The 'Republic of Fear' Is Dead - Fareed Zakaria

[Bombtrack]

http://www.fareedzakaria.com/articles/articles.html
December 22, 2003, U.S. Edition

In his wrenching book on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the dissident writer Kanan Makiya explained that the most powerful force keeping the cruel regime in power--more important than brute strength--was "an all-embracing atmosphere of fear." Aptly, Makiya titled his book "Republic of Fear." Saddam inculcated fear at every level, explaining, for example, that he would often deal with traitors pre-emptively because "I know a person will betray me before they know it themselves." Well, he apparently didn't know this time. The Iraqi who gave the final tip that led to Saddam's capture was only one of the hundreds of Iraqis who have begun cooperating with American troops. They might not love the Americans, but they hate the Baathists, and increasingly they are not scared. And after the events of the weekend, they will be even less scared.

I spoke with a senior administration official after the capture of Saddam, and the official confirmed that the Coalition's intelligence has been improving markedly. "People in Iraq tell us that cooperation has gone up in the last few weeks. So Saddam's capture fits a pattern. This is because of a variety of reasons. We've been getting better at making contact with locals. We've been getting better at coordination between intelligence and analysis. As a result, we have more actionable intelligence than before. But there's one other factor. Many Iraqis have been turned off by the insurgency. They don't want to live in this kind of country. And that's meant they've become more willing to talk."

As to whether Saddam's capture would cripple the insurgency, the official admitted it was difficult to say. "I've always thought that he was spending most of his time saving himself. We have no evidence that he was in contact with the insurgents. He didn't have elaborate communications gear with him when the troops found him." The real effect, the official agreed, was likely to be psychological. "In societies like this, the mystique of the dictator's powers is enormous. After Stalin died, for days people did not believe it. They couldn't imagine that he had actually passed from the scene." ...

[slor]

1. Fear kept him in power...

with the financial/military/intelligence forces of the reagan/bush I administration happily supporting!

[TolstoyAndy]

2. Fareed Zakaria (R-NWO Scumbag) can go to hell

education and money doesn't make a person smart.

[Bombtrack]

6. and believing in crazy-NWO theories proves a person isn't smart

I don't agree and adhere to everything he writes, but that doesn't mean he isn't insightful and fair.

He isn't a republican either.

[Zuni]

8. huh?

Fareed Zakira is a very insightful commentator who knows a lot more about middle eastern politics than you or I.

[edzontar]

33. Fareed is a pro-war, pro-Bush pundit

He is a little more nuanced than most..but may best be understood as a less insane, more coherent version of tom Friedman.

He serves his PNAC master well.

[AntiCoup2K4]

3. Fear always keeps dictators in power.

What do you think Junior's greatest weapon is?

[AWB777]

4. screw fareed

Elitist stooge

[Bombtrack]

7. wow these critiques are really thoughtful

do you draw a contention with any particular thing he said in the article? Or did you just avoid reading any of it all together for fear of being brainwashed?

[Zuni]

9. I do not understand either

I like his articles and this one is no exception.

[alarcojon]

31. He is well informed

While I don't agree with everything he says, he does try to back up his arguments with facts and analysis. He has also been quite critical of Bush and company, especially on Stephanopoulos's show.

[Zuni]

10. are you a FReeper?

he wrote a post about 'Free Saddam' and called him a 'political prisoner'. Looks like diruptor material to me

[loudnclear]

5. "Fear" is keeping Bush in power and the Republicans

The similarities between this administration and dictatorial regimes throughout history is striking and frightening...especially since the history of the behavior of the masses is also similar.

[ithacan]

12. exactly: Bush can only rule by using fear

by making people afraid. They don't have a snowball's chance in hell of staying in power if they are honest about what their intentions and policies are. Fear is their ticket to power.

And you're right loudnclear, the guys running the US are using the standard modus operandi of right wing thugs and dictators the world over.

[pretzel4gore]

11. he's a traitor if:

this guy's onside with the busheviks and blair? Back in olden times, when the west first got involved with the mideast, what role did our money and cia bribery etc have on the politics thereof?...and what impact did that have on guys like saddam hussein, who maybe would have been just a regular general 'tommy franks' type had not all that secret bushit (most we don't know about) gone down ands created conditions for that type of viciousness...
in '53 they staged bloody coup in Iran, and the 'shah' was as brutal as anyone regards his own people, he remained a western puppet til day he died...
had the west not constantly played for some goofy advantage, ole stalin maybe would have been a police thug kept in check by ordinary decency; hitler maybe would have been a punk agitator with lotsa weimar republic jail time and lil bush a....bar owner or something.
you can be goddam sure this fareed guy's a paid agent.... otherwise he wouldn't get exposure

[Bombtrack]

14. you should really attempt some self examination

Zakaria is a "paid-agent" of Newsweek international. There is far to much extreme paranoia on this board, and the mods do a dissapointing job by not even attempting to curb it.

[pretzel4gore]

15. according to william colby

there's no one of significance working high up in the US media who hasn't been checked out by the intelligence agencies...
and the point is that Bush wins and we lose, again, or do you prefer not to see that?
and yep i am extremely paranoid, going back to reagan election in '80....KAL 007 in '83, RFK and Martin King in '68 and John Kennedy in '63...
there's room for both your caution and a more skeptical approach when society is in mortal danger, imo.
and after all, the bush gang have admitted they lie when necessary....

[Bombtrack]

18. and you never said how you knew that Zakaria was corrupt

The thing is alot of the people who fill up this place with random Chomskyite stuff here have an additude that the best way to inform ones self is to avoid all but the most solidly left-wing media. It's just dumb. They seem to beleive themseves the enlightened ones because they know things we "moderates" don't. When I first started getting into politics I was kind of like that. I visited the fringe type websites, the counterpunches and third world travelers of the web. And I even read a few books of that type and regurgitated stuff as gospel to other people I thought of as ignorant etc. Now I realize I was the ignorant one, because I read things to reenforce by own prejuduces.

People should be just as much if not more discriminating and sceptical towards the alternative media as the widely respected media. I avoid mainstream because I think mainstream better describes things like local dalies and local news and cable news, better than newsweek international.

[pretzel4gore]

26. he's corrupt because he pretends that saddam just happened naturally

or something: i believe saddam (and the shah, samoza, pinochet, papa doc, mobutu, the saudi 'royal' family and a bunch of other tyrannies) came to exist in the corporate interest of western biz/ruling class....and the cia's etc success in hiding the truth about who did what, i mean who cares!...the pattern of corruption is established and THAT PATTERN is what gave the USA Awegee Bush....
Bombtrack, the nazis are winning, and democracy is losing, so regardless of what alternative media does, it's the mediawhores who gave us geebush who are the problem, and this zakaria appears to be part of that (he points out saddam evil, as if that needs pointing out: it's Bush evil the sheeple needa hear about!)

[alarcojon]

30. random Chomskyite stuff?

Not that Chomsky needs me to defend him, but I believe you err in judgment when you attempt to link some of the extreme paranoia in this thread to Chomsky's ideas. He would be the last to be using this sort of unsubstantiated name-calling with respect to Fareed Zakaria.

[camero]

13. One republic of fear replaced by another

The Bush US.

[salinen]

16. The politics of fear

is just a tatic borrowed from christianity. They use it because it works. "Hello little 4 year old, now let me tell you what a horrible sinner you are and where you are going when you die and the red guy you will be with."

edit "tactic"

[camero]

22. I know

Even though good ones don't use them tactics just the one's who don't know better or the wolves in sheep's clothing.

[Orrin_73]

17. Fareed is self hating

muslim.


deanforamerica.com
clark04.com
kucinich.us
sharpton2004.org

[Bombtrack]

19. do you mind elaborating? Because that sounds pretty moronic to me

why is he self hating? Because he critises the arab world and the islamofascism that is driving islam?

This place has really attracted the most demonsterably assinine and simplistic attitudes on the left

[_Jumper_]

21. Ditto

"why is he self hating? Because he critises the arab world and the islamofascism that is driving islam?"

Should all Muslims blame the USA and Israel for every single problem the "Muslim world" has faced during its long, immense decline?

[Imajika]

24. Bombtrack

"why is he self hating?"

Yes, I am curious how Fareed Zakaria became a self hating muslim myself?

"Because he critises the arab world and the islamofascism that is driving islam?"

Nah, I suspect it is more because Orrin_73 didn't like his opinion.

Anyone writing anything about how terrible Saddam was and why it just might be better for the Iraqi people that he is gone is going to be called by some people here a stooge for the BFEE and a corporate whore propogandist. Zakaria hints in this piece that Bush might be on the road to some measure of success in Iraq. You will find that this kind of news is greeted as heresy by quite a number of people here.

"This place has really attracted the most demonsterably assinine and simplistic attitudes on the left"

Yup. Sad but true.

I wonder if people realize that it is okay to have opposed the war in Iraq and still hope for the best? I think many don't grasp that.

Imajika

[Aidoneus]

20. this is not an objective source

it seems very biased.

:eyes:

[Imajika]

23. What is not objective about it?

"it seems very biased"

Are you talking about Newsweek? Or about Fareed Zakaria?

Interesting because I rather like Zakaria and find he is often extremely critical of the Bush administration.

Imajika

[dpibel]

25. My humble take

Edited to remove gratuitously negative material

For starters, there's nothing particularly insightful in the observation that dictators rule by fear, and people are glad to escape an atmosphere of fear. I'd even grant that as a given in this case, although an early red flag in this article (in my Chomskyite opinion) is relying on a dissident writer to establish that premise. We've seen how reliable dissident information is throughout this invasion.

The second big problem I have is that this article is little more than the passing along of some typical Bush-regime sunshine, vectored in by an accomodating, albeit (typically) unnamed "Administration official."

Now, you may be of the opinion that the word of administration officials is pretty much all a person needs to go to the bank. But I'm a little hard-pressed to see how you would be surprised if a few people on this board would disagree with you. You may have noticed that the Fierce Warrior Chieftain and his handlers are not held in very high esteem hereabouts.

At best, the good news contained herein seems to me a tad premature. Maybe the capture of the great Satan will calm things right down. Personally, I think it equally likely that it will have the opposite effect: once the threat of the return of SH is gone, it will be time for the factions to start jockeying for position. Also, it removes one of the major excuses for the US to continue its occupation.

Finally, you might notice that Mr. Zakaria couches his conclusions in purely conditional terms. In the full article, the antepenultimate paragraph begins "If the Coalition's military strategy has taken a turn for the better, its political strategy also appears to be adjusting in one important dimension." The paragraph before that begins, "If intelligence is getting better all round, it should have consequences beyond nabbing Saddam."

You're welcome to disagree, but those strike me as two pretty big "ifs."

In short, this strikes me as little more than being a mouthpiece for some happy horseshit sunshine for the official administration line.

[Monte Carlo]

27. If this is the same person I saw on the Daily Show...

... and on CNBC once, I'm inclined to believe him. He seemed very intelligent, very reasoned and planned in his speaking and writings. All these "he's a self-hating traitor operative" posts seem very suspicious to me...

[_Jumper_]

28. Anyone who is Muslim or of "Muslim descent'...

...that criticizes fundamental political beliefs of the Muslim world is labeled a "traitor" or "self-hating." Try it yourself. Pose as a Muslim and walk into a mosque and say something balanced about the I/P conflict...

[Orangeone]

32. Yes but

I think the American Media likes to put people forward that agree with the Imperial agenda of the gov't. Just because it's an Arab or Muslim agreeing doesn't make it correct.

I object to opportunists like Kanan Makiya who advocated for war, without caring about the consequences to the Iraqi people. A lot of those Iraqi exiles just wanted Sadaam out so they could have a piece of the pie.

[HuckleB]

29. There's not much here that I can agree with...

We finally stumbled upon Saddam. Perhaps we are making better contacts, but, with the history of disinformation from the administration thus far, who can believe anything reported by Zakaria.

Zakaria could learn much from Makiya's book about seeing through nonsense and information that ought to be looked upon with great suspicion. Further, why does Zakaria not mention the increased hatred of America's occupation throughout the country? By dismissing this as "not love," he shows a serious willingness to ignore much of what is going on in Iraq.