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Victor Davis Hanson: Mideast Madness - Why the region remains unhinged.
National Review Online ^ | June 21, 2007 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 06/21/2007 6:56:03 PM PDT by neverdem







Mideast Madness
Why the region remains unhinged.

By Victor Davis Hanson

“The Palestinian people will never forgive the Hamas gangs for looting the home of the Palestinian people’s great leader, Yasser Arafat.” So Palestinian Authority spokesman Abdel Rahman recently exclaimed. “This crime will remain a stain of disgrace on the forehead of Hamas and its despicable gangs.”

Looting? Crime? Despicable gangs?

Excuse me. For years, Palestinian Authority-sanctioned gangs shot and tortured dissidents, glorified suicide bombing against Israel, and in general thwarted any hopes of various “peace processes.”

Of course, this kind of behavior isn’t limited to the Palestinian territories but is spread across the Middle East. The soon-to-be-nuclear theocracy in Iran is grotesque. Iraqis continue to discover innovative ways to extinguish each other. Syria assassinates democratic reformers in Lebanon. ABC News now reports that new teams of al Qaeda and Taliban suicide bombers have been ordered to the United States and Europe from Afghanistan.

Here’s why much of the region is so unhinged — and it’s not because of our policy in Palestine or our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

First, thanks to Western inventions and Chinese manufactured goods, Middle Easterners can now access the non-Muslim world cheaply and vicariously. To millions of Muslims, the planet appears — on the Internet, DVDs, and satellite television — to be growing rich as most of their world stays poor.

Second, the Middle East either will not or cannot make the changes necessary to catch up with what they see in the rest of the world. Tribalism — loyalty only to kin rather than to society at large — impedes merit and thus progress. So does gender apartheid. Who knows how many would-be Margaret Thatchers or Sandra Day O’Connors remain veiled in the kitchen?

Religious fundamentalism translates into rote prayers in madrassas, while those outside the Middle East master science and engineering. Without a transparent capitalist system — antithetical to both sharia and state-run economies — initiative is never rewarded. Corruption is.

Meanwhile, mere discussion in much of the region of what is wrong can mean execution by a militia, government thug, or religious vigilante.

So, Middle Easterners are left with the old frustration of wanting the good life of Western society but lacking either the ability or willingness to change the status quo to get it.

Instead, we get monotonous scapegoating. Blaming America or Israel — “Those sneaky Jews did it!” — has become a regional pastime.

And, after the multifarious failures of Yasser Arafat, the Assads in Syria, Muammar Gaddafi, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Saddam Hussein, and other corrupt autocrats, many have, predictably, retreated to fundamentalist extremism. Almost daily, some fundamentalist claims that the killing of Westerners is justified — because of a cartoon, a Papal paragraph, or, most recently, British knighthood awarded to novelist Salman Rushdie. The terrorism of Osama bin Laden, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Taliban is as much about nihilist rage as it is about blackmailing Western governments to grant concessions.

Meanwhile, millions of others simply flee the mess, immigrating to either Europe or the United States.

These reactions to failure often lead to circumstances that can defy logic.

The poor terrorists of Arafat’s old party, Fatah, seem to shriek that they have been out-terrorized by Hamas and desperately con more Western aid to make up for what has been squandered or stolen.

Muslims flock to Europe to enjoy a level of freedom and opportunity long denied at home. But no sooner have many arrived than they castigate their adopted continent as decadent. The ungracious prefer intolerant sharia — denying to their own the very freedom of choice that was given to them by others.

Our response in America to this perennial Middle East temper tantrum?

In the last 20 years, we’ve sent billions in aid to the Arab world. We’ve saved Muslims from Bosnia to Kuwait. We’ve removed dangerous thugs in Afghanistan and Iraq, fostering democracies in their place. We’ve opened our borders to immigrants from the Middle East. We’ve paid billions of dollars in inflated oil prices. All the while, many in the West have wrongly blamed themselves for the conditions in the Middle East.

It’s past time for Middle Easterners to fix their own self-inflicted mess. In the meantime, the U.S. and its allies should help as we can — but first protect ourselves from them as we must. (C) 2007 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.



TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Israel; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 296; islam; mideast; vdh; victordavishanson

1 posted on 06/21/2007 6:56:04 PM PDT by neverdem
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To: Tolik

Ping


2 posted on 06/21/2007 6:56:42 PM PDT by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: neverdem

Uh, Mr. Hanson you forgot one important word in your essay it seems.

islam


3 posted on 06/21/2007 7:00:01 PM PDT by prairiebreeze (PUT AMERICA AHEAD --- VOTE FOR FRED!!.)
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To: neverdem
Hanson is excellent as usual.
4 posted on 06/21/2007 7:03:29 PM PDT by stripes1776
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To: neverdem

bttt


5 posted on 06/21/2007 7:04:33 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ( “A nation without borders is not a nation.” —Ronald Reagan)
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To: neverdem

Bump for VDH.


6 posted on 06/21/2007 7:13:39 PM PDT by jazusamo (http://warchronicle.com/TheyAreNotKillers/DefendOurMarines.htm)
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To: neverdem
Why do we allow our governement to continue sending our hard-earned tax dollars to muslim countries?
The oil-producing muslims can fund the losers among them indefinitely, all by themselves.
That would make a lot more sense than funding madrassas and creating more and more of them.

Incidentally, I would have shut off all muslim visitors from the Middle East in September of 2001, until they sort themselves out. No matter how long that takes.

7 posted on 06/21/2007 7:21:01 PM PDT by Publius6961 (MSM: Israelis are killed by rockets; Lebanese are killed by Israelis.)
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To: neverdem

It is Islam that drives the ME crazy.


8 posted on 06/21/2007 7:30:34 PM PDT by Biggirl (A biggirl with a big heart for God's animal creation.)
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To: neverdem

I think I was once “removed” for quoting VDH. LOL, he seems to have made a comback on this forum. Perhaps his once “radical” ideas were, now in hindsight, a chilling prophecy.


9 posted on 06/21/2007 7:42:56 PM PDT by freeangel ( (free speech is only good until someone else doesn't like what you say))
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To: neverdem

Communism + islam = unhinged


10 posted on 06/21/2007 7:46:55 PM PDT by gotribe ("Truly, America is my favorite slave." - King Fahd Bin Abdul-Aziz, Jeddeh 1993)
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To: neverdem

Why does the Mideast remain unhinged?

ISLAM


11 posted on 06/21/2007 8:28:06 PM PDT by kalee (The offenses we give, we write in the dust; Those we take, we write in marble. JHuett)
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To: neverdem

Throughout history, any sane state faced with far less than what we are faced with simply wiped their enemies off the face of the earth. We endure this not because our enemies are powerful, but because our leaders are impotent, our culture is cowardly, and our elites are more concerned with being self-righteous than doing the right thing.


12 posted on 06/21/2007 8:43:04 PM PDT by hopespringseternal
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To: neverdem; Lando Lincoln; quidnunc; .cnI redruM; SJackson; dennisw; monkeyshine; Alouette; ...


    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

       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
                Pajamasmedia:
   http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/

13 posted on 06/22/2007 6:56:45 AM PDT by Tolik
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To: freeangel

>>he seems to have made a comback on this forum.

Ummm, I’ve been getting pings to his columns weekly, for years.


14 posted on 06/22/2007 7:00:52 AM PDT by FreedomPoster (Guns themselves are fairly robust; their chief enemies are rust and politicians) (NRA)
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To: neverdem

15 posted on 06/22/2007 8:47:22 AM PDT by Caleb1411 ("These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own." G. K. C)
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To: neverdem

bttt


16 posted on 06/22/2007 8:51:37 AM PDT by metesky ("Brethren, leave us go amongst them." Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton - Ward Bond- The Searchers)
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To: freeangel
Another "prophet" was Ann Coulter, whose reaction to 9/11 was:

"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

Looking back, President Bush should have immediately replaced Colin Powell with Ann Coulter.

17 posted on 06/22/2007 9:05:56 AM PDT by AZLiberty (President Fred -- I like the sound of it.)
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