Tom Friedman had an especially fatuous column in Sunday's New York Times, which is saying something given his well-established capacity for smug self-assurance. According to Friedman, the big challenge we face in the Arab and Islamic world is “the Narrative” — his patronizing term for Muslim views about America's supposedly negative role in the region.
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I heard a different take on this subject at a recent conference on U.S. relations with the Islamic world. In addition to hearing a diverse set of views from different Islamic countries, one of the other participants (a prominent English journalist) put it quite simply. “If the United States wants to improve its image in the Islamic world,” he said, “it should stop killing Muslims.”
Phi Beta Iota: The chart is below the fold, or at the Full Story Online
Phi Beta Iota: The sad reality is that the U.S. does not have a “rational” foreign policy, and no means of devising coherent strategies. This leads to such aggregate erros as being best pals with 42 of the 44 dictators on the planet, turning a blind eye to over 15 on-going genocides, being the world's stop arms dealer and promoter of inter-state and civil conflict, and so on. A public “net assessment” of REALITY–of where the USA stands in relation to what its policies, spending, and behavior do in relation to the ten high-level threats to humanity, would be most helpful as a baseline for reasoned dialog and informed decision-making.
Below are a small handful of non-fiction works meriting reflection.
The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America
Review: The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
Review: Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
Review: Devil’s Game–How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (American Empire Project)
Cultures and Globalization: Conflicts and Tensions (The Cultures and Globalization Series) (v. 1)
Review: Legacy of Ashes–The History of the CIA
Denial and Deception: An Insider’s View of the CIA from Iran-Contra to 9/11
Review: Reconciliation–Islam, Democracy, and the West
Review: Who Speaks For Islam?–What a Billion Muslims Really Think
Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror
Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (Hardcover)
Review: Palestine Inside Out–An Everyday Occupation
Why the Rest Hates the West: Understanding the Roots of Global Rage (Paperback)
Review: Wars of Blood and Faith–The Conflicts That Will Shape the 21st Century
The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History (Paperback)
Election 2008 Chapter: Legitimate Grievances
Review: Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude
Review: Marching Toward Hell–America and Islam After Iraq
The Fifty Year Wound: The True Price of America’s Cold War Victory
Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World’s Last Dictators by 2025
War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America’s Most Decorated Soldier
The Eagle’s Shadow: Why America Fascinates And Infuriates The World
The True Cost of Conflict/Seven Recent Wars and Their Effects on Society
Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror
Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent
Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (American Empire Project) (Hardcover)
Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (Hardcover)
Review: War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires
Anthropologists in the Public Sphere: Speaking Out on War, Peace, and American Power
Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II-Updated Through 2003
Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy
Review: While America Sleeps–How Islam, Immigration and Indoctrination Are Destroying America From Within
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
Review: A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
Unspeakable Truths: Facing the Challenges of Truth Commissions (Paperback)
