http://culture11.com/diary/36398

Christians are not Muslims, FYI Joe
By Razib K

January 13, 2009

This Joe Klein post where he points out that there is a lack of ethnic balance in Obama's rumored Middle East advisors is getting some play:

I suppose that it falls to Jewish males like Cohen (and me) to point out this discrepancy since anyone else making the observation would immediately be accused of anti-semitism by the usual suspects. But Cohen has listed some powerhouse Muslims, who would be a terrific addition to Obama's team--Shibley Telhami, Fawaz Gerges and Vali Nasr, among others. I'd also suggest that Pete Mansoor, a Palestinian-American who recently retired from the U.S. Army--he served on David Petraeus's Baghdad team--would be an excellent staffer.

I know that Fawaz Gerges is from an Christian background (the surname is a quick clue if you didn't know ahead of time). Shibley Telhami's name suggested to me that he was likely to be a non-Muslim, and it turns out that he too is an Arab Christian. If you're a good Bayesian you'll of course assume that there's a higher probability that any Arab intellectual or thinker a non-Muslim would know is more likely to be from a Christian background (because Christian Arabs assimilate into Western culture to a higher degree than Muslim Arabs). This kind of stuff is stupid, though I've seen plenty of people do it in the past. Makes "pundits" look like retards frankly, though I don't see any of Joe Klein's 20 commenters pointing out the problem with his assertion, so they're probably just ignorant. Some people might wonder if I'm being pedantic. Well, some people are imprecise retards. Confusing Arab Christians and Muslims is just retarded. The insanity has to stop somewhere. Use google. Know something about the world before you open your mouth!

(yes, I'm telling you what I think)

P.S. You're also dumb if you think Persians are Arabs. Some of Klein's moronic commenters are complaining that you'd need Persians in Obama's circle, but one of the individuals Klein identified as a Muslim (correctly), Vali Nasr, is Persian. Like Joe they're getting the categories of Muslim and Arab confused, and since Vali was identified as Muslim they assumed he was Arab (while the other two are Arabs, but not Muslim). Retards.

Note: I said Christian background because many Arabs from Christian backgrounds might not be religious at all. Edward Said for example was an atheist from a Christian background who identified as an Arab whose civilization was Islam (how's that for a mouthful?). My own suspicion is that Vali Nasr is not an orthodox Muslim at all, as his father has connections with perennialist movement.

How about NOT appointing so many people who have conflicts of interests in representing AMERICA'S interest.

Even better, why are we in the middle of their squabbles in the first place?

I agree, there should definitely be some Arab voices on Obama's team but I think they should be more mainstream than Fawas Gerges. I've interviewed him before and to insinuate that he's even-handed would be wrong.

Pete Mansoor, however, would be an excellent choice.