tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13576198.post113774961344457633..comments2023-09-05T05:20:50.393-04:00Comments on second americano: A Quick Follow UpUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13576198.post-1137798825692723682006-01-20T18:13:00.000-05:002006-01-20T18:13:00.000-05:00Fair enough. I'll tell you what: I'll grant your r...Fair enough. I'll tell you what: I'll grant your reading of 'Wild West' as both charitable and plausible. Perhaps the orientalist reading is a projection or a stretch, and all he meant to suggest is that there is no order along the Pakistan border. I stand down on this point.<BR/><BR/>However, I don't think I can let Bayh off the hook. At the time he gave that quote it looked like the target had been missed and more than a dozen innocent civilians killed, and when asked about this situation he responded by asking rhetorically: 'what else are we supposed to do'? To me that response simply has to suggest a devaluing of the lives of others (non-Americans) that I just find ethically unacceptable.fronesishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13544185676179565507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13576198.post-1137782983516140092006-01-20T13:49:00.000-05:002006-01-20T13:49:00.000-05:00Yeah, I too get pretty pissed off at the American ...Yeah, I too get pretty pissed off at the American media on a regular basis. (Can we talk about how Jack Abramoff is a "bipartisan scandal"!?) But I don't necessarily trust foreign press either, especially on American foreign policy, although I expect them to be better on issues like Pakistan than on Israel/Palestine. More specifically, I generally expect a dovish bias, one often justified by our clusterfuck in Iraq but not necessarily elsewhere. <BR/><BR/>It will be interesting to see what the final word on that missile attack turns out to be. A day or so after I wrote my comment on your post, we got news reports that, based on Pakistani intel, we actually did get some high level Al Qaeda bad guys, even if we missed Zawahiri. Who knows at this point? Not me, at least, but I'm willing to cut Bush slack on this front that experience won't let me elsewhere. <BR/><BR/>As for the "wild west" comment, the more I think about it, the less offensive it seems to me. Bayh was speaking, and speaking quickly, for an American audience, and what other metaphor might you invoke in order to make that situation make sense? It's not like he can go into a grad student lecture on regional history and the differences between tribal traditional culture and frontier capitalism. He reached into his rhetorical toolbox for a cultural signifier that was "ready-at-hand," something we all do. For example, teaching Machiavelli yesterday, I made the point that Mach would see himself not as inventing brutal techniques but as merely describing reality, and illustrated by saying, "Don't hate the playa, hate the game!" Was that racist of me? A white man parroting black slang to justify violence? Maybe, but I don't think so (and, for what it is worth, I had one black student come up later and tell me how much he loved it). Everything depends on audience and context, a point that posties often like to make. And on that I think Bayh gets a pass.tenaciousmcdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16017631367821997948noreply@blogger.com