And then they wonder how we reached this pass. According to this book review, former CIA analyst Pollack's "tremulousness about Islam makes nonsense of much of his book." "Ex-CIA Analyst Ignores Islam in Muddled Mideast Strategy," by George Walden, for Bloomberg, August 11:
Aug. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Whoever wins the U.S. presidential election this November will require a rethink on the Middle East. Kenneth M. Pollack, a former National Security Council staffer and CIA analyst, claims to provide one in ``A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East.''
[...]Imagine a book on the U.S. arguing that the Protestant religion had absolutely nothing to do with the nation's economic successes and failures, its mode of government or its attitude toward sex. That, in essence, is what Pollack writes about Islam and the Middle East. Islam, a religion that claims to infuse every part of human life, turns out to be responsible for nothing according to this book.
Disingenuous
``Islam is not the reason for the rise of Islamist movements,'' he writes. ``Lack of prosperity, not Islam, tends to explain the lower rates of democracy among predominantly Muslim countries,'' he asserts. And so on.
Pollack argues that Malaysia and Indonesia prove that Islam and democracy are compatible. This is disingenuous. We're talking about the Middle East, not Southeast Asia; the whole point is that the practice of Islam in its homeland is far more rigid and inhibits progress.
The author, a research director at the Brookings Institution in Washington, should know better. Yet his tremulousness about Islam makes nonsense of much of his book.
He deplores the rote-learning and uncritical acceptance of authority inculcated in Mideast schools, yet Islam -- the word means submission -- bears no blame. He laments the ``bizarre theocratic oligarchy ruling Iran,'' yet skirts the dangers of nuclear weapons falling into that regime's hands.
Brutish Patriarchy
Most culpably, he's evasive on the position of Muslim women in the Middle East. Never mind that the cycle of ignorance, poverty, brutish patriarchy and overpopulation begins with the subordination of half the population: We can't risk offending anyone by suggesting that religion could be involved, can we?
And terrorism? Well, that stems from the intrusion of the West into Muslim lives -- and from the economic, social and political problems that feed the festering despair of Middle Eastern peoples, Pollack writes.[...]
If sophisticated Muslims, whether practicing or lapsed, have called for religious modernization, why is Pollack silent on the subject? My guess is that he's suffering from a misguided multiculturalism, whereby all religions are not just equal but equally developed. He probably dreads being labeled ``Islamophobic.''
The U.S. is rightly keen to retain its liberties in the face of terrorism, yet ``A Path Out of the Desert'' presents a lesson in how intellectual freedom gets eroded. There can be no adult discussion of the Mideast without an honest debate on Islam.
The reviewer hasn't read a recent US history textbook lately as that is exactly what they propound: that the Protestant religion had no impact at all on our nation's founding, etc.
If the author is a product of our nation's public schools, it's no wonder that the he asserts that Islam has nothing to do with the condition of the Middle East. Current textbooks have virtually nothing in them that even implies that the religious views of populations can impact those nations/societies...except perhaps that the Judeo/Christian ethic caused problems for the West.
How much longer can most of these "learned analysts" ignore the 800-pound gorilla in the middle of the room?
I just love the irony of "Islam has nothing to do with Islamist movements."
But it makes me want to cry at the same time...
When will people see the light. It's not the economy, stupid.(My one nod to the Clintons) For crying out loud. I truly doubt this guy was ever an analyst. This notion of economic disparity has consistently been rebuked when one examines the lives of those who perpetrate terrorism. I mean OBL isn't exactly a former street beggar. And his No.2 wasn't some ditch digger. The men who carried out their plans on 9/11, not exactly illiterate camel herders. The bombers of 7/7. nope on the disadvantage issue. The last crew to attempt a terrorist attack in the UK, I do believe they were doctors. Hell the list is endless. So this whole issue of economics causing terrorism and not islam is for the weak minded fools who have not an inch of intellectual honesty about them. Back in the day, it would have been ok to take this guy out back and "beat some sense" into him. No, we have to constantly argue with these boneheads about the true cause of terrorism/extremism rather than correctly ID-ing the enemy and fighting appropriately.
OT
Pollack???? Any relation to the Pollack from the FBI arrested for spying for Israel?
Malaysia of the religious police? Nice example, morons.
As usual, two blogs document and organize the articles/facts better than all of our 'layers of fact-checking' gatekeepers.
But Time did mention the new Malaysian muttaween/basij in 2002. Note they are now enforcing the laws they weren't going to enforce.
Of course one could search Jihad Watch for Malaysia or Indonesia stories. Or search "bumiputra." Stupidity like this book by people in authority, paid to think, is inexcusable.
Indonesia has the typical Salafist insurgency mainly in Aceh, brutal jihad crimes against non-Muslims, and Islam/secular conflict. If eternal civil war and the subjugation and slaughter of non-Muslim minorities is your idea of democracy, have I got a religion for you!
Let's just be glad this fool is out of government.
In a couple of years time, when Islam continues its acceleration of mass murder in the sacred cause of Jihad, I wonder if Pollack will be embarrassed about his book?
Probably not.
'Nazism' has NOTHING to do with the Nazi party. It is a perversion of Nationalist Socialist beliefs due to poverty and humiliation of the German people.
Well then their wont be any more problems from muslims right?
"'Nazism' has NOTHING to do with the Nazi party. It is a perversion of Nationalist Socialist beliefs due to poverty and humiliation of the German people."
And it was the economic crash in the 1920s that caused the rise of Hitler, his invasions, and the Holocaust.
Pollack is a educated idiot and tool, much like Scheuer.
"Lack of prosperity" is the reason. In the oil-rich countries in particular.
I remember George Walden from when, a quarter-century ago, he had taken a year off from the Foreign Office (where he was still pretending to be one of the boys), in order to accept a Harvard fellowship for some Kennedy School larnin' (which larnin' consisted of what was in the newspaper with high-falutin' bromides and obviousnesses as the "scholarship" he must have seen right through); he later left the Foreign Office, and has gone on to other, possibly more interesting things, including serving as a Booker Prize judge.
He has written about the expense, for the British government (and by extension other Infidel governments), of monitoring the Muslim populations:
"I had a certain amount to do with MI5 during my years in the Foreign Office, before I became an MP, and have a smell for when the Government are in control and when they're not.
At that time there was a swarm of Soviet agents about, we had almost no idea what they were up to, and the Home Secretary of the moment was in the habit of fending off awkward questions from colleagues by saying don't worry, the security services are keeping an eye on them.
This used to make the M15 people, who knew they were hopelessly overwhelmed, spitting mad. It took nine people, they told me, to keep tabs on a single intelligence agent, and till we summoned up the nerve to throw the whole lot out the Russians alone had over 100 based here.
Think how many security men it would take to keep track of our terrorist suspects, who unlike the spies can go to ground in a community unsympathetic to the police.
Then ask yourself how successful the security services are likely to be in the long-term, and whether it's surprising that they make mistakes - mistakes that are described by the communities that decline to assist the authorities as proof that we live in an Islamophobic police state."
Ooh, oooh,oooh ,Mr Kotter, I know I know. It's 'root causes due to imperialistic zionismic world dominational conquest!"
A few nights back, Ken Pollack was offering his "expertise" on the Middle East on C-SPAN while his wife, Andrea Koppel was "enlightening" viewers on China.
No matter how wide of the mark their analysis has been in the past, it seems nothing stops these two--or so many others like them--from continuing to find audiences for their nonsense and employers to pay for it.
Pollack was one of those who told everyone how easy and inexpensive the Iraq operation would be. Like so many others who pushed the war, he blames the failures of the administration (the administration has made many mistakes, but again he is missing the point), while refusing to admit that the entire venture was doomed to failure because of the Islamic nature of Iraqi society. It isn't Islam, according to Pollack, but mistakes made during the American occupation, that has prevented Iraq from becoming the secular, modern, democratic, peaceful, "ally in the war on terror" that folks like Pollack thought it was just destined to become, if only Saddam, his sons and the Republican guard weren't standing in the way.
Koppel, if I remember correctly, was a CNN reporter in 2002 who unquestionably bought the phony Jenin massacre story and (in a widely reported off-air conversation) spoke of Israel's end being near. Had she read even a tiny bit of the history of warfare in the region prior to pontificating, it might have occurred to her that Arab spokesmen have, shall we put politely, a tendency toward exaggeration. Did she think "Bagdad Bob" was a credible source? Two swings, two misses. These days, she's an expert on China.
Why would anyone hire or take advice from people who never get things right? Would you go to a doctor to treat an illness that he has continually misdiagnosed or failed to cure?
It seems as though if you have some combination of the right work experiences, published material or connections, you can count on always being employed in the foreign affairs arena, even if your policy suggestions are disastrous, your grasp of events weak and your willingness to learn from your mistakes nonexistent.
First sentence shoud say: A few nights back, Ken Pollack was offering his "expertise" on the Middle East on C-SPAN while his wife, Andrea Koppel was "enlightening" viewers on China on C-SPAN 2.
At this point, Mr Fitzgerald, I think that Mr Pollack needs to be made to read, over and over, that devastating passage from A Carlebach (Ma'ariv October 7 1955) which you brought to our attention some time ago and which - ironically preserved and drawn attention to, by the fool Edward Said, who thus shot himself in the foot - says all that needs to be said about the relationship between Islam and the misery that festers everywhere it prevails.
It is one of my favourites. I haven't quite memorised it yet, but I shall post it, yet again, for the benefit of any new readers here today, and any who may in future be investigating the archives.
"These Arab Islamic countries do not suffer from poverty, or disease, or illiteracy, or exploitation; they only suffer from the worst of all plagues: Islam.
"Wherever Islamic psychology rules, there is the inevitable rule of despotism and criminal aggression.
"The danger lies in Islamic psychology, which cannot integrate itself into the world of efficiency and progress,
"that lives in a world of illusion, perturbed by attacks of inferiority complexes and megalomania, lost in dreams of the holy sword.
"The danger stems from the totalitarian conception of the world, the passion for murder deeply rooted in their blood, from the lack of logic, the easily inflamed brains, the boasting, and above all: the blasphemous disregard for all that is sacred to the civilized world...
"their reactions -- to anything -- have nothing to do with good sense.
"They are all emotion, unbalanced, instantaneous, senseless. It is always the lunatic that speaks from their throat.
"You can talk 'business' with everyone, and even with the devil. But not with Allah...
"This is what every grain in this country [Israel] shouts.
"There were many great cultures here, and invaders of all kinds. All of them -- even the Crusaders -- left signs of culture and blossoming.
"But on the path of Islam, even the trees have died."
Others here might like to bring out, yet again, the equally ruthless observations of Churchill and John Quincy Adams, on the obvious nexus between the teachings of Islam and the havoc it wreaks upon people and societies.
"[Andrea] Koppel, if I remember correctly, was a CNN reporter in 2002 who unquestionably bought the phony Jenin massacre story and (in a widely reported off-air conversation) spoke of Israel's end being near. Had she read even a tiny bit of the history of warfare in the region prior to pontificating, it might have occurred to her that Arab spokesmen have, shall we put politely, a tendency toward exaggeration. Did she think "Bagdad Bob" was a credible source? Two swings, two misses. These days, she's an expert on China."
-- from a posting by "4infidels" above
You remember correctly.
And how.
Impolitely we in England would describe Walden's analysis as "arse about face".
More politely it could possibly be described as putting the cart before the horse.
Islam has not caused the lack of prosperity according to Walden, but lack of prosperity has caused a rise in islamism.
China is experiencing the first wind of islamism in what is the poorest province of China (no surprise there then). That this province has a majority muslim population is pure coincidence according to Walden, I suppose, and has nothing at all to do with islam.
I say Chaps, that fellow Kenneth does talk a load of Pollocks, does he not?
CIA and intelligence somehow don't go together.
Ken Pollack makes another infuriating statement that has become so typical of those in his line of work, as paraphrased by Walden, "Pollack argues that Malaysia and Indonesia prove that Islam and democracy are compatible."
Anyone who spends a minimum of a few minutes a day looking at the stories indexed on this website could hardly believe that Islam is a benign force in Indonesia and Malaysia. True the culture isn't as solely Islamic as it is in the Middle East, particularly in the Arab countries, but there is a constant push in both Asian pacific nations for sharia, including restrictions on, and persecution of, infidels.
I wouldn't want to be a Christian living in Indonesia, which is always cited as an example of "moderate Islam" in action by those who never take the time to explore what life is actually like for non-Muslims. Should an Infidel child's shoe accidentally land on the property of a Muslim, you can expect 3,500 Muslim men to take to the streets making death threats with swords and sticks in their clenched fists, hauling Molotov cocktails at the school and talking about dhimmis violating their "protected" place in society. I think Christianity may have been taught at the school with the window open, thus violating the Pact of Umar by proselytizing. And the Christians, they didn't have a permit. See Muslims are only expressing anger about injustice
The former Malaysian PM (I believe it was in that notorious year of 2002) gave a viciously anti-semitic speech at the OIC, blaming Jews for inventing democracy, human right and other unfortunate ideologies so that people would believe it was wrong to persecute the Jews. Good thing it wasn't Islam that led him to speak such bile at a Muslim conference. I wonder why he thought that adherents of a religion that doesn't encourage "extremism" would want to hear such a message?
Just took a closer look at this Andrea Koppel thing and it all falls into place: good God: she even looks dumb! And then there is the usual socializing with the Kuwait Ambassador and Diane von Furstenberg, (you get the drift) the socialites of the news-circus, and the third world parasites in suites and fancy costumes who so enrich the lives of us all.
Hollowness and shallowness goes together. An ex-CIA spook with a book. Perhaps a promise from the Kuwait ambassador that there would be some perks along the road if Islam is kept out of the debate, you get my drift...?
I rest my case...
http://images.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=Andrea%20Koppel&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi
"good God: she even looks dumb!"
-- from a posting above
Hey, you're copying me.
Sheik and Hugh,
Speaking of dumb (or is she just calculatingly in her oblivious to certain things), Christiane Amanpour made an appearance at the same event as Andrea Koppel.
H.M. Queen Rania has graced the event with her phony presence.
I guess the "H.M" stands for Her Majesty...or as Hugh might call her, L.A. (Local Arab) Rania.
Nice to see these holier-than-thou journalists hanging out with their Arab friends who they rarely dare to investigate. Muslims, to put it politely, don't respond well to criticism. Anyone not seen as pro-Arab would probably not be welcome, and certainly would not feel comfortable, at these events. It all makes sense when you figure that most people act out of self-interest.
Journalists should hold themselves to the same standards that they would hold those who have views or businesses they don't care for. How can the public trust your objectivity and impartiality if you are hanging out with the folks you are supposed to be covering. Barbara Walters spent her July 4th vacation in Syria visiting with the Assads. It reminds me of Oriana Fallaci's article "The Enemy We Treat as a Friend."
Guess he didn't read the Coughlin thesis.
Moron.
The CYA
"'Lack of prosperity, not Islam, tends to explain the lower rates of democracy among predominantly Muslim countries,'' he [Kenneth Pollack] asserts."
-- from the article above
How true.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, et al.), Qatar, Libya, and the other six Muslim states, or states where Muslims run things, that are members of OPEC, and thus the beneficiaries, since 1973 alone, of more than ten trillion dollars in oil revenues, are none of them democracies, and now we all know why. It's their "lack of prosperity."
So how shall we make Saudi Arabia prosperous, given its "lack of prosperity"? And Kuwait? And the U.A.E.? And Qatar? And all the other Muslim states in OPEC? Was Iran more dangerous when it had no oil wealth, or when, having acquired great oil wealth, and become unhinged by that oil wealth, and at the same time, with that oil wealth able to acquire the kind of weapons and power it is now acquiring,or less?
Do we want "prosperity" for the Muslim world? Is that the key? What, besides the more than ten trillion dollars that constitute the largest transfer of wealth in human history, do they need? What, aside from the billions we Infidels give to all the Muslim states, it seems, that don't have oil wealth, could we be doing? What is it the Pollacks of this world want Infidels to you? Continually to keep Muslims prosperous, despite their own, Islam-inculcated inshallah-fatalism, with our money, lest they become....well, you know....extremists?
What utter nonsense. Top to bottom. What a dope.
Isn't this the same Pollack who, along with Michael O'Hanlon, routinely delivers himself -- they deliver themselves -- of a solemn judgment, based on some lightning visit to Baghdad or some reading of statistical tea-leaves at homes, as to whether or not "the surge is working." Oh, according to them, "the surge is working" -- whatever that means, and America "may well win in Iraq" -- whatever that means. Of course, as long as you can keep Islam out of it, then you never have to think about, it never even comes up as a glimmer on the screen, about dividing and demoralizing the Camp of Islam. You can instead just keep saying that "the surge is working" and "it's not yet time, however, to go home" and other such pronouncements. And that night, after your Op/Ed appears in the Times, you can turn in, thinking to yourself, about yourself: Well Done, Thou Good And Faithful Servant.
As for Andrea Koppel, his helpmeet, she must certainly hve gotten her media job strictly on merit, just like Mika Brzezinski. Any connection to their parents -- who never lift a finger to help them, who always let them "make it on their own" -- is purely coincidental.
Raymond -- please consider changing the title so that you specify the precise C.I.A. analyst, Mr. Kenneth Pollack. Much more convenient for googling purposes.
If the path to advancement in an authoritarian regime is through achievement in superior suppression of individual liberty then the lack of prosperity -- aggregate prosperity -- is a foregone conclusion.
Islam is just one variant among many describable anti-liberty regimes. It is why, for example, our society and our constitution does not say that we oppose Islam specifically but oppose all enemies of individual liberty. There remains a tautology of sorts though in charging government (inherently prone to squash individual liberty) with the duty of preserving individual liberty. While the simplest view of "Democracy" is the act of holding elections, there must be a slightly more sophisticated but no less vigorous defense of liberty . . . by way of repelling the Tyranny of the Majority.
The marriage of Islam (the religious fervor of it, and institutionalized intolerance of individuality and dissent) with the power of the state over all citizens is wholly incompatible with preserving individual liberty, and the prosperity that such liberty unleashes.
Prosperity may, but not necessarily will, follow liberty. If one defines liberty as wealth itself then one can have it without reference to materialistic-only yard-sticks. Given that there will always be competition for resources some folks might let this non-unlimitedness of resources cloud their ability to see the near-optimal level of individual liberty even when it manifests itself in all it's glory.
I suppose if someone is locked into a materialistic mind-set then their own materialism is what will blind them to the very notion of individual liberty (lefties). The political notion of ending taxes on the estate of a deceased person, coupled with the institutional transference of capitalist risk to the general public, is likewise a threat to the realization of -- and perpetuation of -- individual liberty by future generations (righties). It reestablishes the constitutionally-recognized evil notion of Nobility, but without formal titles.
There is one feature of Islam that is shared by other "religions," and understandably so given common sense; universal opposition to debt slavery. It stifles dynamic capitalism and the real experience of individual liberty. The debt-induced home price pyramid is just such an evil, but cannot be blamed on Islam (lefties and righties).
What is wealth, without liberty? Anyone have an answer?
=====
Side note on oil "wealth" -- British industrialization got a big boost by selling man-made stuff to the Spanish Conquistadors in exchange for gold, until they had no more. The Middle East will run out of their black gold soon enough, leaving them only black (and white) slaves as a possible substitute product to offer the world.
Possession of oil is not wealth, neither is holding scraps of fiat paper . . . nor gold.
The lack of prosperity in Muslim lands is explained by Islam itself. It is Islam that encourages the habit of mental submission, and by extension, the habit of submission to The Ruler, as long as the ruler is a Muslim. It is Islam that encourages inshallah-fatalism. And both of these have economic consequences. The first, the habit of mental submission, the discouraging or punishing of free and skeptical inquiry (beginning with any "free and skeptical inquiry" about Islam), leads to an absence of entrepreneurial flair and a deep reliance on manna or handouts from the state. The recent reports about the failure of a "free market" to develop in Iraq, and the enlargement of the state-owned parts of the economy, despite the huge and expensive efforts of the Americans, should not surprise. It was inevitable. In the oil-rich states, the money comes from the government. The whole effort is to make sure that your sect or tribe or family manages either to seize control, for that sect, that tribe, or that family, or failing that, manages to ingratiate itself with that sect, that tribe, or that family. The royal road to riches in the Muslim Middle East? Ask the Al-Saud, the As-Sabah, the Al-Thani, the
Al-Maktoum, and all the othes, with their courtiers ("You Know Me, Al" is their favorite story) and hangers-on and candying spaniels at court.
As for inshallah-fatalism, why try very very hard when, in the end, every fiber in your individual or collective being tells you that, in the end, it's all up to Allah, and he will intervene, quite inexplicably and suddenly, whenever he wants. Why try to create or accumulate wealth, in societies suffused with Islam which, in any case, are subject to constant upheaval, as there is constant jockeying for position, in order to obtain more wealth -- such as the oil wealth available, so much more abundant than anything the Arabs themselves could possibly make, and in any case they don't try, they rely on millions of foreign, mostly Infidel, workers.
And in those Muslim-dominated lands that forgot to be born with oil and gas reserves, the Infidels -- not fellow members of the Umma -- have somehow gotten into the bad habit of shelling out tens and by now hundreds of billions, for those Muslims, in Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, the so-called "Palestinian" territories (Arab-occupied Gaza and the "West Bank"), and anywhere else that such Muslims can be found (two billion dollars was pledged by Infidel donors a few weeks ago for Kosovo).
Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's famous phrase has been transformed for a new application: "As for work, our Infidels will do that for us."
Pollack claims that "lack of prosperity" explains the violence and aggression and threats emanating from the Musliim lands. No. "Lack of prosperity" comes from the same source that, entirely independently, explains the violence and aggression and threats against Infidels, and emanating from Muslim lands (and from Muslims living, often quite comfortably, and certainly far more comfortably than they did in the Muslim lands from which they came, deep within the Infidel lands of Western Europe).
'
That source is Islam. And that is what the bland unimaginative thoroughly-bureaucratic in thought, word, and dead, michael-pollacks of this world cannot possibly begin, or allow themselves to attempt to begin, to understand.
"Pollack argues that Malaysia and Indonesia prove that Islam and democracy are compatible"
Well, that does little in explaining why the Muslims are rampaging about, routing the democratic minded Christians from their land and the increasing body count of democratic minded Christians attributed to the marauding Muslims.
If anything, Muslim actions prove Islam and democracy are NOT compatible...
S/O Of course, Islam has nothing to do with it. Every pubescent male of every religion and culture at puberty on this planet has the same exact psychological impetus and zeitgeist to murder people who do not believe exactly as they do asserting as a new member of the community the inalienable right to rape steal and pillage of others if certain of the newly pubescent individuals self evident religious and cultural edicts and demands are not precisely met.
At the risk of sounding crude, I assert that this man has an acute (perhaps terminal) case of cranial rectumitis!
The islamic mindset causes poverty, hopelessness, anger, and resentment. It suppresses creativity and the desire to achieve anything. Moslems always have to blame others (Israel, US, the West in general, etc.) for their problems, shortcomings, and failures. No one wants to admit culpability, express sorrow, or apologize. And with a fatalistic attitude of insh allah (allah wills it), there seems to be a "why try to better myself; this is allah's will and my destiny." This is especially true among the poor islamic women and girls.
Hugh sez:
Pollack claims that "lack of prosperity" explains the violence and aggression and threats emanating from the Musliim lands. No.
Its not that Pollack says it, he parrots it. Because this is what his 'Arab friends' tell him. He and his HELPMEET wife (what a greet description!) rely on their invitations, how else would they get to meet Queen Rania, and the Ambassador of this and that, and get invited to the Arabic glitterati palaces where they can feel so civilized and sheltered (its such a ungle out there!) and treated so well. And if it comes with the condition to not mention anything about Islam (because Islam must not be critcised) so be it, what a small price for keeping such good friends, right?
Right?
"Former CIA analyst: "Islam is not the reason for the rise of Islamist movements"
It must be the Serbs.
Polloock asserts. `Islam is not the reason for the rise of Islamist movements,'' he writes. ``Lack of prosperity, not Islam, tends to explain the lower rates of democracy among predominantly Muslim countries".
Pollocks. Islam is the cause of lack of prosperity and liberal democracy.