January 21, 2006
THE PROFESSOR WHO WALKED INTO DOORS:
The Author Who Got A Big Boost From bin Laden: Historian 'Glad' of Mention As Sales of Book Skyrocket (David Montgomery, January 21, 2006, Washington Post)
Twenty-four hours after Osama bin Laden told the world that the American people should read the work of a little-known Washington historian, William Blum was still adjusting.Blum, who at 72 is accustomed to laboring in relative left-wing obscurity, checked his emotions and pronounced himself shocked and, well, pleased.
"This is almost as good as being an Oprah book," he said yesterday between telephone calls from the world media and bites of a bagel. "I'm glad." Overnight, his 2000 work, "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower," had become an Osama book.
[...]From Blum's end of the conversations, you could tell the reporters were expecting him to express some kind of discomfort, remorse, maybe even shame. Blum refused to acknowledge feelings he did not have.
"I was not turned off by such an endorsement," he informed a New York radio station. "I'm not repulsed, and I'm not going to pretend I am." He patiently reiterated the thesis of his foreign-policy critique -- that American interventions abroad create enemies. [...]
Yesterday, he made clear that he deplores the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But he argues, as many other essayists have, that they were an understandable retaliation against U.S. foreign policy. "The thesis in my books and my writing is that anti-American terrorism arises from the behavior of U.S. foreign policy," he said. "It is what the U.S. government does which angers people all over the world."
Battered women similarly try to justify their husbands' attacks by saying they deserved it. More interesting though is how contemptuous of The Other is his argument, essentially denying peoples responsibility for their own actions and contending that we control them. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 21, 2006 11:34 AM
A better analogy: those who are inclined to violence themselves, blame the victim for violence. He hates America, so he blames America for the violence it suffers.
Your latter point is on the mark. Al Qaeda can't exist as human beings in his imagination; it only has room for himself, his allies, and those he hates.
Posted by: pj at January 21, 2006 12:02 PM"It is what the U.S. government does which angers people all over the world."
Really? Then who will tell the President?
Presidents Adams and Jefferson, that is:
"Take, for example, the 1786 meeting in London of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the Tripolitan ambassador to Britain. As American ambassadors to France and Britain respectively, Jefferson and Adams met with Ambassador Adja to negotiate a peace treaty and protect the United States from the threat of Barbary piracy."
"These future United States presidents questioned the ambassador as to why his government was so hostile to the new American republic even though America had done nothing to provoke any such animosity. Ambassador Adja answered them, as they reported to the Continental Congress, "that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.""--Joshua E. London at National Review
Even scarier, what kind of person buys a book on OBL's say so?
Posted by: erp at January 21, 2006 1:21 PMthat American interventions abroad create enemies.
Of course they create enemies. These people should be our enemies. If you are not the enemy of people who stone women to death for adultery or suspected adultery, or who mutilate the genitals of teenage girls, then there is somethng wrong with you.
I just wonder when Pat Robertson will make it on Osama's list.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at January 21, 2006 2:42 PMEven scarier, what kind of person buys a book on OBL's say so?
Journalists.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at January 21, 2006 2:43 PM"It is what the U.S. government does which angers people all over the world." i.e.
Imperial Britain
Imperial France
Imperial Spain
Imperial Germany
Nazi Germany
Vichy France
Imperial Japan
Facist Italy
USSR
North Korea
CPRC
Iran
Baathist Iraq
Phrance
UN
Endorsed by Chomsky and OBL and proud of it.
A fine example of what it means to be an enemy of one's folk and a traitor to one's culture.
And when we ponder what brought this excrescence to his present ruin, we see that, like so many others, he was corrupted by the peace-creep movement
Posted by: Lou Gots at January 21, 2006 6:33 PMWhat an honor to have enemies such as these! What degradation to have such as allies.
Your turn, professor.
Posted by: Mikey at January 21, 2006 7:24 PMPursuasive argument for using records of books sales and library borrowings to suss out terrorists.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at January 22, 2006 11:35 AMNo one who has nothing to hide need worry.
Posted by: oj at January 22, 2006 11:44 AMOj is right about not needing to worry if you have nothing to hide. I would read Comrade Blum's book to deepen my understanding of the enemy's mentality. The library records get matched up with the bulk ammunition records and I get checked out. So what. I have nothing to hide.
I mean this. I read a lot, and I shoot a lot, and I have nothing to hide about either activity. I am aware that the internet data could be mined to disclose both these sets of facts, even though the guns rights movement has successfully fought ammmunition record-keeping requirements.
Posted by: Lou Gots at January 22, 2006 12:38 PM