The Trouble With Our ME Foreign Policy...

[ElboRuum]

The trouble with our Middle East Foreign policy isn't that we can't pinpoint terrorism around the globe because it doesn't respect national borders. It does neither have to do, even in the smallest part, with preemptive warfare. It has little to do with sovereignty of nations not necessarily friendly to our interest.

OK. It has to do with all of those things. But these troubles are nothing when compared with the confusion of the American people, who do not feel well informed enough about these policies and the players involved to formulate any kind of "focused world view."

OK. Even with the information, quite a few Americans wouldn't feel qualified to formulate any kind of "focused world view" of any sort, even if you gave them a calculator and let them copy the answers out of history books. Nonetheless, there are aspects of our governmental policies and journalism with regard to the Middle East that would give a bonafide polymath a searing case of the red-ass.

I'm talking about phonetic transliterations and mispronunciations of Middle Eastern names and phrases into English. To me, this is the X-factor that causes the American intellect, such as it is, to barf up its collective lunch. Make no mistake, I hold ourselves to blame for this, we cause our own confusion.

I can hear you laughing. Follow me through this.

My case:

For all of its recorded history, American journalists and policy wonks have been calling the group "Hezbollah", now all of a sudden it's "Hizbollah?" When did this happen?

When 9/11 happened, we couldn't decide on the pronunciation, even though we were pretty sure of the spelling: "al-Qaeda", only some people capitalize the 'a' and some don't. I can live with that. But we had it pronounced a slew of different ways, "al-kay-da", "al-kye-da", and even an "al-kye-ee-da". At least, that is, until our Illustrious Potentate started referring to it under the collective "terr". And what of their leader? Is it Usama or Osama? OO vs. OH. There is no mistaking this, yet someone had to have mistaken something, somewhere.

The most egregious confusion in recent memory happened during the whole Lybian "line-of-death" thing. To this day, can anyone say, for absolute certain, what the accepted phonetic spelling of Muammar Quaddafi is? Note that we have no problem with Muammar. Haven't seen it spelled any different than what I've put here. Oh, wait, I do recall a Mummuar, once... but I think that person was either completely correct or a total idiot. But as far as the last name, we've had Quaddafi, Quadafi, Quadaffi, Qadafi, Kahdafi, and even Ghadafi. I think someone spelled it Gidafi once, but I'm sure he was an idiot.

Now Hamas we get right. I've never seen it spelled any different, nor has anyone (anyone I know anyway) ever pronounced it HAM-ASS. I don't know why this is different. Every rule has its exception, and every trend has its iconoclast, I suppose.


The point is that this "X-factor" which I make a little light of here is the specific symptom of our larger disease. Our government and our journalists do not look upon the Middle East with much respect. It's the shoddiness of the reporting which mirrors the shoddiness of the thinking. The disrespect of the language mirrors the disrespect of the people. The problem of our entire Middle East policy is that this disrespect is palpable to every citizen of that region. The inability to figure out a even the most basic of argumentation and commentary necessities, a lexical common ground, speaks of a lack of depth and interest in probing the topic much more deeply than the imminently superficial.

While the people of the Middle East probably aren't too concerned with our ineptitude in agreeing on a simple thing like the pronunciation or spelling of a word, I think we show our disrespect in other ways.

Take, for example, the arrogance of our policies.

There's nothing that any person can say that will allow me to believe that arrogantly assuming that democracy would blossom because (and I don't think I'm oversimplifying here by saying so) "it works in the 'Good 'ol U.S. of A' and is therefore awesome" wasn't the most ignorantly and stupidly arrogant half-thought ever thunk. Does it get any more egocentric than that?! I defy ANYONE to provide me an example of a concept more indicative of a singular point of view that had greater potential for disastrous consequences. I'll wait. Take your time.

We just assumed that we could just ship over the quintessence of America: Elections, Mom, and Apple Pie and all would just be great and happen. We got the elections, and nothing really sprouted. (At this point, it should be noted that we decided not to ship the apple pie. We thought it would be a losing proposition after elections failed to create really great things. Mom offered to go, but the crate we had on hand was too small and the postage was outrageous.) There's nothing in the history of the world that states that manufactured nations have met anything but trouble. Apparently, really healthy countries are best grown organically.

I mean, seriously, if we don't get to know them well enough where we can't even agree to a spelling of a word amongst ourselves, how much could we possibly know about their culture, customs, and problems enough to understand their needs? We lack the basic cultural vocabulary to even converse intellegently with the people of the Middle East, and here we are, intervening in those lives on their behalf?!?. How do we even BEGIN to expect this to somehow AVOID becoming an issue of contempt?

Until this attitude of blase cultural and political disrespect on our behalf stops, both in word, deed, and policy, anyone expecting a peace in the ME with us anywhere nearby has a long, long wait ahead of 'em.

[Der Blaue Engel]

1. I agree, to a point

But I remember working with Lebanese exchange students in the 80s when I was in the housing dept. at my university. Every semester, they applied for housing with a different transliteration of their own names. It caused no end of confusion. I asked one them once why she didn't just pick a spelling and stick with it, and she said, "there aren't any right letters in your alphabet, and we don't really see the difference."

So...there's that.

But I do agree that we clearly emanate a lack of respect for the region and its people in everything we do.

[knowbody0]

2. the truth we spread with our foreign policies

when 60 + % of ameriKans disapprove of our policies is that we no longer live in a democracy and are ruled by a tyrant not concerned with polls or the constitution.

[ElboRuum]

3. But you, as a citizen...

How much do you truly understand about Middle Eastern culture? If, as many Americans, you only know what they've been led to believe by the media and the government, which hasn't been particularly charitable, then I would suggest that we aren't even in a position to hypothesize casually about what the right policy would be.

There's that high a level of disinterest in painting an accurate, fair picture of the Middle East by either the media or the government. I don't know whether this disinterest is genuine based upon a very institutionalized egocentrist POV which doesn't see that understanding as significant, or whether it is done on purpose to prevent the American people from seeing a humanity to the region that they might start to relate to.