Iraq hostage wrote books promoting Americans doing business abroad

[Ouabache]

my comment>>Take a look at this article. The guy had a point of view that led him to Iraq, and a point of view of the world and politics, and probably Iraq, that led him to vastly UNDERESTIMATE the danger of trying to do 'business' in Iraq, imho. It is so sad that he and his family will probably suffer grave consequences of his miscalculation and flawed world view, at least in regards to Iraq.<<<


http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050415/NEWS01/504150517


Hoosier Jeffrey Ake, was seized as he practiced what he preached. Jeffrey Ake was a zealous advocate of taking business abroad, chiding American firms for fearing international trade. He was also a writer, a poet and a motivational speaker, a man who could draw inspiration while taking early-morning jogs in Japan or driving with customers in Jakarta....

When he was plucked Monday from the streets of Iraq, he was helping to install equipment to bottle products such as water and cooking oil at a water treatment plant near Baghdad. American firms, he once wrote, should not fear foreign trade. "I believe we mystify and magnify the dangers of conducting export activities in other countries," Ake wrote in his self-published 1996 book, "Aggressive Exporting: How To Make Your Small Company into an International Tiger."

"We see them as strange, exotic places where secrets, demons and problems lurk. . . . I maintain that doing business in another country is just like doing business in another U.S. state -- with a few cultural nuances thrown in."The world was a much different place then. But the LaPorte businessman has clearly been a champion of international trade ever since he boosted his former company's profits by expanding across the ocean....

He also took aim at Americans who, in the 1970s, he said, went through a period of "national self-flagellation" that gave rise to the idea of the "ugly American." As he researched the book, he said he viewed a speech by former President Ronald Reagan that convinced him that Reagan had restored the pride that was lost. "What our own America-bashers don't get," he wrote, "is what the rest of the world instinctively understands: for the most part America is good and America is fair."



>>my additional comment>>the idea of the 'ugly American' was in circulation well before the late 70's. As I recall CIA operations of the 50's and 60's gave rise to that concept, think Vietnam.<<<


link to full article:
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050415/NEWS01/504150517

[Ian David]

1. At least he's not a hypocrite. He put his money where his mouth is

He said doing business in Iraq is a good idea, and he went to Iraq to do business himself.

Unlike Dick Cheney who probably never had an office in Iran or Iraq but has been happy to send his employees into harm's way there.

[Ouabache]

2. ok, one kick , is ANYONE reading this? any thoughts?

maybe I should have known better than to post in GD.

[anarchy1999]

3. Thanks for posting, I read it and I have mixed feelings. I'm sad for he

and his family, sounds like his company had something to provide of value, he is not "Halliburton", but what was he being paid and by whom?
The CPA, did Bremer et al give him a contract? I believe all Americans are at risk and will continue to be so for forever more. We've created several new generations of terrorists with the death and destruction we have sown in this country.

Just think Iran and go back to the hostage days of the Carter administration and the overthrow of the Shah.

History repeats itself because we humans are too damned stupid to learn from it.