N.Y. Times on Hezbollah: Terrorists or 'Resilient Pragmatists'?

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By Tim Graham (Bio | Archive)
April 28, 2009 - 17:25 ET
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New York Times book reviewer Michiko Kakutani may have sent heads spinning on Tuesday with a book review of Joshua Cooper Ramo’s The Age of the Unthinkable. In summarizing Ramo’s thesis, Kakutani constructs this strangely amoral universe:

Today’s world, he suggests, requires resilient pragmatists who, like the most talented Silicon Valley venture capitalists on the one hand or the survival-minded leadership of Hezbollah on the other, possess both an intuitive ability to see problems in a larger context and a willingness to rejigger their organizations continually to grapple with ever-shifting challenges and circumstances.

Ramo, a former Time reporter, is declared "astute" by Kakutani for realizing the disastrous rigidity of Bush’s war on Iraq:

Iraq, Mr. Ramo astutely notes, is a war that showcased all of America’s most "maladaptive" tendencies. It was inaugurated on the premise of flawed idées fixes: that it would have "a clean, fast end" and would lead to a democratic regime that would transform the Middle East in a positive fashion. And the certainty of Bush administration officials not only led to incorrect assumptions (like the bet that "the ‘ecosystem’ of Iraq would settle into something stable that could be left to run itself") but also resulted in an ill-planned and rigid occupation that was "incapable of the speedy refiguring that life in a war zone" inevitably requires.

At least the book review did seem to suggest the war in Iraq is pretty much over, after the surge:

In this sand-pile world, a small group of terrorists armed with box cutters can inflict a terrible blow on a superpower — as Al Qaeda did on 9/11, just as bands of insurgents in Iraq managed to keep the mighty United States military at bay for three long years.

Ramo was last memorably seen on TV ushering NBC's Matt Lauer around the wonders of Red China.

—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center.


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Latin. I can understand Latin. I like Latin.

April 29, 2009 - 08:10 ET by JWF

  French. Not so much. It seems as though most of the vowels and consonants are pronounce somewhere in the sinus cavity.

  And what do we have here. Another liberal throwing out a French phrase. Idee fix. And the e has one of those ticks over it. Where is that tick thing on my keyboard? How do I make one of those little ticks over the e ?

  Oh, and there is that word again. Context. We can't understand anything. Only liberal journalists can understand it because they can put it in context and show us little people how to understand it.

  Yes. He does put it in context too. Ecosystem. French phrases are not enough. We need to take an engish word and give it a new definition.

Merriam webster - ecosystem: the complex of a community of organisms and its environment functioning as an ecological unit.

  Why do I think his meaning of ecosystem and the definition I can look up are not the same? Is it because I do not have context? Last time I checked, ecosystems don't run themselves, they just are.

  Speaking of ecosystems, we refilled a very large marsh ecosystem in Iraq that Saddam Hussien had drained as a way to keep the people under his control there. Now why am I fairly sure that Kakutani was not thinking about that.

 Context. Yea, I am too stupid for that. Can someone tell me what the hell "incapable of the speedy refiguring that life in a war zone" means? And what is up with the quotes? Is he quoting the book?  I googled that and all I can find is Kakutani saying it in the article. So who the hell is he quoting? By the way, you adapt in a war zone. You adapt because you are trying to kill the enemy who does not want to be killed so he adapts. And I am fairly sure we adapted purty damn good. Seeing as how we are pert near victorious.

  I don't know what is worse. Annoying books or annoying book reviewers.

Sincerely,

a Veteran of a 1000 psychic wars.

This is why the NYT is in

April 28, 2009 - 23:45 ET by rbosque

This is why the NYT is in the gutter.

simile?

April 29, 2009 - 07:59 ET by m1xram

Today’s world, he suggests, requires resilient pragmatists who, like the most talented Silicon Valley venture capitalists on the one hand or the survival-minded leadership of Hezbollah on the other, possess both an intuitive ability to see problems in a larger context and a
willingness to rejigger their organizations continually to grapple with ever-shifting challenges and circumstances.

Is this some kind of simile or something..

Silicon Valley is to creating products like Hezbollah is to killing innocent women and children.

I'm not getting it. Maybe I need my tinfoil hat.