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Friedman actually has a couple of points in this little fantasy letter from Bush the Arab world. But the overall tone of this letter seems out of touch with reality.
Take this:
You say all this is happening because we support Israel. I know we need to do more to bring peace, but I don't think that nurse was shot, or that Bali bomb was made "holy," because we support Israel. I think it has to do with the rise within your midst of a deeply intolerant strain of Islam that is not simply a reaction to Israel, but is a response to your failing states, squandered oil wealth, broken ideologies (Nasserism) and generations of autocracy and illiteracy. Armed and angry, this harsh fundamentalism now seems to totally intimidate Muslim moderates.
You know, some mention of the fact that the US is the largest supporter of the Egypt (country of the failed Nasserism) might be in order here. The simple fact of the matter is that the US bankrolls - either directly or through its energy policies - the wore tyrants in the region. Moderates- people who fight for democracy and human rights - are routinely tortured, imprisoned and killed by the Arab client states of the United States. Repression breeds resistance, and the greater the repression, the harsher the resistance. By funding and propping up places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia despite their oppression of their own people, the United States is paying them to create terrorists.
The terrorists in Bali are a great example. The Southeast Asian strains of Islam have always been tolerant and open - always, that is, into the introduction of wahhabism. That introduction was the direct result of Saudi government money.
To ignore this reality, to pretend that the policies of the United States do not make the job of the moderates more dangerous, is disingenuous and insulting to those brave few who have put their lives on the line. I would expect that kind of myopic vision from Bush himself, but Friedman should know better.
For fifty years, the United Sates of America has stood with the oppressors in the middle east. We have funded them, ignored their depravations against their own people, even installed them occasionally. Our policies have helped to create the rise of the very fundamentalists we find ourselves fighting. If we really want to help those people of good conscience who are as sickened by the fundamentalists as we are, patronizing tracts need to be replaced with calls for an end to the misguided polices that help destroy the voices of democracy and human rights. It is not enough to tell the moderates in the Arab world that they must change their societies. We should, at the very least, stop getting in their way when they try to do so.
Freidman really bugs me (unless I've completely misinterpreted this). It seems to me that he is just looking for a way to vent frustration at Islam without looking too condescending to the Muslim world and even going so far as to hide it behind a letter from the President, who as deplorable as he is, knows just enough to realize that rational thought has no bearing on the actions of terrorists. Why is he pointing out the flawed theories of the radicals? Does he not think they are not aware of the fact that their religion is being hi-jacked? If they don't realize it does he think his logic is going to convince them otherwise?
"He" states, "I just publicly distanced myself from those Christians who smear Islam with a broad brush. "
great- so what? so have moderate/most Muslims tried to distance themselves from radicals. I don't see them advocating that Bush go to war with the intolerant portion of our society as Friedman is suggesting by channeling the Bush.
Though I do agree and wish that the Islamic intelligensia would take a firmer stand against the radicals, I believe they are more scared of the radicals than of US bombs and knowing that no assistance to us goes unpunished is hesitant to speak out.
It's really sad, this lie we perpertrate about wanting to establish Democracy.. Our actions do nothing but undermine any Democratic process that's ever happened in the M.E..
Posted by: ckI don't disagree about the history; I'm just unsure how to dismount from riding the tiger. Not only in terms of how it effects us...but in terms of how it will effect the lives of the people living under the tyrannical governments.
Subsaharan Africa isn't exactly a good post-colonial example.
A.L.
Posted by: Armed Liberal
