WAR: cogent thoughts about our possible catastrophe in the making
Camille Paglia has been a firebrand intellectual for many years, pro-military, tough as nails and very much contra teh trend towards French philosophers in acedemia
she was interviewed and sad some very sharp things against the possible war
I think that she is someone worth listening to, and you Conservatives should make note that she thinks very much like a Conservative in many ways.
My question is does anything she say resonate with any of you?
the interview is on Salon.com
if you watch a very short commercial you can read the whole article
<a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/02/07/paglia/"; target="_blank">Paglia: firebreather</a>
from the article: [quote] As we speak, I have a terrible sense of foreboding, because last weekend a stunning omen occurred in this country. Anyone who thinks symbolically had to be shocked by the explosion of the Columbia shuttle, disintegrating in the air and strewing its parts and human remains over Texas -- the president's home state! So many times in antiquity, the emperors of Persia or other proud empires went to the oracles to ask for advice about going to war. Roman generals summoned soothsayers to read the entrails before a battle. If there was ever a sign for a president and his administration to rethink what they're doing, this was it. I mean, no sooner had Bush announced that the war was "weeks, not months" away and gone off for a peaceful weekend at Camp David than this catastrophe occurred in the skies over Texas.
From the point of view of the Muslim streets, surely it looks like the hand of Allah has intervened, as with the attack on the World Trade Center. No one in the Western world would have believed that those mighty towers could fall within an hour and a half -- two of the proudest constructions in American history. And neither would anyone have predicted this eerie coincidence -- that the president's own state would become the burial ground for the Columbia mission.
Including one small town where the debris fell called Palestine, Texas.
Yes, exactly! What weird irony with an Israeli astronaut onboard who had bombed Iraq 20 years ago. To me this dreadful accident is a graphic illustration of the limitations of modern technology -- of the smallest detail that can go wrong and end up thwarting the most fail-safe plan. So I think that history will look back on this as a key moment. Kings throughout history have been shaken by signals like this from beyond: Think twice about what you're doing. If a Roman general tripped on the threshold before a battle, he'd call it off.
But how are we going to counter that threat? Are we going to bomb laboratories and facilities storing dangerous chemicals and release them in the air near population centers? Are we going to poison Baghdad? This is as barbarous as what we're opposing in Saddam. We need to be going in the opposite direction -- to lower global tensions. This constant uncertainty is bad for everyone. It's bad for the economy, it's bad for people's psychic health, and it's going to endanger Americans around the world. How are we ever going to do business around the world and function in a global market, when any American traveling abroad is subject to assassination?
We know so little about Iraq in this country. It's enormous, and yet most Americans can't even find it on the map. I love to listen to talk radio and have been doing it for years. But I'm frightened by what I'm hearing these days from commentators like Sean Hannity, whose program I listen to when I'm driving home from school. He's conservative, but I'm not -- I'm a libertarian Democrat who voted for Ralph Nader. These days I can't believe what I'm hearing, the gung-ho passion for war, the lofty sense of moral certitude, the complete obliviousness to the world outside our borders. How many people has Hannity known who aren't Americans? Has he ever been anywhere in the world? His knowledge of world history and culture seems thin at best. This is increasingly our problem as a nation -- we can't see beyond ourselves. It shows the abject failure of public education.
...
There's no reason not to give diplomacy and expanded inspections ample time to work. We need the support of the world community, not just for this crisis but the next one.
...
I tried to be open-minded about Bush's case for war. I waited for him to present the evidence for an imminent threat to the U.S. But months passed, and they hemmed and hawed. It was words, words, words. Do they think the American people are fools? That we can't be trusted to understand a casus belli? There was a shiftiness, a sleight of hand, a kind of blustery bravado and smugness: "Well, we know, but we just can't tell you, because it would compromise national security." Give me a break -- we're about to go to war and kill or maim thousands of innocent people. Americans will die too. And they couldn't lay all their cards on the table?
.. . .
I have a long view of history -- my orientation is archaeological because I'm always thinking in terms of ancient Greece and Rome, ancient Persia and Egypt. People are much too complacent in the West -- though their comfort level has been shaken (as I predicted long ago in Salon) by the stock market drop. Most professional people in the West do not understand the power of Islamic fundamentalism. Westerners dismissed Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini -- "Oh, how medieval; our modern culture will triumph over that!" But guess what: Ever since Khomeini, Islamic fundamentalism has been spreading and spreading right to our front door.
It's similar to early Christianity. Christianity began as a religion of the poor and dispossessed -- farmers, fishermen, Bedouin shepherds. There's a great lure to that kind of simplicity and rigor -- the discipline, the call to action. There's a kind of rapturous idealism to it. No one thought in the first century after Christ that this slave religion would triumph over the urbane sophisticates of the ancient Roman world. Taking the long view, I think Islamic radicalism is the true threat, not Saddam Hussein's arsenal. At the worst, Saddam's biological or chemical weapons could take out a neighborhood or send a drifting poison cloud through a city. But what I'm talking about is a movement so massive it could bring down the West -- the entire civilization of the West. No one thought that imperial Egypt or Rome would fall -- but they did.
. . .
Before 9/11, I would never have believed it, but I do now. For years I was saying that the study of world religions in higher education will lead us toward mutual understanding and world peace and so on and so forth. Well, the attack on the World Trade Center opened my eyes. After a decade of government neglect of this issue, we now face an entire generation of ruthless young Islamic men who have been radicalized. The solution is not to bomb Baghdad but to win over the Muslim center, which has been alarmingly passive. We need a cultural war -- one certainly enforced by targeted military strikes and espionage directed at terror cells and leaders, like the Predator attack on that jeep in Yemen. Boom! Perfect -- out of nowhere comes a missile that takes them out. Fantastic! We need small, mobile units of special forces deployed everywhere, stealth operatives -- kidnapping terrorists and debriefing and neutralizing them. Undercover activity is the way to go. But this kind of conventional war that Bush has planned for Iraq won't get to the root of the problem. All Bush is doing is shifting moderate Muslims in sympathy toward the radical extreme.
There may be an apparent immediate victory in Iraq, but we'll be winning the battle and losing the war. The real war is for the hearts and minds of the Islamic world. We don't want a world where Americans can't travel abroad without fearing for their lives -- or even within our borders, where a small cell of fanatics can blow up a railway station or bridge or tunnel. <hr></blockquote>
for you Conservatives: [quote] What do you think of the antiwar movement that is taking shape in the U.S.?
Well, I had great hopes for it but am discouraged. I turned on C-SPAN with great excitement to watch the big march in Washington last month. But talk about shooting yourself in the foot! Several speakers were good, but most of them tried to drag all sorts of extraneous issues into it -- calling Bush a "moron," accusing America of imperialistic ambitions, "No blood for oil" -- all these clichés. When fringe, paleo-leftist voices take over the platform, it drives away the moderate, mainstream people in this country who have nagging doubts about this war. I just don't believe the polls claiming overwhelming public support for the war. I'm skeptical about the way the pollsters are asking the questions. I don't know anyone who's wholeheartedly for this war.
<hr></blockquote>
and then: [quote] If we do go to war, I pray it's a brief incursion. But this idea of occupying Iraq! When we need those billions here. Our medical care system is staggering, inner-city education is still a mess, the elderly are in straitened circumstances, and Social Security is in jeopardy, and we're going to spend all this money not only in bombing Iraq but then building it again from the rubble and governing it? This is madness!
...
If I could, I would assign everyone to watch "Gone With the Wind" -- which is dismissed these days as an apologia for slavery. But that movie beautifully demonstrates the horrors of war. Everyone is so wildly enthused for war at the start, but Ashley Wilkes says, "At the end of a war, no one remembers what they're fighting for." It shows the destruction of a civilization, the slaughter of a whole generation of young men, and people reduced to squalid, animal-like subsistence conditions. And that's what's missing right now, as we prepare to march off to Baghdad -- a recognition of the horrors and tragic waste of war.
<hr></blockquote>
She also has much to say about the powderkeg that is the region and the real dangers of the loss of support for the West in the future
also the notion of a clash of civilizations, which has been denigrated as too 'racist' seems to make sense when coming from her . . .
[ 02-08-2003: Message edited by: pfflam ]</p>
she was interviewed and sad some very sharp things against the possible war
I think that she is someone worth listening to, and you Conservatives should make note that she thinks very much like a Conservative in many ways.
My question is does anything she say resonate with any of you?
the interview is on Salon.com
if you watch a very short commercial you can read the whole article
<a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/02/07/paglia/"; target="_blank">Paglia: firebreather</a>
from the article: [quote] As we speak, I have a terrible sense of foreboding, because last weekend a stunning omen occurred in this country. Anyone who thinks symbolically had to be shocked by the explosion of the Columbia shuttle, disintegrating in the air and strewing its parts and human remains over Texas -- the president's home state! So many times in antiquity, the emperors of Persia or other proud empires went to the oracles to ask for advice about going to war. Roman generals summoned soothsayers to read the entrails before a battle. If there was ever a sign for a president and his administration to rethink what they're doing, this was it. I mean, no sooner had Bush announced that the war was "weeks, not months" away and gone off for a peaceful weekend at Camp David than this catastrophe occurred in the skies over Texas.
From the point of view of the Muslim streets, surely it looks like the hand of Allah has intervened, as with the attack on the World Trade Center. No one in the Western world would have believed that those mighty towers could fall within an hour and a half -- two of the proudest constructions in American history. And neither would anyone have predicted this eerie coincidence -- that the president's own state would become the burial ground for the Columbia mission.
Including one small town where the debris fell called Palestine, Texas.
Yes, exactly! What weird irony with an Israeli astronaut onboard who had bombed Iraq 20 years ago. To me this dreadful accident is a graphic illustration of the limitations of modern technology -- of the smallest detail that can go wrong and end up thwarting the most fail-safe plan. So I think that history will look back on this as a key moment. Kings throughout history have been shaken by signals like this from beyond: Think twice about what you're doing. If a Roman general tripped on the threshold before a battle, he'd call it off.
But how are we going to counter that threat? Are we going to bomb laboratories and facilities storing dangerous chemicals and release them in the air near population centers? Are we going to poison Baghdad? This is as barbarous as what we're opposing in Saddam. We need to be going in the opposite direction -- to lower global tensions. This constant uncertainty is bad for everyone. It's bad for the economy, it's bad for people's psychic health, and it's going to endanger Americans around the world. How are we ever going to do business around the world and function in a global market, when any American traveling abroad is subject to assassination?
We know so little about Iraq in this country. It's enormous, and yet most Americans can't even find it on the map. I love to listen to talk radio and have been doing it for years. But I'm frightened by what I'm hearing these days from commentators like Sean Hannity, whose program I listen to when I'm driving home from school. He's conservative, but I'm not -- I'm a libertarian Democrat who voted for Ralph Nader. These days I can't believe what I'm hearing, the gung-ho passion for war, the lofty sense of moral certitude, the complete obliviousness to the world outside our borders. How many people has Hannity known who aren't Americans? Has he ever been anywhere in the world? His knowledge of world history and culture seems thin at best. This is increasingly our problem as a nation -- we can't see beyond ourselves. It shows the abject failure of public education.
...
There's no reason not to give diplomacy and expanded inspections ample time to work. We need the support of the world community, not just for this crisis but the next one.
...
I tried to be open-minded about Bush's case for war. I waited for him to present the evidence for an imminent threat to the U.S. But months passed, and they hemmed and hawed. It was words, words, words. Do they think the American people are fools? That we can't be trusted to understand a casus belli? There was a shiftiness, a sleight of hand, a kind of blustery bravado and smugness: "Well, we know, but we just can't tell you, because it would compromise national security." Give me a break -- we're about to go to war and kill or maim thousands of innocent people. Americans will die too. And they couldn't lay all their cards on the table?
.. . .
I have a long view of history -- my orientation is archaeological because I'm always thinking in terms of ancient Greece and Rome, ancient Persia and Egypt. People are much too complacent in the West -- though their comfort level has been shaken (as I predicted long ago in Salon) by the stock market drop. Most professional people in the West do not understand the power of Islamic fundamentalism. Westerners dismissed Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini -- "Oh, how medieval; our modern culture will triumph over that!" But guess what: Ever since Khomeini, Islamic fundamentalism has been spreading and spreading right to our front door.
It's similar to early Christianity. Christianity began as a religion of the poor and dispossessed -- farmers, fishermen, Bedouin shepherds. There's a great lure to that kind of simplicity and rigor -- the discipline, the call to action. There's a kind of rapturous idealism to it. No one thought in the first century after Christ that this slave religion would triumph over the urbane sophisticates of the ancient Roman world. Taking the long view, I think Islamic radicalism is the true threat, not Saddam Hussein's arsenal. At the worst, Saddam's biological or chemical weapons could take out a neighborhood or send a drifting poison cloud through a city. But what I'm talking about is a movement so massive it could bring down the West -- the entire civilization of the West. No one thought that imperial Egypt or Rome would fall -- but they did.
. . .
Before 9/11, I would never have believed it, but I do now. For years I was saying that the study of world religions in higher education will lead us toward mutual understanding and world peace and so on and so forth. Well, the attack on the World Trade Center opened my eyes. After a decade of government neglect of this issue, we now face an entire generation of ruthless young Islamic men who have been radicalized. The solution is not to bomb Baghdad but to win over the Muslim center, which has been alarmingly passive. We need a cultural war -- one certainly enforced by targeted military strikes and espionage directed at terror cells and leaders, like the Predator attack on that jeep in Yemen. Boom! Perfect -- out of nowhere comes a missile that takes them out. Fantastic! We need small, mobile units of special forces deployed everywhere, stealth operatives -- kidnapping terrorists and debriefing and neutralizing them. Undercover activity is the way to go. But this kind of conventional war that Bush has planned for Iraq won't get to the root of the problem. All Bush is doing is shifting moderate Muslims in sympathy toward the radical extreme.
There may be an apparent immediate victory in Iraq, but we'll be winning the battle and losing the war. The real war is for the hearts and minds of the Islamic world. We don't want a world where Americans can't travel abroad without fearing for their lives -- or even within our borders, where a small cell of fanatics can blow up a railway station or bridge or tunnel. <hr></blockquote>
for you Conservatives: [quote] What do you think of the antiwar movement that is taking shape in the U.S.?
Well, I had great hopes for it but am discouraged. I turned on C-SPAN with great excitement to watch the big march in Washington last month. But talk about shooting yourself in the foot! Several speakers were good, but most of them tried to drag all sorts of extraneous issues into it -- calling Bush a "moron," accusing America of imperialistic ambitions, "No blood for oil" -- all these clichés. When fringe, paleo-leftist voices take over the platform, it drives away the moderate, mainstream people in this country who have nagging doubts about this war. I just don't believe the polls claiming overwhelming public support for the war. I'm skeptical about the way the pollsters are asking the questions. I don't know anyone who's wholeheartedly for this war.
<hr></blockquote>
and then: [quote] If we do go to war, I pray it's a brief incursion. But this idea of occupying Iraq! When we need those billions here. Our medical care system is staggering, inner-city education is still a mess, the elderly are in straitened circumstances, and Social Security is in jeopardy, and we're going to spend all this money not only in bombing Iraq but then building it again from the rubble and governing it? This is madness!
...
If I could, I would assign everyone to watch "Gone With the Wind" -- which is dismissed these days as an apologia for slavery. But that movie beautifully demonstrates the horrors of war. Everyone is so wildly enthused for war at the start, but Ashley Wilkes says, "At the end of a war, no one remembers what they're fighting for." It shows the destruction of a civilization, the slaughter of a whole generation of young men, and people reduced to squalid, animal-like subsistence conditions. And that's what's missing right now, as we prepare to march off to Baghdad -- a recognition of the horrors and tragic waste of war.
<hr></blockquote>
She also has much to say about the powderkeg that is the region and the real dangers of the loss of support for the West in the future
also the notion of a clash of civilizations, which has been denigrated as too 'racist' seems to make sense when coming from her . . .
[ 02-08-2003: Message edited by: pfflam ]</p>
Comments
but, it was actually the second thought that entered my mind when I heard about it:
I thought "a sign of our hubris . . .to proud of our technology"
<strong>I think that she is someone worth listening to, and you Conservatives should make note that she thinks very much like a Conservative in many ways.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Sez Camille:
I'm a libertarian Democrat who voted for Ralph Nader.
Hmmmm.
[quote]My question is does anything she say resonate with any of you?<hr></blockquote>
Not really. All that "oracle" stuff is meaningless. There's the ever popular Most professional people in the West do not understand the power of Islamic fundamentalism. but she said this before we went into Afghanistan, too.
Iraq was filled with Arabs when we went in in '91, where were the terrorist attacks then? Racism, plain and simple.
I love this, though:
When fringe, paleo-leftist voices take over the platform, it drives away the moderate, mainstream people in this country who have nagging doubts about this war.
A-freaking-men! A woman after my own heart. Where the hell is the intelligent dissent!?
still was a beautiful walk though
<strong>
Iraq was filled with Arabs when we went in in '91, where were the terrorist attacks then? Racism, plain and simple.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
You know, I think you're wrong about that . . . you cowed me into agreeing with you last time because I am too perpetually fatigued to follow through and find links...
but there has been a rise in terrorism since Afghanistan . . . someone listed but a few in a post . . . and if I weren't so damn tired . . . I'd just go right out and find it . . . so there!!
Its not racism and dismissing the very real possibility of a domino effect is facile . . . the Middle east is a powderkeg of mutually antagonistic groups . . . tribes etc . . nothing unites like a common enemy! and nothing like simplistic fundamentalist attitudes about God and Glory to unite under
.. you should know how insidious fundamentalist thought is, how it can ensnare you . . . don't you have first hand knowledge of how it works? (I guess we all do in this place) it seems very possible that the middle will move towards the fundamental should their world continue to become more anxious, unstable and hostile . . . which describes war pretty well
<strong>but there has been a rise in terrorism since Afghanistan . . . someone listed but a few in a post . . . and if I weren't so damn tired . . . I'd just go right out and find it . . . so there!!</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, I've got 3k deaths from terrorism in the United States before we invaded Afghanistan. I'd love to see the evidence that terrorism rose.
[quote]<strong>Its not racism and dismissing the very real possibility of a domino effect is facile</strong><hr></blockquote>
"Very real".
[quote]<strong>the Middle east is a powderkeg of mutually antagonistic groups . . . tribes etc . . nothing unites like a common enemy! and nothing like simplistic fundamentalist attitudes about God and Glory to unite under</strong><hr></blockquote>
Still looking for the "very real".
[quote].. you should know how insidious fundamentalist thought is, how it can ensnare you . . . don't you have first hand knowledge of how it works? (I guess we all do in this place) it seems very possible that the middle will move towards the fundamental should their world continue to become more anxious, unstable and hostile . . . which describes war pretty well[/QB]<hr></blockquote>
Still looking for the "very real", only seeing racism-tinted hyperbole.
When we invaded Iraq the first time, what happened with terrorism?
When we invaded Afghanistan, what happened with terrorism?
These questions could provide "very real" answers.
Terrorism IS NOT the issue. The issue is maintaining order. The issue is establishing the relevancy of the U.N. The issue is preventing Iraq from acquiring the means to becoming a world threat again. Terrorism is some propaganda to get my grandmother riled up and the Alex Joneses of the world have jumped in right with her.
I refuse the believe that the middle east is just waiting for an excuse to explode in war. I have no clue as to who exactly would be pissed off by us going into Iraq that could do real damage to us. And I also have no idea how leaving Iraq alone would HELP.
When we invaded Afghanistan, what happened with terrorism?
These questions could provide "very real" answers. <hr></blockquote>
wasn't 9-11 a direct result of the '91 war with Iraq?? our troops went into Saudi and stayed, bin laden and his terrorist group didn't like that and have planned terrorist attacks ever since then...the african embassy, the cole and the twin towers being the largest hits....g
[ 02-08-2003: Message edited by: thegelding ]</p>
i am actually more worried about psyche damage like vietnam...i hope that any action is quick and that the iraqi people are ready to surrender to the american forces....
but remember what they are hearing from their government...they are hearing that the american government and soldiers want to kill them...
we plan to bomb for a week and then go from building to building...we are training our troops in kuwait on building to building search and "control" (kill the enemy, save the civilians)....
but if someone was bombing new mexico and then troops came to my home (and i am fairly pacifist ), i would expect that i, my wife and both my teenage daughters would fight to the death...i expect no less from the iraqi people...again, i hope i am wrong....but if we have to kill almost every man, woman and child in baghdad, i expect many many scarred soldiers and a scarred nation here at home too for many years to come.....g
remember, we think of ourselves and our troops as liberators ...will the iraqi people see that or will they see an invading force??
g
ps...i still ascribe to the one shot to the head for mr sadam...if we want him out, we should take him out...don't like killing all that much, but i much prefer one death over thousands
[ 02-08-2003: Message edited by: thegelding ]</p>
I would take the superstitious opening paragraphs with a grain of salt. Obviously, I don't think she's that serious about it either, but these "signs" are revealed/invented after the fact -- it's in the writing of history which is, of course, performed by the victors.
I've been wracking my brain to think of alternatives to war. I haven't thought of any valid avenues yet unfortunately. I'm convinced that Iraq has broken the previous UN resolutions and has, if not continues to produce, various CBRN weapons plus they're interfering with inspections. Sanctions just hurt the innocent people of Iraq. Ignoring this whole problem is just asking for worse circumstances later. As Towel pointed out very well in another thread, this sitation is an extension of the original Iraq-Kuwait conflict, as a consequence of breaking the cease-fire agreement and (by Towel's count) about 6 previous UN resolutions. So I still think there might be some other consequence to this for Iraq, but I haven't thought of it yet. I don't necessarily think the danger is more imminent from one moment to the next, except in the long-term, so I do thnk inspections can continue for at least a little while.
I completely agree that religious fundamentalism is the biggest threat to world peace and stability since it is so intolerent, and breaks its own morality for "infidels" or "heathen" or whoever is on the outside.
One thing I was surprised to read from her was that she sees education, at least domestic or western education was so vital to reaching some osrt of peace or at least an understand and respect of the middle east and Islam. The fact that she mentions how 9/11 made that apparent to her was really surprising. What I learned from 9/11 was that education apparently is not an answer in iteself, and niether is economic well-being. The hijackers were middle-class and college-educated for the mostpart. That right there told me that knowledge and a cosmopolitan background can't hold a match to hate, religious zealotry and jealousy.
She's quite right that a lot of people are extrapolating from this war issue. It detracts from people's valid arguments against the war. Obviously, the same goes for the other side of the argument. Not everyone is part of the "Blame America first" club, they aren't on the absolute-pacifism train, they don't hate the US, and they aren't looking down their noses at others. Some are (no names
I was reading Tom Friedman the other day, and he takes a different angle on nation-building. He makes some assumptions/hopes for a truly representative government easing into power, that it won't be a puppet government. (Friedman hates the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, etc. as much as I do.) But he generally looks on the potential of building a new Iraq as a positive mission. There are of course a lot of "ifs" in that viewpoint and in the editorial I was reading, but if this could really be the result of deposing Hussein, I'm all for it. However, some people may be against it inherently, like some are against war no matter the cause or events that would force such a situation.
I'm not against nation-building, since I think the eventual result should be truly representative government, and sustained by the people's right to self-determination, so it's morally justified in that. It helps our future with the world, maybe one day these governments "by and for the people" as they say, will let everyone live in relative peace. I'm of the school where if I don;t like someone, I just don't bother with them. I'm sure we'll have our enemies, but I wouldn't care if we just chose to leave one another alone (I know that's naive, but it's something to hope for). Finally, nation-building can actually make people of those places more sympathetic to the US and its values over time and through education --despite what I mentioned before -- especially if the military's presense is handled well, and the "global economy" answers to a people's government and its services.
If anything was learnt from 9-11, I thought it was that terrorism doesn't even need weapons of mass destruction anyway, it just needs someone with enough determination and cause, and a five dollar pocket knife. An invasion of Iraq may provide such a cause and the Twin Towers collapse may pale into insignificance compared to what's to follow.
[ 02-08-2003: Message edited by: RodUK ]</p>
<strong>wasn't 9-11 a direct result of the 91 war with Iraq?? our troops went into Saudi and stayed, bin laden and his terrorist group didn't like that and have planned terrorist attacks ever since then...the african embassy, the cole and the twin towers being the largest hits....g</strong><hr></blockquote>
Bin Laden is still pissed off about the Moors being routed from Spain in 1492. He's pissed off about the breakup of the Ottoman empire after WWI. i'm sure he could find any number of excuses for us even if there weren't a Gulf War and military presence in Saudi Arabia.
PS: a link to a Bill Keller editorial in the NY Times summarizes my point of view and thoughts from the previous post:
<a href="http://nytimes.com/2003/02/08/opinion/08KELL.html"; target="_blank">linky</a>
[ 02-08-2003: Message edited by: BuonRotto ]</p>
Before 9/11, I would never have believed it, but I do now. For years I was saying that the study of world religions in higher education will lead us toward mutual understanding and world peace and so on and so forth. Well, the attack on the World Trade Center opened my eyes. After a decade of government neglect of this issue, we now face an entire generation of ruthless young Islamic men who have been radicalized. The solution is not to bomb Baghdad but to win over the Muslim center, which has been alarmingly passive. We need a cultural war -- one certainly enforced by targeted military strikes and espionage directed at terror cells and leaders, like the Predator attack on that jeep in Yemen. Boom! Perfect -- out of nowhere comes a missile that takes them out. Fantastic! We need small, mobile units of special forces deployed everywhere, stealth operatives -- kidnapping terrorists and debriefing and neutralizing them. Undercover activity is the way to go. But this kind of conventional war that Bush has planned for Iraq won't get to the root of the problem. All Bush is doing is shifting moderate Muslims in sympathy toward the radical extreme.
There may be an apparent immediate victory in Iraq, but we'll be winning the battle and losing the war. The real war is for the hearts and minds of the Islamic world. We don't want a world where Americans can't travel abroad without fearing for their lives -- or even within our borders, where a small cell of fanatics can blow up a railway station or bridge or tunnel. <hr></blockquote>
Well I wonder how many here would endorse this type of approach. Cultural imperialism along with targeted assasination or brainwashing of islamic leaders would go over so much better with both the U.S. public, U.N. and of course the Islamic countries everywhere.
Any thoughts on this rather interesting "alternative" approach?
Nick
well i prefer targeted assasinations over killing thousands of children...we blew up that car in yeman and how much complaining did one see?? we blow up an orphanage and it could end a presidency
...as for brainwashing, i would prefer education, acceptance, dialog and love...inclusion would be nice....how many muslim senators, representatives, members of cabinet are there?? let's show the muslims that we love and accept them and perhaps there will be less fear and hate...at least over time.....g
g
<strong>
...as for brainwashing, i would prefer education, acceptance, dialog and love...inclusion would be nice....how many muslim senators, representatives, members of cabinet are there?? let's show the muslims that we love and accept them and perhaps there will be less fear and hate...at least over time.....g
g</strong><hr></blockquote>
I don' t like either the word brainwashing. It's the muslim extremist who are brainwashed in my opinion : the correct word will be un-brainwashed them. Employ brainwashing in these contect imply that sharing our democratic and occidental values is a sort of brainwashing.
Sadly i doubt that un-brainwashing these guys would give a good result.
[ 02-08-2003: Message edited by: Randycat99 ]</p>
if we go to war unilaterally or if we assasinate unilateral...which way do you think we make more enemies....thousands dead...one dead....one family and friends gieving and hating....thousands of families and friends gieving and hating....
g
[ 02-08-2003: Message edited by: thegelding ]</p>
[ 02-08-2003: Message edited by: Randycat99 ]</p>
<strong>wasn't 9-11 a direct result of the '91 war with Iraq?? our troops went into Saudi and stayed, bin laden and his terrorist group didn't like that and have planned terrorist attacks ever since then...the african embassy, the cole and the twin towers being the largest hits.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Our troops were in Saudi Arabia to protect Saudi Arabia from Iraq per the Saudi royal family's request. We used Saudi Arabia as a staging ground for the war, but that's quite a 10-year leap in logic.
I wouldn't call something that happened a decade later like this "a direct result." If you watch bin Laden's little videos there are dozens of reasons he hates the U.S.
Anything that will happen terrorism-wise as a result of invading Iraq will be better than that will happen terrorism-wise if we don't and Iraq is allowed to build up chemical weapons and, God forbid, develop nuclear weapons.
[quote]<strong>i hope that any action is quick and that the iraqi people are ready to surrender to the american forces</strong><hr></blockquote>
If history is any guide, this is will be quicker than '91. This will not last long.
And if history is any guide, Iraqi people (civilians and soldiers) will surrender in hordes.
[quote]<strong>i still ascribe to the one shot to the head for mr sadam...if we want him out, we should take him out...don't like killing all that much, but i much prefer one death over thousands</strong><hr></blockquote>
The U.N. says that isn't how you do it. Plus Saddam is kinda hard to get to without fighting your way to him.
I've discussed exactly that with my brother (Air Force) and some of his Marine buddies (he has Marine buddies, go figure) and they say that it can't happen. Not that they are gospel, but they know better than us.
BuonRotto:
[quote]<strong>One thing I was surprised to read from her was that she sees education, at least domestic or western education was so vital to reaching some osrt of peace or at least an understand and respect of the middle east and Islam.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Iraqi civilians are not uneducated by world standards, they are merely filled to the brim with propaganda and lies from their ruling regime.
And again, terrorism is not the issue.
<strong>
Bin Laden is still pissed off about the Moors being routed from Spain in 1492. He's pissed off about the breakup of the Ottoman empire after WWI. i'm sure he could find any number of excuses for us even if there weren't a Gulf War and military presence in Saudi Arabia.
PS: a link to a Bill Keller editorial in the NY Times summarizes my point of view and thoughts from the previous post:
<a href="http://nytimes.com/2003/02/08/opinion/08KELL.html"; target="_blank">linky</a>
[ 02-08-2003: Message edited by: BuonRotto ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Exactly my point: that region has a 'very long memory' as Paglia says, they will not forget so easily the large number of people who will die in this war
Hell they bristle at the word 'Crusade' while most Europeans have no idea who Salladin was . . . and very few care about the history of the Ottomans... except Serb's and Croats
and as for "brainwashing"
Paglia has one perspective about culture which I too share and it kind of comes from Neitszche: "command or be commanded"
but in terms of Cultural sphere "think for yourself or other's will think for you"
and this translates into the notion that Culture is a battlefield of ideas . . . Islam understands this and that's why their ideas WILL grow. . . as do Fundamentalisms generally... hey, Mormonism is the world's fastest growing religion, just behind Islam . . .Smith and the Golden tablets . . . it has nothing to do with truth, its about expediency and group-thought . . . and, in a region where there is a long sense of memory (unlike the US) coupled with the pat answers of fundamentalism then I say we could be creating monsters.
it has nothing to do with racism as most people in iraq are as Caucasian as I am . . it has nothing to do with their 'race' but their Culture
so when Paglia is talking about education I think that she is acknowledging a kind of AGON taking place where ideas and values struggle with each other . . . and hopefully the ideas with the most persuasive force that would win would also be the ideas of liberal-democracy . . .
[ 02-08-2003: Message edited by: pfflam ]</p>
Basically, you're fvcked because epochs tend to put cultures into either mythic, poetic or rational/scientific periods of development. Our machinery of the state has been telling us that rational-scientific is the way to go, the ideals are secular, democratic, etc etc... fine, but that has never held people for long.
That's the last step before death. In a sense, culture at this level is already dead because its progeny are infertile, there's no place left for us to go and it cannot really contend with the inherent brutality of people (I would say man, but because we're dealing with brutality I will include women) with the same fludity and ease that a mythic or poetic discourse brings.
A wise being would never move beyond the bounds of poetics because only poetics can deal with myth, man, god, and science. It is the Catholic social disposition -- surrounded by higher and lesser reaches. Time and success will tend towards the rational, but if we use the benefits of science we must always be leary of the consequences. Stagnation in the poetic tends to regress back to the mythic, makes us dumb to reality, resistant to knowledge, luddites.
The poetic is always embattled, always, from within and without. Paglia needs to sell papers, promote her own brand -- you need to distrust celebrity academics.
[ 02-08-2003: Message edited by: Matsu ]</p>