Imperial
Hubris by Michael Scheuer, 2004, Excerpts
Because of the
pervasive imperial hubris that dominates the minds of our political, academic,
social, media, and military elites, America is able and content to believe the
Islamic world fails to understand the benign intent of U.S. foreign policy and
its implementation. When U.S. leaders speak blithely and ad nauseum of building
a democracy like our own in Afghanistan or Iraq or Burma or Russia or Liberia
or Saudi Arabia, saying that it can be done speedily and on the cheap, they
betray ignorance of foreign lands, cultures, and histories as well as the
creeds and ambitions of other peoples.
It is comforting to
American elites still refusing to see that U.S. government actions in the
Islamic world are causing Muslims to attack the United States. And because our
elites are so full of themselves, they think America is invulnerable; cannot
imagine the rest of the world does not want to be like us; and believe an
American empire in the twenty-first century not only is our destiny, but our
duty to mankind, especially to the unwashed, unlettered, undemocratic, unwhite,
unshaved, and antifeminist Muslim masses. Arrogance because the elites cannot
believe a polyglot bunch of Arabs wearing robes, sporting scraggily beards, and
squatting around campfires in Afghan deserts and mountains could pose a mortal
threat to the United States.
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