911 – Lawrence Pintak

Caught between Iraq and the hard guys (The Daily Star Lebanon)

February 28, 2006 by Lawrence Pintak Leave a Comment

February 28, 2006 The visit to the Middle East last week by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brought with it another reminder that American Middle East policy is firmly wedged between Iraq and the hard guys. There were never any easy answers to the Middle East morass, complicated further by the recent outbreak of […]

Filed Under: Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, Public Diplomacy Tagged With: 911, Arab media, Arabs, Beirut Hostage Crisis, Condoleezza Rice, democracy, Egypt, Hamas, Islam, Lebanon, Muslims, Palestine, political reform, Transformational diplomacy, U.S. Middle East policy, USAID

Political Islam’s Democratic Face (CommonDreams.org)

March 23, 2004 by Lawrence Pintak Leave a Comment

Published on Tuesday, March 23, 2004 by CommonDreams.org Even as militant Islamists from Spain to Pakistan command headlines, the White House once more inflames Muslim opinion, and the Bush administration continues its effort to reinvent the Middle East in America�s image, proponents of moderate political Islam are quietly but effectively developing the template for democratic […]

Filed Under: American & Islam, Indonesia, Islam, Pakistan, Public Diplomacy Tagged With: 911, Al Hurra, Bush, democracy, democratic, Elections, favorability rating, Hamas, Hezbollah, indonesia, Islam, Islamist, Malaysia, Muslim, Palestinians, Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, Sheikh Yassin, Ulil Abshar Abdalla

Beyond Insensitivity: Bush Sends Mixed Signals to Indonesian Muslims (CommonDreams.org)

October 17, 2003 by Lawrence Pintak Leave a Comment

Published on Friday, October 17, 2003 by CommonDreams.org In the corridors of power in Washington and on the campuses of American universities these days, the great topic of debate is: How can the U.S. government better communicate with Muslims around the world? The simply answer is, it cannot. Not as long as U.S. policy is […]

Filed Under: American & Islam, Indonesia, Public Diplomacy, War on Terror Tagged With: 911, Al Qaeda, Bush, indonesia, Iraq, Islam, Islamic world, Jihad, Muslim world, Muslims, Osama bin Laden, Public Diplomacy, U.S. Middle East policy

Bush, Bali & the Beirut Connection (CommonDreams.org)

October 23, 2002 by Lawrence Pintak Leave a Comment

Published on Wednesday, October 23, 2002 by CommonDreams.org There has been much talk of the fact that the Bali bombing marked the second anniversary of the attack on the USS Cole. But the deadly blast also coincides with another milestone — one with even more significance to the current direction of U.S. foreign policy. Nineteen […]

Filed Under: Indonesia, Iraq, Lebanon, Terrorism, War on Terror Tagged With: 911, Al Qaeda, Bali, Beirut Hostage Crisis, Bush, indonesia, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Jakarta, Jerusalem, Marines, Muslims, Pakistan, Palestine, terrorism, U.S. Middle East policy, USS Cole

The Middle East’s Festering Wound (CommonDreams.org)

October 17, 2001 by Lawrence Pintak Leave a Comment

Published on Wednesday, October 17, 2001 A few days after the bombings, a former State Department Middle East �expert� in the Clinton Administration was asked the inevitable question by a radio interviewer: �Why do they hate us?� In the meandering five minute answer that followed, never once did he utter the word �Israel.� On a […]

Filed Under: American & Islam, Palestine, Public Diplomacy Tagged With: 911, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Osama bin Laden, Palestine, U.S. Middle East policy

The Terror Koan: American Buddhists contemplate violence (Beliefnet.com)

September 15, 2001 by Lawrence Pintak Leave a Comment

Sept. 2001 The image is seared into our collective consciousness: Buddhist monks setting themselves on fire to protest the war in Vietnam. But as they counsel the nation not to act out of a desire for revenge, many leading Buddhist teachers are reluctantly conceding that even a religion devoted to peace recognizes that there are […]