It's hard to find faults in your argument and I won't try. But there's something frightening about what you're implicitly suggesting (the frightening part being that you might be right). And that is that the people in charge of our foreign policy are complete, absolute nincompoops.

That NYT map with the arrows is fine and dandy... for anyone who's never paid much attention to foreign affairs. For anyone else, it's a bit like the teacher explaining to the child that our body is all interconnected with veins and arteries and a nervous system. And here's a map of how it works. Ain't it cool?

Yep, very cool.

And that is that the people in charge of our foreign policy are complete, absolute nincompoops.

Just like the people in charge of domestic policy, no? At least they're consistent.

At times, I'm not convinced all of them can listen, and then write. I'm more questioning the listening ability than the literacy.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

While my comment could be read parodistically, I don't intend it that way.

The Shi'i constitute a geopolitical threat to Middle Eastern stability similar to the Germans' threat to European stability in the latter half of the 19th century. That is, the Shi'i are beginning to show the cohesion and undisciplined energy which are markers of a "nation" entering history.

Some might argue that unlike the Germans (and the Serbs), the Shi'i are divided by language -- Arabic and Persian. But their ideology (for example, their idealization of their martyrs, Ali and Husayn*) can bind them together.

The Shi'i constitute the majorities in the Persian, southern Iraq, and northeastern Saudi oil fields; they're substantial minorities in many other gulf states.

We're in Iraq, now. To leave would risk turning the country over to the Iranians and increasing their influence throughout the Persian Gulf. Better that we should act before the Iranians do, and we could do worse than ally ourselves with the Sunnis wherever we may find them.

* cf.; Herman the German, Siegfried, and for the Serbs, Milos Obilic. 

For any of these recommendations to work, it would be nice if for once US foreign policy was established on FACTS not spin. For example in the most recent Lebanon-Israel conlift, while we have all heard about how the poor little Israeli soldiers were "kidnapped" by them nasty Hezbollahis -- but how many people are aware of the Israeli Supreme Court ruling of 4 March 1998, whereby the Israeli authorities were granted permission to hold Lebanese "detainees" in Israeli prisons and detention camps without trial and to keep them as hostages and as a bargaining chips -- including 14-year olds? If we can't include these sorts of facts in the discussion and all we have to go on is the official spin, how can any policy recommendation work?

"Rubbish"? The problem with your analysis, Colonel Blimp, is that you overlook the historical fact that romance always trumps economics.

"Think local in order to act global." For years I have been amazed and even appalled at the ignorance the US has exhibited in its middle eastern policies. Having lived among Arab villagers in a 5th world Arab country back in the '70's I realize how important it is to have on-the-ground-knowledge of a people, their mores and their cultures. Often small and seemingly insignificant differences among cultures can actually be quite important. I remember the first time I gave something, probably cigarettes, to our Arab driver and he didn't thank me. I learned by asking other more westernized Arabs why this was a common practice among their people. They explained that the person who gives should thank Allah for being priveleged to be able to give and grateful that he had a receiver. If any nation invades another with the intention of occupying it, it is imperative that it have a detailed understanding of the people its people will be living among.

I am not a cultural anthropologist nor do I play one on TV, but lack of knowledge in this area is one of our greatest problems in international relations. You make an excellent example with the gift of the cigarettes. I can think of a number of things that Arabs would find totally correct yet shocking to Americans, and vice versa.

One anecdote that has always reminded me of the need to understand someone in their cultural reference came from one of Freud's disciples, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, in her Principles of Intensive Psychotherapy. This psychiatrist, of German origin, was shocked when a female schizophrenic patient took out a compact and began applying makeup. Polite German women of her time would never have done this in public.

After consultation with an American psychiatrist, Fromm-Reichmann realized that rather than a gesture of disrespect, the act was a significant sign of improvement in the patient -- who had, for some time, taken no interest in her appearance or hygiene. Fromm-Reichmann had not understood that makeup adjustments in public are not shocking in American culture.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Or, in Japanese culture, the imposition of an obligations. The literal meaning of several idiomatic Japanese forms of thanks are along the line of "you insult me [by putting me under great obligation]".

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

But the problem being discussed on this thread is that you can't communicate respect without knowing what communicates respect in a culture.

At a basic level, it's old-fashioned Diplomacy 101. Some very nasty imperialists of the past at least knew enough to use understanding of a foreign culture to purposely communicate disrespect!

Many Americans have somehow gotten the hubris of thinking their culture has spread worldwide and everyone "gets it," that they don't need to learn or adjust to local modes of communication. I myself see that cluelessness in some very edjumacted American I.R. people. It's the essence of the "ugly American" grande tourist of the post-WWII period--he/she is still alive and kicking.

Somewhat related points, mho, was this article in the Sunday New York Times "style" section:

The Politics of Good Touch, Bad Touch By WARREN ST. JOHN How did politicians go from stoic interaction to kissing stomachs, giving back rubs and touching “sort of the side of my leg?”....

....Mr. Pease said the United States for much of its history had taken a distinctly northern European view that disdained physical contact between strangers, one shared by the populations of former British colonies like Australia and New Zealand. Mediterranean cultures, he said, have traditionally been more embracing of embracing.

“Germany is a very nontouching culture,” he said. “They don’t go in for cuddling. But if you go to Italy, and you give a hug, they’ll think you’re a hell of a guy.”....

It's the spread of mass media that gets elites thinking that everyone thinks alike on questions of "manners" or "etiquette," others dis that as unimportant, that authenticity or something will shine through, that "all people are alike." That's a Hollywood illusion--they really don't.

It's also inherent in the whole sexual harassment thing, for example--some men think some women would be honored or pleased by intimate interaction, and are surprised that they are offended. If they would instead see professional women with power or wanting power as a sub-culture requiring different "etiquette," there would be better communication of respect, or even disrespect, if that is what was intended.

While people may be all alike on some certain things, their "languages" are not.

Oh, I agree that the niceties and courtesies must be learned and practiced - that is respect for others. However, the best form of manners isn't trying not to embarrass yourself, it's not allowing others to feel embarrassed. We're all inclined to overlook the social gaffes of people whom we know respect us and value our dignity than we are those who condescend and patronize us, or even worse, give us the perception that they don't care.

I do believe that people are all alike, in that they want to be treated with dignity and respect - the "elites" don't think that all people are alike, they don't think that others are people at all.

You mention sexual harrassment as an example - my question would be if a man doesn't want to be demeaned and embarrassed, why would he think anyone else would? Another example might be the utter disbelief that this administration had when the Iraqis fought back against occupation - it never occurred to them to ask what they would do or how they would feel if the Iraqis were occupying this country. Not only did this leave them unprepared for an insurgency, it was disastrous in that an invasion took place at all. We weren't liberating the Iraqis from a foreign invader, we were ousting one of their own. As much as I despise this administration, I wouldn't be greeting an occupier with roses and candy, would you? In fact, I think I would be rather sullen and resentful - rather like the Iraqis.

I read a charm of a book once, Pygmies and Dream Giants, written by a psychologist, Kilton Stewart, who was researching what he called "the lowest common denominator of the human." He ran into problems with the proventialism of the School boards in California (this was the early 30's) and took his tests to Hawaii, and got into trouble there too.  He ended up on Luzon, and started in the lowland jungles with the Negrito pygmies there and worked his way up to the top of the ridge through four or five different ethnic groups.

It was either the Igorots or Ifugaos who gave him a five star welcome to their village, completely doting over him and lavishing gifts and food and all that.  In four or five hours the tribal members were getting uncomfortably close, but sudden shots rang out and every one scattered and an American Prospector came in and escorted Stewart out of the village. "That was a pretty close call for you" he said.  "But they really seemed to like me", Stewart argued.  "That's the whole point.  The highest honor these people can show you is to cook you up and eat you."

Here's a link on Stewart - interesting fellow.  I just remembered I found that book in the Army Library in Saigon.

Neoboho

That rather depends on the geographer. (And I note that I slipped up in the previous post and said chorology rather than chorography, the latter being what I meant to say. The former looks to space for causal forces, whereas the latter is more concerned with description and understanding of a region.)

What you describe is what would be called cultural geography, which does not limit itself to exploring the physical spaces outlined by geographic lines, but gets into the muddy areas of "social spaces," in short, using the geographer's conception of space as a theoretical framework for approaching non-strictly physical "spaces."

However, what geography can also bring to the table are things better described as political and economic geography, as well as a variety of other human geographies, which effectively bridge gaps to other disciplines and apply them under a spatial framework. A colleague of mine was doing fascinating work on the strange role that national borders often play, for him specifically in Eastern Europe. When we deliniate national boundaries, it introduces multiple new dynamics into a system creating artificial gradients in resources, which often result in epidimics of various forms of smuggling. On the other hand, more apropos to Iraq, the deliniation of a national boundary which circumscribes three different ethnic groups, splitting each away from their ethnic kindrid, creates a wholly different kind of tension, under which ethnic immigration happens to a limited degree, but under the right conditions can flare up and turn murderous, as it did in Yugoslavia and as it has now in Iraq.

To my knowledge, nowhere outside of geography are questions such as what the city of Jerusalem means as an ancient international city, and what the implications of the security fence are, being examined in as rigorous a framework as within geography. But my discipline remains missing in action from America's top Universities, to what I feel (perhaps with some bias) is to their detriment.

And I always thought geography was the home of dilettantes -- past-their-prime anthropologists, economists, geologists and post-modern structuralists -- jacks of all trades and masters of none. :-)

Yes, Ellen, because they all joined - everybody's a shit.

Let's consider a spectrum. On one end, Lincoln survives and runs the compassionate Reconstruction he apparently had planned. Grant, Chamberlain and others reached out to former comrades. The Radical Republicans were less effective, and the Ironclad Oath was not required.

Next, Lincoln dies, the Radical Republicans are beaten back by a thread, there is military respect, Lee swears allegiance...oh, we know about that.

For the third course, Lincoln dies, Stanton is found to have planned a coup, and in the resulting commotion, all effective power goes to the Radical Republicans. The leading Confederate politicians and commanders, including Lee, are given a kangaroo court, executed as a spectacle, and their remains scattered. Reconstruction forces are given extremely broad powers of nonjudicial arrest, summary execution, and confiscation of assets.

It could have been worse. There was nothing romantic about it.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Hey now, them's fightin' words! ;)

There is, of course, plenty of dead weight in geography. But not appreciably more than any other academic discipline, from what I can tell.

The GISci revolution is also turning everything on its head, and no one, including the geographers themselves, is quite sure how to deal with it at the moment.

I love geography, and I was only teasing a little; but I do wonder whether what makes its study interesting renders it too broad a field to gain respect as an academic enterprise. I worry that it will specialize excessively in response to criticism and its investigations will become less and less interesting.