Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria was on the Daily Show discussing Iraq with Jon Stewart a couple of nights ago. He’s supportive of the initial war aims but critical of its execution. Check out the video.
Here’s a previous post where Zakaria compares U.S. tactics in Iraq to Britain’s tactics in India.
And here’s the infamous Crossfire episode Zakaria teased Stewart about: http://homepage.mac.com/duffyb/nobush/iMovieTheater231.html
Another good exchange between Stewart and Zakaria, paraphrased: JS: You always go to the places I’m scared to go- FS: Like New Jersey?
fareed zakaria was on the daily show again a few nights ago, and he made the following comment in the wake of the recent bombings in the u.k. :
“whatever the foreign policy disagreement, that’s not an excuse to blow up commuters or anyone else for that matter.”
the audience then erupted in spontaneous appaulse.
indeed, what commonsense ethical principle could be more universally accepted? … yet i disagree; i have three problems with framing this matter as a ‘foreign policy disagreement’.
first, it’s bloodless – it ignores the fact that u.s. foreign policy decisions also cause immense damage to civilians. in the invasions of iraq and afghanistan, many more innocent lives were lost than perished on 9/11 or in these recent attacks. that’s looking at it ‘numerically’. there’s an orwellian tone to what passes for mainstream political discourse today – where ‘our’ invasion becomes a ‘preemptive military action’ while ‘their’ counter-strike becomes a ‘terrorist attack’, or where ‘our’ bombing raids become ‘sending a message’ while ‘their’ bombs are ‘inhumane, unjustifiable, and sub-human’. this relates to both the de-politicization of decisions we should accept responsibility for and de-realization of their consequences. americans are also purveyors of violence, perhaps the largest one in the world (to cite martin luther king jr.’s opinion), and even if we can argue about whose violence is more justified, we must concede at the outset that both sides engage in acts of violence.
second, it’s naive – it implies that halting u.s. military invasions is possible through normal (nonviolent) political mechanisms. i don’t know about you, but i’m not at all certain of this. despite all the propaganda about how democratic this nation is (presumably because dictators do not imprison and/or torture ‘us’ for dissent), the federal legislature tends to rubber-stamp whatever interventions an administration deems as necessary. it was as true with polk’s conquest of mexico as it was for mckinley’s conquest of cuba and the phillepenes as it was for l.b.j.’s attempted conquest of vietnam. or take great britain – 1 million people showed up in london to protest, the largest demonstration in the city’s history, and a clear majority of voters were against the war, yet the couldn’t stop blair from following the u.s. into iraq. perhaps british-born muslims were in a unique position to see this desperate situation most clearly. and what other means than violence are available when those elected refuse to carry out the will of the people, when even the biggest of protest rallies aren’t effective in steering their country away from war?
third, it’s decidedly one-sided – until we learn to empathize with those whose grievances are in fact legitimate, until we accept that both sides are seeped in narrow-minded ideologies to justify their violent acts, as long as we identify only with our own nation-state or our own kind of civilization, as long as we uncritically affirm the way u.s. foreign policymakers frame this issue, we will be unable to take hold of the terrorism (on both sides) by its roots, and we’ll keep treating symptoms with medications that worsen the disease.
this was in fact the naked doubt expressed in the defense secretary’s memo dated 16 october 2003:
“Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us? … Is our current situation such that ‘the harder we work, the behinder we get’?”
I want to ask this dude, zakaria, three questions about his latest newsweek article:
1> Can you comment on your involvement in the November, 29, 2001 meeting mentioned in bob woodwards book , state of denial? That meeting basically recommended the post 911 policy. It was requested (the meeting) by paul wolfowitz. So basically you are part of this administrations ediotic policies. Why are you presented as an independent journalist?
2> Also Can you comment on your Sunni muslim heritage and how it is has influenced your degree of inclination to manipulate truth towards your secterian bias? I give an example: you write “Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki also said he believed that if Iraqi troops were left to their own devices, they could establish order in six months in Iraq. It is not difficult to imagine what he means: Shia would crush Sunni”. How did you reach this conclusion? can you share with us?
3> Other than question about your character, can you tell me what solutions have you provided? How imcompetent can you get? A street vendor in Mumbai is more politically aware and and logical that you, dude.