Meet A Pair Of Historical Illiterates

Our current Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, is in a neck to neck race with her Clinton administration predecessor, Madeleine Albright, for the title of Historical Clutz of the Year. Both women recently have demonstrated awesome ignorance of important realities of history which have policy implications. These implications are far from trivial.

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,

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

To use far from diplomatic language, that is a crock!

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.

Human Rights And National Interest

Last Monday a group headed by two Clintonites, William Cohen, the one time Secretary of Defense and Madeleine Albright, the Secretary of State, released a report timed to coincide with the Sixtieth Anniversary of the promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations. This report took the position that "genocide" and "mass atrocities" threatened American national security and interests.

The report urged the incoming Obama Administration to reorganise the National Security Council and other components of the national security establishment to reflect this conclusion. While cheerfully acknowledging that the Cohen-Albright report is filled with High Minded, Lofty Thinking, the Geek is unconvinced that enforcement of "human rights," however narrowly they may be defined, is necessarily in the national or strategic interests of the United States.

Even the matter of genocide is not necessarily one that the US should, let alone, must, respond to even in the context of multilateral action. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948 (ratified by the US in 1988) like the Universal Declaration on Human Rights was the product of its time.

Specifically, the Genocide Convention was the product of revulsion throughout the Western world over the state sponsored slaughter of discrete ethno/linguistic/religious communities by the Nazi government of Germany. (It is doubtful that Joe Stalin was all that perturbed by the tales of extermination considering his extensive personal experience with liquidating undesirable populations.)

In 1948 the definition of genocide was easy. The example was right in front of the world's leaders and peoples. In more recent years, the edges of definition have become ever more fuzzy, ever more blurred by propagandists and ideologues alike. The political goals and ideological imperatives override any objective definition and consensual understanding of the actions which genuinely constitute genocide.

The charge of "genocide" is hurled at the Israelis by partisans of the Palestinians. It is heaved by the Kremlin to justify the Russian invasion of Georgia. Taliban chieftains accuse the US of pursuing genocide in Afghanistan. The central regime of the Democratic Republic of the Congo charges the government of Rwanda of genocide by proxy.

You get the point.

The highly undistinguished former Secretary of Defense and his equally-at-sea counterpart from State want the military to incorporate genocide prevention (and, presumably, punishment) in its official doctrine. (Hint to Mr Perry: It's already there in all the doctrinal corpus that covers interventionary operations.) The report also demands that the intelligence community add genocide and related human rights violations to its already overstocked plate of missions and tasks. (Hint to Mr Perry and Ms Albright: Such reporting is already present even if it is not labeled as such.)

The Geek does not contemplate genocide with total detachment and equanimity although he is willing to admit that life as a historian hardens one to the extent and brutality of calculating governmental brutality. He is not willing to buy into the proposition that genocide per se let alone violations of human rights constitutes a threat to American national interests and security which compels response beyond the rhetorical.

There are several historically rooted reasons buttressing the contention that massive violations of human rights including the starkest expression of violation, genocide, does not constitute a threat to national interests and security. Some of these should be self-evident to Mr Perry and Ms Albright as they witnessed them during the Clinton years.

The first of these historical experiences is a negative lesson from a generally positive outcome. The venue was the ruins of Yugoslavia. The time frame was the 1990s. The cause was "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia. The outcome was a seeming success with the atrocities ended and at least some of the major perpetrators arrested.

The important lesson is not that the intervention by NATO worked. While that is true, it is also less important than the negative lesson which must be taken away from the experience. The operation, including the low risk, high payoff bombing campaign worked simply because of the unique nature of the Bosnian context.

The venue was small, easily isolated. The ethnic rivals were easily identified. The support among the larger population for the atrocities committed by the ethnic cleansers was weak and easily eroded. The participants on all sides came to be revolted by their own excesses. Beyond that, there was a growing fear that if the chaos was not ended quickly, it would become an unendable monster as the dead increasingly dictated a policy of revenge and counter-revenge.

There was an almost palpable sense of relief in the disintegrating remnants of Yugoslavia when NATO and the US provided a way out. Promised a chance to end the mutual dance of slaughter without any particular group losing either face or internal cohesion.

In short, Mr Perry, Ms Albright, et al should take a firm grip on the ground truth of Bosnia. It constitutes a success which is nearly non-replicable.

There are other realities which the group headed by the ex-SecDef and ex-SecState should get a grip on. It is even more important that Susan Rice and others in the incoming Obama Administration get a grip on the limitations inherent to any attempt to prevent or punish genocide or other crimes against the purported rights of all humans.

Mr Perry and Ms Albright were around during the debacle of the US intervention in Somalia. They were witnesses if not architects of the disastrous adventure in mission creep which saw the US start out with the High Minded but achievable goal of protecting UN humanitarian relief convoys and distribution centers. Over the span of only a few months, the mission shifted from one of defending convoys and centers to one of suppressing warlords and building a nation.

Insufficient force combined with deficient planning and an excess of ignoring basic intelligence concerning the Somalis and an exuberance of ideology to assure an American defeat. Make no mistake about it. We were defeated in Somalia. Defeated in the field in the course of one botched commando style raid. Defeated in our political will by the televised imagery of American corpses dragged through the dust of Mogadishu.

The defeat of the US in Somalia had long term consequences. Consequences with which we are still dealing. The American defeat convinced Osama bin Ladin and others that the US lacked the stomach for killing and being killed. It convinced these prototypical jihadists that they could achieve their policy goal of forcing the US out of the Mideast if only they could inflict enough casualties in a high profile way on our citizens and troops.

The rest is, as they say, history. More properly, it is the Law of Unintended Consequences at work.

Another argument against taking action whenever and wherever violations of human rights occurs is the nature of international politics. Countries such as China and Russia have a sensitive regard for protecting "internal affairs" from the actions or even the inspection of outsiders. It is necessary to balance our national interests which may well require the understanding cooperation of major actors such as these two permanent members of the Security Council with emotional or ethical repugnance at the acts of governments such as that of Sudan.

In short, we must carefully assess where our genuine interests reside and not be driven by ideological considerations or the emotional gales of people outraged by gory media depictions of atrocities. Every Great Power from Great Britain in the Sudan over a hundred years ago to us in the past decade has suffered the negative consequences of emotional and ideologically driven policy decisions.

A final cautionary note for all of those eager to embrace the propositions of the Perry-Albright report (that means you, Ms Rice,) Well intended humanitarian actions may well have the result of freeing obnoxious governments from the necessity of basic reform. The efforts of High Minded, Lofty Thinking outsiders to alleviate human suffering in the short-term may well result in the paradoxical effect of assuring the suffering continues in the long run.

The paradoxical effects of well-intended efforts at humanitarian relief can be seen time after (literally) bloody time in Africa. Sometimes and under some conditions the best love is tough love, the best humanitarian gesture is doing nothing. There are times and places such as Zimbabwe today where only the absence of aid and the concomitant increase of human suffering will serve to cure the greater ill: The government of Kleptocrat in Chief Robert Mugabe.

It is neither pleasurable nor instructive to stand by with folded arms as people suffer and die. Neither is it pleasurable or instructive to watch as foreign troops fight, kill, and die in order to end atrocities or punish their perpetrators.

That's why foreign policy is usually a matter of choosing the least-worst option. That is why only cool assessment of genuine national interests and not feel good emotions or ideology must be the basis for foreign policy.