on ethics of war- strategic resistence
ASPEN TREE, your leaves glance white into the dark.
My mother's hair was never white.
Dandelion, so green is the Ukraine.
My yellow-haired mother did not come home.
Rain cloud, above the well do you hover?
My quiet mother weeps for everyone.
Round star, you wind the golden loop.
My mother's heart was ripped by lead.
Oaken door, who lifted you off your ( Read more... )
BTW, the seeming unawareness of the difference between Arabs and non-Arabs, and Shiites and Sunnis - is not particularly impressive. Or the awareness of how marginal Wahabbism is outside Yemen, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
I A: This is just bizarre. The root cause of the Iraq war is because the entire region is not successful (I guess we ignore Turkey and Lebannon, which are reasonably successful).
1) - Except Turkey and Lebannon presumably (and all the other countries in the region which lack much oil). We'll also ignore the fact that for developing economies oil is a mixed blessing as it reduces their competitive advantage in manufacturing (by increasing the value of their currency, and thus the cost of their goods).
2) And we're invading them because of this? How about the Southern Sahara while we're at it.
3) Few where? Plenty of people in the Middle East seek out their poetry, their writing, their movies and their music. On the other hand little western literature gets translated into Arabic, and what music they do get, is mostly pretty mediocre. For that matter precious few Americans read European literature, or poetry - is that significant. As for movies - well the most successful movies are mediocre Hollywood action films. So what.
4) And if you're diplomatically irrelivant you get invaded?
5) Says who exactly? Whose world? Have we asked people in Nepal, or Kenya, what they think? Or is it purely Americans whose opinion counts here.
B: It is. Proof for this is where exactly? The entire culture is like this? From Bedouins to sophisticated inhabitants of Lebannon, to Iranians. Right. No overly broad, unsupported, statements here then.
1) Yeah, there are better economic opportunities in western countries (though they probably think they're better than they actually are, if the immigrants I've spoken to are indicative). Plus having gorged on a diet of American TV, they have a rather distorted view of life in the US. The Middle East is hardly any different from Russia, though. Or much of S. America, so...?
2) Again more opinion (assuming they are members of a face culture, whatever that might be, how do we know that they are not comforted by the accomplishments of their ancestors. It might be true, but some factual analysis would be, you know, nice).
C: Well yeah - without much success. People in the region aren't stupid. They despise their governments. I fail to see what Jordan, or Egypt's, government has to do with invading Iraq though.
1) Saudi Arabia is not Iraq. Nor friendly.
2) Wahhabists were suppressed by Saddam (though they now seem to have an important part among the insurgents in Fallujah).
3) As do Israeli text books and history books (they're not as bad - but then Arabs don't get to choose their governments. The west, particularly the US, has made sure of that).
D 1) No they didn't. The Taliban weren't revolutionaries, and their support came from the fact that they brought some kind of order. Khomeni's support (and he wasn't the only revolutionary leader, or the most popular) came from the policies of the revolting Shah. The hatred of the US was based, quite reasonably, on the US support for the Shah.
2) Saddam had virtually no support for this idea. I suppose you could make some kind of argument about Bathhism (though how much of one he was, is debatable) - but that had nothing to do with the idea of victimhood, and more with the desire to create a strong Arab world. There is a significant distinction.
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