Arabs Discount Western Democracy« Thread Started on Jul 15, 2007, 9:24pm » --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Arabs Discount Western DemocracySunday, July 15, 2007 - FreeMarketNews.comread at source> http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews ... 770Western backing for the legally disputed emergency government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has demolished any lingering Arab belief that U.S. President George W. Bush's "freedom agenda" is going anywhere. Both critics and advocates of the sweeping goals he laid out for his second term in 2005 agree that power politics and the "war on terrorism" have trumped democratic principles. They say this was clear from the moment the United States and the European Union boycotted the government set up by Hamas in March 2006 after the Islamists trounced Abbas's Fatah faction in free elections that Washington had insisted go ahead. -Reuters