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

To: aladin who wrote (100027)	6/3/2003 3:34:13 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

<I am at a loss to interpret. Are you saying Al Queda are 'noble' savages and Bush has it wrong? Haven't really seen any civilian Al Queda and they don't even teach women to read, let alone make bombs...> I keep bumping up against more Mythology. There are no Noble Savages, and never have been. Natives are less "in touch" with nature than suburban whites are; Natives are not inherently nobler, and most of their societies are rigid heirarchies ruled by despotic old male warriors, where women have no power. There are lots of civilian Al Queda. Anyone who gives them money, support, weapons, ideological support, cover for their activities, etc., this is their civilian base of support. The vast system of madrassahs, thousands of schools, is, to a large part, Al Queda's recruitment arm. All of whom would, of course, deny any connection with Al Queda or terrorism. George Washington said he was fighting a war without quarter, for unconditional total victory, against Others, unassimilable Other tribes, subhuman beasts who, because of their past savagery, merited unlimited violence from the Continental Army. And he thought this policy was noble and moral, and was very satisfied with the gruesome results. The fact that the Natives were engaging in an essentially defensive war, trying to stop the encroachment of a vastly superior culture on their homeland, was totally denied and ignored. Isn't this exactly the way George W Bush thinks and acts against Al Queda? < to relive the French and Indian Wars in the current context seems strange.> The technology, the physical objects and tools used for killing, that has changed. But the people, how they think about themselves and their enemies, how they act toward the civilians on both sides, the religious/cultural justifications, the escalation of small conflicts, that has changed very little. The Demonization of the Other, that is a constant.