Posted on 01/18/2007 8:44:14 AM PST by Tolik
When Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman pulled up to Savannah, Ga., after his legendary March to the Sea in December 1864, he was savagely slandered in the Southern press as a renegade leader of a "vandal horde."
But at that same time, leading Confederate officers privately appealed to him, hoping he would guarantee the safety of the relatives they had left behind in Savannah. Why, Sherman wondered, would his sworn enemies trust that such an enemy might be kind to their loved ones -- unless they knew that their own slurs about him were mere rhetoric?
That same sort of pretense is evident in the Middle East, where the leaders of countries and organizations hostile to or critical of the United States often trust us far more than they let on.
Nabih Berri, the Lebanese Amal militia chief who is now allied with both the anti-American Hezbollah and Syria, has much of his family residing in Dearborn, Mich.
Amr Salem, until recently a cabinet minister in Bashar Assad's anti-American government in Syria, was a senior program manager at Microsoft. His family still lives in the U.S.
Bilal Musharraf, son of Pakistan strongman Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has been a Boston-based consultant and a Stanford business and education student. Meanwhile, his father's government is either unwilling or unable to arrest on his soil the remnants of al-Qaida, among them, most likely, Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.
<....snip....>
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Let me know if you want in or out.
Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
His website: http://victorhanson.com/
NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
New Link! http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/
Prince Bandar bin Sultan, former Saudi ambassador to the United States and high cabinet official in a monarchy that funds much of the world's radical Islamist madrassas, is selling his 56,000-square-foot mansion in tony Aspen. The asking price is $135 million — the most expensive home ever put up for sale in the United States.
That is just staggering. My gosh, you could park a jet in there.
"-- unless they knew that their own slurs about him were mere rhetoric?And interesting point.That same sort of pretense is evident in the Middle East, where the leaders of countries and organizations hostile to or critical of the United States often trust us far more than they let on."
And, in fact, General Sherman--the man who famously said "War is hell!"--not only spared Savannah but accepted the entertainment and hospitality of Savannah's aristocracy (AND his grandson married a Savannah lady--and the wedding reception was held in the house that had served as General Sherman's headquarters during the occupation).
And one source of contempt toward the United States is that here the ruling class, such as it is, is constrained by law and restricted in its ability to force its will on the citizenry at large. There is something in human nature that allows an autocrat to enjoy his freedom in the United States and the luxury that wealth affords him and also enjoy his ability to lord it over others elsewhere. There is nothing inconsistent in this, and only a free man or woman would find it hypocritical.
The US and Europe denied admittance to a select list of Zimbabwean officials. I have reason to believe that this also included denying visas to their progeny, in some cases.
I see no reason why we should be hosting the progeny and family members of members of Assad's government, or of any official in any terrorist organization.
We should implement sanctions against these individuals, as we did with Zimbabwean officals, and extend it to their families.
Residing in our beloved county is a priviledge.
We keep cheapening this priviledge by our suicidal Open Door policy.
So far, all the attacks against us in this country have been mounted by those to whom we opened our doors, whether the attack on 9-11, or those with "Sudden Jihadi Syndrome" , with one or two exceptions. Even the exceptions were radicalized in mosques funded via our Open Door.
No Jihadist has landed here via amphibious craft or mounted an armed insurgency over our borders (although that may come).
Sorry, Mr Hanson. For the first time I'm calling you Just Wrong on an issue.
Even more important than pointing this out to those leaders, is pointing it out whenever the home grown hate America crowd shrieks out. Show the world how little clue they have.
BUMP!
Yah, I want the VDH ping.
OK, u r in.
"...There is a rather darker reason why this is the case - all of the people VDH cited are members of some sort of ruling class, and the United States acts as a haven and a source of luxury that these people have not the slightest intention of making universal in their native lands. Why should they? It is their prerogative, after all, and the legitimate fruit of superiority..."
I've thought about this, too. One thought is that once the Islamofascists have been defeated - I don't think they'll succeed, although they will make a bloody mess of things - the next battle will be against the assembled elites versus the rest of the people.
Good points from VDH.
IRAQ'S NATURAL STATE: EXCERPT --- If we want to set up a limited-access order, then we have to determine which factions we want to have in the governing coalition, and we must give each of them something of value in return for maintaining peace. To put it crudely (so to speak), one could imagine giving each major party in a coalition government control over a particular set of oil wells. Factions that we do not want in the coalition (Al Qaeda in Iraq, for example) would have to be hunted down and killed. Factions that receive an allocation of oil wells but continue to engage in violence would have to be declared outlaws and deprived of personal security, with their oil resources confiscated and redistributed to other factions.
The best economic theory of the day asserts essentially what the article does about human nature. Behavior is contagious... "empowering figures" build self sustaining societies whereas "power consolidators" slowly descend into hell, taking every body else with them. The idea that Iraqis will reject violence sooner if more of them have jobs is a legitimate argument only if those jobs are sourced from free market investment. The entire country needs some version of Milton Freidman's Negative Income Tax. If on the other hand, tribal chieftains and theocratic oligarchs are put in control of the country's natural recourses (the only viable revenue stream based on international trade and investment at this time) the country will continue to decay. No matter how many jobs that policy would create, the country would still descend into an even worse hell than now because no faction would be happy until they control all of Iraqs resources.
I don't want to second guess any American law maker decisions (I'm probably the only one) but U.S. investment in Iraq should be from the ground up... Indeed, the entire Middle East should be looked at from that perspective. The root cause of the hell we see today is because of the suggestion offered by the authors of IRAQ'S NATURAL STATE that I excerpted. Iraq's future, and many secondary and terciary futures, are dependent on empowering populations, not elites. That's how societal transitions are made from:
Macro and micro social dysfunction usually begins when elites start to think they matter far more than the population that authorizes their elitism. American geopolitical stability and prosperity, along this logic, can be found in our aggregate worship of everyday underdogs who become heroes by being themselves. Do Europeans do that? Not really. Instead they find themselves admiring Americans and realize that their society is far less likely to reward real heroism, they curse America for revealing their own social dysfunction. The same is true of the Middle East who are simply the economic bastard children of the U.S. or Europe anyway. Should we be surprised about the cost of social change in Iraq - or Europe...? No, not really, unless we seek a policy of empowerment. Empowerment policies are the least expensive and most effective, so I say "BOLLOCKS" to the expensive policy of dividing Iraq's natural resources between competing elites.
Patriarchal fascists have no intention of empowering their populations. They'd rather go down fighting in an exchange of nuclear weapons than lose their grip on power. What then do we do to save ourselves from them? We must save the fascist's societal children - their sons, daughters, wives, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers... We have to empower them to overcome their social dysfunction in order to save ourselves. Any other approach is delaying the inevitable WMD dual between - Limited Access and Open Access societies.
Thanks for posting the link and maintaining the VDH ping list.
I agree with you. Don't let them in.
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