Quite a few apologists for Islam, not all of them Muslims by a long, long way, enjoy pointing out that it was the followers of Islam who "invented" zero as an arithmetical place holder, preserved what little classical literature survived the long ordeal of the Dark Ages, and had a vibrant, productive period of scientific and medical research and discovery. Two of these three points are true--but not in a way that reflects any particular credit on Muslims.
First, the untruth: Muslims did not "discover" nor "invent" the use of zero as a place holder in math. That honor belongs to folks in India who were, then as now, Hindu. The convenience of zero in making basic business math type calculations was appreciated by the Arab merchants trading across the Indian Ocean, and they quickly adopted the Indian innovation. It then spread via trading routes into Europe where, along with the admittedly far less cumbersome Arabic numerals, rapidly sent the clumsy Roman system of notation to the scrapheap--and cornerstone dates for pretentious buildings.
The only credit due Islam per se is that it didn't inhibit all international trade with its giant appetite for war and conquest. The real kudos belong to Indian merchants and their Arab colleagues.
What about the other two? They are true assertions, no doubt about that. However, the truth rests less with the peaceful and scholarly nature of Muslims than with the deficiencies of Europeans.
It wasn't that the Europeans had suffered a terminal attack of stupidity when the Roman Empire in the West collapsed some 250 years before Islam erupted from the sands of Arabia. Nor did the Germanic tribes in the course of their folk migrations and displacement of Romans, Gauls and the other residents of the decaying empire have a single digit IQ level.
No. The ultimate responsibility for both the role played by Muslim scholars in preserving the remnants of classical learning from Greece and Rome and the splendid but short lived period of Muslim scientific and medical research rests with two facts on the blasted wastes of European society a thousand years and more ago.
Take a hold on the two facts.
Fear was one. Fear was pervasive in the aftermath of the collapse of Roman order, Roman protected trade and commerce, Roman peace. Decades, centuries of war, famine, death produced a very long lasting legacy of fear in all levels of the European population. Completely encapsulating fear produces a driving need for anything which will seem to take charge, direct perceptions, beliefs and behaviors. In short it produces a high number of authoritarian personalities eager to follow a leader, an institution, an ideology which offers to reduce fear.
The second fact was the existence in Europe at and after the implosion of the Western Roman Empire of an institution with an ideology and socially dominant authoritarians which was ready, willing, able and eager to take charge of the wreckage and move out.
That institution was the Catholic Church. The ideology was Pauline and post-Pauline Christianity. The socially dominant authoritarian personalities went by various job titles ranging from priest to pope. Ideology, institution and members combined as a total package which offered to reduce fear, reduce risk.
Intentionally or not, the Church considered as a religio-political system reduced something else, something even more important for a society, a culture, as a whole. The actions of the Church as it sought to provide a complete, integrated political and spiritual existence for its European adherents suppressed curiosity, repressed inventiveness, reduced almost to the point of elimination any individual questioning, thinking, acting.
For an authoritarian institution, as for the authoritarian personality, stasis is the desired state. The lack of exploration, the absence of change, innovation, creativity outside of narrowly defined boundaries are all considered good. Learning became a rote exercise in memorizing certain selected texts. Science and medicine--where and when either existed at all--consisted of repeating the work done a millennium or more earlier.
For centuries Europe froze under the heavy hand of an authoritarian institution and ideology. Nothing really changed intellectually, culturally, socially, politically, economically as one dreary year succeeded another. None of this occurred without good reason.
In the short hand of military intelligence manuals dealing with interrogation of prisoners of war, the reason is known as, "fear up; fear down." Authority over the perceptions, beliefs and behaviors of an individual (or an entire society with its many levels, ranks and functions) is established and maintained by manipulating fear up and down, of playing the most primal emotion of people like a musical instrument, running the scale up and down, higher and lower.
The Church painted horrifying visions of eternal damnation for those who did not follow all the many "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots" purportedly found in the one and only Official Bible as interpreted by those institutional functionaries licensed by the Church to do so. At the same time the Church offered the comforting images of a perfect place beyond space and time where the virtuous would dwell forever. Of course, "virtue" was defined by the Church.
While Europe droned on in a semi-coma, Islam was in its most rambunctious phase. It was a young, energetic, highly motivated and successful ideology. It might have had an ideology susceptible to authoritarian abuse, but the time was not yet right for the contradictory components of the Quran to be put to that purpose.
Islam was quick with the sword, not only against external enemies but against its own membership. There was internal violence, inner fractionation, palace intrigue, all the things that make life exciting, vibrant. Along with conquest, in tandem with killing and looting, in companionship with backstabbing and seizing one gold ring of power or another while standing on the bodies of yesterday's friends, came a thirst for learning that quickly drained the sparse oases of Arabia and seized eagerly upon the new lakes of knowledge in Alexandria and elsewhere.
Learning, scholarship had been celebrated by Mohammad so the Muslims who cherished the knowledge of antiquity and pushed forward the boundaries of understanding in chemistry, physics and medicine properly saw themselves as doing the will of Allah. Every now and then, according to the Geek's reading of history, authoritarianism and untrammeled creativity and invention can coexist. The first two hundred, three hundred years of Islam was such a time.
From the contrast briefly outlined here, it is easy to see why Islam cruised by Europe in so many fields of learning. But, let's get an honest grip on the truth behind this. If the Europeans had not fallen under the sway of a fossilizing authoritarian institution with the goal of totally controlling all aspects of human life, is it not likely--likely to the point of certainty--that Europeans, not Muslims, would have made the advances whether in science, medicine, government, trade and business or even war?
The answer to this question is found a couple of centuries later as the High Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance and Reformation. The hallmark of the Ren and Ref is a new celebration of the individual. In close second place is an increased willingness and ability to cast off the shackles of fear and authoritarianism.
As the Enlightenment replaced the earlier Renaissance and Reformation and as the failures of the Church's repressive efforts known as the Counter-reformation became increasingly evident, the day of the Individual fully dawned in Europe. To be sure this new emphasis upon the individual and his or her efforts came with increased risk and even new fears as well as the usual accomplices: war, famine, death--and creativity, innovation, invention, discovery, all the little things we have thought of for so long as "progress."
It is ironic to say the least that Islamists and Islamic fundamentalists want to stop the clock in its tracks or even turn it back to some supposed earlier and better time. It is ironic that Islamists and Islamic fundamentalists want to play the "fear up-fear down" racket to gain and maintain authority over fearful people. It is ironic that so many Muslims have given way to fears without basis.
It is ironic to see Islamists and their ilk try to kill their way to a social-political order frozen in a past which never existed in the way they believe it did. It is bitterly amusing to see Islamists and their accomplices try to bring a religiopolitical system into existence identical in all essential respects to that which so paralysed Europe that Islam could have had its great and brief moment in the sun.
There is something pathetic in the misuse of Western history by Western apologists for Islam. However, the Geek supposes it's inevitable that they do so. What else can be expected when they have so desperately misread the realities of today.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Islam--Prejudice or Honesty?
Getting a grip on Islam and Muslims is worse than trying to take a firm hold on a flopping fish. Every time you think you've got a hold on the critter, it slips, slides and flips out of your hands.
The problem has two sources: The nature of Islam; the nature of tolerance and understanding in the US and throughout the Western world.
Islam is a deeply divided system of beliefs due to its origin as a political ideology with religious coloration as discussed in earlier posts. A major inconsistency exists between the earlier revelations when Mohammad was developing his movement and the later verses written after the violent conquest of the major cities of the Arabian Peninsula such as Mecca.
The early verses give rise to the oft-repeated portrayal of Islam as a religion of peace, harmony and human unity. In this Islam is no different from more recent ideologies, most notably communism.
Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro all spilled much ink and expended much wind on the proposition that desirable human virtues such as equality, individual development, the abolishment of poverty, disease and famine would accompany the success of the ideology. Ideologues, whether they cloak their wares in the will of God, or Historical Inevitability, all have the goal of attracting, retaining and mobilizing followers in order to achieve one goal.
The goal?
Power. Political power. The capacity to directly and significantly affect in a desired way the perceptions, beliefs and actions of a target population. The target population might be that of Russia. It might be the people of Cuba, or China. A long time ago it was the inhabitants of the desert wastes and the cities of Arabia.
Or the target population might be that of the world. The goal might be the enrolling of the entire human race under a single banner.
Of course history shows beyond even the most unreasonable doubt that sweetness and light, warm, fuzzy words might not do the job. The pen might not be as mighty as the cliche holds.
But, a pen backed by a sword is far more convincing. Unpleasant, but true. Take a grip on it.
The sword. It was the sword that won the Arabian peninsula for Mohammad and his Companions, his hard-core cadre. It was the sword which won so much more for Islam over the next century or so. It was the swinging of the red-edged sword which lurks behind the later verses of the Quran.
The later portions are the mother lode for fatwas, jihads, suicide bombings as well as the bodyguard of lies which can and does surround these overt hostile actions. It is the later verses which are the red meat for the fearful, the vengeful, and the authoritarians in the souk and the mosque.
Get a grip on this. Islam is a religion (or a politco-religious system, if you prefer) that is inherently authoritarian. It demands complete submission to the will of the deity as well as those qualified to instruct the mass as to the what the deity's will might be.
It is in the act of submission, the process of turning the course of a person's life over to the deity and the interpreters, that gives Islam (and, the Geek must point out if he's honest about it, other religious beliefs) it's appeal and power.
History and psychology agree on a few points. One of the most important is that most humans, most of the time, do not want to take responsibility for their own lives. Particularly they don't want to take responsibility for failure, bad decision making, or other negatives.
An authoritarian religion, any authoritarian social-political system or ideology for that matter, can relieve the individual of the unwanted burden of personal responsibility. It also can and does provide a suitable candidate, an Other, as the evil doer perpetrating all of life's miscarriages upon an individual. (For Nazis it was the Jews, for Communists it was the capitalists, and for Islamists it is the West and the apostates within.)
An authoritarian ideology whether religious or secular can, must, provide targets for frustration, failure, humiliation, for all the icky-poo components of life. To be really successful an authoritarian ideology must provide a vision of both paradise lost and paradise regained. It must blame the present situation on past failures of ideological purity and cohesiveness. It must promise that paradise will be regained if ideological purity and cohesiveness are practiced fully and completely.
An authoritarian ideology must play to fear, must harness fear, must insist that only through complete and absolute submission to the requirements of the ideology in belief, in speech and in action will the individual's fears be lessened.
Get a firm grip on this: Islam is an authoritarian religion, an authoritarian ideology, even a total institution as Goffman defined such nearly fifty years ago for many of its adherents. It plays to fear, encourages fear, stokes fear. At the same time it provides a message of hope, redemption and ultimate victory in both this world and the next. All that is required is total, utter submission.
A well known paradox of the human condition is that submission truly liberates. Surrender does make one free.
Another paradox is that enough fear makes an individual fearless. Fear God and dread nought is found in the Bible. An equivalent expression is in the Quran--repeatedly.
In Europe and the United States total wars of religious ideology are thankfully in the past. Westerners can afford to believe in the virtues of tolerance, open-mindedness, appreciation of cultural differences. We are quite used to the clamor of competing voices in the public square. We are by and large unbothered if churches, temples, synagogues and mosques border the public square.
Many of us who grew up in America during the worst days of the Cold War nonetheless believed that the attempts to limit speech, limit political action, limit the presence even of Communists and those close to Communism was wrong as grilled watermelon. We asked ourselves and each other, "If capitalism and democracy are so strong, so good, what are they afraid of? Why the censorship, the outlawing, the paranoia?"
There was never a good answer. There was never any real answer. None was possible. Now, more than ever, the generation of the Cold War's most frosty depths which now runs so much of the institutions in the US and the West doesn't want to be guilty of the same paranoiac closed mindedness as our parents and grandparents.
We don't want to think that 1.5 billion or so Muslims are all fear-ridden authoritarians ready to answer the call of jihad. We don't want to be seen as the moral and intellectual cripples that years ago we saw the older generation, "the establishment" to have been. We want ever so much to think as does Peter W. Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in an article out in today's Salon www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/06/26/war_of_ideas/index.html? source=newsletter that Muslims are not uniformly wearing black hats. We want to believe that most Muslims reject the fatwas, the bombings, the jihad as much as we do.
The Geek is personally eager to accept the proposition that the vast majority of Muslims are peace loving and peaceful; that those who live among us share our basic values, orientations, hopes and fears. But, his cynical historian's mind wonders, "Is desire enough?"
After all, the Geek recalls, it was Lenin who observed, "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them."
Are we selling rope today?
The problem has two sources: The nature of Islam; the nature of tolerance and understanding in the US and throughout the Western world.
Islam is a deeply divided system of beliefs due to its origin as a political ideology with religious coloration as discussed in earlier posts. A major inconsistency exists between the earlier revelations when Mohammad was developing his movement and the later verses written after the violent conquest of the major cities of the Arabian Peninsula such as Mecca.
The early verses give rise to the oft-repeated portrayal of Islam as a religion of peace, harmony and human unity. In this Islam is no different from more recent ideologies, most notably communism.
Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro all spilled much ink and expended much wind on the proposition that desirable human virtues such as equality, individual development, the abolishment of poverty, disease and famine would accompany the success of the ideology. Ideologues, whether they cloak their wares in the will of God, or Historical Inevitability, all have the goal of attracting, retaining and mobilizing followers in order to achieve one goal.
The goal?
Power. Political power. The capacity to directly and significantly affect in a desired way the perceptions, beliefs and actions of a target population. The target population might be that of Russia. It might be the people of Cuba, or China. A long time ago it was the inhabitants of the desert wastes and the cities of Arabia.
Or the target population might be that of the world. The goal might be the enrolling of the entire human race under a single banner.
Of course history shows beyond even the most unreasonable doubt that sweetness and light, warm, fuzzy words might not do the job. The pen might not be as mighty as the cliche holds.
But, a pen backed by a sword is far more convincing. Unpleasant, but true. Take a grip on it.
The sword. It was the sword that won the Arabian peninsula for Mohammad and his Companions, his hard-core cadre. It was the sword which won so much more for Islam over the next century or so. It was the swinging of the red-edged sword which lurks behind the later verses of the Quran.
The later portions are the mother lode for fatwas, jihads, suicide bombings as well as the bodyguard of lies which can and does surround these overt hostile actions. It is the later verses which are the red meat for the fearful, the vengeful, and the authoritarians in the souk and the mosque.
Get a grip on this. Islam is a religion (or a politco-religious system, if you prefer) that is inherently authoritarian. It demands complete submission to the will of the deity as well as those qualified to instruct the mass as to the what the deity's will might be.
It is in the act of submission, the process of turning the course of a person's life over to the deity and the interpreters, that gives Islam (and, the Geek must point out if he's honest about it, other religious beliefs) it's appeal and power.
History and psychology agree on a few points. One of the most important is that most humans, most of the time, do not want to take responsibility for their own lives. Particularly they don't want to take responsibility for failure, bad decision making, or other negatives.
An authoritarian religion, any authoritarian social-political system or ideology for that matter, can relieve the individual of the unwanted burden of personal responsibility. It also can and does provide a suitable candidate, an Other, as the evil doer perpetrating all of life's miscarriages upon an individual. (For Nazis it was the Jews, for Communists it was the capitalists, and for Islamists it is the West and the apostates within.)
An authoritarian ideology whether religious or secular can, must, provide targets for frustration, failure, humiliation, for all the icky-poo components of life. To be really successful an authoritarian ideology must provide a vision of both paradise lost and paradise regained. It must blame the present situation on past failures of ideological purity and cohesiveness. It must promise that paradise will be regained if ideological purity and cohesiveness are practiced fully and completely.
An authoritarian ideology must play to fear, must harness fear, must insist that only through complete and absolute submission to the requirements of the ideology in belief, in speech and in action will the individual's fears be lessened.
Get a firm grip on this: Islam is an authoritarian religion, an authoritarian ideology, even a total institution as Goffman defined such nearly fifty years ago for many of its adherents. It plays to fear, encourages fear, stokes fear. At the same time it provides a message of hope, redemption and ultimate victory in both this world and the next. All that is required is total, utter submission.
A well known paradox of the human condition is that submission truly liberates. Surrender does make one free.
Another paradox is that enough fear makes an individual fearless. Fear God and dread nought is found in the Bible. An equivalent expression is in the Quran--repeatedly.
In Europe and the United States total wars of religious ideology are thankfully in the past. Westerners can afford to believe in the virtues of tolerance, open-mindedness, appreciation of cultural differences. We are quite used to the clamor of competing voices in the public square. We are by and large unbothered if churches, temples, synagogues and mosques border the public square.
Many of us who grew up in America during the worst days of the Cold War nonetheless believed that the attempts to limit speech, limit political action, limit the presence even of Communists and those close to Communism was wrong as grilled watermelon. We asked ourselves and each other, "If capitalism and democracy are so strong, so good, what are they afraid of? Why the censorship, the outlawing, the paranoia?"
There was never a good answer. There was never any real answer. None was possible. Now, more than ever, the generation of the Cold War's most frosty depths which now runs so much of the institutions in the US and the West doesn't want to be guilty of the same paranoiac closed mindedness as our parents and grandparents.
We don't want to think that 1.5 billion or so Muslims are all fear-ridden authoritarians ready to answer the call of jihad. We don't want to be seen as the moral and intellectual cripples that years ago we saw the older generation, "the establishment" to have been. We want ever so much to think as does Peter W. Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in an article out in today's Salon www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/06/26/war_of_ideas/index.html? source=newsletter that Muslims are not uniformly wearing black hats. We want to believe that most Muslims reject the fatwas, the bombings, the jihad as much as we do.
The Geek is personally eager to accept the proposition that the vast majority of Muslims are peace loving and peaceful; that those who live among us share our basic values, orientations, hopes and fears. But, his cynical historian's mind wonders, "Is desire enough?"
After all, the Geek recalls, it was Lenin who observed, "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them."
Are we selling rope today?
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Islamophobia or Islamoaccuracy? Part 3
A little while ago, a guy accosted me down in front of a local bar. He wasn't drunk. He made a demand. "Geek. What I care about is Iran. I don't want to see us in another war. Know what I mean?"
The Geek nodded, he hoped sagaciously with a hint of total agreement. He was wondering where the dude was going with this.
"See, I think things will get out of hand. Know what I mean?"
The Geek wasn't sure. He had suspicions. But, unlike the current Administration, he has never been given to acting on suspicions. He nodded again, hoping the gesture showed a bit of doubt.
"See, Geek, it's like this. It's not like I want those idiots to get the bomb. But, bidda-bing, bidda-bang, we go in with an air strike and Lord only knows what those zany morons might do. Know what I mean?"
The Geek nodded. It was back to sagacious.
"And, then, we might nuke the hell out of 'em."
"Sure might at that," the Geek agreed.
"But, man, I mean, governments--even the Tehran bunch--know that. They don't want to see their country get the schnitzel. Right?"
It was hot. The Geek had an hour and half drive off the road to get back home. He was not ready for a street corner debate. He copped out.
"I'll have to think about it."
Here's the answer the Geek would have given, if he hadn't been hot, tired and eager to get home.
In short form the answer is, "Not necessarily."
The long form response requires taking a firm grip on history. Pol Pot and his minions were not bothered by the killing fields of Cambodia.
Saddam Hussein didn't appear disturbed by using heavy artillery and poison gas on his own people. Next door, Assad lost no sleep over rolling the tanks over the bodies of fellow Syrians.
Going back a bit further, Mao stayed calm as his Great Leap Forward greased the slide to death for millions from starvation, disease and cannibalism. The Japanese High Command was untroubled by the reality that an American invasion would lead to millions of civilian deaths.
On the other side of the world, Adolph Hitler stated that the German people deserved to be destroyed because they had let him down.
Then there was Joe Stalin who famously quipped, "The death of one person may be a tragedy but the death of millions is a statistic." He ought to know. At least about the second part of his comment. No leader in the bloody history of the human race died with so much blood on his hands.
What this dreary historical record tells us is simply that it is never wise, never prudent, never even rational to depend upon the enlightened self-interest of another government-particularly when that government operates from a set of values vastly different from one's own.
Perhaps, particularly when the government in question believes that it has God on its side--or at least talks and acts as though it believes so. (Of course, the Geek notes with the typical historian's cynical smile on his face, that the German soldier went to war in 1914 and again in 1939 with the slogan "Got Mit Uns" on his belt buckle. We know how that belief worked out.)
Consider for a moment the war between Iran and Iraq in the early and mid-1980s. The Iranian government was both willing and able to send untrained masses of very young volunteers into combat. Most were unarmed. Many were used as human mine clearing forces. The body count was impressive, even if the military results were not.
In short, the government in Tehran has shown itself quite immune to considerations of casualties. It has even shown a bizarre ability to use body counts and funerals for domestic propaganda, to whip up continued war fever.
It is possible, even probable, that the Iranian mullahocracy views the prospect of war with Israel or the United States not only with equanimity, but a tinge of eagerness. Why not? They expect to win. One way or another. No matter how many Iranians are killed, the chance still remains that the attacker will be destroyed or at least so badly damaged that Teheran's Islamist goals would nonetheless be achieved.
What are the implications if this analysis is fundamentally correct?
There are two: Letting Iran achieve a nuclear capability is not prudent, to say the least; using force is an option that has to be considered like porcupines make love--very, very carefully.
After all, in war no one has God on its side.
The Geek nodded, he hoped sagaciously with a hint of total agreement. He was wondering where the dude was going with this.
"See, I think things will get out of hand. Know what I mean?"
The Geek wasn't sure. He had suspicions. But, unlike the current Administration, he has never been given to acting on suspicions. He nodded again, hoping the gesture showed a bit of doubt.
"See, Geek, it's like this. It's not like I want those idiots to get the bomb. But, bidda-bing, bidda-bang, we go in with an air strike and Lord only knows what those zany morons might do. Know what I mean?"
The Geek nodded. It was back to sagacious.
"And, then, we might nuke the hell out of 'em."
"Sure might at that," the Geek agreed.
"But, man, I mean, governments--even the Tehran bunch--know that. They don't want to see their country get the schnitzel. Right?"
It was hot. The Geek had an hour and half drive off the road to get back home. He was not ready for a street corner debate. He copped out.
"I'll have to think about it."
Here's the answer the Geek would have given, if he hadn't been hot, tired and eager to get home.
In short form the answer is, "Not necessarily."
The long form response requires taking a firm grip on history. Pol Pot and his minions were not bothered by the killing fields of Cambodia.
Saddam Hussein didn't appear disturbed by using heavy artillery and poison gas on his own people. Next door, Assad lost no sleep over rolling the tanks over the bodies of fellow Syrians.
Going back a bit further, Mao stayed calm as his Great Leap Forward greased the slide to death for millions from starvation, disease and cannibalism. The Japanese High Command was untroubled by the reality that an American invasion would lead to millions of civilian deaths.
On the other side of the world, Adolph Hitler stated that the German people deserved to be destroyed because they had let him down.
Then there was Joe Stalin who famously quipped, "The death of one person may be a tragedy but the death of millions is a statistic." He ought to know. At least about the second part of his comment. No leader in the bloody history of the human race died with so much blood on his hands.
What this dreary historical record tells us is simply that it is never wise, never prudent, never even rational to depend upon the enlightened self-interest of another government-particularly when that government operates from a set of values vastly different from one's own.
Perhaps, particularly when the government in question believes that it has God on its side--or at least talks and acts as though it believes so. (Of course, the Geek notes with the typical historian's cynical smile on his face, that the German soldier went to war in 1914 and again in 1939 with the slogan "Got Mit Uns" on his belt buckle. We know how that belief worked out.)
Consider for a moment the war between Iran and Iraq in the early and mid-1980s. The Iranian government was both willing and able to send untrained masses of very young volunteers into combat. Most were unarmed. Many were used as human mine clearing forces. The body count was impressive, even if the military results were not.
In short, the government in Tehran has shown itself quite immune to considerations of casualties. It has even shown a bizarre ability to use body counts and funerals for domestic propaganda, to whip up continued war fever.
It is possible, even probable, that the Iranian mullahocracy views the prospect of war with Israel or the United States not only with equanimity, but a tinge of eagerness. Why not? They expect to win. One way or another. No matter how many Iranians are killed, the chance still remains that the attacker will be destroyed or at least so badly damaged that Teheran's Islamist goals would nonetheless be achieved.
What are the implications if this analysis is fundamentally correct?
There are two: Letting Iran achieve a nuclear capability is not prudent, to say the least; using force is an option that has to be considered like porcupines make love--very, very carefully.
After all, in war no one has God on its side.
Islamophobia or Islamoaccuracy? Part 2
The Geek thinks it's fair to consider Islam in its early days as a political movement since Muslims today quote from the Koran and the haddith to show that there is no line between religion and politics. If that's the way they want it, OK.
The basic doctrine of Islam is riddled with inconsistencies, paradoxes and flat out contradictions because the Koran evolved as an integral part of a political movement. So, let's get a grip on the following.
The early verses, those revealed before Islam emerged victorious in its wars with other, older indigenous beliefs, were written during the movement growth and enhancement phase of a political entity operating with the color of religion. The purpose of the early verses was simple: To present the new belief system in the most appealing way possible so as to mobilize support and minimize opposition.
The early "revelations" constitute the portion of the Koran most liked by apologists for Islam. That's as it should be for these are warm, soft and fuzzy emphasizing kindness to widows and orphans, celebrating the unity of believers and calling upon the more appealing virtues of the human nature.
The other portion of the Koran, the parts which are cold as steel and as pointed as a sword's tip, were "revealed" following the political victory of Mohammad and his religopolitical entity. Now the emphasis was upon regime consolidation, maintenance and expansion. Now the focus was upon domination, well, to err on the side of accuracy, domination and submission. That meant (and means) domination by socially dominant authoritarian personalities and submission by everyone else. The cold, sharp verses called as well for submission by all non-Muslims to the God, Prophet and believers of Islam.
The later "revelations" are those most often cited by Islamists today to justify jihad, recast suicide as martyrdom and demand the submission by the non-Muslim billions to the dictates of a particular, and to most human beings, foreign system of perception, belief and behavior. The paradox, the contradiction between the cold, sharp portion of the Koran and the earlier, gentler and kinder part is either not commented upon by the Islamists or derided.
Admittedly the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament contain nonsequiturs aplenty and to a major extent can be reconciled as one, seamless body only by world class mental gymnastics. Having said that, the Geek contends that the internal inconsistencies of the Koran are greater and are explicable only by the Koran having been written under two, vastly different sets of political imperatives.
Another contradiction overlays the first. Islam demands submission, utter and absolute, and total submission by the individual. The word "Islam" denotes complete submission. Submission to whom is the inevitable question.
Answering the "to whom" question brings the second part of this paradox into play. Islam, or at least most segments of it, allows for individual judgement regarding the demands of Allah and Islam beyond the Five Pillars of the religion. In this seemingly innocuous area, the placing of some measure of responsibility upon the individual believer for the determination of duty under the Koran and Allah, there is room for much division--and much evil.
In short, the paradox between submission and the requirement for individual judgement or interpretation gives the socially dominant authoritarian all the latitude needed to speak with authority, to write with authority, to issue fatwas with authority. The gap between submission and responsibility provides all the room necessary for the fearful, authoritarian follower to obey the voice and words of command, to feel absolved of responsibility, of guilt.
Far from being a single intellectual edifice, Islam is a construction at odds with itself. The different parts of the mental mosque pull against each other. The greatest jihad is the jihad the Islamists will not, cannot admit--the jihad within the mosque. This is the war that has raged for centuries. It is the war for the very soul of Islam.
On the up side, the Geek notices that the paradoxes and inconsistencies give a wedge to those Muslims as well as those outside the Muslim communities who have had it up to their dandruff with the Islamists and their love affair with death. The non-monolithic nature of Islam gives many avenues of approach, a lot of ways to enlist the aid and effort of non-Islamist Muslims to finally claim the soul of their faith from the children of violence and turn it over to the sons and daughters of the early words, the words of peace and harmony and the unity of humanity.
The basic doctrine of Islam is riddled with inconsistencies, paradoxes and flat out contradictions because the Koran evolved as an integral part of a political movement. So, let's get a grip on the following.
The early verses, those revealed before Islam emerged victorious in its wars with other, older indigenous beliefs, were written during the movement growth and enhancement phase of a political entity operating with the color of religion. The purpose of the early verses was simple: To present the new belief system in the most appealing way possible so as to mobilize support and minimize opposition.
The early "revelations" constitute the portion of the Koran most liked by apologists for Islam. That's as it should be for these are warm, soft and fuzzy emphasizing kindness to widows and orphans, celebrating the unity of believers and calling upon the more appealing virtues of the human nature.
The other portion of the Koran, the parts which are cold as steel and as pointed as a sword's tip, were "revealed" following the political victory of Mohammad and his religopolitical entity. Now the emphasis was upon regime consolidation, maintenance and expansion. Now the focus was upon domination, well, to err on the side of accuracy, domination and submission. That meant (and means) domination by socially dominant authoritarian personalities and submission by everyone else. The cold, sharp verses called as well for submission by all non-Muslims to the God, Prophet and believers of Islam.
The later "revelations" are those most often cited by Islamists today to justify jihad, recast suicide as martyrdom and demand the submission by the non-Muslim billions to the dictates of a particular, and to most human beings, foreign system of perception, belief and behavior. The paradox, the contradiction between the cold, sharp portion of the Koran and the earlier, gentler and kinder part is either not commented upon by the Islamists or derided.
Admittedly the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament contain nonsequiturs aplenty and to a major extent can be reconciled as one, seamless body only by world class mental gymnastics. Having said that, the Geek contends that the internal inconsistencies of the Koran are greater and are explicable only by the Koran having been written under two, vastly different sets of political imperatives.
Another contradiction overlays the first. Islam demands submission, utter and absolute, and total submission by the individual. The word "Islam" denotes complete submission. Submission to whom is the inevitable question.
Answering the "to whom" question brings the second part of this paradox into play. Islam, or at least most segments of it, allows for individual judgement regarding the demands of Allah and Islam beyond the Five Pillars of the religion. In this seemingly innocuous area, the placing of some measure of responsibility upon the individual believer for the determination of duty under the Koran and Allah, there is room for much division--and much evil.
In short, the paradox between submission and the requirement for individual judgement or interpretation gives the socially dominant authoritarian all the latitude needed to speak with authority, to write with authority, to issue fatwas with authority. The gap between submission and responsibility provides all the room necessary for the fearful, authoritarian follower to obey the voice and words of command, to feel absolved of responsibility, of guilt.
Far from being a single intellectual edifice, Islam is a construction at odds with itself. The different parts of the mental mosque pull against each other. The greatest jihad is the jihad the Islamists will not, cannot admit--the jihad within the mosque. This is the war that has raged for centuries. It is the war for the very soul of Islam.
On the up side, the Geek notices that the paradoxes and inconsistencies give a wedge to those Muslims as well as those outside the Muslim communities who have had it up to their dandruff with the Islamists and their love affair with death. The non-monolithic nature of Islam gives many avenues of approach, a lot of ways to enlist the aid and effort of non-Islamist Muslims to finally claim the soul of their faith from the children of violence and turn it over to the sons and daughters of the early words, the words of peace and harmony and the unity of humanity.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Islamophobia or Islamoaccuracy?
The Geek admits that he finds it emotionally satisfying to have a Two Minutes Hate against more than a few Muslims, particularly those who fall under the label, Islamist. It is terribly easy to be alternately amused, nauseated and angered by people who get their rocks off holding demonstrations which demand, "Death to (Fill in the blank), hold graduation ceremonies for suicide bomber teams and throw acid in the faces of unveiled young women.
There are already a large number of sites that cover the revolting face of Islam such as jihadwatch.org or the_gathering_storm.blogspot.com/ or mavericknewsnetword.typepad.com. There are also sites that offer apologies for Islamist behavior.
The Geek's goal today is neither to condemn nor to condone. The Geek's purpose is a little broader gauged, to see whether or not parsing the Islamist love affair with death gives any hint about what historical analogy should be used regarding Iran, its mullahocracy and potential membership in the Nuke Club.
To start, get a grip on this reality: There is no one, monolithic entity called Islam. Despite the Quran's call for unity among all believers, Islam is riddled with fissures, fault lines and fractures. While less perhaps than the divisions within Christianity, Islam has more groups, creedal distinctions and cultures than Judaism.
Not only is there the major schism between Sunni and Shia, there are other deep differences. It is impossible even to say that there is one brand of Islamicism. Remember that term is only fifteen or so years old, the winner in the media sweepstakes among several contenders including Islamic fundamentalist, Islamic revivalist, Islamic purist, Islamic traditionalist, and Islamic neo-traditionalist. Apparently the media like one word terms so the darkhorse of two decades ago, Islamist came from behind to win.
Some Islamic fundamentalist groups are resolutely not only apolitical but frankly anti-political. Others are rabidly political but focus upon the regimes in their native country. Still others are rabidly political and revolutionary. Some of these are focused on one country, their own. Others such as Al Qaida are megalomaniac enough to seek world revolution and the global victory of Islam. Their form of Islam.
There have even been at least one Islamic purist movement, that one led by a Sudanese Quranic scholar named Tahe which argued that the Quran was not monolithic. Tahe contended before he was bulldozed to the gallows for reasons of Sudanese politics, that the Quran was comprised of two sets of revelations, those of the Medina period and those composed after Mohammad won, the Meccan revelations. Tahe argued (and paid for his argument at the rope's end) that the first set, the Medina revelations which emphasized peace and harmony and all the other gentle virtues pointed to by individuals seeking to prove that Islam is the religion of peace, is the true Islam.
The Meccan revelations to the contrary are loaded with the blood, gore and love of war that can only occur after victory in a hard fought, bitter internal war. It was prophecy at the dripping edge of the winning sword. This is the part of the Quran so loved by practitioners of jihad and suicide bombing.
So, then, Geek, who or what is an Islamist?
As the Geek sees it, an Islamist is an individual or a group dedicated to the use of violent terror tactics to achieve a religiopolitical goal. A suicide bomber driving a truck loaded with explosives into a crowded marketplace, the laddybucks who took hundreds with them on their death rides of 9/11, the Taliban fighter, most of the insurgents in Iraq, as well as those who recruit, train, plan, direct or support the lethal operations are Islamists. The others, those who do not use terror and violence, are covered by other terms.
The Geek has been asked (in the real, not the virtual world) what if any difference exists between the suicide bombers of recent years and the Kamikaze pilots of World War II in the Pacific. He has always been surprised at the naivete of the question. The answer is so obvious.
The Kamikaze pilot like the Japanese soldier who engaged in a suicidal final attack or pulled the pin of a hand grenade while holding it to his chest so as not to be captured played a fair and rational game. Kamikazes attacked warships. Soldiers went forward with bare hands and swords against American machine guns. No attacks were made on civilians.
The suicide bomber seeks out the softest of civilian targets. He attacks women, children and the elderly preferentially. That is the difference between Islamist and Kamikaze.
All too often the response has been, "Geek, so what? I mean, the Americans drop bombs on civilians."
True enough, the Geek acknowledges. However, even back in World War II, with one exception, none of the Western Allies waged intentional war on civilians.
Except for the British "Worker De-Housing Program," executed by the Royal Air Force's firebombing heavy bombers, civilian casualties were not the goal of the operation. They were unfortunate, regrettable collateral effects of efforts which were both proportionate to the military advantage accrued and conducted according to the customs, usages and laws of warfare. That was true even as regards the American firebomb and atomic bomb attacks on Japan.
That may not be a pleasant reality to consider. But it is the one that is true. Get a grip.
In later wars, even those currently underway, the US has taken great pains to avoid civilian casualties. Some military commentators have argued that we have been too fastidious. Whether that is true or not is beside the point. However, international custom, usage and law is clear: The responsibility to avert civilian casualties is the responsibility of the defender.
Taliban and the insurgents in Iraq have intentionally embedded military facilities and combatants in civilian locations and then taken propaganda advantage of the inevitable civilian casualties. (It is for this pragmatic reason that the Geek has argued in previous posts that the US has to stop using air delivered munitions.)
Now that the Geek has blown away false justifications and specious analogies, back to the main matter. The Islamist has a love affair with death. He wants to kill people, in wholesale lots if at all possible, but at retail if he must. He might like to live long enough to kill more, but if die he must, it's no big deal. The Meccan revelations have some well-known and well-specified rewards in store for him.
"OK," you agree, "the individual is a killer and a person ready to die as long as he kills in the process. But what about governments, like the Iranian? They're different. Governments don't want to see their own population killed."
"Oh. Really? Is that so?'" Replies the Geek. "We'll see about that."
There are already a large number of sites that cover the revolting face of Islam such as jihadwatch.org or the_gathering_storm.blogspot.com/ or mavericknewsnetword.typepad.com. There are also sites that offer apologies for Islamist behavior.
The Geek's goal today is neither to condemn nor to condone. The Geek's purpose is a little broader gauged, to see whether or not parsing the Islamist love affair with death gives any hint about what historical analogy should be used regarding Iran, its mullahocracy and potential membership in the Nuke Club.
To start, get a grip on this reality: There is no one, monolithic entity called Islam. Despite the Quran's call for unity among all believers, Islam is riddled with fissures, fault lines and fractures. While less perhaps than the divisions within Christianity, Islam has more groups, creedal distinctions and cultures than Judaism.
Not only is there the major schism between Sunni and Shia, there are other deep differences. It is impossible even to say that there is one brand of Islamicism. Remember that term is only fifteen or so years old, the winner in the media sweepstakes among several contenders including Islamic fundamentalist, Islamic revivalist, Islamic purist, Islamic traditionalist, and Islamic neo-traditionalist. Apparently the media like one word terms so the darkhorse of two decades ago, Islamist came from behind to win.
Some Islamic fundamentalist groups are resolutely not only apolitical but frankly anti-political. Others are rabidly political but focus upon the regimes in their native country. Still others are rabidly political and revolutionary. Some of these are focused on one country, their own. Others such as Al Qaida are megalomaniac enough to seek world revolution and the global victory of Islam. Their form of Islam.
There have even been at least one Islamic purist movement, that one led by a Sudanese Quranic scholar named Tahe which argued that the Quran was not monolithic. Tahe contended before he was bulldozed to the gallows for reasons of Sudanese politics, that the Quran was comprised of two sets of revelations, those of the Medina period and those composed after Mohammad won, the Meccan revelations. Tahe argued (and paid for his argument at the rope's end) that the first set, the Medina revelations which emphasized peace and harmony and all the other gentle virtues pointed to by individuals seeking to prove that Islam is the religion of peace, is the true Islam.
The Meccan revelations to the contrary are loaded with the blood, gore and love of war that can only occur after victory in a hard fought, bitter internal war. It was prophecy at the dripping edge of the winning sword. This is the part of the Quran so loved by practitioners of jihad and suicide bombing.
So, then, Geek, who or what is an Islamist?
As the Geek sees it, an Islamist is an individual or a group dedicated to the use of violent terror tactics to achieve a religiopolitical goal. A suicide bomber driving a truck loaded with explosives into a crowded marketplace, the laddybucks who took hundreds with them on their death rides of 9/11, the Taliban fighter, most of the insurgents in Iraq, as well as those who recruit, train, plan, direct or support the lethal operations are Islamists. The others, those who do not use terror and violence, are covered by other terms.
The Geek has been asked (in the real, not the virtual world) what if any difference exists between the suicide bombers of recent years and the Kamikaze pilots of World War II in the Pacific. He has always been surprised at the naivete of the question. The answer is so obvious.
The Kamikaze pilot like the Japanese soldier who engaged in a suicidal final attack or pulled the pin of a hand grenade while holding it to his chest so as not to be captured played a fair and rational game. Kamikazes attacked warships. Soldiers went forward with bare hands and swords against American machine guns. No attacks were made on civilians.
The suicide bomber seeks out the softest of civilian targets. He attacks women, children and the elderly preferentially. That is the difference between Islamist and Kamikaze.
All too often the response has been, "Geek, so what? I mean, the Americans drop bombs on civilians."
True enough, the Geek acknowledges. However, even back in World War II, with one exception, none of the Western Allies waged intentional war on civilians.
Except for the British "Worker De-Housing Program," executed by the Royal Air Force's firebombing heavy bombers, civilian casualties were not the goal of the operation. They were unfortunate, regrettable collateral effects of efforts which were both proportionate to the military advantage accrued and conducted according to the customs, usages and laws of warfare. That was true even as regards the American firebomb and atomic bomb attacks on Japan.
That may not be a pleasant reality to consider. But it is the one that is true. Get a grip.
In later wars, even those currently underway, the US has taken great pains to avoid civilian casualties. Some military commentators have argued that we have been too fastidious. Whether that is true or not is beside the point. However, international custom, usage and law is clear: The responsibility to avert civilian casualties is the responsibility of the defender.
Taliban and the insurgents in Iraq have intentionally embedded military facilities and combatants in civilian locations and then taken propaganda advantage of the inevitable civilian casualties. (It is for this pragmatic reason that the Geek has argued in previous posts that the US has to stop using air delivered munitions.)
Now that the Geek has blown away false justifications and specious analogies, back to the main matter. The Islamist has a love affair with death. He wants to kill people, in wholesale lots if at all possible, but at retail if he must. He might like to live long enough to kill more, but if die he must, it's no big deal. The Meccan revelations have some well-known and well-specified rewards in store for him.
"OK," you agree, "the individual is a killer and a person ready to die as long as he kills in the process. But what about governments, like the Iranian? They're different. Governments don't want to see their own population killed."
"Oh. Really? Is that so?'" Replies the Geek. "We'll see about that."
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Choosing the Right Analogy--It Isn't Easy
Back in 1965 the US military at its highest levels was particularly clueless and gripless. We can see that in one short exchange between the President, Lyndon Johnson and the Chief of the JCS, Army General Earle Wheeler as the President considered escalating (that word has been replaced recently by the term "surge") our forces on the ground in South Vietnam.
LBJ "What if they (North Vietnam) matches us escalation for escalation?"
Wheeler "Good! Because then we'll cream them."
We know just who creamed whom a few years later. We also know that our eventual--and inevitable, self-inflicted defeat didn't matter to US interests in the slightest. (See the current visit of the President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to Washington, DC if you don't believe the Geek.)
Currently the military leadership of the US is not nearly as testicle grabbing, lip licking eager for enlarging the wars on the ground in either Iraq or Afghanistan as some Neocoservatives both in and out of government. Certainly they are not eager to take on a third opponent while we are still in the ring fighting opponents number one and two.
In one sense making the analogy between the self-defeating invitation made by our air attacks on North Vietnam, Operation Rolling Thunder and not doing the same with respect to Iran today is self-evident. There is little doubt that the Iranians are assisting at least some of the insurgents operating in Iraq. It is probable that Tehran is doing the same on a very limited scale in Afghanistan.
So what?
The so what question is easily answered. In neither case is the Iranian assistance of measurable military effectiveness.
The Taliban is given much more significant aid from Pakistan where the current President straddles a narrow and potentially fatal fence between our demands and the power of the Islamists in Pakistan. (Reflect for a couple of seconds where the current protests against the UK granting a knighthood to Salman Rushdie started. That's right. Pakistan.) The leaky border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is Taliban's best support--even though our battlefield rockets and UAV's can easily cross it as well as long as we and the Paks keep quiet about that reality.
Consider Iraq: While the Iraqi population is majority Shiite, this does not mean that Iraqis look to Tehran for guidance, assistance or leadership. There is an old saying in Iraq that the farmer prefers that which grows from his own land. The bridge of religious commonality does not cross the chasm of language and unshared historical experience.
In short, Tehran can count on no major gains by its low risk, low payoff tactic of semi-covert assistance to some insurgent elements in Iraq and Afghanistan. As long as we don't invite the Iranians into the wars by either air operations or overly boisterous "covert" destabilization operations the Iranians will stay on the sidelines muttering dark and meaningless threats.
It can be argued that Iran today is analogous to Imperial Japan seventy-five or so years ago. It can and has been asserted that Iran seeks to be the regional hegemonic power in the Persian Gulf region. This assertion has been buffed up by references to the country's economic strength, read "oil," its growing military power and its nuclear ambitions. Of course, Iran's Islamist credo has been invoked as well.
Leaving aside the nuclear "threat" which will remain a potential and not an actuality for some years to come, the analogy with Imperial Japan is attractive. Japan's political goal in the 1930s and early 1940s was to be the dominant regional power, the hub of something they called "The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere." The Japanese invoked religion, culture and their military and industrial power as well as their economic needs and responsibilities to justify their ambition.
A look below the surface changes the analogy. Japan was and Iran is fundamentally weak. Weak industrially, weak economically and weak militarily.
After the United States conducted diplomacy so gripless that it gave Tokyo only two choices--humiliating compliance with American demands or war--Japan was never our major theater of military operations during the Second World War. It was a sideshow. Even so, the US had little difficulty (except for the grunts, squids and zoomies doing the fighting and dying) defeating the Japanese. Even without the use of the two atomic bombs, even without an invasion Tokyo's defeat was inevitable.
The Iranian reality today is one of equivalent weakness. The population is overburdened with young people. Over one in three Iranians is under twenty-five. Unemployment is high (above twenty percent) and rising. Dissatisfaction with the mullahs is also high and rising. The economy is near breakdown. Corruption and theft are as rampant in Iran today as they were in Saddam Hussein's Iraq the day before our big invasion.
True, the Iranians are purchasing new, advanced equipment from Russia. Again the question is so what? It takes more than new hardware to give a military true fighting capacity. It takes leadership, doctrine, training and tradition. The Iranians lack all of these. So far the only capacity the Iranian army has shown in battle is that of dying in large numbers without a complete internal collapse.
If the analogy between Iran and North Vietnam is true, it depends upon the US forcing the Iranians to enter war openly. If the analogy between Imperial Japan and Iran is true, it depends upon inept American diplomacy forcing a lesser-of-two-evils choice on Tehran.
What if neither analogy is true? What if the right analogy is a hyped up version of the confrontation between Nazi Germany and the US, Great Britain and the Soviet Union? What if the right analogy is a hot version of the Cold War between the US and the USSR?
Doesn't the Iranian nuclear project point in those two directions? Doesn't the possible possession of the atomic bomb by a regime given to an apocalyptic world view change the nature of the game so that the only analogy is a Hot War now to prevent a Hotter War later?
We'll see.
LBJ "What if they (North Vietnam) matches us escalation for escalation?"
Wheeler "Good! Because then we'll cream them."
We know just who creamed whom a few years later. We also know that our eventual--and inevitable, self-inflicted defeat didn't matter to US interests in the slightest. (See the current visit of the President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to Washington, DC if you don't believe the Geek.)
Currently the military leadership of the US is not nearly as testicle grabbing, lip licking eager for enlarging the wars on the ground in either Iraq or Afghanistan as some Neocoservatives both in and out of government. Certainly they are not eager to take on a third opponent while we are still in the ring fighting opponents number one and two.
In one sense making the analogy between the self-defeating invitation made by our air attacks on North Vietnam, Operation Rolling Thunder and not doing the same with respect to Iran today is self-evident. There is little doubt that the Iranians are assisting at least some of the insurgents operating in Iraq. It is probable that Tehran is doing the same on a very limited scale in Afghanistan.
So what?
The so what question is easily answered. In neither case is the Iranian assistance of measurable military effectiveness.
The Taliban is given much more significant aid from Pakistan where the current President straddles a narrow and potentially fatal fence between our demands and the power of the Islamists in Pakistan. (Reflect for a couple of seconds where the current protests against the UK granting a knighthood to Salman Rushdie started. That's right. Pakistan.) The leaky border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is Taliban's best support--even though our battlefield rockets and UAV's can easily cross it as well as long as we and the Paks keep quiet about that reality.
Consider Iraq: While the Iraqi population is majority Shiite, this does not mean that Iraqis look to Tehran for guidance, assistance or leadership. There is an old saying in Iraq that the farmer prefers that which grows from his own land. The bridge of religious commonality does not cross the chasm of language and unshared historical experience.
In short, Tehran can count on no major gains by its low risk, low payoff tactic of semi-covert assistance to some insurgent elements in Iraq and Afghanistan. As long as we don't invite the Iranians into the wars by either air operations or overly boisterous "covert" destabilization operations the Iranians will stay on the sidelines muttering dark and meaningless threats.
It can be argued that Iran today is analogous to Imperial Japan seventy-five or so years ago. It can and has been asserted that Iran seeks to be the regional hegemonic power in the Persian Gulf region. This assertion has been buffed up by references to the country's economic strength, read "oil," its growing military power and its nuclear ambitions. Of course, Iran's Islamist credo has been invoked as well.
Leaving aside the nuclear "threat" which will remain a potential and not an actuality for some years to come, the analogy with Imperial Japan is attractive. Japan's political goal in the 1930s and early 1940s was to be the dominant regional power, the hub of something they called "The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere." The Japanese invoked religion, culture and their military and industrial power as well as their economic needs and responsibilities to justify their ambition.
A look below the surface changes the analogy. Japan was and Iran is fundamentally weak. Weak industrially, weak economically and weak militarily.
After the United States conducted diplomacy so gripless that it gave Tokyo only two choices--humiliating compliance with American demands or war--Japan was never our major theater of military operations during the Second World War. It was a sideshow. Even so, the US had little difficulty (except for the grunts, squids and zoomies doing the fighting and dying) defeating the Japanese. Even without the use of the two atomic bombs, even without an invasion Tokyo's defeat was inevitable.
The Iranian reality today is one of equivalent weakness. The population is overburdened with young people. Over one in three Iranians is under twenty-five. Unemployment is high (above twenty percent) and rising. Dissatisfaction with the mullahs is also high and rising. The economy is near breakdown. Corruption and theft are as rampant in Iran today as they were in Saddam Hussein's Iraq the day before our big invasion.
True, the Iranians are purchasing new, advanced equipment from Russia. Again the question is so what? It takes more than new hardware to give a military true fighting capacity. It takes leadership, doctrine, training and tradition. The Iranians lack all of these. So far the only capacity the Iranian army has shown in battle is that of dying in large numbers without a complete internal collapse.
If the analogy between Iran and North Vietnam is true, it depends upon the US forcing the Iranians to enter war openly. If the analogy between Imperial Japan and Iran is true, it depends upon inept American diplomacy forcing a lesser-of-two-evils choice on Tehran.
What if neither analogy is true? What if the right analogy is a hyped up version of the confrontation between Nazi Germany and the US, Great Britain and the Soviet Union? What if the right analogy is a hot version of the Cold War between the US and the USSR?
Doesn't the Iranian nuclear project point in those two directions? Doesn't the possible possession of the atomic bomb by a regime given to an apocalyptic world view change the nature of the game so that the only analogy is a Hot War now to prevent a Hotter War later?
We'll see.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Who Is Their Dealer?
If the report on Free Market News Network and Wired Blog http://blog.wired.com is correct, everything the Geek has suspected about the "planning" capacities of the Bush Pentagon and White House concerning the day after defeating the conventional forces in Iraq is true.
The gripless group in the Defense Department ranging from SecDef Rumsfield through his toadies such as Wolfewitz and Doug Feith (my personal favorite for Stupid Guy of the Century award) and apparently including the uniformed service chiefs really, really, but really believed that once we had "taken down" the regime, all we would have to do is a little bit of tidying up before withdrawing a few months later.
What in hell was wrong with these people??
Were they really that terminally out to lunch? Hadn't they read the intelligence estimates? If not; why not? Did they get calluses on their lips from reading something longer than a press release? Didn't understand the big words like "insurgency?"
Whatever the reason, including untreated megalomania, the "commander guy" and his merry crew of willfully gripless associates took the US, the Iraqis and the world over the edge of the wrong war in the wrong place with the wrong enemy at the wrong time.
As the great survivor and diplomat, Talleyrand, once said to Napoleon, "It is worse than a crime. It is a blunder." The Geek seconds that sentiment.
It was a blunder for two reasons.
Number one: It was avoidable. Nobody needed to read one of those Burn Before Reading high security documents. All anyone had to do was glance, that's right, glance at a basic text of Iraqi history. Just the last century or two would be enough. You don't have to go back to Ur, although that wouldn't have hurt. (Shame on the Geek. He should remember the problem with blistered lips from too much reading.)
It would have helped to go back over the news files for the period of the economic sanctions and the Oil For Food program. The journalists at least got a grip on the pervasive corruption and internal fractionation which infested Iraq after the First Gulf War.
Putting the looted empty shell reality of Iraq into the context of the lack of social or political coherence would have shown anyone with an IQ in more than single digits that "taking down" the regime would be an open invitation for armed political unrest. That's the polite term for the multi-party insurgency we have on our collective hands right now.
The second reason the Geek calls the decision to invade Iraq without adequate consideration of its aftermath both a crime and a blunder is simply this. Now that we are in the US cannot, repeat cannot afford the consequences both short and long term of leaving before we and our Iraqi clients have secured a better state of peace.
Simply satisfying our emotions as Bill Richardson, Governor of my home state and Democratic Presidential wannabe, would have us do by quickly packing up and departing being sure to "leave no troops behind" is a self-destructive answer for reasons previously outlined.
Staying without a good, useful, historically rooted plan isn't the answer either. That will result in more deaths, more physical casualties and far more psychiatric casualties in this, the most dangerous and stressful war ever fought by Americans.
There are some answers. Some solutions for the mess handed us by the gripless, brain dead worthies the Geek has mentioned. Some are being worked out in the field right now by Americans with both brains and guts.
More on that later.
The gripless group in the Defense Department ranging from SecDef Rumsfield through his toadies such as Wolfewitz and Doug Feith (my personal favorite for Stupid Guy of the Century award) and apparently including the uniformed service chiefs really, really, but really believed that once we had "taken down" the regime, all we would have to do is a little bit of tidying up before withdrawing a few months later.
What in hell was wrong with these people??
Were they really that terminally out to lunch? Hadn't they read the intelligence estimates? If not; why not? Did they get calluses on their lips from reading something longer than a press release? Didn't understand the big words like "insurgency?"
Whatever the reason, including untreated megalomania, the "commander guy" and his merry crew of willfully gripless associates took the US, the Iraqis and the world over the edge of the wrong war in the wrong place with the wrong enemy at the wrong time.
As the great survivor and diplomat, Talleyrand, once said to Napoleon, "It is worse than a crime. It is a blunder." The Geek seconds that sentiment.
It was a blunder for two reasons.
Number one: It was avoidable. Nobody needed to read one of those Burn Before Reading high security documents. All anyone had to do was glance, that's right, glance at a basic text of Iraqi history. Just the last century or two would be enough. You don't have to go back to Ur, although that wouldn't have hurt. (Shame on the Geek. He should remember the problem with blistered lips from too much reading.)
It would have helped to go back over the news files for the period of the economic sanctions and the Oil For Food program. The journalists at least got a grip on the pervasive corruption and internal fractionation which infested Iraq after the First Gulf War.
Putting the looted empty shell reality of Iraq into the context of the lack of social or political coherence would have shown anyone with an IQ in more than single digits that "taking down" the regime would be an open invitation for armed political unrest. That's the polite term for the multi-party insurgency we have on our collective hands right now.
The second reason the Geek calls the decision to invade Iraq without adequate consideration of its aftermath both a crime and a blunder is simply this. Now that we are in the US cannot, repeat cannot afford the consequences both short and long term of leaving before we and our Iraqi clients have secured a better state of peace.
Simply satisfying our emotions as Bill Richardson, Governor of my home state and Democratic Presidential wannabe, would have us do by quickly packing up and departing being sure to "leave no troops behind" is a self-destructive answer for reasons previously outlined.
Staying without a good, useful, historically rooted plan isn't the answer either. That will result in more deaths, more physical casualties and far more psychiatric casualties in this, the most dangerous and stressful war ever fought by Americans.
There are some answers. Some solutions for the mess handed us by the gripless, brain dead worthies the Geek has mentioned. Some are being worked out in the field right now by Americans with both brains and guts.
More on that later.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Paris Hilton--Icon of a Great Power?!
That's it, Geek! Time for you to get a grip!
Sure. Perhaps the Geek is over the edge, but he doesn't think so. He's ready and willing to argue that the recent (and ongoing) frenzy over the aforementioned 26 year old blond is a perfect epitomization of the central reason for the United States' status a Great Power.
Remember, he's already on record as saying that the bottom line reality of America's position in the world is not, repeat not, it's economy, nor its nuclear arsenal, nor its capacity to project military force. While these factors are important, they are not critical.
The critical component of American power is the intangible. Particularly important is the intangible that can is seen by our enemies as our decadence, our lack of order, the absence of morality, the lack of godliness. The intangible that is seen by internal critics as materialism, infantile desire for instant gratification, a lifestyle devoid of purpose beyond the commercial, the sensual.
Certainly, enemies and critics could point at Paris Hilton as an icon for these perceived flaws in the American national character. And, the Geek wouldn't argue the point. Not because he agrees necessarily, but because it's irrelevant.
They're missing the point. The intangible which they resent, oppose, even wish to destroy is the greatest strength of this nation. It is the magnet that pulled thousands here from Europe, Asia, Latin America. It is the driver which has propelled the people of the US to accomplish so much in such a short time.
Its name? Chaos.
Chaos. The word scares some. It excites more. Both fear and exhilaration spring from the same source: the absence of controlling authority, deadening tradition or dictatorial consensus whether religious or ideological.
The old cliche, "Land of Opportunity," really has always meant, "Land of Chaos," the place of dissent, conflict, disagreement. To glance over the thousands of articles, reports, opinion pieces and blogs dealing with Paris Hilton is to read the face of chaos--American style.
The beauty of the Paris Hilton Incident is the intense, passionate disagreement. There is no central authority, religious or civil, ordering a party line, policing compliance with the line, punishing those who don't follow the leader.
Excrescences of zaniness like the Hilton Incident have always been a part of the American scene. They have always defined for the world just how limitless the boundaries of chaos are.
What is most interesting about the zany sides of American life is how differently they are interpreted by authoritarian leaders and non-authoritarian members of the larger publics. Consider for a moment how the Nazis portrayed American jazz and swing music. Or, more recently, think about how the Communist leaders from the era of Stalin on insisted on describing rock and roll.
In both cases the official line was that the music illustrated the immoral, decadent, sensual nature of the debauched and jaded Americans. In both cases, the non-authoritarian or anti-authoritarian segments of the public embraced the music at great risk because it symbolised the free, chaotic, outlaw nature of American life. In short, all the appeals of life in the US.
In the past few days, with the exception of the authoritarian controlled media of countries such as Iran, the Paris Hilton Incident has been gobbled up in all of its many internally conflicted views as a shorthand presentation of the multifaceted, many hued nature of the contemporary United States, a place where so much is possible because so little is prohibited or required.
No Mullah, Imam, Priest nor President decrees what must be said, be written, be believed about Paris Hilton or the judge who sentenced her, or the Sheriff who let her go home. No one, no matter how exalted his position, can order the mob into the street for or against Paris. No minister can order her death. No Council can order the media to ignore the story. No commissar can silence the Internet.
Chaos. To be sure the Paris Hilton Incident is chaos in miniature and over an unimportant issue, but that's what an iconic event is--a miniature that represents something much larger, much more real and infinitely more important.
There are Americans who fervently wish none of this were true. There are Americans who fervently desire that the chaos could be shoved into a small bottle labeled "Order." There are Americans who would, if only they had the power, put an end not only to the circus surrounding Ms Hilton, but to the woman herself. There are Americans who would agree wholeheartedly with Hitler regarding jazz and the Kremlin commissars regarding rock and roll. There are Americans who are in complete tandem with the mullahs and imams concerning the debauched, ungodly nature of today's United States.
This type of American has always been with us as a (so far) permanent minority. The mentality of this American was described perfectly by a great politician, Franklin Roosevelt on a cold March day almost seventy-five years ago.
FDR said, "The only thing we have to fear is--fear itself."
He was speaking narrowly of the economic depression which had settled on the nation like a foul cloud, but his words have a universality which make them appropriate today. The enemy of chaos and all the creativity it makes possible is the fearful mind.
Only the fearful mind rejects chaos and seeks the Authority of the state, of ideology, of tradition, of religion in its place. Only the fearful authoritarian seeks to place the burkah on the naked body of chaos, demands that all perceive, believe, think and act according to a presumed universal truth.
In a great movie, The Third Man, the character of Harry Lyme speaks of the distinction between the chaos of the Italian city states which produced the Renaissance from the rubble of unending wars and the orderly nature of Calvinist, authoritarian Switzerland which brought forth "the cuckoo clock."
Our chaos has produced not only breath arresting technological triumphs like landing a man on the moon and parsing the human genome but more human liberation in the past fifty years than had happened in the preceding thousand. Our chaos has resulted in not only the horrors of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles but freedom enhancing marvels such as the Internet. Sure, chaos is the cliched double headed ax. It kills. It frees. It destroys. It creates.
Chaos is our ultimate strength. If we are strong enough to embrace it.
Otherwise, we might just as well cave in to our fears. Join the authoritarians. Make cuckoo clocks.
Sure. Perhaps the Geek is over the edge, but he doesn't think so. He's ready and willing to argue that the recent (and ongoing) frenzy over the aforementioned 26 year old blond is a perfect epitomization of the central reason for the United States' status a Great Power.
Remember, he's already on record as saying that the bottom line reality of America's position in the world is not, repeat not, it's economy, nor its nuclear arsenal, nor its capacity to project military force. While these factors are important, they are not critical.
The critical component of American power is the intangible. Particularly important is the intangible that can is seen by our enemies as our decadence, our lack of order, the absence of morality, the lack of godliness. The intangible that is seen by internal critics as materialism, infantile desire for instant gratification, a lifestyle devoid of purpose beyond the commercial, the sensual.
Certainly, enemies and critics could point at Paris Hilton as an icon for these perceived flaws in the American national character. And, the Geek wouldn't argue the point. Not because he agrees necessarily, but because it's irrelevant.
They're missing the point. The intangible which they resent, oppose, even wish to destroy is the greatest strength of this nation. It is the magnet that pulled thousands here from Europe, Asia, Latin America. It is the driver which has propelled the people of the US to accomplish so much in such a short time.
Its name? Chaos.
Chaos. The word scares some. It excites more. Both fear and exhilaration spring from the same source: the absence of controlling authority, deadening tradition or dictatorial consensus whether religious or ideological.
The old cliche, "Land of Opportunity," really has always meant, "Land of Chaos," the place of dissent, conflict, disagreement. To glance over the thousands of articles, reports, opinion pieces and blogs dealing with Paris Hilton is to read the face of chaos--American style.
The beauty of the Paris Hilton Incident is the intense, passionate disagreement. There is no central authority, religious or civil, ordering a party line, policing compliance with the line, punishing those who don't follow the leader.
Excrescences of zaniness like the Hilton Incident have always been a part of the American scene. They have always defined for the world just how limitless the boundaries of chaos are.
What is most interesting about the zany sides of American life is how differently they are interpreted by authoritarian leaders and non-authoritarian members of the larger publics. Consider for a moment how the Nazis portrayed American jazz and swing music. Or, more recently, think about how the Communist leaders from the era of Stalin on insisted on describing rock and roll.
In both cases the official line was that the music illustrated the immoral, decadent, sensual nature of the debauched and jaded Americans. In both cases, the non-authoritarian or anti-authoritarian segments of the public embraced the music at great risk because it symbolised the free, chaotic, outlaw nature of American life. In short, all the appeals of life in the US.
In the past few days, with the exception of the authoritarian controlled media of countries such as Iran, the Paris Hilton Incident has been gobbled up in all of its many internally conflicted views as a shorthand presentation of the multifaceted, many hued nature of the contemporary United States, a place where so much is possible because so little is prohibited or required.
No Mullah, Imam, Priest nor President decrees what must be said, be written, be believed about Paris Hilton or the judge who sentenced her, or the Sheriff who let her go home. No one, no matter how exalted his position, can order the mob into the street for or against Paris. No minister can order her death. No Council can order the media to ignore the story. No commissar can silence the Internet.
Chaos. To be sure the Paris Hilton Incident is chaos in miniature and over an unimportant issue, but that's what an iconic event is--a miniature that represents something much larger, much more real and infinitely more important.
There are Americans who fervently wish none of this were true. There are Americans who fervently desire that the chaos could be shoved into a small bottle labeled "Order." There are Americans who would, if only they had the power, put an end not only to the circus surrounding Ms Hilton, but to the woman herself. There are Americans who would agree wholeheartedly with Hitler regarding jazz and the Kremlin commissars regarding rock and roll. There are Americans who are in complete tandem with the mullahs and imams concerning the debauched, ungodly nature of today's United States.
This type of American has always been with us as a (so far) permanent minority. The mentality of this American was described perfectly by a great politician, Franklin Roosevelt on a cold March day almost seventy-five years ago.
FDR said, "The only thing we have to fear is--fear itself."
He was speaking narrowly of the economic depression which had settled on the nation like a foul cloud, but his words have a universality which make them appropriate today. The enemy of chaos and all the creativity it makes possible is the fearful mind.
Only the fearful mind rejects chaos and seeks the Authority of the state, of ideology, of tradition, of religion in its place. Only the fearful authoritarian seeks to place the burkah on the naked body of chaos, demands that all perceive, believe, think and act according to a presumed universal truth.
In a great movie, The Third Man, the character of Harry Lyme speaks of the distinction between the chaos of the Italian city states which produced the Renaissance from the rubble of unending wars and the orderly nature of Calvinist, authoritarian Switzerland which brought forth "the cuckoo clock."
Our chaos has produced not only breath arresting technological triumphs like landing a man on the moon and parsing the human genome but more human liberation in the past fifty years than had happened in the preceding thousand. Our chaos has resulted in not only the horrors of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles but freedom enhancing marvels such as the Internet. Sure, chaos is the cliched double headed ax. It kills. It frees. It destroys. It creates.
Chaos is our ultimate strength. If we are strong enough to embrace it.
Otherwise, we might just as well cave in to our fears. Join the authoritarians. Make cuckoo clocks.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Our Most Important Intangible? Chaos!
If our nukes and missiles, our tanks and troops, our economy and population aren't the truly critical facts allowing for our universally granted Great Power Status. what is?
Intangibles. Not the warm fuzzy words like "freedom" or "democracy" or "free enterprise" or the symbols of our culture such as shopping malls, blue jeans or rock and roll. What makes these symbols and words powerful is the usually unrecognised reality underlying them.
Chaos.
We are admired for this reality. We are hated for it. It is the reality of chaos and the opportunities that automatically come with chaos that those who scheme and dream of destroying the American experiment (as well as those who wish it well and hope to emulate it) are focusing upon.
Chaos has only one true enemy. Chaos raises the fear and loathing of only one type of person. That person is not necessarily an Islamist. Not necessarily even a Muslim. That person can be and is found in the ranks of Christians. In the ranks of Jews. Even in the ranks of agnostics and atheists.
What kind of person is it?
The authoritarian personality.
Whether home-grown or foreign, whether follower or leader, the authoritarian personality rejects chaos absolutely, fears taking responsibility for his own success or failures, and wishes to impose an artificial order of tradition, or religion, or ideology. The authoritarian personality hopes to turn the milling horde of chaotic individuals, speaking and acting at seeming cross-purposes and appearing to place self above community whatever the cost, into a disciplined, orderly formation with all ears tuned to a single voice of command.
The authoritarian personality lives here in the United States. A number of studies done by social psychologists and sociologists indicate that approximately thirty percent of us are authoritarian personalities. These are the personalities that reject chaos and embrace the artificial certainties promised by religion, tradition, ideology or simply the title "expert." Thirty percent of our population is comfortable with the idea of surrendering individual judgement, autonomy or the chance to seek opportunity by taking a risk.
In other countries the percentage is higher. The studies aren't complete, indeed they are so sketchy that any estimate is the softest of guesses. However, consider historical actuality. Consider what kind of person came (and continues to come) to the US.
Is the incomer risk averse? Eager to bow a head to authority? That's a no-brainer. Of course not. The immigrant seeks risk, seeks opportunity, seeks to make a place in the American maelstrom.
We became the sinkhole for those who are authority averse more than three centuries ago. We remain such today. This is our ultimate strength. Our ultimate cachet as a Great Power.
It is also why we are hated. The fearful must hate us. They must hate not only our policies (a position that might well be rational and realistic). They must also hate the fact of our very existence regardless of policy details.
Our existence, by definition, is The Outlaw. To feel at all safe in his fear driven and demon haunted orderly world, the authoritarian be he religious or secular must end the constant threat that we present. To do otherwise is to lose.
Get a grip on this unpleasant reality. Whether an American or citizen of another country, the US in its natural state of chaos is The Outlaw. And, Outlaws must be removed.
This may seem like a long stretch from foreign policy, the US as a Great Power and not losing in Iraq. Trust Dr History Geek. The nature of our most important intangible, chaos, and the fear it induces as well as the allure it holds, is the key to both our status as a Great Power and our ultimate ability not to lose in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Intangibles. Not the warm fuzzy words like "freedom" or "democracy" or "free enterprise" or the symbols of our culture such as shopping malls, blue jeans or rock and roll. What makes these symbols and words powerful is the usually unrecognised reality underlying them.
Chaos.
We are admired for this reality. We are hated for it. It is the reality of chaos and the opportunities that automatically come with chaos that those who scheme and dream of destroying the American experiment (as well as those who wish it well and hope to emulate it) are focusing upon.
Chaos has only one true enemy. Chaos raises the fear and loathing of only one type of person. That person is not necessarily an Islamist. Not necessarily even a Muslim. That person can be and is found in the ranks of Christians. In the ranks of Jews. Even in the ranks of agnostics and atheists.
What kind of person is it?
The authoritarian personality.
Whether home-grown or foreign, whether follower or leader, the authoritarian personality rejects chaos absolutely, fears taking responsibility for his own success or failures, and wishes to impose an artificial order of tradition, or religion, or ideology. The authoritarian personality hopes to turn the milling horde of chaotic individuals, speaking and acting at seeming cross-purposes and appearing to place self above community whatever the cost, into a disciplined, orderly formation with all ears tuned to a single voice of command.
The authoritarian personality lives here in the United States. A number of studies done by social psychologists and sociologists indicate that approximately thirty percent of us are authoritarian personalities. These are the personalities that reject chaos and embrace the artificial certainties promised by religion, tradition, ideology or simply the title "expert." Thirty percent of our population is comfortable with the idea of surrendering individual judgement, autonomy or the chance to seek opportunity by taking a risk.
In other countries the percentage is higher. The studies aren't complete, indeed they are so sketchy that any estimate is the softest of guesses. However, consider historical actuality. Consider what kind of person came (and continues to come) to the US.
Is the incomer risk averse? Eager to bow a head to authority? That's a no-brainer. Of course not. The immigrant seeks risk, seeks opportunity, seeks to make a place in the American maelstrom.
We became the sinkhole for those who are authority averse more than three centuries ago. We remain such today. This is our ultimate strength. Our ultimate cachet as a Great Power.
It is also why we are hated. The fearful must hate us. They must hate not only our policies (a position that might well be rational and realistic). They must also hate the fact of our very existence regardless of policy details.
Our existence, by definition, is The Outlaw. To feel at all safe in his fear driven and demon haunted orderly world, the authoritarian be he religious or secular must end the constant threat that we present. To do otherwise is to lose.
Get a grip on this unpleasant reality. Whether an American or citizen of another country, the US in its natural state of chaos is The Outlaw. And, Outlaws must be removed.
This may seem like a long stretch from foreign policy, the US as a Great Power and not losing in Iraq. Trust Dr History Geek. The nature of our most important intangible, chaos, and the fear it induces as well as the allure it holds, is the key to both our status as a Great Power and our ultimate ability not to lose in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Can We Quit This Great Power Crap? Can We? Please!
Can the US resign its status as a Great Power? (Be advised: The History Geek refuses on principle to use the media generated abomination, "superpower" in the belief that there is already too much hyperbole involved with foreign policy and war.)
A lot of our fellow citizens would answer that question with a resounding, "Yes!" in something less than a New York second. The Geek understands the appeal of dropping the Great Power role. No more interventions. No more body bags coming back from one remote armpit or another. No more spending great gobs of gigabucks on one Pentagon toy or another. It sounds great. Let's do it!
Leave Fartistan to the Fartistanis!
Hell! They didn't appreciate what we were trying to do for them anyway. And, we didn't have any business there anyway. And, we were lied to. And, we can't win.
That's it! We quit. Take this Great Power crap and stuff it!
Trouble is we've tried to quit before. After the Vietnam defeat, we pulled in on ourselves, stared at our collective navels and felt bad. We turned isolationist not to protect ourselves from foreign contamination as during the Twenties and Thirties. No. After we defeated ourselves in Southeast Asia, we became isolationist to protect the world from our contaminating presence.
We moaned and whimpered any number of mea culpas. We were arrogant. We had hubris. We were imperialistic. No more. We stood in the corner and hung our heads vowing, "No more Great Power adventures for us. Never again!"
It didn't work. The world refused to accept our resignation.
A Great Power cannot resign. It can lose its status from defeat in a critical war. It can drop from the ranks of Great Powers because of economic exhaustion. It can simply fade away as political will and the capacity for national sacrifice become drained after decades or generations of struggle.
But, no Great Power in history has ever voluntarily resigned its status. Not even us.
What defines a Great Power?
That should be an easy question to answer. Add up the tangibles--the nuclear weapons, the missiles, the warships and planes, the troops, the gross domestic product, the population--all the factors that can be counted.
Did you notice any commonalities in the list?
They all point directly (or in the case of two items, indirectly) at a nation's capacity to coerce. Historically, and contemporaneously as well, we humans have a love affair with coercion. We get wet contemplating how we might force another individual, or country to do our bidding.
Coercion is seductive. It seems so easy. So direct. Give and order. Make a threat. Shock and awe.
Perhaps that is why the perceived capacity to coerce has always been the chief measure of a country's ability to operate as a Great Power. The key word in the previous sentence is "perceived." How other actors on the international stage view a nation's capacity for coercion has always been an important, perhaps the most important definition of Great Power status.
Get a grip on this. A country can neither claim nor resign from the role of Great Power. The role is assigned by consensus, a tacit agreement by other nations that this country or that possesses the capacity to coerce appropriate for Great Powerness.
But, wait. The perceived capacity to coerce is not the big enchilada of a Great Power, at least not for the United States as Great Power.
"Wait one!" You object.
"We've got nuclear weapons out the ying-yang. That's what it takes. We can nuke the planet twice over and still have missiles in the silos."
The Geek replies, "So what?"
By the nuclear weapons criterion the world is overrun with Great Powers. It only takes a handful of not impressively large mushroom clouds to ruin a continent's whole day--even if the Nuclear Winter hand-wringers are wrong.
Military power is not, repeat not, the sole, nor even the most important measure of a a nation's Great Power attribute. If it was, the US could have easily lost its status in the wake of Vietnam. We had a hollow military, a navy that was darn near unready to take to sea, an unwillingness to project even minor force to counter Soviet ambitions in Africa. We had resigned from that game.
Nor is it the strength of the economy by itself. During the Seventies, the era of Ford's Whip Inflation Now! mantra, the decade of stagflation, of Carter's "Thinking Small is Thinking Better" efforts, the US economy was New Orleans after Katrina. The Eighties weren't that much better. Japan Incorporated was supposed to cruise right on by us. Think back, those of you old enough to have memories of disco and Saturday Night Fever.
So, if it isn't the bombs, or the bucks that make the United States generally recognised as a Great Power, what is it?
Answer: Intangibles.
What?
Intangibles. The Geek will explain next post. He has to. It's central to why we can't afford to defeat ourselves in Iraq. It's essential to understand how we can avoid losing there.
A lot of our fellow citizens would answer that question with a resounding, "Yes!" in something less than a New York second. The Geek understands the appeal of dropping the Great Power role. No more interventions. No more body bags coming back from one remote armpit or another. No more spending great gobs of gigabucks on one Pentagon toy or another. It sounds great. Let's do it!
Leave Fartistan to the Fartistanis!
Hell! They didn't appreciate what we were trying to do for them anyway. And, we didn't have any business there anyway. And, we were lied to. And, we can't win.
That's it! We quit. Take this Great Power crap and stuff it!
Trouble is we've tried to quit before. After the Vietnam defeat, we pulled in on ourselves, stared at our collective navels and felt bad. We turned isolationist not to protect ourselves from foreign contamination as during the Twenties and Thirties. No. After we defeated ourselves in Southeast Asia, we became isolationist to protect the world from our contaminating presence.
We moaned and whimpered any number of mea culpas. We were arrogant. We had hubris. We were imperialistic. No more. We stood in the corner and hung our heads vowing, "No more Great Power adventures for us. Never again!"
It didn't work. The world refused to accept our resignation.
A Great Power cannot resign. It can lose its status from defeat in a critical war. It can drop from the ranks of Great Powers because of economic exhaustion. It can simply fade away as political will and the capacity for national sacrifice become drained after decades or generations of struggle.
But, no Great Power in history has ever voluntarily resigned its status. Not even us.
What defines a Great Power?
That should be an easy question to answer. Add up the tangibles--the nuclear weapons, the missiles, the warships and planes, the troops, the gross domestic product, the population--all the factors that can be counted.
Did you notice any commonalities in the list?
They all point directly (or in the case of two items, indirectly) at a nation's capacity to coerce. Historically, and contemporaneously as well, we humans have a love affair with coercion. We get wet contemplating how we might force another individual, or country to do our bidding.
Coercion is seductive. It seems so easy. So direct. Give and order. Make a threat. Shock and awe.
Perhaps that is why the perceived capacity to coerce has always been the chief measure of a country's ability to operate as a Great Power. The key word in the previous sentence is "perceived." How other actors on the international stage view a nation's capacity for coercion has always been an important, perhaps the most important definition of Great Power status.
Get a grip on this. A country can neither claim nor resign from the role of Great Power. The role is assigned by consensus, a tacit agreement by other nations that this country or that possesses the capacity to coerce appropriate for Great Powerness.
But, wait. The perceived capacity to coerce is not the big enchilada of a Great Power, at least not for the United States as Great Power.
"Wait one!" You object.
"We've got nuclear weapons out the ying-yang. That's what it takes. We can nuke the planet twice over and still have missiles in the silos."
The Geek replies, "So what?"
By the nuclear weapons criterion the world is overrun with Great Powers. It only takes a handful of not impressively large mushroom clouds to ruin a continent's whole day--even if the Nuclear Winter hand-wringers are wrong.
Military power is not, repeat not, the sole, nor even the most important measure of a a nation's Great Power attribute. If it was, the US could have easily lost its status in the wake of Vietnam. We had a hollow military, a navy that was darn near unready to take to sea, an unwillingness to project even minor force to counter Soviet ambitions in Africa. We had resigned from that game.
Nor is it the strength of the economy by itself. During the Seventies, the era of Ford's Whip Inflation Now! mantra, the decade of stagflation, of Carter's "Thinking Small is Thinking Better" efforts, the US economy was New Orleans after Katrina. The Eighties weren't that much better. Japan Incorporated was supposed to cruise right on by us. Think back, those of you old enough to have memories of disco and Saturday Night Fever.
So, if it isn't the bombs, or the bucks that make the United States generally recognised as a Great Power, what is it?
Answer: Intangibles.
What?
Intangibles. The Geek will explain next post. He has to. It's central to why we can't afford to defeat ourselves in Iraq. It's essential to understand how we can avoid losing there.
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