It's Not the Oil, It's the People
One line in particular in the President's speech tonight summed up for me what is wrong with his foreign policy - indeed, with much of his agenda.
While you might be tempted to write this nonsense off as a little rhetorical window dressing, this attitude informs his domestic policies as well. High levels of immigration from Mexico and Central America have you worried? We just need to give them jobs, education, and medical care and they'll be high achieving Americans before we know it - never mind the lack of progress among Mexican-Americans to date. Kids dropping out of school and failing left and right in the ghetto? We just need to fire all those incompetent administrators and privatize their schools, and the magic will happen. Massive U.S. trade deficits got you down? Just need to keep taxes low so people invest in the economy. The same magic works in the MidEast - just kill all those terrorists and overthrow the despots and the magic will happen. There's just this amazing store of talent bound inside each and every person in the world all ready to bust out once we cut loose those oppressive restraints of Islamofascism/corruption/failing schools/high taxes.
We look to the day when the nations of that region recognize that their greatest resource is not the oil in the ground - but the talent and creativity of their people.Well I for one am certainly not looking forward to that burst of creativity once the wells run dry. If suicide hijackings, jihadist training camps and improvised explosive devices are examples middle eastern creativity when oil prices are at record highs I'd hate to see what they come up with when things get desperate.
While you might be tempted to write this nonsense off as a little rhetorical window dressing, this attitude informs his domestic policies as well. High levels of immigration from Mexico and Central America have you worried? We just need to give them jobs, education, and medical care and they'll be high achieving Americans before we know it - never mind the lack of progress among Mexican-Americans to date. Kids dropping out of school and failing left and right in the ghetto? We just need to fire all those incompetent administrators and privatize their schools, and the magic will happen. Massive U.S. trade deficits got you down? Just need to keep taxes low so people invest in the economy. The same magic works in the MidEast - just kill all those terrorists and overthrow the despots and the magic will happen. There's just this amazing store of talent bound inside each and every person in the world all ready to bust out once we cut loose those oppressive restraints of Islamofascism/corruption/failing schools/high taxes.
posted by ziel | 9/11/2006 09:37:00 PM
7 Comments:
You raise some goods points, Mr. Ziel. Although regarding Muslim intelligence, most of the Muslim immigrants to this country up to this point have been professionals, rather than the hyperemotional, uneducated louts that Britain, France or even Canada has been admitting for many years. I don't think a Pakistani dentist is likely to suffer "Sudden Jihadi Syndrome", no matter how many patients he sees that didn't brush their teeth before their visits to his office.
We've all certainly learned alot about Muslims that we didn't know before over the last five years though, haven't we? We know that Muslim men, living in polygamist cultures where the corrupt and well-connected rich get all the women, are required to own a home before marriage, and that since most Muslim men are poor and can't afford a home (as apparently no credit check, no money down, adjustible rate mortgages haven't made it to the Muslim world yet) the young Muslim men are sexually frustrated. And if they're really frustrated, they seem willing to kill themselves and everyone around them in order to punch their ticket to Heaven, where they'll be treated to an eternal orgy (but only if their suicide occurs in the service of Jihad;if they merely go out and hang themselves in the barn, Islam teaches they go straight to hell). Contrast this with the Christian concept of Heaven, where the Gospels teach that "there is no marriage - you will do the work of angels".
Come to think of it, you're right mr. Ziel. Muslims do have a moronic culture.
I don't know that I want to say they have a 'moronic' culture, but it sure seems that positive aspects of Arab culture come from elitist circles, and not the masses.
Nor do I wish to conflate Arab with MidEast, but what we've seen in Pakistan and Afghanistan doesn't seem to refute this either - the elites are one thing, 'the people' another thing altogether.
How can one take anything Bush takes seriously anyway? But, does he think he´s actually going to score points with a line like that anyway? As if Americans give a shit about the people of the ME.
Ok, I'll take another crack at understanding Mr. Ziel's point.
One line in particular in the President's speech tonight summed up for me what is wrong with his foreign policy - indeed, with much of his agenda.
We look to the day when the nations of that region recognize that their greatest resource is not the oil in the ground - but the talent and creativity of their people.
You don't honestly expect the President of the United States to openly acknowledge that some regions of the world, some peoples of the world, tend to have a lower IQ than the U.S. or global mean, do you? He has already pissed off most of the world's population as it is, rightly or wrongly, without further poking them in the eye by questioning their intelligence. Besides, they would say, look who's talking.
My point is that this kind of policy making goes on all the time in this White House. It's not just thinking that Arabs can be like Switzerland, it's also No Child Left Behind, mass immigration, a belief that there's no structural problems in the U.S. economy, just bad tax policy.
So, no, I didn't expect him to talk about cousing marriage and tribal loyalties and depressed IQ's - but he didn't have to say anything about it at all. I don't think he's just bullshitting us with that kind of comment - I think he really believes it.
ziel said:
"I don't think he's just bullshitting us with that kind of comment - I think he really believes it."
Hmmm. I'd hate to think thats really true, but you could be right.
He has enough handlers around him. You would think they would have impressed upon him by now that he should just shut up and let his spokesmen do the media-spinning for him.
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