Well if the USA wouldn't have trained & financed the Mugahidin in the first place, then we wouldn't have this mess today?

Does the US bear any of the responsibility in creating that radicalism in the first place?
And you are perfectly sure that 9/11 went down just as it was reported and is just a simple case of some crazy radical religeous nuts?
There has always been terrorism around for longer than that. London was bombed loads by the IRA before the other radicals got around to it, I suspect so were the other locations so I don't really see the relevance unless you are trying to point out that all the effort that the U.S.A. has put in has helped nobody else to be safe except for the U.S.A.
A coalition of forces, actually. I know that the UK politicians get into loads of trouble for getting involved in that mess and my primary question would still be...
Why did they go to war there in the first place? (Keep in mind that any one factor answers will be laughed at.)
Backing up the jingoistic efforts of the US led coalition to show that they are only interested in fostering world peace and harmony and are not in it primarily for thier own benefits?
I reserve the right to not thank any war mongering government and to spit as often as I want on their efforts to kill, main and destroy.

__________________
Living it up in Gersau.

uh huh ... Mubarak just announced that he's not going to run again.

Sounds to me like the suitcases are packed, and he's just keeping the wolf from the door until he gets the hand bags, and the visa cards and the stash of cash and the satellite phone

It was someone very senior in the US who directly asked Muburak to announce that he will not run again- is that all Obama could get out of him?

Ha ha! Lawrence will turn in his grave!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli...inian_conflict

The official negotiations are mediated by an international contingent known as the Quartet on the Middle East (the Quartet) represented by a special envoy that consists of the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations. The Arab League is another important actor, which has proposed an alternative peace plan. Egypt, a founding member of the Arab League, has historically been a key participant

Many people have tried before.. and now many people are still trying!

Since 2003, the Palestinian side has been fractured by conflict between the two major factions: Fatah, the traditionally dominant party, and its later electoral challenger, Hamas. Following Hamas' seizure of power in the Gaza Strip in June 2007, the territory controlled by the Palestinian National Authority (the Palestinian interim government) is split between Fatah in the West Bank, and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The division of governance between the parties has effectively resulted in the collapse of bipartisan governance of the Palestinian National Authority (PA).
A round of peace negotiations began at Annapolis, Maryland, United States, in November 2007. These talks were aimed at having a final resolution by the end of 2008.[8]
Direct negotiations between the Israeli government and Palestinian leadership began in September of 2010 aimed at reaching an official final status settlement.

What else can Obama do at this stage?

The US got caught napping again without a Plan B. If Mubarak stays, the riots will soon lead to bloodshed. If he goes, there will be chaos. Either way, Syria and Jordan and others will follow.... No good choices left, sadly.

And you have any answers to propose? You abandon your own country because you voted a few times and didn't get the result that you wanted? Change takes time and commitment.

Love to hear people like you blather on about ignorance...

fduvall

It's about time Obama made that second call- Muburak is still ignoring the message. Hotel House of Saud is taking advance bookings and will be filling up pretty fast.
Anyway, don't send him to the US, why not join the rest of his family in the UK? Piers Morgan looked like he was about to puke at the way Blair was praising Muburak.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...for-good-egypt

and this:

Mubarak, 82, is “a friend of Britain,” Cameron said. “Britain has good relations with Egypt. We’ve worked together over many issues,” he said, “not least the need to combat Islamic extremism.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...interview.html

And yet, every time people are dying somewhere, they cry isn't "Why doesn't Switzerland/Britain/the EU DO something!?!".......

It's turned into a free-for-all in Cairo now. Mubarak seems to have lost his marbles and sent in paid goons to harass the peaceful demonstrators. There is blood on the streets, and the army is looking the other way...

Sad, but thousands are going to die because one old man doesn't want to leave behind his palace and perks... The US is the only one that can influence events on the ground, but seems clueless as usual.

Do you really believe that the U.S.A. is the only country in the world that can influence the situation? I would not imagine that anybody in Egypt or the middle east would agree with you on that.

There are answers, simple ones...But the combination of the utter apathy of Americans in the first place coupled with a malignant & corrupt government makes real 'change' presently impossible

Are Americans going to wake up tomorrow and stop fretting about their mortgage, how to fuel up their Hummer or the next Xbox game that is coming out?...Are they going to look at any problem and not see a military solution?...Doubtful...Even more doubtful that they're actually going to hold their elected representatives accountable let alone push for a change in policy - on any level

We saw an auto industry completely out of touch with reality in the modern world while the rest of the world worked tirelessly to adjust to a greener planet...Meanwhile, Detroit continued to build increasingly poor quality cars while ignoring the need for fuel economy...If you traced the average fuel economy, you'd see the peak of fuel economy at the time of the gulf crisis back in the 70s & 80s where it was in the 30s and low 40s...Of course, rather than build on that, auto industry descended back into excess and we were back touting the virtues of 18 mpg through most of the 90s and early 21st century...Out of touch

But not so out of touch that we gladly bailed the industry out with more US taxpayer money that wasn't already funding two illegal & pointless wars that continue to drain & strain the US economy and it's increasingly shrinking middle class...Sounds like a winning model that only the purely ignorant could get away with...Yet, rubber stamped by every American

You can extrapolate this to Wall Street, education etc. and the writing has been on the wall for years for anyone interested in stopping to actually read it.

The Middle East has been a mess for decades and no country has a bigger role in not only preventing real change there but actually in maintaining the mess than Uncle Sam & big oil...It is absurd to suggest that there's actual intent on America to actually be interested in peace in the region let alone democracy...Stability through sustained instability has been the model

The real issue is that most Americans aren't interested in real change...aren't interested in a world that is conceptually getting smaller and are clearly not interested in broadening their horizons let alone opening their borders...We're far happier cheering the military sorties over foreign sounding locations from the comforts of our air conditioned homes and plasma screens, thousands of miles away...So long as we can gas up the Hummer

But, sure, let's hear this commitment you think is afoot in DC that has merely needed time to take root...Is there some magical change in place to change the culture of both the people and the government that I've simply missed?

Life's too short to sit here thinking that change is actually going to take place...I'd rather enjoy what time is left before the US blows the planet up entirely...I liken life in Suisse to living inside a Disney film...A truly surreal experience and for an American born & bred in the 'land of the free', I'm not at all under the illusion that their model is sustainable longterm...My flag waving days are over

The US funds 40% of the Egyptian army's annual budget ... you would think that would buy you a little influence, wouldn't you??

Yes, you would think that it would I guess but time and time again it has been proved that funding millitary is not always the way to build a stable and successful nation.
This sort of influence does not do the people on the ground any favours over the long term and generally is also done with a specific view on also profiting from these deals. I mean where do you think that milliatry funding is spent? The Egyptians surely don't buy thier weapons from the Chineese or the Russians do they?

I find it funny how people conveniently forget that it's not just the US that has/does support dictators.

I don't have AC or a plasma TV or a hummer. Am I still American?

Apparently, FCBarça thinks Americans are all the same... Ironic, as I do not seem to be anything like him.

fduvall

Not at all, what I think is that any country without a stated goal of political neutrality will most probably support dictators or interfere in other countries politics if it suits their own purposes.

Had I not chosen a qualifier like most then perhaps your comment would be accurate