Hitch gloats (like a fool)

Peter K. peterk at enteract.com
Thu Nov 15 12:48:42 PST 2001


Seth:
>Brad, I read your website piece on the parallels
between the Christian and
>Islamic reformations and I thought it was
incredibly perceptive. I had
>exactly the same thought when I read Mahmoun
Fandy's book on the politics of
>dissent in Saudi Arabia.
>
>He describes all these underground
ultra-fundamentalist Saudi dissidents and
>analyzes their sermons and political tracts and
they are amazingly similar
>to the weird underground English religious
dissidents from the Civil War
>era -- diggers, ranters, etc. -- all with these
bizarre theological ideas
>and conspiracy theories about the local political
scene.

I'm not an expert on these issues, but in my mind the bright side is Iran which is becoming more "moderate," more modern/ democratic and less fundamentalist. Pakistan, however, is playing the United States for "strategic depth" to be used against India in an upcoming war over Kashmir, which could possibly involve a "nuclear exchange." India is a bright spot too, and it was interesting to see them put up a fight at the WTO meetings along with the French farmers. But back to Pakistanis, they are really upset that the Northern Alliance took Kabul and is advancing everywhere. I wonder how much the U.S./allies will give them to use against India.


>Having said that...
>>Brad:
>> The only thing I would disagree with is (4):
that on balance it seems
>> to me that the situations in Bosnia, in Serbia,
and in the Persian
>> Gulf are considerably better than if the U.S.
had not intervened
>> against Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein.
>.
>...you've seen the UNICEF, WHO reports, etc.
about the apocalyptic rise in
>child and maternal mortality, malnutrition,
water-borne illnesses,
>educational breakdown and social dislocation in
Iraq. As a rare economist
>who gives weight to such indices, how can you say
the situation in the
>Persian Gulf is better now than if the war and
embargo hadn't happened?

One also has to look at East Timor (a relative success in my opinion) and Columbia (imperialist failure) and Rwanda (a never to be forgotten shame).

Peter



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