I have an op-ed piece on TomPaine.com, the progressive website, titled After Lebanon, What’s Left?. It discusses the long-term impact this war will have on Arab moderates, which the Bush administration and its allies have spoken about a lot but done little to reassure. I appreciate any feedback.
Issandr, I liked it. I’ll may be try to post something next week to elaborate a little bit more on some points you mentioned. But I like the article as it is.
Good job..
very nice. Posted as segment and a link on site.
Very tight.
Very interesting to read side by side with http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2006/08/arab_political_.html“ rel=”nofollow”>Marc Lynch’s post on the Arab (political) blogosphere.
What about the idea that when America used to talk about reaching out to “the moderate Arabs”, it simply meant controlling US-friendly regimes and keeping them on message? While the “generally young, educated, well-off, and plugged in” slice of Arab societies that powers its political blogosphere should be a long-term target of American public diplomacy, it clearly isn’t (and has never been).
Marc mentions another issue I’d like to be discussed some more, namely that there’s been a real seismic shift among many, if not most, of the formerly “pro-American” voices, especially in Jordan and Lebanon itself — many bloggers either declaring themselves “betrayed” (etc.) by America or otherwise turning against their pro-US govts.
I think this was only a matter of time.
I thought it was a good editorial. Informative and seemed to sum up well, to me, a moderate view that was not anti-American, but that takes huge issue with American policy. And though I’d take exception with your easy dismissal of Israeli concerns and intentions in fighting, it was relieving to me that you didn’t attack Israel. Which I mention specifically because it seems, really often, people who criticize Israel do it because they want it destroyed, no because they’re trying to create a bit of understanding. And here you were doing the latter, just pointing out that Israel is far from blameless and that even Arab moderates would have legitimate reasons to be angry with it.
Israel, I think, is not helped by the sort of support Bush gives it. The US could/should be more critical of Israel while still being squarely supportive of it and being just as critical of its opponents. Personally (I’m Israeli-American) I kinda fear that because Bush gives what seems like almost carte-blanche support to Israel, when Bush is gone, the pendulum of support will swing too far the other way. But even if it doesn’t, I think no matter who his successor is they’ll have a Mid East policy that’s better.
Unfortunately, the stereotypes that most of the world holds about the majority of Americans being loud, ignorant and violent are true. When I tell my co-workers that, here in one of the few places in the United States that are not like that, they look at me in disbelief. But I have lived all over the United states and found that the majority of Americans have a simple moral equation: Americans = people, foreigners = not people. American newspapers even have a rule that one American is worth 1,000 foreigners when deciding whether to put a story on the front page or not. If there is a train crash in Nigeria that kills 500 people, it gets no mention at all in the American press unless at least one American (i.e. real person) gets killed. 1,000 Nigerians, well, then it might get mentioned. Or might not. They’re just dirty wogs, untermenschen, unseemly mud people, after all.
When I tell my co-workers (who are mostly foreign-born) that the majority of Americans outside of this enclave of sanity we live in would happily kill them if their leaders told them to do so, with no more thought than killing a cockroach, they say “No way!”. After all, they walk around and they see a sane society. Unfortunately, said sane society does not extend more than a few blocks away from the major cities. Outside that… well, you have a few sane people, but the rest are, by any definition of sanity, totally insane. They pray to Jesus before breaking bread, then talk about how “we should kill all those Arabs because they hate us all.” Nevermind that Jesus never spoke of killing anybody… it doesn’t matter. They see no difference between the killing of some darky overseas, and killing of the wild animals that they love to hunt and slaughter. Both are just animals, as far as they’re concerned.
People ask me, “if the majority of Americans are like that, why do you stay in America?” I answer that I was born here, but the more I see of the country that I was born, the more I wonder if that’s a sufficient answer.
-BT
Good god- BT- where do you live? Texas?
Very good op-ed. I particularly like the line about confirming every phobia about American intentions for the region, and the contrast between verbal commitments to democracy and actions against democracies and their supporters.
Zazou, I currently live in the San Francisco Bay area of California. However, I have lived all across America (from sea to shining sea, including Texas BTW), teaching, consulting, and otherwise working my way around the country like a cut-rate Diogenes looking for even a semi-honest man. Other than in a few urban enclaves, sanity is in short supply. Even in California, all I have to do is drive 100 miles to the east and there’s the Mad Prune Farmer of Fresno, saying that we ought to bomb the Middle East back to the Stone Age and then put dictators over the tattered remnants because otherwise the dirty Arabs will swim the Atlantic with knives in their teeth and kill us all. I don’t know what to say about such insanity, other than to note that they are the majority and vote for people who are just like them.
-BT
Dan, you are still supporting the most agressive and inhumane state in the world, you are not even thinking as a human, take off all the lables, stop thinking like a jew, an american and try to look at the facts as a human being. How can any sane person accept what just happened in Lebanon and what is still happening in Palestine? How can a human being let anyone perpetrate these atrocities in his name? Are you more human than those innocent civilians? What makes you superior to them besides the fact that you understand what very few understand: The right for Israel to exist .. to kill .. to destroy to oppress, to kidnap etc.. the right to benefit from the past and kill the future of so many innocents.
Israel is an illusion, a peaceful country for whom? Is it really a democracy or is it a wilde beast created by the guilty conscience of your so called friends? You write about Arab moderates…who is going to moderate Israel? Still you keep protecting the lies that you’ve been taught, there is no justice no respect no freedom in your country. You have created your own ennemies and you have choosen your “friends”; peace does not come with bullets or occupation.
BT: Now I understand why they are so well behaved in Irak and Afghanistan, why democracy is such a success when implemented by the elite of the US army.
What scares me is that the insanity is spreading around very quickly, the world is going the american way.. the majority likes to think and live as the americans, racism and fear are more present than ever. We stepped back 60 years…only this time muslims are the target. What can we expect from countries that have been build on blood and destruction of everything and everyone that was not white?
BT- you think Fresno’s bad, try San Diego. And as far as Texas goes, lived in Huntsville one year- you could not pay me enough to put one foor back in that state, except maybe San Antonio. Make sure you go to this year’s Arab Filmm Festival (aff.org)- you’ll feel better, Cheb i Sabbah is spnning.