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Politics : Support the French! Viva Democracy! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (1254)	6/18/2003 11:46:26 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7841

La France? Action affirmative? Non! "Today the official position of the French government remains one of assimilation. The children of immigrants are expected to absorb the language and culture of their new country so that ethnic and national origins will be irrelevant by the second generation. France is so committed to integration that it doesn't even collect information about the different groups within its population. It believes that affirmative action programs such as those in the United States are forms of "positive discrimination" that reinforce invidious distinctions." "Mapping Human History, page 178, Steve Olson, Houghton Mifflin Co., 2002 I would LOVE to hear the liberal take on this.

To: epicure who wrote (1254)	6/19/2003 5:25:34 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7841

Sandra Mackey is an expert on Iraq. And honest. That is a rare combination. Here's an excellent interview she did last year with Brian Lamb: booknotes.org And here's her book info: wwnorton.com amazon.com Publisher's Weekly blurb: A journalist who has long covered the Middle East, Mackey destroys the myth that toppling Saddam Hussein will solve Iraq's problems and America's. She clearly traces the complex and diverse history of the country from its biblical roots to the present day. The most salient feature of the country, she argues strongly, is its fragility: Iraq is a patchwork of peoples (both Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, as well as Kurds) that hangs together by a thread. Without addressing how these peoples can form a national identity, the author claims, a post-Saddam Iraq could be worse than the Balkans. But even though much of the book centers on Iraq's long history, it is the author's account of the past 40 years that is the most instructive. While much of the information about Saddam has been presented elsewhere, Mackey summarizes his career well: his seizure of power, with its emphasis on the country's Arab roots, came after a long time of local chaos, and his rule of terror has kept him in charge but led to wars that impoverished his people. "Like Baghdad at the end of the Gulf War, Iraq itself is a body whose skin is intact but whose bones are broken." Mackey's last chapter is her most chilling. If there is no focus on what will come after Saddam, she says,then Iraq's future the disintegration of the country into separate warring cantons will be a nightmare, both for its people and for the United States. With the Bush administration focusing on Iraq as the next step in its war against terrorism, this book sounds an important cautionary note.

To: epicure who wrote (1254)	6/19/2003 1:36:46 PM
From: Rambi	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 7841

Hi X- I was passing through and, seeing the mention of Sandra Mackey, wanted to put in my recommendation that you check out her book. The Reckoning is excellent; she is very knowledgeable and informed, having lived in the ME for years, and her writing is straightforward. Unlike Con Coughlin's book, which felt somewhat sensationalized in its style to me, she borders on academic. The final chapter was chilling -- especially since it was written before we went to war. It adds great credibility to the rest of her opinions and predictions. YOu know, it was obvious even to me, a person very ignorant about the ME, after reading just a few books on the topic, that the divisions within this country were so absolute, and so filled with enmity, that any illusions about a unified country, or real democracy being a concept they were capable of comprehending, were just that-- illusions on our part. I can't understand how- or why- this could have been ignored. (Or maybe I don't want to know?)