I’m not sure if I understand it completely. Thank you anyway….

I DO have a CD here of Arab Americans performing Arabic music, and one of the tracks is Danny Thomas singing. For some reason I was surprised. I guess I did not think of him as being so connected to the Arab culture, but he really was, and he had a very beautiful voice for Arabic music.

We had Kan’an Makiya, but we don’t hear from him much anymore – I wonder why? And of course, there was Chalabi, but I think he was done in largely by his own ambition and greed. So, where IS the new Iraqi Uncle Toma – or Uncle Ahmad if you prefer something more stereotypically Arabic-sounding (yes, Toma IS an Arabic name)?

But me? Oh, no! I’d rather come here and be attacked and insulted for free than insult myself every day for lots of money.

My heart is to heavy even to allow tears. I can’t stop what they are doing, so why can’t I just give up and forget about it?

I also think it will work.

You know, this is another instance of the same 21st century American version of the 19th century patronizing, condescending, racist European colonialist white man’s burden mythology that gave rise to such package-a-pound-of-shit-nicely- -and-the-natives-will-think-it-smells-like-roses that gave rise to Al Hurra propaganda channel, that now-failed slick “youth” magazine I forgot the name of, whatsername’s infamous “Happy Contented Muslims in America” P.R. campaign (didn’t change a single mind in the Muslim world about U.S. foreign policy), and all the other efforts to “rebrand” the American Imperial addiction to invasion, conquest, economic exploitation, death, and destruction.

Note to the P.R. mavens and their clients: Brown people in the third world are smarter and more sophisticated than you want to think they are. It is one thing to tell them something reasonably plausible, like “things go better with coke”, that is one thing. But if you put a pound of shit in a pretty box, tie it up with a lovely ribbon, and tell them it is a dozen roses, you will never convince them that it looks pretty, smells good and belongs in a vase on the table. And sooner or later they will throw it right back in your face with a few added pounds of their own shit.

Seriously, how delusional ARE these people? Is it really, really possible that they believe for even a nanosecond that what they are doing makes any sense at all?

Has it occurred to you at all, Leslie, that instead of impugning my honesty, you might look back at the post in which you asked your question and ask yourself objectively what in that post even hints, let alone makes it clear to the reader that you were addressing only “what the Iraqis are doing”, and not the overall level of slaughter (and by extension, the overall violence)?

This is how you posed your question:

You know, I don’t buy the Bushie hype that Iraq will go to hell in a handbasket if we pull out. Because our presence is fueling the violence. But, what if the slaughter does get worse without the US there? I’m not arguing for staying. But the US created this mess. Reparations may not be enough if the slaughter continues.

It is quite believable that when you wrote that you had on your mind not the overall level of violence, but “what the Iraqis are doing”, and that somehow that part of what was on your mind did not get into the written expression. That happens to everyone. Where in that paragraph did you indicate at all, let alone make it clear to the reader that you were not talking about the overall situation, including the U.S. contribution, but only to what the Iraqis are doing?

Perhaps, if you had intended to address only slaughter being committed by Iraqis, and not the overall level of slaughter, you could have made that clear. And perhaps, since you did not even give a hint that this was your intention, you should not impugn a person’s honesty when they were unable to divine your true, if unexpressed, meaning.

And finally, Leslie, I see a lot of implied questions in that paragraph I copied and pasted that appear for all the world to speak to US culpability in and responsibility for the long-term effects to Iraq and Iraqis of Bush’s misbegotten adventure. This “our presence is fueling the violence“, and this “the US created this mess“, and this “Reparations may not be enough if the slaughter continues. helped to inform my understanding of your question.

Now, my hope is that people of good will, who, for the sake of both sides have essentially the same goals, can try a bit harder to understand each other, and not be so quick to impugn the motives of the other.

Sure enough –

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/20/AR2007072002163.html?nav=rss_nation/special

and bless us, I wronged them. They have been cost conscious. They only spent 400K with Rand. Had they used the Lincoln Group it would have been several million.

I realize this WP report says that although they have sand in their sphincters, a shortage of food, no electricity, no work, and we have blown up their house, dispatched several family members to ancestor land, killed their dog, —- with the proper slogan or catchy jingle the Iraqis can be brought around to see things our way.

WaPo fibbeth. This rebranding is for Homeland consumers.

My question wasn’t will the violence get worse if the US withdraws, which you acknowledge above. My question didn’t concern what the US is doing or not doing, but what the Iraqis are doing. There’s ethnic cleansing going on. Turkish troops are massing on the Kurdish/Iraqi border and threatening to invade. There are foreign fighters, mostly from Saudi Arabia, taking advantage of the strife. Some of this is irrespective of the US presence, even though the US in no small part helped create the conditions for it.

I feel you’re being somewhat dishonest in the way you posed this question, perhaps with yourself most of all, and a little used. So, yes, I’m annoyed with you right now.