Sunday, October 03, 2004
A movie and a few books
French film makers have a knack of producing low budget movies (just a few characters; no expensive sets, car chases and explosions) that are gems. Patrice Leconte's 2004 film "Intimate Strangers" is one of them. It is still being shown in a few local theaters and should be available in video later this year.
Chalmers Johnson's "Blowback", The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, was timely when it appeared in print in 2000. Mr. Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Institute, narrated the impact of our arrogant, shortsighted foreign policy and its effects. The situation has worsened in the past two years due to Bush's war in Iraq and the apparent lack of interest in taking a proactive role in negotiating a settlement between Israel and Palestine. Incidents of terrorism have gone up exponentially; the resentment toward the United States is no longer confined to the Middle East and followers of Islam.
Quotations from the book.
1) The term "Blowback" which officials of the Central Intelligence Agency first invented for their own internal use, is starting to circulate among students of international relations. It refers to the unintended consequences of policies that were kept secret from the American people. What the daily press reports as the malign acts of "terrorists" or "drug lords" or "rogue states" or "illegal arms merchants" often turn out to be blowback from earlier American operations.
2) We Americans deeply believe that our role in the world is virtuous -- that our actions are almost invariably for the good of others as well as ourselves. Even when our country's actions have led to disaster, we assume that the motives behind them were honorable. But the evidence is building up that in the decade following the end of the Cold War, the United States largely abandoned a reliance on diplomacy, economic aid, international law, and multilateral institutions in carrying out its foreign policies and resorted much of the time to bluster, military force, and financial manipulations.
Two books about the Arab world, written long before the current conflicts, are worthy of attention. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence, and The Letters of Gertrude Bell. T.E. Lawrence's book was published in 1926 and the Letters of Gertrude Bell in 1927.
Extraordinary books by extraordinary individuals. Both of them were actively involved in Britain's empire building and consolidation of power in Arabia. Col. Lawrence fought against the Turks with the rag tag army of Emir Feisal (or Faisal) who was throned as king after the war, and resigned from the British Army, disenchanted by the duplicity of his government and its betrayal of the Arab cause.
Gertrude Bell was a trailblazer. Not a feminist, she ventured into areas that were then open only to men. She traveled around the world----twice, 1897/99 and 1902/03, and climbed mountains. Like T.E. Lawrence she, too, worked for the British Government and served variously as a diplomat, archaeologist, spy, and became Oriental Secretary in Baghdad where she lived from 1917 until her death in 1926. Some (including T.E. Lawrence) criticized Gertrude Bell for her conceit and lack of conviction. She championed the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq and King Faisal, largely a creation of the British. Iraq was a puppet state. After her death, King Faisal named one of the principal rooms in Baghdad Museum as "Gertrude Bell Room". The collection of letters, mostly to her family in England, are fascinating.
"Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons."
--Bertrand Russell
Chalmers Johnson's "Blowback", The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, was timely when it appeared in print in 2000. Mr. Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Institute, narrated the impact of our arrogant, shortsighted foreign policy and its effects. The situation has worsened in the past two years due to Bush's war in Iraq and the apparent lack of interest in taking a proactive role in negotiating a settlement between Israel and Palestine. Incidents of terrorism have gone up exponentially; the resentment toward the United States is no longer confined to the Middle East and followers of Islam.
Quotations from the book.
1) The term "Blowback" which officials of the Central Intelligence Agency first invented for their own internal use, is starting to circulate among students of international relations. It refers to the unintended consequences of policies that were kept secret from the American people. What the daily press reports as the malign acts of "terrorists" or "drug lords" or "rogue states" or "illegal arms merchants" often turn out to be blowback from earlier American operations.
2) We Americans deeply believe that our role in the world is virtuous -- that our actions are almost invariably for the good of others as well as ourselves. Even when our country's actions have led to disaster, we assume that the motives behind them were honorable. But the evidence is building up that in the decade following the end of the Cold War, the United States largely abandoned a reliance on diplomacy, economic aid, international law, and multilateral institutions in carrying out its foreign policies and resorted much of the time to bluster, military force, and financial manipulations.
Two books about the Arab world, written long before the current conflicts, are worthy of attention. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence, and The Letters of Gertrude Bell. T.E. Lawrence's book was published in 1926 and the Letters of Gertrude Bell in 1927.
Extraordinary books by extraordinary individuals. Both of them were actively involved in Britain's empire building and consolidation of power in Arabia. Col. Lawrence fought against the Turks with the rag tag army of Emir Feisal (or Faisal) who was throned as king after the war, and resigned from the British Army, disenchanted by the duplicity of his government and its betrayal of the Arab cause.
Gertrude Bell was a trailblazer. Not a feminist, she ventured into areas that were then open only to men. She traveled around the world----twice, 1897/99 and 1902/03, and climbed mountains. Like T.E. Lawrence she, too, worked for the British Government and served variously as a diplomat, archaeologist, spy, and became Oriental Secretary in Baghdad where she lived from 1917 until her death in 1926. Some (including T.E. Lawrence) criticized Gertrude Bell for her conceit and lack of conviction. She championed the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq and King Faisal, largely a creation of the British. Iraq was a puppet state. After her death, King Faisal named one of the principal rooms in Baghdad Museum as "Gertrude Bell Room". The collection of letters, mostly to her family in England, are fascinating.
*
Almost noon. The sun is beginning to show after a cold, overcast morning. Time to go and watch two of my grand daughters in action in a soccer tournament.*****
"Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons."
--Bertrand Russell
