Metal Reviews

And how many of those "peaceful" demonstrators are pelting rocks at police?

And how many more are taking it as an excuse to loot (I saw this in Croatia as a 10year old kid just before the war started. I went out to get some stuff from the shop and on the way bypassed people looting newstands and cafes.

One old guy was asking people how they could do this.

One of the looters said: "they're Serb owned shops?"

The old guy responded that they were all Croat or government owned. I ran off as I thought the cops would come around soon.

It all turned to shit after that and I spent a year in a bomb shelter as the Serbs started their siege of our city.)

And even more scarily how many of them are Islamist agitators working for fundamentalist groups?

Egypt and Yemen (as well as Algeria) are well known as containing large terror networks and for the populace (or at least a large minority) being sympathetic to Al Qaeda and other terror groups and fundamentalist organisations.

Funny that you Americans are anti-dictators or anti-intervention given your history of shoving your noses in everyone's business, supporting dictators to further your national interests and trying to wipe out the indgenous population of the north of the continent so you could steal their resources.

Your whole society and all your wealth is built on the plunder and blood of others.

Nothing wrong with that as it's the way it works.

What? For someone so suspicious of politicians, you do talk some horseshit. No state has a right to shoot people for throwing rocks at its instruments of terror. This applies to Bahrain, to Israel, to America, to everywhere. And this 'choice' between dictatorship or radical Islam is bollocks of the highest order - the protests in Egypt saw muslims, christians, atheists, men and women come out to demonstrate against a government that they all hated, and stereotyping them as Al Quada supporters is bullshit. People in the Arab world deserve a chance at democracy, not condescending shite about how they can't cope with it.

And being from a certain country does not mean that you agree with every foreign policy decision taken throughout its entire fucking history. I'm British, for what it's worth, not American.

If the laws of a country allow it to open fire on citizens engaged in illegal activities, then it does have a right.

By the same logic, no state has the right to incarcerate people for disobeying the law either be it throwing rocks at police (or passing motorists) or for fraud or murder. Police could not shoot criminals endangering the public either.

The state has a right to do what is enshrined in it's laws.




They can have their democracy. And the fundamentalists will take over as they nearly always do in the Muslim world.

Once things have settled down and the various parties in Egypt, Tunisia etc get to pushing their agendas, we'll see the rise of the fundamentalists.

It's happened in Malaysia, in Nigeria, in Iraq and in Turkey. It was happening in Pakistan too with both the dictators and democrats becoming more Islamist. Only place it hasn't happened is Indonesia where their democracy has been strangely efficient for a country with a majority of muslims.

Muslim Brotherhood is after all Egypt's most powerful opposition group.

Same thing - remember your Empire?

Again you're whole society was built on conquest, slavery and exploitation.

It's easy for you to talk about liberal democracy and freedom now that your ancestors did the dirty work and made the country rich.

So Nazi Germany was right because it was following its laws? Bullshit. The rule of law has limits, such as when the state becomes a tyrant, as here. We'll see re Muslims and democracy - I think it's pretty bigoted of you to assume that they're incapable, as you mention, with the example of Indonesia a shining example. And again, being from a country doesn't mean you agree with everything it's done.

Pelting rocks is peaceful compared to what they are up against. Responding with rocks against tear gas, bean bag shot guns and riot police is a respectful way of dealing with barbaric paramilitary forces. Knowing how most of the world frames Muslims you figured they would be carrying AKs and settting up IEDs around their perimeter; shouldn't we be lucky they just threw rocks.
So if radical fundamentalist are amongst the people fighting for actual democracy, the whole move for transparency being done by these people should be ignored. Why do you think these people turn to terrorist organizations? For fun? Why does the West not question what these peoples' lives are like that they would rather blow themselves up then to continue living under the conditions which they live in?

Because I've had a stake in all the policy matters of my country for the last 300 years not to mention even an input in the last three years? I know where my wealth and luxuries come from. And there is something wrong with that.

The Muslim Brotherhood should have 20% of the parlimentary seats if Mubarak had recognized them. 20% is not a majority. If these people are not given alternatives to the Brotherhood than they will only galvanize that 20% into a majority. But why should we think that given freedom they will remain in support of only one oppositional party when there is the possibility for countless others.

It's also really easy to be critical of liberal democracy and to see how it has fucked over everyone else when you've met those others who are exploited while seeing everything in your own country that these people would be envious of. Don't assume we're just naive because we live in the West.

Tyranny is in the eye of the beholder.

Americans view tyranny as trying to take away automatic weapons away while Australians view government involvement in nearly every facet of life as perfectly acceptable and in fact demand it. Singapore is even more tyrnanical but people prefer it that way.

Egypt is tyrannical by American standards as was Tunisia but no where even close to say Saudi Arabia.

The rule of law must be respected.

Once you declare one law as breakable, you risk making all laws irrelevant.

This is what usually happens during and after revolutions. Only real exceptions being the anti-Communist revolutions where law and order was maintained because the West was there to fill the vacuum.



Problem with Islam is that it does not recognise separation of church and state. Indeed it provides it's own legal code (Sharia Law).

Look at the issues they're habing in Pakistan with "non-believers" being killed or honour killings of women and the perpetrators being released or not even charged as they acted according to Sharia law and not secular law.

They've had these sort of issues in Jordan too and Sharia law is the corner stone of Saudi, Iranian and some other countries too.

Even Turkey is starting to slide towards Islamism and discrimination against Chinese and Indians has increased in Malaysia since they became more democratic.

And under Sharia Law, respect for women or non-Islamic minorities is difficult if not impossible to create.

Dictators are lot better at minimising sharia law than democrats who are reliant on public votes.



I might be wrong but history has so far been supportive of the above observations.

People were being removed from their homes by the government. If you went to prison, you were guaranteed to be tortured, sodomized and electrocuted. It's security levels were the highest of any country in order to prevent dissidence against the state. Foreigners who lived there feared becoming citizens, fighting for work visas, in order to maintain their international asylum from Egypt's state while working in the country. How is that not tyrannical? Obviously, it isn't just American standards insofar as these two countries' populaces have also deemed it to be tyrannical.

CIA was kidnapping people from all around the world and sending them to Uzbekistan and Egypt for interrogation (e.g. ulawful kindnapping and torture of German citizen Khaled el-Masri).

Should we topple the US Government for this?

Or for executions of convicted felons?

The execution of convicted felons is not comparable insofar as often Egypt did not need a reason and it's amount of surveillance was comparable to a totalitarian state, meaning that the law became only a facade to quell dissent.

The U.S. gov't shouldn't be toppled for the CIA's actions insofar as it wasn't doing this to it's own citizens. It should be cried for war crimes but revolution isn't called for until the citizens become the ones subjected to oppression. Oppressing other people's citizens should be dealt with in another way. Which the U.S. does need to be held accountable for. I'm also not saying that the U.S. gov't shouldn't be overthrown either. I could list a laundry loads worth of stains that would be worthy of usurping power from the cocksuckers in D.C.

Such a golden flood of teary-eyed bullshit.
You obviously are either very naive or just plain ignorant of not only human nature, but history and geopolitical realities, as well.
What's most fascinating about this sourly steaming puddle of stale vomit is that while you constantly claim that any political argument that is not of a leftist bent is nothing but beck / limbaugh talking points redux, your entire post is exactly the type of nonsense one would find on alternet or the daily kos; I understand that the notion of the big mean, perpetually evil west (translation: evil white men, for those too cowardly to just up and say it) as the boogeyman is the perennial kampus kraze, (and I'll bet it scores points with your girlfriend, am I right?) so I'll give a certain level of "pass" due to you being young and idealistic, for make no mistake this threadbare argument of "the evil west fucking over every other continent for it's own benefit as if it is uniquely exclusive to the west" garbage is something only one with the mind of a child (a spolied, whiny one, at that) could produce.
But just once, I'd like to see a little critical thought from a product of our so-called higher education system, i.e, left-wing conformity factories.
Polly wanna cracker?

Tell you what. Why don't you put your plastic platitudes cloaked in faux outrage to the test; if you use anything that is petroleum based, ergo, a result of the foriegn policy you so despise; if you enjoy any of the luxuries, oppurtunitiess and benefits that living in this country has to offer; not to mention it's infrastructure; if you enjoy the ability to pursue whatever happiness and success you wish to pursue (in short; unless you are living off the land somewhere in the mountains of Wyoming, sans modern luxuries), than every single letter of every single word you have slobbered out in the post above oozes with the absolute worst hypocrisy.
So give them all up, and if you are feeling especially strong, renounce your citizenship. After all it is soaked in the blood and pain of others, is it not?

So put your money where your mouth is, or stop whining like the spolied, ungrateful little brat you are. Seriously, it's like some little snotnose complaining that his corporate lawyer daddy got rich by exploiting others, while holding his greasy little hand out for more (blood)money without giving it a second thought.
But guys like you never do; you continue to buy your petroleum based toys, and otherwise reap every single benefit that you are given (which according to you, is only the result of "fucking over" everybody else, right?) by living in this country and you continue keep yourselves afloat on your own smug sense of self deluding satisfaction; Sorry, champ, but you're living a lie. It's time you realized this.

Oh, and you'll excuse me for not exactly being concerned about whether or not you approve of my deliberately snarky "rant" in the Burzum thread, since, as your above exercise in parrot-like hypocrisy shows, your credibilty in such matters is less than zero.

Good day.

Wait, I thought only the evil west was fucking over brown people?

Sounds to me like they are and have always been pretty handily fucked by their own.
But that's not exactly en vogue to state, is it?

I'd like to point out the ties between Mubarak and the West. He has been nothing more than a puppet ruler for the West, loathed by his own people but supported by outside forces. If the social networking sites hadn't been there, who knows what brutality he would've reigned on those people only to be unmentioned by the global press. If anything, Western politicians' response to such an adamantly populist movement by the people is despicable. The framing of any attempts at democracy in the Middle East as only promoting the solidification of Islamic control is repulsive considering the wars we've waged for the last ten years have been always founded upon the possibility of democracy in an Islamic state. We condemn when things aren't done our way even if they have the same goals in mind.

We basically bribed him to keep peace with Israel, is what it boils down to. To support the process of "democracy" does not necessarilly mean the results have to be embraced.
We should not have a military presence there at all, in my view, so you're preaching to the choir.
But, the reality is, there are unsavory characters on the world stage (always have been and always will be), and we have to deal with them, and it is only logical and pragmatic that we try to frame it towards our own benefit.
I'm for stark pragmatism, mostly. Sometimes it requires a certain cynicism.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12497265

I hope you guys are paying for this.