Sitting in an arena of hate
Reader comment on item: In the Mideast, Bush dared to be different

Submitted by Kenneth Sikorski (Finland), Oct 25, 2004 at 15:12

I recently sat in on a lecture on international terrorism, which was held at the University of Jyväskylä here in Central Finland. There a senior lecturer gave a long winded speech on 'global economic inequality' being the primary source feeding international terrorism (though he wouldn't refer to it as even being terrorism, with the various terror groups being 'national movements).

After listening to the first 45 minutes of the lecture which focused exclusively on the history of global economic developement for the past 110 years..... with the help of an overheated projector and plenty of graphs, the US and of course Israel were cast in the role of 'scape goat' for all of the preceived ills of the world. I would venture to say that the entire lecture hall which was crammed with people, absolutely loathed G.W.Bush and equal vigor the state of Israel.

This is the typical of the academic mentality here in Europe, that overwhelmingly stands in opposition to the War on Terror.

For all of the fuzzy headed mistakes made by the Bush administration in Iraq, it more than makes up for it in the 'vision department', by no longer maintaining the 'status quo' in the Middle-East. The academics in universities here in Europe and over there in the States, are still viewing the situation in the ME, through the prism of 'realism', which no longer applies. As Paul Breman describes in his book ' Terror and Liberalism', "A "realist," like a Marxist, is someone who, no matter what bizarre events may take place around the world, will profess not to he surprised. This is "realism's" weakness, though. Wisdom consists of the ability to he shocked."

The Finnish Helsinki professor of 'Third World Ecomonics' is not surprised at all by the scourge of international terrorism, it is 'the logical result of inequality in the Third World due to the policies of the Developed World. The present U.S.administration's foreign policies run counter to that illusion, and demand a serious change for the region as a whole. Being a third rate back water totalitarian country no longer provides the neccessary 'teflan' from cricitism and scrutiny as it did in the past, ..........and the ME has been served warning.

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