Anyone who thinks I’m a “Blame America First” kind of guy should read the following...
At the end of the great David Lean film, Lawrence of Arabia, a pan-Arab Council—a nascent attempt at nationalism and self-rule—collapses in Damascus when the various tribes and sects can find no common ground and are unable to restore the city’s infrastructure and other basic services. Waiting strategically in the wings, the British swoop in to restore stability and thus create colonial control in the Middle East. I often think of this scene when I hear descriptions of Iraq’s parliament fraying due to sectarian conflict.
Today, many of those same conflicts inform Iraq and the Middle East. A recent cover story in Time magazine looks into the historical roots of the schism between the Sunnis and Shi’ites in Iraq and asks “whether anything can be done to stop it.”
At the risk of sounding politically incorrect and engaging for a moment in realpolitik, is this necessarily a bad thing? Yes, the U.S. brought down a regime that to some extent had subdued (if only superficially) differences between two sects of Islam that go back to the 7th century—differences that the U.S. presence has fanned into open civil war. But ultimately the bloodletting is of their own choosing. In the Time article, someone from one sect is quoted as saying that if he saw a child from a rival sect about to drown he would not reach out his hand to save him. I ask you, is that a society worth salvaging or worth more American lives? In a time when the U.S. is looking for a way out of the quagmire, it seems to me that this is the perfect opening for us: that we did our part and now it’s up to the Iraqis and their neighbors to decide if they want peace and stability.
And before moral relativists go on to argue that such a view is insensitive or intolerant of another religion’s beliefs, I’d like to hear cases where Muslims are institutionally defending the right of Christians (let alone Jews) to practice their faith within their own borders, in the same way Western countries have bent over backwards to ensure that Muslims are able to observe their customs in the West. Anyone? Anyone?
As many scholars and observers have noted, Islam has not reconciled itself or adapted to the modern world. Over the centuries and continuing into the present day, Christianity began losing absolute control over their respective communities as new thinking and philosophies gradually gave way to individual self-determinism, where the individual exercises greater control over their actions, beliefs and destiny. Such changes had a broad impact on society and politics (arguably reaching its apex with the founding of the United States), and were made possible through literacy and broad-based education. As a result, over time, Christianity lost its preeminence as an all-powerful, patriarchical political institution and has evolved back into being a religious and moral institution.
By contrast, in much of the modern age, Islam countries became colonies of imperial nations. In addition, its rulers—first the colonizers and then later the native people put in power by the departing imperial nations—found it in their best interests to keep the local populations uneducated and ignorant.
Ignorance of the masses is perhaps the most effective way to keep a populace in thrall, and nowhere is that more evident than in Islamic nations where democracy not only is absent, but their rulers blame the twin “Great Satans” of the United States and Israel for their people’s poverty as a convenient way to divert attention from their own failings and to justify continued absolute authority and power. As this suggests, in many of these nations, it is their own religious and political leaders who are the real oppressors, by giving them little education, political or religious freedom, or the opportunity to be prosperous, successful or to think for themselves.
Until that changes, and these nations choose to become modern nation-states that respect the right to individual self-determination as well as international law and conventions, the following denunciation will remain true, as mouthed by the title character in Lawrence which remains surprisingly and sadly prescient today: “So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people—greedy, barbarous, and cruel.”
If ever a photo underscored how much in bed this Administration and the Bush family are with oil interests, this certainly is it. I mean, they're actually FUCKING HOLDING HANDS!
Here Bush hugs Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva after a news conference in Brazil.
Here Bush and his loverboy are at it again, at yet another event, after a quick change out of sweat-stained clothes.
My God, who'd've thought it possible, but McCain actually even looks gayer than the President. If Bush wasn't a draft dodger and so scared of combat, I'm sure he wouldn't've minded spending some quality time in the Hanoi Hilton with all those big manly pilots (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).
If any Conservative whore decides to shoot her mouth off about faggot-loving politicians, they should first look in their own backyard at their own closeted Decider in Chief.
