July 03, 2004

Poor Communication

Nicholas Kristof's op-ed today is nothing that other people haven't said, but seems well worth repeating. Perhaps the most fundamental mis-step of this administration and it's entire Middle East Policy (from Afghanistan to Iraq to Israel/Palestine to Iran) is a complete mis-understanding of the people of the region. This isn't rocket science: they didn't grow up in our culture, hence they have different ideas, values and goals. You can't use policies that work in Iowa to remake Iraq. The fact this needs to be noted continues to boggle my mind. Posted by baltar at July 3, 2004 02:44 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics


Comments

Yeah, this continues to floor me too. Apropos of the last thing I read on Iraq (the latest piece in The New Yorker -- which I think has been doing a superb job of covering Iraq-related news) 2 things stand out: 1) the degree to which the Iraqis are using their new "freedom" to take away the freedoms of other Iraqis (maybe not at Taliban levels yet, but it's getting really ugly), and 2) the complete unwillingness to see how opposition to us there is connected to our Sharon-can-do-whatever-he-pleases policies. That the Blackwater workers who were killed in Fallujah were killed on a street named after Sheikh Yassin says a lot.

Posted by: armand at July 4, 2004 04:52 PM | PERMALINK
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