Culture Clash

I'm with Spencer Ackerman on this. It's really bizarre how, in the context of war, totally normal attributes of human behavior become transformed into into mysterious cultural quirks of the elusive Arab. I recall having read in the past that because Arabs are horrified of shame, it's not a good idea to humiliate an innocent man by breaking down his door at night and handcuffing him in front of his wife and children before hauling him off to jail. Now it seems that Arabs are also so invested in honor that they don't like it when mercenaries kill their relatives.

What a fascinating place Iraq must be! Maybe someday we'll discover that in Arab culture they have this weird thing where people's political allegiances are heavily influenced by issues of ethnic, cultural, and religious identity and that having their destinies controlled by a foreign, religiously alien, occupying army that doesn't speak the language is kind of a drag. Who knows?

Comments

once again, the MSM is scooped by the onion

Posted by upyernoz | May 5, 2008 1:55 PM

“Our system is so different from theirs,” said David Mack, a former U.S. diplomat who has served in American embassies in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates. “An honor settlement has to be both financial and it has to have the right symbolism. We would never accept their way of doing things, and they don’t accept ours.”

Um, we don't insist on both financial and symbolic compensation in our own legal system?

Posted by Stefan | May 5, 2008 1:56 PM

You have been hanging out too much with the liberal crowd. Go to any Rotary club or a neighborhood GOP meeting and you will find authentic Americans worrying about the plight of all Americans irrespective of their ethnicity, color, gender, sexual orientation or any other form of identity. Hell you can just hop over to the NRO building.

Posted by gregor | May 5, 2008 2:00 PM

once again, the MSM is scooped by the onion

Posted by upyernoz | May 5, 2008 2:01 PM

Arabs are weird. I also hear they don't like to be arbitrarily arrested, tortured, stripped naked and forced to masturbate in front of their captors.

Posted by blah | May 5, 2008 2:01 PM

I hear those arabs have a strong cultural aversion to electrodes on their testicles.

Posted by southpaw | May 5, 2008 2:02 PM

If an unaccountable band of politically-connected soldiers-of-fortune shot my mother as she was trying to flee from a traffic circle, and the State Department offered me $5,000 in order to make the incident go away, I would not only be angry, I would be exploring my options for revenge.

Invest in a good deer rifle and practice head-shots at 250+ yards.
.

Posted by Grand Moff Texan | May 5, 2008 2:05 PM

I've heard rumors that Arabs 'eat food' and 'drink water' but I don't have a link.

Posted by An Outhouse | May 5, 2008 2:07 PM

Damn Iraqis. Why can't they just take the blood money and STFU, like any good American would?

Posted by commie atheist | May 5, 2008 2:08 PM

Good old fashioned Monday afternoon snarking. Keeps me alert after lunch when I feel nappish.

Posted by freddiemac | May 5, 2008 2:11 PM

Yeah, how odd -- I mean if Blackwater goons killed my one and only son, but the US offered me chump change for his life, I would be so mollified.

Actually, I am pretty sure that I would, strangely enough, dedicate the remainder of my probably shortened life to seeing how many American assholes I could kill; and I wouldn't necessarily be all that picky about who they were.

It's nice that people in charge from the President on down seem to have such holes in their souls that they don't understand this impulse.

Posted by Sir Charles | May 5, 2008 2:14 PM

Yes, Arabic peoples are just too funny. They simply don't like occupation and all that comes with it.

I guess they just aren't deserving of Freedom.

And then, there are those wacky Americans -- by next May, we won't like what will be happening to us, either.

But, then, we're more Deserving.

Posted by Jemand von Niemand | May 5, 2008 2:17 PM

I sympathize with people that find some aspects of culture in the Middle East so alien as to be incomprehensible. Once you've decided the way someone else lives makes no sense at all (or is just plain wrong) it's a short step to dismissing them as a person deserving respect. Look how we treat Mormon adherents here. Polygamy is strange to most of us so consequently we marginalize, ostracize and sometimes jail practitioners of the lifestyle. They're no less human than the rest of us yet we presume the right to remain free as we take away their freedom.
I think one of the many Arab practices I find especially puzzling and infuriating is punishing female victims of rape. When I see a report portraying this I understand the sentiment of going over there and yanking a few knots in some tails. You feel like saying "Look, you fucking idiots, she was raped! OK!? She goes free and the assholes that did it go to jail. You have it fucking backwards, you pack of misogynistic nutjobs. Knock it the fuck off or sombody is going to come over here and kick a little ass until you do! Got it? Goddamn, you fucking people are insane."
Anyway, doesn't give us that right, but I sure understand the notion.

Posted by steve duncan | May 5, 2008 2:17 PM

The problem is that State thinks itself a more-or-less neutral arbitrator in these shootings, whereas culturally all member of the USG and its merc affiliates are part of same the co-liable group (to use Ginat's phrasing). Basically, many Iraqis are still used to a legal environment in which the co-liable groups negotiate an appropriate set of penalties, usually with the help of a mediator (wasita). Although urbanization has significantly reduced the role of mediation and negotiation in blood disputes, in practice this tends to mean that major issues of honor are settled with violence more frequently than in traditional environments.

Ideally, USG would find outsiders to act as mediators, as 'Ali Sistani has done at times; in such an environment, you'd have representatives from State on one side, the aggrieved family on the other, and the mediator helping craft an appropriate set of apologies and renumeration. Having a flunky hand over some cash is as insulting to an Arab as it would be to an American, with the key difference that the Arabs actually have an established method of dealing with these things.

Posted by tWB | May 5, 2008 2:19 PM

I read somewhere once that Arabs have this millenia old tradition of "defending their country against invading foreign armies." It seems whenever a foreign country attempts to invade, the Arabs actually get extremely angry and resist. Sometimes even with violence!

At times, I think the gulf between our cultures is too great for us to be able to understand each other.

Posted by JH | May 5, 2008 2:20 PM

Do you think that the spokesman being quoted has never seen the legal drama in which the family refuses to accept a large settlement because they are insistent that their be an acknowledgement of wrong doing on the part of the evil company. And by "the legal drama" I mean every legal drama on tv for the last few decades at least once, and often more than once.

It is funny to see an idea which is so common that our tv writers must say, "Can we really get away with using that one again" treated as something foreign to western values.

Posted by Lon | May 5, 2008 2:23 PM

Yeah, American culture venerates financial compensation for relatives instead of vengeance. By the way, AMC has been running Death Wish marathons for the last month or so. Check it out.

Posted by Tim H. | May 5, 2008 2:24 PM

Furthermore, because they are Muslim, and Islam has certain taboos about dogs, many Iraqis have an irrational fear of military-trained German Shepherds charging them and attempting to bite them.

Them people sure are crazy.

Posted by joe | May 5, 2008 2:24 PM

Some of these people have sued Blackwater in federal court. I don't think not understanding American mores is the problem.

Posted by Anon. | May 5, 2008 2:24 PM

Yeah, American culture venerates financial compensation for relatives instead of vengeance. By the way, AMC has been running Death Wish marathons for the last month or so. Check it out.

Posted by Tim H. | May 5, 2008 2:26 PM

I think there's potentially an even uglier aspect to this. As other commenters have noted, "westerners" also wouldn't accept the idea that simply being paid off for the death of a relative was adequate or meaningful. The business about emphasizing honor is accounting for some perceived difference, and given that there's no difference in response what differences is being accounted for? I worry that the presumption is that Arabs have less inherent value than Westerners and as such their family members ought to be satisfied with mere money. Given that the Arabs in question are responding to the deaths of their family members in the same way westerners would even though the dead Arabs had less value, the explaination must be a heightened sense of honor.

I don't know for sure that that's what's going on, but I'm suspicious.

Posted by Galen | May 5, 2008 2:28 PM

Ok, we get it, it's funny to make jokes about the Arabs and how they like to breathe "air." But unless you want to say that every culture experiences honor, shame, etc. in the exact same way, then it's fair to talk about the differences between cultures about these issues.

Posted by Jeff | May 5, 2008 2:30 PM

Don't get too cute here. Marty Peretz would surely tell you that this is the same depraved benighted irrational savagery that makes Palestinians mad when their land is stolen, their houses bulldozed, and their relatives forced to wait at checkpoints for hours for no reason.

Posted by spokeytown | May 5, 2008 2:30 PM

I once heard an Arab person laugh. But pretty sure only because he wanted to kill me.

Posted by asl | May 5, 2008 2:34 PM

1) It's also well known that Arabs have a very short attention span.

For example, in October 2001 Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria reported :

"To say that Al Qaeda is a fringe group may be reassuring, but it is false...The problem is not that Osama bin Laden believes that this is a religious war against America. It's that millions of people across the Islamic world seem to agree...America must now devise a strategy to deal with this form of religious terrorism. As is now widely understood, this will be a long war, with many fronts and battles small and large. "
Ref: "The Politics of Rage: Why Do They Hate Us?"
http://www.fareedzakaria.com/articles/newsweek/101501_why.html

2) Yet TODAY -- in the TPMCafe forum linked to by Matthew earlier, Fareed Zakaria is telling us:

"We have done a great job of scaring the hell out of people, telling them that they are living in frightening times...In fact, the data overwhelmingly shows that we're living in more peaceful times than at any point since the early 1950s, and perhaps in several centuries...
The fear of terrorism and the rise of the "Homeland Security State" has been much remarked upon by now. But even as evidence piles on that the terror groups we huddle in fear of are actually quite small, dysfunctional and unpopular - it doesn't change out basic policies"

Ref: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/05/05/were_living_in_scarily_peacefu/#more

3) The Arabs have also been known to deceive Americans on occasion.

Posted by Don Williams | May 5, 2008 2:35 PM

Jeff--
Yes, cultural differences are very real and very important. But it's critically important that in taking them into consideration we attribute things accurately rather than using them as an excuse. I have no doubt that there are important cultural considerations that apply to dealing with civilan casualties, but the idea that "the arabs won't take blood money because they're obsessed with honor" is counterproductive and offensive.

Posted by Galen | May 5, 2008 2:36 PM

1) It's also well-known that Arabs are lazy and incompetent people incapable of governing themselves.

For example, in his 2001 article "Why Do They hate Us?", Fareed Zakaria noted that the Arabs live under corrupt, dictatorial, heavily-armed kleptocracies and that the common citizens receive little of the oil wealth.

2) This in spite of the best efforts of the US oil companies and the US Government.

3) There's just no helping some people.

Posted by Don Williams | May 5, 2008 2:45 PM

Jeff @ 2:30,

If you read the post, you'll see that we're talking about "totally normal attributes of human behavior." No one's claiming Arabs are all exactly the same, and they're all exactly like Westerners. Really. Go look at the posts.

Posted by Bribes | May 5, 2008 2:47 PM

You know, there's another way to look at this:

When a country goes to war, they have an obligation to understand their enemy. The people who took us to war knew nothing about Iraq, other than oil/saddam/flat/sand/hot!.

If we didn't go into this understanding what our enemies and supposed allies were going to be like once we got there, then someone didn't do their homework. Someone didn't do their job. Someone didn't hire enough Arabic translators who understood the Iraqi culture. Someone didn't plan and someone didn't execute.

When I was in the US Army, during the first nine months of the Iraq war, we actually had troops over there operating signals collection equipment who were...yes...Spanish linguists. In vehicles with vinyl doors. And on and on and on. It's not that they couldn't do the job. It's just that we didn't have the right people in place when we decided to go to war. It sure would have helped if we'd had enough Arabic linguists from day one.

Unfortunately, Uncle Sam decided to go on a witchunt and kick a good number of them out just because they violated an outdated policy.

Your Bush Administration in action, coming soon to a nightmare near you.

Posted by Pale Rider | May 5, 2008 2:57 PM

Hell I don't even understand our Culture. Here's a flashback to remind everyone of our Cultural Superiority. I'm stunned we have survived this long with that atrocity in our background. What is the equivalent of the Hague for cultural war crimes?

Posted by The Grand Panjandrum | May 5, 2008 2:58 PM

Another thing no one asks--

"What if we're the ones who are evil? What if we're the ones who are 'not on God's side?'"

Prepare to join Ward Churchill in oblivion with the Reverend Wright if you suggest that the US has lost its way, and has *actually* started torturing people, and that we're the evil ones...and on and on and on...

Posted by Pale Rider | May 5, 2008 3:02 PM

I'm stunned we have survived this long with that atrocity in our background. What is the equivalent of the Hague for cultural war crimes?

OT & FYI, I actually enjoy looking at women with well-toned legs in gold lamé hot pants. That little "speaker" button on the left is for turning the sound off.

Posted by James Gary | May 5, 2008 3:07 PM

Steve Duncan makes a reasonable point.

Posted by slag | May 5, 2008 3:09 PM

"I recall having read in the past that because Arabs are horrified of shame, it's not a good idea to humiliate an innocent man by breaking down his door at night and handcuffing him in front of his wife and children before hauling him off to jail. "

At least one "My life as a black man under apartheid" book opens with precisely this sort of scene. In that context, it was understood that the American reader would appreciate just why this was unacceptable, and why it motivated the author's subsequent behavior.
Heck, it's not just those strange Arabs and Africans; I've seen the scene in plenty of movies where the evil senator/CEO/mob boss is finally arrested, and he always pleads "OK guys, can we at least do this behind the house so my kids don't see me this way".

Posted by Maynard Handley | May 5, 2008 3:19 PM

You all seem to be forgetting that it's hard work. How many times does the President need to remind you?

It's hard work.

Posted by brent | May 5, 2008 3:20 PM

It sure would have helped if we'd had enough Arabic linguists from day one.

In Vietnam, at least we had people who spoke Annamese when we went in (No snark intended).

Unfortunately, even if we had trained Arabic linguists embedded with our troops, what could they have told the Iraqis? "Mission Accomplished"?

Well, this invasion and tall that's followed has never been about the Iraqis, really; no wonder no one cared enough to be able to communicate with them.

Posted by Jemand von Niemand | May 5, 2008 3:20 PM

Shelby Foote's quote from a Confederate soldier about why non-slaveholding whites fought for secession:
"I'm fighting because you're down here."

Not surprising that the neo-Confederates/Conservatives on the right can't understand the same rationale applied to others of the "wrong" color in the "wrong" countries (which is to say, any country but ours).

Posted by Steady Eddie | May 5, 2008 3:32 PM

Unfortunately, even if we had trained Arabic linguists embedded with our troops, what could they have told the Iraqis?

Retribution killings and insults have been building up for years; had you gone in with linguists, with people trained to observe cultural sensititivities, you could have defused a lot of situations. The point of the post was also focused on Blackwater--what's ironic is that so many former, "highly professional" soldiers join Blackwater and then do all of the wrong things, like shooting innocent people and insulting everyone. Makes you wonder.

The overriding mistake was the invasion itself; no amount of being careful not to offend people once we got there would have prevented the mess we have now. We could have alleviated a lot of problems, however, if they had been somewhat competent by preparing the military for the invasion.

Posted by Pale Rider | May 5, 2008 3:35 PM

Steve Duncan makes a reasonable point.

You're right, he does!

Look how we treat Mormon adherents here. Polygamy is strange to most of us so consequently we marginalize, ostracize and sometimes jail practitioners of the lifestyle. They're no less human than the rest of us yet we presume the right to remain free as we take away their freedom.

Sure, what's the harm in having 14-year-old girls marrying 72-year old Church "Elders"? They would have just been wasting their time down at the mall or texting their girlfriends. This way, they can be used as vessels for the Sacred Sperm, and then replaced with younger models when they get too old to reproduce or too unattractive.

Posted by commie atheist | May 5, 2008 3:55 PM

How much will any lack of punishment meted out to Bush and his numerous henchmen affect future relations with the Middle East? We're talking here about natural, expected human reactions to crimes committed against them. Any of us would want the killer of our son or mother to be punished. Their perpetrator roaming free and prosperous would gnaw at us, causing a sense of justice denied. War crime trials heal rifts between nations, not negating the overarching wrongs but at least exacting some retribution and calling to account of the individuals involved. Bush (and many others) must be held accountable for their crimes before healing can begin.

Posted by steve duncan | May 5, 2008 4:20 PM

--what's ironic is that so many former, "highly professional" soldiers join Blackwater and then do all of the wrong things, like shooting innocent people and insulting everyone. Makes you wonder.

I was told by someone who served early on in Iraq that the contractors started out being professional soldiers and those folk looked at the situation and decided no training in the world was going to help you against an IED and cashiered themselves.

Then they got the sargeant with the tattoo's, then those guys said to hell with it to. Now it's down to psychos and shooters and crazies.

Posted by Ed Marshall | May 5, 2008 7:13 PM

I have heard it said that Arabs don't like being poked in the eye with a sharp pointy stick but I don't stereotype people like that myself.

Posted by tom c | May 5, 2008 8:03 PM

I have heard it said that Arabs don't like being poked in the eye with a sharp pointy stick but I don't stereotype people like that myself.

Posted by tom c | May 5, 2008 8:06 PM

I wrote the following almost 3 years ago as part of a snarky attempt to get College Republicans to enlist or at least put up a link to GoArmy.com. I'm starting to think I'm qualified for a top job at AEI.

"I'm gonna be frank. There aren't enough Iraqi soldiers trained yet to take over the mission. Sure there's 107 "trained battalians" but the fact of the matter is only 3 of those battalians know how to conduct a sweep without getting their butts shot off. Most of them have had about 3 weeks of basic and I gotta tell ya in the marines three weeks of boot camp isn't even long enough to break your will and convince you that you're not half the man you thought you were even if you're a girl!

Iraqi soldiers huddle around in front of a suspect's house in perfect suicide bomber bait formation while a couple of their braver soldiers go inside, hat in hand, and politely ask the lady of the house if her husband is a lean, mean terrorist killing machine. Well they may not have a language barrier like most of our guys but I think you can see what that kind of political correctness is doing for the war effort. Besides most Iraqi soldiers make about $300 a month. You can't get a Mexican immigrant to spit on your foot let alone do any real work for that kind of money around here! No wonder a lot of them run away when the first IED goes off or someone calls their wife and tells her they're going to kidnap and torture their kids if he doesn't quit!!!

No dudes (and I mean no disrespect to the ladies among you but one of the local kids told me "dudes" in youth slang these days is a perfectly acceptable address for both boys and girls, if I was misled I apologize in advance, I'm not sure I should trust his word because he hit me and stole my wallet right after that, probably a Democrat) anyhoo no dudes, we need American soldiers to hunt down insurgents in Iraq. Kicking in doors, rifling through dresser drawers and scaring the bejesus out of Iraqis harboring bad guys is the only way we're going to win the hearts and minds of the other, well meaning, God fearing if not yet Christian, freedom loving Iraqis. And to do that we need you. This is where you dudettes come in (is dudettes a word? If not let me know). Apparently Iraqis have some seriously whacked notions of chivalry or something. They don't like other men touching their women or even going in their bedrooms and looking under their underwear in their drawers for terrorist weapons. Even if they're fully trained and qualified US soldiers! But for some reason it doesn't bother them as much if a female does this. And while I abhor using females in combat it's obvious we need our girls to go over there to sift through underwear drawers from Basra to Kirkuk looking for terrorist weapons. Cuz there's a lot of them. Last I heard something like 250,000 tons of munitions are still lying around like trays of canapes at a fundraiser."

There's a whole series of these diaries at Kos and you can read the rest of this one here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/18/103033/451/91/122976

Posted by markg8 | May 5, 2008 9:53 PM

Where's ol' master Steve Sailer during this discussion. Probably off somewhere putting relaxer on his pubes....

"1) It's also well-known that Arabs are lazy and incompetent people incapable of governing themselves."

Ya know, I canceled my extended basic cable so I didn't feel compelled to listen to CNN or MSNBC.

(cable is soooooooooo expensive. And might I add, thanks to Bush et. al., I need to quit smoking in addition to giving up Comedy Central, Cartoon Network, TCM, need I go on?, in order to put fucking gasoline in my car. And don't you dare get me started on the stoopid mother-frickin' Gas whitlleteeedeedumptyshit "HOLIDAY" (give me a PAID DAY OFF INSTEAD YOU STUPID SOB's). Oh, lest I forget, A Very Merry Gas To Everyone!)

And though my demographic skews to Fox (christain-wise, age-wise, male-wise), I've never felt the "urge". Now, PBS is extraordinary, but the nightly news tends to be a snore. God forbid I should watch "network" news. Katie "where's my high chair" Couric, Brian "Boitano" Williams, and Charlie "chuckles Dewolf" Gibsen are servants of the anti-Christ.

So I tune into the intertubes to catch up on what's happnin in news and o pin yon, and come across the statement above...........

Can't we try just smidge harder, people???????? I mean,..., come on, I ask so little.....

Posted by Rihilism | May 5, 2008 10:26 PM

Well, in western culture beheadings are a little less comommon. Ditto forcing women to wear burkas.

And basic freedoms are a little more common on the Western street than on its Arab equivalent.

Hope I'm not offending anyone.

Posted by DougJ | May 6, 2008 12:38 AM

Ugh. The actual reason why America has less trouble with Muslim newcomers is that while America perhaps accepts lots of Muslim *immigrants* it doesn't accept lots of Muslim *refugees*. Sweden alone has admitted way more Iraqi refugees than the United States and Sweden is ridiculously tiny in comparison to the US. The US mostly picks the best of the lot, the well educated ones, and then congratulates itself on how much better it assimilated migrants.

Try admitting a few million illiterate Muslim refugees who own absolutely nothing and know absolutely nothing except their ancient peasant ways. Let's see just how much self-congratulatory condescension about European "intolerance" causing problems with Muslims we'll see then.

And then there's the whole problem that some European countries are massively neurotic about any level of patriotism or judgmentality about foreign cultures. Some countries are indeed letting Muslim wife-beaters go free, because they pull out the culture excuse and it's just not possible to condemn foreign cultures, as that smells of Naziism. Americans, as patriotic people, are completely unable to comprehend the lack of cultural defenses in countries where mere patriotism has been massively demonized as a form of crypto-Naziism.

Posted by jaakkeli | May 6, 2008 6:49 AM

As the French joke goes, "cet animal est tres dangereux; quand on l'attaque, il se defend."
"This animal is very dangerous. When attacked, it defends itself."

Posted by ajay | May 6, 2008 6:54 AM

The author's sentiment is very reasonable. However, one must admit that there are certain characteristics of the Muslim world that are extremely unique and are likely to trigger a valid disconnect for us, including the tendency for an endless continuation of "blood feuds," which seem not to dissipate, unlike the way it has in most other cultures engaged in horrific 20th century conflicts (e.g., I don't hear a lot about Vietnamese, Japanese, or German suicide bombing). Reconciliation through the passage of time and causational distance seems not to be a factor in Middle Eastern disputes.

Posted by Bandwagon Smasher | May 6, 2008 2:00 PM

The author's sentiment is very reasonable. However, one must admit that there are certain characteristics of the Muslim world that are extremely unique and are likely to trigger a valid disconnect for us, including the tendency for an endless continuation of "blood feuds," which seem not to dissipate, unlike the way it has in most other cultures engaged in horrific 20th century conflicts (e.g., I don't hear a lot about Vietnamese, Japanese, or German suicide bombing). Reconciliation through the passage of time and causational distance seems not to be a factor in Middle Eastern disputes.

Posted by Bandwagon Smasher | May 6, 2008 2:01 PM

The author's sentiment is very reasonable. However, one must admit that there are certain characteristics of the Muslim world that are extremely unique and are likely to trigger a valid disconnect for us, including the tendency for an endless continuation of "blood feuds," which seem not to dissipate, unlike the way it has in most other cultures engaged in horrific 20th century conflicts (e.g., I don't hear a lot about Vietnamese, Japanese, or German suicide bombing). Reconciliation through the passage of time and causational distance seems not to be a factor in Middle Eastern disputes.

Posted by Bandwagon Smasher | May 6, 2008 2:04 PM

Why, yes. Japanese suicide attacks were, after all, completely unheard of.

Look, there's nothing particularly mystical or specifically cultural about the Iraqi resistance compared to the Germans or Japanese. The Germans had experienced six years of continous warfare, reaching a point of total destruction in 1945. The Japanese had been fighting in China for nearly a decade, had their homeland blockaded, and their cities destroyed. A large part of it was that they didn't have the young men who make up the majority of the Iraqi insurgents, because *most of them were dead.* (German men born in 1922 had, I believe, less than a 50% chance of surviving the war, let alone coming out uninjured.) Both countries were relatively ethnically and religiously unified, and had strong, mostly conservative elites willing to act for the occupiers (as they had for the previous regimes.)

As for the claim that the Middle East is somehow unique in its inability to resolve long-running conflicts, the miracle of post-war European reconciliation was built on the back of *centuries* of such conflicts, combined with massive ethnic cleansing during and immediately after the war. The Drang Nach Osten went back to the frigging Teutonic Knights.

Posted by James Palmer | May 6, 2008 3:19 PM

There's also obvious factors of economic and military power at play. Europe was able to forget, to a degree, about the past because it became so incredibly rich after the war - the average standard of living went up an astonishing amount in the 50s and 60s. The memory of defeat and humiliation is much stronger and more painful when you feel that you're *still* defeated and humiliated.

Posted by James Palmer | May 6, 2008 3:24 PM

However, one must admit that there are certain characteristics of the Muslim world that are extremely unique

There is no such thing as "extremely" unique. Something is unique or it isn't.

and are likely to trigger a valid disconnect for us, including the tendency for an endless continuation of "blood feuds," which seem not to dissipate, unlike the way it has in most other cultures engaged in horrific 20th century conflicts

Really? No lengthy blood feuds in Western culture? Never heard of Sicily, Serbia, Northern Ireland, etc.? Never heard of the any feuds between the English and Irish, the French and the Germans, the Russians and the Poles, etc.?

Reconciliation through the passage of time and causational distance seems not to be a factor in Middle Eastern disputes.

For god's sakes, Europe was pretty much continuously at war for two thousand years until the present day. Christian Europeans have been at each other's throats far more than Muslim Arabs have been at each others'.

Posted by Stefan | May 7, 2008 1:42 PM