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Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates - Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues for TheAtlantic.com and the magazine. He is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle. More

Born in 1975, the product of two beautiful parents. Raised in West Baltimore—not quite The Wire, but sometimes ill all the same. Studied at the Mecca for some years in the mid-’90s. Emerged with a purpose, if not a degree. Slowly migrated up the East Coast with a baby and my beloved, until I reached the shores of Harlem. Wrote some stuff along the way.

Maybe we won't welcomed as liberators

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Nov 19 2008, 11:00 AM ET Comment

Andy McCarthy, one-time parroter of the "Bill Ayers ghost-wrote for Obama" theory offers us the following:

Thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions in taxpayer funds have been expended to provide Iraqis the opportunity to live freely. And this despite the facts that (a) the U.S. interest in Iraqi democracy remains tenuous (our interest was the elimination of Saddam's terror-mongering, weapons-proliferating regime), and (b) Americans were assured, when the nation-building enterprise commenced, that oil-rich Iraq would underwrite our sacrifices on its behalf. Yet, to be blunt, the Iraqis remain ingrates. That stubborn fact complicates everything.

Yglesias claps back:

Because, of course, historically people have welcomed being invaded and occupied by a foreign power whose actions lead to years of chaos, a huge civilian death toll, and millions of displaced people.

This idea that Iraq should thank us for unilaterally invading their country is fascinating. Who said the colonizing spirit was dead?


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