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

To: Win Smith who wrote (41351)	9/1/2002 12:04:13 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

And the main proponents seem to have a suspicious overlap with people promulgating an "Arab mind" level of subtle and discerning "cultural analysis". It just doesn't fit together, unless you view it as propaganda. Win, would it kill you to ever actually read Patai, instead of just sneering at him? Actually, there is the opposite of overlap -- the hierarchical and bi-polar patterns of the Arab thought don't bode well for democratization, though you can certainly look to Tunisia, Morocco and Bahrain for working patterns of Arab liberalization.

To: Win Smith who wrote (41351)	9/1/2002 12:05:41 PM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 281500

Me: Yes. One of the many things in the ongoing neocon propaganda offensive that drives me nuts is the glib "Democracy in Iraq" line, which would, of course, be nice, but when you try to pin people down on the (rather obvious) difficulties and uncertainties there, it's change the subject time. If they'd just go with LindyBill's "get those bastards", it'd all be a lot more believable. Win, the democracy in Iraq argument strikes me as caught on an almost impossible contradiction. To do so requires, in everyone's estimation, a very lengthy occupation, at best. Not something we generally do as a nation. But, and here is the contradiction, to engage in a long term occupation is to run the very real risk of increasing local hostility and attacks on US troops. I think it's a real dilemma and can't offer any thoughts at to a way through it.