Excellent commentary on War on Terror, etc.

Public Radio International's "Here and Now" radio show interviewed Michael Scheuer .. "former analyst with the CIA and a man who once led the hunt for bin Laden" on what the war on terror will look like 20 years from now.

What I found interesting were his views about what Muslims often claim as a source of resentment toward the US - namely, the US support for autocratic repressive regimes in the Mideast. Mr. Scheuer conceeds that policies resulting in such Arab attitudes may be politcally necessary for the US. He contends "we may *have* to [support mideast dictatorships] for political reasons. Its perfectly possible that it is in the interest of the United States to do so"

Wow, how refreshing is that last sentence?!!

What I really appreciate about this statemnet is it does NOT say the US is evil for taking actions or positions. But rather, it is simply the US looking out for US interests - the same thing that any sovereign nation must do.

Typically when this topic comes up, people take extremely polarizing sides. Conservatives dismiss anyone who accuses the US of fommenting anti-US feelings amongst Arabs (by supporting autocratic Arab dictatorships) as appeasers, which has become a code-word for the right wing to describe anybody who gives creedence to any statement of an Arab or European opinion (unless, of course, the statement happens to fall in line with right-wing doctrine).

On the other hand, left wingers who discuss this issue tend to be quite brutal in their assessment of the US. In their view, everything wrong in the world is ultimately traced back to some sort of foreign policy pursued with impunity by the US. There is never any acknowledgement that the US has legitimate, self-centered interests to pursue - just like any country in the world. A left-wing attitude of the US role in the world is that the US should bend over backward to avoid insulting, injuring, disparaging or in any other way disappointing any other country or ethnic group in the entire world.

In other words, commentators on this issue typically take either a pro-US, anti-Muslim stance, or a pro-Muslim, anti-US stance. There is rarely any recognition that the politics are so much more complicated, and rarely any recognition that any choice the US makes is going to have both positive and negative impact.

The leftist approach is simply unrealistic and naive. Yet the right-wing attitudes are bull headed and intolerant.

Me, I just want a healthy USA (and world) for my children and children's children to grow up in. I couldn't care less if the Senate has a Democratic or Republican majority. I don't care which party is in the Whitehouse. I am sick and tired of the extreme political polarization that is gripping this nation.

I don't see that Scheuer has an agenda, other than to expose the truth. He is just painting a picture of the world and the US as he sees it.

He also has much more to say in this interview, which I won't go into now. But I recommned it highly.

http://realserver.bu.edu:8080/ramgen/w/b/wbur/herenow/2006/09/hn_0911.rm?start=21:10