OP-ED piece from NY Times

[Dionysos]

Notes:
1) Those who are unfamiliar with Thomas Friedman would be well-advised to read up on him. He's a Jewish man who was raised in the Middle East and has done a lot of reporting/research on the sociological & economic dynamics in the region. He's worth doing some research on.
2) My copy'n'paste from mutt came out a little screwy, so the article may show up with some odd line breaks.

October 19, 2003
OP-ED COLUMNIST

Courageous Arab Thinkers

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
I should have known something was up when a Saudi diplomat recently asked me, "Do you know what kind of woman is most sought after as a wife by Saudi men today?" No, I said, what kind? "A woman with a job."

I thought of that when I read last week's announcement that within a year Saudi Arabia would conduct its first real elections for municipal councils. Most people thought it would snow in Saudi Arabia before there would be elections. So what's up?

What's up are three big shocks hammering the Arab system. First, with oil revenues flat, there isn't enough money anymore to buy off, or provide jobs to, the exploding Arab populations. Hence the growing need for wives with work. The second is the Iraq war shock. Even with all the problems in Baghdad now, virtually every autocratic Arab regime is starting to prepare for the uncomfortable possibility that by 2005 Iraq will hold a free election, which will shame all those who never have. As Lawrence Summers, Harvard's president, likes to say, "One good example is worth a thousand theories." Iraq, maybe, could be that example.

But there is another tremor shaking the Arab world. This one is being set off by a group of courageous Arab social scientists, who decided, with the help of the United Nations, to begin fighting the war of ideas for the Arab future by detailing just how far the Arab world has fallen behind and by laying out a progressive pathway forward. Their first publication, the Arab Human Development Report 2002, explained how the deficits of freedom, education and women's empowerment in the Arab world have left the region so behind that the combined G.D.P. of the 22 Arab states was less than that of a single country Spain. Even with limited Internet access in the Arab world, one million copies of this report were downloaded, sparking internal debates.

Tomorrow, in Amman, Jordan, these Arab thinkers will unveil their second Arab Human Development Report, which focuses on the need to rebuild Arab "knowledge societies." The report is embargoed until then, but from talking with the authors I sense it will be another bombshell.

Those who worked on this report do not believe in the Iraq-war model of political change. They prefer evolution from within. But they believe there must be serious change. They are convinced that Islam has a long history of absorbing knowledge. But in the modern era an unholy alliance between repressive Arab regimes and certain conservative Muslim scholars has led to the
domination of certain interpretations of Islam that serve the governments but are hostile to human development particularly freedom of thought, women's empowerment and the accountability of governments to their people.

The result? There are just 18 computers per 1,000 people in the Arab region today, compared with the global average of 78.3 per 1,000, and only 1.6 percent of the Arab population has Internet access. In 1995-96 alone, 25 percent of all graduates from Arab universities with B.A. degrees emigrated, while 15,000
medical doctors left the Arab world from 1998 to 2000.

The number of scientists and engineers working in R.&D. in the Arab region is 371 per million citizens, compared with a global rate of 979 per million. Although the Arab region represents 5 percent of world population, it produces only 1.1 percent of the books in the world. There is an abundance of religious books published in the Arab region more than triple the world average, but a paucity of literary and artistic works. Tons of foreign technology is imported, but it's never really internalized or supplanted by Arab innovations.

The authors are convinced of something any visitor to the region can feel: that there is abundant Arab human capital to reclaim Arab knowledge, just note how many Arabs thrive as doctors and scientists when they come to the West. But this rebirth requires a massive investment in education, to move it away from uncritical repetition, and steps by the insular Arab states to encourage greater interaction with other nations and cultures and an easing of their social and political restrictions on criticism, the press and importing of ideas from abroad.

What should America's response to all this be? We should stop talking about "terrorism" and W.M.D. and make clear that we're in Iraq for one reason: to help Iraqis implement the Arab Human Development Reports, so the war of ideas can be fought from within. Then we should get out of the way. Just one good model
one good Arab model that works, and you will see more than just municipal elections in Saudi Arabia.

[Adam D]

but I thought terrorism and WMDs were the reasons we are in Iraq.

if we went in for one reason - does it prevent us from holding up other valuable goals as well?

[Adam D]

No, but saying you went in for a reason you didn't would be lying.

Originally posted by Adam D
No, but saying you went in for a reason you didn't would be lying.

but that wasn't what i said

the suggestion was that if a valuable goal can be accomplished it should not be discarded simlpy because it wasn't on the agenda before the invasion

[Hubb]

the suggestion was that if a valuable goal can be accomplished it should not be discarded simlpy because it wasn't on the agenda before the invasion

Thats all fine and good...but Adams point is that we didnt have a valid reason to be there in the first place. Oh yea, wait....we are the babysitters of the world...go ahead Bush....spend all my tax money on a bunch of fucks I could care less about. We wouldnt be in this if bush had not LIED to obtain his agenda...period.

Originally posted by Hubb
Thats all fine and good...but Adams point is that we didnt have a valid reason to be there in the first place. Oh yea, wait....we are the babysitters of the world...go ahead Bush....spend all my tax money on a bunch of fucks I could care less about. We wouldnt be in this if bush had not LIED to obtain his agenda...period.

but.................

I understood Adams comment - it is not responsive to the subject of this thread though

there are plenty of other threads to point out one's dissatisfaction with why we are in Iraq - please make full use of them

[Adam D]

Originally posted by RosebudProd
We should stop talking about "terrorism" and W.M.D. and make clear that we're in Iraq for one reason: to help Iraqis implement the Arab Human Development Reports,

I took that to mean the author was indicating that we should ignore the reasons the administration gave for being in the war in the first place, and make new ones to justify US occupation.

Originally posted by Adam D
I took that to mean the author was indicating that we should ignore the reasons the administration gave for being in the war in the first place, and make new ones to justify US occupation.

I didn't read it that way.

However, I agree with you that it would be more than simply inappropriate to re-write the justification for the war because the old ones aren't working and the new ones look like an easier sell.

I read it to mean that if we find ways we can help create a stable and safe Iraq we should do so - regardless of those were part of the initial justification.