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I read this in the morning and was positively seething.
I was disappointed at the time this happened, but to see the shameless details of how and why the principal was hounded and forced out... utterly horrifying.
Roach, I'm glad the matter didn't pass without comment here.
Even given a phenomenally cowardly and xenophobic hatred and fear of Arabs, you would think that most people would appreciate the opportunity to train a cadre of first-rate Arabic speakers also familiar with something of Arab society and culture, insofar as there is such a thing. That above all else, if some part of the Arab world is our enemy, if the Arab world will demand an enormous amount of our attention over the next couple of decades, then it makes sense to have people on hand who understand that enemy and can manage those encounters.
I can tell you all from personal experience that what currently passes for proficiency in the Arabic language in US government, including the intelligence community, is an utter joke. Familiarity with Arab history, politics, and culture is in an even sorrier state. An undergraduate-level understanding of the region's history is what passes for 'expertise'. Even State is short the qualified personnel, but at least State sends its people abroad for long stretches, and isn't hamstrung by draconian security measures that ensure that only white-bread folks who have never set foot outside the US can easily pick up a top clearance. The community could really use people who kind of know what they're talking about.
Only one of the many, many ways in which this whole thing is ass-backwards.
Never mind that Khalil Gibran is a giant among Arab intellectuals, that he is widely beloved even in the United States (John Lennon quoted him in a Beatles song, for god's sake) and that he was, yes, a Christian, the 'good' kind of Arab.
Never mind that Debbie, a career educator, was only linked to these T-shirts... really, T-shirts... in the most tenuous way possible. That the word Intifada referred first to a series of mass protests in the Territories (no suicide bombs back then) in the late 80s that contributed directly to the Oslo process which was the first real stab at peace.
And now Cynthia Mckinney is sympathetic to militant Islamists. Cynthia fucking Mckinney?!?! So anyone and everyone who leans too far left is now a terrorist sympathizer. Wonderful. It absolutely defies parody.
Utterly depressing.
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