Dangerous entrenchment
Editing, re-reporting, comment by Carolyn Bennett
“The fact that Washington sees people as terrorists, as jihadists, as radicals, as extremists [and at the same time sees] the most autocratic, the worst of kleptocracies in the world as moderate, as allies, as friends of the United States — is an insult to the American people.”
Responding today to Amy Goodman’s question putting Washington's Middle East “consensus” up against political analyst Marwan Bishara's Middle East “experience,” Bishara said —
“They were caught with their pants down — completely.”
The U.S. government, he said, is “still trying to play catch-up with what’s going on in the Arab world.”
The U.S. government, he said, is “still trying to play catch-up with what’s going on in the Arab world.”
Marwan Bishara’s assessment of unprincipled leadership, a foreign policy steeped in hypocrisy, without even common sense in relations with North Africa and Persia is painful to hear. This is some of what he said on Democracy Now.
U.S. sees Middle East absent “Arab”
“There is something called an Arab.” Marwan Bishara explained. “There is an Arab nation.” Flying seven hours from Morocco to Iraq, a passenger passes through an Arab region that speaks the same language, has the same heritage. This “has been invisible to American media and to American decision makers.”
We have seen the Arab world. We have seen Saudi Arabia. We have seen Bahrain through the lenses of military strategy, oil, prisms of Israel, and certainly terrorism and jihad; but what we have seen over the last six weeks has been completely absent in Washington and media speak.
Uprisings [in North Africa and the Middle East] therefore “caught everyone by surprise.” They were “caught in the headlights [wondering], what is going on. Who are these people—not realizing that in places like Bahrain, places like Yemen, certainly Egypt, Tunisia and so on and so forth [there has been], a pent-up tension building up for years.”
Arabs’ years’ long, risky resistance [pre-Facebook]
“In Saudi Arabia as in the rest of the Arab world we are going to see what has been building up for years.” For the last 30 years in Bahrain, they used to call it attempts to topple the government, attempts to topple the regime.
They were in fact “community organizers — not exactly like Chicago. The risks are far greater in the Arab world. But these are community organizers in Egypt and Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain and other places, trying to live—or trying to root for decent living; but [in Washington] always being called terrorists… or always oppressed under the pretext of terrorism.
Washington’s schizophrenic
“terrorist/ally” policy
“The fact that Washington sees people as terrorists, as jihadists, as radicals, as extremists [and at the same time sees] the most autocratic, the worst of kleptocracies in the world as moderate, as allies, as friends of the United States — is an insult to the American people.”
James Madison said, “A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both.
“Knowledge,” he said, “will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
Sources and notes
Marwan Bishara is Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, host and editor of the program “Empire.” He was previously a professor of International Relations at the American University of Paris. Marwan Bishara writes extensively on global politics and is widely regarded as a leading authority on international affairs and the Middle East, http://blogs.aljazeera.net/imperium
“‘The Genie Is Out of the Bottle’: Assessing a Changing Arab World with Noam Chomsky and Al Jazeera’s Marwan Bishara,” February 17, 2011,
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/17/the_genies_are_out_of_the
“Al Jazeera is a transparent, open forum for Arabs to come and speak,” Marwan Bishara said on Democracy Now, and for the last fifteen years, Al Jazeera has “given Arabs from various parts of the Arab world the capacity to come on air and speak.” Al Jazeera covers Palestine and was the only news organization on the ground in 2008 “during the Israeli bombardment and war and invasion of Gaza.”
Kleptocracies are governments seeking status, personal gain at the expense of the governed
Britannica notes
The Middle East is comprised of lands around the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from Morocco [North Africa] to the Arabian Peninsula and Iran [Southwest Asia, Persia] and sometimes beyond.
The central part of this general area was formerly called the Near East, a name given to it by some of the first modern Western geographers and historians, who tended to divide the Orient into three regions.
· Near East applied to the region nearest Europe, extending from the Mediterranean Sea [North Africa/Southwest Asia] to the Persian Gulf
· Middle East, Southwest Asia from the Persian Gulf to Southeast Asia
· Far East, Asian regions facing the Pacific Ocean
During World War II, the term Middle East was given to the British military command in Egypt. Thus defined, the Middle East consisted of the states or territories of —
Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Palestine (now Israel), Jordan, Egypt, The Sudan, Libya, and the various states of Arabia proper (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Trucial States, or Trucial Oman [now United Arab Emirates].
Subsequent events have tended, in loose usage, to enlarge the number of lands included in the definition (Middle East). The three North African countries of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco are closely connected in sentiment and foreign policy with the Arab states.
In addition, geographic factors often require diplomats (political leaders) and others to take account of Afghanistan and Pakistan in connection with the affairs of the Middle East.
Occasionally Greece is included in the compass of the Middle East because the Middle Eastern (then Near Eastern) question in its modern form first became apparent when the Greeks rose in rebellion (1821) to assert their independence of the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey and Greece, together with the predominantly Arabic-speaking lands around the eastern end of the Mediterranean, were also formerly known as the Levant.
Use of the term Middle East yet remains unsettled. Some agencies — notably the United States Department of State and certain bodies of the United Nations — still employ the term Near East.
Levant
Levant is from the French lever, “to rise,” as in sunrise, meaning the east). Levant historically comprised the countries along the eastern Mediterranean shores.
Common use of the term is associated with Venetian and other trading ventures and the establishment of commerce with cities such as Tyre and Sidon as a result of the Crusades.
Levant was applied to the coastlands of Asia Minor and Syria, sometimes extending from Greece to Egypt. It was also used for Anatolia and as a synonym for the Middle or Near East. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the term High Levant referred to the Far East.
The name Levant States was given to the French mandate of Syria and Lebanon after World War I, and the term is sometimes still used for Syria and Lebanon, who gained independence in 1946.
Middle East. (2011). Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Deluxe Edition. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.
Levant. (2011). Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Deluxe Edition. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.
U.S. politician, “father of the Constitution,” fourth U.S. President James Madison (1809-1817)
James Madison, letter to W.T. Barry, August 4, 1822, The Writings of James Madison, ed. Gaillard Hunt, vol. 9, p. 103 (1910) in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations Requested from the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 1989
Using the older spelling, ‘Governours,’ Madison’s words adorn the main entrance (left) of the Library of Congress James Madison Memorial Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
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