“❝Washington — perhaps as many global powers have done in the past — uses what I might call the “immaculate conception” theory of crises abroad. That is, we believe we are essentially out there, just minding our own business, trying to help make the world right, only to be endlessly faced with a series of spontaneous, nasty challenges from abroad to which we must react. There is not the slightest consideration that perhaps US policies themselves may have at least contributed to a series of unfolding events. This presents a huge paradox: how can America on the one hand pride itself on being the world’s sole global superpower, with over seven hundred military bases abroad and the Pentagon’s huge global footprint, and yet, on the other hand, be oblivious to and unacknowledging of the magnitude of its own role — for better or for worse — as the dominant force charting the course of world events? This Alice-in-Wonderland delusion affects not just policy makers, but even the glut of think tanks that abound in Washington. In what may otherwise often be intelligent analysis of a foreign situation, the focus of each study is invariably the other country, the other culture, the negative intentions of other players; the impact of US actions and perceptions are quite absent from the equation. It is hard to point to serious analysis from mainstream publications or think tanks that address the role of the United States itself in helping create current problems or crises, through policies of omission or commission. We’re not even talking about blame here; we’re addressing the logical and self-evident fact that the actions of the world’s sole global superpower have huge consequences in the unfolding of international politics. They require examination.”
― Graham E. Fuller, quote from A World Without Islam
“The west, and especially the United States, has shown no serious or sustained interest in the Middle East until the last half century. We tend to be comfortably ignorant of the history of Western interventionism in the region over centuries — or even over a millennium. We are only superficially aware of Middle Eastern critiques of Western policies that touch on oil, finances, political intervention, Western-sponsored coups, Western support for pro-Western dictators, and carte blanche American support for Israel in the complex Palestinian problem — which, after all, had its roots not in Islam, but in Western persecution and butchery of European Jews. European powers have also exported their local quarrels and parleyed them into two world wars that were fought out partly on Middle Eastern soil, as was much of the Cold War as well. All this suggests that many other causative factors are at work that have at least as much explanatory power for the current turmoil as does “Islam.”
It is not simply a matter of “blaming the West” as some readers might rush to suggest here. I argue that deeper geopolitical factors have created numerous confrontational factors between the East and the West that predate Islam, continued with Islam and around Islam, and may be inherent in the territorial imperatives and geopolitical outlook of any states that occupy those areas, regardless of religion.”
― Graham E. Fuller, quote from A World Without Islam
“International politics is not unlike the jungle: smaller and weaker animals require acute intelligence, sensitive antennae, and nimbleness of footing to assure their own self-preservation; the strong—such as elephants—need pay less attention to ambient conditions and can often do as they wish, and others will get out of the way.”
― Graham E. Fuller, quote from A World Without Islam
“One less desirable aspect of democracy is that it seems to require serious demonization of the enemy if the nation and public opinion are to be galvanized sufficiently to pay a serious price in blood or treasure at war.”
― Graham E. Fuller, quote from A World Without Islam
“Old and cherished ideas die hard.”
― Graham E. Fuller, quote from A World Without Islam
“Religion may in most of its forms be defined as the belief that the gods are on the side of the Government. —Bertrand Russell”
― Graham E. Fuller, quote from A World Without Islam
“When asked his opinion of the French Revolution, Chinese Premier Zhou En-Lai in the 1950s famously remarked, “It’s too early to tell.”
― Graham E. Fuller, quote from A World Without Islam
Graham E. Fuller
Born place: The United States
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“To my surprise, the toilet began to play music. It was probably supposed to be comforting, some sort of melody to soothe you while you pooped, but the whole idea of a musical toilet just weirded me out.”
― Stuart Gibbs, quote from Spy Ski School
“He’s funny and attractive. That doesn’t mean I want to sleep with him.” “That always means you want to sleep with someone.” “Thanks a lot,” I say. “Was that a thinly-veiled slut accusation?” “That’s funny, it wasn’t supposed to be thinly-veiled.”
― Sarah Lyons Fleming, quote from Mordacious
“There is far more spiritual potential within than most people realize. The potential is so great that to define it in words would be impossible.”
― Belsebuub, quote from Gazing into the Eternal: Reflections upon a Deeper Purpose to Living
“No matter how many warnings are posted, no one actually believes that online behavior can hurt their lives or the lives of others. Especially if there is a cloak of anonymity. Everyone feels shielded, safe, and invincible.”
― Joelle Charbonneau, quote from Need
“The Tender Place
Your temples , where the hair crowded in ,
Were the tender place. Once to check
I dropped a file across the electrodes
of a twelve-volt battery -- it exploded
Like a grenade. Somebody wired you up.
Somebody pushed the lever. They crashed
The thunderbolt into your skull.
In their bleached coats, with blenched faces,
They hovered again
To see how you were, in your straps.
Whether your teeth were still whole .
The hand on the calibrated lever
Again feeling nothing
Except feeling nothing pushed to feel
Some squirm of sensation . Terror
Was the cloud of you
Waiting for these lightnings. I saw
An oak limb sheared at a bang.
You your Daddy's leg . How many seizures
Did you suffer this god to grab you
By the roots of the hair? The reports
Escaped back into clouds. What went up
Vaporized? Where lightning rods wept copper
And the nerve· threw off its skin
Like a burning child
Scampering out of the bomb-flash. They dropped you
A rigid bent bit of wire
Across the Boston City grid. The lights
In the Senate House dipped
As your voice dived inwards
Right through the bolt-hole basement.
Came up, years later,
Over-exposed, like an X-ray --
Brain-map still dark-patched
With the scorched-earth scars
Of your retreat . And your words ,
Faces reversed from the light ,
Holding in their entrails.”
― Ted Hughes, quote from Birthday Letters
The Complete Saki
A Lasting Impression
Darkness Before Dawn
Dancing on Broken Gl...
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