, and to guide the culture where they want it. Thus when Salman Taseer was murdered by one of his own bodyguards almost everyone else fled from even discussing the issue which got him killed - reforming the blasphemy law. Pakistan appears to be degenerating into chaos not because the majority of the population are violent fanatics, but because the violent fanatics are willing to do anything to push their agenda and the rest of the country - isn't.

I disagree completely. We are far more culturally enlightened today than we were even a few generations ago. .We're not talking about history, but if you did want to look into the history of the Indian subcontinent I think you'd find as much blood and slaughter as you could ever hope for. It has nothing to do with politics. If I read that some very high percentage of the population, say 80% in one recent posting, support stoning people to death for adultery, support death for changing religions, support dismembering people for stealing, and other such ridiculously primitive, barbaric notions, then I feel safe in suggesting that perhaps the term 'barbarism' is not being entirely misapplied.

I don't see how. We don't tend to get as emotional or impassioned about political issues, and we have a dedicated process to replacing the government in power in both nations which is widely respected and defended by all segments of society. There is NO movement I am aware of to change that, and no support for any drastic change. Democracy is bedrock over here.

I find it hard to believe the Egyptian elites would entrust their safety to a bunch of criminals. As I said, there might be some ringers in - probably are some ringers in with the crowd to encite, but the bulk of them don't appear to be criminals or secret police or paid demonstrators.

I didn't suggest the demonstration was spontaneous. I wouldn't doubt those whose bread is buttered by the current regime were behind its organization. But the majority of those who actually demonstrated to not appear to be people who were paid to do so, ie, a mass of brown shirts, as has been suggested. Most of the pro-Mubarak demonstrations were quite peaceful.

Why not? We had suggestions earlier that democracy was good, even if the people select Islamists to rule them. We can question their wisdom, even their sanity, but it's their choice. By the same token, perhaps other people prefer the stability of someone like Mubarak to the uncertainty and possibly chaotic violence of a sudden overthrow. As the link suggests, even some who want him gone feel that he has now given in and should be allowed to leave peacefully and with dignity. Are we to respect only the view of those who oppose him, even if they support Islamism?