IOKIYAR

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/001819.html

IOKIYAR
By Jonathan Schwartz, A Tiny Revolution


Imagine there were a foreign politician who said:



Next, imagine a Democratic president and vice president met with him on multiple occasions and spoke of their admiration for his "courageous stand." And that prominent liberal think tanks invited him to give high-profile speeches.

And then: imagine the weeks of wall-to-wall shrieking on every cable show in America. Imagine how it could be heard on Mars. Imagine the endless, furious denunciations by every Republican politician with a mouth. Imagine the mass resignations, public disavowals and groveling apologies. Imagine how the incident would be woven forevermore into a narrative about the need for Democrats to assure America every day until the end of time they had left behind their America-hating, anti-Semitic, terrorist-loving ways.

None of this happened, of course. Because while Lebanese politician Walid Jumblatt has said all these things, he's only met with a Republican president, George W. Bush (last February). And he's only met, on multiple occasions, with a Republican Vice President, Dick Cheney. (Cheney followed Jumblatt onstage just last week, which is when he took the opportunity to praise Jumblatt's "courageous stand.") And Jumblatt has only been feted by prominent conservative think tanks, such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

It's a measure of the absolute conservative dominance of the media and entire political system that not only is this all OK, almost no one is even aware of it. Certainly the Democrats aren't; I assume they haven't read up on it because they're too busy denouncing MoveOn and forcing Pete Stark to lick George Bush's boots.

Or the crap that Muamar Qaddafi likes to spout every now and again.

They're all allies, too.

In Lebanon, a lot of positions are hereditary. Sure, they have elections, but the results are a foregone conclusion.

Here's the worst bit--Walid there is the LEFTIST in the bunch. I shit you not.



Walid Jumblatt


Walid Jumblatt is the leader of Lebanon's most powerful Druze clan and heir to a leftist political dynasty based around the Progressive Socialist Party.

He is seen by many as the country's political weathervane - consistently emerging on the winning side through the twists and turns of the 1975-90 civil war and its troubled aftermath.

He was a supporter of Syria after the war but, since the death of strongman Hafez al-Assad in 2000, he has campaigned for Damascus to relinquish control. Jumblatt has spoken openly of the fear that he - like murdered former PM Rafik Hariri - may face assassination because of this stance.

He not only commands the loyalty of members of the Druze community - a secretive offshoot of Shia Islam whose adherents make up about 10% of the population - but is admired by members of other religious minorities in Lebanon. ....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4348129.stm


Things aren't always what they seem....

will finally reach the nostrils of our complacent and indifferent media outlets, and from them to the people, who are busy trying to think of something else.