Buscaraons
Victor Davis Hanson: Spare me the hosannas
I admire Davis Hanson when he sticks to the classics and discusses the western way of warfare. This article cloys about American exceptionalism:
http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson080202.asp
I'm becoming fed up with articles like this. I live close enough to the Americans to collaborate with them, to visit them, admire their country, to watch their TV programming and so on.
I like the Americans very much but I'm not blind to their faults. My main frustration is their self-indulgence as manifested in their reluctance to learn foreign language. Simply read the various newspaper articles or web links about how the CIA, FBI and the American military simply have a severe shortage of citizens with language skills. I'm sure that the shortage will be rectified... in about 5 years or so
Another is the fetish is that of the American constitution and its political institutions. Davis-Hanson belies Bennett's triumphalist Anglosphere paradigm. It's rather hard for Canadians, Australians New Zelanders, Brits, Indians and other members of the Anglopshere to stomach the nauseating odes to American republicanism. As if the neither Anglopshere's nor the rest of the West's political culture, political instutitions and ideological commitments have any relevance legitimacy or interest. No one has anything to offer America or its citizens because they have the answers.
That's the the bigotry of self-indulgent exceptionalism.
Note: Thatcher displays the same sort of attitude in her book
Statecraft I've read extracts but it's clear that she doesn't evaluate critically the legacy whenever she deals with subject of British constitutionalisn or the political institutions. She even has an entire appendix devoted to Runnymede which led to the
Magna Carta. That document is the British fetish equivalent of the American constituion.
Jacques Barzun's wonderful book
From Dawn to Decadence never fails to delight as it instructs. He speficically reminds his readers that the
Magna Carta was all but forgotten by the English until Sir Edward Coke- lawyer for the parliment just before the English civil war- 'rediscovered' it and with some creative reinterpretations brought about rights undreamed of by the old lords when they forced King Jonn to sign it. (the same bad king in the Robin Hood story)
Perhaps it was fortuitious that Coke remembered it and brought back into English and Anglophone consciousness but Davis Hanson, Thatcher and other Anglopsherists would do well not to gloat too much about Anglo-American exceptionalism. Perhaps that's the main reason why the rest of the west and the of the world has had so much trouble imitating the Anglopshere: its political experiences and constitutional institutions are irrelevant or need to a local adaption dilutes the benefits to irrelevance.
John R Bradely viciously attacks James Taranto and Charles Johnson
Bradley's latest
shriekarticle is a vicious attack on James Taranto of
Best of the web by the Wall St Journal.
At no time has Taranto ever retracted the 'error' of Bradely's authourship of the Lonely Planet guide to Saudi Arabia. Bradely isn't the authour; he contributed a chapter to the book.
Worse still is Bradely's egregiousness in refusing to name publically
Charles Johnson's
blog or that Bradley participated in the Charles'
comment section and
and again but then refused to participate anymore when
Joe Katzman asked him some straightforward
questions.
Evidently, Bradley, either couldn't, or wouldn't, answer the questions. Surely the Editor in chief of a newspaper- whether in paper or on the web- would have a vision, an ideology and a subsequent point of view deriving from both those
a priori assumptions.
This latest article simply exposes that arabnews.com is nothing more than a propaganda site and a virulent one at that. It won't won't persuade Americans to identify with the site's point of view; nor will be able to influence events as Bradely and his superiors had hoped.
Bill Allison's reflection on Qtub's Social Justice in Islam: additionals musings
Prof. Bill Allison of Ideofact has generously answered my e mail questions- even incorporating them in his various analyses of Qtub's book, Social Justice in Islam
I'm satisfied with the answer to my question. Islam does legitimize a populace to disobey its rulers if the latter contravene Islamic percepts orcommit injustices. Reading through Prof.Bill's observation, a recurring question crept up. Qtub dispenses with 1400 years of Islamic thought and history in order to advance his book's theses and I kept asking does Qtub's repudiation of that history represent a latent Platonic strain in Islamic thought? I'm thinking more of the Republic when Plato wanted a tablua rasabut by the time of the Laws he'd mellowed sufficently on the ineveitability of the human condition's 'messiness' and concentrated on ensuring that good laws were legislated. Or did Qtub articulate the nascent tiersmondisme?
In any case, I'm sure that Prof Bill will correct any errors on my part.
Prof Bill's reference to the 1599 Geneva Bible is quite interesting. As I'm not an Anglophone, I'd never heard of it; hence unfamiliar with both it and its marginalia which could've influenced the American constititional founders. My ignorance brings up another musing about Bible versions- which will raise a complementary question on the Qu'ran further below. Although, I'm not an Anglophone, I do know that the King James bible wasn't the first translated translated into English; while I did vaguely hear of Tyndale, I didn't realize that he forged many of the memorable turns of phrases when translating the Bible into English.
Nonethesless, I've always been at some loss as to why Anglophones- and Protestants in particular, fixate on; indeed, have a fetish towardsthe King James(I'm not disrespectful, I'm using fetishism in its original anthropological definition)
Out of curiosity, I went to Goole to see when the first Catalan bible appeared. According to the result, the first one was published in 1480 by Fr. Bonifaci Ferrer St Vincent Ferrer's brother. That's interesting as both brothers came from Valencia and spoke a Catalan variant called Valencian (valencià en Catalan and it's still quite vigourous). There are some notable grammer, orthographic and pronunciation differences but nothing that prevents a Catalan, from say Vic from understanding a Valencian (for a fictional tour de force of a Catalan sermon by St Vincent Ferrer's:
L'atles furtiu; The real sermons)
This rather prolix digression raises a delicate question about the Qu'ran. Do the non-Arab Moselms understand the Qu'ran? I'm certainly not insulting the believers of being ignorant or stupid about their holy book. Far from it but one of the adminitions is that the Qu'ran really can't (and shouldn't) be translated from Arabic to another language.
The translation simply can't do justice to the beauty and subtlety of the former. I often wonder what the consequences are to the ordinary non-Moselm believer who recites the Qu'ran in the original language. How do they interpret the Qu'ran to resolve a practical moral question? Memorization doesn't necessarily transmit understanding and there might not be doctors of the shar'ia around to assist them.
These questions bring me back to Qtub again. His book is about social justice in Islam but none of the chapters that Prof Bill has analyzed, even bothers with this question of discouraging the Qu'ran's translation The neglect is significant because if Prof Bill's principal argument is that tyranny and not Islam that's the root of the Arab/Moselm backwardness, surely the Qu'ran would constitue the central repository of ideas, advice even a source of moral strength for the populaces to overthrow their tyrants, reestablish social justice and break out of their backwardness.
Raffin: souffle nouvelle ou encore du même?
Cet article du Figaro qui donne en sommaires les grandes axes du programe politique du primier minsitre. Ce qui m'a frappé le plus c'est l'appel de baisser les impôts. Sans doute cette idée se traduira à un autonme législatif chaud. Le Monde poussera des cris au ciel, en conséquence que la abasissement des impôts constituera une marche vers le néo-liberalisme
.
En tout cas, je souhaite le primier ministre le meilleur, car cette session législative autonme risque d'être très mémorable.
Arab economic boycott: exemplar of ecomomic effectiveness.NOT!
Well it turns out that some Israeli
goods still manage to slip into Saudi Arabia despite the boycott. Glad to see Saudi economic efficiency at work. Not!
Sucking up for Mckinney
Arabnews' latest
sucking up article
on McKinney, is particularly vile. If the Saudis think that such articles written by spiteful Americans with fevered biases will win friends and influence events, think again. It's quite clear that McKinney is a shameless shill for interests that are imimical to her country's and has violated her oath to the legislative body that she serves.
Ordinary citizens aren't stupid and in this case, well informed as to what she really stands for and for whom.
Sunday talk show pundits: Arabnews is out to lunch
gem wheezes indigniantly about the American Sunday morning talkshows. Evidently 'Dr. E.A. Richards' doesn't watch the shows. I laughed at the assessment of Bob Schieffer as Sharon's mouthpiece.
More seriously, the good professor ought to more prudent with his phrasing about 'for Palestinians to take revenge against Israelis'. Such phrasing in light of yesterday's bombing of the Hebrew University would be construed as public support of murdering civilans.
An imprudent and impudent means to win friends and persuade public opinion.
Saudis block some 2000 Internet site
The BBC
reports that the Saudis have banned sone 2000 websites. Sites range from the truly pornographic to more innocuous sites like iVilliage.com, a a popular website on women's issues.
Just because Saudi Arabia is more forthright about its censorship, doesn't lessen the authouritarian nature of the regime.
Blocking a site because it carries a history of the bathing suit doesn't strike me as a self-confident regime that trusts the good judgement of its citizens.
While there may be many forces that seek to constrain the Internet, censorship is both pernicious and self-defeating.
John and Antonio: centralism's apologists in Catalunya
I've disagreed with John and Antonio whenever they write about the subject of Catalan and Catalan nationalism arises. Their latest
screed written on July 31
st was particularly offensive and an egregious slur that requires a sharp rebuttal in order to present another perspective.
Ideology
It's exceptionally rich; indeed disingenious for John and Antonio, both supporters of the
Partido Popular (hereafter PP), to remonstrate against the Catalan nationalist' parties as neo-fascists when the PP has much more direct descendence with Franconism and other Fascist factions within Spain. Interestingly, the Socialist party and the Catalan Socialist party (PSC to use the Catalan and Spanish acroymn) are excluded. Unsurprising really as the PSC like the Catalan branch of the PP are fronts for the national parties' centralist ideologies in Catalunya. Birds of a feather....
I'm entirely unpersuaded with their working definition of neo-Fascism. Their claim that the Catlan nationalist parties have no ecomonic policies other than protectionism is refuted on its face. What the hell then is Pujol doing crisscrossing the globe drumming up business and signing agreements with Quebec or the
Cambres de comerç i de Navegació also advancing Catalan commerce and the fact that Catalunya accounts for 40% of Spain's exports? If that's protectionism; that's a strange example of protectionism.
Language
Juan and Antiono's complaint that Gneralitat is neo-Fascist because it forces people to speak Catalan and to learn it in school as well as making it obligatory in the public administration and in the courts. I guess that makes Quebec neo-Fascist too.
That province has a law- Law 101 (
Charte de la langue québécoise in particular) which makes French the official language of the province; the working language of the government and business, establistes the
Office de la langue française and most importantly of all, obliges neo-Quebecois students to go to French school unless one of their parents went to English school in Quebec before Law 101 was enacted.
Sure there were bitter fights, innumerable court cases and controversies but 25 years later no one disputes primacy of French in Quebec anymore. The current attitude is to moderate the government's heavyhanded application of the law towards American students whose parents transferred to the province as well as overcoming by Francophone parents of the government's pigheadness to have their children study English at an earlier age than is currently permitted by law.
John and Antonio's attitude towards language highlights my profound mistrust of the nation-state since its consolidation in the 19th century. The central governments have viewed -and still do- their linguistic minorities as obstacles to a 'more perfect union' at best; as an affront to national unity, at worse. So the solution was to obliterate by any means the language either by outright prohibitions in teaching,publishing and public dissemination as well as a campaign of denigrating the regional language as a patois.
John and Antonio's attitudes further highlight my loathing of the PP and the Socialist parties. The PP is forever waving the
Decret de la Nova planta of 1714 while the Socialists ware always aping the Jacobins. It's striking that both political parties imitate French centralism; yet never seem to learn that it's simply unworkable in Spain.
I bet that John and Antonio approve of French centralism. I don't; in fact, if we apply their working definition, France most certainly is a neo-fascist state. Just look at inordinante attention that the French elite, regardless of ideology, have paid towards the Coriscan issue.
Indeed with repect to language, France is even more insufferable than Catalunya. France has even managed to outlaw all langauges but French so says article 3 of the constitution. We see the practical consequences of this enforcement: the
Cour d'appel in Toulouse upheld a lower court's decision that prohibited from recording their son's name in Catalan in Civil Registry because article 3 of the said constitution makes French the language of France. WTF! What possible threat do those parents' pose to the stability of the V Republic's institutions?
So which is neo-Fascist? The Generalitat for forcing people to learn Catalan in school and speak it or the French Republic for prohibiting what names parents give their children unless these conform to French?
Yet I don't read John and Antonio bitching about the dangers French nationalism at their blog. On the contrary, they wish the PP, even the Socialist party could do the same.
Be skeptical whenever John and Antonio bring up the subject of Catalan and Catalan nationalism. Even if the PP is their preference. they're nothing but apologists for Spanish centralism regardless of which national party is in power.
Syria wants to improve image to draw foreign tourists
Haartez
reports that Syria is undertaking an ad campaign to boost tourism. It seems that since 11 September, tourism has dropped 15%.
Good luck as I don't see Americans flocking over to visit cities like Aleppo or Damascus in the near future.
Arabnews.com editorial on the Congo peace treaty:if only you lived by your words
Arabnews' latest
editorial has inadvertant sage advice that's equally applicable to the Mideast:
South Africa showed the rest of the sub-Saharan Africa that violence and retribution are not the way to heal deep and long-standing wrongs. Only talking and compromise can lay the foundations for peace and prosperity...
Too bad the Arabs won't proffer the same advice to the Palestians to stop the suicide bombings.
Moral numbness watch: Fr Hanna's replacement angers some Orthodox faithful
This latest
translation from MEMRI highlights a bit of moral numbness on the part of some of the Arab Orthodox faithful.
Patriarch Ireinios I's decision to sack Fr Hanna as the Orthodox spokesman in Jerusalem had nothing to do with kowtowing to Israel or other backroom conspiracies.
The decision was to reaffirm Christanity's message of peace, adherence to the culture of life and deploring gratuitious violence. Obviously, the good father forgot these principles and preferred to disobey his pastor. Furthr, the Arab bretheren may be unhappy but the Patriarch isn't concerned about popularity, that's why politicians and singers exist; but rather, with the souls of his flocks. Hence he has to think in a much longer time frame.
I hope that Fr Hanna will repent of his statements and work towards the great glory of God through his penance.
Persuading the undecided with loaded words
If the the Saudis want to sway the undecided against American Mideastern
policy, then journalist might want to refrain with such inflammatory phrases like Crusader states. The Crusades are history and Saladin won't magically reappear to restore your honour. Only the Arabs themselves can right their wrongs so get over the Crusader fetish.
Really what a failure of editorship.
I'm particulary struck at the conflation between Arab interests and Moselm unity. There is no unity precisely because the interest between Moselm states are so divergent. Perhaps in the future the states concerned have reformed, they might then find their common roots and work together accordingly.
La lamentation de femmes arabes
Voici un
article d'une corréspondante arabe qui lamente l'éducation des garçons qui éncourage le machisme, la fausse virtue d'agressivité etc et comment les femmes sont sans influence.
A ouais? Dites-moi Madame que ferez-vous? Nieriez-vous les rélations martiales à votre mari? Metterez-vous votre pied que le gars ne cotoyera que des gamains de son âges? Permetterez-vous de laisser les graçons jouer avec des filles de leur âge?
En somme, quels les réformes concrètes que vous proposer à vos consoeurs et à la société large?
El Supremo condena Conde a 20 año de carcel
Ayer el Tribunal supremo aumentó a Marío Conde los años de prisión de 10 a 20
años La
sentencia(disponible tanto en Word como en PDF)razona porque Conde debe pasar al menos 18 de los años años detrás las barreras.
Es interesante la coincidencia entre la publicación del fallo y los escándalos corporativos que sajean los Estado Unidos. Me pregunto si las autoridades españolas han puesto los ejéctuvios y las juntas comerciales al tanto: que la corrupcion cualquiera su manfesitación se reprimera rigorosamente con decádas en el bote.
Revisando la cronología de Conde, se nota que se anticipaba bastante de los 'trucos' que algunas corporacions norteamericanas utilzaron.
Lo importante es que las reformas tanto del conducto ejectivo dentro una empresa como las responsibilidad de las juntas comerciales a vigilar que hacen los primeros ha empezado y pronto los comercios españoles seran unos de los más honestos si más bien por que al fin y al cabo los tribunales tienen la última palabra.
Propaganda saudí acerca el islote de perejil
El diario electrónico saudí en inglés arabnews.com publicó este
artículo Realmente es pura propaganda que ni siquiera los morroquinos lo creían. Además cita los clichés que el islote pertenece a Marruecos cuando España se retiro del país en 1956. Pues no, precisamente el estatús del islote es muy gris; sin embargo ambos país haste el 11 julio, lo tractaron de español.
La razon de poner los lectores hispanohablantes al tanto es por que Arabnes. se dirge principalmente a los américans que desconozcan por completo la historia del islote así como las relaciones hispano-marroquinas. Entonces, el artículo espera provocar malestar entre EE UU y España para que el segundo da el islote para evitar complicaciones.
No ha pasado y ahora Marruecos y España negociaran sobre el islote y las relaciones bilaterales.
America isn't the sick man of capitalism
America isn't the sick man of
capitalism.
I'm rather bemused at the journalist's vulgar Marxism. Contrary to his wishful thinking, American corporate decandance hasn't suddenly been exposed nor are the reforms just bourgeois window dress to hide the truth from the proles.
In fact, the reforms have been quite swift because they came from the investors and the stock market authourities (i.e. the New York Exchange will ban any company from its stock if its accounting isn't transparent) Even the goverment's actions: the arrest of the Rigas men, the new legislation to have an independent accounting standards agency and the requirement for the executives to swear under oath that the account books are accurate under penalty of a prision sentence are exceptionally sobering sanctions for executives face. Even though most compete hard, they still have a sense of honour and shame.
Further, as the above Spanish language post on teh Spanish supreme court's timely sentence that increases Mario Conde's imprisonment from 10 to 20 years for corporate fraud and other economic crimes highlights that the other capitalist countries won't tolerate such activity either.
So I wouldn't be too sanguine about the Rigas' or Sullivan's- Worldcom's ex-financial officer and the others'- chances of 'getting away with it' The frauds they perpetuated were simply too egregious, too brazen and too dangerous that they'll be made examples
pour décourager les autres.
As for Milken, being a CEO of a company doesn't signify by any means that he trades in securities. He's banned for the rest of life and abides by the sentence.
Arab columnist blasts Palestinans' failure to take advantage of opportunities
This is a courageous
article. Al-'Afif Al-Akhdhar basically lambastes the Palestinean leadership for rejecting the best offer they'll ever get. More importantly, he also criticizes the wider Arab world for it's steadfast refusal to ask uncomfortable and probing questions each time they've failed or were defeated. Part of the problem lies in a culture which prefers to delude itself and blame everyone else rather than have the courage to step back reflect what's wrong and how to prevent the repitation of defeats and failures.
It remains to be seen if all Arabs: elite and ordinary citizen absorb the lessons that the failure of the second intifada has exposed
The Saudi economy and 11 Sept
:
What bothers me about this
analysis is the absence of Saudi Arabia's boycott of American goods and services. Surely that boycott- informal as it is despite official encouragement- must also have an impact. How much, is an important factor to assess more accurately the political consequences of the terrorist attacks.
Second, I'm irritated by the generalities of Saudi industrial base. Specifically what advances in industrialization does the columnist refer to? Which industries? Who mans them; the Saudis, foreign workers? A mixture of the 2?
The columnist does raise a rather telling issue: the country's secrecy and isolation. Even before the corporate scandals in America ever became an issue, globalization does compel a certain openness and transparency in international commerce. The political question is: can Saudi Arabia's businesses adapt to this demand? If not; why not and what impact will the reticence to open have on future investment in the light of the current corporate scandals in the U.S.?
Caye Caulker and American weapons fetish
Earlier today, as I perused Arabnews.com, I came across this
article and this
one by one Cay Caulker. Interestingly, both articles are sequential (ID=17315) and (ID=17316) and were published on the same day (Monday 22 July). Leaving aside that both articles are written in an extremely fevered style, I want to deal with a subject that he raises and that I'm fed up with. Namely the obsessive Arab fixation on American weapons that Israel has
I decided to scrutinize Saudi Arabia's war material as to what the country has and the equipment's country of origins.
An article in the April 2002 issue of Raids: Le point sur l'Arabie Saoudite: un acteur militaire de poids dépendant de Washington by Jean-Louis Prome(or Prôme; French typographical rules permit the dispensation of the accents when a word is capitalized) is a useful starting point (no website but you can contact the publisher Histoire & collections: raids@histcoll.com to purchase a back issue)
Please note that I won't be exhaustive and I'll concentrate on the big 'hardware' The compilation come from Prome's article
Tanks and armour vehicles (Saudi Arabia)
• 160 AMX-30 tanks (France of which 130 have been retired from service and are stockpiled)
• 175 M1A2 tanks (U.S. of which a 140 are unavailable)
• 380 M60A3 (U.S. and of which 70 are stockpiled and some were the M60A1 upgraded to A3 in the 90s)
• 30 M88A1; 175 M-998 trucks; 224 heavy tactical trucks; 29 tank transporters and 268 5 t trucks (all U.S. and part of the M1A2 contract)
• 400 M2A2 Bradely (U.S. order in '91; delivered in '97)
• 150 M557A1 (U.S.)
• 570 AMX-10P (France)
• 235 (out of 330 delivered) AML-60/90/245 (French)
• 1750 M-113 (U.S.; the breakdown is as follows:850 M113-A1/A2; 250 M106A1/m125 morter carriers; 50 M548 caro transporters; 43 M 548 repair vehicles and 17 M-88A1
• 30 EE 11 Urutus (Brazil)
• 110 UR-416 (Germany)
• 36 Fushia chemical detection vehicles(Germany)
• 120 BMR 600 (Spain)
• 150 Panhard M3/VTT (France out of 290 initially delivered)
Air force (Saudi Arabia)
• 159 F 15 ( U.S. out of the 170 delivered67 F15C, 20 F15D, 72 F15S)
• 107 Tornado (British/Italian/German)
• 14 F-5B/F/RF (U.S. of which 87 have been retired from service)
• 8 Boeing KE3A refuelling tanker
• 8 KC 130 refuelling tanker
Navy
Red sea fleet
• 15 SA656F Dauphin helicopter (France out of 20 delivered)
• 4 frigates of the Madina class (French origin)
• 2 supply ships (French Durand class)
• 3 frigates (France derivative of the La Fayette class)
Gulf fleet (East)
• 14 Harpoon missile boats (U.S. 4 stationed at Al-Jubail; the other 9 are at Al Siddiq)
• 3 fast corvettes Damman class (German Jaguar class)
• 3 minesweepers (British Snowdon class)
• 4 anti-mining boats (obsolete ex-American MSC322 Bluebird class)
From a strictly material point of view, Saudi Arabia has much greater diversity and would be less vulnerable to any hypothetical American embargo than Israel. Nevertheless, it's quite obvious that the Americans do sell identical or very similar military equipment to both Saudi Arabia and Israel. Of course, the above list doesn't take into account that Israel either manufactures much of its military equipment or modifies them to its soldiers' requirements (like the remanufactured T55 as both an engineer and urban assault personnel transporter)
In the future, It'll be much harder for Arab journalists to complain of American largesse in weaponry when the Saudis and other Mideastern countries receive similar or identical equipment.
The importance of speaking English or vulgar Anglospherism
I agreed with Babint Vazsonyi's
article that
neo-Americans need to know English until I read this:
The purpose [of fighting Brown County's declaration of English as the government's official language] is to do away with the powerful concepts that English, and English alone, transmits across generations, across the globe. No other language, certainly not Spanish -- the primary weapon in this battle--can imbue a person with a sense of fairness, because no other language
has that word. It's impossible to translate legal concepts such as "reasonable doubt," or "unreasonable searches and seizures," because it never occurred to possessors of power in the countries from which we immigrants come to behave reasonably.
The citation articulates a crass attitude that provokes genuine anti-American hatred within me.
Notably those Americans who are bilingual or polyglot are a threat to the American republic and
its way of life. The country, quite frankly, has a deep-seated tension that it hasn't yet overcome
and has alternated between treating its polyglot citizens, as either burdens at best or infiltrators of
feared, external influences at worst; instead of the treasures that they are.
The last thing that America need is a vulgar Anglospherist who smears allies and future supporters
about how their languages are supremely unsuitable instruments to convey the wonders of
freedom, human dignity and the
Rechtsstaat English isn't the language of angels but of
men and thus suffers from similar limitations as all other languages. It's highly ironic that English
cannot translate such essential legal concepts like
honor intimo y de de la familia nor or
éxecution en nature.
Further, Vazsonyi gravely slurs his fellow citizens like
Emmanuelle and
Pejman. For each
time that Emmanuelle blogs in French or Pejman links a Farsi resource, they each undertake
sedition to undermine the Americans' English language mental world and institutions. This is
magical realism not a serious analysis.
America is rather unprepared and highly inexperienced with respect to language policy. It has
much to learn from other and it would do well not to repeat their mistakes. The most common is
adopt coercive measures that invariably enlarge the state's intrusion in areas best left to informal
persuasion as well as stoking the latent Know Nothingism in American society.
Finally, in the aftermath of 11 September, Americans have learnt to their sorrow the dangers of
neglecting polyglotism. What good is to rely on the traditions of the Anglophones if you're dead
from a terrorist attack ?
Saudi tourists look for new vacation destinations
Will someone please tell arabnews.com to quit with the litany of
harassment. In the U.S., everyone is equal before the law. So everyone gets equally inefficient and annoying scrutiny by American airport security personnel. Arabs aren't being singled out with particular vigour so get over it.
I want the journalist to provide specific examples of official harassment of Arabs at American airports. Generalities are unpersuasive
If the Saudis want to boycott American goods and services; that's their choice but please don't insult our intelligence by claiming it's because the Americans pamper Israel.
The Bradley file
Out of curiosity to John R. Bradley's
comment at Charles Johnson's
blog I investigated his claim that a new edition of the Lonely Planet's guide to Saudi Arabia will be available in January.
I visited the
Canadian ,
American and the
British branches of Amazon. I looked in the new and forthcoming books and found nothing. Then I went to the British website and tried the travel and holidays link then started a general search within that section. I found this
title but it's not him. I then took a look at the specific Lonely Planet guide links and still found nothing. I also visited the
Lonely Planet web site but it didn't have a new and forthcoming section. Using the search engine at the web site did turn up some information but the books were about other countries.
This isn't to say the book isn't forthcoming-it's somewhat early- but it's somewhat frustrating. In any case we'll have just have to wait a few more months and try again.
Chirac and Blair give Bush their support for Iraqi invasion
I came across this article from the
Sunday Avui ( PDF100 kb)
Unfortunately, I can find no corroboration at
Le Monde or at
Le Figaro. I checked out the
Washington Post or the
Washington Times
In any case, what significant is that Chirac also gave his support to Bush. Well that oughta confuse the Anglospherists. My guess is that Chirac, unconstrained by the Socialist party in cohabitation, is demonstrating his pro-American attitudes more openly.
