Michael Novak on how to prepare oneself for prayer.
Deepak Chopra missing the point on terrorism.
Robert Samuelson on what President Obama should do first.
Three Legged Chair has some advice in the wake of Mumbai.
Theodore Dalrymple sees a change in the British national character.
George F. Will believes that Stanley Fish's new book on bias in academia is too timid.
Some variety: The trailers for Local Hero and Get Shorty.
5 comments:
Local Hero - one of my all-time favourites. Whimsical, closely observed, immediately identifiable humour at its best.
"Dry, greasy or normal?"
"Normal ... extra normal!"
"Good sky McIntyre - well done"
It's one of my favorites.
Great film! That said, I'm going outside to look at the night sky.
It is both unfair and untrue to say that Deepak Chopra was "missing the point" on terrorism.
In fact, Deepak displayed a great deal of nuance, understanding and perspicacity of a complex global issue - and understanding that sadly eludes most commentators in the mainstream press and the business pages of the WSJ.
Whilst what Deepak said is pretty much common knowledge to most academics, intellectuals, hisorians and terrorism experts - to those whose knowledge of the wider world is recieved via snippets of news throgh the prism of the mainstream media, what he said can seem like an outlandish (if not offensive) claim.
Robert Pape, Professor of Politcal Science at the University of Chicago has conducted extensive research on what motivates suicide bombers - they mainly respond to injustices and crimes commited by nation states - America/Britain/Israel (or as in the case of Chechynya, Russia) and in this instance Kashmir.
"Dying to Win" is an excellent book that I would recommend highly and it would chime with what Deepak commented.
Furthermore, all of the Intelligence Networks - the CIA, THe NSA, DID say that the actions of American Foreign Policy reverberate around the world:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/world/middleeast/24terror.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
Sadly, the term for this is "blowback".
Interestingly, in the latest atrocity in India, telligly,the terrorists tried to single out American and British citizens.
To try to understand terrorism is not to condone it. Jihadism is a frightening enemy but terror does not happen in a vacum.
Indeed, to eradicate terrorism we must understand it and root out its causes.
On that point, Deepak was very much correct and you owe him an apology.
Anonymous,
It must be convenient to assume that those who think Deepak's claim is outlandish only get their knowledge of the wider world from "snippets of news through the prism of the mainstream media" instead of considering that perhaps they are equally informed but simply reach different conclusions.
The "common knowledge to most academics, intellectuals, historians and terrorism experts" is unintentionally, I assume, humorous. The academics and intellectuals have had such a dismal track record on foreign affairs that I wouldn't want to lean too heavily on that thin reed. As for the terrorism experts, they are far from uniform in concluding that "blowback" (and note the inherent bias of that term) or any single factor is the root cause. Failing to mention Islamic fundamentalism was a major oversight by Deepak. Now, he and we may disagree that it is the main factor. That's fine, but it is a big factor and failing to note it seriously tilts the table.
When citing The New York Times article on the National Intelligence Estimate you might want to note that this is the same group that concluded that Saddam had WMDs and that Iran had stopped its efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Not a problem, because the intelligence business is not an exact science but it is important to remember that it is an estimate. It might also help to remember that intelligence agencies aren't always objective operators.
I know of no one who argues that terrorism occurs in a vacuum or that gtrying to understand terrorism is the same as condoning it. The default mode of blaming the West, however, is as misleading as those who would argue that the West has never created terrorists. Prior to the Second World War, Germany could point to various injustices caused by the Versailles Treaty. Those did not, however, excuse the culpability of the aggressors. I am sure that Deepak is a fine fellow but he gets no apology.
Deepak Chopra must restrict his advice to aromatherapy and enemas. Deepak Chopra is not a security or political analyst, he must stop acting like one. Even when the siege was still on in Mumbai, he was blaming the victims for the actions of the murderers. Shameful and disgusting!
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