The Arab League Summit in Algeria has ended a session that marked the 60th Anniversary of the body. Nine leaders sent representatives instead of attending in person. So what happened there?
Did they deal with their errent brother Sudan telling it in certain terms that the killing in Darfur must stop?
Uh, no.
Did they deal with Syria and tell them to stop supporting terrorism and get the hell out of Lebanon?
Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi did call the Palestinians and Israelis "idiots", so that was amusing.
"I cannot recognize either the Palestinian state or the Israeli state. Don't be angry, Abu Mazen, but the Palestinians are idiots and the Israelis are idiots," Gadhafi said, addressing Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. "The solution I think is to have a single state. We cannot have two states."
And he also asked some uncomfortable questions.
Gadhafi also asked why Palestinians hadn't established a state between 1948 and 1967, when the West Bank was under Jordanian sovereignty and Gaza under Egyptian control.
And made uncomfortable observations
"Terror is identified with Islam." He dismissed the argument that poverty is at the root of violence by Islamists, and put the blame on "oppression, injustice, arrogance, insults, contempt and the humiliation of this [Arab] nation."
As a result of stating the obvious, he has been reprimanded by the Palestinians and told to apologize.
The Arab League also had a public cat fight about who should present an Arab peace plan to Europe and the US.
Wait! Arab peace plan?
Well, yes. Though they rejected a Jordainian proposal that would offer peace to Israel in anticipation of withdrawal from Palestinian territories, they did more formally adopt the Saudi plan first proposed two years ago that offers peace to Israel in exchange for withdrawal.
Their final statement not only included this, but additionally offered support for Iraq. Um, moral support that is.
the declaration said the Arab leaders underlined their respect for Iraq's unity and sovereignty and the necessity of non-interference in Iraq's internal affairs.
However, such tepid measures were met with hyperventilation by the enemies of peace and prosperity.
Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahhar said,...."The summit proved that Arab leaders are being drawn to the side of Israeli and American criminals and trying to bring our resistance movement to submission."
Sounds like the rhetoric of the Western left, doesn't it?
But when Zahhar says resistance movement, he means sanctioned psychopathic slaughtering. And when he says Israeli and American criminals, he means champions of Liberalism whose principles run counter to the fascism proposed by the criminal terrorist organizations.
The bottom line is, the Arab League is about as effective and important as the UN; which is not.
It seems that China overplayed its hand when they passed a law saying it was illegal for Taiwan to seceed from the nation. Whereas before it was looking like the EU might drop trade barriers preventing the EU from selling arms to China, the measure is now being reconsidered. Whether this reversal is primarily due to the Presidents private talks with European leaders when he visited last month or not, it is clear that China did not help itself by passing legislation that was viewed by most as a measure legalizing agression agains Taiwan.
Democracy is being demanded in yet another area of the world. In Kyrgyzstan, widespread public action has taken place against yet another regime that has tried to fix elections. The result? President Askar Akayev has resigned.
