America Creates It's Own Enemies

[FluffyMcDeath]

Ex-CIA, Michael Scheuer, talks about the Middle East and how US policies have not made anybody any safer.

But nothing creates consolidated power at home like making enemies abroad. The more foreign enemies there are, the more the American elite can assert their authority at home - for the good of the nation.

This is an oft repeated pattern and part of what Caesar, Crassus and Pompey did to turn the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire and found the dynasty of the all powerful Praetorian guard and the Caesars.

 

[cecilia]

bingo!

 

[robert l. bentham]

forces align against us...

 

[Dammy]

Ah, Russia's CNN. They do have some cool interviews that have a different slant that I take full advantage of from time to time.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Ah, Russia's CNN. They do have some cool interviews that have a different slant that I take full advantage of from time to time.

I like the fact that it labels itself "Russia Today" so you pretty much already have an idea of the kind of news you're going to get - unlike "GE Today" or "Oil Industry Today" or "Israel Today" which seem to come wrapped in disguise (usually God and the Flag).

 

[Glaucus]

Ran across this slightly relevant article today: Oh Snap! Why It's Nearly Impossible to Photograph a Woman Driver in Kabul

The interesting bit is at the bottom:

While some of his photos highlight the great challenges that women still face in Afghanistan, he emphasizes that sometimes the story is less bleak than it looks on the surface. For instance, the image below, of girls in a school without walls, may look depressing. But when he asked the students if their mothers could read and write, only three out of 36 raised their hands. In other words, this generation was about to become dramatically more literate than the one that came before.

Amid interviews with women that included police officers, surgeons, soap opera stars, cleaning ladies, frustrated widows, and hopeful wives, the greatest surprise, Danziger says, was that these women wanted foreign troops to stay. Every single one of them.

“We criticize Afghanistan’s treatment of women, but we don’t listen to Afghan women,” he laments.

I underlined the relevant bit (although that final statement is important too). I know this thread is about a much wider, bigger picture, but it's this sort of thing that drives much of my own biased opinion. Should we care that Afghan men are angry at the West because the West gives freedom to Afghan women? These questions are never easy to answer.