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Saturday, July 23, 2005
Another follow up on CP's post on the Club Gitmo t-shirts:
I know that this shirt plays to the f-PC crowd who probably appreciates the attention garnered by the shirt more than the shirt itself, but doesn't anyone else think that maybe, just maybe a smiling cartoon bearded Arab giving the thumbs up to imprisonment might be sending the wrong message to our enemies...to the people we don't want to become our enemies? Now, don't get me wrong, I know we're not talking Nazis here, but we are still engaged in a war of ideas for the heart and soul of the moderate Muslim, correct?
As I attempt to educate myself on Pakistan, I found this nugget: about two months ago, the Pakistani parliment unanimously passed a resolution condemning a cartoon that appeared in the Washington Times:
Pakistan Monday renewed its call for an inquiry into a cartoon published in The Washington Times last week.
Describing the cartoon as "highly derogatory," a spokesman for the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs told reporters in Islamabad. Jalil Abbas Jilani said Pakistan has asked Washington to conduct an inquiry to see if it was a deliberate attempt to "ridicule" the country.
Earlier, a six-party opposition alliance demanded President Pervez Musharraf step down for "presenting such a negative image of the country.
The cartoon showed Pakistan as a dog holding senior al-Qaida member Abu Faraj al-Libbi in his mouth, while a U.S. soldier says to the dog: "Good boy! Now let's go find bin Laden."
I am not an expert but any stretch, but Pakistan seems, to me, to be the key nation for international security in the 21st century. Between Pakistan's nuclear-themed dispute with India over Kashmir and the generally lawless Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas which are destabilizing both nations and fomenting international terror, we have a vital interest in a stable, free, friendly Pakistan.
In short, we need to win the hearts and minds of the Pakistani street. The Pakistani street is quite angry over Guantanamo. What's the Pakistani street going to think when al Jazeera starts showing knuckleheads in Camp Gitmo shirts?
2 Comments:
I've noticed that the U.S. isn't particularly adept and "winning the hearts and minds" of anyone.
By 
, at
8:33 AM
Maybe the world is just too complicated these days. Maybe our interests are too complex. I was reading last night about the CIA forcing the DEA to turn a blind eye to poppy production in Pakistan in order to fund the mujahideen. If you believe the various accounts, most of our domestic drug problems are closely tied to CIA-funded insurgencies. Heroin from Afghanistan in the 1990s. Cocaine from Nicaragua in the 1980s.
Fighting communism served a purpose, but at the cost of cheap and plentiful drugs in this country and leaving powerful drug lords in the void left by the retreat of communism. It's hard to win hearts and minds at home or abroad with those consequences.
