Disappointed
Having rather enjoyed and admired Victor Davis Hanson's book on the Peloponnesian War, I was quite disappointed to read his screed on how the Arabs should be more grateful after all we have done for them. Hanson may be right that politics in the Middle East is broken, but he does not seem to be willing to acknowledge how deeply implicated the West has been in the breaking. And it seems churlish for a Classical scholar to deride the intellectual heritage of the people who preserved the writings of the Greeks.
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it's just easier for some to deal with the issues this way, rather than to acknowledge the u.s. involvement in overturning the few democratically elected leaders in the middle east, or the fact that the u.s. has been funding many of the entities now considered hostile.
Bill, I couldn't agree with you more re your post.
Apropos of nothing, I am writing a brief for the US Institute for Peace on the Moroccan political opposition. I just turned in 100 pages. Anyway, just thought you might be interested.
Maryam,
I am definitely interested. If you would like to share the brief, either in draft or final form, please send me a copy at blogger [at] williamsonday [dot] com. Thanks for mentioning it!
Bill
Hanson is a sad case, I think. He wrote a very interesting book, "Soul of Battle", that became quite influential as well: it turns out Cheney read it and gave it to everyone.
But both Hanson and Cheney seemed to take a reasonably good insight -- that armies of democratic republics can be tremendously effective fighting machines, under the right leadership and circumstances -- and apparently thought it was relevant to current events. There's much that distinguishes the current war from those of Sherman's Army of the Tennessee, Patton's Third Army, or Epamimondas' (sp?) Theban army, most clearly that the objective is not as clear nor (relatedly) the cause as just as in those cases.