East Quotes - Page 14

• The Iranian issue I don't think has much to do with nuclear weapons frankly. Nobody is saying Iran should have nuclear weapons ­nor should anybody else. But the point in the Middle East, as distinct from North Korea, is that this is center of the world's energy resources. Originally the British and secondarily the French had dominated it, but after the Second World War, it's been a U.S. preserve. That's been an axiom of U.S. foreign policy, that it must control Middle East energy resources.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Thinking, Issues

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• China is the center of the Asian energy security grid, which includes the Central Asian states and Russia. India is also hovering around the edge, South Korea is involved, and Iran is an associate member of some kind. If the Middle East oil resources around the Gulf, which are the main ones in the world, if they link up to the Asian grid, the United States is really a second-rate power. A lot is at stake in not withdrawing from Iraq.

  Noam Chomsky

  Russia, Iran, Korea

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• I think it is less the limited amount of information than the filters that information about the Middle East must pass through before being fairly addressed in the mainstream media. In more intellectual and geopolitical terms, the perceptions of the region are distorted by a combination of Orientalism and the priorities of the state of Israel, including the refusal to discuss the relevance of Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal in the context of addressing Iran on its nuclear program.

  Richard A. Falk

  Thinking, Israel, Media

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Most of the time, teachers who talk about the Middle East do not know the history, culture or present context of the problems they are discussing. So they go to the media, which quote government or academic "experts" (who often are no such thing) or journalists who, by virtue of working for the media, are supposed to know what they are talking about. In the end they know little or nothing beyond a standard line that reflects the perceptions of the US government and its special-interest supporters. That is what the students get. Indeed, that is what we all get.

  Lawrence Davidson

  Teacher, Media, Talking

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• The continual linking of the notions of terrorist and terrorism with Muslims and the Middle East is, essentially, an act of propaganda that cannot help but promote "Islamophobia."

  Lawrence Davidson

  Middle East, Helping, Terrorism

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Unless this [Barack Obama] American administration is willing to diverge from the conventional American policy in the Middle East by changing its basic attitudes on crucial questions, foremost of them Palestine, and support genuinely the rights of people for independence, sovereignty and identity across the board, the only "resolve" one would hope from the USA is to stay out of the Middle East for a while.

  Ilan Pappe

  Attitude, Usa, Rights

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• The worst crimes against humanity in the last half of the previous century and this century are carried out with conventional advanced weapons, upgraded daily by a greedy arms industry, super power's apathy and criminal ideologies. In the Middle East, Iran lags behind many other military powers in this respect.

  Ilan Pappe

  Military, Iran, Humanity

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• While in the American academia the knowledge production on the Middle East in general and Syria in particular has been considerably transformed in recent years, the dissemination of these more updated views fails to reach the conventional educational system. For two main reasons: Politics can still subdue and censor views that are not endorsed ideologically, and academics have still not learned how to write openly, directly and, one should say, courageously about these issues.

  Ilan Pappe

  Educational, Writing, Views

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Luckily for [Barack] Obama, the Russians came along and rescued him with this proposal [to confiscate Assad's chemical weapons] which he quickly accepted - it was a way out of the embarrassment of facing likely defeat. They still have the option of bombing if they want to. And incidentally, to add one comment about this, you'll notice that this would be a very good moment to institute a call for imposing the Chemical Weapons Convention on the Middle East.

  Noam Chomsky

  Want, Weapons, Way

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• This would be a very good moment to institute a call for imposing the Chemical Weapons Convention on the Middle East. The actual Chemical Weapons Convention. Not the version that [Barack] Obama presented in his address to the nation and that media commentators repeat. What he said is that the convention bars the use of chemical weapons. He knows better. And so do the commentators. The Chemical Weapons Convention calls for banning the production, storage and use of chemical weapons, not just the use. So why omit production and storage?

  Noam Chomsky

  Media, Bars, Use

  "Noam Chomsky | On Shutdown, Waning US Influence, Syrian Showdown". truthout.org. October 8, 2013.

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• Israel produces and stores chemical weapons. So therefore the US will prevent the Chemical Weapons Convention from being imposed on the Middle East. But it's necessary to evade this by misrepresenting the convention, and I think maybe 100 percent of the media, or close to it, go along. But that's a critical issue. Actually, Syria's chemical weapons were developed largely as a deterrent to Israeli nuclear weapons. Also, not mentioned.

  Noam Chomsky

  Thinking, Media, Issues

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Me being from a Celtic culture that tends to emphasize directness, conflict, openness has a big effect on my living in Japan, which tends to focus on indirectness, avoidance of conflict and keeping things close to your chest. So that has led to quite a lot of cultural misunderstandings in dealing with this East Asian culture I live in.

  Sean Michael Wilson

  Japan, Focus, Asian

  Source: comicsbulletin.com

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• Even if America tomorrow - and it won't happen overnight - but if we did reduce our demand for gas and natural gas and crude oil by a significant degree, that does have an exponential effect on producers in the Middle East, everything else being equal. But if China's demand is growing and India's demand is growing, they are not going back.

  Thomas Friedman

  Oil, America, Growing

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• What is the most entrepreneurial country in the Middle East today? It's Lebanon. Which country has no oil or gas? Lebanon. The same was true of Israel, the same was of Bahrain. You could see a real gradation. Turkey, for instance: no oil and gas, very entrepreneurial. You can either dig your future out of the ground or you can unlock the potential of your people.

  Thomas Friedman

  Country, Real, Israel

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• To me the smart thing that governments in the Middle East would be doing right now is taking their oil and gas fountain - and the smartest ones are to some degree - and making sure they're investing in their people to unlock their potential - men and women.

  Thomas Friedman

  Smart, Men, Oil

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• Oil is a tangible commodity, so there is a global market. The fact that we may need less may affect the global price because we're big consumers: we probably take about a quarter of global demand. But if suddenly, let's just use a crazy example, fighting in the Middle East led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and no oil could get out through the Strait of Hormuz, well that would affect China, India, Europe, it will affect the whole global economy. It will affect us, too, then.

  Thomas Friedman

  Crazy, Fighting, Europe

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• America is interested in change and reform in the Middle East but in a stable way.

  Thomas Friedman

  America, Middle East, Reform

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• The Middle East would always be an important trading partner in just a market sense, like America is a big market for us, Asia is a big market, Europe is a big market. You are going to have hundreds of millions of consumers there, from just a standard market point of view, from a very narrow American point of view.

  Thomas Friedman

  Views, Europe, America

  Source: theislamicmonthly.com

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• I could see America playing a slightly smaller role in the Middle East but I would not see us abandoning the region and just say "Oh," like I said, "China, Russia, it's yours now. Global focus is just on our hemisphere." I don't see that happening.

  Thomas Friedman

  Russia, America, Focus

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• I think that competition will exist even if we discover more oil. We're never going to know how much we have, or how long will it last. You are always going to want to have diversity of supply. I think the Middle East will remain a region of competition, of global competition, fighting for a long time.

  Thomas Friedman

  Fighting, Thinking, Oil

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• I don't believe we have ever had a Black leader that was so widely accepted among the masses of people, as well as the leadership, in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Caribbean, Central America, as Allah (God) has blessed me to be accepted.

  Louis Farrakhan

  Blessed, Believe, America

  Source: www.finalcall.com

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• We are blessed to grow up in a country that is the world's leader. We are blessed to be some of the most well-educated Black persons anywhere to be found in the world. This education and talent can be used in a friendly relationship with Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean and Asia to develop the wealth and resources of these nations. The friendship of us with our kith and kin around the world would cause both sides to benefit exponentially, based upon how well we develop these relationships.

  Louis Farrakhan

  Country, Growing Up, Blessed

  Source: www.finalcall.com

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• God looks at the Middle East, looks at Palestine. When you go to the Holy Land and see what's being done to the Palestinians at checkpoints, for us, it's the kind of thing we experienced in South Africa.

  Desmond Tutu

  Land, Done, Middle East

  Source: sojo.net

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• With the films, it starts off with certain coordinates in the world and seeing what happens. What happens if you place yourself at an oil refinery in the Middle East? What happens if you place yourself in the White House Cabinet Room? What happens if you place yourself with Brad Pitt on the set of a film? And so on. And no matter what I capture, there is a sense of déjà vu to it, like you might have come across this visual before.

  Sarah Morris

  Oil, White, House

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• You know, by 1936, Hitler was already talking very loudly about his desire to expand to the east. Mussolini, in 1935, went and then in the next year, conquered Ethiopia, acquiring himself a colony. So people at the time really saw fascism not just as an evil but as an aggressive evil that seemed to be spreading.

  Adam Hochschild

  Talking, Years, Evil

  Source: www.npr.org

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