Subject:
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Re: From Richard: "It's all bad news - Chaos is my fault"
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sat, 29 May 2004 19:27:28 GMT
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richard Parsons wrote:
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Do you feel better that the wealth of your lifestyle (and mine) was created
by destruction of other countries’ economies sponsored by your country
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Other countries such as Saudi Arabia, or any of the other oil-rich nations?
Seems to me that we are directly responsible for the enrichment of these
nations by our consumption.
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So you think that the oil wealth is distributed equally per capita? That’s
remarkably Socialist of you, John, but it’s not the reality.
The state (states, really, seven of ‘em) where wealth distribution on public
projects is greatest is the UAE, which is actually one of the stablest of the
states in the region. No, we tend to enrich the emirs and shaykhs, who were
already on the top of the local pyramid. Some does percolate down, but not
much; it rather works like “trickle-down” economics did in the US, which is to
say not at all.
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But back to the terrorists. First, let’s dispense with the notion that
Islamic Wahabi extremists give a rat’s ass about social justice. They want
their extremist views of Islam accepted over the whole world. They are not
only our enemy, but the enemy of Muslims as well.
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Remember that Judaism, Hinduism, and Christianity have these extremists too, and
they tend to be quite a bit more connected to the reins of power than their
Islamic brethren--which is very likely the reason they’re not busily bombing US
government targets. Engaging the opposition within the context of the
state is actually a wonderful way to bring them to heel--the
extreme-nationalists in Israel and the US are good examples.
Doing the same within the Muslim world would be a step forward;
witness Turkey’s experience with its internal Islamist forces,
and compare that to countries that blatantly outlaw such move-
ments (Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Syria). They tend to be a lot
more violent and fulminant where they feel there is no legit-
image outlet for their wishes; the same held true in pre-
Revolutionary Iran, and in fact has started to tread in the
OTHER direction as the forces of liberalism (the classic sort)
have found no outlet against the mullahs. The mullahs have
actually been emboldened by our vilification of them--the
exact opposite of what we had hoped to accomplish, sadly.
So, in short, the answer is cooptation of those extremist
forces. Some of the real nuts, as with the US or Israel,
you will never dissuade; the idea, however, is that you
strip them of their millennarianist *following* by at least
allowing them a voice. People tend to go about blowing up
things a lot less when they feel they have a stake in its
preservation.
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Frankly, your blather about the evils of the US sound strikingly familiar.
Perhaps I should ask: Do you agree with what the Islamic terrorists are
doing, and if not, why not?
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This is getting dangerously close to that wonderful canard
of “understanding the roots of terror = blaming the US =
SUPPORTING TERRORISM” that, in fact, serves to continue the
cycle of terror itself. I mean, why not just take the Mike
Savage route and start lobbing nukes? It seems that an awful
lot of the Free Republic (ironic name, considering how heavily
they moderate it) set would very much like to do just that.
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And even as a larger question. If you and I are so oppressive to the third
world, what exactly do you think should be done about it? Because quite
frankly, I find people like you and SA who only complain and criticize but
offer no solutions, ideas, or alternatives superciliously annoying.
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I spell it out above, and it’s very simple. People must feel
that they have a stake; that something is theirs, and safeguards
their wishes and property. It’s a simple concept, but it would
require a radical change in the way the US handles its foreign
policy. In short, we would actually have to start honoring the
rhetoric we put out.
For example, we must no longer support any unfree regime, that
does not take into account the will of all the people in its borders,
or that clamps down on dissent. That means no Musharraf, no Mubarak,
and no Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. It also means, more alarmingly, no
pecuniary support for Israel (nor for the Palestinians, as they have
no state apparatus). But in order to assure such standards, we would need
to put our moral and temporal force behind supranational organizations, to
the point of being willing to accept them and honor them when they do not agree
with our narrowly national interests. That’s kind of a scary concept, and it is
one that would not sit well with the majority of Americans. The trouble is that
we will perpetuate this inequality as long as we put the needs of “the nation”
narrowly defined above the needs of peace and prosperity in the world more
generally; the way to reverse that is to operate in a way that promotes the
altruism we claim to represent.
For development, anticompetitive practices aimed at the developing world--in
particular agricultural subsidies and the diplomatic pressure applied to
shoehorn open import windows--also need significant rethinking. So, too, do
acts of political chicanery overseas designed to secure better terms and profits
for US companies; that happens a lot more often than we like to think about, and
when you consider the furore that arose when even a hint of such behavior by
China in US elections was made, you can see just how troublesome it is.
So, in short, the solution is to keep the rhetoric of freedom, peace, respect,
and justice, but start walking the walk where that’s concerned. We seem to
like to talk it, and promote it, until it comes into conflict with our
short-term interests. The problem that the Arab world at large--and I’m talking
about the Arab street, not the elites who get money from the oilfields--has with
us is that we say one thing and do another; we claim to be one thing, and our
actions say something totally different. We fail to respect people and their
freedom and justice (even when we disagree with it), and as a result we lose
peace too.
It’s not that what’s good for the US is good for the world (to paraphrase the
old saying), rather what’s good for the world is actually what is in the long
term will be good for the United States’s economy, security, and reputation.
The trouble is that we’re a pretty selfish nation with a severe lack of
humility, so I’d guess that will be what prevents any modification of the
current devastatingly counterproductive US policy so long as the present batch
of mismanagers (Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al.) are in office. Increasingly,
even the intelligence and military chiefs are coming to the same conclusion,
which gives me a certain amount of hope. Maybe the real conservatives will
start taking “their” party back, finally.
all best
LFB
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