While checking out the news today, I came across what has to be one of the dumbest articles in the history of news and media; it’s so stupid I thought the guy who wrote it was actually just being sarcastic, but no it turns out he’s seriously deranged as he believes what he wrote.
The article’s title is: “Middle East indebted to Bush“; I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read it; Do I even need to go any further to show how crazy this person is?
In the article he talks of the malignancy of the Middle East, how Arabs’ independence was won for them by Britain & France but they were still incapable of lifting themselves up from the broken ruins of their tribal culture, which he says is the root of Arab failure for which they blame the Jews and Israel instead of of embracing the modern world.
Interesting sickly twisted view of history and Middle Eastern affairs, don’t you think?
But it gets even weirder when he writes the following:
Instead, Bush struck directly at the most rotten core of the Middle East — Iraq, the land of two rivers, choked to death by the vilest of Arab tyrants in recent memory, Saddam Hussein — to give the Arabs an opportunity one more time to make a better future.
[…]
A democratic Iraq is George Bush’s formidable legacy, and the Arabs will be talking about him long after his contemporary critics bite the dust and are forgotten.
Unbelievable…
There is a person on Earth who actually thinks George Bush will leave a legacy behind him, and not any legacy, a formidable one too, in the form of a war that further tore apart a country that was already in ruins, installed a sectarian divide in the country, took thousands of lives from both sides, and did nothing but widen the gaps between people, ruin the image of America in the region, and fuel more hatred.
The only thing George Bush will be remembered for, his only “legacy”, is the fact that he is the worst President of the United States of America to date, something both Arabs and Americans agree on.
You might want to save your ammunition for the big battles, MMM, such as the unfolding unpleasantness directed toward Iran.
The article is from a very small but colorful Canadian newspaper, of the sort that strives for sensationalism, its principal features being the sale of pickup trucks and ads from locals seeking sex. (If one dug through it–God forbid! and wear latex gloves if you do–one might find reports of those crop circles left behind by UFOs as they abducted locals upon whom to experiment and foster odd babies, or charges that the fluoride in the local drinking water is actually part of a long-term government mind-control experiment. (If the last, judging from the newspaper, it failed.)
We should be happy that such a laudatory article about our favorite U.S. President can only find the light of day in a local tabloid. Its unlikely even the columnist believes such nonsense, but his writing will be driven by the requirements of his editor and his need for a paycheck. (The winter home heating bills Up There are impressive.)
Cheers.
It may be that article was silly. But some of your comments during your critique of the article were at least EQUALLY silly!
in the form of a war that further tore apart a country that was already in ruins
Yeah, lost wars tend to do that “ruins” thing. Especially when other wars start before rebuilding from the last one is completed. How is it Bush’s fault that Iraq was already in such a sorry state when the war in 2003 started? I can think of a lot of people you could blame for that: Iran, the UN, George Bush’s father, the entire non-Iraqi Arab middle east which unanimously decided to participate in the first Gulf War, the list goes on. But the current President is not on that list.
And of course, most of the blame for Iraq’s state prior to 2003 goes to Saddam Hussein, whom you didn’t even mention.
installed a sectarian divide in the country
Are you even seriously trying to pass that off as a legitimate statement? If so, it’s insulting to the intelligence of your readership. There is a “sectarian divide” in every country in the middle east, wherever there is more than one sect. Is the “sectarian divide” in Lebanon America’s fault as well? Ask Iraqi Shia or Iraqi Kurds if there was a “sectarian divide” in Iraq, before 2003. How come the only people I ever hear saying there wasn’t Sectarian violence in Iraq before 2003 are Sunni Arabs and western leftists?
took thousands of lives from both sides, and did nothing but widen the gaps between people
I have no idea what this statement means. Do you?
ruin the image of America in the region, and fuel more hatred.
That’s the best one yet. Because, way back in 2001, America was SO well loved in the middle east, right? 😛
Do you even remember what things were like, before 2001? You don’t seem to.
Maybe you should pay more attention to what outside observers have to say. You don’t seem very good at self-analysis. The author of that article was not as far off the mark as you think. By that, I mean his opinions about the Arab middle east are pretty close to the opinions secretly held by the majority of Westerners. Most people will actually admit to holding those opinions, in private. Including, probably, people like Noam Chomsky.
Don’t worry about it, though. Most of the world doesn’t share America’s opinion about itself either. These things happen.
Janissary, you have chosen an interesting name for yourself. I wonder what you intend to communicate with it? A Christian slave soldier to Muslim masters?
I’m hoping that you chose that handle without fully understanding what a janissary was.
The article was published on the Sun, part of the NewsCorp/Rupert Murdoch empire (Fox News etc..). I am not surprised at all since it is at the same level as the rest of his group’s publications/programs.
And one more thing!
In regards to what Westerners *really* think of Arabs, how many times have you hard it said by western conservatives and liberals alike that Arab culture/society is not mature enough for democracy?
Bush was the only one to go against that particular piece of “conventional wisdom”. Remember that, next time you are tempted to delude yourself about what a majority for Westerners think about the Arab world. I don’t know how many Western self-styled “liberals” you know, but I know quite a few. I’ve even got some in my family. You’d probably be appalled at the opinions they feel comfortable voicing in “safe” environments. You’ve probably got people on this blog who leave comments that don’t even remotely resemble their true opinions. Political correctness isn’t only for politicians. People who speak from the heart are pretty rare, and that’s the one thing I’ve always given Bush credit for. Other than that, I think he’s been a mediocre President, at best.
And one more thing!
In regards to what Westerners *really* think of Arabs, how many times have you hard it said by western conservatives and liberals alike that Arab culture/society is not mature enough for democracy?
Bush was the only one to go against that particular piece of “conventional wisdom”. Remember that, next time you are tempted to delude yourself about what a majority for Westerners think about the Arab world. I don’t know how many Western self-styled “liberals” you know, but I know quite a few. I’ve even got some in my family. You’d probably be appalled at the opinions they feel comfortable voicing in “safe” environments. You’ve probably got people on this blog who leave comments that don’t even remotely resemble their true opinions. Political correctness isn’t only for politicians. People who speak from the heart are pretty rare, and that’s the one thing I’ve always given Bush credit for. Other than that, I think he’s been a mediocre President, at best.
I don’t think we need to spend time commenting on the opinions of some random writer in a Canadian village. We don’t need to go that far to find weird analysis after all 🙂
I think we try to put so much of the blame on Mr Bush because it’s a lot easier to point the finger at an individual rather than an enitity or a policy line. Hitler became the icon of Nazism and Bush is an icon of US imperialism, so they both take the whole pack.
By the way, describing “janissary” as “a Christian slave soldier to Muslim masters” is a bit of a twist in my opinion: if all slaves received the best education in the World and grew to become generals and high-ranking officials, then people would have queued to become slaves 🙂
-Imed
Imed,
By the way, describing “janissary” as “a Christian slave soldier to Muslim masters” is a bit of a twist in my opinion: if all slaves received the best education in the World and grew to become generals and high-ranking officials, then people would have queued to become slaves 🙂
I’ve heard that from Muslims before. I doubt it was much comfort to the parents who had their young sons forcibly removed from their homes, never to be seen again. It’s true that in the later periods, the Janissaries became a political force to be reckoned with, and it’s true that a child (or an adult for that matter) can be successfully indoctrinated into just about any mindset and think he got there voluntarily. But at the end of the day, a slave is a slave. And there’s no denying that it was only Christian families who were subject to having their sons forcibly removed from their homes to become Janissaries.
This argument reminds me of American whites who claim African slaves in America were better off than than they were when they were free in Africa, by the way.
In any case, it’s still an odd choice for a nickname, wouldn’t you say? What do you think “janissary” is trying to tell us? 🙂
@Janissary: Well yeah I know it’s a small newspaper in Canada, and that it might not be worth even talking about, but this small newspaper had this bit of news aggregated on the front page of Google News, and well it was so absurd I just had to write about it.
@Craig: Wow, what passion and commitment you’ve put into your comments… I guess that makes two people who believe George Bush is actually leaving some sort of legacy.
I don’t know where to start replying, I’ll just take the main points one by one:
– About the war and Iraq already being in ruins: So just because he wasn’t involved in the previous wars and attacks that left Iraq in the state it was in, that gives him the right to start a war of his own based on a bunch of lies?
– I’m not claiming there weren’t sectarian tensions in Iraq or that they don’t exist in other countries as well, Arab or non-Arab, but at least they weren’t killing and blowing each other up before the war.
– Regarding the sentence you didn’t understand, well maybe it’s because you don’t care that thousands of Americans and Iraqis have died in this war, and for what?
– Regarding America’s image; if you go back and read what I wrote, I said “fuel more hatred”, that means the dislike existed well before that because of America’s unfair foreign policies, but that this war just fueled that dislike and hatred even more, worsening things.
– Regarding what Westerners think of Arabs, well I know a lot more than you think I do, and if it boils down to people thinking that Arab countries are not ready for democracy yet, then I can even tell you that there are some Arab people within the Arab world who think that way too.
What I believe is that democracy is not something that comes on the tip of a gun, rocket or tank; it’s not something that happens overnight; it’s an effort by the people for the people, that will only work when people are free to take their own decisions and make their own mistakes and successes.
@Goldenfish: Well that explains some of the weirdness 😛
@Imed: Yeah, I know, but well as I said in an earlier comment, this article was showing up on the front page of Google News, and its absurdity just intimidated me into writing about it.
Regarding Bush taking blame for the whole US imperialism thingie; well I agree and don’t agree at the same time.
There is a clear US foreign policy line that is behind a lot of these problems and that shouldn’t be just blamed on Bush, for he’s just another player playing the same game.
But Bush went the extra mile, he let himself loose, he added his own disastrous, crazy, incompetent take to it, making things worse then ever; He is totally to blame for all that. (Him, Dick Cheney, advisors, close people in his cabinet …etc)
MMM,
Wow, what passion and commitment you’ve put into your comments… I guess that makes two people who believe George Bush is actually leaving some sort of legacy.
No, the only legacy I think Bush will be leaving is one of trying, and failing. I agree his Administration has been marred by some of the most appalling incompetence I’ve ever seen in a US Presidency, and I’ve been around a while. Jimmy Carter’s administration was worse, but that’s the only one I can think of in my lifetime.
– About the war and Iraq already being in ruins: So just because he wasn’t involved in the previous wars and attacks that left Iraq in the state it was in, that gives him the right to start a war of his own based on a bunch of lies?
Are you claiming that the “WMD” case was the only cause the US had for war with Iraq? Are you forgetting the ceasefire violations from the previous war? Are you forgetting Saddam’s brutal attacks on the Kurds in the North, and the Shia in the south in the aftermath of the Gulf War? Are you forgetting Saddam’s attacks on US military aircraft that were patrolling the no-fly zones, throughout the 1990s? (attacks on the US military were not only ceasefire violations, they were outright acts of war in and of themselves).
Just to be clear, I didn’t support the invasion of Iraq. I supported the mission in Iraq, once we weer there, as best i could until about 2 years ago. For the last 2 years, I’ve been advocating the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, on Iraqi blogs. I’m not in agreement with the US Administration when it comes to Iraq. But claims that the 2003 invasion of Iraq were either illegal or unjustified are nonsense.
– I’m not claiming there weren’t sectarian tensions in Iraq or that they don’t exist in other countries as well, Arab or non-Arab, but at least they weren’t killing and blowing each other up before the war.
They weren’t? Again, I suggest you talk to some Iraqi Shia or some Iraqi Kurds about that.
– Regarding the sentence you didn’t understand, well maybe it’s because you don’t care that thousands of Americans and Iraqis have died in this war, and for what?
On the contrary, I actually DO care. You can always tell the people on Iraqi blogs who don’t care about human suffering. They are the cheerleaders for death and destruction. The worse things get in Iraq, the more cheerful their comments are. It’s as if they feel more vindicated in their opinions or something. And for them, I guess being proven right is all that matters. What surprises me is the number of Arabs who are in that category. I guess if every man woman and child in Iraq ends up dead, it will REALLY show the world what a mistake the US made, right?
Sorry if that last comment was too much, but I don’t know why you made that accusation against me. It seemed uncalled for.
– Regarding America’s image; if you go back and read what I wrote, I said “fuel more hatred”, that means the dislike existed well before that because of America’s unfair foreign policies, but that this war just fueled that dislike and hatred even more, worsening things.
That’s a matter of perspective, isn’t it? How can you quantify “worse”? At least Arabs know, now, that when they hit us we will hit back. Hard. That’s an improvement, as far as I’m concerned, and it’s a message that should have been delivered on October 23rd, 1983. Maybe September 11th, 2001 wouldn’t have happened, if it had been.
As far as hatred, I don’t particularly care how much Arabs hate Americans, as long as they don’t start murdering people over it. It seems to me that the 9/11 attacks, and the way they were celebrated in much of the ME, are about as bad as the hate thing gets. I guess I could be wrong. If I am wrong, and things get worse, then Arabs will learn that the capacity to hate is not unique to Arabs, won’t they? Sometimes it seems to me that the world has forgotten that the US is not the aggressor, here.
– Regarding what Westerners think of Arabs, well I know a lot more than you think I do, and if it boils down to people thinking that Arab countries are not ready for democracy yet, then I can even tell you that there are some Arab people within the Arab world who think that way too.
That became pretty clear when Bush’s democracy policy became the subject of ridicule on 90% of the Arab blogs I read 🙂
What I believe is that democracy is not something that comes on the tip of a gun, rocket or tank;
Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t. There are as many democracies that were installed after wars as there are that were homegrown. But I generally agree with you. Democracy that results from cultural evolution is always superior to other forms of it. Imposed democracies tend to be corrupt and… insincere.
it’s not something that happens overnight;
I disagree with you on that one. That’s EXACTLY how democracies happen. One day people don’t have self-determination, and the next day they do.
that will only work when people are free to take their own decisions and make their own mistakes and successes.
That’s an equation that doesn’t work. Without democracy, people will never be free to make their own political decisions, so they can never form a democracy. Luckily for all of the world’s democracies, democracy does not REALLY need to be created by people who already have the power to exercise their political will 🙂
Long story short, I don’t agree that Arab societies or culture is too immature for democracy. I think it’s simply a matter of Arabs not wanting democracy. Or not wanting it enough. Maybe Arabs are too religious. Or maybe Arabs are too accustomed to tribal systems, as Europeans once were. It’s not a question of maturity, it’s a question of preference and tradition. If Arabs wanted democracy enough, they’d have it. Ready or not.
PS:
But Bush went the extra mile, he let himself loose, he added his own disastrous, crazy, incompetent take to it, making things worse then ever; He is totally to blame for all that.
Bush was the man in the White House on September 11th, 2001. Do you really want to guess what another President would have done? What do you think an eminently *competent* President would have done? Somebody like Ronald Reagan? Would that have been better, or worse, from your perspective? Or do you honestly believe that another President would have done nothing?
@Craig:
– The reasons Bush sold for the war on Iraq were the WMD and Iraq being a danger to the US. Those are both not true.
Don’t get me wrong here, I was no fan of the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein, I have many Iraqi friends and I know how bad it was in Iraq for everyone, and it’s a relief that he and his regime are gone. But at the end of the day regime change is not the US’ job to do, no matter if the results are good or bad.
– I’m not one of those people who wish for more death just to prove their point; I’d definitely choose to be wrong and have even one less life lost.
Maybe my reply on that point was a bit harsh, it’d good to know we both value human life above all.
– Well I think there is a difference between dislike and hatred, a difference between people being totally against radicals who want to attack the west, and people starting to make up excuses for them.
America was under attack on 9/11 and the whole world felt it, including in the Arab world, it is not true that it was celebrated; don’t judge by the few dumbasses your media chose to show you.
But in Iraq, America is the aggressor, and all this talk about democracy, freedom, liberation and whatnot is just a cover-up for that.
– Regarding democracy, well you said it yourself: “Imposed democracies tend to be corrupt and… insincere.” What kind of democracy is that?
– Finally, I think a wiser president would’ve thought twice before the moves he took after 9/11, he’d have analyzed it better and drawn a plan of action that grouped: uprooting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, addressing the source of the problem, building more sincere ties with the Arab world, taking a more balanced position on Middle Eastern issues …etc.
Craig! You droll soul! Welcome back! (And in such profusion.)
Look, we’re all on to the fact that you’re a Parisian intellectual with a superb command of what might charitably be called American colloquial English. In fact, I think MMM has put you on the payroll just to serve as a provocateur, as you French say, to increase his readership. Nothing like the supposed presence of some jingoistic, deeply-stupid American gouting rage and spewing idiocy to turn out the virtual guard. (Don’t believe me? Check MMM’s hitcount box in, say, a week.)
Oh. As to my nom de guerre [trying to get my goat, as we say in the U.S., you impish Gascon, you. 🙂 ]:
The Janissaries (from the Ottoman Turkish: ينيچرى (yeni
MMM, thanks for the reply. I don’t disagree with you as much as I had thought.
Janisarry, the most obvious lie you told was this one:
For almost 500 years they were an elite force, comprising the Sultan’s bodyguard and the first standing army in Europe since the Roman Empire.
Charles Martel (Carl the Hammer), the founder of the Carolingian Dynasty, set up the first standing Army in Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire. He’s famous for that, amongst other things he is famous for. That was in the 8th Century. Before the Turks were even Muslims.
http://last-of-iraqis.blogspot.com/
The rest of your claims seem to be of roughly equal value, but it doesn’t take somebody educated at the Sorbonne to see how you mix fact with fabrication, and I’m certainly not going to disprove all those rambling statements you made, one by one. You know enough about the Janissaries that you probably know that much of what you said is false, so either your deluding yourself about what they actually were, or your trying to fool people who don’t know any better.
Copy pasted the wrong link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Martel
That’s Charlemagne’s grandfather, by the way.