Category Archives: Middle East

Updated: The Bow

Barack Obama, Britain, Democracy, EU, Europe, Feminism, Foreign Policy, Gender, Ilana Mercer, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Middle East

Barack bows a little too deeply to the king of Saud, and people go ballistic. (Don’t be nasty; neoconservatives are people too.) I don’t get it, but I’ll try and deconstruct it—as well as explain why I don’t give a tinker’s damn what gestures Barry makes, so long as he keeps his mitts off my wallet and doesn’t destroy my neighborhood (fat chance for both) .

The same people were mum when Bush and King Abdullah skipped through a field of delphinium (that’s what the romantic setting looked like) holding hands and smiling adoringly at one another. Puzzling to me is the inability of some to apply the same rules to all their leaders.

“Their leader“: therein lies the rub. I think people are upset because they identify with Barry; they vest in him all kinds of symbolism; they see in him a representative.

I don’t.

Maybe I’m just a hopeless individualist, but I don’t identify with any politician; I consider them all corrupt and tainted by virtue of having chosen to make a living through the predatory, political, coercive means, rather than on the voluntary market.

Barry doesn’t stand for me, so I don’t care whose keister he kisses. I objected over his “Gangsta Gift” to the queen, not because he disgraced me; he has nothing to do with me, but because, as a traditionalist, I believe in hierarchy and civility. The queen might be a member of the much-maligned landed aristocracy, but she has acquitted herself as a natural aristocrat would—Elizabeth II has lived a life of dedication and duty, and done so with impeccable class. (It was a sad day when she capitulated to the mob and to the cult of the Dodo Diana.)

But I digress.

The other reason I don’t invest The Leader’s every move with such significance is because I consider him to have a limited role de jure. That he has usurped it is another matter. Certainly being polite to other national leaders is a good thing.

In this context, radio host Laura Ingraham baffled me the other day (and on most days) when she too became so exercised over Barry’s civility to the Europeans. This batty bird was furious that her leader’s plan was rejected by the Europeans. I know Ingraham is incoherent on the economic front. But if she disagrees with the stimulus, surely she would not wish to see Europeans stimulating. Isn’t a principle supposed to hold steady across continents? For the life of me, I could not fathom why this broad was mad because Barry was not being tough with the Europeans and they were not prepared to stimulate as obscenely as he was.

Basically, Ingraham had succumbed to the “Our guy vs. their guys” group think. They all do.

And this is what this fury over The Bow is all about: group think. He’s our guy and he should not be appearing weak (read respectful) to their guys. Collectivists have invested in the political process and in Obama a bit of themselves.

Now, neocons hate China, Saudi Arabia and Russia more than they hate, say, Mexico. Given my foreign policy perspective—shared with our founding fathers—I want other nations to keep our overweening leaders in check. I explained how in “Thank You, Nancy Pelosi”:

Those of us who want the U.S. to stay solvent—and out of the affairs of others—recognize that sovereign nation-states that resist, not enable, our imperial impulses, are the best hindrance to hegemonic overreach. Patriots for a sane American foreign policy ought to encourage all America’s friends … to push back and do what is in their national interest, not ours.

Doug Powers, my WND colleague, has his own theory about The Bow. It’s very funny:

“The president was only somewhat stooped over because he was trying to show King Abdullah what was on the iPod he brought over for him as a present. Naturally, it ended up being little embarrassing and somewhat insulting to the Saudis due to Obama’s insistence on “keeping it real” with what was loaded into the King’s gift.” (Be sure to check out the customized iPod tunes Obama made up for Abdullah).

Speaking of the confused Laura Ingraham, a shout out to Patrick O’Hannigan of The American Spectator, for actually bothering to tease apart the difference between my thinking on the economics of “pay equity,” and that of pro-life feminists like the radio host and Sarah Palin. O’Hannigan is referring to “Barack Against the Boys“:

Columnist Ilana Mercer was not at the ceremony, but asked the kind of economically-informed question that rarely percolates up through discussions of pay equity: If women with the same skills as men were getting only 78 cents for every dollar a man earns, wouldn’t men have long-since priced themselves out of the job market? The fact that men haven’t done that might mean that different abilities and experiences are at work, Mercer guessed, “rather than a conspiracy to suppress women.”

Mercer’s glass slipper of a response to equity issues will not fit anyone in the Obama administration, but it still attracts more positive attention than Christina Hoff Summers’ argument that boys rather than girls need help, thanks to a culture that derides men as oafs, and an educational system that considers masculinity the root of intolerance.

Update (April 5): It’s time to despair of the discourse in this country when people get worked up over a man tilting his body toward another, but not about the bankrupting of the US by the man and his predecessor. Yes, columns dealing with the former routinely garner more fury than those addressing the latter.

Anyone who suggests Americans abhor signs of subservience because they are familiar with the Declaration of Independence cannot be serious, and if he is serious, should not be taken seriously. Reading so much into a tilt of the frame exemplifies a flight from reason and reality into empty symbolism–as Rome burns.

As to the notion that two men holding hands is less subservient than a fleeting bow–heavens! Two men rubbing flesh is way worse than a representative of the US showing respect to another with a quick bow. The Japanese are constantly bowing at each other. So what!

‘A’ For Al Jazeera

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Journalism, Media, Middle East, South-Africa, The West, War

I’ve said it before: The Al Jazeera news network practices better journalism than its American cable counterparts. Al Jazeera is as partisan as the local cable cretins, however, it does know news–the art of reporting.

Writes Eric Calderwood, for the Boston Globe:

[I]n a larger sense, Al-Jazeera’s graphic response to CNN-style “bloodless war journalism” is a stinging rebuke to the way we now see and talk about war in the United States. It suggests that bloodless coverage of war is the privilege of a country far from conflict. Al-Jazeera’s brand of news – you could call it “blood journalism” – takes war for what it is: a brutal loss of human life. The images they show put you in visceral contact with the violence of war in a way statistics never could.

For an American, to watch Al-Jazeera’s coverage of Gaza is to realize that you’ve become alienated not just from war, but even from the representation of war as a real thing. As Americans, we’re used to hearing the sound of heavy artillery, machine guns, and bombs in action films and video games. Yet here on the news, they seem strangely out of place. You could argue that Al-Jazeera uses images of civilian violence to foment public outrage against Israel. This might well be true. At the same time, these images acknowledge human suffering and civilian death and stand strongly against them – and in doing so, foment outrage against war itself.

The complete essay is well-worth reading.

Worth watching is Al Jazeera’s “Saving Soweto”, a superb report detailing the heroic work of Christian and Jewish medical men in ministering to the multitudes. What would South Africa do without such people?! (Scroll down to “DESPERATELY SEEKING BOLLYWOOD’S BRANGELINA”)

'A' For Al Jazeera

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Journalism, Media, Middle East, South-Africa, The West, War

I’ve said it before: The Al Jazeera news network practices better journalism than its American cable counterparts. Al Jazeera is as partisan as the local cable cretins, however, it does know news–the art of reporting.

Writes Eric Calderwood, for the Boston Globe:

[I]n a larger sense, Al-Jazeera’s graphic response to CNN-style “bloodless war journalism” is a stinging rebuke to the way we now see and talk about war in the United States. It suggests that bloodless coverage of war is the privilege of a country far from conflict. Al-Jazeera’s brand of news – you could call it “blood journalism” – takes war for what it is: a brutal loss of human life. The images they show put you in visceral contact with the violence of war in a way statistics never could.

For an American, to watch Al-Jazeera’s coverage of Gaza is to realize that you’ve become alienated not just from war, but even from the representation of war as a real thing. As Americans, we’re used to hearing the sound of heavy artillery, machine guns, and bombs in action films and video games. Yet here on the news, they seem strangely out of place. You could argue that Al-Jazeera uses images of civilian violence to foment public outrage against Israel. This might well be true. At the same time, these images acknowledge human suffering and civilian death and stand strongly against them – and in doing so, foment outrage against war itself.

The complete essay is well-worth reading.

Worth watching is Al Jazeera’s “Saving Soweto”, a superb report detailing the heroic work of Christian and Jewish medical men in ministering to the multitudes. What would South Africa do without such people?! (Scroll down to “DESPERATELY SEEKING BOLLYWOOD’S BRANGELINA”)

Update III: Take This, Mr. President, For Ramos And Compean

Bush, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, IMMIGRATION, Iraq, Justice, Law, Middle East, War

The excerpt is from my new WND column, “Take This, Mr. President, For Ramos And Compean“:

“Their names are nowhere on the list of pardons and commutations George W. Bush has issued before saying adieu. They are the brave Border-Patrol agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.” …

“There was no justice, poetic or other, in the convictions of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.”

“Had Ramos and Compean been shooting up Iraqis while defending that occupied country’s borders, Bush would be pinning purple hearts to their lapels.”

“As luck would have it, a brave Baghdadi journalist stood up to the bully. In what will go down as the high-water mark of his career, journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi lobbed a loafer at Bush for invading his country, during the president’s last official trip to that country.”

Iraqis, tens of thousands of whom were killed and millions displaced, have every reason to throw boots, baklava and even bombs at Bush. But they’ve come a long way. Shoe tossing is much better than bomb throwing.

“Speaking of significant progress, the Muslim world responded to the melee in a thoroughly American way. The man—Muntadhar—and the moment became iconic, immortalized on YouTube, and replayed over and over again around the world.”

“Even better: the shoe became a best-selling brand. …”

Read the complete column, “Take This, Mr. President, For Ramos And Compean,” on WND.

Update II (Jan. 2): “withered little cretin” aka George (Bush), according to W. Grigg. That’s about right.

Update III (Jan. 3): “The trial of the Iraqi man who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush earlier this month has been postponed. … A spokesman for Iraq’s Central Criminal Court said the decision to postpone the trial was made following an appeal by Mr Zaidi’s lawyers. A new trial date would be set later, Abdel Sattar Beyraqdar told the AFP news agency. The lesser charge would incur a maximum sentence of two years.”