On Tue, 18 Sep 2001 01:16:31 -0400
dep <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
| On Monday 17 September 2001 11:25, burns wrote:
|
| | And Sadam is still in power, refuses to adopt a peaceful posture
| | toward his neighbours and is still a significant threat.
|
| wait a few days.
|
| | Many people in Iran don't like that regime either. None of these
| | countries are open democracies as we are used to in the west... but
| | then they are different cultures. The point is that there is
| | significant dissent everywhere in that region, with the possible
| | exception of Jordan.
|
| first, the situation in iran is a lot more complicated than can be
| easily summarized (which is true of saudia, egypt, and jordan, among
| others, as well). the irani president, mohammed khatami, is actually
| pretty reasonable by the standards we apply to the region. he
| actually conceives of a good relationship with the west. the
| theocracy there, the mullahs, are as crazed in the shiite direction
| as the taliban are sunna. in the instant case, and for *our*
| immediate purposes, this doesn't much matter -- iran was universally
| troubled by the death of ahmad shah masood last week, and refuses to
| recognize the taliban. they of course also hate saddam's regime. but
| there is not actually much dissent in iran, though useful fallout of
| all that is about to transpire could be the, um, isolation of much of
| the theocracy in iran.
|
| meanwhile, there *is* tremendous dissent and trouble elsewhere, in
| places you would not necessarily expect. both jordan and kuwait have
| significant palestinian problems. the natives have contempt for them
| (actually, in arab countries there is pretty vigorous contempt for
| pretty much everybody who is not an arab), and could give a toot
| about a palestinian homeland but for the fact that it would then
| allow them to kick the palestinians out of their own respective
| countries. (indeed, arafat is himself handcuffed a little bit,
| because any agreement in which israelis don't line up to be shot
| cannot be accepted by arafat, because arafat's people would then
| shoot him.) kuwait has withdrawn tremendously from its
| westernization; i was in the office of a member of the royal family
| once and listened to him bitch, as we shared very good scotch, about
| the inability to get a drink on kuwait airways, "but if you bring
| your own, they don't say anything and will bring you ice." (well, if
| you're a member of the royal family, maybe, but not me; though i was
| chastised for failing to bring in a case of something good when i
| arrived.) this is no longer the case. their big shakeup last year
| changed all that. this was not due directly to internal pressure, but
| instead complaints from other countries who argued that the kuwaitis
| were being a little *too* flamboyant.
|
| saudia has a problem, because the religious cuckoos have taken hold,
| and if things continue as they are heading we can pretty much expect
| the saudi royal family to move permanently to the beverly hills
| hotel, which they own. you have not lived until you've seen a truly
| wealthy desert saudi. they come to town in armored mercedes, in
| convoys of them, the big cheese surrounded by his robed, heavily
| armed band, ululating when they enter or leave buildings, driving
| around the block a few times honking, and occasionally firing into
| the air. (the closest we have to this is rap "musicians" and their
| entourages.) i was saved from a very bad time once when i got yanked
| by a friend off a hotel escalator when such a group was coming
| through -- i'd nearly bumped into a big guy, and i guarantee you i
| did not know the protocol of apology if i had. anyway, these guys
| tend to give support to the likes of bin laden, for all sorts of
| reasons.
|
| egypt has a big problem, and has for a long time. we can lay some of
| this to the soviet influence, but whatever its genesis, mubarak is
| kind of screwed. sadat was a far stronger leader, and look what
| happened to him. (i've forgotten huge quantities of nasser stuff, and
| while some of it is pertinent, not enough to let its lack kill the
| point.) you'll note that a lot of the bad guys this time round
| carried egyptian passports. this is not a matter of convenience, and
| they were not phony. these were egyptians, drawn from the same crowd
| that shot up the tourists a few years ago.
|
| a little surprise, to me, was the fact that some of the bad guys
| carried passports from the emirates. uae has a lot of money and has
| in some respects been the most westernized of the arab countries. i'm
| assured by friends, though, that there has been a growing number of
| islamonsters there, too -- i guess their equivalent of our tree
| huggers.
|
| lebanon -- or, to the brits, the lebanon -- is just a mess, because
| its terrorist organizations are multifaceted, not unlike the irish
| republican army, which has its purportedly respectable side. i was
| amused by bug-eyed walid jumblatt, who last week said that the
| attacks in the u.s. were internal affairs, carried out by the
| well-known cia agent usama bin laden. the place is cut up like a
| blade of grass in a power mower. there are christian sectors and
| there are moslem sectors, which in turn are the site of constant
| tensions between the sunna and the shia, with enough palestinian
| influence to make sure there's always trouble -- not unlike this
| weekend, when the talk radio shows were filled with pissed-off
| indians arguing that the attacks last week should prove that it's
| okay for india to nuke pakistan. (a position, i admit, not entirely
| without its charms.)
|
| it gets weirder, much weirder. the russians have an islamonster
| problem. so do the chinese, who will probably expend lots of that
| which they have lots of -- human lives -- in putting it down once and
| for all.
|
| | So, your answer to murder is to stay out of the murderers sight and
| | not do anything to attract their attention? A bit simplistic
| | perhaps, but you normal people don't go out and muder 5,000 people
| | becuase you disagree with their approach to religion, politics or
| | economics.
|
| poor roger has gotten slammed unfairly, beginning with me, loudly. he
| was doing the devil's advocate thing here, for argument's sake. that
| having been said, the solution is way complicated:
|
| -- kill the bad guys. problem is, this violates the sovereignty of
| more than a dozen countries, which means that among other things
| we'll all walk to work (see tree huggers, above).
|
| -- we tell the nations harboring terrorists that they have to kill
| the bad guys or we will and, recognizing their unwillingness to do
| so, them, too. problem is, this is simply asking those rulers to
| decide whether they'd rather be killed by their own people or by us.
| (this is especially true of syria, which knows all too well that they
| have nothing and do nothing that anybody needs or even wants; they
| are in a miserable location and pretty much everybody is pretty much
| pissed off at them pretty much all the time -- in short, if we
| flattened the place, nobody would care.)
|
| -- we tell the countries harboring terrorists that they have to kill
| the bad guys, and we'll support them if as a result the locals want
| to overthrow them. or we'll kill the bad guys.
|
| all while trying to keep a whole bunch of nations in line -- for
| appearance, because britain and to some extent australia are the only
| allies on which we can really count. indeed, much of the discussion
| underway right now has to do with whose support we really want and
| whose support we can live without. additionally, we're doing other
| things -- the news that bin laden did a big short sell based on the
| attacks is a piece of that. it is the piece that is being made
| public, because it demonstrates something especially ugly. but
| there's a big money spigot turn off underway. that's only a little
| part of it. there are very complicated puzzles here -- the
| pakistanian situation is a dandy example -- and it will take a
| careful hand to solve them just right. and that's before we get into
| issues of justice, which require that the taliban and their shia
| equivalents get hung up by the thumbs and left in the sun to dry.
| whether we wish to dispense justice is debatable, but if we don't,
| these bozos will be back at us over and over again.
|
| | I think what you are proposing is to cower in your home just in
| | case, by going out after dark, you might attract a bully, a thief,
| | a murderer, or a rapist. And if you do, well, then it was your
| | fault and you should apologize. I don't mean this personally, but
| | people with ideas such as that deserve to be subjegated by
| | terrorism and are a threat to their own freedom and that of their
| | neighbours. BTW, Canada lost about 100 of our citizens in that
| | attack and we have done nothing to Saudia Arabia, Islam, or,
| | unfortunately, Usama bin Laden.
|
| sure you did. you existed. you lived relatively happy, relatively
| free lives. how you gonna keep 'em down on the farm once they've seen
| the big city? one of the reasons the soviet bloc fell was -- western
| television. the desire to get the break they deserve today at
| mcdonald's caused a lot of east berliners to want to knock down that
| wall. cool americans in their cool faded levis were a lot niftier to
| generations of russians than were one-size-fits-all tractor factory
| suits. corvettes with busty blondes beat the hell out of boxy and
| unreliable cars that you had no chance of owning anyway. we were and
| are the dream on the other side.
And if you go to Riyadh today, it is the worst of Western urban sprawl,
fast food, junk strip malls and cars. Of course, it has been their decision
to import this aspect of the West, but many a Saudi look with sorrow at
what their country has become. When I fist went to the Kingdom, I expected
more in the way of exotica: Arab influenced architecture, local food,
local customs. I found a major street called 'Pepsi Road' because the bottling
plant is there. And more fast food per square foot than I ever thought was
possible. And MTV on the TV. And far too much poorly built and maintained
'70s western-style concrete block buildings. This is what they think
American culture is. It is, sadly, what we export so well. It is not us.
We are much more. But to these countries, this is their experience. If I
had a culture and it was replaced with this, I would be upset. Too bad
they don't understand that the choice was theirs all along. But they
don't want to take the blame for the situation. So, we are called
'cultural imperialists'. And the royal family our co-conspirators.
Step one. Forbid sending MTV abroad. You cannot imagine how people
think it represents the entirety of US culture. Sort of like thinking
that MTV India is representing that country. How many fathers here
want their daughters strutting around like many of the girls in MTV
videos? (I have a few years until my daughter get to the age when this
will be an issue - but I am preparing myself).
Step two. Every McDonalds must be accompanied by a quality non-fast food
American restaurant. Better yet, a local quality non-fast food
restaurant.
And so on...
--
=====================================================================
Roger Oberholtzer E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
OPQ Systems AB WWW: http://www.opq.se
Erik Dahlbergsgatan 41-43 Phone: Int + 46 8 314223
115 32 Stockholm Mobile: Int + 46 733 621657
Sweden Fax: Int + 46 8 302602
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