Answering Tim Shipman’s “Barack Obama aide: Why Winnie the Pooh should shape US foreign policy?”
Dear Mr. Shipman, Reading your article, a line from the movie, Billy Madison, came to mind: “Everyone in the audience is more stupid as a result of listening to you.” I believe you have twisted and denigrated the wisdom of a brilliant mind into a form of intellectual fluff to serve your own agenda. Your article gives the impression that Dr. Danzig’s policy recommendations were juvenile and flippant. In my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth. Your ridicule of his analogies and your limited understanding of solipsism seem to have blinded you to potentially great ideas. By choosing to focus your article on Dr. Danzig’s Winnie the Pooh metaphor, you unfairly manipulate the argument it to make it appear that it lacks substance. In fact, his Winnie the Pooh quote reveals an essential piece of advice our own administration must heed: Many people often see things in only one way, but there can be another way if only we stop and think about it. Perhaps you, too, might benefit from this insight. As an American of Iranian origin, I am intensely interested in US- Iran relations. For years, I have been perplexed by the results of our foreign policies. We seem to suffer from a lack of understanding of the problems’ roots. While Dr. Danzig was not specifically addressing Iran, his suggestions to look at the situation differently do address the fundamental troubles. He clearly understands the psyche of terrorists and the limitations of Solipsism (of which most people are not even aware). He recognizes that the world does not divide into good guys and bad. There is a spectrum -- many shades of gray. Certain policies empower hardliners. As a result of the Bush administration’s policies, Iran is closer to becoming a nuclear weapon state and hardliners are more empowered. Though I am 51 and have lived in the United States for 30 years, I have maintained a dream. I wish to see a democratically elected government in Iran that truly represents the will of the people, respects international laws and develops good relations with the west. It saddens me that, with the colossal danger at hand in the world, superficial articles like yours continue to perpetuate the same ignorance that has gotten us into this place. I am determined to stand up with my new president and his team against short-sighted ideas like yours. We must change our paradigm to solve our problems. Insanity has been defined as doing the same things over and over expecting different results. Let’s stop the insanity. If we stop and think as Dr. Danzig advises, better solutions will emerge to help create a better and safer world. As a great leader has said “People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.”
Barack Obama aide: Why Winnie the Pooh should shape US foreign policy
By Tim Shipman in Washington
Last Updated: 2:04AM BST 17 Jun 2008
Richard Danzig, who served as Navy Secretary under President Clinton and is tipped to become National Security Adviser in an Obama White House, told a major foreign policy conference in Washington that the future of US strategy in the war on terrorism should follow a lesson from the pages of Winnie the Pooh, which can be shortened to: if it is causing you too much pain, try something else. Mr Danzig told the Centre for New American Security: “Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security.” He spelt out how American troops, spies and anti-terrorist officials could learn key lessons by understanding the desire of terrorists to emulate superheroes like Luke Skywalker, and the lust for violence of violent football fans. Mr Obama’s candidacy was given an early boost by his opposition to the Iraq war and he has repeatedly said the US needs to rethink its approach to the Middle East. Mr Danzig spelt out the need to change by reading a paragraph from chapter one of the children’s classic, which says: “Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of his head behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming down stairs. But sometimes he thinks there really is another way if only he could stop bumping a minute and think about it.” Mr Obama’s approach will be popular in Europe, where President George W. Bush has spent the week on a farewell tour, arriving in Britain yesterday for meetings with the Queen and Gordon Brown. In a subtle break from Mr Bush’s belief that the war on terror can be won, Mr Danzig, who is a Pentagon adviser on bioterrorism, warned that while the West can defeat individual terrorist groups and plots, it can never entirely remove the threat posed by nuclear proliferation or the prospect of bioterrorism. In a briefing which will inform Mr Obama’s understanding of terrorists, Mr Danzig said he learnt much from recent interviews with jailed Aum Shinrikyo terrorists who released sarin nerve gas on the Tokyo underground in 1995. He said that even people who are relatively well off and successful can feel like failures and become alientated from their societies. He said one terrorist told him: “We have been raised on a theory of superheroes. We all want to be like Luke Skywalker. "When we’re doing mundane things, we lose track of our ambition but when someone comes along, like Asahara, the head of the cult, and presents himself as a messiah and gives us a picture of progress that is ordained by heaven and that we are carrying out a saintly mission on earth that is for us extraordinarily evocative.” Mr Danzig added: “The parallels with al Qaeda are obvious.” He said that another lesson about terrorists can be learnt from studying violent football fans. “One of the best books I’ve read on terrorism in recent years was not about terrorism at all,” he said. “It’s Bill Buford’s book Among the Thugs, which is a description of soccer violence in Britain.
“Buford became absorbed by soccer violence. He describes the most appalling examples of soccer violence by fans against fans. But he describes with relentless honesty how he finds sickening things attractive. He says violence lets the adrenaline flow; it’s like sex, you live in the moment.”
