Quote Originally Posted by Steve Blair View Post
I agree with your point 3, but can we really change that? And I'd be inclined to guess that if that group didn't exist, it would be made up and people would believe it existed anyhow. I'd also argue that the Arab reaction to that small minority is what is driving your point 1. So now we have the cycle going. Can it be fixed? I'm honestly not sure. With so few moderate Moslem leaders speaking out (or, more importantly, being reported as speaking out), it's easy for the religious right to launch their spin. And their spin feeds the radical Islam spin. There's always a great deal of talk about how moderate thinkers fear the radical elements within Islam, and it's not that far of a leap for the normal person to decide that if their own co-religionists are afraid of them, maybe they should be, too.

It doesn't help the "average" American, who's accustomed to a fixed church leadership heirarchy, that Islam appears to lack the sort of leadership structure they're accustomed to. For someone who's conditioned by their upbringing to see a pastor as the 'leader' of their church, a pronouncement by an Islamic cleric who most likely doesn't have the same standing is going to be given weight that it might not deserve.

I'm to a degree thinking out loud here, but to my way of thinking the problem is more complex than pressure groups (and I tend to believe that those do more harm than good in the long run, at least from the perspective of the "average" American). Americans have been conditioned by their consumer and quota society to expect neat labels for things and groups. Things like sports play into it, too (scorecard, teams, etc.). How do you help them understand that this stuff can't be cleanly labeled? You also have decades of pro-Israel images to overcome in the process (now there's a pressure group for you...), as well as all the talking head babble about the "Arab street"...which I expect conjures up images of mob rule and the like for many people.

I guess it all boils down to "Yeah...there's that problem. Now how the hell do we fix it? And can we fix it without help from outside?"
I agree with you and, no, I don't think it can be fixed because its foundation is the "dream palace" of the Arabs. I'm the first to admit I've never lived in an Arab culture for an extended period but I have been strongly influenced over the past couple of years by a personal relationsip with an Arab. I've been amazed at the extent to which once this person arrives at a "narrative," no amount of event empirical evidence can shake them from this. I don't by any stretch intend this to be a racist position but I also don't think that because of political correctness, we can deny the fact that different cultures understand the world differently.

This is a theme I've been building in my book: the United States tends to be successful operating intra-culture (e.g. Atlanticism). We encounter problems when we operate cross-culturally (Vietnam, Iraq). And the rub is that the current global security system puts us in a position of frequently operating cross culturally. And I don't think increased "cultural sensitivity" is going to fix that.

That's why I take issue with the well meaning Americans who argue that if we just had a better organization for "strategic communications," the problem would be solved. While our organization is sub-optimal, I don't think it's the root of the problem.