njlauren
Posts: 1577
Joined: 10/1/2011 Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Zonie63 quote:
ORIGINAL: njlauren Read up on the history of the Treaty of Tripoli in 1798 (where it famously totally makes fools of the religious right in this country, when it says the US is not a Christian nation in black and white), when Muslim countries from North Africa were preying on US ships, often taking their crews into captivity to be used as Galley slaves, it is why there is the line in the Marine Corps hymn ('to the shores of Tripoli')....:). This is more of an apples to oranges comparison. I don't consider the war with the Barbary Pirates to be the same as what is happening today. The French and the British were doing the same thing to us at that time (seizing ships, impressment), eventually leading to war with the British and a "quasi-war" with the French. Our country was weak at the time, so they did it just because they could, not because they had any particular reason for it (other than greed). Mainly, I was referring to 100-150 years ago, a time when our policies (both domestic and foreign) were much more malignant and aggressive than today (or 200 years ago, for that matter), and yet, other countries didn't hate us nearly as much as they do now. This was mainly in response to the viewpoint that the Arabs hate us because our values and beliefs, that we're "infidels," but if that was the motive for their dislike, then why did they wait this long to tell us? quote:
To get into the root causes of all this would take several books, and it isn't just the US, the British left a mess in the middle east, forming 'countries' that made no sense tribally, and let us not forget the giant shaft of 1949, when Britain KO'ed the two state solution for Palestine, insisting that Hashemite Saudis who had fled Saudi Arabia be allowed to take what is now Jordan, which was supposed to be a Palestinian state. This has nothing to do with their attitudes towards the British. If they hate America because of what the British did in that region, then all that proves is that they're geographically illiterate. quote:
The reasons are many, but to a large extent the hatred is because the US preaches freedom and democracy yet we in that reason meddled, often to keep brutal dictators in power, because we could 'trust them'.....keep in mind during the Cold War the US government viewed democracy with not a little bit of suspicion, because they feared, as they did in South America, that popular uprisings would lead to socialist governments, as did in Egypt with Nasser. We upended a democratically elected government in Iran and put the Shah on the throne for almost 30 years, we support the royal families of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the like, and then when oil became a big thing, when the US started importing oil, it became king...which left a lot of people poor, and frustrated, because the money was going to the ruling class and everyone else got nothing. This would confirm my earlier point about ideological arrogance on our part. We think that "making the world safe for democracy" is a good thing, and because too many Americans (both left and right) arrogantly believe this, it plays right into the hands of the oilmen and other geopolitical manipulators. Even the author of this article displays indications of such blind ideological arrogance, and this is the problem I'm addressing here. I honestly believe that much of the world can accept the basic concepts of greed and imperialism, since that's something humans have had to deal with for thousands of years, especially the Middle East. While this might seem like the obvious reason to hate America, this may only cover the tip of the iceberg. Many Westerners try to apply their own values to the Middle East and think "This is the reason *I* would hate America if I was in the Middle East, so this must be the reason they hate America, too." So, naturally, our assumptions about their motives are largely materialistic. We mistakenly assume that everyone in the world is just like us, that in each one of these people "is an American trying to come out" (just like the line in Full Metal Jacket). Even if we try to put ourselves in their shoes, we still invariably end up looking through Western eyes. quote:
The middle east also became a chessboard for the cold war; the US supported Israel, the USSR Egypt and the Syrians, South Yemen, and it became a kind of proxy war when the arab countries pulled their various invasions, USSR equipped troops on one side, the US equipped Israelis on the other and that added to it. This was definitely a huge factor in the Middle East, but once again, the Cold War was ideological in nature, so our motives were mainly rooted in the ideological arrogance I mentioned above. I think that the author of the article in the OP indicates similar motives when he speaks of "emerging and struggling" democracies, insinuating a call for American interventionism on an ideological basis, which is what we've been doing all along (and which is largely used as a mask to cover imperialism and greed). I think that we're in agreement that our policies are the primary motive behind their antagonism towards the U.S., but my point is that our perceptions of the outside world are what lead to the policies in question. quote:
Then, too, comes Israel, where without trying to cast blame on one side only, there has been shortsighted US policy, in part because of the incredibly strong Israeli lobby in the US, that has led us to be a little less strong with Israel then we should. You cannot claim to be bargaining in good faith when Israel is allowed to build all these settlements in Palestinian territory to please the Ultra Orthodox in their country (who frankly I find as repugnant as I do the militant Islamic types; they may not plant terrorist bombs, but they cause a lot of damage to Israel that we end up paying for), or when we don't use the very potent amount of aid Israel gets to gain concessions and stop people like Netanyahu from dealing out of both sides of his mouth (and before someone starts the rant about the Palestinians, what they represent, I realize what you are saying, and i don't disagree either, they also are dealing out of both sides of their mouth, and then some, when they have this idiotic dream that suddenly they are going to take the whole thing, there was no country of Palestine, it never was, was owned by others for several thousand years). Personally I think most of the Arab world could give a crap less about the real plight of the Palestinians, it is just propoganda, but it is effective. I agree with this part completely. The situation you're outlining has been a tragically insurmountable problem which probably never should have happened to begin with. America had a role in it, but our role was mainly peripheral until after World War II. Other great powers had more direct control over the region and bear the lion's share of responsibility for how it all turned out. Americans were duped into thinking that it was "our" problem mainly for ideological reasons, as I've been pointing out. Of course, in regards to Israel, some of U.S. support has also been rooted in religion and the notion that it is "God's will" that America should support Israel. However, I consider religion to be just another ideology, so it pretty much comes down to the same thing. In hindsight, my view is that this whole situation could have been avoided with better planning. I think we started paving our current road to hell somewhere around the time of the ending of the First World War. This was a time when ideological arrogance and skewed perceptions of the world screwed the planet up so badly that we're still trying to fix the damage even to this day. And we still keep making the same mistakes, over and over, so nothing ever really gets solved. With the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the whole issue is the land itself, the "Holy Land." If it's just a matter of finding a place for these people to live (whether Israeli or Palestinian), then they could have found a place anywhere in the world which might have been suitable. But they all want possession of that one particular piece of ground. Our role in this seems somewhat absurd when you think about it, but ultimately, I think the people living in that region are going to have to resolve it themselves. I can actually sympathize with both sides. They both have their own point of view which they believe in strongly, so that doesn't leave much room for compromise or any permanent peace plan that both sides can agree on. If the U.S. wants to try to mediate, then we'd have to be totally neutral, which we're not. quote:
One of the mistakes we make about Islam and why muslims seem to gravitate towards trying to make countries ruled by Sharia law is because if you read the Q'ran, a lot of it is about social justice, about the poor not getting screwed by the rich, one of its goals, even moreso then Christianity, was to create a world where the poor are taken care of and not exploited. Their rules on interest bearing loans being illegal is part of that, the Q'ran is full of that, and to many people, they see that as a hope that maybe, just maybe, they will see some social and economic justice in a part of the world where that is scarce. It isn't that I agree with that or think it is a great think (I don't, very simply because the Q'ran is an idealized book the way Marx's economic theories were or Plato's republic, and in practice they end up being oppressive, not freeing, just look at what the USSR did with Marx, or Iran with the Q'ran). Maybe if we saw it for what it was, we would find a way to help people their gain some justice. Our naivite about the "Arab Spring" in part was in thinking that this was the revolt of middle class, educated people, who would be less likely to go for a theocracy, but the problem is they may have triggered the revolt, but in the end the masses decide, who are uneducated, poor and see Islam as a shining beacon. If you look at Egypt, those opposed to Morsi were the educated classes, not the poor majority, they were for him. You make some good points here, however in my own study of the Quran and a brief flirtation I had with Islam during the 1980s, I also became more acutely aware of the intensity of religious schisms. I was always aware of the religious right and the West's history of religious intolerance, but with Islam, it's like the religious right on steroids. I agree that a lot of the Quran is about social justice, but then, the same can be said about the Bible and other religious texts from other regions. Just like political ideologues, religions seem to think that they know what's best for all the people, and if practiced honorably, fairly, justly, and ethically, it might actually work to promote social justice for a time. Human nature being what it is, it will invariably turn sour in the end. quote:
I don't think it is because of the freedom of the US, or that we allow women full rights or don't stone gays to death, despite the religious right trying to use that as justification to oppress women and gays to please the critics *lol*, I think it is because they feel the US had the power to do good, and instead, in blind self interest, just piled on their misery. I could argue that a lot of what they feel isn't true, it is perception, but it doesn't matter....and when our so called friends, the Saudis, spend their not small wealth building radical islamic schools all over the middle east, when they sponsor media and such that spreads lies and half truths in order to curry favor with the radicals, it doesn't help. The US had the power to do good, but those on our side acting in self-interest probably weren't blind. However, they seemed to do their best to keep the rest of the American people blind, and that's where the problem seems to emanate from. Our relationship with the Saudis has always been rather strange and somewhat incoherent within the scope of America's overall foreign policy. I think that we've created ourselves a rather tangled mess which we can't easily extricate ourselves from. Whenever I've talked to people from that area of the world, my sense is that they don't really hate us or dislike us. I think they're just more confused and befuddled than anything else. They already know what America does to them, but they're not sure why. They get conflicting views and mixed messages which get garbled and confused from both ends. The radical view offers a certain level of clarity and simplicity compared to our muddled and inconsistent propaganda. That points up another root problem with American politicians, since most of them have made their careers relying upon the short attention-span of their constituencies. For whatever reason, Americans have a shorter attention-span than most other people around the world, and the same tactics which bring success to American politicians don't seem to have the same results when applied to some other countries. quote:
I tend to agree with others, I think the biggest mistake the US made after 9/11 was not pulling a Manhattan project and getting the world off of oil within 10 years (not just the US, the world)..you do that, and you have the leeway to let the Middle East figure out things for themselves, rather than keeping petty ante tyrants like the Royal families in power.....among other things, basing your GDP on oil alone almost guarantees stratification, because there is no need for a middle class, who might otherwise be building a real economy. I agree, although we should have been doing that as far back as the 1970s when the Arab oil embargo hit us. That led to an energy crisis which compelled some changes in policy and attitudes towards energy consumption, but not nearly enough. The U.S. had far too many irons in the fire, with the Cold War, Vietnam, Watergate, the Israeli-Arab wars, domestic issues such as civil rights, urban unrest, and with inflation and an energy crisis to boot. A lot of people could see the problem and wanted to do something about it, but it turned into a lot of talk that went nowhere until Reagan got elected. That's when U.S. policy became even stranger than it already had been. quote:
I think with Egypt we learned a lesson, that Democracy doesn't always provide results we would want, it is why our founding fathers put the checks and balances and escape clauses they did; had Egypt had an electoral college of educated people, theoretically they could over stopped the Brotherhoods from taking power, it is why the electoral college exists in this country, so Vox Populi couldn't elect a dictator or worse. Our politicians, both past and present, clearly know the consequences of democracy, but some could cynically argue that ideology is often used as a mask to cover the simple grab for wealth and power that dominates human politics in general. In the Middle East, religion can often be used in place of ideology, whereas in the West, religion has been downplayed and relegated to a more peripheral role in society (even despite the presence of the religious right in U.S. politics). In previous eras in U.S. and Western history, religion was a more prominent influence, and our policies and practices of those eras reflected that. I would question whether an electoral college of educated people could make much of a difference. Usually, whenever there's some large scale resistance movement or revolutionary faction, there's a core group of educated people to influence and lead them. That's how it's been in this country, too. quote:
BTW,be really careful about using Arab to mean all Muslims or Middle Easterners. The Iranians are Persian, and they would be insulted to be called Arabs, and for example, The Sudanese are not Arab, they are black I believe, whereas the Iraqis are Arab. Yeah, I knew that. Thanks for the tip. Without even trying to answer your points, I think they all are fair in terms of perceptions. One of the things I think we need to recognize is that to deflect blame from themselves, the people ruling in that region have used and continue to use the US as an excuse. If you are a Saudi and are poor, government propaganda blames the US and the west , saying it is because they are greedy and rich and steal from our people (rather than the reality, the royal families are a bunch of bloated bastards who take 90% of the oil revenue for themselves and their families). In Egypt, starting with Nasser, people are told that it is the US imperialist policies that cause Egypt to be poor, that the US doesn't allow Egypt and the countries in the Mid East to develop, that they are poor because the US is well off.....which of course deflected from bad government policies and corruption that make the middle east such a stratified place, with most people living in poverty and a small class living in incredible luxury...). Sadat and then Mubarek did the same thing. In Egypt, if you are college educated, the only real jobs are with the government, and it can take 10 years and a lot of brides to get even an entry level job.. I didn't say they were mad at the US because of the British directly (though often the US is lumped in with 'the west' meaning Europe'), what I am saying is that the US, as the predominate superpower after WWII was left to deal with the mess that had been the British empire in the middle east, countries like Iraq and Iran, the whole Palestine Mandate, countries carved out of tribal areas with little thought other than how to control the population left a mess...and as you point out, thanks to ideology, the US didn't always make smart choices, we still don't. After 9/11 the wise move would have been to find a way to de-emphasize oil and stop it from being used as blackmail (note, having the US provide its own oil and natural gas wouldn't work, because those are traded globally, and if OPEC pulled another embargo, it would cause prices to rise worldwide, unless we decided ot nationalize the oil companies).....you make oil less valuable, and you are taking away incentives to support dictators and royal families, and also quite frankly cutting off terrorism from money (to give everyone pause, the IMF and World bank have tried to trace what happens with petro dollars going to the mideast; they can only track about 70% of it to its destination; ya think maybe part of that 70% is ending up in the wrong hands?) I do think assuming it is because they see our decadent, immoral society is a fabrication of the religious right, I tend to agree that they are angry at the meddling the US has done (large truth to that) and the economic misery blamed on the US (grains of truth). It is interesting that the Egyptians elected the Brotherhood and suddenly found out that the milk and honey didn't flow, as they promised, hopefully what will happen is they will realize that the problems they face are internal problems that need to be solved and that it isn't going to come from the Q'ran or bible or whatever, and that the key is in good governing, not in faith.
|