“Obama’s a Weenie”, Thought Osama the Lion
If there’s one constant in American culture and politics that leads our “diplomacy” to nought, vis a vis the Arab and Islamic world, it’s that we blindly (some - remember “The Ugly American” - would say, arrogantly) continue to assume they think exacly like us. That we share most basic values, perceptions, and objectives. They don’t. Their culture is a very different culture, and we never seem to grasp that. And it’s liable to be fatal, someday.
Nothing stands as a better example of that than President Obama’s little “Let’s start over and be friends this time” speech to Iran, the other day. Our people were a little bit shocked when the Iranian leadership dismissed his speech in an almost mocking manner. They looked as if they really could care less, though the truth is, it made their hearts leap with joy. But not for the reasons you might think. To their perception, Obama just confirmed what they are wont to believe every day: We (jihadists) ARE winning, the Americans are beginning to fade!”
I’ve always credited Obama with a bit more street smarts. I gave some of the credit for his great oratorical skills and persuasive ways to the African American male (esp) culture where one just grows up knowing how to talk your way into, or out of, or past any sort of situation or interpersonal challenge. It’s the way of the street. It’s the way people who are often the underdogs, the ones with less power than whomever they must face down or outsmart or placate get by. They talk. Hip hop, trash talk, smooth talk, conning and jiving, all psychological and conversational skills/weapons. But I’ve come to think Obama has spent too many years sharing the white halls of power and culture. He’s lost, or failed to hone, those street smarts so much.
They (the press & media folk) always talk about the “Arab Street” when the politics get rough or contentious. When something we do, or Arab leaders who have grown too like us in their own life of political power amongst the rest of the world (the non-Arab world), causes an adverse reaction, causes raucus and violent protests and demonstarations “in the streets” (where most Arab men spend most their time), we attribute that to the “street”, something we tend to equate with the unwashed, the proletariat, the Islamicists, etc. We don’t understand, that is not just the street, but the desert, the tents, the culture.
Arabs respect strength. Obama didn’t show strength. I even heard a well-known female Arabic reporter translate how she saw his speech (language and style) the next day. She thought it was weak. Almost effeminate. And much more likely to elicit a reaction like my title than one of serious respect or a “Hmmm, this man is serious and means well - maybe we ought to grab the opportunity to work out a new rapprochement.”
Arabs like the fight. They respect a good trick, a clever deception, a victory by cunning. One is honest to his god, his brother, his tribal elders, but not to his enemy. His enemy is a dog. He deserves no respect, no honesty, no quarter. All this talk about how if we treat them kindly and respectfully as prisoners of war they might treat our soldiers decently when captured is just so much ignorant malarky. They will do what we see them doing even to each other in their factional conflicts: burn, pound, drill holes in their knees and legs; rape their women and torture their children; make them suffer as much as possible before killing them with the insult of a beheading. By our values that might seem evil. By their values, it is macho. We are stupid and weak, and effeminate as homosexuals - whom they see as evil! Judging another culture by our own values … that IS the Ugly American at its best!
Obama and his Democratic left might want to do politics and foreign policy as they see fit. They might think it far superior to the hardness of the Republican neocon right. But it is not going to work in treating with the Islamicists and jihadists their sympathizers in the Arab street. If you honestly look at how they work, you’ll see even our neocon hardliners don’t come near their hardliners!
