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Originally Posted by JAD_333
I saw the movie with Marlon Brando. I recall it pissed me off. I couldn't believe at the time that Americans behaved so badly abroad. Unfortunately, the book tainted a lot of good diplomats and caring aid workers. But it also stirred up State and USAID to take a harder look at who they sent abroad to SE asia and elsewhere. If I recall, the actual ugly American was a good guy. Don't know if I'll read the book. It'll probably piss me off all over again.  |
JAD,
I haven't seen the movie, so I don't what spin Hollywood put on the book, if any. However, I'd urge you to read the book and see what the authors state in the prologue - any unfair tainting of diplomats and aid workers is not the result of the book, whose vignettes I think are quite clear and distinct. If you do choose to read it, stew over these questions/statements and what the book would have to say about them:
1. The following excerpt is from page 60 of the Iraq Study Group report:
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Originally Posted by ISG
All of our efforts in Iraq, military and civilian, are handicapped by Americans’ lack of language and cultural understanding. Our embassy of 1,000 has 33 Arabic speakers, just six of whom are at the level of fluency.
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2. The composition of the CPA in Iraq? The exclusion of some Iraq experts from the CPA because the were State and not DoD?
3. Here's an excerpt from "Soldiering in Sadr City", an article from the Nov-Dec 2004 copy of Infantry Magazine:
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Originally Posted by Infantry Magazine
The information war goes on even though the shooting war was at a semi-pause in October and November. At the hospital, the Soldiers were looking at what work had been done on the initial stages of an extensive improvement program, funded by the U.S. It will eventually, they are told, be a $10 million improvement, making the hospital one of the best-equipped and most modern in the country.
That is all well and good ... but the patrol leader notices that a large section of the wall near the gate had been recently painted and a nice sign in Arabic had been spray-painted on the now highly visible spot there. He asks the interpreter what the sign says.
"The improvements to this hospital are being paid for by the Sadr Bureau for the better health and prosperity of the supporters of Moqtada al Sadr. Allah Akbar!"
The Sadr Bureau, run by the Iraq Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, had neatly taken credit for what the coalition forces were doing, and it didn't cost $10 million, just a half can of paint. The Civil Affairs guys suggest that signs go up, set high so they couldn't be defaced, announcing the sponsorship of each project. Another lesson learned.
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4. MG Chiarelli wondered aloud in the spring of 2005 why we didn't have USDA employees canvassing the land between the two rivers - Iraq had been a food exporter and the breadbasket of the Middle East a few decades earlier.
5. The composition of the reconstruction money spent during the first 12-18 months in Iraq, which went almost entirely to big projects using US technology?
6. The appointment of Paul Bremer over Khalizhad or Crocker or some other qualified ME expert/Arabist?
7. How many federal employees that should be read on Qutb, Banna, ibn Tamiyah, etc., don't even know the basics of our stated #1 public enemy?
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Can You Tell a Sunni From a Shiite? - New York Times
FOR the past several months, I’ve been wrapping up lengthy interviews with Washington counterterrorism officials with a fundamental question: “Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?”
A “gotcha” question? Perhaps. But if knowing your enemy is the most basic rule of war, I don’t think it’s out of bounds. And as I quickly explain to my subjects, I’m not looking for theological explanations, just the basics: Who’s on what side today, and what does each want?
After all, wouldn’t British counterterrorism officials responsible for Northern Ireland know the difference between Catholics and Protestants? In a remotely similar but far more lethal vein, the 1,400-year Sunni-Shiite rivalry is playing out in the streets of Baghdad, raising the specter of a breakup of Iraq into antagonistic states, one backed by Shiite Iran and the other by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states.
A complete collapse in Iraq could provide a haven for Al Qaeda operatives within striking distance of Israel, even Europe. And the nature of the threat from Iran, a potential nuclear power with protégés in the Gulf states, northern Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, is entirely different from that of Al Qaeda. It seems silly to have to argue that officials responsible for counterterrorism should be able to recognize opportunities for pitting these rivals against each other.
But so far, most American officials I’ve interviewed don’t have a clue. That includes not just intelligence and law enforcement officials, but also members of Congress who have important roles overseeing our spy agencies. How can they do their jobs without knowing the basics?
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