The Greater Middle-East Initiative

The Greater Middle-East Initiative
by Radi Radi - August 3rd 2004

In the course of the past few months new terms were coined and were running by my ears more than my name. The Greater Middle East Initiative was the latest one of these, and before I run off using clichés like "change must come from within", I want to clarify something. Palestine in all fairness had the only decently democratic elections in the region and they elected Yasser Arafat. Americans and Israelis decided they didn't want him.

Turkey has a government that is democratic in many aspects; the democratic government does what its people say. Almost 95% of the Turks didn't want to go to war, so understandably the Turkish government stands up and says no to the US, but that was condemned and the military was condemned for not going against the people's will and stopping that and an apology was asked for.

So why the political reforms again? If it's a mere way to transfer the dictatorship from the Arab leaders to the US Government "the leader of the free world", then no thanks. Speaking of US governments -which have for quite a number of years been the biggest economy in the world-, yet they have the poorest healthcare system in all of the industrialized nations. The latest poll of a few, indicates that 80% of Americans are ready to go without tax cuts if the country adopts a universal healthcare system.

The US Government has for too long surpassed public opinion on that matter, although any Candidate running on the Universal Health Care System agenda will sweep out competition, it is impossible to implement. It has pharmaceutical companies against it, insurance companies are against it, and we can go on like that for a long list. Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company with brand names like Listerine and Viagra has second-quarter 2004 revenues of 12 Billion US Dollars. That's enough money to buy all the congressmen of the US or at least the corrupt ones, that still means a house majority against the Universal Healthcare System.

Should the US be choosing, suggesting or even implying a democratic system for running the Middle-East countries when their system isn't working for 80% of them? Middle-Eastern countries aren't the best when it comes to meeting the demand of people, but then again why do we plan to change it from tyrant-ruling to corporate-ruling? Just a thought.