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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (32198)	6/12/2002 4:06:50 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

As I said, I look for the humor: June 12, 2002 Editors' Links Jim Henson's White House By Sara Rimensnyder In watching John Ashcroft and the White House hopelessly bungle their "dirty bomb" announcement, does anyone else feel like they're getting to watch some sort of Muppets Meet the Twilight Zone? On Monday, Ashcroft played the stiff, hawk-nosed Sam the Eagle when he announced, brow-furrowed, that the Justice Department had "disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive dirty bomb." The day after, Fozzie Bear, disguised as Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, stepped up to the stage to calm the crowd. "I don't think there was actually a plot beyond some fairly loose talk," he said. Nice try, Fozzie: The tomato-throwing claque hurled their fruit anyway. This morning, we've got Dems suspicious that Ashcroft timed his announcement for maximum political gain. (Duh.) We've got British security sources pointing out in the Independent that "no evidence has been produced to show that he had access to the radioactive material needed to build the bomb, or indeed that he had even worked out a time or place to launch the attack." (Double duh.) And we've got many more wondering, just as legitimately, whether due process will be abandoned for the entire course of the indefatigable War on Terror. Dr. Bunsen Honeydou and Beaker are making their own appearances, in the form of experts of dubious quality making all kinds of pronouncements about dirty bombs. Depending on which sources you've read, dirty bombs are either easy to make, with radioactive material freely available in "hundreds of medical and commercial facilities across the country," or it's an onerous task, well beyond the mental capacity of someone like suspected-plotter Jose Padilla. Then, we've had competing stories about how much a damage a dirty bomb could do. A dirty bomb might either kill a few and cause panic, or it might kill thousands and cause panic. (For the record, Wired did publish a decent online piece summarizing the disparate assessments.) For his part, President Bush decided to shelve temporarily his Swedish chef impression, "Vergoofin der flicke stoobin mit der børk-børk yubetcha!", and instead announce a full-scale manhunt for any poor sap who ever gave Padilla the time of day. What we all need in these tumultuous, confusing times is to throw on our Gonzo noses and dance on tapioca. As quoted on his personal Web page, "No parachute? Wow! This is so cool!" Jan, strike up the band! Sara Rimensnyder is a Reason assistant editor.

To: JohnM who wrote (32198)	6/12/2002 5:27:07 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I did not change the subject, I just disagreed with your interpretation of Barak's remarks. The question is not whether Arafat lies. Of course he does. The question is, what political context does he come from, that he succeeds by telling such continuous and implausible lies. Barak's answer is that Arafat operates in a political culture that condones and even requires continual lying in support of one's side, a culture in which there is not the slightest duty to tell the truth to the world. Now, there is no question of whether I "now agree" with whether Barak said this, I always did agree. The question is only of how we interpret the remarks. It is your interpretation that the remarks are an "objectionable judgement about Arab culture" and justify "giving up on Barak's arguments". It is my interpretation that the remarks are, generally speaking, true, with regard to Arab politics in general and Arafat in particular, and helpful to explain Arafat's behavior to an American. That is why I said "truth is not libelous". Not a change of subject at all. I used to the quotes to try to illustrate that Arafat's pattern of lies is substantially different from even the least trustworthy of American politicians. In short, you cannot get from the assertion that Arafat lies, to an observation that something called "Arab culture" has no concept of truth. I am not using Arafat to smear "Arab culture". I am using some knowledge of "Arab culture" to try to explain Arafat's behavior. That knowledge tells me that while Arabs do have a concept of 'truth' (saying they have 'no concept of truth' misinterprets Barak's remarks), they have a much stronger concept of 'face' and 'official truth' which maintains face. As Patai says, Arabs know perfectly well the difference between mundane reality and the ideal, they are just more emotionally invested in the ideal. The necessity of maintaining face and official truth takes Arab politicians to whole new realms of fantastical lying, beyond what Western politicians normally do, who have some cultural duty to tell the truth, even if they usually don't. Of course, if you really believe that Barak's remarks about Arab culture condoning lies are just objectionable, completely false insults, you won't accept this argument. You said A&M made no substantive objections to Barak, just nibbled around the corner. Guess what, that last sentence is a substantive objection. Now you complain it lacks a source. No, it's not a substantive objection. It's a claim about how Barak described his offer afterwards to the Israeli right. It makes no statement about the actual content of the offer. A&M do not dispute the content of Clinton's offer at Taba, nor deny Barak's acceptance of it.

To: JohnM who wrote (32198)	6/12/2002 10:19:20 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi JohnM; Re: "In short, you cannot get from the assertion that Arafat lies, to an observation that something called "Arab culture" has no concept of truth. Hard to even type that." This should be intrinsically obvious. A simple examination of Arabic words in English will lead to this inescapable conclusion. "Algebra", for example, is a technique used by pedants to assign poor grades to hard working athletes. God knows that "alcohol" has been a scourge of our society, and who invented that, along with early chemistry? Everyone knows that accountants are liars almost as famous as lawyers, and what do they use? That's right, "arabic" numbers are in all those Enron documents. The Moslems have contributed "zero" (from arabic "sifr") to mathematics. The real horror is that after mankind expands into space we're going to have to live around stars that were named by these same liars, who wasted their time recording the stars in almanacs: Aldebaran, Algol, Rigel, etc. We need to rename these with some good Anglo Saxon names. -- Carl P.S. And if the earth drifts into another ice age (presumably because of insufficient posts on the subject by Maurice Winn), we'll have the "albedo" to blame. Probably a plot by Saudi Arabia to improve its climate.