Sunday, December 07, 2008
The indefatigability of Juan Cole: Facing up to George W.Bush, one last time
I won't celebrate so-called change in America until this creep is history. On Friday George W.Bush gave a speech at the 2008 Saban Forum on the subject of American policy in the Middle East. It took place in that most influential of cities in the Middle East, Washington DC. Even now, after all the damage done, lives lost and chaos and carnage wrought by greed and self-interest, and with Bush so close to the exit, this speech is chilling and sickening reading, right down to its idiotic and borderline irrelevant conclusion:
[T]he Middle East in 2008 is a freer, more hopeful, and more promising place than it was in 2001
Sure. The reason that nobody is buying this crap anymore is that real analysts that have background knowledge and can process facts untainted by ridiculous ideologies are continuing to work diligently. For over six years Professor Juan Cole has been as good an example as any of this. While his expertise on the Middle East is hard to match, many of the methods he uses are simple enough, such as reading and translating stories from media sources across the region to show what people living outside Baghdad's Green Zone really think of foreign intervention, or taking statements that Western leaders make and pointing out the inconsistencies that would be so blindingly obvious to anyone familiar with the politics, people and culture over there. Sometimes he can disseminate the truth by carrying out competent and functional activities such as translating a speech accurately, though judging by some of the hysterical reactions he has borne the brunt of, one would think it were a calumny to do so. Now he takes Bush's rotten husk of a speech and tears it to shreds with all the fury and conviction one would have felt years back when our leaders were trying to sell us the invasion and occupation of Iraq, no doubt convinced that even after so much loss, history is still being written and the lies about the victims cannot be allowed to congeal. Bush and (almost) all of his henchmen may be gradually filing out of our collective consciousness, but there is no complacency in his post. It's a stirring example for us all, especially those in academia who would choose a cosier life in the face of so much wrong.
[T]he Middle East in 2008 is a freer, more hopeful, and more promising place than it was in 2001
Sure. The reason that nobody is buying this crap anymore is that real analysts that have background knowledge and can process facts untainted by ridiculous ideologies are continuing to work diligently. For over six years Professor Juan Cole has been as good an example as any of this. While his expertise on the Middle East is hard to match, many of the methods he uses are simple enough, such as reading and translating stories from media sources across the region to show what people living outside Baghdad's Green Zone really think of foreign intervention, or taking statements that Western leaders make and pointing out the inconsistencies that would be so blindingly obvious to anyone familiar with the politics, people and culture over there. Sometimes he can disseminate the truth by carrying out competent and functional activities such as translating a speech accurately, though judging by some of the hysterical reactions he has borne the brunt of, one would think it were a calumny to do so. Now he takes Bush's rotten husk of a speech and tears it to shreds with all the fury and conviction one would have felt years back when our leaders were trying to sell us the invasion and occupation of Iraq, no doubt convinced that even after so much loss, history is still being written and the lies about the victims cannot be allowed to congeal. Bush and (almost) all of his henchmen may be gradually filing out of our collective consciousness, but there is no complacency in his post. It's a stirring example for us all, especially those in academia who would choose a cosier life in the face of so much wrong. .jpg)
