Forums

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Look, you're not trying very hard. The statement is not bigoted. It's reportage. Someone living in the Arab world is telling you what he sees, not what Arabs are capable of.

And I don't recall what I said about military force, but the point was that we have pursued policies -- military and otherwise -- that are effectively delegitimizing democracy among Arabs and strengthening other constituencies. It's not just the invasion of Iraq, though clearly that's a part of it. It's also our support for undemocratic regimes in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, among others, and the perception that our policies value Israeli lives and interests more than those of Palestinians.



I think you are taking one sentence out of context and misreading it. I don't think the author of that e-mail meant to speak definitively about all Arabs. I think he is taking Yemen to be typical.

To sum: I point out an obviously stupid and bigoted statement and T-Rex defends it by pointing out an extraneous issue, instead of acknowledging the obvious.

Why are working so hard to fulminate about what's not being said instead of trying to engage with what is?



No. It's neither bigoted nor stupid. I hope it's wrong, but I'm afraid that the author is seeing something real.



But of course it's more complicated than that. It's hardly just a question of military force. Under Hussein, there was very little civil society in Iraq, so it should be no surprise that the transition has been rough. We tried to support the opposition, and there just wasn't much there to support. I suspect things would have gone if the country had been run under UN auspices instead of by the Cato and Heritage Foundations. That would have been a use of military force, too.

I know I saw your Avatar moving. Why did you stop it? Now that Hank has run out of permeatations my desire to look at the posts has dimished greatly. Moving Avatars would change that.