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As someone who has spent a lot of time in the region, and learned Arabic to fluency, sadly with the goal of ending up like Mr. Laux in mind, I am glad I went to

by 616c 11y ago

As someone who has spent a lot of time in the region, and learned Arabic to fluency, sadly with the goal of ending up like Mr. Laux in mind, I am glad I went to the Arab world as a student. Having traveled all over, and working as an expat now for many years, it became clear early on there is a whole very naive narritive justifying US foreign policy in that part of the world. The moment you go to live there, it stares in the face. I quickly gave up my hopes of serving in the US armed forces or intelligence community after one year of study in Egypt. It only took a few weeks really to do the damage. I can show you consistent examples for almost all American students, many who wanted government work on USG language scholarships, after such a short amount of time. I still knew countless others, however, who continued in the line of duty, and their racist and moronic comments about the Arab world, before, after, and during service, despite expesnive US top-20 univerisity coursework in Arabic and Arab history and culture flabbergasts me, every time. These people rose through the ranks, and balked at the education they used to get there. Notice Laux did not have that kind of education prior. I suspect that is why he burnt out and knew to withdrawal from that life quickly. If he spoke Dari or Pashto, and God forbid, read the local media, he would have burnt out even faster as the stupidity would glare even brighter. The one year ten times in a row comment gets me. As just-outside-the-inside perimeter guy, living in one Arab capital 5+ years, it never ceases to amaze me the greater political project of "taming the Arab world" goes at the civil, political, and military level, soft and hard power alike at the hands of outside nations. I assume it might be this way everywhere, but my interest in professionally engaging in even non-government East-West cultural projects ended quickly as I became jaded. I routinely think my interest in computing and open source originates from my frustration with this problem, and our hubris to not simply record things and focus on problems. We keep reinventing based on impression, not on result, with new people and a rapid turnover rate. No industry except global political terraforming would find that a useful strategy. As for the kicking the addiction and self-help jokes: wanna know where you need to help yourself? Pick any Arab country. Great read, thanks for posting.

wtbob 11y ago
> it became clear early on there is a whole very naive narritive[sic] justifying US foreign policy in that part of the world. I think that was obvious at least when Mr. Bush was talking about how freedom was the desire of every human heart, which is quite clearly naïve nonsense. Simply put, the vast majority of mankind doesn't care about freedom, wouldn't know what to do with it, and will misuse it when given it. That fundamental misunderstanding caused his government to try to install democracies, when it could have installed confessional republics instead.
- 616c 11y ago
  I am not sure we agree, wtbob. This extends before and after the Bush administration. Beyond democracy building, our routine of divide-and-conquer and other silliness is why they route around our interventionism. This goes to WWII and earlier. It is not just Bush. I get frustrated because this is a common explanation: the neocons, of which I was one at the time, are the elitists who started this. Which is sad, because the wealthier states in the Arab world are now engaged in this "we know how to fix you, lesser Arab state" mentality. I think there is a belief that money solves all ills, and if only then they will see it from our eyes. Local and foreign states engaging in this behavior always fails. In the Arab world, foreign countries have engaged with this stuff for modern recorded history.
  - pink_dinner 11y ago
    If you terrorize the world long enough, like many of the groups in the middle east, you will get people that just want to give you what you want, in an attempt to make it go away. Others will even blame themselves: "Maybe I did something wrong. Why would they bomb my cities unless we did something to them??" Terrorism seems to work most of the time. Quebec,Canada is a good example of this. In the 70s, there was a separatist group that set off hundreds of bombs and even kidnapped the vice chairman at the time (and ended up killing him). This was mostly because they didn't feel they should be forced to learn English and wanted the French culture and language to dominate. Fast forward a few decades and the roles are reversed. French is required everywhere in Quebec and businesses basically have to communicate all in French and are subjected to massive fines if their signs are not in French (and it has to culturally make sense). The separatists have won and it had nothing to do with equality. They wanted their culture to dominate and have the power..and now it does..all through the power of terrorist activities. It even happened much earlier with groups like the Vikings. They were never really defeated. They stole, raped, and pillaged across the world, and countries gave them what the wanted and they even ruled entire nations. Eventually, their children's children didn't want to lose wealth or power and didn't continue the violent ways of their ancestors. To stop them, the world had to give them wealth and power...while they murdered the innocent. I guess it worked, but many innocent people had to die along the way. If we listened to people like you, terrorist groups in the middle east would continue to conquer that part of the world and gain more and more power until we have no way to stop it. I am shocked sometimes to see empathy here for anyone that would execute you by cutting your head off, stone women and homosexuals, and rule a nation with an archaic religion. Especially since many here can't even tolerate humane corporal punishment in the US or a simple bible verse spoken in a public school.
nihonde 11y ago
I don't give two licks about the Middle East or the Arab world, but this leapt out at me: "...our hubris to not simply record things and focus on problems. We keep reinventing based on impression, not on result, with new people and a rapid turnover rate." When I moved to Japan, I saw right away that people here tend to measure problems first, then formulate a response, and keep assessing that response as they go. The net effect is a society that has conquered a lot of the annoying problems that get underfoot, and is liberated to focus on higher-order issues. When I go to the 7-11 down the street from me, I noticed that the cash register has two columns of buttons for age demographics. Sure enough, after every transaction, the clerk hits the 'male' button for my age group—and they're always correct about my age. I saw on television the other week that 7-11 store managers in Japan use a sophisticated software tool to plan inventory shipments based on a huge number of factors, including weather forecasts, holidays, recent sales trends, supply chain, etc. These store managers are often twenty-something year old 'kids', and they have more responsibility and accountability for the bottom line than a lot of middle managers at Fortune 50 companies. They perform this function on a little proprietary PC running some very purposeful proprietary software in the tidy back room of every 7-11 store. There's something so damn satisfying about seeing a well-oiled machine in action, and once you've seen it—you're both encouraged that it can be done, and dismayed at how utterly behind the curve others have fallen behind. Emotional factors have a tremendously important role in our lives, but we can't allow emotional responses (or manipulation of emotions) to unwind the great human trait of complex long-term, problem solving and progress.
- CapitalistCartr 11y ago
  When I was in the military, we were a bunch of 18-22 year olds doing all the work, including direct supervision. What work was that? Building and maintaining nuclear weapons, ICBMs, and all the related support. When my father was 19, he had 40 marines under his command as a Marine Staff sergeant. The Navy sent him to an island called Betio in the Tarawa Atoll. One of the worst disasters in USMC history. But what it wasn't was a defeat. In three days, those "kids" overcame the idiotic Navy planning and took that island. He was 21 when they sailed into Nagasaki harbor, three weeks after it was nuked. Being young doesn't have to mean immature and incompetent. Also, 18 isn't that young unless we make it that way.
phaus 11y ago
Can you recommend any good resources for an honest and unbiased approach to learning about Arabic culture/history? I can't go back to college or move to the Middle East, but I've been wanting to study the culture pretty deeply, but now I am kind of worried it might be difficult to find resources that are fair and accurate.
- dforrestwilson1 11y ago
  This book was pretty good: http://www.amazon.com/Middle-East-Brief-History-Years/dp/0684832801/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459629575&sr=1-3&keywords=History+of+the+Middle+East http://www.amazon.com/Middle-East-Brief-History-Years/dp/068...
- 616c 11y ago
  dforrestwilson1 has a good rec. But then again, I never enjoyed the history books. I mean, I should be less of a nut, but I do not appreciate the academic works. I say the same thing every time, and professors I know get pissed: start with Adul Rahman Munif's novels. He is a very, very interesting guy. His stuff in English is scattered and week. His Cities of Salt magnum opum will help you see the petro-insanity from the Gulf side, in a pretty scathing critique, from a Saudi who got his citizenship stripped for what he said. Did I mention he was a hardcore Baathist in Iraq who became an author when he got too jaded and abandoned the political platform altogether? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Rahman_Munif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Rahman_Munif You can read sources like Mid East History, but I say start finding novelist, poets, and journalists in translation. There are many in translation, both current and recent, going back at least 50-60 years of the Arab political transformations of that period. http://arablit.wordpress.com/ http://arablit.wordpress.com/ The farther back you get, the more scant the first-person art and criticism you get. If you like it, start reading Arabic. I stuck around Arabic for the literature, and believe me those in my ilk know we are weirdos. EDIT: Removed stupidly posted second link to the same Wikipedia article.
  - phaus 11y ago
    I've been meaning to get back to learning Arabic after one failed attempt. I'm into calligraphy and Arabic calligraphy is some of the most beautiful writing in the world.

by 616c 11y ago

wtbob 11y ago

> it became clear early on there is a whole very naive narritive[sic] justifying US foreign policy in that part of the world. I think that was obvious at least when Mr. Bush was talking about how freedom was the desire of every human heart, which is quite clearly naïve nonsense. Simply put, the vast majority of mankind doesn't care about freedom, wouldn't know what to do with it, and will misuse it when given it. That fundamental misunderstanding caused his government to try to install democracies, when it could have installed confessional republics instead.

616c 11y ago
I am not sure we agree, wtbob. This extends before and after the Bush administration. Beyond democracy building, our routine of divide-and-conquer and other silliness is why they route around our interventionism. This goes to WWII and earlier. It is not just Bush. I get frustrated because this is a common explanation: the neocons, of which I was one at the time, are the elitists who started this. Which is sad, because the wealthier states in the Arab world are now engaged in this "we know how to fix you, lesser Arab state" mentality. I think there is a belief that money solves all ills, and if only then they will see it from our eyes. Local and foreign states engaging in this behavior always fails. In the Arab world, foreign countries have engaged with this stuff for modern recorded history.
- pink_dinner 11y ago
  If you terrorize the world long enough, like many of the groups in the middle east, you will get people that just want to give you what you want, in an attempt to make it go away. Others will even blame themselves: "Maybe I did something wrong. Why would they bomb my cities unless we did something to them??" Terrorism seems to work most of the time. Quebec,Canada is a good example of this. In the 70s, there was a separatist group that set off hundreds of bombs and even kidnapped the vice chairman at the time (and ended up killing him). This was mostly because they didn't feel they should be forced to learn English and wanted the French culture and language to dominate. Fast forward a few decades and the roles are reversed. French is required everywhere in Quebec and businesses basically have to communicate all in French and are subjected to massive fines if their signs are not in French (and it has to culturally make sense). The separatists have won and it had nothing to do with equality. They wanted their culture to dominate and have the power..and now it does..all through the power of terrorist activities. It even happened much earlier with groups like the Vikings. They were never really defeated. They stole, raped, and pillaged across the world, and countries gave them what the wanted and they even ruled entire nations. Eventually, their children's children didn't want to lose wealth or power and didn't continue the violent ways of their ancestors. To stop them, the world had to give them wealth and power...while they murdered the innocent. I guess it worked, but many innocent people had to die along the way. If we listened to people like you, terrorist groups in the middle east would continue to conquer that part of the world and gain more and more power until we have no way to stop it. I am shocked sometimes to see empathy here for anyone that would execute you by cutting your head off, stone women and homosexuals, and rule a nation with an archaic religion. Especially since many here can't even tolerate humane corporal punishment in the US or a simple bible verse spoken in a public school.

nihonde 11y ago

I don't give two licks about the Middle East or the Arab world, but this leapt out at me: "...our hubris to not simply record things and focus on problems. We keep reinventing based on impression, not on result, with new people and a rapid turnover rate." When I moved to Japan, I saw right away that people here tend to measure problems first, then formulate a response, and keep assessing that response as they go. The net effect is a society that has conquered a lot of the annoying problems that get underfoot, and is liberated to focus on higher-order issues. When I go to the 7-11 down the street from me, I noticed that the cash register has two columns of buttons for age demographics. Sure enough, after every transaction, the clerk hits the 'male' button for my age group—and they're always correct about my age. I saw on television the other week that 7-11 store managers in Japan use a sophisticated software tool to plan inventory shipments based on a huge number of factors, including weather forecasts, holidays, recent sales trends, supply chain, etc. These store managers are often twenty-something year old 'kids', and they have more responsibility and accountability for the bottom line than a lot of middle managers at Fortune 50 companies. They perform this function on a little proprietary PC running some very purposeful proprietary software in the tidy back room of every 7-11 store. There's something so damn satisfying about seeing a well-oiled machine in action, and once you've seen it—you're both encouraged that it can be done, and dismayed at how utterly behind the curve others have fallen behind. Emotional factors have a tremendously important role in our lives, but we can't allow emotional responses (or manipulation of emotions) to unwind the great human trait of complex long-term, problem solving and progress.

CapitalistCartr 11y ago
When I was in the military, we were a bunch of 18-22 year olds doing all the work, including direct supervision. What work was that? Building and maintaining nuclear weapons, ICBMs, and all the related support. When my father was 19, he had 40 marines under his command as a Marine Staff sergeant. The Navy sent him to an island called Betio in the Tarawa Atoll. One of the worst disasters in USMC history. But what it wasn't was a defeat. In three days, those "kids" overcame the idiotic Navy planning and took that island. He was 21 when they sailed into Nagasaki harbor, three weeks after it was nuked. Being young doesn't have to mean immature and incompetent. Also, 18 isn't that young unless we make it that way.

phaus 11y ago

Can you recommend any good resources for an honest and unbiased approach to learning about Arabic culture/history? I can't go back to college or move to the Middle East, but I've been wanting to study the culture pretty deeply, but now I am kind of worried it might be difficult to find resources that are fair and accurate.

dforrestwilson1 11y ago
This book was pretty good: http://www.amazon.com/Middle-East-Brief-History-Years/dp/0684832801/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459629575&sr=1-3&keywords=History+of+the+Middle+East http://www.amazon.com/Middle-East-Brief-History-Years/dp/068...
616c 11y ago
dforrestwilson1 has a good rec. But then again, I never enjoyed the history books. I mean, I should be less of a nut, but I do not appreciate the academic works. I say the same thing every time, and professors I know get pissed: start with Adul Rahman Munif's novels. He is a very, very interesting guy. His stuff in English is scattered and week. His Cities of Salt magnum opum will help you see the petro-insanity from the Gulf side, in a pretty scathing critique, from a Saudi who got his citizenship stripped for what he said. Did I mention he was a hardcore Baathist in Iraq who became an author when he got too jaded and abandoned the political platform altogether? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Rahman_Munif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Rahman_Munif You can read sources like Mid East History, but I say start finding novelist, poets, and journalists in translation. There are many in translation, both current and recent, going back at least 50-60 years of the Arab political transformations of that period. http://arablit.wordpress.com/ http://arablit.wordpress.com/ The farther back you get, the more scant the first-person art and criticism you get. If you like it, start reading Arabic. I stuck around Arabic for the literature, and believe me those in my ilk know we are weirdos. EDIT: Removed stupidly posted second link to the same Wikipedia article.
- phaus 11y ago
  I've been meaning to get back to learning Arabic after one failed attempt. I'm into calligraphy and Arabic calligraphy is some of the most beautiful writing in the world.