|
09.04.2004 |
hanson on irak
More useful summary from Hanson on the war with islamic fundamentalism.
Increasingly, Hanson is emerging as one of the most perceptive
commentators on Western society and the degradation of the Middle
East
“ We did not ask for this war, but it came. In our time and according to
our station, it is now our duty to end it. And that resolution will not
come from recrimination in time of war, nor promises to let
fundamentalists and their autocratic sponsors alone, but only through the
military defeat and subsequent humiliation of their cause. So let us cease
the hysterics, make the needed sacrifices, and allow our military the
resources, money, and support with which it most surely will destroy the
guilty and give hope at last to the innocent.”
So the question remains did Saddam create Fallujah or Fallujah Saddam?
“But at some point the world is asking: "Is Mr. Assad or Hussein, the
Saudi Royal Family, or a Khadafy really an aberration - all rogues who
hijacked Arab countries - or are they the logical expression of a tribal
patriarchal society whose frequent tolerance of barbarism is in fact
reflected in its leadership? Are the citizens of Fallujah the victims of
Saddam, or did folk like this find their natural identity expressed in
Saddam?" Postcolonial theory and victimology argue that European
colonialism, Zionism, and petrodollars wrecked the Middle East. But to
believe that one must see India in shambles, Latin America under blanket
autocracy, and an array of suicide bombers pouring out of Mexico or
Nigeria. South Korea was a moonscape of war when oil began gushing out of
Iraq and Saudi Arabia; why is it now exporting cars while the latter are
exporting death? Apartheid was far worse than the Shah’s modernization
program; yet why did South Africa renounce nuclear weapons while the
Mullahs cheated on every UN protocol they could?
“No, there is something peculiar to the Middle East that worries the world.
The Arab world for years has promulgated a quite successful media image as
perennial victims - proud folks, suffering under a series of foreign
burdens, while nobly maintaining their grace and hospitality.
Middle-Eastern Studies programs in the United States and Europe published
an array of mostly dishonest accounts of Western culpability, sometimes
Marxist, sometimes anti-Semitic that were found to be useful intellectual
architecture for the edifice of panArabism, as if Palestinians or Iraqis
shared the same oppressions, the same hopes, and the same ideals as
downtrodden American people of color - part of a universal "other"
deserving victim status and its attendant blanket moral exculpation. But
the curtain has been lifted since 9-11 and the picture we see hourly now
is not pretty.”
Both these items are recommended reading, or at least worth a scan.
related items
Carnage and
culture: Landmark battles in the rise of Western power by
V. D. Hanson 
|
advertising
disclaimer
advertising
disclaimer
advertising
disclaimer
|
politics
archives 1
2
3 4
5 
