Saturday, May 29, 2004
BUSHCO QUARTERLY STATEMENTS TO DISSAPOINT STREET
The Bush orthodoxy is in shreds
A series of investigations has shattered neocon self-belief
by Sidney Blumenthal, The Guardian UK
At a conservative thinktank in downtown Washington, and across the Potomac at the Pentagon, FBI agents have begun paying quiet calls on prominent neoconservatives, who are being interviewed in an investigation of potential espionage, according to intelligence sources. Who gave Ahmed Chalabi classified information about the plans of the US government and military?
The Iraqi neocon favourite, tipped to lead his liberated country post-invasion, has been identified by the CIA and Defence Intelligence Agency as an Iranian double-agent, passing secrets to that citadel of the "axis of evil" for decades. All the while the neocons cosseted, promoted and arranged for more than $30m in Pentagon payments to the George Washington manque of Iraq. In return, he fed them a steady diet of disinformation and in the run-up to the war sent various exiles to nine nations' intelligence agencies to spread falsehoods about weapons of mass destruction. If the administration had wanted other material to provide a rationale for invasion, no doubt that would have been fabricated. Either Chalabi perpetrated the greatest con since the Trojan horse, or he was the agent of influence for the most successful intelligence operation conducted by Iran, or both.
The CIA and other US agencies had long ago decided that Chalabi was a charlatan, so their dismissive and correct analysis of his lies prompted their suppression by the Bush White House.
In place of the normal channels of intelligence vetting, a jerry-rigged system was hastily constructed, running from the office of the vice president to the newly created Office of Special Plans inside the Pentagon, staffed by fervent neocons. CIA director George Tenet, possessed with the survival instinct of the inveterate staffer, ceased protecting the sanctity of his agency and cast in his lot. Secretary of state Colin Powell, resistant internally but overcome, decided to become the most ardent champion, unveiling a series of neatly manufactured lies before the UN.
Last week, Powell declared "it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and, in some cases, deliberately misleading. And for that I'm disappointed, and I regret it". But who had "deliberately" misled him? He did not say. Now the FBI is investigating espionage, fraud and, by implication, treason.
A former staff member of the Office of Special Plans and a currently serving defence official, two of those said to be questioned by the FBI, are considered witnesses, at least for now. Higher figures are under suspicion. Were they witting or unwitting? If those who are being questioned turn out to be misleading, they can be charged ultimately with perjury and obstruction of justice. For them, the Watergate principle applies: it's not the crime, it's the cover-up.
The espionage investigation into the neocons' relationship with Chalabi is only one of the proliferating inquiries engulfing the Bush administration. In his speech to the Army War College on May 24, Bush blamed the Abu Ghraib torture scandal on "a few American troops". In other words, there was no chain of command. But the orders to use the abusive techniques came from the secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld.
The trials and investigations surrounding Abu Ghraib beg the question of whether it was an extension of the far-flung gulag operating outside the Geneva conventions that has been built after September 11. The fallout from the Chalabi affair has also implicated the nation's newspaper of record, the New York Times, which published yesterday an apology for running numerous stories containing disinformation that emanated from Chalabi and those in the Bush administration funnelling his fabrications. The Washington Post, which published editorials and several columnists trumpeting Chalabi's talking points, has yet to acknowledge the extent to which it was deceived.
Washington, just weeks ago in the grip of neoconservative orthodoxy, absolute belief in Bush's inevitability and righteousness, is in the throes of being ripped apart by investigations. Things fall apart: the military, loyal and lumbering, betrayed and embittered; the general in the field, General Sanchez, disgraced and cashiered; the intelligence agencies abused and angry, their retired operatives plying their craft with the press corps, seeping dangerous truths; the press, hesitating and wobbly, investigating its own falsehoods; the neocons, publicly redoubling defence of their hero and deceiver Chalabi, privately squabbling, anxiously awaiting the footsteps of FBI agents; Colin Powell, once the most acclaimed man in America, embarked on an endless quest to restore his reputation, damaged above all by his failure of nerve; everyone in the line of fire motioning toward the chain of command, spiralling upwards and sideways, until the finger pointing in a phalanx is directed at the hollow crown.
· Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is Washington bureau chief of Salon.comFriday, May 28, 2004
TELL HIM WHAT HE'S WON, BOB!
Pick Appears to Catch Bush Administration Off Guard
By Mike Allen and Robin Wright, Washington Post
The Bush administration appeared to be caught off guard and somewhat confused yesterday after the Iraqi Governing Council nominated a physician with longtime CIA ties as the post-occupation prime minister. Officials in Washington scrambled to respond after the Iraqis took the public lead in a process that was supposed to be run by a U.N. envoy.
In a telephone conversation at 2:30 p.m., a senior U.S. official involved in Iraq policy sounded uncertain about whether Ayad Allawi would head Iraq's interim government after the United States transfers limited authority on June 30.
"We may or may not have heard the last word on the prime minister," the official said. "You have to put a lot of pieces together first."
A senior administration official in Baghdad said that L. Paul Bremer, the civilian U.S. administrator, and Robert D. Blackwill, the U.S. presidential envoy to Iraq, knew about the impending selection on Thursday. But officials in Baghdad feared a leak and told few officials in Washington. Some members of Bush's war cabinet knew where the process was heading but were surprised by the timing of the council's decision.
The administration's statements were reserved because the United States did not want to appear to be driving the process, officials said, especially because of the country's past ties with Allawi.
The confusion extended to the United Nations in New York, where chief spokesman Fred Eckhard at first said that the U.N. envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, had been in the room for the selection by the U.S.-appointed council but then later corrected himself to say that Brahimi had not been there.
"It's not how we expected it to happen," Eckhard told Reuters.
By day's end, Brahimi and Bremer had both endorsed Allawi, and a senior U.S. official in Baghdad said without equivocation that Allawi will take office.
One of the working assumptions among senior foreign policy officials in the Bush administration had been that Iraq's new prime minister, the most important of the 30 jobs to be filled, would not come from the Governing Council. None of the 25 council members, all handpicked by the U.S.-led coalition, has rallied significant popular support, according to several public opinion surveys over the past few months.
In an attempt to ensure that the new government would enjoy a degree of legitimacy in the eyes of Iraq's 25 million people, U.S. officials also thought they needed to find someone who would not be seen as a surrogate of the United States -- representing a "clean break from the occupation," as a diplomat from a coalition country said. Allawi is among those with close U.S. ties, including to the U.S. intelligence community.
During his speech Monday on the future of Iraq, Bush had described how the process was supposed to work. "The United Nations special envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, is now consulting with a broad spectrum of Iraqis to determine the composition of this interim government," Bush said in Carlisle, Pa. "The special envoy intends to put forward the names of interim government officials this week."
Four hours after the council's vote, Bush said during a Rose Garden ceremony that the United States was prepared to "transfer complete and full sovereignty to an Iraqi government that will be picked by Mr. Brahimi of the United Nations."
That was not how the selection emerged. The Associated Press moved its bulletin from Baghdad at 8:26 a.m. Eastern time, saying: "The Governing Council has unanimously endorsed Iyad Allawi to become Iraq's new prime minister." Reuters followed at 8:41 a.m.: "IYAD ALLAWI CHOSEN AS IRAQI PRIME MINISTER -- AIDE TO ALLAWI."
Shortly after 10 a.m., White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters: "Mr. Brahimi is the one who will make the determinations about who the representatives are on the interim government."
At an appearance at the State Department's Foreign Press Center that began at 10:22 a.m., Secretary of State Colin L. Powell seemed unsure about whether Allawi was just a candidate or a nominee or the final choice.
"I think the report you're referring to is a wire service report over the last hour that said that the Governing Council had voted and the result of that vote was that they are recommending or -- nominating is, I think, one of the words they used -- but they are recommending Mr. Allawi for the position of prime minister," Powell said.
Powell said he was "pleased that Mr. Allawi has that kind of support, but we are working with Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi, the secretary general's representative."
"And so we have no position on any candidate at this moment because we are waiting to hear from Ambassador Brahimi, and he needs time to complete his work," he added.
At a televised briefing that began at 3:02 p.m., McClellan still referred to "news reports on Mr. Allawi" and said the United States was waiting "until we hear more" from Brahimi.
By dinnertime, a senior administration official conceded that there was no mystery about who would be prime minister but emphasized that the United States will not consider the matter official until Brahimi announces the whole slate. "There was clearly an emerging consensus that Allawi was the best choice and the logical choice," the official said. "What we saw today was the governing council decided to join that consensus by making their statement."Tuesday, May 25, 2004
MOHAMMED WAS A FEMINIST
An excellent exploration on feminism in Islam, by DuctapeFatwa
The notion of women as standalone human beings as opposed to property is a relatively new one, and while most cultures have made some attempt to move in that direction, there is still "work to be done," if you like understatement.
Subjugation of women has been popular for millennia, and still is, largely because it is the most effective method for keeping a population in control known to man.
Literate mothers teach their kids to read. Economically empowered women are more likely to spend their earnings on things that will benefit their children and their community than on things that will benefit the king. A few generations of this and you end up with a populace that is both less dependent and less eager to sacrifice its sons for the glory and enrichment of said king.
To get a feel for what the Prophet was up against, read volumes 1 and 2 of the series. Selling daughters into slavery, people collecting wives like Pokemon cards, infant brides, it's not rape if it happens inside the city limits, widows forced to marry brothers in law - imagine someone who, within the framework of that cultural context, walks in and starts preaching things like women own what they earn, women cannot be married without their consent, no girl can be married before the age of nine, no more than four wives under any circumstances, and no more than one unless you can take care of them and care for them equally (which really puts a crimp in the whole harem scenario).
That was revolutionary. It was outrageous. It was in direct opposition to millennia of cultural tradition. And, as usually happens, when religion and culture clash, culture wins.
That's why the Church has spent 2000 years very deftly syncretinizing local pre-Christian religious and cultural practices with its own, and why Christmas is celebrated in winter even though historians say Jesus was probably born in the spring, and why the Virgen de Guadalupe just happened to appear to Juan Diego and demand a basilica in the exact same spot where the temple to Tonantzin the Corn Goddess had stood before the Spanish destroyed it, and where today stands the Basilica of the Virgen of Guadalupe, and whether that stuff surrounding her traditional image in the Tilma (google it if you don't know) are rays of heavenly light or leaves of corn is a matter of faith.
And that's why today, in many countries with large Muslim populations, one finds very un-Islamic realities in the treatment of women.
Some of the most vocal opponents of cafeteria-style Islam are some of the most avid practitioners of it, and selective literal interpretation of scripture is popular in all religions.
"Eye for an eye" is a perennial favorite of death penalty advocates, who seldom venture an inch & a half a way to expend the same zeal on exhortations to everyone to observe the conditions and rules for selling one's daughter as a slave.
Mohammed was a feminist and a revolutionary, but he had a tough room to play. Just getting people to start thinking of women as equal human beings, just roll the idea around in their heads, was a challenge.
As Bishop Tutu remarked to Kira Phillips (still reeling from having been told seconds before that "God is not a Christian,") "God is not finished with us. We are a work in progress."
Yet how many Christians, who believe that Jesus was not only a Prophet of God, but "of one substance" with him, complain that Mohammed did not ban slavery, did not do this, or do that, when the same Jesus, whom they worship as a deity, did not even go as far as Mohammed did!?
Now 1400 years later, and pre-Islamic customs still rule the day, even in the land of the Prophet himself, and the same westerners who slam him for the spread of Islam blame him because women in Saudi Occupied Arabia can't drive cars.
QUOTE
..verily, in that is a lesson to those endowed with sight. (Koran, 24:44)
In the west today, a woman's greatest value is still her sexual attractiveness. In the east, her greatest value is as a producer of sons. Those who enjoy going barefoot should beware of glass shards.
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Below are a few links and snippets reflecting different points of view for those interested, and it would be really cool if other people would add some more.
The revelation of Islam established women's equal status and equal rights. The Prophet treated women as equals and was very responsive to their thoughts and needs. There was a tendency toward "ignorance" in the society where Islam was revealed, and it crept back in after the Prophet's death and brought back some of the negative things that Islam had reformed, including misogyny. Eventually the misogynist attitude left over from "ignorance" gained a foothold in Islamic law and took away some of women's rights and lowered their status. Islamic feminism is just an effort to restore the equal status of women as is their God-given right in Islam from the beginning. You hear a lot of how Islam is great for women in theory. In practice, there have been many systemic abuses against women in Muslim societies. The Taliban were the worst and most extreme example. So there is an urgent need to re-establish women's rights and dismantle the patriarchal rule that has plagued too many Muslim societies. What makes it Islamic is that it's based on the sources of Islam: the Qur’ân and the Prophet's example.
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Islamic feminism means justice to women
(Prof Margot Badran is a historian and senior fellow at Centre for Christian-Muslim Understanding at Georgetown University (USA)...)
In the post-colonial discourses, one can argue that the discourse on "Islamic feminism" is the result of an Orientalist approach to the so-called problems of women in Muslim societies in comparison with that of western women whereas the two sets of circumstances are entirely different.
It is a brilliant observation. But there is difference between Islamic feminism and Orientalist approach. Islamic feminism goes back to the text. It’s Muslims talking to Muslims. Orientalists are people from the west and they talk back to the west. Islamic feminists are looking into the basic texts of Islam in context of real life situations for concrete ideas. Islamic feminists are using Islamic categories like the notion of ijtihad. The tools can be different like linguistic methodology or historiosizing. But the frame should be within Islam, not foreign. You don’t have to be confused with the term. The project is not alien, it’s Islamic. You’ve to work within the premises of Islam, only the descriptive term seems weird.
Whether the theory and practice of "Islamic feminism", as an ideology, is more close to Islam or feminism?
No, you can’t put it like that. Islamic feminism is speaking for justice to women as Islam stands for. It’s a tool to remind people what Islam is for women. It’s not more Islam or more feminism. The term Islamic feminism is an idea of awareness preaching that men and women have equal rights based on re-reading the Quran, re-examining the religious texts and telling people to practice it. Some people, who do this for the sake of women, don’t call themselves Islamic feminists. They won’t say it Islamic feminism. Some have stereotypical notions about feminism, so they don’t use. Some others believe that we need a term to develop a discourse and fight the cause, so they use. It’s a rethinking process anyway. I agree that there’s difficulty in the term. At one point I also stopped using the term and started to use ‘gender activism’. You don’t have to term it Islamic feminism always, because people get scared. I use it now because Muslims themselves are using and people understand. What’s important is the discourse, not the term. We’ve to tell them, religion is not a problem, but it is the solution....
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Islamic Traditions And The Feminist Movement: Confrontation Or Cooperation
In the case of Western feminism, the preferred goals have been those traditionally fulfilled by the male members of society. The roles of providing financial support, of success in career, and of decision making have been given overwhelming respect and concern while those dealing with domestic matters, with child care, with aesthetic and psychological refreshment, with social interrelationships, were devalued and even despised. Both men and women have been forced into a single mold which is perhaps more restrictive, rigid and coercive than that which formerly assigned men to one type of role and women to another.
This is a new brand of male chauvenism with which Islamic traditions cannot conform. Islam instead maintains that both types of roles are equally deserving of pursuit and respect and that when accompanied by the equity demanded by the religion, a division of labor along sex lines is generally beneficial to all members of the society.
This might be regarded by the feminist as opening the door to discrimination, but as Muslims we regard Islamic traditions as standing
clearly and unequivocally for the support of male-female equity. In the Quran, no difference whatever is made between the sexes in
relation to God. "For men who submit [to God] and for women who submit [to God], for believing men and believing women, for devout men and evout women, for truthful men and truthful women, for steadfast men and steadfast women, for humble men and humble women, for charitable men and charitable women, for men who fast and women who fast, for men who guard their chastity and women who guard, for men who remember God much and for women who remember - for them God has prepared forgiveness and a mighty reward" (33:35). "Whoever performs good deeds, whether male or female and is a believer, We shall surely make him live a good life and We will certainly reward them for the best of what they did" (16:97).[2]
It is only in relation to each other and society that a difference is made - a difference of role or function. The rights and responsibilities of a woman are equal to those of a man, but they are not necessarily identical with them. Equality and identity are two different things, Islamic traditions maintain - the former desirable, the latter not. Men and women should therefore be complementary to each other in a multi-function organization rather than competitive with each other in a uni-function society...
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Islamic Feminism? What's In A Name
Islamic feminist discourse is a Qur'an-centered one that distances itself from the entangled web of fiqh schools as well as existing socio-cultural realities of Muslim societies and their customs and traditions. The main concern is understanding the pure and essential message of Islam and its spirit. This can also be found in the model of the Prophet (PBUH) himself in his very treatment and compassion to his wives, daughters, and women companions, a treatment than cannot be too emphasized. Attention is being paid to instances in early Muslim history and community when women are reported to be extremely outspoken and to reveal what can be described as a feminist/oppositional consciousness (see Omaima Abou Bakr, "Reflections of a Muslim Woman on Gender," on the Islam 21 Project web site at
http://www.islam21.net/pages/keyissues/key2-8.htm, and Mohja Kashef in Windows of Faith).
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The dawn of the nineteenth century marked the commencement of an era of worldwide social change that has continued to challenge the religious and social basis of all societies to this day.1 European colonial powers formed the political and economic ideological framework that was to encroach upon the Islamic world. The gradual emergence of the global economy and the political ascendancy of the West dictated a global trend that was not easy for non-Western nations to avoid. These changes have invariably been multidimensional in nature; from the emergence of territorial states in their current format to educational reforms. One of the areas to undergo a radical transformation is relations between the sexes, as women searched for their identity and place in the new world.
While common perceptions view ‘feminism’ and ‘Islam’ as a contradiction in terms, Fatima Mernissi2 argues that throughout the history of Islam, small numbers of women have seized power in both political and military spheres where their western sisters were unable. Throughout the Islamic world, their has been a growing awareness of both feminism as a movement and feminist issues. This essay seeks to understand some of the root causes that lie behind issues currently being raised by Muslim feminist reformers asking whether these issues are essentially ‘religious’, ‘cultural’, or ‘social’ in nature. I will not go into details about the particular concerns. It is that which lies behind the issues that I wish to deal with. The sheer size and cultural diversity within the Islamic world renders it impossible to accurately survey all issues pertaining to feminism. Therefore, much of this essay is limited to the Arab experience.
The Nature of Islam
Before examining the issues raised by feminists, I believe that we need to ask ‘What is the central nature of religion?’ or in this case ‘What is the central nature of Islam?’ A substantive understanding of religion, where belief in either theistic beings or the supernatural is the prime objective3 comes across as inadequate when religion constructs a comprehensive world view ethic. Clifford Geertz understands religions as representations of cultural systems. Religions are influenced by the process of social change, while at the same time, able to influence such changes.4 Talal Asad takes this viewpoint a step further, arguing that religion as known today, is a modern invention tailored for military conquest.5 For Lawrence, religion is reduced to a subset of culture, and will differ between different cultures.6
This type of function view of religion, leads to Durkheim style views of religion, where religion exists to give adherents a symbolic framework that allows a total perspective on their relationships within the society.7 Religion symbolically legitimises the present order by providing a system of self understanding the community and its function in the cosmic order.8 This can be seen in the way ethnic religions, such as Judaism and Hinduism, have their basis in a social structure founded on kinship relationships. Here, religion protects the community against migration and cultural assimilation.9 Young views Islam as a more than an ethnic religion. As society moves from an ethnic to a universal identity, wide ranging cultural reformation takes place, including religious reform. Under a charismatic leader, religious principles are reformed in an attempt to bring society back to its original social and cosmic order.10
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We uphold the revolutionary spirit of Islam, a religion which uplifted the status of women when it was revealed 1400 years ago. We believe that Islam does not endorse the oppression of women and denial of their basic rights of equality and human dignity. We are deeply saddened that religion has been used to justify cultural practices and values that regard women as inferior and subordinate to men and we believe that this has been made possible because men have had exclusive control over the interpretation of the text of the Qur’an.
We are inspired by the active participation of women in public life during the time of Prophet Muhammad saw. Biographical collections devoted to the Companions (Sahabat) of the Prophet included the biographies of over 1,200 female Companions. Among them were transmitters of hadith, saints and sufis, matyrs, liberators of slaves, and heroic combatants.
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MAH FELLOW AMURICANS
A preview of tonite's Bush teevee speech, by lil-petunia:
My fellow amuricans. It has been a long, tough road that we have assaulted, a journey not yet Finnish. A year ago, Saddam stood ready to destroy the fragile peace that existed in the muddle east. Today, we can stand proud knowing that his torture changers shut down, that his rape squads will rap no more, and that he can never attack us with nukular arms or legs.
I want to thank members of the coalition for staying the course, because we have to. If we shift gears now, our bikes will come off the track, and the track record won't permit the finaly victory over evil. God told me last night that the course should be stayed, while golfing, we always see the trees and and the sand traps, not the success that we boagie four on par threes. But to those that have left, like the Spanicans running tale between their skinny dark legs, well, you get what you deserve when the Rapture starts calling.
Some naysayers in congress complain that the course is rocky. Of course it's Rocky. And Bullwinkle and all the rest of their friends, wishing us to fail, but we can't fail, not with us keeping the grades and scoring. I just want to tell those naysayers, best beware what happens and big bubba Cheney comes around for X-Mas with his budget pay-off goodies in his shoulder bag. Because it ain't coal we are talking here, but oil. Black tea, a bubbling crude.
This is not a time for questions, so I won't take any. It is a time for answers. So answer me this. Aren't you more secure knowing that Saddam and his All Kady talibanis aren't around to steal more planes, trains or automobiles? Aren't you more sure that your freedoms are being protected with the Patriot Act, If not, just wait with Patriot II. Aren't you sleeping better knowing that our democratic process is working in Iraq, why just yesterday, Israel didn't kill even one child. Now, that is progress!, Real progress.
Some have questioned our plan, like that backstabbing, scum-sucking, evil, traitorous, shitheel General Zinni. Not to cast any spershons on people who will be seeing some serious jail time real soon, you rotten supporter of arabi murderous rapists, but I'd pack light if'n I were you, but I'm not, so you are, and I won't. So you understand each other, when I say, we must stay the course. Of course, the course is a horse of course, and never will you here me speaking out of my side of my tongue. Because I mean what I say and I say meaning what I meant to be said, over and over again, without any question of the convictions that make this country great.
Now, I pray for your safety and votes in the upcoming election period, but not to worry. With fiends like Diabold, it has to be good. God bless the neocons, and this great nation so long as you pay your taxes, buy those SUVs and support the blessed land of Halliburton. America - this is god's country. So don't you forget it.
Thank you.Monday, May 24, 2004
TORTURE PROBLEM SOLVED
This report was on and ABC bureau in Australia. Not a mention of it anywhere in our much-vaunted American 'liberal media'. In the USA, this news snippet does not exist:
Rumsfeld bans camera phones in Iraq: report
AFP - Last Update: Sunday, May 23, 2004. 10:00pm (AEST)
Mobile phones fitted with digital cameras have been banned in United States Army installations in Iraq on orders from Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, The Business newspaper reported on Sunday.
Quoting a Pentagon source, the paper said the US Defence Department believes that some of the damning photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were taken with camera phones.
"Digital cameras, camcorders and mobile phones with cameras have been prohibited in military compounds in Iraq," it said.
A "total ban throughout the US military" is in the works, it added.
Disturbing new photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse, which the US government had reportedly tried to keep hidden, were published on Friday in the Washington Post newspaper.
The photos emerged along with details of testimony from inmates at Abu Ghraib who said they were sexually molested by female soldiers, beaten, sodomised and forced to eat food from toilets.
--AFPSunday, May 23, 2004
"IT'S BEST USE IS AS A DOORSTOP"
Brian Whitaker explains why a book packed with sweeping generalisations about Arabs carries so much weight with both neocons and military in the US
Consider these statements:
"Why are most Africans, unless forced by dire necessity to earn their livelihood with 'the sweat of their brow', so loath to undertake any work that dirties the hands?"
"The all-encompassing preoccupation with sex in the African mind emerges clearly in two manifestations ..."
"In the African view of human nature, no person is supposed to be able to maintain incessant, uninterrupted control over himself. Any event that is outside routine everyday occurrence can trigger such a loss of control ... Once aroused, African hostility will vent itself indiscriminately on all outsiders."
These statements, I think you'll agree, are thoroughly offensive. You would probably imagine them to be the musings of some 19th century colonialist. In fact, they come from a book promoted by its US publisher as "one of the great classics of cultural studies", and described by Publisher's Weekly as "admirable", "full of insight" and with "an impressive spread of scholarship".
The book is not actually about Africans. Instead, it takes some of the hoariest old prejudices about black people and applies them to Arabs.
Replace the word "African" in the quotations above with the word "Arab", and you have them as they appear in the book. It is, the book says, the Arabs who are lazy, sex-obsessed, and apt to turn violent over the slightest little thing.
Writing about Arabs, rather than black people, in these terms apparently makes all the difference between a racist smear and an admirable work of scholarship.
The book in question is called The Arab Mind, and is by Raphael Patai, a cultural anthropologist who taught at several US universities, including Columbia and Princeton.
I must admit that, despite having spent some years studying Arabic language and culture, I had not heard of this alleged masterpiece until last week, when the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh mentioned it in an article for New Yorker magazine.
Hersh was discussing the chain of command that led US troops to torture Iraqi prisoners. Referring specifically to the sexual nature of some of this abuse, he wrote: "The notion that Arabs are particularly vulnerable to sexual humiliation became a talking point among pro-war Washington conservatives in the months before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"One book that was frequently cited was The Arab Mind ... the book includes a 25-page chapter on Arabs and sex, depicting sex as a taboo vested with shame and repression."
Hersh continued: "The Patai book, an academic told me, was 'the bible of the neocons on Arab behaviour'. In their discussions, he said, two themes emerged - 'one, that Arabs only understand force, and two, that the biggest weakness of Arabs is shame and humiliation'."
Last week, my own further enquiries about the book revealed something even more alarming. Not only is it the bible of neocon headbangers, but it is also the bible on Arab behaviour for the US military.
According to one professor at a US military college, The Arab Mind is "probably the single most popular and widely read book on the Arabs in the US military". It is even used as a textbook for officers at the JFK special warfare school in Fort Bragg.
In some ways, the book's appeal to the military is easy to understand, because it gives a superficially coherent view of the Arab enemy and their supposed personality defects. It is also readily digestible, uncomplicated by nuances and caveats, and has lots of juicy quotes, a generous helping of sex, and no academic jargon.
The State Department, too, used to take an interest in the book, although it seemingly no longer does. At one stage, the training department gave free copies to officials when they were posted to US embassies in the Middle East.
In contrast, opinions of Patai's book among Middle East experts at US universities are almost universally scathing. "The best use for this volume, if any, is as a doorstop," one commented. "The book is old, and a thoroughly discredited form of scholarship," said another.
None of the academics I contacted thought the book suitable for serious study, although Georgetown University once invited students to analyse it as "an example of bad, biased social science".
There is a lot wrong with The Arab Mind apart from its racism: the title, for a start. Although the Arab countries certainly have their distinctive characteristics, the idea that 200 million people, from Morocco to the Gulf, living in rural villages, urban metropolises and (very rarely these days) desert tents, think with some sort of single, collective mind is utterly ridiculous.
The result is a collection of outrageously broad - and often suspect - generalisations. Patai asserts, for example, that Arabs "hate" the west.
He backs up this claim with two quotations: one from a book published in the mid-50s ("Most westerners have simply no inkling of how deep and fierce is the hate, especially of the west, that has gripped the modernising Arab"), and another from Bernard Lewis - currently the neocons' favourite historian - referring to the mood of "many, if not most Arabs" in 1955 (just before the Suez crisis).
We are also informed (page 144) of "the Arab view that masturbation is far more shameful than visiting prostitutes".
Whether this is why Iraqi prisoners were forced to masturbate in front of cameras is unclear, but the only supporting evidence for Patai's claim is a survey of Arab and US students published in 1954: the US students admitted to masturbating twice as often as the Arabs, while 59% of the Arabs, but only 28% of the Americans, said they had visited a prostitute during the previous 12 months.
In "outlying areas", such as Siwa oasis in Egypt, Patai says, "homosexuality is the rule, and practised completely in the open". This unequivocal statement is based on accounts dating from 1935, 1936 and 1950, and, in a footnote, Patai concedes that they "need to be checked out by an anthropologically trained observer".
There is also a good deal of confusion in the book between the present and the past. An Arab man, Patai writes, even if he has four wives, "can have sexual relations with concubines (slave girls whom he owns)".
All this adds up to an overwhelmingly negative picture of the Arabs. Positive characteristics are mentioned, but are given relatively short shrift.
Hospitality and generosity - two highly regarded virtues in Arab societies - get three and one and a half pages respectively, compared with a whole chapter devoted to alleged sexual hang-ups.
The book is a classic case of orientalism which, by focusing on what Edward Said called the "otherness" of Arab culture, sets up barriers that can then be exploited for political purposes.
The Arab Mind was originally published in 1976, but - according to one US academic - actually belongs to the "national character" genre of writing that was popular in comparative politics around the middle of the last century.
Its methodology, therefore - not to mention much of its content - was considerably behind the times even when it first appeared.
Patai died in 1996, but his book was revived by Hatherleigh Press in 2002 (nicely timed for the war in Iraq), and reprinted with an enthusiastic introduction by Norvell "Tex" De Atkine, a former US army colonel and the head of Middle East studies at Fort Bragg.
"It is essential reading," De Atkine wrote. "At the institution where I teach military officers, The Arab Mind forms the basis of my cultural instruction."
In a speech last week, the US president, George Bush, congratulated himself on having removed "hateful propaganda" from the schools in Iraq.
Perhaps it is now time he turned his attention to military schools in the US.