Paul Johnson writes a quick paean to America and Bush’s democracy push. Not really in passing, he condemns the European continent’s "pseudodemocracy." In the meantime demonstrations against Syria continue Beirut.
Palestinian Authority
Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia is overhauling his cabinet, a first for the Palestinian Authority.
Ibrahim Jafari is chosen to be the next Prime Minister of Iraq. Bush wins some NATO support for Iraq. Ukraine says it wants to join NATO, but Chirac agrees with Shroeder that NATO should be revamped (read, let’s lessen America’s influence in Europe). Tony Blair is more optomistic than ever about peace breaking out in the Mid-East. Australia commits a few more troops to Iraq. About three-quarter of Canadians
think that the U.S. shouldn’t be trying to promote the creation of democratic countries, according to a poll. Back to the deeply misunderstood Arab streets for a moment (what is Christian Amanpour saying these days, I haven’t seen CNN for a while?). I note in passing that there have been demonstrations in Cairo.
As a Canadian I am sure embarrassed about those poll results. Unfortunately, they are probably representative of public opinion. If I consider the people I know I estimate that I would get a similar result if I asked the same question. Much of the problem lies with our "national jealousy" of the US. If the same question were asked within the US being part of the question I think (hope) that there would have been a more noble response.
The POLL in Canada was by a Left wing News Media and does not reflect what most Canadians think about the issue. The Prime Minister is compared to Mr Dithers in Canada and world wide. The guy is incapable of making decisions. The left wing party rules with a minority government. They only got 37% of the vote. Nobody takes Canada seriously anymore.