On Monday evening the BBC Radio Five Live’s program “Pods and Blogs” has invited me on the air to discuss the five-year anniversary of the attacks which took place on September 11th, 2001 in NYC, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania. Anyone interested can listen here at 9p.m. EST/6p.m. PST ( I will probably be on ~20 minutes into the program).
The truth is that I don’t yet know what I am going to talk about or what profound statement I can possibly make in my minute of air time. There is just so much that has occurred in these past five years that to draw any kind of grand conclusion or offer a sagacious reflection seems impossible. From a federal government facility I watched (like many of you) my federal government and its citizens get attacked on that day. Later I learned that a friend had perished in New York. If I had to condense all of my thoughts five years later down to a single word it would be…”disappointment.”
On September 11th, 2001 I believe that our nation was handed, hidden beneath the shock, the sadness, and the loss, an opportunity to lead. Our generation was given a chance to become the greatest generation. In the 1940s, faced with the threat of a fascist and racist power bent on world domination, the United States and its men and women rose up to defend much of that world, not only through our arms but through our thoughts and ideas. Our allies admired us because of our spirit and our tenacity. They admired us for our can-doism and they admired us for our morality. That admiration lasted through the Cold War and past the end of communism. On September 11th we showed everyone why America was, decades later, still worthy of that admiration:
A California man identified as Tom Burnett reportedly called his wife and told her that somebody on the plane [United 93] had been stabbed.
“We’re all going to die, but three of us are going to do something,” he told her. “I love you honey…” [Link]
You can wade through all of these interview files for additional reminders of how Americans responded when called upon to lead. Even the President got it right at first:
I can hear you, the rest of the world can hear you and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon. [Link]
However, shortly after is where my disappointment begins. Five years later can it be said that anyone (even our closest allies) really “hears us?” Can it be said that America is admired for how it responded in the years following the attacks? Does anyone feel safer? I am disappointed because we have not honored the memories of those who perished by living up to the examples that they set for us. Sacrifice and inner strength and not blind fury or angry words were the weapons that Americans used on that day.
In her op-ed piece about the five-year anniversary, Peggy Noonan admires the concise last words uttered by many that died that day and notes that “crisis is a great editor.” If that is true then it is a shame that these days we seem to waste so much time with empty rhetoric and actions which divert our nation ever farther from our chance at greatness.
I thought a good place to start reflecting upon the past five years would be to first take a look at where we stand at the present:
A majority of Canadians believe U.S. foreign policy was one of the root causes that led to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and Quebecers are quicker to criticize the U.S. administration for its international actions than other Canadians, a recent poll suggests.
Those conclusions are found in a newly released poll conducted by Leger Marketing for the Association for Canadian Studies.
The poll suggests that 77 per cent of Quebecers polled primarily blame American foreign policy for the Sept. 11 attacks. The results suggest 57 per cent in Ontario hold a similar view. [Link]
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p>Within a year our closest strategic ally will have a new leader:
According to a poll released yesterday by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, British support for American leadership in foreign affairs has never been lower — a policy whose poster boy is Tony Blair. This summer, even some of Blair’s Cabinet loyalists were upset when he once more forcefully backed a deeply unpopular Bush policy: refusing to criticize Israel’s strategy or tactics in Lebanon or call for an immediate cease-fire. Blair’s transformation today into official lame duck means all the European leaders who backed the Iraq war — Spain’s Jose Maria Aznar, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi and Poland’s Leszek Miller — have paid the ultimate political price. [Link]
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p>This weekend the U.S. military’s chief logistics planner at the time of the attacks revealed that the decision to go to war in Iraq was made very shortly after the correct decision to topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. He also revealed that Rumsfeld and the administration refused to consider the possibility that we would have to stay in Iraq for any length of time.
In 2001, Scheid was a colonel with the Central Command, the unit that oversees U.S. military operations in the Mideast.
On Sept. 10, 2001, he was selected to be the chief of logistics war plans.
On Sept. 11, he said, “life just went to hell.”
That day, Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of Central Command, told his planners, including Scheid, to “get ready to go to war.”
A day or two later, Rumsfeld was “telling us we were going to war in Afghanistan and to start building the war plan. We were going to go fast.
“Then, just as we were barely into Afghanistan, Rumsfeld came and told us to get ready for Iraq…”“The secretary of defense continued to push on us that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we’re going to take out the regime, and then we’re going to leave,” Scheid said. “We won’t stay.”
Scheid said the planners continued to try “to write what was called Phase 4,” or the piece of the plan that included post-invasion operations like security, stability and reconstruction.
Even if the troops didn’t stay, “at least we have to plan for it,” Scheid said.
“I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that,” Scheid said. “We would not do planning for Phase 4 operations, which would require all those additional troops that people talk about today. [Link]
On Friday the Republican-chaired Senate Intelligence Committee revealed as clearly as possible that not only did Saddam have no connection to Al-Qaida, he in fact wanted to hunt down al-Zarqawi himself:
The Senate intelligence committee [this past] Friday said it had found no evidence that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al-Qaida or provided safe harbor to one of its most notorious operatives, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — conclusions contradicting claims by the Bush administration before it invaded Iraq.
In a long-awaited report, the committee determined that the former Iraqi dictator was wary of Al-Qaida, repeatedly rebuffed requests from its leader, Osama bin Laden, for assistance and sought to capture Zarqawi when the deadly terrorist turned up in Baghdad. [Link]
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And still much of the public, which now more than ever needs to build a greater awareness of events beyond these shores, remains ignorant of basic facts:
Some adults in the United States remain convinced that the former Iraqi president played a role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to three recent public opinion polls. In a survey by Zogby International, 46 per cent of respondents think there is a link between Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaeda plot.
In studies by Opinion Research Corporation released by CNN and CBS News, 43 per cent and 31 per cent of respondents respectively believe Hussein was personally involved in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. [Link]
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Other Americans remain equally oblivious to reality, actually believing that our government was directly involved in the attacks on that day.
The 9/11 commission was tasked with figuring out what went wrong and how to prevent it from ever happening again. Here is their report card which shows how far we had come by 2005. It is only five pages long and every American should be familiar with what it says. Achieving grades of A’s and B’s on all these items would make me feel a lot safer than simply taking the fight to some amorphous enemy that seems to get larger with every bomb we drop on “him.” I have no doubt that it would cost far less as well. The foreign policy section of the report card, which I am sure will be of interest to many SM readers, is particularly insightful.
Five years later I am still waiting for our leaders to lead. I think many of us were up to the challenge of 9/11 but that our resolve has turned to cynicism and frustration. We have been misled and manipulated by the political party in power and uninspired by the other one. I think that musician Neil Young captures it best on his new album:
Lookin’ for a Leader
To bring our country home
Re-unite the red white and blue
Before it turns to stone
Lookin’ for somebody
Young enough to take it on
Clean up the corruption
And make the country strong… [Link]
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Noonan is right. Crisis is a great editor. With only seconds to think, the heroes of 9/11 made difficult decisions with admirable clarity. Since 9/11 we have let the thought of vengeance and the need to appear tough at all costs supercede the need for more patient and nuanced action. We have also lost the morality that they exemplified. Sending U.S. soldiers to die under the guise of “preserving freedom and our way of life” is easier than fighting for hearts and minds and maintaining the moral high ground. We have hurt ourselves more than we have hurt the terrorists that seek to do us harm. If we lose the “War on Terror” it certainly won’t be at the hands of any terrorists, but slowly by our own (in)actions. At home our civil liberties continue to be eroded. We can’t travel abroad without someone explaining to us how we Americans are ruining the world. Does anyone believe that the “War Against Terrorism” or “The War Against Islamo-Fascism” or whatever we are calling it today can be won by any means other than by winning the hearts and minds of the societies that harbor terrorists? If you consider 9/11 to be the date of the first battle of this war then the body count shows that our side lost ~3000 lives compared to 19. And yet…in almost every way that matters we won that first battle. We won the hearts and mind of the world on that day. They saw Americans die fighting against an amoral and cowardly enemy. They understood then that the idea of America was greater than the idealogy that sought to destroy it. They also believed that we would win. That is no longer true in the eyes of too many around the world.
And what about us in the South Asian American community? We are caught in the middle in many respects. We are as patriotic as any American and yet we are not always seen as such simply because of our appearance. Our thoughts about the conflict are often more nuanced because many of us have seen first hand the conditions which result in a fundamentalist idealogy. We know that weapons alone will do no good. We especially dread the next large attack. We know it will happen eventually. We are as worried about what will happen after the attack.
Five years later all this is going through my head. I am writing this post because I’d like to hear from some of you as well. I doubt that all of our thoughts can be condensed into a minute or two of radio time but perhaps a little group reflection would do us good. Beneath the pessimism I harbor some hope that there may still be some time to set our wrong course right. That won’t happen however, until we all become more engaged and demand more from our leaders. We owe this to everyone who died on that day.
wow. abhi that’s a loaded post. you asked for responses, so here goes…
i don’t know if i’m ready to acknowledge that it’s been five years. i know that i’m not ready to talk and i’m not sure i’ll ever be. my memories of 9/11 are very scattered, stressed, and tearful. its why i left new york and didn’t look back. i couldn’t live somewhere that i was getting yelled at on the street and harrassed on the subway.
you said “We are as patriotic as any American…” My experience has been different. i think most south asian-americans i know [especially my parents’ generation] are more patriotic than the average American. immediately following 9/11 i saw American flags flying from every auntie’s and uncle’s home that i visited. american flag stickers slapped on every car driven by a south asian. i felt that in reaction to 9/11 many south asians felt that they had to prove their patriotism by waving the red, white, and blue at every chance.
i dont know if that’s what you were looking for… but it is something that i have been thinking about a lot over the past couple of weeks. and something that i know i will think about tomorrow.
Learn from the master of 9/11 and post-9/11 analysis, Noam Chomsky: Power & Terror – Noam Chomsky In Our Times
Take his brilliant, globally-reaching ideas, and then anecdotalize it with stories of the desi shopkeeper down the street and of the Sikh programmer who insists on wearing white gym socks with dress shoes.
One word Chomsky uses to summarize 9/11 and post-9/11: hypocrisy.
EOF
I’m sorry to sound like I’m trivializing the event, but this line did remind me of the whole Jon Stewart – Aasif Mandvi thing on the Daily Show (“9/11 – tough day, great opportunity”)
One word Chomsky uses to summarize just about anything America has ever done: hypocrisy.
Five years. Damn.
I have American cousins, and I like America, and I always stick up for America in the face of blind knee-jerk abuse. But I think that was happened after Afghanistan, has been an unmitigated disaster, and George Bush has been a liability to America, and Tony Blair has been a tragedy, because I really think he thought with the best intentions that he could counsel or control Bush in some way, and it just did not turn out like that. Anyway, this is a powerful post Abhi, and I hope you can get some of the insight and passion you feel across in your appearence on BBC Radio FiveLive (great station by the way, I listen to it every morning).
America had a chance after 9/11 to shine, instead I fear Bush and Rumsfeld have been disastrous and have walked into every trap set for them and through unbridled arrogance that comes with such power have left the world a less safe, and more divided place. Sad to say this, because I am pro-American, but I think America has betrayed those that died in 9/11.
Actually what I just said in my last line is wrong. I think that the Bush administration has betrayed those that died, I dont think that America has.
Abhi,
I’ve been spending this past weekend visiting with friends in the Bay Area. Last night, over a couple beers, I got into a discussion with a Dutch national who was highly critical of the Bush administration. He made a statement that mixes the vulgar with the profound. He said,”Fking Americans, you are like a puppy that has never had its nose stuck in its own st.” At first, I laughed simply because it was a funny statement. Upon further reflection, I realized that simple statement summarizes much of the disappointment that you, and I feel. What pains me more than the violence that has raged after 9/11 is the apathy and ignorance that the American public embraces. We can blame the Bush administration and past U.S. foreign policy all we want, but in a democracy the “people” are complicit if things go wrong. We must not only demand more of our leaders but we must also demand more engagement from our fellow citizens.
In the 1940s, faced with the threat of a fascist and racist power bent on world domination, the United States and its men and women rose up to defend much of that world, not only through our arms but through our thoughts and ideas.
…while practicing apartheid at home. My point is that the U.S. has always been a hypocrisy since the day it was founded by slaveowners who preached about the equality of all men.
A majority of Canadians believe U.S. foreign policy was one of the root causes that led to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks
I should give those Canadians more credit.
On September 11th we showed everyone why America was, decades later, still worthy of that admiration:
A California man identified as Tom Burnett reportedly called his wife and told her that somebody on the plane [United 93] had been stabbed.
”We’re all going to die, but three of us are going to do something,” he told her. “I love you honey…”
That’s ridiculous man. Why don’t you quote the acquaintances who assured me that Sep. 11 “wasn’t your fault”, my friend who referred to the “Hindu Taliban” liqour store owner, or the dude who shot the Sikh guy working at the gas station. I think ignorance is the salient characteristic of Americans, and it’s not very worthy of admiration.
They saw Americans die fighting against an amoral and cowardly enemy.
Yeah…going and bombing the shit out of tiny impoverished countries is pretty courageous, wouldn’t you say?
I am disappointed because we have not honored the memories of those who perished by living up to the examples that they set for us. Sacrifice and inner strength and not blind fury or angry words were the weapons that Americans used on that day.
I suggest you brush up on some U.S. history. Sacrifice and inner strenghth? When were those the weapons which Americans relied on? The U.S. has always been an extremely violent nation.
My point is that the U.S. has always been a hypocrisy since the day it was founded by slaveowners who preached about the equality of all men.
…those in glass houses.
abhi isn’t a moron, he knows about the facts of all that you allude too, but there is a time for self-criticism and acknowledgement of sins and a time to reflect upon our higher natures and noble responses. if you choose to force a focus on the former instead of the latter at this time, that’s your prerogative, but do you really think that those who you want to (and can) reach will give your words any thought in the future?
but perhaps that’s not the point, perhaps you are talking for yourself so that you can feel righteous and more enlightened than all the rubes?
yes, jingoistic and unreflective country-love is unseemly, but so is an unwavering crowing about the sins which all peoples are guilty of.
Rejimon –
Lemme guess, with statements like “the U.S. has always been a hypocrisy since the day it was founded” and “ignorance is the salient characteristic of Americans, and it’s not very worthy of admiration” you wanted Kerry rather than Bush to win.
All Mixed Up,
The social requirement for Indians to clad their cars and houses with the American flag is no different than it was for the non-Japanese Asians during WW2. While China, Korea, et al were victims of the Axis powers, most Americans just “saw all ’em slanty eyes as dirty japs”. While History focuses on, and lambastes, the American internment of Japanese-Americans, the textbooks are silent on the numerous instances of discrimination against non-Japanese. The heart of this deliberate omission in History is that accurate discrimination is often state-sponsored, whereas mistaken discrimination is often committed by the uneducated public. While it is ever-fashionable to accuse the Govt. of wrong-doing, it continues to be taboo for a textbook to ever criticize its own readers.
Similarly, History will eventually look at this period and chastise the State for its detention of tens of thousands of Arab Muslims, while completely ignoring, or providing a single footnote about, the numerous instances of impassioned murders, beatings, and general decrease in safety of those neither Arab nor Muslim but mistakenly thought to be. Targeted discrimination is bad, mob-ruled helter-skelter mistaken discrimination is worse.
Under anonymity, I’m critical of the general public’s ignorance and their readiness to brawl; but, I am not awarded the same safety to speak such things aloud as would be awarded to the many Whites who share my frustration on pervasive anti-intellectualism, and who share my frustration on the ubiquity of latent, high-temperature, misguided animosity that can be triggered with simply the sight of a Turban. If I were to repeat Chomsky’s words verbatim, I would not be seen as a Chomsky supporter, I would be seen as a foreigner overstepping the latitude granted by White-Christian hosts. A European could fly here, be granted a visa on the spot at the airport, overstay his visa indefinitely and will be seen by my peers as more of an American than I who was born in New England.
Lemme guess, with statements like “the U.S. has always been a hypocrisy since the day it was founded” and “ignorance is the salient characteristic of Americans, and it’s not very worthy of admiration” you wanted Kerry rather than Bush to win.
I don’t like either Kerry or Bush, but Kerry would likely have been the lesser of two evils.
yes, jingoistic and unreflective country-love is unseemly, but so is an unwavering crowing about the sins which all peoples are guilty of.
Yes, all people are guilty of sins, but the U.S. is the most powerful country in the world, which has the power to impact the most lives, so it deserves scrutiny.
but do you really think that those who you want to (and can) reach will give your words any thought in the future?
Is there anything you can really say which will make an American seriously think? We’re talking about a country where more people can name all the characters on the Simpsons than can name the freedoms guaranteed by the 1st Amendment.
but perhaps that’s not the point, perhaps you are talking for yourself so that you can feel righteous and more enlightened than all the rubes?
I have no need to feel more righteous than anyone, I’m just tired of hearing how much of an innocent victim America is.
On Monday evening the BBC Radio Five Live’s program “Pods and Blogs” has invited me on the air to discuss the five-year anniversary of the attacks which took place on September 11th, 2001 in NYC, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania.
Great! I am sure you will do fine. One unsolicited suggestion: If the topic comes up about South Asians and 9-11 you could bring up the issue of hundreds of south asian immigrants who were rounded up and jailed and then never charged with terorrism. It might not be appropriate to bring this up or maybe it will be.
yes, jingoistic and unreflective country-love is unseemly, but so is an unwavering crowing about the sins which all peoples are guilty of.
I agree.
Abhi: Good luck and God Speed. Say what is on your mind – I know 60 seconds isn’t a lot to talk about 9-11, but I am sure you’ll disregard all the trolls, and above all be true to thy ownself. Love…Dad
Based on what two of the 9/11 hijackers said on the recently release video tape, I doubt that the “hearts and minds” of the societies that create Islamic terrorists can be won in any reasonable fashion:
The Muslims praised the US for getting involved in Bosnia: Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic of the mainly Muslim Bosnian government: “I am very happy with the active U.S. involvement”
If they attack us when Bill Clinton sent US troops to fight in support of the Muslims against the Serbs and Chechnya where we weren’t even involved, I don’t hold out much hope that there anything we can do.
We’re talking about a country where more people can name all the characters on the Simpsons than can name the freedoms guaranteed by the 1st Amendment.
Isnt that a sign of freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment being under no serious threat for the citizens to be so ignorant about them and hence evidence of America’s general prosperity and freedom.
sorry… offtopic
typo, abhi
“We canÂ’t travel aborad without”
great post 🙂 good luck with the radio show
Abhi,
Martin Amis has a three-part article in today’s Guardian that’s extremely in-depth and has several interesting POVs on global terror, which he calls “horrorism.”
Link here.
(It’s actually quite well written despite the mandatory, disparaging comparison between secular, democratic, successful India and Islamicist Pakistan.)
I can’t really comment on how post 9/11 felt for me from an Indian perspective… but these types of comments really bug me. People are ignorant everywhere, this isn’t an american exclusive.
I can’t really comment on how post 9/11 felt for me from an Indian perspective… but these types of comments really bug me. People are ignorant everywhere, this isn’t an american exclusive.
Also the US with universal education has to be less ignorant than the general populace in a country like India.
razib_the_atheist,
“yes, jingoistic and unreflective country-love is unseemly, but so is an unwavering crowing about the sins which all peoples are guilty of.”
I hate arguments that ask someone to shut up just because it happens elsewhere. The magnitude and irreversibility of the problems are highly important and your simplistic aversion to criticality signals that you concern yourself equally with sins by measly powers, with no projective reach and either obeying tacit command from Washington or destined to crumble each decade, as you do with the sins of the sole super-power in the world, one with imperial rights of drafting the destiny of mankind for at least the next century, one with privileges to veto any resolution against our crimes, one with military expenditures that were the awe of WW2 and have only risen since.
I can’t really comment on how post 9/11 felt for me from an Indian perspective… but these types of comments really bug me. People are ignorant everywhere, this isn’t an american exclusive.
People are ignorant all over, yes, but Americans are appalingly ignorant for citizens of a dominant nation. There’s plenty of facts out there on this, when you compare the education of Americans to other industrialized nations. The fact that most Americans are monolingual stands out when compared to other industrialized nations. And then there’s the Simpsons example I mentioned and numerous other such trivia which shows that this is an extremely anti-intellectual nation.
Oneup,
I would also agree with you ignorance is not exclusive to anywhere. boy howdy would i agree. And I would say plenty of American people are plugged in, inquisitive, thoughtful. A lot of progressive thought, althought of conservative thought that contributes to the betterment of people generally has come from the US. Plenty. But, I would say culturally the US is more inward looking and less aware of international issues than a lot of other regions. Even if people do not have a particularly broad-minded opinion in other parts of the world, I have seen that culturally many of regions of the world are a bit better at cultivating an interest in wider trends happening globally. It could be a product of neccesity, since many important events are ocurring in the US, so people in other parts of the world have grown accustomed to looking here as well as where they live. I would say, for example, the interest in the rest of the world in the World Cup is one indication. Although the level of interest in the US was pretty high this time around. I do think though, that among the educated population, many more Indians know of the New York Times as a news source, but do we know how to get information about what is going on in India? What newspaper would we consult, the papers of record in South Asia? I think one can look at a comparision of the BBC versus CNN; not that one is better than the other, but the BBC has a distinctly more internationalist perspective. I don’t think we here in the US are ignorant. We could, however, be more aware of what is going on in other countries. I would guess, for example, that if the US election were going through as many ups and downs as the Mexican election that just passed was going through, we would be more aware of it. From what I can gather there were regularly tens of thousands of people in the center of Mexico rallying for their respective presdential candidate. If the same was happening in the US, I would think many people in Mexico, and through-out the world, would be aware of it. I think actually we would benefit greatly as Americans from being more in tune with the rest of our common family ( I could not say it another less cheesy way, although I tried)
sic semper tyrannis, how about this, you’re an unreflective ass who can’t see the context of the blog 🙂 yes, a post by abhi on 9-11, good time to talk about what morons americans are!!!.
oh, this is funny:
…only half of US adults know that the Earth rotates around the Sun once each year (NSB, 2000). One in five US adults say that the Sun rotates around the Earth, and 14 percent of US adults think that the Earth rotates around the Sun once each day (see Figure 2). A comparative study with Britain in 1988 found that only one-third of British adults understood that the Earth rotates around the Sun once each year…The level of adult understanding of the solar system shows little change over the last decade….
(cite)
that among the educated population
this rigging th playing field.
In the 10 states with the highest SAT scores, an average of eight percent of their high school students took the SAT, while 69% of students took the test in the 10 lowest-scoring states. Moreover, the lowest 10 states had twice as many high school juniors taking the test and 14 times as many SAT takers overall.
cite.
if you have a population where only a small % are educated it is likely that that small % is selection biased. in the USA 20% of the population has a “college degree,” devaluing the degree because a large percentage aren’t too bright. yes, i would accept that indian college graduates are more well informed than the average american college graduate, but a much higher % of americans go to college.
The fact that most Americans are monolingual stands out when compared to other industrialized nations. And then there’s the Simpsons example I mentioned and numerous other such trivia which shows that this is an extremely anti-intellectual nation.
Sure a nation that produces what, 50% of world patents, 60% of Nobel Prize winners, maybe 80% of the top fifty universities, controls 40% of world trade. bunch of dumb mother f%^&* ers, yeah.
Vikram,
“If they attack us when Bill Clinton sent US troops to fight in support of the Muslims against the Serbs and Chechnya where we weren’t even involved, I don’t hold out much hope that there anything we can do.”
I’m afraid that you’re seeing the glass as half full, when in fact the glass is for 2 people, one of which gets the empty half. Yes, Clinton did help some Muslims, he in fact helped Muslim Turkey commit large-scale atrocities on their southern Kurdish population. Istanbul was so grateful to Washington that, to this day, they are in our debt and showed appreciation by being the first nation in the world to offer military assistance to Washington after 9/11, and continue to show appreciation through many other means. However, because of the way that when we “help” Muslims we simultaneously hurt more, do not expect appreciation to sing in unison from the Middle-east. We helped (and continue to help) the House of Saud, we helped the Shah of Iran, we helped Hussein, we helped Indonesia, we helped a lot of highly controversial Muslims who are hated by many. By expecting all Muslim states to simultaneously like us as one bloc, you are expecting Britain to be pleased if you helped Nazi Germany because they’re both White, Christian nations.
Sure a nation that produces what, 50% of world patents, 60% of Nobel Prize winners, maybe 80% of the top fifty universities, controls 40% of world trade. bunch of dumb mother f%^&* ers, yeah.
Are you aware of the significant amount of professionals the U.S. imports from Asia, Africa,and elsewhere in order to be a leader in many of those things you mention? They are forced to get people from around the globe to stay on top because of the scarcity of qualified scientists etc. at home. There are plenty of intelligent Americans, and a large pool of ignoramuses.
Are you aware of the significant amount of professionals the U.S. imports from Asia, Africa,and elsewhere in order to be a leader in many of those things you mention? They are forced to get people from around the globe to stay on top because of the scarcity of qualified scientists etc. at home. There are plenty of intelligent Americans, and a large pool of ignoramuses.
Sure. And these people will, within two generations, marry Americans, and make the future scions of America even smarter 🙂
Sure a nation that produces what, 50% of world patents, 60% of Nobel Prize winners, maybe 80% of the top fifty universities, controls 40% of world trade. bunch of dumb mother f%^&* ers, yeah.
Yes, correct.
However, look carefully how many of them are actually American-born and with basic education in America. Not many, of the people involved in endeavors you just listed above. Still, a lot of top-tier talent in America comes from Europe, and now Asia. Go to website of MIT, Caltech, UCLA, Georgia Tech and look at the faculty profiles.
Don’t get me wrong, America is a very creative and innovative country. It is a country that produces Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. A country capable of producing Manhattan Project and Apollo Project.
It also can be self-corrective or reflective, like civil rights movement. You are not going to see its equivalent in France or Germany.
But it is also full of self-congratulatory fools, more than its usual share. I think a lot of South Asian American while quite successful, go overboard as AllMixedUp pointed in comment #.1. Maybe to do with skin color, small man complex, workshipping the Sahib – who knows?
After WW2 and through the 60s, America emerged as a very powerful nation. It still is. But I think it will face some fierce competition in 20 odd years from countries like China.
They are forced to get people from around the globe to stay on top because of the scarcity of qualified scientists etc. at home.
how about the other end? many of our parents came this country because it would compensate and reward them for their educational achievements.
But it is also full of self-congratulatory fools, more than its usual share.
i disagree with this. i don’t think it is more than its usual share, i think the foolishness is more salient because america is powerful.
It’s only appalling if you don’t know much about human nature. The US is the popular kid in school. We don’t have to know everything about everyone because we run the school… everyone knows us. And when its time to get a specific task done that we might need help with, then we know exactly how and who to run to to get information. I’m not saying that this is the “right” way to think about international relations but I do think that any other country, if it were in power, would do the same thing.
All that assuming average Americans are actually MORE ignorant than you average anywhere-elses… which I don’t think we are.
We are monolingual because “everyone” speaks our language. If powers shift and suddenly China becomes the next new superpower, Spanish and (i think) French will quickly be replaced with Mandarin and Cantonese as the most frequently taught foriegn languages in american schools.
Wow.
I think it’s more like expecting individuals with backgrounds in Muslim nations not smashing planes into buildings that we expect.
However, look carefully how many of them are actually American-born and with basic education in America. Not many, of the people involved in endeavors you just listed above. Still, a lot of top-tier talent in America comes from Europe, and now Asia. Go to website of MIT, Caltech, UCLA, Georgia Tech and look at the faculty profiles.
Kush, I’m not disputing that. I know the Ametrican graduate schools cant operate without Indians, Chinese, Eastern Europeans and Koreans. But my point is that these people become Americans. This is a nation of immigrants, and as far as i can tell, top flight people aren’t lining up elsewhere…yet.
Just look at the decline of Indian Science. From being players in the physical sciences during COLONIAL rule; now many of the best minds are producing their work here, and the achievements in India are few and far between.
Sahej,
“I don’t think we here in the US are ignorant.”
I think you mean to say vis-a-vis other First world nations. I agree, relatively, the general population here is just as moral, ethically-bound, and open-minded as the other First world nations where Le Penn can almost win, rampant fear of gypsies seamlessly carries through to fear of Turks and other Muslims spreading cancerously through the EU, ‘Pakis’ are ghettoized in London outskirts, etc. Yes, we should be very proud of ourselves, we’re as civilized as Europe.
re: “monolingualism,” if 95% of the 300+ million EU citizens spoke the same language does anyone think that monolingualism wouldn’t be dominant? comparing europeans (or indians) in terms of lingualism is like comparing belgians to the french. the small size of many european nationalities and the numerosity of languages across a small spatial distance implies that multilingualism is necessary for day-to-day life.
But my point is that these people become Americans.
bingo! if amerika == appalachia this wouldn’t happen. tarring 300 million people with one brush is simply stupid.
You see, this is an argument made in relation to whether or not Muslims should universally hate America because America exists for no other reason than to torment and kill them. Muslim nations are free to hate America as much as they like. When that transmutes into an ideology that says they are free to kill as many Americans as they want to, well we have a pathology that needs to be worked on.
It is ridiculous of indians, of all people, to denigrate the intelligence or education of americans. There are far more dumb, clueless, uneducated, illiterate (not to mention hungry) people in India than the total number of americans.
Congratulations on the BBC invitation.
From an outsider (Canuck) perspective, I think the U.S., in general is awesome. Alot of great qualities, great universities, great minds, etc: I can’t say it’s anti-intellectual. It does promote education for the very brightest – maybe not so much in lower-income areas, but that’s just an aside note and observation.
However, I do feel that there are serious issues with the media, especially the news media….. this is why the masses aren’t getting the foreign and even domestic news to have properly informed opinions. It doesn’t have anything to do with American’s being inherently ignorant, or anything like that. We get alot of American programming and there is a marked difference in the way information is analyzed and presented from Canada and even the U.K., to an extent. There may be a correlation between how information is presented and the resulting public opinion polls.
You have the fascists on the run man!
Don’t stop laying it to these Nazi AmeriKKKans it’s about time they learnt about the so-called civilization of Europe in which Muslims are liquidised by Jews on a daily basis and French people eat immigrant babies for breakfast. As for England, well they are so ‘civilized’ and barbaric that we all know now about the concentration camps they have erected in which the Pakistanis are herded like animals, the resistance is fighting back man! They already escaped and blew up some trains on the subway to liberate themselves. the truth can’t be held back any longer, these thick as frozen dog shit AmeriKKKans man, they’re worse than the Devil himself man.
Brother, don’t stop telling these people the truth about the so-called civilised West, the Nazi States of Europe, because liberation will soon come.
Death to AmeriKKKa dude!
Hail
MaududiMullah OmarAnti-Imperialist Marxism!I think the U.S., in general is awesome. Alot of great qualities, great universities, great minds, etc: I can’t say it’s anti-intellectual.
One of my profs quoted some recent study which said that something like 70% of Americans never read a book after high school. Then consider that the many of the other 30% are reading Harry Potter or popular novels, and I think its fair to say that Americans are anti-intellectual. Americans are not inherently ignorant, I believe that this is a culture that values things like consumerism more than learning.
Both projects were heavily dependent on immigrants. Think Von Braun, Fermi et al.
Pure selfishness on their part. Ideally, one acquires an education in order to be of service to the people among whom he is born.
Its possible that other nations, those that don’t have the same level of power as the US, feel the need to be aware of what happens globally than the US does. Take Japan, a nation that took great pride in many of the uniquely japanese cultural aspects that influenced their business practices… among them an extremely strong adherence to rigid hierarchical structures, an old boys club where backs were scratched regardless of past performance, and the concept of hiring an employee for life. Until the bubble burst… now Japan has been looking outside of their own system that helped them during the bubble… They do so because they think they have to.
Generalization: Americans don’t like soccer. I never knew there were so many ways to NOT make a goal until I saw a soccer match. If it were a world football tournament you were talking about, then I think you’d have a point…
But do Indians know about the Asahi? The Saigon Times? Beijing Review? Or for that matter, the Sudan Tribune (im SURE theres a lot going on there) I think its silly to think the average american wouldn’t know how to go about finding a paper from a different part of the world. I know my university has a library dedicated to asian publications, including newspapers…
I did notice this about the BBC, and I thought it was a nice feature… to be able to change your language settings, etc. But I wonder if among the british born readers… I wonder if all these different groups of people are actually reading about other cultures, or if they just zoom straight into their particular group’s news portal. Having the option doesn’t necessarily mean people are utilizing it.
I agree that people should be more aware of what goes on around them… I just don’t think americans are the only ones that have this burden.
Just to complement my #44 post, I found some 2003 stats which say that 58& of U.S. adults never read a book after high school, along with 42% of U.S. college grads.
http://parapublishing.com/sites/para/resources/statistics.cfm
Yeah man! Professors rock!
All these ‘intellectual’ AmeriKKKans, so-called writers, artists, universities, they’re all a conspiracy to defame the rest of the world. When I walk the streets of AmeriKKKa, at least seventeen times a day I see men and women who drool as they try to read the newspaper. It’s a conspiracy, there’s no freedom in AmeriKKKa, no intellectual life, no creativity, it’s all a load of Nazism man, the Moronic States of AmeriKKKa is what it is.
But at least the French and British don’t try and conceal the fact that they’re Nazi countries and that they eat Muslims with their frogs legs and fish and chips for breakfast.
Fuckin’ stupid AmeriKKKan philistines man!
Hail
Al ZarqawiNasrallahAntonio Gramsci!Abhi, I found your post very thoughtful, and congrats on the BBC invitation! Like you, I’m disappointed in my government. I felt some sympathy towards the war in Afghanistan but had problems with attacking stateless terrorists and with Bush’s immature cowboy statements. As long as we focused on Osama bin Laden, I felt that our mission was moral and justified.
Of course that changed when we began bombing Iraq. The number of Iraqi civilians who have died thus far are between 41,650 and 46,318 people. How many dead Iraqis will my government need? There is no reason for us to be there, and meanwhile, the CIA closed the unit searching for Osama bin Laden!
I’m cynical about this administration and the effect of the media on democracy. Honestly, at this point, I really think that bin Laden exists as a GOP boogeyman to spread fear among Americans in an effort to continue the current aggressive policy in the Middle East. I think that if the US prioritized the search for bin Laden, we would find multiple allies, and if those resources were pooled, this man would be caught. That he hasn’t been caught speaks volumes to me about what this administration would rather be doing.
If anything should be mentioned, it’s that 9/11 was NOT Day One of this war (“If you consider 9/11 to be the date of the first battle of this war…”)– especially in the mind of the terrorists. 9/11, instead, is a reaction to US foreign policy actions that include military and economic support for Israel and US sanctions against Iraq. For anyone to think that terrorists struck those Towers that I loved and looked at daily — at the time, I was working on Wall Street — without provocation from US foreign policy is simply unfounded (or the result of multiple administrations hiding their actions or many media outlets not finding it important enough news to focus on).
In addition, 9/11 has been about racial divides in the US. I think it complicates the racial landscapes when Latinos are being mistaken for “towelheads” (one of the first incidents of backlash was against a Latino by someone white; can’t find the link) and many black and latinos, who have a history of racial profiling against them by whites, support racial profiling of South Asians and Middle Easterners. I am more afraid after 9/11 than I was before, given that profiling of brown people seems ubiqitous these days.
The NYT, btw, had a page where readers could reflect on how their lives have changed since 9/11. I couldn’t find the link for it, but my comments have been reposted here.
this thread goes to show the old saying about the real reason Bush & crew win so many elections… it isn’t because they’re any good but rather cuz the side that considers Americans ignorant, a-hole, savages are gonna have a tough time securing too many votes.