“❝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 make no decision in regard to the growth of authoritarian government is already a decision for it.”
― Francis A. Schaeffer, quote from How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture
“Can I ask one more question?”
Cateline repressed a sigh. “One more. Then you need to eat your supper.”
“If Davillon has so many gods, how come not one of them got off his butt and saved my mommy and daddy?!”
― quote from Thief's Covenant
“I would browse for half an hour or so in the secondhand bookstores in the neighborhood. Owning my own 'library' was my only materialistic ambition; in fact, trying to decide which two of these thousands of books to buy that week, I would frequently get so excited that by the time the purchase was accomplished I had to make use of the bookseller's toilet facilities. I don't believe that either microbe or laxative has ever affected me so strongly as the discovery that I was all at once the owner of a slightly soiled copy of Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity in the original English edition.”
― Philip Roth, quote from My Life as a Man
“Oh who owns the school? Oh who owns the school? Oh who owns the school? the people saaaayyyy. . . . Oh we own the school Oh we own the school ’Cause we are sixth graaaaders today!”
― Judy Blume, quote from Superfudge
“There was another pause as Quentin stared at him, and then he said quietly, "It didn't happen up there. What happened twenty years ago."
"I know."
"You know a hell of a lot, don't you." It wasn't really a question.
Bishop smiled. "You think I'd try to recruit a new team member without knowing everything I could about him first? There won't be many secrets in the SCU, Quentin, that goes without saying. We're a unit of psychics. And from the telepaths who can pick up thoughts to the empaths who can pick up pain, we're going to eventually know pretty much everything there is to know about each other.”
― Kay Hooper, quote from Chill of Fear
Peter Pan in Kensing...
The Book of Lies
Specimen Days
Truth and Beauty
Manhunting
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