Karl Rove and "The Republican Mind"

If you're not a Republican, you've probably never read "The Arab Mind" by Raphael Patai, published in 1973. During his reporting on Abu Ghraib, Seymour Hersh wrote:

The Patai book, an academic told me, was "the bible of the neocons on Arab behavior." 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."

Of course the centrality of these two ideas to Bush's policies towards the Arab world is never discussed in the Corporate Media, any more than oil-driven U.S. imperialism.

I'm reminded of this by Aaron Swartz's report on a talk at MIT by NBC's John Hockenberry, who spoke about the briefings NBC received from the Pentagon before the invasion of Iraq.

At one of them, Hockenberry explains, a well-known pollster told about a briefing he gave to all the senior officials at the White House about how the polling data from the Arab world showed that America's negatives were simply off-the-charts. Everyone was quiet. Condi asked a few technical questions and then finally Karl Rove spoke up. "Well, that's just until we start throwing our weight around over there," he said.

In its naked expression, the theory of "mind-changing force" seems barbaric. But that's exactly how Karl Rove thinks, and how all the neocons who invaded Iraq think. That's why the very first act of the war - the U.S. bombing of Baghdad - was deliberately called "Shock and Awe."

Of course, we now have 4 years of hard data to use to evaluate Karl Rove's barbaric theory. And what does the data tell us?

The "Arab Mind" is no different from the rest of the human family - if attacked, even with overwhelming force, Arabs will defend themselves. Like anyone else facing superior (what the Pentagon likes to call "asymmetric") force, they will use whatever weapons they can to equalize the battle - such as IED's, snipers, mortars, and suicide bombs.

This is nothing new in the history of warfare - David used a slingshot against Goliath, American revolutionaries hid behind trees to fire on superior British formations, the Vietcong dug tunnels to avoid American ground and air superiority.

The idea that displays of overwhelming American force would actually change the minds of Arabs being attacked in their homes is anathema to the "American Mind," which was formed in opposition to the then-overwhelming force of British Imperialism.

But to the "Republican Mind" of Karl Rove, this Fascist theory makes perfect sense.