human rights

i've begun following the blog of the angry arab. it's quite the apt title, he does what it says on the tin (in contrast to something like "fox news" where you'd expect... no wait, it works. okay, minus the "news").

amidst copious amounts of knee-jerk israel bashing, he makes some fair to excellent points. one of his more excellent points is how lame it is that the US keeps blabbing about how our pal Mubarak should recognize Egyptians' "human rights". The angry arab says this isn't enough: Egyptians, like all humans, should be free to exercise their political rights as well.

The US is supposedly in a tricky position here. But it doesn't take a genius to notice that the protesters in Egypt are not calling for human rights in general, but very explicitly for Mubarak to leave the government. I was taught to keep silent if I didn't have anything nice to say. Likewise, perhaps the US should keep silent on this issue until it recognizes that the people of Egypt believe the only way to achieve human rights is through the application of political rights.

After all, this is what the founders of our own nation believed.