Profound. I'm drawn to the Lawrence of Arabia part of, "Don't try to do too much with your own hands.." Let the Arabls do for themselves. Wise words to work a foreign policy or even a strategy to go to war with. I read this and I look at the Middle East blinders we are forced to wear and I wonder of the other nations which we have left unattended, unheeded.
Posted by mainsailset at October 8, 2006 02:51 PMSave for the indefatigable Seymour Hersh, there are still no truly investigative correspondents in the US press.
Yes x 1,000.
Posted by Christopher at October 8, 2006 02:55 PMThanks for the link, soccerdad. It's about time someone said this stuff out loud.
Posted by iamcoyote at October 8, 2006 04:40 PMWhat a profundly insightful article. Great thanks. This particular line from the article is equally applicable to the current administration:
"Self-criticism is not in great supply across the Muslim world where, of course, our spirited Western political conflicts and elections sometimes look like self-flagellation."
Posted by Bad Ass at October 8, 2006 04:43 PMNothing new here. Too many of us have known and spoken about these same factors for far too long. We've been drowned-out by the jack-booted thugs who fling their arms out at 45 degree angles, screaming "Sieg Heil!" as the Mad King, idiot son of George, ignites the world. Soon, the neo-cons and republi-cons will be along. Their stupidity and ignorance dripping from every poorly thought-out word they repeat here. Words and ideas so intellectually unsound that only an idiot could bear to repeat them, let alone believe those same words. Words without thought or rational analyses. Words without historical basis. Words without factual basis. Words gleaned from a nationalized media, fed to those with neither the desire nor intellect to question what they hear, see and read. Repeated here. Nothing more.
You've thrown pearls before swine. And the swine will soon be along to trample those pearls with what they repeat. Then take a shit on them for good measure.
Posted by phidipides at October 8, 2006 07:25 PMThank you for recommending this piece. It was long, but it was beautifly written and worth it. We are so fucked in so many dimensions, I really don't think we're gonna make it. Not that we deserve to.
Posted by kaleidescope at October 8, 2006 07:30 PM"They want freedom. But they want another kind of freedom - freedom from us."
The Age of Terror-A Landmark Report by Robert Fisk
"The United States, whose costliest political and military adventures since 1950 have ended in failure, now must face the fact that the technology for confronting its power is rapidly becoming widespread and cheap."
The Great Equalizer by Gabriel Kolko
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/kolko4.html
And not just the technology but, more importantly, the methodology...the recipe. The mix of strategy and tactics to achieve a political goal.
"Machines don't fight wars. People do. And they use their minds. People, ideas and hardware. In that order."
Col. John Boyd, USAF
Call it the wretched of the earth, anti-colonial war, peoples war, revolutionary war, asymmetric war, fourth generation war. The terminology doesn't matter. They've figured it out: a highly succesful model of national resistance to foreign predation. It's gone through a half dozen major design iterations and field tests. It's rude, crude and works just great.
Boeing, Lockheed, Northrup Grumman has nothing for sale to equal or defeat it. And now we're working on our freedom from them. Call it fifth generation war.
Ahoy, Condi. Do the deadender! Citizen.
Posted by Pvt. Keepout at October 8, 2006 10:57 PM