Juan Cole
Juan Cole has become a media darling but I instantly took a disliking to him when he went after someone for not being able to speak arabic. Since I only speak English and a smattering of Spanish, I'm biased. Since he speaks Arabic, so is he. But this argument is the classic "appeal to authority". We should listen to him because he has the credentials, he is president, he's a rich business guy...you know the drill. It's total bullshit. I found this piece by a guy named Michael J. Totten (he shares a name with a ranger I knew in Yosemite who would go after employees of the YCS like an attack dog, arresting them every five minutes) I liked.
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Juan Cole would rather align himself with anti-American Iraqis like the blogger Riverbend. Okay, whatever. But I have no idea why he expects conservatives and centrists to do any such thing.
Most people in this world don’t reflexively side with those who hate them. One reason he is in the political wilderness and I’m not is because he does and I don’t.
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http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/000659.html
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Juan Cole would rather align himself with anti-American Iraqis like the blogger Riverbend. Okay, whatever. But I have no idea why he expects conservatives and centrists to do any such thing.
Most people in this world don’t reflexively side with those who hate them. One reason he is in the political wilderness and I’m not is because he does and I don’t.
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http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/000659.html
posted by Robert Smith at 1:47 PM
1 Comments:
Cole is just another expert who refuses to get down on the ground and actually talk to the people in the areas in questions...
He is a pixel and ink analyzer regardless of what language he is analyzing.
Too many supposed experts sitting in dusty halls in university that talk about theory...
but never see the reality. I still fail to see how historians can claim to make reasonable opinions about a current situation when we will not know all of what heppened in that situation for years, when the documents can be collected...
I hope to God they are not relying on the news media.
salaam
abu yusef
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