Dr Albright in her most recent incarnation as a ramrod of the US-Muslim Engagement Project and chief author of its hot off the computer report recommending new forms of public and private diplomacy to further dialogue with Islamic governments displayed an appalling and dangerous lack of historical knowledge. One of her whoppers lacks policy import but is indicative of the profound depth of her ignorance.
Specifically she opined, "in my study of religions, in many ways Islam is maybe the most democratic religion because there is nobody between you and God." What! Has the one time academic never run across a small movement which emerged five hundred or so years ago? It goes by the name, Protestant Christianity. Among the major founders of this insignificant movement was Martin Luther who railed against the Catholic Church's use of intermediaries between man and God. His plaint was echoed by every other early leader of Protestantism with the exception of the branch known as the Church of England.
If these events are entirely too remote in the dim reaches of the past for a political scientist like Dr Albright to give credence, perhaps she should acquaint herself with American history. She might take a dekko at the Puritans. They were, after all, a far from unimportant group in the founding of what became the United States of America. This bunch, in common with many other Protestant denominations, practiced democracy in the election of preachers.
Other Protestant communities echoing or expanding upon customs developed in the UK or on the Continent had democratic organisation of their church governance. And, some, such as the Baptists and Methodists, put a very heavy emphasis upon the personal nature of the relation between believer and God.
So, even if Dr Albright, in her study of religions, never ran across that portion of the message delivered by the Wandering Sage and Healer, Jesus, which held the nature of the relation between man and God was both personal and profound and had no need for either intermediaries or sacrificial rituals, she should have enjoyed at one time in her education some nodding acquaintance with the realities of Christianity as it developed in post-Reformation years. She might also have noticed in her study of religion the powerful influence enjoyed by Muslim clerics to say nothing of the potent only semi-permeable membrane of the four schools of Sunni which constitute a very real intermediary between individual and deity.
Her misapprehension of Turkish history is more critical in its policy implications. Turkey, as Turkish historians have long noted, became a secular democracy only because of the skill, iron will and vision of Attaturk coupled with the structural collapse of the Ottoman culture, polity and social organisation at the end of World War I. The change from Islamic autocracy to secular democracy did not come easily, quickly nor completely.
Turks who subscribe today to the secular vision of Attaturk know just how fragile the non-Islamic world view is on the Turkish people. This is the root cause of the pervasive fear of backsliding into the Islamic past whenever the Islamist rooted ruling party makes a move to readopt some feature of traditional Muslim life such as headcovering for women.
Like Dr Albright, the Geek hopes that Turkey succeeds in its yet incomplete task of coupling Islamic religous structures and beliefs with a secular democracy including such necessary adjuncts as an independent judiciary, pluralism, and open expression. But, unlike the former Secretary of State, the Geek is unwilling on the face of the evidence to date to declare that Turkey is a success story which points the way for a US policy based on grafting democracy on to the hostile vine of Islamic--and, even more, Islamist beliefs and world view.
Secretary of State Clinton's historical empty headedness deals with events of the recent past--the closing days of the Reagan administration and that of his successor, George H.W. Bush and has an immediate, direct and negative impact on current US policy in the Afpak area of operations. As reported in the Pakistani Daily Times, the Secretary foisted responsibility for Taliban on the US. At least in part.
She averred that the US abandoned Pakistan as the Soviets prepared to withdraw the Red Army from Afghanistan. In her presentation to a Congressional committee she dilated on this proposition,
To use far from diplomatic language, that is a crock!There is a very strong argument, which is: It was not a bad investment to end the Soviet Union, but let’s be careful what we sow, because we will harvest. So we then left Pakistan. We said, okay, fine, you deal with the Stingers that we have left all over your country. You deal with the mines that are along the border. And by the way, we do not want to have anything to do with you
The real deal is not so simple. It reflects no real credit on the decision making capacities of either the Reagan administration or that of H.W Bush. But, it in no way contributes to the always present Pakistani desire to see their country as a victim.
In real history--as opposed to the Clinton theory of history--the government of Pakistan had wanted to take over operational control of the US proxy war in Afghanistan. This eagerness increased in direct proportion to the likelihood of a Soviet pullout. The government, military and intelligence service of Pakistan all argued that they could deal far, far better than could the US given ethnic, religious and linguistic similarities between Pakistani and Afghan.
The swirling morass of Afghan groups each competing with all the others for the seat at the head of the governing table when the Red Army left constituted a bewildering and exhausting challenge for the American personnel charged with sorting out the endgame state of play. This actuality did not change the view of many on the ground in Peshawar and environs that the US should keep its hands on rather than turn the mess over to Islamabad.
There was a good reason for this view. The Pakistanis had their own agenda for post-Soviet Afghanistan. They had their own national interests in play in the region. They had their own agent groups, their own candidate for the role of client government in Kabul.
All the Paks wanted from Uncle Sam was a wide open money spigot. Do that, the Islamabad regime stated repeatedly, and we will do the rest. You need not worry your little American heads over the matter.
A series of decisions extending over several months both before and after the Soviet withdrawal incrementally transferred authority over the post-war Afghan government to the Pakistanis. The Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence were good to go on matters. They had a well-primed candidate to take over in Kabul. Taliban.
Taliban, with the aid of ISI and the Pakistani military shot, hacked and bribed their way to power. Not uncontested power to be sure. That pesky Northern Alliance refused to turn its toes up regardless of the best efforts by both Taliban and its sponsor in Islamabad.
The rest, as they say, is history.
History, as the Geek well knows, is susceptible to manifold interpretations, revisions of revisions and the all the other distortions which characterise the development of historical mythology. All too often the myth of history rather than a rational interpretation of actual cause and effect serves as a base of policy. When that happens, the record shows, the result is less than pleasing.
Secretary of State Clinton's tragi-comic and very weird understanding of what role the US played in the creation of Taliban was delivered to a dangerous audience--Congress. A Congress which is considering how much more money to fling at Islamabad and with what goal(s).
Perhaps (to be as charitable as possible) SecState Clinton is not as much of an airhead on history as she appears. Perhaps she is being true to her training as a lawyer. As a good lawyer she is framing what this sort of person calls a "theory" and forcing by distortion the facts to fit the theory. Perhaps she is out to guilt trip the Congress into meeting the Administration's need for more money for Pakistan.
Well, it's a charitable gloss. And, every now and then, the Geek likes to be soft, sweet and nice.
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