You're probably all too busy reading the only book that matters to have time for Fareed Zakaria's The Post-American World but I'm participating in his TPM Cafe Book Club this week and would post something there about his first contribution to the forum, but I agree with it too much.
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Zakaria Book Club
05 May 2008 11:31 am
Comments (17)
The only truly erroneous thing that jumps out at me from this is his criticism of the left's version of fearmongering. I.e., he points out the left says the world is less safe as a way to point out the Bush administration's incompetence. It's true, we do this, and you can find examples of this going too far. But there are two problems with this kind of broad brush.
First and quite simply, the idea that we're potentially less safe in particular ways over the last eight years is hardly inconsistent with a long-term, broad increase in safety. That's the criticism; no one is arguing that there have been large, manifest results of reckless policies visited upon the U.S. or its properties (outside of Iraq and Afghanistan).
Second, saying that we are less safe than we should be today is a different and more accurate criticism than saying we are less safe than we were eight years ago. To say that Bush administration policies have interrupted and slowed down our progress toward safety remains, I think, a very valid criticism. The problem, ultimately, is the framing may be scarier than this for the simple reason than "not fulfilling our potential" doesn't exactly capture media attention.
I wonder if it is the nature of being a Superpower that causes nations to behave in such a way as to provoke fear from the rest of the world in the same way apex predators do. And maybe unipolarity is a path to a cessation of global anxieties about American power.
Well, I'd strongly disagree with Zakaria in one extremely important respect.
It's absolutely true that the various countries which he cites---Russia, China, Iran, etc.---are much, much less dangerous and "crazy" that our media portrays them as being. They're mostly peaceful, though sometimes "jostling" a little for national pride or international advantage. He's correct there.
However, there is one extremely powerful nation that's exceptionally dangerous in today's world---whose threat to current world peace and stability is so enormous as to outweigh the current relative peacefulness of all those other nations. Its leaders and the individuals pulling the string behind them are also totally irrational in both their ideology and actions. And Zarakia chose to ignore this particular country, which reduces his argument to near absurdity.
Still, I can easily understand Zakaria's reticence in this regard. After all, he personally lives and holds citizenship in that latter, exceptionally dangerous nation. And, who knows, if he spoke his mind, the leaders might start monitoring all his phone calls or perhaps even eventually ship him off to their gulag.
Fareed Zakaria. Fareed Zakaria.
Wasn't that the stupid little fucker that in 2002 was arguing on "This Week" that the imminent invasion of IRaq "wasn't about the Oil." BECAUSE Saddam would sell the oil.
You would think that someone who was given such a big microphone in the national discourse would realize that the STOCK PRICE of Exxon, Chevron,etc is based directly upon how much oil reserves they CONTROL under ENFORCABLE CONTRACTS.
Exxon, Cheveron,etc don't want to BUY the oil -- they want to CONTROL the oil. So they can control the future price range at which they will buy. You know -- the idea that stock prices are based on projections of future profits???
Of course, I realized at the time that Fareed Zakaria was smart enough to realize all of the above. And that the reason , in my judgment, WHY Fareed Zakaria gets such a big microphone is that he can be depended up to reliably LIE to the American People whenever his rich patrons want him to do so.
But I also judged that there was no reason why I should pay any attention to the deceitful little fucker.
But maybe I'm wrong. Has Fareed found Saddam's nukes yet?
Re RKU
What's this, Mr. RKU isn't claiming that the most dangerous country in the world is a certain small nation in the Middle East. Tsk, tsk.
1) And who can forget that line of bullshit Fareed Zakaria fed the American people in October 2001 -- re why Sept 11 happened:
"The Politics of Rage: Why Do They Hate Us?"
Ref: http://www.fareedzakaria.com/articles/newsweek/101501_why.html
2) Fareed's diagnosis is simple: The Arabs are hopeless fuckups. Incompetent. Corrupt. Miserable failures.
Of course, Fareed carefully avoided discussing how past colonial practices by the British and US government have helped create, support, sustain and protect those dysfunctional kleptocracies that plague the Arab world. e.g., How the "Saudi National Guard" has been trained in the tools of oppression for DECADES by US defense contractors and has been armed by the US government.
3) Similarly, Fareed was VERY careful to NOT address the 3 specific reasons Bin Laden gave in 1998 for Jihad -- other than in the most vague way.
For example, killing 600,000 Iraqi children by bombing Iraqi water plants, blocking import of water purification materials, forcing the IRaqi people to drink polluted water , and then blocking the import of medicines for pandemics of Chlora,etc is described as
"While many in the Arab world do not like Saddam Hussein, they believe that the United States has chosen a particularly inhuman method of fighting him--a method that is starving an entire nation. "
That almost Sounds like S Daniel Abraham's Slimfast diet.
4) Of course, after vaguely alluding to acts of the US Government, Fareed immediately dismissed Arab complaints with "from the point of view of an Arab, American actions are never going to seem entirely fair. Like any country, America has its interests. In my view, America's greatest sins toward the Arab world are sins of omission. We have neglected to press any regime there to open up its society. "
5) The PRIMARY POINT is that Fareed in not, in my opinion, just a traitor to the Islamic World. He's also a traitor to the American people -- because his propaganda was crafted to mislead. To support George W Bush.
And that has not only crippled our efforts to isolate Al Qaeda, it has brought down a train of disasters upon America that could have been avoided.
In his 2006 essay, Matt Taibbi at the Rolling Stone described how Fareed played this nation of morons in 2001:
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"So, why did they hate us after all?
We sure blew off that question nicely. As with everything else in this country, our response to 9/11 was a heroic compendium of idiocy, cowardice, callow flag-waving, weepy sentimentality (coupled with an apparently bottomless capacity for self-pity), sloth, laziness and partisan ignorance. ...
...We did just about everything except honestly ask ourselves what the hell really happened, and why.
That process of self-examination was flawed from the start. We were screwed the moment Fareed Zakaria wrote his infamous "The Politics of Rage: Why Do They Hate Us?" essay for Newsweek a few weeks after the attacks. "
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Ref: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14987.htm
fostert:
To buy Matt's book, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/Heads-Sand-Republicans-Foreign-Democrats/dp/047008622X
While Bob Woodward has his faults, we have to thank ole Bob for letting us know that in Nov 2001 Fareed Kakaria was sucking Paul Wolfowitz's cock ..er.. under cover of darkness:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fareed_Zakaria#Participation_in_Wolfowitz_meeting
SLC,
You know full well that the folks in both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and in Tehran and Damascus, consider us the most idiotically dangerous country in the world. Y'know, like everyone else does.
Second, saying that we are less safe than we should be today is a different and more accurate criticism than saying we are less safe than we were eight years ago.
Well there hasn't been another terrorist attack like 9/11/01. I thought stirring up the hornets nest in Iraq by toppling the dictator Saddam Hussein was supposed to cause a wave of terrorist attacks...
Peter K writes: "Well there hasn't been another terrorist attack like 9/11/01. I thought stirring up the hornets nest in Iraq by toppling the dictator Saddam Hussein was supposed to cause a wave of terrorist attacks..."
maybe they're saving us for later. in the meantime they worked in bali, london, madrid....
Nobody cared about toppling Saddam, that's why. Most of the terrorist groups hated him.
OTOH, killing a million Iraqis for oil to support Israel - that, they will get pissed at.
When the US attacks Iran, and Iran finally sees that the only way to deal with that is to go asymmetric, that's when you're going to see REAL terrorism in the US.
A hundred Iranian agents with some handguns, grenades, AK's and Semtex can bring the US to martial law in a few weeks.
Re Richard's "A hundred Iranian agents with some handguns, grenades, AK's and Semtex can bring the US to martial law in a few weeks."
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Nah. They could never make it past our heavily guarded southern border.
I have it on good authority that the Iranians are working closely with poor Mexicans along the southern border led by a certian 'Subcommandante Rafael' in a effort to commit acts of terror and subvert the anglo-american way of life. They have said the only way to prevent this will be to reverse the decades long policy of the Pentagon of doing the bidding of the zionist pig state to also make Spanish the official language of the United States.
Funny point, Don.
An email acquaintance of mine was asking that very question - how would they get here?
In turn, I pointed him to a recent article on people smuggling across the border. Cops in the southwest busted a ring that had 1,000 safe houses. They were moving up to four groups of 10-16 people a day. They had guides to get them across the border on a conservation area, then drivers to get them to the safe houses (and other drivers to prevent rival groups from forcing them off the road), and drivers to take them to their final destinations.
$2,500 per person - chickenfeed for the Iranians.
With that setup, Iran could get 100 heavily armed agents into the US in a couple days - or even EVERY couple days. As long as the money is there, these people smugglers won't care who they're smuggling - as long as they aren't attacking Mexico.
Reminds me of Carlos in episode two of "Terminator": "Lady, the war on terror makes this the front lines. Some raghead gets fake papers down here, we're all going to Guantanamo. 9/11 doubled prices over night!" Then he had to explain 9/11 to her - which he thought was really weird - because she'd time traveled over it and never heard of it.
'Course, they could also do it the way it was done in Chuck Norris's "Invasion USA" movie: just drive them up in landing crafts on a remote Florida beach, jump into waiting trucks, and drive off in all directions. That was seriously funny - but given how many small boats could land all over the Bahamas, how many would the US actually catch? Not that many.
Not to mention boating around the border from Canada to the US. Great Lakes, anyone? That's how Bruce Willis did it in "The Jackal".
Not to mention the 325,000 Iranians living in the US who could grease the skids.
Comments closed May 19, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Wow! You didn't even provide a link to a place where we can buy you book! You're slipping, Matt.
Posted by fostert | May 5, 2008 11:44 AM