From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East

Rating:
Summary: Professor Lewis is a Living Anachronism and Political Clown
Review: Professor Lewis is a living anachronism and political clown who insisted that there definitely were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq today on 4/28/04. His pack of lies is a necessity for any scholar of the Near East to see the calamity caused by liars and frauds posing as experts for political ends. Today also asserted that his personal friend Dr. Ahmad Chalabi has the full support of all Iraqi people when it is well known that Dr. Ahmad Chalabi has little support from leaders of the various Iraqi exile groups, or from Iraqis living in Iraq. The Arab governments in the Persian Gulf region have told the administration that they would not allow Chalabi to run a liberation army from their soil, even in an operation mounted with U.S. help. The ruling Sunnis of Saudi Arabia distrust Chalabi in part because he is Shi'a, a branch of Islam whose adherents make up just over half of Iraq's 22 million inhabitants. The Kuwaitis do not believe he could inspire a successful revolt and refuse to give him a staging area. Jordan would put him in jail were he to return because of the banking fraud. And on the other side of Iraq, Turkey wants nothing to do with Chalabi or his plan. Chalabi was a math professor at the American University in Beirut until 1977. His main political support came from the US Congress, the Pentagon and parts of the CIA. The US State Department does not trust him and has raised questions about Iraqi National Congress's accounting practices. Anyone who reads anything that this purported "expert" has to say should bear in mind that he is a political fraud. This man is of the very same ilk that caused every single crisis in The Middle East in his entire academic lifetime because he advised the CIA incorrectly in every single Middle East and Near East disaster of our time. His lunatic opinions on The Charlie Rose show today coincided with my finishing his pompous pack of horse manure that disgraces Princeton and all of academia. This man and his book are typical of phony dragomans like American Carola Floyd who posed in Bedouin costume replete with daggers. A dragoman was in charge of finding transport (mules, horses and carriages), shelter for the night (tents or inns) and food. He was supposed to keep away highwaymen and beggars, to obtain special permits and to bargain at the bazaar. He also served as the "cicerone" (guide) at different sites of interest, although he was not always qualified for this role. Dragomans were often westerners who had moved to the East, learned the local language and customs and then acted as escorts for European travelers. Before hiring a dragoman, one should ask information about his honesty and capability from trusted sources. Not all Dragomans can give the right explanations about remarkable sites one meets along the way. Professor Lewis is an infamous shill of political interests including the US Army and CIA. Until fifty years ago you could find a listing of all local Dragomans, how to contact them and the precautions to take when dealing with them in all travel guides to the Middle East, from the famous Baedeker's to the Guide Bleu. From soup to nuts, Professor Lewis is crown prince of lies and distortion and a relic from the Cold War era of John Foster and Alan Dulles. His book is a pack of lies written to suit the political interests of the Cold War era as indeed his lies about WMD's existing and Iraq being a center of terrorism betrayed today on national television. Read the book and see his lying pack of propaganda that brilliantly defines everything negative in policy making and politics today. He is the epitome of the worst dragoman ever to live on earth. The word 'dragoman' comes from turjeman in Arabic, turgemana in Aramaic. This is an Arabic, Turkish or Persian translator who is employed as an official interpreter by embassies and consulates, or as a tourist guide. Professor Lewis is as false as any academic expert ever has been. He epitomizes the mis-use of history and ruins the reputation of historians by being the biggest "Father of Lies" since Herodotus. (...)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent articles by Lewis
Review: This is a fine collection of articles by Bernard Lewis about the Middle East. Some are about past history, and some are about present history. And a few deal with history itself. Lewis explains that there will always be people who demand to falsify, fabricate, eradicate, invent, distort, or misuse history. But he says these people must be opposed, because otherwise they will win. And if we thus abandon history, we'll no longer be able to have a knowledge about the past, understand the present, or use that information to influence what happens next.

Perhaps my favorite of the articles was one from 1979 about the United Nations. It is at least as important today as it was then. Lewis explains that there is a religious sect called the Yazidis. They believe that there is a God and a Devil. They believe that God is good, and therefore won't cause them any trouble. But the Devil is evil and may do just that. So they offer almost all their prayers to the Devil, not to God.

And that is how Lewis describes the United Nations, where nations know that if they attack or offend the Arabs, that may be costly and risky. But if they attack or offend the United States and its policies, they risk nothing. Instead, they gratify America's enemies and win acclaim and respect from many American allies, as well as many Americans, American policy-makers, and a significant portion of the American media.

That article alone made this book worthwhile. And there are fifty articles in addition to it.


Rating:
Summary: Nice collection of published and unpublished work
Review: This latest book of Bernard Lewis is a collection of short stories he has written in the last decades, some very old some new. The stories spans a broad area: history of the middle east, Israel, Jihad, Arab Nationalism, Shi'a, United Nations, Islam phobia and more.

I have read his previous three books as well, and I really like the writing style of Bernard Lewis. He sure likes the Arab people he writes about and the cultural legacy they own, but that does not lead him to be uncritical of their society. Also the history in his stories sometimes tries to connect with current affairs. This can lead to interesting stories about the current Jihad suicide bombers and the ancient Assassin order. Or about the Islamic invasions in Europe and the later invasions of imperial Europe. It is also interesting to see what Bernard Lewis has writes long before everybody became interested in the Islamic world (long before 9/11), some are really prophetical...

Just as in his previous works Bernard Lewis writes in a friendly, objective and balanced style about history. To compare it with his previous works, it goes further than "What went wrong" and the "Crisis of Islam" and is not as dry as "The Middle East". Most stories are good, but not all, there is some repeating in the stories, but on a whole I enjoyed it very much and gained more insight in the Islamic world.


Rating:
Summary: Professor Lewis is a Living Anachronism and Political Clown
Review: You must know the modern "father of lies" for the Middle East who, since I first reviewed this book was again proven wrong by the ousting of Chalabi, since Professor Lewis is a literate, eloquent living anachronism and political clown who insisted that there definitely were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq today on 4/28/04. His pack of lies is a necessity for any scholar of the Near East to see the calamity caused by liars and frauds posing as experts for political ends. Today also asserted that his personal friend Dr. Ahmad Chalabi has the full support of all Iraqi people when it is well known that Dr. Ahmad Chalabi has little support from leaders of the various Iraqi exile groups, or from Iraqis living in Iraq. The Arab governments in the Persian Gulf region have told the administration that they would not allow Chalabi to run a liberation army from their soil, even in an operation mounted with U.S. help. The ruling Sunnis of Saudi Arabia distrust Chalabi in part because he is Shi'a, a branch of Islam whose adherents make up just over half of Iraq's 22 million inhabitants. The Kuwaitis do not believe he could inspire a successful revolt and refuse to give him a staging area. Jordan would put him in jail were he to return because of the banking fraud. And on the other side of Iraq, Turkey wants nothing to do with Chalabi or his plan. Chalabi was a math professor at the American University in Beirut until 1977. His main political support came from the US Congress, the Pentagon and parts of the CIA. The US State Department does not trust him and has raised questions about Iraqi National Congress's accounting practices. Anyone who reads anything that this purported "expert" has to say should bear in mind that he is a political fraud. This man is of the very same ilk that caused every single crisis in The Middle East in his entire academic lifetime because he advised the CIA incorrectly in every single Middle East and Near East disaster of our time. His lunatic opinions on The Charlie Rose show today coincided with my finishing his pompous pack of horse manure that disgraces Princeton and all of academia. This man and his book are typical of phony dragomans like American Carola Floyd who posed in Bedouin costume replete with daggers. A dragoman was in charge of finding transport (mules, horses and carriages), shelter for the night (tents or inns) and food. He was supposed to keep away highwaymen and beggars, to obtain special permits and to bargain at the bazaar. He also served as the "cicerone" (guide) at different sites of interest, although he was not always qualified for this role. Dragomans were often westerners who had moved to the East, learned the local language and customs and then acted as escorts for European travelers. Before hiring a dragoman, one should ask information about his honesty and capability from trusted sources. Not all Dragomans can give the right explanations about remarkable sites one meets along the way. Professor Lewis is an infamous shill of political interests including the US Army and CIA. Until fifty years ago you could find a listing of all local Dragomans, how to contact them and the precautions to take when dealing with them in all travel guides to the Middle East, from the famous Baedeker's to the Guide Bleu. From soup to nuts, Professor Lewis is crown prince of lies and distortion and a relic from the Cold War era of John Foster and Alan Dulles. His book is a pack of lies written to suit the political interests of the Cold War era as indeed his lies about WMD's existing and Iraq being a center of terrorism betrayed today on national television. Read the book and see his lying pack of propaganda that brilliantly defines everything negative in policy making and politics today. He is the epitome of the worst dragoman ever to live on earth. The word 'dragoman' comes from turjeman in Arabic, turgemana in Aramaic. This is an Arabic, Turkish or Persian translator who is employed as an official interpreter by embassies and consulates, or as a tourist guide. Professor Lewis is as false as any academic expert ever has been. He epitomizes the mis-use of history and ruins the reputation of historians by being the biggest "Father of Lies" since Herodotus. Today, Professor Lewis joins McGeorge Bundy who was a strong proponent for participating in Vietnam early in his tenure. He supported escalating the American involvement and the bombing of North Vietnam. He later came to strongly regret the decision, one of the first administration members to do so. He spent much of the rest of his career trying to understand how he and so many others had made such a terrible mistake. Lewis is still enthroned on the public commode of Princeton; albeit with this pants down, and the bottom sagging out of the hysterical "facts" in this marvelous pack of lies, falsehoods, wishful thinking and political fabrications that all should read. Sure. Chalabi is his hero. Ooops! He's gone. Where is his power? It is hiding or maybe Haydn, Mozart, and sometimes the juvenile Schubert of this watery sweet political sherbert of distortion and WMD's in the trees and cobwebs in the fecund imagination of Professor Lewis. The book will have to be discounted because Lewis "blew it" big time as Chalabi went out post-partum and publication since the September 19th and 20th nineteen hour meeting of the 18 members of the Defense Policy Board, with Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld, Ahmed Chalabi, and Bernard Lewis all in attendance. All are dancing as fast as they can right now, aren't they. Professor Lewis has split his pants again. It's embarrassing. Read it. Thrive on his lies. Check him with a proctoscope for WMD's. It is the last place left to look. He has an eloquent explanation. Seldom have people lied with such acumen and certitude. The book really needs to be sold as well-written historical fiction. That way it is credible.