My head, it is 'sploding
Ralph Peters, firebrand of the New York Post swings a fierce nail-hammered bat at our current national predicament...
Societies divided down the middle by religion, inhibited by tribal loyalties and conditioned to accept corruption can't build healthy democracies.Here, here!
Above all, societies and cultures that refuse to accept responsibility for their own failures can't build democracies.
As difficult as it can be to discern in the hype-and-gripe Internet age, our own system works because we shoulder the burden of our errors, seek to understand what went wrong - and fix the problem...But...
A culture of blame prevents moral, social and political progress...You go, Ralphy!
No society that oppresses women, denies advancement on merit even to men, indulges in fantastic hypocrisy, wallows in corruption, undervalues secular learning, reduces its god to a nasty disciplinarian and comforts itself with conspiracy theories will ever....I'm gonna snip there. Partly for fair use reasons, but mainly because well, I'm all tingly. I've never read such a clear-headed assesment, nay, complete and commanding situational awareness of:
- America?
- Irak?
- Mel Gibson's Production Company?
While his irony meter is obviously in need of a good degaussing, you really should click his link cuz I think Ralph's about flipped his lid over this Democracy Welcome Wagon stuff.
We've done what we could in Iraq, and we've done it nobly. We should not withdraw our troops precipitously, but the clock is ticking. It's now up to the Iraqis to succeed - or become yet another pathetic Arab failure. If Iraqis are unwilling to grasp the opportunity our soldiers and Marines bought them with American blood, it's their tragedy, not ours.Oh, and yeah--Ralph's latest book is titled, "Never Quit the Fight."
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posted by fouro @ 11:48 PM
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5 Comments:
The advice to "read the whole thing" was was right on the money! Peters basically says that Arab culture is antithetical to democratic government. Like a lot of smart people he advocates splitting Iraq into three parts (undoing British blindfolded mapmaking a century ago), which probably would work in democracy-building. You can't undo a generation of destruction with a couple of elections, as this interview shows.
Since the U.S. consumes only 16% of the region's oil, maybe we should just let a nukular Persia overrun the Arabs and let the EUnuchs and Chinese do the SysAdmin work.
Of course, before we did that we'd have to negotiate with Mexico to let Israel buy Baja California for their new homeland, since the Persians aren't too keen on Jews OR democracy.
Antithetical?
Mike, add that plain historical and social fact to the anger of many pattern language types who smelled a skunk in the woodpile of our multivariate reasons for going there and you've nailed my/our reasons for objecting to the thing in the first place.
As for EUnuchs, please don't do that. We're still working on getting North and South to not snarl at each other. Besides, most of them have a check mark in the "I told you so column" and they're holding their tongues, for the most part, even if Blair's in flames.
I read dinnerjacket's letter and some other stuff. If you trust my assesment capabilities, consider this. There's concurrent loops in there.
Speaking of which, I commented on dan's bit. Great twist.
I think 'antithetical' is what Peters was saying.
Giving SysAdmin work in the Mid-East to EU and China is Tom Barnett's idea, not mine.
Thought you'd like Dan's piece, and he was right to compliment you on your fine comment!
I was being inarticulate as usual...
"Antithetical to democratic government? Without a doubt!
Mike, add that plain historical and social fact to the...yada yada yada"
I like Barnett's idea, with plenty of keffiyehs and turbans in the mix.
Re dan, Thanks, I just added some more but it doesn't show on my browser.
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