So. I noticed that Powell is speaking to the Syrians about terrorism. Which is sort of like Elliot Ness speaking to Al Capone about mob violence. Still, wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall in that room?
I'd like to think it went something like this:
"Yes, gentlemen, it's good to be here. I just flew in from Baghdad airport. My, but we're busy over there. Before I came, I had to give a little talk to the massive numbers of troops we have there. Just to, you know, keep their spirits up, keep them calm and happy. Noblesse oblige and all that, I'm sure you understand. What with their being so far from home and all, they want to hear encouraging words from their government officials.In other news, I notice a startling headline from the Arab Press in Beirut: Powell Should Knock Arab and Israeli Heads Together. Which, of course, will rankle some Zionists. But they should stop and notice that this isn't coming from a "neutral" American paper, it's from a paper in Beirut.It's kind of convenient, though, because at least they're not too far at all from us here Damascus. It makes it very easy for me to come and visit you, my friends. It was a nice short flight, and I won't be experiencing a lot of jet lag I'm happy to say. It's kind of neat that way. I guess there's more than one benefit to having our armies right next door there in Bagdad, isn't there? Short flights to visit our many friends in this region makes it easier for us to help our friends like the Syrians crack down on terrorists. And, you know, stuff like that.
"So anyway, remember what you said about helping us crack down on terrorism last year? Splendid, splendid. Well, I have a checklist of items I'm concerned with here, maybe we could get started on talking about that."
You know, that war sure inflamed the Arab world and made them more radical than ever, didn't it? Yes indeedy, sure did. I wish we had apologized, put the tanks in reverse, and brought the troops home immediately. Ah well, no use crying over spilt milk I guess...
Heh, I continue to be amused at the folks out there (mostly on the Left) who are surprised and doubtful about the positive benefits upon the attitudes of Arabs from our adventures in Iraq.
They are a pride/shame based culture (like Japan), and smashing the shit out of them is, unfortunately, about the only way to get their attention and modify behaviour. Such a culture has many of its judgements about what constitues strength and weakness flipped backwards from ours. What we see as magnanimity is seen as weakness: which is the error of the Carter through Clinton administrations.
20+ years of spinelessness in the Oval Office convinced them we are weak. They are now starting to realize their error.
David, just to be picky: if you want to continue the Japan "face" analogy I have to say that the Japanese, at least, don't necessarily see magnamity as weakness. I say this from reading quite a bit of history of the Pacific War, much of it from the Japanese POV. In fact, I would say that many Japanese officers made a point of praising American magnamity and compassion, even to the point of criticizing their own leadership. Martin Caidin co-authored several works in cooperation with Japanese authors or soldiers, including the great Saburo Sakai (with Fred Saito).
I recall what one of the leaders of the Japanese group who boarded the Missouri to sign the treaty had to say: he said that when he heard what MacArthur had to say about the surrender (in terms of compasssion, peace, and an Almighty God), he felt hope for his country...
I'm not sure this is how such a culture looks down on magnamity. :)
Follow-up to Casey:
Inasamuch as you have read a lot about the war from the Japanese point of view, it's surprising that you didn't notice that totalitarian cultures always value "compassion" when they are losing. When they are winning, they consider it weak, stupid and cowardly. I have a friend who is a Coptic Christian from Egypt. He says that the Islamic terrorits believe that mercy is weakness and rationality is cowardice. Think about it...
It'd be kewl if it went down that way. There's only one problem with it: everyone, including the despotic regime in Damascus, knows that we have our hands full in Iraq and aren't going to be too venturesome beyond that, at least not until we free up some more troops (from, say, the Balkans) or get some more (from, say, increasing the number of soldiers, and units, under arms - which would take a couple years and isn't part of the current military budgeting & TO&E forecast).
This is also, IMO, one of the reasons why most of the guys we're fighting in Iraq atm, the small bands of holdouts, are mostly foreign (non-Iraqi) and likely, um, encouraged to go there by various governments. They know that as long as our troops are kept busy in Iraq, we won't really be able to do anything more.
Dean, I've seen isolated articles in the Arab press that seem awfully clear-headed and surprising.
And yet, nothing changes in the country of origin. And it repeats lies like the following:
"Powell should have conveyed this message to Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon not only because he was the one who started the current round of Israeli-Palestinian violence, but also because he refuses to coordinate with the Palestinian government to help enable it to control the Palestinian factions and resume peace negotiations."
Sharon didn't start this "current round of violence." Hamas declared that it would never stop trying to murder Israelis. I believe that a case could be made that the violence has never ended.
The Palestinians won't have an actual nation until their govt. can command an actual monopoly on organized violence.
Donald Sensing lays out some parallels to the founding of Israel here.
I have a lot of recent links on the Altalena analogy - which is what David Mercer is referring to - here.
The Clintonian "peace dividend" is now rearing it's head and biting us on the ass. If the military had been left at the 1991 level or so, Muslim countries from Indonesia to Libya would be urinating in their dish-dishs(robes for those of you that attended public school since 1980), right about now.
But no, we had to spend that money on seniors(even wealthy ones) and thousands of boondoggle programs and projects(most of them unconstitutional), instead of funding a defense adequate to the need. Not to mention the misuse of the military by the Clintons (i.e., Bosnia, Haiti, etc..) So the chickens are coming home to roost, and as usual, no one will blame Slick and the Ice Queen, no, this must be something that "dummy" Bush did!
I wonder if Assad made Gen. Powell sit in his waiting room for 45 minutes, like he did the last time Powell visited...