Last weekend, some anonymous country station between DC and Norfolk turned back the clock a decade and spun Toby Keith's ass-kicking anthem, "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)." The song, Keith's direct response to September 11, flew up the charts, reaching country's number one spot by the beginning of the following summer. The song itself perhaps needs little introduction; Keith has a bold (some might say inane) message: you hit us, and now you're going to pay.
I spent the better part of my senior year of undergrad listening and studying this song as part of my "comps" (a sort of senior thesis) on the politics of commercial country music. This was three years after the song had come out, and my perspective (like others', I suspect) then was a little different. Afghanistan had practically come and gone -- we won, right? -- Iraq was on everyone's mind then. Toby Keith's promise to "light up their world like it's the Fourth of July" presumably had already happened. At the time, the song still spoke to a residual anger over 9/11, a feeling that military action had been and continued to be completely necessary. This was, of course, before the majority of Americans concerned themselves with the actual act(s) of waging war and/or the populations upon which that war was to be waged. So, because Keith doesn't come right out and say it, up exactly whose ass was he threatening to put his boot?
Given references to Al Qaeda and the Taliban elsewhere in his foreign policy songbook, it's likely some nebulous combination of the two and a little Saddam Hussein as well. Yet times have changed. The Taliban have been pushed out of Kabul, but they're still alive and kicking quite violently both in Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan. Keith sang, "Uncle Sam put your name at the top of his list / And the Statue of Liberty started shaking her fist"... well, Tobes, they're still at the top of that list. And Secretary Gates has readily admitted some kind of reconciliation with the Taliban is possible. Not exactly the kind of uncompromising destruction promised in song, is it now?
Keith opens his tune with this little ode to honoring our veterans, the only part of the song that holds up to much serious inquiry. Back in 2002, Keith was the poster boy for a particular strand of patriotism that demanded uncritical support of full engagement in the occupation of two foreign countries and the financial and military support of a handful more (Keith is no Tea Party Republican, mind you). I think we've grown up a little since then, our vantage point on the wars and the world has grown considerably more nuanced. We've been humbled by the limits of American military might, and, for all that initial bluster, we've proven rather unwilling to stomach the sacrifices necessary to win. Keith just talked like the playground bully. You hit me, and now I'm going to pummel you. Oh, except that pummeling will take over 9 years and billions upon billions of dollars I don't really have. And, oh, while I pummel you I'd like to nurse you back to health too.
"Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" set us up with unreasonable expectations, ones our military and diplomatic corps could never live up to. I'd be curious to hear what Keith thinks about that now, if he does at all.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
I try to briefly break down what's going on in Egypt for my buddy
A friend and I were catching up the other day and he asked me about Egypt. We were running out of town, so I sent an email and quickly recognized it was really a blog post. Who sends these kinds of long-winded, I'm-an-expert emails to their friends (ones that aren't about sports, I mean)? Apparently this guy.
Anyway, my take on what's gone on in Egypt:
The long story short, we've been helping prop up a highly un-democratic "republic" for thirty years. Since the military staged a coup against the British-backed monarchy in 1952 (the Free Officers' Movement, it was called), Egypt has had three presidents, all former Air Force officers. Mubarak is just the last of those. He's now 82. He's spent the last few years grooming his son Gamal as his successor, while simultaneously denying it because he's not sure how his cronies would feel about a non-military guy taking over next. One of the biggest opposition parties, the Muslim Brotherhood, is probably one of the more organized Islamist parties in the Arab world. But don't let the Fox News folks confuse you: they are democratic, do not use violence, etc. They do believe in a greater role for Islam in government and they believe in pluralism and participation. They're banned from participating in elections and every so often state security forces will show up at an MB gathering, bust some skulls, and arrest some Brothers. But they also arrested Ayman Nour, a liberal politician who has consistently opposed Mubarak and run against him. Not that it matters: Mubarak typically wins with at least 85% of the vote.
I'm skeptical to attach too much to the events in Tunisia, but I do think its hard to deny the timing. The Tunisia revolt really emboldened everyone in the region, and the protests are only growing. My guess is, frankly, Egypt won't be the last authoritarian leader to go down. It sent a message that a big popular revolt really could take down a government, and even though Egypt is a little more open than Tunisia in terms of what was possible to discuss in public, there was really no avenue for most people to speak up or advocate for change.
In my opinion, the protests and Mubarak's pending ouster are good things, but only if a real popular vote comes to fruition. Unlike in Tunisia, there is actually some political party infrastructure, and there are influential potential leaders outside the Mubarak regime and the NDP (his party). El Baradei is one of those -- the former Atomic Energy agency head and Nobel winner -- but, for my money, he's played the role of king-in-waiting a little too much. It's as though he's waiting to be appointed Egypt's democratic savior. But now it looks like there's some real multiparty consensus to have him represent popular interests in a transition to power, so it's hardly my place to editorialize on the matter.
I think the US tack has been pretty good on the whole. Calls to completely cut aid (by Senator Paul, no shock there) are a little ridiculous, though I think its due for a major slashing. That $1.5 billion a year is basically rent: we pay them that much because they are close to Israel. They keep weapons from getting into Gaza (sometimes) and they promise not to attack Israel, keep the Suez open, and help us out with our anti-terrorism efforts. We pay similar type "rents" to other countries (Morocco is a biggie too) but nothing on this kind of level, at least nothing without major oil reserves. I think we need to cut how much money we give, reconfigure where our aid money actually goes within any Egyptian administration, and withhold future funding until a democratic election with outside observers is held and those people take power.
We shouldn't be afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood. As Gibbs said the other day, we don't pick the candidates on the ballots, we just make sure the elections are fair and just. Seems right to me. I don't think it's too late to change our course on Mubarak and back real democratic reform. We're only two years into Obama's term, and I think a fair number of Egyptians and Arabs elsewhere would respect the change in policy as the correct one. It wouldn't get rid of all the skepticism, but I have trouble seeing how a big policy change wouldn't be, at the very least, appreciated.
Of course, once Mubarak goes down (and he will), the possibilities are endless and Obama will have a true foreign policy mess on his hands. Normally, I'd say that if Obama didn't have bad luck, he'd have no luck at all, but I do believe this is an opportunity to capitalize on, though its going to require a big re-thinking of our "pro-democracy" priorities. We might want to get on that sooner rather than later.
Anyway, my take on what's gone on in Egypt:
The long story short, we've been helping prop up a highly un-democratic "republic" for thirty years. Since the military staged a coup against the British-backed monarchy in 1952 (the Free Officers' Movement, it was called), Egypt has had three presidents, all former Air Force officers. Mubarak is just the last of those. He's now 82. He's spent the last few years grooming his son Gamal as his successor, while simultaneously denying it because he's not sure how his cronies would feel about a non-military guy taking over next. One of the biggest opposition parties, the Muslim Brotherhood, is probably one of the more organized Islamist parties in the Arab world. But don't let the Fox News folks confuse you: they are democratic, do not use violence, etc. They do believe in a greater role for Islam in government and they believe in pluralism and participation. They're banned from participating in elections and every so often state security forces will show up at an MB gathering, bust some skulls, and arrest some Brothers. But they also arrested Ayman Nour, a liberal politician who has consistently opposed Mubarak and run against him. Not that it matters: Mubarak typically wins with at least 85% of the vote.
I'm skeptical to attach too much to the events in Tunisia, but I do think its hard to deny the timing. The Tunisia revolt really emboldened everyone in the region, and the protests are only growing. My guess is, frankly, Egypt won't be the last authoritarian leader to go down. It sent a message that a big popular revolt really could take down a government, and even though Egypt is a little more open than Tunisia in terms of what was possible to discuss in public, there was really no avenue for most people to speak up or advocate for change.
In my opinion, the protests and Mubarak's pending ouster are good things, but only if a real popular vote comes to fruition. Unlike in Tunisia, there is actually some political party infrastructure, and there are influential potential leaders outside the Mubarak regime and the NDP (his party). El Baradei is one of those -- the former Atomic Energy agency head and Nobel winner -- but, for my money, he's played the role of king-in-waiting a little too much. It's as though he's waiting to be appointed Egypt's democratic savior. But now it looks like there's some real multiparty consensus to have him represent popular interests in a transition to power, so it's hardly my place to editorialize on the matter.
I think the US tack has been pretty good on the whole. Calls to completely cut aid (by Senator Paul, no shock there) are a little ridiculous, though I think its due for a major slashing. That $1.5 billion a year is basically rent: we pay them that much because they are close to Israel. They keep weapons from getting into Gaza (sometimes) and they promise not to attack Israel, keep the Suez open, and help us out with our anti-terrorism efforts. We pay similar type "rents" to other countries (Morocco is a biggie too) but nothing on this kind of level, at least nothing without major oil reserves. I think we need to cut how much money we give, reconfigure where our aid money actually goes within any Egyptian administration, and withhold future funding until a democratic election with outside observers is held and those people take power.
We shouldn't be afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood. As Gibbs said the other day, we don't pick the candidates on the ballots, we just make sure the elections are fair and just. Seems right to me. I don't think it's too late to change our course on Mubarak and back real democratic reform. We're only two years into Obama's term, and I think a fair number of Egyptians and Arabs elsewhere would respect the change in policy as the correct one. It wouldn't get rid of all the skepticism, but I have trouble seeing how a big policy change wouldn't be, at the very least, appreciated.
Of course, once Mubarak goes down (and he will), the possibilities are endless and Obama will have a true foreign policy mess on his hands. Normally, I'd say that if Obama didn't have bad luck, he'd have no luck at all, but I do believe this is an opportunity to capitalize on, though its going to require a big re-thinking of our "pro-democracy" priorities. We might want to get on that sooner rather than later.
Monday, January 31, 2011
The most important thing to happen in the Middle East in 50 years, huh?
Last week I went to a talk at George Washington University, put on by the Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS). It was about the coming "revolution" in Tunisia -- which, we were quickly told, was not a revolution -- and featured Christopher Alexander of Davidson College and John P. Entelis of Fordham University. As an aspiring North Africanist myself, I was naturally there. And if there are American academics -- more accurately, political scientists -- qualified to really comment on Tunisia, it would be these two guys.
Any person well versed in Middle East Studies might have noted just how exceptional this was: there aren't a lot of Tunisia experts here in the States. Of course, did that stop the Middle East policy/political science community (especially here in DC) from sharing their barely-informed positions on the matter? Hardly.
But here we had two bona fide Tunisia political scientists (would've loved to hear from a historian or an anthropologist, but they generally don't get invites to these sorts of things), explaining what was going on. Some really useful stuff, too. For one, that the creation and strengthening of a real political party apparatus is, in the long run, more important than the rewriting or restructuring of the Constitution. But the one that really stuck with me, the one I wanted to go and tweet right away (I hadn't yet returned to tweeting), was Entelis' claim that the uprising in Tunisia would be "the most important thing to happen in the Middle East in fifty years."
Now this was last Tuesday at lunchtime, when the very first marchers were moving into the center of Cairo for their very first protest. We knew it was coming from word circulating online -- that so-called "Twitter Revolution" -- but there was nothing to suggest the kind of upheaval on the way.
No one's really talking about Tunisia these days though. It's been a week since Entelis made that comment, and this all raises good questions about the actual connections between Arab states. The Maghreb -- North Africa west of Egypt, loosely defined -- has long been considered peripheral to US interests in the region, at least as far as the bulk of the Beltway policy community is concerned. As it fades back to its second tier status again so Egypt can rise to the fore, I wonder how we'll remember these past events in Tunisia. I saw tweets the other day that said that history will remember the wave of democratic revolution in the Middle East beginning in Sidi Bouzid, the town where a young Tunisian worker burned himself in protest of police confiscating his illegal vegetable stand.
I tend to believe connections between countries in the Middle East are over-dramatized and overemphasized; after all, the glossing of the various cultures and societies in the Arabic-speaking world is part of the dominant narrative about the region. That is, it's a key part of inherent suspicions about Islam that allow pundits (let's differentiate between them and real experts) to condemn the Muslim Brotherhood. Instead, I often try to emphasize the multiplicities between the various countries in addition to the multiplicities within one. For example, a Muslim university professor in Tunis may differ greatly from a Muslim university professor in Alexandria or Aleppo, just as he or she may be very different than a bank clerk in any of those places. To say nothing of the ways the actual practice of Islam varies across the spectrum in these countries.
In general, we use the "Arab world" or the "Islamic world" as the subject of our analysis too uncritically. We should question the logic -- a good geographer would call it "the imaginative geography" -- that allows us to think of Tunisia and Egypt as the closely connected. How much do you care about Canadian politics? And we even share a border with them.
I still believe all that -- it rarely hurts to think critically about your most basic assumptions -- but the Tunisia-Egypt revolution question has thrown a wrench in the works. The fact that Twitter and Facebook exist and spread the word of the protests seems not so important. What does matter is how people feel and articulate the personal connection and how they see their lives and their identities in flux based on events pretty far away.
Any person well versed in Middle East Studies might have noted just how exceptional this was: there aren't a lot of Tunisia experts here in the States. Of course, did that stop the Middle East policy/political science community (especially here in DC) from sharing their barely-informed positions on the matter? Hardly.
But here we had two bona fide Tunisia political scientists (would've loved to hear from a historian or an anthropologist, but they generally don't get invites to these sorts of things), explaining what was going on. Some really useful stuff, too. For one, that the creation and strengthening of a real political party apparatus is, in the long run, more important than the rewriting or restructuring of the Constitution. But the one that really stuck with me, the one I wanted to go and tweet right away (I hadn't yet returned to tweeting), was Entelis' claim that the uprising in Tunisia would be "the most important thing to happen in the Middle East in fifty years."
Now this was last Tuesday at lunchtime, when the very first marchers were moving into the center of Cairo for their very first protest. We knew it was coming from word circulating online -- that so-called "Twitter Revolution" -- but there was nothing to suggest the kind of upheaval on the way.
No one's really talking about Tunisia these days though. It's been a week since Entelis made that comment, and this all raises good questions about the actual connections between Arab states. The Maghreb -- North Africa west of Egypt, loosely defined -- has long been considered peripheral to US interests in the region, at least as far as the bulk of the Beltway policy community is concerned. As it fades back to its second tier status again so Egypt can rise to the fore, I wonder how we'll remember these past events in Tunisia. I saw tweets the other day that said that history will remember the wave of democratic revolution in the Middle East beginning in Sidi Bouzid, the town where a young Tunisian worker burned himself in protest of police confiscating his illegal vegetable stand.
I tend to believe connections between countries in the Middle East are over-dramatized and overemphasized; after all, the glossing of the various cultures and societies in the Arabic-speaking world is part of the dominant narrative about the region. That is, it's a key part of inherent suspicions about Islam that allow pundits (let's differentiate between them and real experts) to condemn the Muslim Brotherhood. Instead, I often try to emphasize the multiplicities between the various countries in addition to the multiplicities within one. For example, a Muslim university professor in Tunis may differ greatly from a Muslim university professor in Alexandria or Aleppo, just as he or she may be very different than a bank clerk in any of those places. To say nothing of the ways the actual practice of Islam varies across the spectrum in these countries.
In general, we use the "Arab world" or the "Islamic world" as the subject of our analysis too uncritically. We should question the logic -- a good geographer would call it "the imaginative geography" -- that allows us to think of Tunisia and Egypt as the closely connected. How much do you care about Canadian politics? And we even share a border with them.
I still believe all that -- it rarely hurts to think critically about your most basic assumptions -- but the Tunisia-Egypt revolution question has thrown a wrench in the works. The fact that Twitter and Facebook exist and spread the word of the protests seems not so important. What does matter is how people feel and articulate the personal connection and how they see their lives and their identities in flux based on events pretty far away.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Arabic verbs
Just thought I'd share a moment of frustration with my Arabic training. The hardest thing to get my head around to this point -- depending on how you look at it, roughly 3 years into my study -- is the use of verbs. I still for the most part structure sentences around their English translations. When I'm writing or composing, I'll try to adapt this to how Arabic is actually constructed and review my errors. But when speaking, it's hard. Arabic verbs work on forms. Let's take a really basic form that most learn pretty early: to study, or darasa. Its root is a standard three letters (d-r-s). If you want to say I studied, you use the first, most basic form. But if you want to say "I made myself study," you don't say "I" "made" "me" "study". There's a specific form for the self-reflexive form, and another one that means you did it with some considerable effort. In other words, if you wanted to say "I really forced myself to appreciate...", that has its own single word. And I'm terrible at this. If any Arabic students are out there who have a strategy for this one, let me know. I'm clueless.
Friday, October 22, 2010
In defense of the Strokes
Working on some Arabic and was using Albert Hammond, Jr.'s first solo album, Yours to Keep, as background music. I was really enjoying it and decided to head back to the Strokes back catalog. Part of the inspiration was an overheard conversation between two housemates here in Fes, one a British student asserting that they usually liked "indie" but "not like Strokes-indie". I tried to defend them. Kings of Leon they are not.
Maybe this video is a good indication of what people don't like. It's so saturated with classic rock and roll cool that it nearly drowns itself. The video has nothing to do with the song, but rather just perpetuating the idea that the Strokes spend most of their time in dive bars drinking long necks and smoking cigarettes. Nevermind that there's hardly a place where smoking inside is legal these days.
Still though, do I wish that I could spend a late afternoon watching soccer and playing pinball at a dingy pub with Slash and the guys from Guided by Voices? As a matter of fact, I do. The Strokes have always been, were from the outset, too cool for school. I'm not sure I would've liked them any other way.
Maybe this video is a good indication of what people don't like. It's so saturated with classic rock and roll cool that it nearly drowns itself. The video has nothing to do with the song, but rather just perpetuating the idea that the Strokes spend most of their time in dive bars drinking long necks and smoking cigarettes. Nevermind that there's hardly a place where smoking inside is legal these days.
Still though, do I wish that I could spend a late afternoon watching soccer and playing pinball at a dingy pub with Slash and the guys from Guided by Voices? As a matter of fact, I do. The Strokes have always been, were from the outset, too cool for school. I'm not sure I would've liked them any other way.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Illegal hits
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=5706132
I just read this article and watched this video. I know I intended to blog mostly about Morocco, etc., but this caught my attention and I think is worth mentioning.
Schlereth Sounds Off here about 'illegal hits' in the NFL. He seems mostly right. You've got to protect the players to some extent, and it's tough because the game has gotten pretty damn fast and physical. So often the defensive player is charged, but the extremity of the impact seems to me -- amateur physics alert here -- to be caused equally by how fast the offensive player is moving. Granted, unsuspecting, stationary offensive players get smashed and injured and concussed, but these are collisions, right?
Second thing, Schlereth -- or "Stink" -- makes an analogy here to soccer. He suggests that if we don't allow these kinds of smashing hits, then what we have is soccer. Pretty inaccurate. It's more like rugby, where you have to wrap your arms around the ball carrier when tackling and can't go high. I'm not advocating an NFL rule change, but I will say that rugby fans aren't left wanting for more high impact collisions. There's still plenty of smashing and violence on the rugby pitch.
Also, I generally think the "soccer is for wussies and therefore un-American" is a little played out. It's a pretty worn analogy and was pretty thin to begin with. Is there a single soccer player who could survive the entire 11 minutes of an NFL game when the ball is actually in play? Maybe a very, very small few (excepting of course the kicking positions). But the lack of violence isn't THEE reason Americans "don't like" soccer (which they increasingly do). It may definitely be what we love about football, but violence is absent from baseball, for example, and it's still loved. For very different reasons.
I do fear for the future of soccer -- and not just in America -- because of the "wussiness". It's not the diving so much that's a problem, because drawing fouls is a part of the sport just as much as it is basketball. Is the grimace on the face of a driving small forward as he gets hand checked really necessary? What sets soccer apart, unquestionably, is the feigning of injuries, which is an abomination, in my opinion. Fair game to go down with a slight shove and try to get a penalty to tie the game in the last minute. Officials should be able to tell the difference. But why roll around on the ground and try to get another guy tossed? It's too much. It ruins it for me, and there are a handful of highly talented players who I will never appreciate because of this.
As for the NFL, they've got to seriously consider this issue in the offseason. They need major rule changes if they're going to keep dealing out the fines they are. I'm not advocating either way at the moment, but I don't think the fines are justified. Frankly, as a fan to whom 50k is a massive chunk of money, it's actually kind of insulting that a guy gets docked that kind of pay for a hit that the league, its TV coverage, and its merchandise all wholeheartedly endorse.
I just read this article and watched this video. I know I intended to blog mostly about Morocco, etc., but this caught my attention and I think is worth mentioning.
Schlereth Sounds Off here about 'illegal hits' in the NFL. He seems mostly right. You've got to protect the players to some extent, and it's tough because the game has gotten pretty damn fast and physical. So often the defensive player is charged, but the extremity of the impact seems to me -- amateur physics alert here -- to be caused equally by how fast the offensive player is moving. Granted, unsuspecting, stationary offensive players get smashed and injured and concussed, but these are collisions, right?
Second thing, Schlereth -- or "Stink" -- makes an analogy here to soccer. He suggests that if we don't allow these kinds of smashing hits, then what we have is soccer. Pretty inaccurate. It's more like rugby, where you have to wrap your arms around the ball carrier when tackling and can't go high. I'm not advocating an NFL rule change, but I will say that rugby fans aren't left wanting for more high impact collisions. There's still plenty of smashing and violence on the rugby pitch.
Also, I generally think the "soccer is for wussies and therefore un-American" is a little played out. It's a pretty worn analogy and was pretty thin to begin with. Is there a single soccer player who could survive the entire 11 minutes of an NFL game when the ball is actually in play? Maybe a very, very small few (excepting of course the kicking positions). But the lack of violence isn't THEE reason Americans "don't like" soccer (which they increasingly do). It may definitely be what we love about football, but violence is absent from baseball, for example, and it's still loved. For very different reasons.
I do fear for the future of soccer -- and not just in America -- because of the "wussiness". It's not the diving so much that's a problem, because drawing fouls is a part of the sport just as much as it is basketball. Is the grimace on the face of a driving small forward as he gets hand checked really necessary? What sets soccer apart, unquestionably, is the feigning of injuries, which is an abomination, in my opinion. Fair game to go down with a slight shove and try to get a penalty to tie the game in the last minute. Officials should be able to tell the difference. But why roll around on the ground and try to get another guy tossed? It's too much. It ruins it for me, and there are a handful of highly talented players who I will never appreciate because of this.
As for the NFL, they've got to seriously consider this issue in the offseason. They need major rule changes if they're going to keep dealing out the fines they are. I'm not advocating either way at the moment, but I don't think the fines are justified. Frankly, as a fan to whom 50k is a massive chunk of money, it's actually kind of insulting that a guy gets docked that kind of pay for a hit that the league, its TV coverage, and its merchandise all wholeheartedly endorse.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Indiana Jones and the Medina of Fes
Just kidding. But seriously, some station on the satellite is playing an Indy marathon this week. We're on day 2. Just wanted to make a few notes:
- You'd think, after all these years, that Indy might've found a slightly less high-maintenance, slightly more adventurous female companion.
- All Indiana Jones movies must contain at least one scene featuring parallel moving vehicles, going at high speed, in which the passengers switch places during a skirmish between the two. Last Crusade has at least two such scenes. Also on this note, I'm not sure there's a character in the history of film better at running his adversaries off the road in a variety of vehicles.
- When Indy beats someone up and takes their costume/uniform, that person will not die, but they will not wake up for some time. They will never be heard from again, however.
All for now. Fes is good. Missing home a lot but it's going well over here.
- You'd think, after all these years, that Indy might've found a slightly less high-maintenance, slightly more adventurous female companion.
- All Indiana Jones movies must contain at least one scene featuring parallel moving vehicles, going at high speed, in which the passengers switch places during a skirmish between the two. Last Crusade has at least two such scenes. Also on this note, I'm not sure there's a character in the history of film better at running his adversaries off the road in a variety of vehicles.
- When Indy beats someone up and takes their costume/uniform, that person will not die, but they will not wake up for some time. They will never be heard from again, however.
All for now. Fes is good. Missing home a lot but it's going well over here.
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