Normally I would delete all the political posts, and I am going to cut it off here. But I will leave these up, editor's prerogative-- because they represent an attempt at a serious discussion of the subject, for a change.

One point I would make is the idea that someone "hates" or "wants to change" our way of life is incorrect. The history of the West's relationship with that part of the world is long (going all the way back to the Crusades), and very complex. What those who hate us want is mostly for us to get lost-- which is not to say the means some choose to effect that is acceptable. It's not.

Since we appear to be ramping up to something even more stupid than what we did in Iraq, I'll mention one of my girlfriend's books ("Neither East Nor West, One Woman's Journey Through The Republic of Iran", by Christiane Bird). BarnesandNoble.com named it the top travel book of the year a few years ago, top ten of all books that year (2001). It's out of print now, I believe, but you might be able to dig up a copy. The book is mostly about the culture, not the politics, but as she was an American woman traveling by herself through the country, the politics and history had to come up.

Before I met my girlfriend (and later read the book, where I am cast as the know-nothing Ugly American, asking dumb questions in phone calls about a very sophisticated society, and needlessly worried about her safety), I had roughly the conventional wisdom about Iran, and our history with it. One real eye-opener was that Chis quoted large excerpts from a book written by the then head of the CIA, explaining in detail how he (we) took down the legal government to install our guy, the Shah, who then tortured and killed his own citizens for years (he was Saddam light). The CIA guy was so proud of what he did he wrote a how-to book about it-- if I hadn't read it myself I wouldn't have believed it. You have to think that if another country ever did that to us we would have done a lot more than take hostages when we threw the dictator over. Again, not ratifying the tactics-- just discussing the motive.

On a lighter note-- the year she was over there (98) was Victory Gallop's year. There are presumably still cab drivers walking around Tehran with VG baseball caps.



Edited 9 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/2007 02:52PM by nicely nicely.