Flash Point, Magazine Article

This week's text is "Flash Point," an article found in the the September 24, 2012 issue of TIME Magazine. "Flash Point" discusses the current attacks on the U.S. embassies in Benghazi and Cairo that led to the death of 4 U.S. officials.

The author of this article is Bobby Ghosh. He is a journalist and World Editor to TIME Magazine. Hw was one TIME's Baghdad bureau chief and a long serving correspondent in Iraq. He is an expert on profiling Iraq and Arab Countries.

The context of the text is the occurrence of the Arab Springs in both Egypt and Libya last year. The overthrow of harsh dictatorships have left the countries with a series of temporary and unstable democracies that don't know how to handle angry mobs and outbursts by the people.

The purpose of the text was to evaluate the effect of the Arab Springs on the countries' overall security and the author suggests that these Arab countries compromised civil safety in exchange for freedom. He also condemns both countries by saying the state of their civil unrest is headed down the path of becoming as chaotic as Pakistan.

The audience of the text are readers of TIME magazine. The article is under the WORLD section of the magazine, and is also on the front cover. The audience was anyone who found the cover story intriguing or anyone who keeps up with Middle Eastern events often.

Some rhetorical devices used was one of the appeals, logos, who argued logically to make his point of the countries becoming as chaotic as Pakistan. He drew parallels to different events that are similar to each other in all of the countries and uses that to make a prediction of Egypt and Libya's future.

The author completely achieved his point and was constantly supporting his condemnation of those countries by supporting it with the failure of the new Arab democracies and growing tension and anger from Islamic extremists. I believe he has achieved his purpose because I support his "cause-and-effect" examination of the events and I believe that his opinion of the countries' future are completely valid.