Three eighths of the Geek's genome is Apache. Following the death of the Geek's father during World War II, the Geek was raised by two women, one of whom, his grandmother, was more Apache than Anglo.
This piece of information is important because it describes the context which formed the Geek's view of women and gender relations. This, in turn, does much to make explicable the Geek's highly negative view of Islamists and some who may be observant Muslims but not Islamists who, nonetheless, distort and pervert the relation of man and woman under the color of religous belief.
The Apache, in common with many groups hard pressed by environment and enemies, pursued a life which demanded equality between the sexes. Life itself required the full effort and complete cooperation which breeds respect and equality of roles. Apache women were tough. They carried their end of the log without more than routine complaint. Apache men were tough. They killed enemies and nurtured their children with equal enthusiasm.
Core to the Apache definition of manhood was the stricture that one did not count coup against women. Women, even Anglo and Hispano women, were not to be killed. There was no glory in it. There was no credit in rape. There was no status to be found in violence against a woman.
Men protected. Men guarded. Men nurtured. They did not harm women. Not those of the enemy, even the Navajo. And, certainly not the women of their own group. Not their wives. Not their girlfriends. Not their daughters.
Apache women fought alongside their men. They were willing to die in place if that was what life demanded. But the willingness to fight and die if necessary meant they talked. They participated in what passed for political discourse in the constantly fluid anarchy which constituted Apache affairs. They were respected. They had mouths--and brains--to power those orifices.
This background which the Geek absorbed at a very early age is the reason that he finds the oft expressed contempt for women within Islam so incomprehensible. And, so reprehensible.
Even more than the Arab Muslim origin love affair with autocracy. Even more than the never-ending expressions of hatred which color so much of the rhetoric emanating from Muslim countries. Even more than the willingness, even eagerness, of jihadists to count coup, to kill, to maim, to harm non-combatants. More than each and every one of these the Geek finds the constant religiously justified denigration, oppression, harming and murdering of women an alien behavior which rouses not hatred but loathing within him.
There is no way the Geek can make an internal peace with an ideology which either encourages or, at the least does not firmly condemn, such anti-human actions as "honor killings." The Geek cannot but wonder at the warped mentality which would allow a man to kill the daughter created by his own sperm.
The Geek cannot but condemn a belief system as well as those who participate in it which allows, or at the least does not condemn in clear terms, the subjugation of women. The confining of women within the home. The denial of a woman's inherent right to develop her own abilities, her own personality, her own life.
Had Cochise or Geronimo tried to do such a thing, the women would have dealt with the matter quickly and a lot of white eyes would have lived a lot longer. Just a thought: sometimes interpersonal, intimate violence is justifiable--even laudable.
The Muslim men who toss acid in the faces of unveiled women are not men. They are mere imitations. The Muslim men in Somalia or Iran who bury women up to their necks and toss stones with lethal intent are not men. They are poor simulacra.
The Muslims who take pre-pubescent girls as wives just because Mohammad did are not men. They are child molesting sociopaths.
The Muslims who marry second, third or forth wives without gaining the permission of the first or who casually and without notification divorce a wife are not men. They are pathetic self-centered twerps.
The Muslims who murder daughters, wives, sisters in order to defend the "honor" of their family and name are not men. They are warped, twisted perversions of manhood who do not in any way merit the genitals they were born with.
It makes the reality no less abhorrent when the perpetrators of oppression, subjugation, exploitation, maiming and murder invoke a convenient interpretation of a carefully selected text from the Quran or Hadith to justify their action. This sort of theological cherry picking makes an evil reality worse.
It assures that all Muslims including all those observant ones who do not degrade, exploit or maim and murder women are branded with the same black label. Of course, as long as observant Muslims who deplore the evils done in the name of their religion keep silent, avert their eyes, shrug with defeat, they deserve the brand that is put on them.
Real men, the Geek learned in childhood, not only know right from wrong, they fight wrong wherever and whenever they meet it. No matter what the personal cost.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
High Minded Morality Hurts People--Again
Omar al-Bashir is a very unpleasant person. He is almost into the Idi Amin category and could, now that the High Minded are helping him, aspire to the status of Pol Pot.
The International Criminal Court is another UN invention intended to please the High Minded and Lofty Thinking types who really, really believe that there is such a critter as enforceable international law. So far the ICC has enjoyed a somewhat paltry catch, thuggish characters from the former Serbian government and a pair of sociopaths from failed African states.
These international felons were at the time of their arrest former heads of state or members of deposed governments. But, now the ICC seeks the heights of issuing an arrest warrant for a sitting head of state. Presumably, after sitting around one of the marijuana selling cafes in Amsterdam, the worthies of the ICC thought that had they only been around in the 1930s the world could have been spared the worst excesses of Adolph Hitler or Joe Stalin both of whom were well known for wholesale internal massacres undertaken for ideological reasons.
The comparison of Omar al-Bashir with two of the three greatest mass slaughterers in history is unfair to the Sudanese. (For ten points name the third.) Still, his notion of effective counterinsurgency seems akin to the notion of creating a desert and calling it peace. And, there seems little doubt that Omar is motivated by ideological considerations.
Al-Bashir is an Islamist. His supporters and corps of executioners are Islamists. His victims in the main are infidels who according to Islamist interpretations of Islam deserve to be sent to hell with all possible dispatch. A small minority of Omar's targets are merely observant Muslims who fail to support his Allah driven agenda of religious and ethnic purification with sufficient ardor.
There is good and sufficient reason to cap Omar with or without due process of law.
But, the reach of the ICC far exceeds its grasp.
As a drearily predictable consequence of this exercise in judicial hubris a lot of people are going to suffer. Suffer greatly. Suffer, in many cases, unto death.
Just how the hell gripless are the members of the ICC? Did these inflated egos really expect that al-Bashir would fly up to Amsterdam and submit to arrest? Go to the nearest Dutch embassy and ask to be handcuffed forthwith?
Omar, the African Union and the Arab League, to say nothing of Sudan's number one trading partner and foreign investment, China, all warned that any issuance of an arrest warrant would be counterproductive. Even relatively moderate Muslim states such as Jordan evidenced support for their embattled coreligionist.
Making support more than mere rhetoric, a Chinese company signed a contract to build roads two days after the ICC demanded al-Bashir's incarceration pending trial. Hello! Is there anybody home at the ICC.
Omar did the expected. Hot on the heels of the warrant, the Sudanese government cancelled the operating licenses of thirteen international aid organisations and booted their collective posteriors out of the country. As an instant riposte the ICC made threats that the humanitarian crisis expected as a consequence might result in yet more charges against the president of Sudan.
Wow! That ought to give old Omar pause for thought. Right. Fer sure, Dudes of the ICC.
Has no one noticed within the Legions of the High Minded that pressure consolidates political will of the target long before it might crush that will? History is replete with examples of that principle. If history is too tough a subject, consider how a snowball is made.
Right. You squeeze loose flakes and they become a ball. Squeeze long and hard enough the once flaky stuff becomes a headbopping iceball.
Get the picture, you of the High Minded?
Now the ICC, Darling of the High Minded, has placed a couple of million Sudanese in harm's way. In case anyone has missed it the refugee camps in the desert lack a few amenities such as water, food, adequate protection from the elements and basic medical care. All of these were provided by the High Minded outfits expelled by al-Bashir.
So, now what?
One possibility is that the UN Security Council will suspend or otherwise overrule the ICC's action. This is the preferred option as it will allow a face saving way for the situation to be defused and the international aid organisations to return to their essential work.
China's position on the Security Council and its critical role not only in Sudan but in relation to other vexing US concerns makes this action viable. That is if the US goes along with it. We have the veto. And, given the predilections of our ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, coupled with President Obama's inability to "even fake an interest in foreign policy" our use of the veto to block any suspension of the warrant is not an impossible outcome.
There is an alternative. Regime change. But, Sudan today is not Panama twenty years ago. It is not even Afghanistan in 2002.
No national leader of any country well oriented as to time and place is going to support in any way, shape or manner an invasion of Sudan. To the probable dismay of Ms Rice and others of a High Minded nature, ousting Omar at the point of a bayonet and frog marching the perp in handcuffs, shackles and disgrace to the Netherlands is a non-starter.
Reality dictates that unless and until a well-placed bullet preferably fired by a gun in Sudanese hands solves the problem the world is stuck with Omar al-Bashir. The best thing to do is cooperate in a Security Council action to suspend or even quash the warrant and get the aid workers back to the job.
The Geek is not to be numbered among the twenty-six percent of Americans who have a favorable view of the UN and its major subsidiaries. He lost all faith in that Utopian outfit when it shifted its mission from maintaining international peace (its original function) to mucking about in the internal matters of member states.
The al-Bashir episode shows one more time that the UN and all its manifold coercive creations such as the ICC should stick to the task of keeping international peace. Anything else invites entrance into morasses in which there is no easy or clean exit. Walking into the internal dynamics of a state--even a thugocracy such as Sudan--hurts the innocent and assures the guilty have a stronger grip on power.
The International Criminal Court is another UN invention intended to please the High Minded and Lofty Thinking types who really, really believe that there is such a critter as enforceable international law. So far the ICC has enjoyed a somewhat paltry catch, thuggish characters from the former Serbian government and a pair of sociopaths from failed African states.
These international felons were at the time of their arrest former heads of state or members of deposed governments. But, now the ICC seeks the heights of issuing an arrest warrant for a sitting head of state. Presumably, after sitting around one of the marijuana selling cafes in Amsterdam, the worthies of the ICC thought that had they only been around in the 1930s the world could have been spared the worst excesses of Adolph Hitler or Joe Stalin both of whom were well known for wholesale internal massacres undertaken for ideological reasons.
The comparison of Omar al-Bashir with two of the three greatest mass slaughterers in history is unfair to the Sudanese. (For ten points name the third.) Still, his notion of effective counterinsurgency seems akin to the notion of creating a desert and calling it peace. And, there seems little doubt that Omar is motivated by ideological considerations.
Al-Bashir is an Islamist. His supporters and corps of executioners are Islamists. His victims in the main are infidels who according to Islamist interpretations of Islam deserve to be sent to hell with all possible dispatch. A small minority of Omar's targets are merely observant Muslims who fail to support his Allah driven agenda of religious and ethnic purification with sufficient ardor.
There is good and sufficient reason to cap Omar with or without due process of law.
But, the reach of the ICC far exceeds its grasp.
As a drearily predictable consequence of this exercise in judicial hubris a lot of people are going to suffer. Suffer greatly. Suffer, in many cases, unto death.
Just how the hell gripless are the members of the ICC? Did these inflated egos really expect that al-Bashir would fly up to Amsterdam and submit to arrest? Go to the nearest Dutch embassy and ask to be handcuffed forthwith?
Omar, the African Union and the Arab League, to say nothing of Sudan's number one trading partner and foreign investment, China, all warned that any issuance of an arrest warrant would be counterproductive. Even relatively moderate Muslim states such as Jordan evidenced support for their embattled coreligionist.
Making support more than mere rhetoric, a Chinese company signed a contract to build roads two days after the ICC demanded al-Bashir's incarceration pending trial. Hello! Is there anybody home at the ICC.
Omar did the expected. Hot on the heels of the warrant, the Sudanese government cancelled the operating licenses of thirteen international aid organisations and booted their collective posteriors out of the country. As an instant riposte the ICC made threats that the humanitarian crisis expected as a consequence might result in yet more charges against the president of Sudan.
Wow! That ought to give old Omar pause for thought. Right. Fer sure, Dudes of the ICC.
Has no one noticed within the Legions of the High Minded that pressure consolidates political will of the target long before it might crush that will? History is replete with examples of that principle. If history is too tough a subject, consider how a snowball is made.
Right. You squeeze loose flakes and they become a ball. Squeeze long and hard enough the once flaky stuff becomes a headbopping iceball.
Get the picture, you of the High Minded?
Now the ICC, Darling of the High Minded, has placed a couple of million Sudanese in harm's way. In case anyone has missed it the refugee camps in the desert lack a few amenities such as water, food, adequate protection from the elements and basic medical care. All of these were provided by the High Minded outfits expelled by al-Bashir.
So, now what?
One possibility is that the UN Security Council will suspend or otherwise overrule the ICC's action. This is the preferred option as it will allow a face saving way for the situation to be defused and the international aid organisations to return to their essential work.
China's position on the Security Council and its critical role not only in Sudan but in relation to other vexing US concerns makes this action viable. That is if the US goes along with it. We have the veto. And, given the predilections of our ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, coupled with President Obama's inability to "even fake an interest in foreign policy" our use of the veto to block any suspension of the warrant is not an impossible outcome.
There is an alternative. Regime change. But, Sudan today is not Panama twenty years ago. It is not even Afghanistan in 2002.
No national leader of any country well oriented as to time and place is going to support in any way, shape or manner an invasion of Sudan. To the probable dismay of Ms Rice and others of a High Minded nature, ousting Omar at the point of a bayonet and frog marching the perp in handcuffs, shackles and disgrace to the Netherlands is a non-starter.
Reality dictates that unless and until a well-placed bullet preferably fired by a gun in Sudanese hands solves the problem the world is stuck with Omar al-Bashir. The best thing to do is cooperate in a Security Council action to suspend or even quash the warrant and get the aid workers back to the job.
The Geek is not to be numbered among the twenty-six percent of Americans who have a favorable view of the UN and its major subsidiaries. He lost all faith in that Utopian outfit when it shifted its mission from maintaining international peace (its original function) to mucking about in the internal matters of member states.
The al-Bashir episode shows one more time that the UN and all its manifold coercive creations such as the ICC should stick to the task of keeping international peace. Anything else invites entrance into morasses in which there is no easy or clean exit. Walking into the internal dynamics of a state--even a thugocracy such as Sudan--hurts the innocent and assures the guilty have a stronger grip on power.
"Obama Can't Even Fake An Interest..."
According to one of those usual suspects, an unnamed well-placed, well-informed source, The Telegraph (UK) reports that "He (Obama)can't even fake an interest in foreign policy." The occasion for the remark was an analysis of the badly blundered summit meeting with Gordon Brown.
There is no doubt but the president and his people stiffed the British PM. Any number of reasons have been offered. The Man With the Smile was too preoccupied with the economic catastrophe. The Nice Young Man From Chicago was overloaded having never anticipated the workload which piles on the big desk in the Oval. The Big O should never have made the Health Nazi required pledge to quit smoking.
Then there was the unnamed person reputed to reside at the State Department who decried the very notion of a "special relationship" between the US and the UK. This faceless (and clueless) denizen of Foggy Bottom went on to aver that the UK was simply one of a "150 countries" with which the US does diplomatic business. Rarely, if ever, has a policy extending back three-quarters of a century at the least been tossed aside so cavalierly.
It's time for a change!
It's time for President Obama to go to the mountain and have an epiphany.
It's time for the Nice Young Man From Chicago to get a grip on a ground truth or two.
The first of these foundational realities is the economic catastrophe--or more properly the ambit of Obama's and Congress's of "solutions"--encompasses the world. The US cannot fund the awe inspiring deficits proposed without totally draining whatever investment pool might exist following the proposed tax changes. Even without this latter complication, the vast sums must come in large part from foreign investors including sovereign wealth funds and direct government purchases of our notes.
Of course, foreign ownership of US debt has the very real potential of--shall we say--influencing American foreign policy as to both goals and methods. The Remember-We-Hold-Your-Note ploy can have great and increasing power over whoever sits in the Oval or hangs out in Foggy Bottom.
The unpleasant reality which the President has to get a firm grip on is very simple. The world is full of sharks. The smoothest, most implacable, most lethal of these do not have offices on Wall Street. They sit in the plush chairs in the Kremlin, the Forbidden City, Whitehall, the centers of power in Germany, France, Turkey and even Iran.
These people have been circling in the deep and turbulent waters of international politics searching for the scent of blood, finding prey, avoiding attack for a long,long time. In many cases these sharks of diplomacy have been swimming, striking and evading fatal bits since President Obama was organising the "po folk" in Chicago.
Dealing effectively with interlocutors far more experienced than the Nice Young Man From Chicago requires careful preparation, meticulous planning, and a limited agenda. Even with these necessities firmly in place, the worst can happen.
Another nice young man, John Kennedy,discovered this one fine day in Vienna. He was eaten alive by Khrushchev. The prepared, planned, pragmatic, polished man from Harvard was so much fishbait in the mouth of the vastly experienced Soviet leader.
Arguably, the humiliation and anger JFK felt and expressed on the flight back to the US played a role in his later, unfortunately overly robust foreign policy gambits which not only brought the world very,very close to nuclear war, but dropped our little white butts into the deep kimchee of Vietnam.
Having not yet had either an epiphany or a humiliating defeat by one or more of the assorted land sharks from the chancelleries of the world, the Man With The Smile is about to undertake a dive into the shark pool which would have daunted men with the experience and aplomb of Dwight Eisenhower. In a week of flurry Obama is going to take on NATO, the G-20, the EU and, now, Turkey. Along the way the president is presumed to have one-on-ones with such as Brown and Medvedev (and presumably others as well lest Germany or France feel slighted.)
Now, Mr Obama may have warm, fuzzy memories of his Great European Tour last year. The crowds! The adulation! Weren't they just grand? Sure. So what?
Woodrow Wilson had crowds fainting at his feet in 1918. Babies and streets were named after him by the hundreds. The applause could be heard from Paris to Tokyo. Woody ate it up.
So what? The land sharks from the UK, France and even Italy ate the American president for lunch (and dinner, and, come to think about it, breakfast as well.) The upshots from Wilson's adventure in summit diplomacy ultimately brought the world, inter alia, World War II, the mess in the Mideast, the dissolution of Yugoslavia and sundry other more minor debacles.
Of course, Mr Obama cannot aspire to equal the Wilson record--yet.
It would behoove him, however, to consider carefully the record of the last president who could not "even fake" an interest in foreign affairs. He will not have to look far for a full briefing on it. His administration is littered by retreads from the Clinton Administration.
The Clinton record in foreign policy is far from splendid. Indeed the word "disaster" comes creeping into one's mind. His "successes" such as opening free trade with China have sucked money, manufacturing jobs and technology into the grasp of a country which wishes the US anything but good. NAFTA has not paid off any discernible benefits for either the US or Mexico although Canada may have garnered some.
Most notably, Clinton's weak responses to the emergence of al-Qaeda coupled with his all-too-rapid withdrawal of American forces from Somalia brought in their train the current messes in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan. The misinterpreted success in Bosnia gave plausibility to "shock and awe" and adventures in regime change generally.
The Clinton Administration's concern with process over outcome assured that the North Korean problem would not only be unsolved in its earliest stage but would fester on becoming less amenable to solution with each passing year.
If the Geek could talk face-to-face with the Nice Young President, he would say, "Look, bucko, you have an agenda, I know. You want to change the US in many pertinent parts. That's OK. But, the world ain't going to leave you alone to carry out your Saul Alinsky inspired vision. To have a country which can exist as first among equals in the future you had best do one thing..."
The Geek imagines the dude interrupting, "Give it over, fast!"
"You had best not only fake an interest in foreign policy, you had best get a grip on the reality that foreign policy will in large measure dictate your overall success. Your place in history."
Then the Geek will light a cigarette. The president will eat his heart out.
There is no doubt but the president and his people stiffed the British PM. Any number of reasons have been offered. The Man With the Smile was too preoccupied with the economic catastrophe. The Nice Young Man From Chicago was overloaded having never anticipated the workload which piles on the big desk in the Oval. The Big O should never have made the Health Nazi required pledge to quit smoking.
Then there was the unnamed person reputed to reside at the State Department who decried the very notion of a "special relationship" between the US and the UK. This faceless (and clueless) denizen of Foggy Bottom went on to aver that the UK was simply one of a "150 countries" with which the US does diplomatic business. Rarely, if ever, has a policy extending back three-quarters of a century at the least been tossed aside so cavalierly.
It's time for a change!
It's time for President Obama to go to the mountain and have an epiphany.
It's time for the Nice Young Man From Chicago to get a grip on a ground truth or two.
The first of these foundational realities is the economic catastrophe--or more properly the ambit of Obama's and Congress's of "solutions"--encompasses the world. The US cannot fund the awe inspiring deficits proposed without totally draining whatever investment pool might exist following the proposed tax changes. Even without this latter complication, the vast sums must come in large part from foreign investors including sovereign wealth funds and direct government purchases of our notes.
Of course, foreign ownership of US debt has the very real potential of--shall we say--influencing American foreign policy as to both goals and methods. The Remember-We-Hold-Your-Note ploy can have great and increasing power over whoever sits in the Oval or hangs out in Foggy Bottom.
The unpleasant reality which the President has to get a firm grip on is very simple. The world is full of sharks. The smoothest, most implacable, most lethal of these do not have offices on Wall Street. They sit in the plush chairs in the Kremlin, the Forbidden City, Whitehall, the centers of power in Germany, France, Turkey and even Iran.
These people have been circling in the deep and turbulent waters of international politics searching for the scent of blood, finding prey, avoiding attack for a long,long time. In many cases these sharks of diplomacy have been swimming, striking and evading fatal bits since President Obama was organising the "po folk" in Chicago.
Dealing effectively with interlocutors far more experienced than the Nice Young Man From Chicago requires careful preparation, meticulous planning, and a limited agenda. Even with these necessities firmly in place, the worst can happen.
Another nice young man, John Kennedy,discovered this one fine day in Vienna. He was eaten alive by Khrushchev. The prepared, planned, pragmatic, polished man from Harvard was so much fishbait in the mouth of the vastly experienced Soviet leader.
Arguably, the humiliation and anger JFK felt and expressed on the flight back to the US played a role in his later, unfortunately overly robust foreign policy gambits which not only brought the world very,very close to nuclear war, but dropped our little white butts into the deep kimchee of Vietnam.
Having not yet had either an epiphany or a humiliating defeat by one or more of the assorted land sharks from the chancelleries of the world, the Man With The Smile is about to undertake a dive into the shark pool which would have daunted men with the experience and aplomb of Dwight Eisenhower. In a week of flurry Obama is going to take on NATO, the G-20, the EU and, now, Turkey. Along the way the president is presumed to have one-on-ones with such as Brown and Medvedev (and presumably others as well lest Germany or France feel slighted.)
Now, Mr Obama may have warm, fuzzy memories of his Great European Tour last year. The crowds! The adulation! Weren't they just grand? Sure. So what?
Woodrow Wilson had crowds fainting at his feet in 1918. Babies and streets were named after him by the hundreds. The applause could be heard from Paris to Tokyo. Woody ate it up.
So what? The land sharks from the UK, France and even Italy ate the American president for lunch (and dinner, and, come to think about it, breakfast as well.) The upshots from Wilson's adventure in summit diplomacy ultimately brought the world, inter alia, World War II, the mess in the Mideast, the dissolution of Yugoslavia and sundry other more minor debacles.
Of course, Mr Obama cannot aspire to equal the Wilson record--yet.
It would behoove him, however, to consider carefully the record of the last president who could not "even fake" an interest in foreign affairs. He will not have to look far for a full briefing on it. His administration is littered by retreads from the Clinton Administration.
The Clinton record in foreign policy is far from splendid. Indeed the word "disaster" comes creeping into one's mind. His "successes" such as opening free trade with China have sucked money, manufacturing jobs and technology into the grasp of a country which wishes the US anything but good. NAFTA has not paid off any discernible benefits for either the US or Mexico although Canada may have garnered some.
Most notably, Clinton's weak responses to the emergence of al-Qaeda coupled with his all-too-rapid withdrawal of American forces from Somalia brought in their train the current messes in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan. The misinterpreted success in Bosnia gave plausibility to "shock and awe" and adventures in regime change generally.
The Clinton Administration's concern with process over outcome assured that the North Korean problem would not only be unsolved in its earliest stage but would fester on becoming less amenable to solution with each passing year.
If the Geek could talk face-to-face with the Nice Young President, he would say, "Look, bucko, you have an agenda, I know. You want to change the US in many pertinent parts. That's OK. But, the world ain't going to leave you alone to carry out your Saul Alinsky inspired vision. To have a country which can exist as first among equals in the future you had best do one thing..."
The Geek imagines the dude interrupting, "Give it over, fast!"
"You had best not only fake an interest in foreign policy, you had best get a grip on the reality that foreign policy will in large measure dictate your overall success. Your place in history."
Then the Geek will light a cigarette. The president will eat his heart out.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Talk? Turkey? Yes. Taliban? Get A Grip!
Remember that Clinton campaign commercial--the one with the hand reaching for the ringing phone in the middle of the night? Yeah, that one. The best intimation that Obama was, to put it charitably, a naif in foreign affairs.
In the last few days President Obama has again proved that he made a very smart choice by naming Hilary Clinton as SecState. That, along with keeping Bob Gates on as SecDef, alone assures that realism has some small voice in the gales of inexperience and flat-out ineptitude blowing through the current administration.
(Of course, honesty demands noting that Obama off set these outstanding appointment decisions with the blunder of appointing Leon Pinela as DCI and the nearly criminal designation of Saudi and Chinese special pleader, not to say, agent, Chaz Freeman, as capo of the National Intelligence Council.)
After spending the day in Ankara, SecState Clinton announced that Obama will meet his Turkish counterpart within a month. The idea of face time with the Turkish President is an excellent one.
But--there's always the big but, isn't there?
The Man With The Smile has a full plate in early April. He's got the 60th Anniversary NATO meeting. He's got the G-20 conflab where he will have a sit down with Medvedev. He is currently scheduled to end the frantic five days with a get-it-on with EU leaders.
Considering that back on the campaign trail last year Hillary Clinton correctly argued that summit meetings need time and effort in preparation lest they be a waste of political prestige and presidential time, it is quite hard to see how even a man with the capacity for quick study glib of Obama can hope to deal effectively with the slew of critical issues confronting US-Turkish relations. Ms Clinton appears to be violating her own wise counsel.
There is a large backlog of matters littering the diplomatic landscape of our relations with Turkey. Regardless of the status of past issues, Turkey has been playing a key role in several ongoing contretemps. It is (or has been) a go-between in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It has played a low-key intermediary role between the US and Syria.
Surpassing the importance of Turkey in these affairs is its role in the Islamic Central Asian Republics. Even more important over the longer haul is the nature of Turkey's relations with the European Union. It can be either a bridge between the Islamic states and Europe or a penetration asset injecting Muslims into the EU countries.
While the question of Turkey's admission into the EU is one in which we have (or should have) little direct interest, the role Turkey will play should it gain admission is a matter of grave concern to us. The predicate for this concern is simply the question of how Islamist is the current Turkish government? Given that the Turkish population is moving in an accelerating fashion toward the Islamist end of the Muslim world, and given further that the AFP has strong roots in Islamism, this is a vital question.
Should Turkey abandon the secular state orientation of Ataturk, there is the probability of destabilisation as the Army defends the Ataturk vision and fissions within itself in the process. Should Turkey turn openly Islamist and be a member of the EU, the probability of jihadist infiltration in job lots will be very high.
Thus, getting a firm handle on the intentions of AFP and the probability of it going frankly Islamist is critical to our national and strategic interests. Prudence would seem to require a firmer fix on this basic issue before rushing to the summit.
The Islamist question looms large with regard to the major reason that the president will visit Turkey. We want Turkey to play a larger role in achieving some semblance of stability in Afghanistan. (As a sub-text, we probably want to sound out the Turkish position on Iran and Iran's role in the Afghanistan problem.)
Overall, a summit with Turkey is an excellent and long overdue idea. We need conversations at the highest level in order to clear the air on past differences. We need them to lay a basis for cooperation on questions of mutual interest including but not limited to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran. We need them most of all to do all in our power to forestall any further drift to Islamism in Republic of Ataturk.
Obama is reportedly considering authorising talks with "elements" of Taliban. The idea here is to peel the onion of support from the hardest of the hard core of Taliban in Afghanistan. The notion is supposedly predicated upon our experience in Iraq where the Awakening Councils and Concerned Local Citizens were (in part) comprised of "Islamic fundamentalists." (Don't you just love that term? Talk about a null referent!)
If that is the case, the US military is doing the same old-same old. Taking the wrong lesson from a war.
A close parsing of the motivations of those joining the Awakening Councils and Concerned Local Citizens had less to do with theological hair splitting than other, more fundamental matters. Tribal loyalties and rivalries top the list. In a very close second, one finds financial self-interest. In third place resides resentment at the barbaric, arrogant actions of the Islamists such as cutting the fingers off the hands of men so ill-advised as to smoke.
Diplomatic "behemoth" Richard Holbrooke(that's the NYT's term, not the Geek's) is apparently in favor of the talk-to-(moderate)Taliban approach. Drawing on his less-than-reality based rep for having brokered the Dayton Accords which supposedly ended the ethno-religious conflict in former Yugoslavia, Holbrooke's approval is not a plus from the Geek's perspective considering the long, slow, bloody aftermath of Dayton.
The President and his people paid some lip-service to the differences between Iraq and Afghanistan which gives some slight hope that the Man With The Smile will drop this gambit. The time to talk with any, repeat, any Taliban representatives is after the US and its partners have achieved military dominance.
Taliban leaders, even at the lower, less committed level are Islamists. There is a profound difference between Muslims who are observant on the one hand and Islamists on the other.
Islamists take their politics far more seriously. They are given to totalism in goals. They are persistent because they are highly motivated. They are highly motivated because they are True Believers which means their identity as a person comes from their Belief.
That distinction, the difference between an observant Muslim and an Islamist/jihadist is far more critical in dealing with Taliban or al-Qaeda or any similar group than are the matters of tribal identity, economic motivation, or revulsion at the extreme application of Sharia.
Obama and his people had best get a grip on a basement reality of international relations. Haste is typically perceived by adversaries as desperation. The US cannot afford the slightest odor of haste, the faintest whiff of desperation in Afghanistan. Such will serve only to encourage Taliban et al to hang on, fight harder, kill more.
Remember, in an insurgency, the side which can spend more time and accept more frustration is the side which will eventually win. It will win because the other side loses the political and personal will to continue the effort. It is not so much that one side wins so much as the other side decides that it has lost.
The message of history is this: Slow down. Plan. Prepare. Hold summits only when the results are determined in advance. Don't talk to Islamists until you have defeated them.
Ignore these lessons, President Obama, only at your country's peril.
In the last few days President Obama has again proved that he made a very smart choice by naming Hilary Clinton as SecState. That, along with keeping Bob Gates on as SecDef, alone assures that realism has some small voice in the gales of inexperience and flat-out ineptitude blowing through the current administration.
(Of course, honesty demands noting that Obama off set these outstanding appointment decisions with the blunder of appointing Leon Pinela as DCI and the nearly criminal designation of Saudi and Chinese special pleader, not to say, agent, Chaz Freeman, as capo of the National Intelligence Council.)
After spending the day in Ankara, SecState Clinton announced that Obama will meet his Turkish counterpart within a month. The idea of face time with the Turkish President is an excellent one.
But--there's always the big but, isn't there?
The Man With The Smile has a full plate in early April. He's got the 60th Anniversary NATO meeting. He's got the G-20 conflab where he will have a sit down with Medvedev. He is currently scheduled to end the frantic five days with a get-it-on with EU leaders.
Considering that back on the campaign trail last year Hillary Clinton correctly argued that summit meetings need time and effort in preparation lest they be a waste of political prestige and presidential time, it is quite hard to see how even a man with the capacity for quick study glib of Obama can hope to deal effectively with the slew of critical issues confronting US-Turkish relations. Ms Clinton appears to be violating her own wise counsel.
There is a large backlog of matters littering the diplomatic landscape of our relations with Turkey. Regardless of the status of past issues, Turkey has been playing a key role in several ongoing contretemps. It is (or has been) a go-between in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It has played a low-key intermediary role between the US and Syria.
Surpassing the importance of Turkey in these affairs is its role in the Islamic Central Asian Republics. Even more important over the longer haul is the nature of Turkey's relations with the European Union. It can be either a bridge between the Islamic states and Europe or a penetration asset injecting Muslims into the EU countries.
While the question of Turkey's admission into the EU is one in which we have (or should have) little direct interest, the role Turkey will play should it gain admission is a matter of grave concern to us. The predicate for this concern is simply the question of how Islamist is the current Turkish government? Given that the Turkish population is moving in an accelerating fashion toward the Islamist end of the Muslim world, and given further that the AFP has strong roots in Islamism, this is a vital question.
Should Turkey abandon the secular state orientation of Ataturk, there is the probability of destabilisation as the Army defends the Ataturk vision and fissions within itself in the process. Should Turkey turn openly Islamist and be a member of the EU, the probability of jihadist infiltration in job lots will be very high.
Thus, getting a firm handle on the intentions of AFP and the probability of it going frankly Islamist is critical to our national and strategic interests. Prudence would seem to require a firmer fix on this basic issue before rushing to the summit.
The Islamist question looms large with regard to the major reason that the president will visit Turkey. We want Turkey to play a larger role in achieving some semblance of stability in Afghanistan. (As a sub-text, we probably want to sound out the Turkish position on Iran and Iran's role in the Afghanistan problem.)
Overall, a summit with Turkey is an excellent and long overdue idea. We need conversations at the highest level in order to clear the air on past differences. We need them to lay a basis for cooperation on questions of mutual interest including but not limited to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran. We need them most of all to do all in our power to forestall any further drift to Islamism in Republic of Ataturk.
Obama is reportedly considering authorising talks with "elements" of Taliban. The idea here is to peel the onion of support from the hardest of the hard core of Taliban in Afghanistan. The notion is supposedly predicated upon our experience in Iraq where the Awakening Councils and Concerned Local Citizens were (in part) comprised of "Islamic fundamentalists." (Don't you just love that term? Talk about a null referent!)
If that is the case, the US military is doing the same old-same old. Taking the wrong lesson from a war.
A close parsing of the motivations of those joining the Awakening Councils and Concerned Local Citizens had less to do with theological hair splitting than other, more fundamental matters. Tribal loyalties and rivalries top the list. In a very close second, one finds financial self-interest. In third place resides resentment at the barbaric, arrogant actions of the Islamists such as cutting the fingers off the hands of men so ill-advised as to smoke.
Diplomatic "behemoth" Richard Holbrooke(that's the NYT's term, not the Geek's) is apparently in favor of the talk-to-(moderate)Taliban approach. Drawing on his less-than-reality based rep for having brokered the Dayton Accords which supposedly ended the ethno-religious conflict in former Yugoslavia, Holbrooke's approval is not a plus from the Geek's perspective considering the long, slow, bloody aftermath of Dayton.
The President and his people paid some lip-service to the differences between Iraq and Afghanistan which gives some slight hope that the Man With The Smile will drop this gambit. The time to talk with any, repeat, any Taliban representatives is after the US and its partners have achieved military dominance.
Taliban leaders, even at the lower, less committed level are Islamists. There is a profound difference between Muslims who are observant on the one hand and Islamists on the other.
Islamists take their politics far more seriously. They are given to totalism in goals. They are persistent because they are highly motivated. They are highly motivated because they are True Believers which means their identity as a person comes from their Belief.
That distinction, the difference between an observant Muslim and an Islamist/jihadist is far more critical in dealing with Taliban or al-Qaeda or any similar group than are the matters of tribal identity, economic motivation, or revulsion at the extreme application of Sharia.
Obama and his people had best get a grip on a basement reality of international relations. Haste is typically perceived by adversaries as desperation. The US cannot afford the slightest odor of haste, the faintest whiff of desperation in Afghanistan. Such will serve only to encourage Taliban et al to hang on, fight harder, kill more.
Remember, in an insurgency, the side which can spend more time and accept more frustration is the side which will eventually win. It will win because the other side loses the political and personal will to continue the effort. It is not so much that one side wins so much as the other side decides that it has lost.
The message of history is this: Slow down. Plan. Prepare. Hold summits only when the results are determined in advance. Don't talk to Islamists until you have defeated them.
Ignore these lessons, President Obama, only at your country's peril.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
That Isn't Quite Cricket, Old Boy
Cricket is the perfect British sport. It is slow paced, interminable in duration, impossible for an outsider to understand and governed by rules which are again incomprehensible to the outsider. And, as was reputed to the former British Empire, it is a sport upon which the sun never sets.
The attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore the other day is an excellent, perhaps perfect, example of the latest fashion in Islamist terrorism. It was fast paced--except for the exfiltration. (At least two of the trigger-pullers are caught on tape strolling down the street, automatic weapons dangling loosely in their hands, until they casually hop on a motorbike and scoot off into the metaphorical sunset.)
Unlike the typical test match, the attack was short in length although the debate over the causes and consequences is likely to last longer than three matches taped end-to-end. Again, quite unlike the sport at the center of the storm over Pakistan, the attack is not impossible for the observer to comprehend and the rules not nearly so obscure.
While the target was ostensibly the Sri Lankan team--probably in an attempt to introduce a measure of ambiguity into questions of motivation and goal, the substantial target was the Pakistani government. There are several reasons behind this statement.
The action demonstrated the less than competent nature of the Pakistani police and security forces. Even though several policemen died in the attack, neither they nor their surviving colleagues were able either to stop the attack or kill any of the attackers. Heck, as the videotapes show, the police could not even encourage the shooters to run rather than walk to their getaway vehicles. Given that the government assured the visiting Sri Lankan team that it would receive "presidential level" security, the resulting affair indicates that level of protection is very low at best.
The action will have several consequences. All of these are bad from the perspective of the more than a slightly beleaguered government.
The inability of the government to quickly identify, arrest and effectively prosecute the shooters or those behind them will further erode public confidence in Islamabad's ability to assure the internal peace and security of the nation.
In this context it should be recalled that more than 8,000 Pakistani civilians died as a result of terrorist actions in 2008. There were more than 2,300 separate attacks including more than three dozen suicide bombings that year.
Many of these attacks were followed by waves of arrests. But, there were few,if any, prosecutions let alone convictions. Indeed there have been no convictions of a person involved in a high profile terrorist act since 2002. If this attack follows the standard scenario it will be one more replay of the famed line in "Casablanca" where Claude Rains orders his men to "arrest the usual suspects."
Another negative for Islamabad comes from the reality that the greatest fatality in the shooting was cricket in Pakistan. At least in international terms, cricket is dead. Certainly Pakistan's chances of hosting the World Cup of Cricket are deader than King Tut. Given that the sport has very high status in the Sub-continent, this is not an inconsiderable loss.
Finally, the attack has given a new life and increased impetus to the growing fears that Pakistan is a failing state. It has provided additional evidence to support the contention that Pakistan is soon to go down the Islamist tubes. This is underscored by the growing buzz to the effect that the security authorities at some level must be in cahoots with the Islamist jihadists who carried out the exercise.
The greatest beneficiary of the attack is the Islamist groups such as Pakistani Taliban. This is true even in the (unlikely) event that the Islamists were not directly involved in planning or executing the attack.
Anything that serves to provoke the government to burdensome acts of repression benefits those who oppose both the government and the status quo. So wrote Carlos Marighela. The historical record shows his counsel to have been both wise and correct.
Anything which shows or seems to show that the government is weak, irresolute or lacking the will to defend itself against insurgency benefits only the insurgent. This little truism has been known by every insurgent leader since Sam Adams. It is particularly true with respect to Pakistan with its need for both understanding and support from outside regimes which may be skeptical of Islamabad's will and intent in countering the spread of Islamism and its armed, evil twin, jihadism.
Anything which erodes the economic base of the country benefits the insurgents-in-waiting as declining economic expectations increase political disaffiliation. This attack cannot but scare off any tourists so far dauntless enough to include Pakistan in their plans. The same may be averred regarding foreign investment. Pakistan needs money and this attack will not help the government achieve that goal.
The longer the actual authorship of the attack goes either unknown or insufficiently proved the better--from the perspective not only of the author of the action but of the Islamist insurgents. The beauty of ambiguous signature operations is that it allows all observers to use them as palimpsests upon which to imprint their favorite villain du jour. Beauty also lies in the way in which ambiguity forces the government to flail at shadows, unsure as to where their blows are directed or upon whom they land.
As an added feature, ambiguity assures that the story will have longer legs. It serves to push the story into successive news cycles which, in turn, propels the narrative into more and more minds around the world. This makes sure the government is perceived in an every darker way.
The bad guys have bowled. The batsman from Islamabad may be holding his bat, but he can't even get enough of a swing to make a sticky wicket.
The attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore the other day is an excellent, perhaps perfect, example of the latest fashion in Islamist terrorism. It was fast paced--except for the exfiltration. (At least two of the trigger-pullers are caught on tape strolling down the street, automatic weapons dangling loosely in their hands, until they casually hop on a motorbike and scoot off into the metaphorical sunset.)
Unlike the typical test match, the attack was short in length although the debate over the causes and consequences is likely to last longer than three matches taped end-to-end. Again, quite unlike the sport at the center of the storm over Pakistan, the attack is not impossible for the observer to comprehend and the rules not nearly so obscure.
While the target was ostensibly the Sri Lankan team--probably in an attempt to introduce a measure of ambiguity into questions of motivation and goal, the substantial target was the Pakistani government. There are several reasons behind this statement.
The action demonstrated the less than competent nature of the Pakistani police and security forces. Even though several policemen died in the attack, neither they nor their surviving colleagues were able either to stop the attack or kill any of the attackers. Heck, as the videotapes show, the police could not even encourage the shooters to run rather than walk to their getaway vehicles. Given that the government assured the visiting Sri Lankan team that it would receive "presidential level" security, the resulting affair indicates that level of protection is very low at best.
The action will have several consequences. All of these are bad from the perspective of the more than a slightly beleaguered government.
The inability of the government to quickly identify, arrest and effectively prosecute the shooters or those behind them will further erode public confidence in Islamabad's ability to assure the internal peace and security of the nation.
In this context it should be recalled that more than 8,000 Pakistani civilians died as a result of terrorist actions in 2008. There were more than 2,300 separate attacks including more than three dozen suicide bombings that year.
Many of these attacks were followed by waves of arrests. But, there were few,if any, prosecutions let alone convictions. Indeed there have been no convictions of a person involved in a high profile terrorist act since 2002. If this attack follows the standard scenario it will be one more replay of the famed line in "Casablanca" where Claude Rains orders his men to "arrest the usual suspects."
Another negative for Islamabad comes from the reality that the greatest fatality in the shooting was cricket in Pakistan. At least in international terms, cricket is dead. Certainly Pakistan's chances of hosting the World Cup of Cricket are deader than King Tut. Given that the sport has very high status in the Sub-continent, this is not an inconsiderable loss.
Finally, the attack has given a new life and increased impetus to the growing fears that Pakistan is a failing state. It has provided additional evidence to support the contention that Pakistan is soon to go down the Islamist tubes. This is underscored by the growing buzz to the effect that the security authorities at some level must be in cahoots with the Islamist jihadists who carried out the exercise.
The greatest beneficiary of the attack is the Islamist groups such as Pakistani Taliban. This is true even in the (unlikely) event that the Islamists were not directly involved in planning or executing the attack.
Anything that serves to provoke the government to burdensome acts of repression benefits those who oppose both the government and the status quo. So wrote Carlos Marighela. The historical record shows his counsel to have been both wise and correct.
Anything which shows or seems to show that the government is weak, irresolute or lacking the will to defend itself against insurgency benefits only the insurgent. This little truism has been known by every insurgent leader since Sam Adams. It is particularly true with respect to Pakistan with its need for both understanding and support from outside regimes which may be skeptical of Islamabad's will and intent in countering the spread of Islamism and its armed, evil twin, jihadism.
Anything which erodes the economic base of the country benefits the insurgents-in-waiting as declining economic expectations increase political disaffiliation. This attack cannot but scare off any tourists so far dauntless enough to include Pakistan in their plans. The same may be averred regarding foreign investment. Pakistan needs money and this attack will not help the government achieve that goal.
The longer the actual authorship of the attack goes either unknown or insufficiently proved the better--from the perspective not only of the author of the action but of the Islamist insurgents. The beauty of ambiguous signature operations is that it allows all observers to use them as palimpsests upon which to imprint their favorite villain du jour. Beauty also lies in the way in which ambiguity forces the government to flail at shadows, unsure as to where their blows are directed or upon whom they land.
As an added feature, ambiguity assures that the story will have longer legs. It serves to push the story into successive news cycles which, in turn, propels the narrative into more and more minds around the world. This makes sure the government is perceived in an every darker way.
The bad guys have bowled. The batsman from Islamabad may be holding his bat, but he can't even get enough of a swing to make a sticky wicket.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Just Another Dull Day On The Planet
It's been another of those typical days in the neighborhood. Nothing too dramatic. Nothing too dismal. Nothing too exciting. Just the same old same old.
The killing of Guinea-Bissau's President Jaoa Bernardo Vieira was hardly enough to stifle a yawn. It was predictable. Viera's days were numbered--and not with a large figure--when his goons were believed by members of the G-B military to have been behind the murder of chief of staff General Batista Tagme Na Waie by a bomb last Friday.
The two old comrades-in-arms from the glory days of the insurgency against Portugal thirty plus years ago have been at mutual gunpoint for years. The capping of one would invariably lead to the dusting of the other. So it has.
The only interesting wrinkle to this otherwise humdrum piece of commonplace politics African style is G-B's role as a major drug transhipment point. For South American exporters of cocaine G-B is a reasonable distance for twin engine aircraft delivery of cargo. Making G-B even more attractive as an intermediate stop for drugs en route to Europe is the absence of 1) a navy, 2) a competent army, 3) a competent internal security force. Elevating the desirability of G-B yet another notch is the presence of 1) extreme poverty, 2) extreme poverty, 3) extreme poverty.
G-B has no economic reason to exist. It's only export product is cashew nuts for which the global market is quite finite. Given the paucity of resources, the presence of overgrazing and overfishing, a life expectancy of 45.5 years and a per capita annual income of roughly six hundred bucks, it's not surprising that the place is awash in corruption and folks desperate to make a buck or two lending a hand to the flow of illegal drugs from South America to emporia in Europe.
The presence of the South American cartels in G-B raises the interesting possibility that the short wave of high-level killings was sponsored from without. The hits were carried off with a lack of collateral deaths which is remarkable in G-B's rather sanguinary history. The Geek wonders if each of the newly dead G-B heavies was a client of a different cartel.
In any event the coke will keep on flowing through since in Europe, as in the US, an old Bob Dylan lyric applies, "Everybody must get stoned." Which brings up another lyric from the Sixties applicable to the moralists and drug cops today, "When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?"
Elsewhere on the planet SecState Clinton batted two for two in the never-ending World Series of Realpolitik. (Gotta give the lady credit. Foreign policy seems much more her metier than health care reform.)
Reportedly she told the UAE ForMin that she held no hopes for a favorable Iranian response to the recent American demarche on holding some sort of conversations. How right she is.
Whether inadvertent or not, the Iranians showed their intransigence in an unusual way. The Tehran government stated that the Iranian filmakers would not be allowed to meet with a visiting bunch from Hollywood unless and until the evil Americans apologised for anti-Iranian propaganda in the movies. The mullahs' mouthpiece specifically referenced the hit film 300 for portraying the ancient Persians as evil, mean, nasty and aggressive in their wars with the Greeks. The Tehran crew was also perturbed by The Wrestler for reasons which elude rational consideration.
Thus the demands from Iranian president Ahmedinejad for US apologies over all and sundry continue to be the theme du jour. Considering that reality, SecState Clinton sounded almost optimistic in her expectation of nothing.
If SecState Clinton wants to continue her run of realism, she had best not be taken in by Vladimir Putin. And, she would be well advised to warn her boss not to swallow the patented Vladimir (Hey-I'm-The Guy-You-Can-Do-Business-With) Putin pose. Both W. Bush and Bill Clinton took the Putin bait. Both found out that Putin was a practiced, smooth tergiversator. Right now, with Russia foundering in a mixture of the Spanish Disease and falling oil prices, Putin needs a good anti-American message to whip up weakening support from the elite and general public alike.
On the Great Global Financial Meltdown front, the expected ruled one more time. The Germans--while maintaining that they were anything but protectionist--blocked the creation of a relief and stimulus fund for the Eastern European economies as proposed by Hungary. Thus Germany joins France in a policy of being protectionist while assuring any who might believe that they were not. The United States of Europe is still lost in the haze of future dreams. Nationalism is not dead, no matter what the various European elites might wish.
The award today for the most inventive gambit in foreign relations goes to China. The mendacious bid by a noted Chinese art dealer for the pair of Qing dynasty bronzes offered at the YSL auction not only stopped the auction but called global attention to the matter of repatriating cultural objects looted by Western armies, officials and other plunderers. This is a very real issue not only for China but a number of other countries such as Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Iraq and even Iran. The issue is not one of legal claims but moral ones.
Yesterday's swag is today's expression of national heritage and pride. The loot of long ago invaders, colonial officials, and early period archaeologists is now a matter of tying a present day society with its past, with its presumed glories, its assumed historical depth. Again, nationalism is not dead. It is not even on life support regardless of the fondest hopes of some.
Just a standard issue day on the planet. A mix of the expected and the unusual. An uneasy blend of the national and the transnational. A lesson or two of the power of history and national identity. A cautionary note or two for those who hope too much or believe too much, for those who don't get a grip on reality.
The killing of Guinea-Bissau's President Jaoa Bernardo Vieira was hardly enough to stifle a yawn. It was predictable. Viera's days were numbered--and not with a large figure--when his goons were believed by members of the G-B military to have been behind the murder of chief of staff General Batista Tagme Na Waie by a bomb last Friday.
The two old comrades-in-arms from the glory days of the insurgency against Portugal thirty plus years ago have been at mutual gunpoint for years. The capping of one would invariably lead to the dusting of the other. So it has.
The only interesting wrinkle to this otherwise humdrum piece of commonplace politics African style is G-B's role as a major drug transhipment point. For South American exporters of cocaine G-B is a reasonable distance for twin engine aircraft delivery of cargo. Making G-B even more attractive as an intermediate stop for drugs en route to Europe is the absence of 1) a navy, 2) a competent army, 3) a competent internal security force. Elevating the desirability of G-B yet another notch is the presence of 1) extreme poverty, 2) extreme poverty, 3) extreme poverty.
G-B has no economic reason to exist. It's only export product is cashew nuts for which the global market is quite finite. Given the paucity of resources, the presence of overgrazing and overfishing, a life expectancy of 45.5 years and a per capita annual income of roughly six hundred bucks, it's not surprising that the place is awash in corruption and folks desperate to make a buck or two lending a hand to the flow of illegal drugs from South America to emporia in Europe.
The presence of the South American cartels in G-B raises the interesting possibility that the short wave of high-level killings was sponsored from without. The hits were carried off with a lack of collateral deaths which is remarkable in G-B's rather sanguinary history. The Geek wonders if each of the newly dead G-B heavies was a client of a different cartel.
In any event the coke will keep on flowing through since in Europe, as in the US, an old Bob Dylan lyric applies, "Everybody must get stoned." Which brings up another lyric from the Sixties applicable to the moralists and drug cops today, "When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?"
Elsewhere on the planet SecState Clinton batted two for two in the never-ending World Series of Realpolitik. (Gotta give the lady credit. Foreign policy seems much more her metier than health care reform.)
Reportedly she told the UAE ForMin that she held no hopes for a favorable Iranian response to the recent American demarche on holding some sort of conversations. How right she is.
Whether inadvertent or not, the Iranians showed their intransigence in an unusual way. The Tehran government stated that the Iranian filmakers would not be allowed to meet with a visiting bunch from Hollywood unless and until the evil Americans apologised for anti-Iranian propaganda in the movies. The mullahs' mouthpiece specifically referenced the hit film 300 for portraying the ancient Persians as evil, mean, nasty and aggressive in their wars with the Greeks. The Tehran crew was also perturbed by The Wrestler for reasons which elude rational consideration.
Thus the demands from Iranian president Ahmedinejad for US apologies over all and sundry continue to be the theme du jour. Considering that reality, SecState Clinton sounded almost optimistic in her expectation of nothing.
If SecState Clinton wants to continue her run of realism, she had best not be taken in by Vladimir Putin. And, she would be well advised to warn her boss not to swallow the patented Vladimir (Hey-I'm-The Guy-You-Can-Do-Business-With) Putin pose. Both W. Bush and Bill Clinton took the Putin bait. Both found out that Putin was a practiced, smooth tergiversator. Right now, with Russia foundering in a mixture of the Spanish Disease and falling oil prices, Putin needs a good anti-American message to whip up weakening support from the elite and general public alike.
On the Great Global Financial Meltdown front, the expected ruled one more time. The Germans--while maintaining that they were anything but protectionist--blocked the creation of a relief and stimulus fund for the Eastern European economies as proposed by Hungary. Thus Germany joins France in a policy of being protectionist while assuring any who might believe that they were not. The United States of Europe is still lost in the haze of future dreams. Nationalism is not dead, no matter what the various European elites might wish.
The award today for the most inventive gambit in foreign relations goes to China. The mendacious bid by a noted Chinese art dealer for the pair of Qing dynasty bronzes offered at the YSL auction not only stopped the auction but called global attention to the matter of repatriating cultural objects looted by Western armies, officials and other plunderers. This is a very real issue not only for China but a number of other countries such as Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Iraq and even Iran. The issue is not one of legal claims but moral ones.
Yesterday's swag is today's expression of national heritage and pride. The loot of long ago invaders, colonial officials, and early period archaeologists is now a matter of tying a present day society with its past, with its presumed glories, its assumed historical depth. Again, nationalism is not dead. It is not even on life support regardless of the fondest hopes of some.
Just a standard issue day on the planet. A mix of the expected and the unusual. An uneasy blend of the national and the transnational. A lesson or two of the power of history and national identity. A cautionary note or two for those who hope too much or believe too much, for those who don't get a grip on reality.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Initiative--You Can't Win A War Without It
On the tactical level in Afghanistan, US and other International Security Assistance Force members may or may not have the initiative. They may or may not be carrying the fight to the enemy, initiating combat, forcing the tempo of combat. The picture on that level is far from clear.
On the operational level and the even more rarefied stratum of strategy, the reality is more clear. On these two levels of war, the US and its partners do not have any semblance of initiative. This means, if history is any guide, there is no chance of winning or even achieving the minimum strategic goal of "not losing."
The reason behind this highly unfortunate state of affairs is simple. The US and therefore its partners in Afghanistan have no idea what the goal of the war is. There has been no consistent policy vision. The US has failed completely to define just what the "better state of peace" it hoped to achieve through war might be.
The Geek has to back off a bit and take a running start at the nature of the problem and why it may now be a problem without a good solution.
Wars are not irrational spasms of bad temper. War is part of politics, it is diplomacy with an attitude. The goal of war, like that of diplomacy, is the achievement of a policy goal. In war the policy goal constitutes a better state of peace--at least from the perspective of the victor. Or, in the case of the Korean War paradigm which governs most interventionary operations, the "not-loser."
The better state of peace has to be carefully crafted as a policy goal before the guns of intervention fire. The nature and character of the goal allows the definition of victory (or "not-losing.) If the goal is the hole at the end of the fairway, then the definition of victory is the flag marking the hole and "not losing" is the green surrounding it.
Before the instruments of national power can be assembled and orchestrated in a viable theory of victory, the establishment of the goal and the definition of minimal as well as maximal success must be undertaken. In short, don't put boots on the ground and fingers on the trigger without a clear end purpose. Without this prerequisite, all that can be done is killing people and breaking things without any chance of achieving a better state of peace.
World War II made it easy, too easy, deceptively easy for the US to establish a goal and define victory. The goal was the complete suppression of the aggressor states. The definition of victory was unconditional surrender by the aggressors.
Badda-bing! A better state of peace.
Korea showed the total war paradigm was not sovereign. The nuclear stalemate assured that the good ole days of squashing the evil enemy so that good might reign supreme would simply be a short cut to national suicide.
Interventionary wars such as Vietnam or Afghanistan (or even the invasion of Iraq, but detailed consideration of that awaits another post) require very, very careful thinking and planning to establish--slow down, important words come next--an achievable better state of peace. Very, very careful planning is also required to define the end goal of the operation in a way which is realistically relevant to the nature of the human terrain over which the war will be fought.
This careful, realistic planning was not done prior to putting bombs and boots on the ground in Afghanistan. There was no discussion, let alone consensus on what a better state of peace might be in the wake of war. There was no unitary, consistent and realistic goal toward which the instruments of national power were to be directed. Thus, there was neither a definition of minimal and maximal success nor the emergence of a coherent theory of victory which pitted the strengths of the US against the weaknesses of the enemy.
At that point, moments before the first bombs or troops hit the ground of Afghanistan, our strategic pooch was well and completely screwed.
We were doomed even before getting to Tora Bora to flounder and flail. To kill and be killed. To wander clueless in the deserts of policy blunder.
Technology and valor or blood and money alone have not and can not redeem the initial failure. These factors no matter how critical they are to the waging of war will not assure the achievement of either a better state of peace or the minimal goal of not losing.
Right now, today if not sooner, the US must decide just what war it is fighting. And just what the better state of peace might be. It must at least understand that without achieving the minimum of not losing, the bad guys have won and will keep on winning.
Seven plus years ago, the W. Bush administration had two clear, distinctly different options.
The US could mount a simple, direct, short-duration punitive expedition against al-Qaeda and its Taliban government supporter. The better state of peace would be characterised by the destruction of these two hostile entities. The goal would be the removal of al-Qaeda and Taliban as effective threats to the US. Success would be defined by dead leaders and followers in both al-Qaeda and Taliban.
The other option was that of building a new nation in Afghanistan. The better state of peace in this case would be characterised not simply by the removal of al-Qaeda and Taliban as threats but their replacement by a secular, multi-party democracy complete with a functioning independent judiciary and absence of corruption and the other features which have taken the West and the US centuries to develop.
The very breadth of this vision of a better state of peace made goal setting impossible and defining success even more so.
Unfortunately for Afghans and Americans alike, the W. Bush administration after having stated that we were not going to undertake "nationbuilding" went ahead to do just that.
Now we have no idea just what the goal in the continued war might be. As a result we do not, have not had, and can not achieve the initiative at the operational or strategic levels of the war no matter what transpires at the lower depths where men kill and die.
The enemy, Taliban and its ilk, have the initiative because they have a clear and realistic vision of a better state of peace. Their better state is defined by the establishment of an Emirate of Afghanistan where Islamist interpretations of Sharia reign supreme.
They can and do have a goal--the forced removal of US and other foreign forces from Afghanistan along with Afghan apostate lackeys of the Crusaders.
They have an equally clear definition of victory. The ass of the last American soldier getting on the last plane out of Kabul.
Because their better state of peace, policy goal and definition of victory are coherent to the point of unity, the bad guys of Taliban have an effective theory of victory. There is nothing new in it. It is the standard issue insurgent theory of victory.
This standard issue has three components: Outlast the other side's political will to continue. Inflict enough casualties so that the counterinsurgents realise the cost far outweighs the benefits. Demobilise support from the indigenous government and mobilise support from the increasingly war weary uncommitted majority to the side of the insurgent.
To date, the resurgent Taliban has practiced the traditional, typically successful insurgent theory of victory quite well.
But not perfectly--as when it undertook a massively counterproductive suicide bombing campaign against Afghan civilians that had the latter running in droves to the government and its foreign supporters. But, while imperfect, Taliban has followed the historically sanctioned script well enough to have the initiative. Well enough to be winning today.
The man who was selected by the W. Bush administration to be Our Man in Kabul, Hamid Karzai, at least realises dimly that Taliban is winning and winning rapidly. He is apparently aware that he does not have the reflexive support from the Obama administration that he enjoyed with its predecessor. It apparently has come to his attention that he is not the most popular man in Afghanistan and that his version of a government is seen derisively and dismissively throughout the fractious land.
Hamid Karzai is making a desperate grab for the initiative. While his sudden decision to call for snap elections in April rather than wait for the 20 August date set by the Independent Election Commission is correctly seen by many as a bid for power, a grasp at the appearance of legitimacy, it is more than that. Karzai's probably very ill-considered snap election demand is a bid for the initiative.
He wants to wrong foot his political opponents, true. But, there must be at least the vague hope that if he is elected by the population rump that might conceivably be able to vote in April, he will be in a position to make a deal with Taliban and oust the foreigners without losing his head (literally) in the process.
Right next door the Pakistani government has made a deal in Swat while their army claims military victory in one of the less important Frontier Agencies against Taliban. Karzai probably has the dream of doing something similar. Taliban can have Sharia. He keeps his head and some power for at least some time.
The US and its partners have made their "concerns" known to Karzai, but it is debatable how much leverage the foreigners have at this juncture. If we were clearly winning, if we had demonstrable initiative against Taliban, we would have the necessary juice to force Karzai to keep to the original schedule.
Of course, if we were winning, Karzai never would have made his play in the first place.
Fortunately for our collective ego as well as the political future of President Obama, we have a fall back position. When the boots of the last American soldier hit the deck of the last flight out of Bagram and the green flag of Taliban flies over Kabul, we can blame the whole defeat on Pakistan.
Well, that will be only a partial lie.
On the operational level and the even more rarefied stratum of strategy, the reality is more clear. On these two levels of war, the US and its partners do not have any semblance of initiative. This means, if history is any guide, there is no chance of winning or even achieving the minimum strategic goal of "not losing."
The reason behind this highly unfortunate state of affairs is simple. The US and therefore its partners in Afghanistan have no idea what the goal of the war is. There has been no consistent policy vision. The US has failed completely to define just what the "better state of peace" it hoped to achieve through war might be.
The Geek has to back off a bit and take a running start at the nature of the problem and why it may now be a problem without a good solution.
Wars are not irrational spasms of bad temper. War is part of politics, it is diplomacy with an attitude. The goal of war, like that of diplomacy, is the achievement of a policy goal. In war the policy goal constitutes a better state of peace--at least from the perspective of the victor. Or, in the case of the Korean War paradigm which governs most interventionary operations, the "not-loser."
The better state of peace has to be carefully crafted as a policy goal before the guns of intervention fire. The nature and character of the goal allows the definition of victory (or "not-losing.) If the goal is the hole at the end of the fairway, then the definition of victory is the flag marking the hole and "not losing" is the green surrounding it.
Before the instruments of national power can be assembled and orchestrated in a viable theory of victory, the establishment of the goal and the definition of minimal as well as maximal success must be undertaken. In short, don't put boots on the ground and fingers on the trigger without a clear end purpose. Without this prerequisite, all that can be done is killing people and breaking things without any chance of achieving a better state of peace.
World War II made it easy, too easy, deceptively easy for the US to establish a goal and define victory. The goal was the complete suppression of the aggressor states. The definition of victory was unconditional surrender by the aggressors.
Badda-bing! A better state of peace.
Korea showed the total war paradigm was not sovereign. The nuclear stalemate assured that the good ole days of squashing the evil enemy so that good might reign supreme would simply be a short cut to national suicide.
Interventionary wars such as Vietnam or Afghanistan (or even the invasion of Iraq, but detailed consideration of that awaits another post) require very, very careful thinking and planning to establish--slow down, important words come next--an achievable better state of peace. Very, very careful planning is also required to define the end goal of the operation in a way which is realistically relevant to the nature of the human terrain over which the war will be fought.
This careful, realistic planning was not done prior to putting bombs and boots on the ground in Afghanistan. There was no discussion, let alone consensus on what a better state of peace might be in the wake of war. There was no unitary, consistent and realistic goal toward which the instruments of national power were to be directed. Thus, there was neither a definition of minimal and maximal success nor the emergence of a coherent theory of victory which pitted the strengths of the US against the weaknesses of the enemy.
At that point, moments before the first bombs or troops hit the ground of Afghanistan, our strategic pooch was well and completely screwed.
We were doomed even before getting to Tora Bora to flounder and flail. To kill and be killed. To wander clueless in the deserts of policy blunder.
Technology and valor or blood and money alone have not and can not redeem the initial failure. These factors no matter how critical they are to the waging of war will not assure the achievement of either a better state of peace or the minimal goal of not losing.
Right now, today if not sooner, the US must decide just what war it is fighting. And just what the better state of peace might be. It must at least understand that without achieving the minimum of not losing, the bad guys have won and will keep on winning.
Seven plus years ago, the W. Bush administration had two clear, distinctly different options.
The US could mount a simple, direct, short-duration punitive expedition against al-Qaeda and its Taliban government supporter. The better state of peace would be characterised by the destruction of these two hostile entities. The goal would be the removal of al-Qaeda and Taliban as effective threats to the US. Success would be defined by dead leaders and followers in both al-Qaeda and Taliban.
The other option was that of building a new nation in Afghanistan. The better state of peace in this case would be characterised not simply by the removal of al-Qaeda and Taliban as threats but their replacement by a secular, multi-party democracy complete with a functioning independent judiciary and absence of corruption and the other features which have taken the West and the US centuries to develop.
The very breadth of this vision of a better state of peace made goal setting impossible and defining success even more so.
Unfortunately for Afghans and Americans alike, the W. Bush administration after having stated that we were not going to undertake "nationbuilding" went ahead to do just that.
Now we have no idea just what the goal in the continued war might be. As a result we do not, have not had, and can not achieve the initiative at the operational or strategic levels of the war no matter what transpires at the lower depths where men kill and die.
The enemy, Taliban and its ilk, have the initiative because they have a clear and realistic vision of a better state of peace. Their better state is defined by the establishment of an Emirate of Afghanistan where Islamist interpretations of Sharia reign supreme.
They can and do have a goal--the forced removal of US and other foreign forces from Afghanistan along with Afghan apostate lackeys of the Crusaders.
They have an equally clear definition of victory. The ass of the last American soldier getting on the last plane out of Kabul.
Because their better state of peace, policy goal and definition of victory are coherent to the point of unity, the bad guys of Taliban have an effective theory of victory. There is nothing new in it. It is the standard issue insurgent theory of victory.
This standard issue has three components: Outlast the other side's political will to continue. Inflict enough casualties so that the counterinsurgents realise the cost far outweighs the benefits. Demobilise support from the indigenous government and mobilise support from the increasingly war weary uncommitted majority to the side of the insurgent.
To date, the resurgent Taliban has practiced the traditional, typically successful insurgent theory of victory quite well.
But not perfectly--as when it undertook a massively counterproductive suicide bombing campaign against Afghan civilians that had the latter running in droves to the government and its foreign supporters. But, while imperfect, Taliban has followed the historically sanctioned script well enough to have the initiative. Well enough to be winning today.
The man who was selected by the W. Bush administration to be Our Man in Kabul, Hamid Karzai, at least realises dimly that Taliban is winning and winning rapidly. He is apparently aware that he does not have the reflexive support from the Obama administration that he enjoyed with its predecessor. It apparently has come to his attention that he is not the most popular man in Afghanistan and that his version of a government is seen derisively and dismissively throughout the fractious land.
Hamid Karzai is making a desperate grab for the initiative. While his sudden decision to call for snap elections in April rather than wait for the 20 August date set by the Independent Election Commission is correctly seen by many as a bid for power, a grasp at the appearance of legitimacy, it is more than that. Karzai's probably very ill-considered snap election demand is a bid for the initiative.
He wants to wrong foot his political opponents, true. But, there must be at least the vague hope that if he is elected by the population rump that might conceivably be able to vote in April, he will be in a position to make a deal with Taliban and oust the foreigners without losing his head (literally) in the process.
Right next door the Pakistani government has made a deal in Swat while their army claims military victory in one of the less important Frontier Agencies against Taliban. Karzai probably has the dream of doing something similar. Taliban can have Sharia. He keeps his head and some power for at least some time.
The US and its partners have made their "concerns" known to Karzai, but it is debatable how much leverage the foreigners have at this juncture. If we were clearly winning, if we had demonstrable initiative against Taliban, we would have the necessary juice to force Karzai to keep to the original schedule.
Of course, if we were winning, Karzai never would have made his play in the first place.
Fortunately for our collective ego as well as the political future of President Obama, we have a fall back position. When the boots of the last American soldier hit the deck of the last flight out of Bagram and the green flag of Taliban flies over Kabul, we can blame the whole defeat on Pakistan.
Well, that will be only a partial lie.
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