"Juan's world"

[bloom]

"A scholar of the Middle East on the tightrope we’re walking"

"...The radical groups are different than the fundamentalist groups. But the Muslim desire for a Muslim emphasis in politics — which some people call political Islam — appears to me as analogous to the American Christian right, and there is a difference between the American Christian right and the Timothy McVeighs and so forth. The radical extremist groups are a relatively small phenomenon; they are not important everywhere, and the idea that the Muslim world is full of fascist regimes is just not true.

Lets’ talk about the middle East and its relation with the United States. We’ll start on the Atlantic relation with Morocco. Could you have a regime which is more friendly to the United States: warm diplomatic relations, military cooperation, good trade ties. Morocco doesn’t have the profile of an enemy of the United States. Algeria fought a civil war against political Islam, and Islam lost, and the Algerian government as it’s now constituted could be more friendly to the United States. Tunisia, it’s embarrassing how friendly President Ben Ali is to the United States. Even Libya has come in from the cold. Egypt: a non-NATO ally; we do joint military exercises together; we give them $2 billion a year. Jordan, that’s really embarrassing, how obsequious Jordan is to the United States. Iraq, now a pro-American government. Saudi Arabia, a warm ally. The Persian Gulf monarchies. Yemen, an ally. Turkey, a NATO ally. Pakistan, an ally. Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia. Kyrgyzstan has given us bases. Tajikistan, an ally. Afghanistan an ally, Kazakhstan — warm relations. These people who imagine this enemy out there should explain to me where it is. I can’t find it.

I find the Muslim world full of regimes that range from being extremely friendly to just fairly friendly — the two exceptions being Syria and Iran. Even there, after Sept. 11, 2001, Syria was perfectly willing to join in the war against terror. It was the United States' decision to break off relations and try to push over that regime.

To tell you the truth I think it's like that scene in The Wizard of Oz where the curtain is lifted. I think that much of the war on terror is an illusion. I think what you've really got is 4,000 or 5,000 jihadis that you should be tracking down through local cooperation and Interpol and the FBI, on the one hand. And you've got the Sunni Arab guerrillas of Iraq who are sore that we overthrew the Baath government on the other hand. And you have some tensions with Syria and Iran. But I don't see how this makes for a coherent enemy. I think Washington misses the Cold War, and the great tragedy is that the Muslims are just not going to be providing the analogy. We can talk as though they do, but they don't, and eventually this whole smoke-and-mirrors thing is going to collapse."

http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=8917

[bemildred]

1. Yeah.

Who can forget the sense of emptiness and lack of purpose in the defence business when the USSR collapsed? The fear of job losses among older workers with no skills that would be usable in the cuthroat private sector? The layoffs? The desperate scramble to find another enemy was on. Drugs just aren't enough. China is not willing to play the role, and anyway we use them for cheap labor and we owe them too much. And Mr. Cole is right, jihadis won't do the job either.

[bloom]

2. Linked to in that article - "If America were Iraq, What would it be Like?"

I missed that when he wrote it in '04.

It's pretty good for getting some perspective. The only difference is that he has OUR Air Force bombing us - when to be comparable it would need to be some outside country that had the power to wipe us off the map if it wished.

http://www.juancole.com/2004/09/if-america-were-iraq-what-would-it-be.html


"President Bush said Tuesday that the Iraqis are refuting the pessimists and implied that things are improving in that country.

What would America look like if it were in Iraq's current situation? The population of the US is over 11 times that of Iraq, so a lot of statistics would have to be multiplied by that number.

Thus, violence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in the last week? That is a number greater than the deaths on September 11, and if America were Iraq, it would be an ongoing, weekly or monthly toll.

And what if those deaths occurred all over the country, including in the capital of Washington, DC, but mainly above the Mason Dixon line, in Boston, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco?

What if the grounds of the White House and the government buildings near the Mall were constantly taking mortar fire? What if almost nobody in the State Department at Foggy Bottom, the White House, or the Pentagon dared venture out of their buildings, and considered it dangerous to go over to Crystal City or Alexandria?

What if all the reporters for all the major television and print media were trapped in five-star hotels in Washington, DC and New York, unable to move more than a few blocks safely, and dependent on stringers to know what was happening in Oklahoma City and St. Louis? What if the only time they ventured into the Midwest was if they could be embedded in Army or National Guard units?..." <more>