Leon Panetta is an old Chicago pol. He came of political age as a cog in the oldest, longest running, smoothest operating machine in the US--the Cook County Democratic Party. As such, he knows well the primary duty of a machine man--loyalty to the Boss. By definition the Boss is the Nice Young Man From Chicago, Barack Obama.
Only the overarching requirement of loyalty could have impelled the new Secretary of Defense as he moved from his old job of DCIA to announce that the defeat of al-Qaeda was "within reach." Only days later Mr Panetta demonstrated the requisite degree of doublethink when he thundered against the possibility of doubling the 400 billion dollar cut in the next decade's defense budget under the debt ceiling increase deal.
Given that the American participation in the Great Adventure in Regime Change in Iraq is in its death throws and the rush to the exit has started in Afghanistan, the new SecDef is perfectly well aware that the costs of war will go down as well which will allow for significant decreases in the Pentagon expenditures without a single real cut in procurement or force size. And, if his statement regarding the impending end of al-Qaeda is taken at face value, the need for the large security establishment created in the immediate wake of 9/11 and the consequent decisions of George W. Bush evaporates as well. If al-Qaeda does well and truly turn its collective toes to the sky, the need for mountains of money marked "For the Pentagon" goes away.
Presumably, the end of al-Qaeda would allow the US to return to the (relatively) lower levels of defense appropriations which characterized the days prior to 9/11. In that case, Panetta should quit his bitchin' and find a few additional programs to cut so as to please his Boss properly.
Of course, the Panetta Dictum regarding the morbidity of al-Qaeda like the rumors of Mark Twain's death is greatly exaggerated. Al-Qaeda is not dead. It is not on some sort of Islamic life support. It is not even gravely ill.
The real deal of which Leon the Loyal must be completely aware considering his previous job as well as his daily access to the Senior Executive Intelligence Brief (as well as the Presidential Intelligence Brief) is that al-Qaeda has morphed. It has changed profoundly from its original form. Most critically, it is far more of a threat in its current incarnation than it was in the Bad Old Days.
In the far distant Eocene of 2001, al-Qaeda was a small, hierarchical organization with a tight command and control system. It was dependent upon Osama bin Laden as inspiration, decision maker, leader, and chief fund raiser. None of this obtains today. Nor has it obtained for some time. Long before bin Laden went to Paradise, the "Base" had fissioned, decentralized, become far more of an idea than an institution.
Just as American doctrine and tactics changed under the stresses of real wars in Iraq and Afghanistan so also have the operational concepts and organizational methods of the al-Qaeda predicated practitioners of violent political Islam. Arguably, the Mighty Men of the Koran have changed more radically and more effectively than have the armed forces of the US.
The most obvious feature of the new, improved "al-Qaeda" is the spawning of franchises. Both al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) are obvious spin-offs or imitators of the famed original. "Allied" groups such as al-Shabaab in Somalia may not use the old brand name but exist as self-conscious copies of Osama's group. It is a brute fact that AQAP has become a larger threat to the civilized states than the ragged band of drone pressed fugitives headed by al-Zawihiri lurking in either the stone huts of the FATA or living in relative comfort in anonymous houses in some sprawling Pakistani city.
The far more important change in the universe of violent political Islam is the transformation of the old al-Qaeda brand into a metaphysical idea. This coupled with the elevation of bin Laden from a jihadi ideal to the Perfect Martyred Warrior of the Prophet has provided the intellectual substrate for the emergence of powerfully motivated "lone wolf" terrorists.
In this context it is important to recall that war, all war, exists first as an idea. It matters not in the least what type of war or what level of intensity, war is first and foremost an intellectual construct. The now dead or captured theorists of Islamist martyrdom operations along with bin Laden have provided a basic set of ideas which define asymmetrical warfare from the point of view of the advocate of violent political Islam. These ideas have been enlarged, filled out, and spread by the assorted jihadist websites as well as videotaped sermons (and hectoring) by Muslim clerics. Many of these Men of the Islamic Cloth are quite unknown in the West. Others, most notably Anwar al-Awlacki, are nearly household names throughout the civilized states.
Self-radicalization facilitated by the web and the arguments of clerics great and small, well known and unknown alike has become the major feature of the current version of al-Qaeda. Individuals or very small groups of self-radicalized adherents of violent political Islam represent a very real threat to the civilized states as well as a quite meaningful challenge to security and law enforcement agencies. The several high profile arrests of wannabe "martyrs," the spectacular failures of the Underwear Bomber and the Times Square Bomber, or the quick police follow-up on the alert gun shop clerk in Kileen, Texas do not militate against the reality of the jihadist threat or the thinness of the margin between tragedy and tragedy narrowly averted.
Of course, crowd sourced terror does not exist alone. In addition to the ideological support provided by the memes originating with al-Qaeda 1.0 and the effective tools of self-radicalization and not completely irrelevant instruction in the practical considerations of waging one man wars on the West, there exist potent and growing al-Qaeda facsimiles. AQAP has been acknowledged properly as the single largest threat. AQIM is growing. Rapidly.
The senior French investigative judge holding the counterterrorism brief has issued a reassuring nostrum to the effect that AQIM does not represent a threat to Europe. This pronouncement is rather like patting the hoi polloi gently and telling them not to worry their pretty little (empty) heads about terrorism, that the adults in the government know better. In this way M.Marc Trevidic echoed Panetta's declaration of al-Qaeda's impending death. Feel good words which belie the substance of reality.
AQIM has extended its reach to Nigeria. Kidnapping Europeans. This is an expansion of their reach with the view to forcing changes in European policy. In short, it is terror of the violent political Islamic sort. Operations in Nigeria taken in conjunction with the local Islamist group would have been unthinkable a year ago. Now, the action shows a growing potential to strike Europeans if not Europe. There is every reason to believe that by this time next year AQIM will rival AQAP as a threat to the West generally.
Al-Shabaab may have evacuated Mogadishu, but that is not a sign of its defeat regardless of what the imitation government of Somalia may say. Rather, the real potential of al-Shabaab was demonstrated by its set of highly lethal attacks in Uganda last year. Al-Shabaab has tight links with AQAP as well as a ready source of English speaking recruits in Somali refugee communities in the US. It is one more rapidly growing threat.
Of his two contradictory statements, Panetta was much closer to the truth when he warned against overly dramatic cuts in the Pentagon budge. He must know that ten years from now the US will be engaged heavily even if not with conventional forces on the ground. He must be aware perfectly that the war against the advocates of violent political Islam will be ongoing in 2022 as it is today. Probably on a larger scale geographically.
Panetta may be a good machine politician, but he is also an American. Doublethink like loyalty to a misguided Boss has its limits. When push comes to shove as it must in the next few months, it is likely that the Secretary of Defense will fight with all the political skills he possesses to assure the the US has the means necessary to continue the fight against the forces of violent political Islam until the civilized states finally win.
Leon Panetta came a very long way during his years as DCI. That was a surprise to any and all who have personal acquaintanceship with the mindset of typical Chicago pols. It has been obvious that Panetta has learned that there is a wide and dark world out there, that the limits of Cook County are not the limits of the US, that the interests of the machine are transcended by the interests of the US. If a bit of experience can manufacture that level of miraculous transformation, it is not impossible that a few months running the Pentagon and talking more and more often with commanders responsible for the lives of those under them will carry the transformation to the next step--a Leon Panetta who is willing and ready to drop his Boss's water bucket in the higher cause of the country as a whole.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Butchering A Sacred Cow
The Pentagon is already scheduled to take a big hit in the money department. In addition, the landmine laden wording of the debt ceiling increase bill assures that should the "super committee" not come up with the requisite 1.2 trillion bucks in additional cuts over the next decade, the "national security" portion of federal expenditures will take another, larger whack. Potentially, the "national security" community could lose over a trillion bucks during the next ten years.
The term "national security" is not defined in the recent legislation, but it is not unfair to posit that most of the money will be extracted from the pockets of the uniformed services simply because they consume the largest share by far of all dollars spent under the rubric national security. There is little doubt but those on the political left are gratified by the prospect of the Pentagon hemorrhaging dead presidents by the tanker load as, they assume, the result will be a military incapable of doing its (repugnant) thing. On the Right there is an equal but opposite emotion--fear. Those on the right fear that the US will lose its capacity not only to advance and defend its national interests but to protect the physical security of the country itself.
As recent experience has shown in the UK, there is real, clear, and present danger in basing national security planning on the need to reduce expenditures to the practical exclusion of all other considerations. As you no doubt recall, the Conservative/Liberal Democratic Coalition released its Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR) late last year. The SDSR was predicated upon the imperative of reducing the budgetary "black hole" created by the previous Labor government.
As a result of this overarching consideration, the budget of the Services was slashed with a vigor not seen since the opening days of the Great Depression some eighty years earlier. The Royal Navy lost its only aircraft carrier along with the recently upgraded Harrier jump jets on board. (There will be a new carrier coming in the rather distant future but without any aircraft allotted--unless the French embark their planes or the US loans the Brits a few of its redundant F/A-18s.) The air force was cut to the lowest number of aircraft on inventory since just before the Great War. And, the ground forces were chopped by some thirty thousand slots.
By the time all the slicing and dicing was complete, it became clear that the UK did not have a military capable of "broad spectrum" operations regardless of assurances to the contrary by Prime Minister Cameron. Indeed, it appeared that when the SDSR was fully implemented, the British would not be capable of replicating their success in the Falklands War of thirty years ago. It was debatable whether or not the UK would be able to do a replay of its intervention in Sierra Leone a few years back or be a competent partner in interventionary operations such as those in Afghanistan, Iraq, or the Gulf War.
As if to underscore the idiocy of the SDSR, the Cameron/Clegg ministry undertook the Libyan adventure in conjunction with France only weeks after the Review had been released. Considering the ongoing mission in Afghanistan, the decommissioning of the aircraft carrier, the retirement of the Harriers, the destruction of the new Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft, the addition of the Libyan campaign to the British plate was a perfect example of ignoring self-inflicted constraints in pursuit of political opportunities. The British reach far exceeded its military grasp.
A parliamentary select committee dominated by Tories issued a scathing report a couple of days back in which the prime minister was roasted. The select committee in effect denounced the SDSR as having been short-sighted, counterproductive, and as sacrificing the long term interests and influence of the UK on the alter of short-term budgetary exigencies.
The select committee was bang on in its arguments and conclusions. The only component of the very bad policy contained in both the SDSR and the Libyan adventure was the tacit assurance predicated on decades of experience that the US would be there to pick up any and all military slack. The British (in common with NATO members generally) was guided by the sincere belief that the US would always be both able and willing to do all the really heavy lifting.
The reality was far different. As the Libyan campaign has shown, the US was unwilling to do much after the first few days beyond offer verbal support. The Obama Doctrine of "leading from behind" was invoked so the US could walk away from the Europeans First effort in the benighted but oil filled desert of Libya.
Now that the Americans have openly admitted that the flush days are far in the past, the belief that the US will always be both willing and able to pick up the military burdens of the civilized states generally demands reexamination both abroad and here at home. In the future the US may be willing but quite unable to employ military force in support of either its diplomacy or its physical security.
Will is one thing. Ability is quite another. Political will is perishable. It can flourish. Or, it can be exhausted, progressively reduced by a long war without a clear goal or end point in sight. Political will can be developed almost instantly as in the wake of Pearl Harbor or 9/11. But, it can be frittered away by inept decision making or bad policy choices. And, political will can be destroyed intentionally by an administration or a political elite following a given agenda.
Ability, the human and material capacity to wage war, is harder to develop, easier to lose, and expensive to maintain in readiness. The budget deficit demands that not simply senior military personnel and elected officials consider the real military needs of the US. Rather, this is a subject all of We the People need to consider, to debate, to answer. After all, it is our security, the physical integrity of our country, the interests of our economy, society, and polity around the world which are in play whenever the subject of "national security" is raised. It is our collective future which is at stake should we have too little military capacity to support our diplomacy or to deter potential enemies. Similarly, it is our collective economic future which is placed in peril should we have too much "defense," too great an expenditure on "national security" (whatever that might mean).
This implies that the proper starting point is not simply the budget chasm. The British made that major error; there is no need for us to repeat it. Dollars must be considered. Dollars and what they purchase must be near the center of things. But the mounds of dead presidents as well as the hardware they buy or the people they hire cannot and should not be the primary consideration.
The foundations of any national security budget must be a rational, conservative consideration of what does the US need to protect and to what extent does American diplomatic influence rely upon the big stick. In this connection we have to keep in mind that the US will be a target due to its size and geographic location as well as its social, political, and economic norms and values. We also must remember that nbe o country has ever been allowed to resign its status as a Great Power. It would be wise to note as well that international organizations such as the UN are no more effective than their most powerful members allow them to be.
The realities of the world demand that the US, quite unlike the UK or Germany or even the European Union as a totality, must be ready and able (even if not willing) to have a genuine "broad spectrum" capacity. We have to able to deter or to fight and win every type of war from the nuclear to the asymmetrical. As a Great Power, the US must have a comprehensive diplomatic portfolio which includes the capacity for the credible use of military force in every sort of mission from an exercise in coercion to humanitarian relief.
The realities of the world also demand that the US acknowledge that it has active enemies. Some are multidimensional in capability such as China or Russia. Others may have limited capabilities but are no less a threat for that reason such as advocates of violent political Islam. The US must not lack the basic capacities to deter, fight and defeat both ends of the spectrum. This means that no matter which battlefield the enemy chooses from the vacuum of space to the deepest oceans, from the most remote and barren mountains to the virtual worlds of cyberspace the US must be ready and able to fight and win should deterrence and the diplomacy of talk or sanction fail.
None of this means nor implies that the American "national security" budget cannot or should not be cut--even significantly chopped. But it does mean that the cuts, the reposturing, the redeployments must not be made without careful consideration and full debate not only inside the Pentagon or within Congress but among We the People, the people who both pay the bills and stand at risk if our "national security" components are not up to the challenge.
Implicit in the process is a consideration of what constitutes an "ally," a "partner." There needs to be a reconsideration of old alliances, of old relationships in light of the post-Cold War realities. It will be necessary, for example, to disabuse European "allies" of the belief that the US will provide for their defense, will support their diplomatic gambits with our military or step in when the political or diplomatic aspirations of a partner is not supported effectively by their own organic hard power instruments.
Whether he realizes it or not, David Cameron has provided a fine object lesson for the US. His SDSR has shown us the dangers of allowing deficits to define national security capabilities. And, his desire for a spot of glory in Libya has illustrated the pervasive nature of the don't-worry-the-Yanks-will-do-it fantasy.
Every time in the past when the US has wound down a war it has cut the defense budget. In the past, after World War II, Korea, Vietnam all come to mind, the US has cut too much, too fast. By so doing we made the world a more dangerous place. We also made the process of reconstituting our military capacities much more expensive and time consuming. Perhaps, just perhaps, this time will be different.
Not that the Geek is going to bet his ranch on it.
The term "national security" is not defined in the recent legislation, but it is not unfair to posit that most of the money will be extracted from the pockets of the uniformed services simply because they consume the largest share by far of all dollars spent under the rubric national security. There is little doubt but those on the political left are gratified by the prospect of the Pentagon hemorrhaging dead presidents by the tanker load as, they assume, the result will be a military incapable of doing its (repugnant) thing. On the Right there is an equal but opposite emotion--fear. Those on the right fear that the US will lose its capacity not only to advance and defend its national interests but to protect the physical security of the country itself.
As recent experience has shown in the UK, there is real, clear, and present danger in basing national security planning on the need to reduce expenditures to the practical exclusion of all other considerations. As you no doubt recall, the Conservative/Liberal Democratic Coalition released its Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR) late last year. The SDSR was predicated upon the imperative of reducing the budgetary "black hole" created by the previous Labor government.
As a result of this overarching consideration, the budget of the Services was slashed with a vigor not seen since the opening days of the Great Depression some eighty years earlier. The Royal Navy lost its only aircraft carrier along with the recently upgraded Harrier jump jets on board. (There will be a new carrier coming in the rather distant future but without any aircraft allotted--unless the French embark their planes or the US loans the Brits a few of its redundant F/A-18s.) The air force was cut to the lowest number of aircraft on inventory since just before the Great War. And, the ground forces were chopped by some thirty thousand slots.
By the time all the slicing and dicing was complete, it became clear that the UK did not have a military capable of "broad spectrum" operations regardless of assurances to the contrary by Prime Minister Cameron. Indeed, it appeared that when the SDSR was fully implemented, the British would not be capable of replicating their success in the Falklands War of thirty years ago. It was debatable whether or not the UK would be able to do a replay of its intervention in Sierra Leone a few years back or be a competent partner in interventionary operations such as those in Afghanistan, Iraq, or the Gulf War.
As if to underscore the idiocy of the SDSR, the Cameron/Clegg ministry undertook the Libyan adventure in conjunction with France only weeks after the Review had been released. Considering the ongoing mission in Afghanistan, the decommissioning of the aircraft carrier, the retirement of the Harriers, the destruction of the new Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft, the addition of the Libyan campaign to the British plate was a perfect example of ignoring self-inflicted constraints in pursuit of political opportunities. The British reach far exceeded its military grasp.
A parliamentary select committee dominated by Tories issued a scathing report a couple of days back in which the prime minister was roasted. The select committee in effect denounced the SDSR as having been short-sighted, counterproductive, and as sacrificing the long term interests and influence of the UK on the alter of short-term budgetary exigencies.
The select committee was bang on in its arguments and conclusions. The only component of the very bad policy contained in both the SDSR and the Libyan adventure was the tacit assurance predicated on decades of experience that the US would be there to pick up any and all military slack. The British (in common with NATO members generally) was guided by the sincere belief that the US would always be both able and willing to do all the really heavy lifting.
The reality was far different. As the Libyan campaign has shown, the US was unwilling to do much after the first few days beyond offer verbal support. The Obama Doctrine of "leading from behind" was invoked so the US could walk away from the Europeans First effort in the benighted but oil filled desert of Libya.
Now that the Americans have openly admitted that the flush days are far in the past, the belief that the US will always be both willing and able to pick up the military burdens of the civilized states generally demands reexamination both abroad and here at home. In the future the US may be willing but quite unable to employ military force in support of either its diplomacy or its physical security.
Will is one thing. Ability is quite another. Political will is perishable. It can flourish. Or, it can be exhausted, progressively reduced by a long war without a clear goal or end point in sight. Political will can be developed almost instantly as in the wake of Pearl Harbor or 9/11. But, it can be frittered away by inept decision making or bad policy choices. And, political will can be destroyed intentionally by an administration or a political elite following a given agenda.
Ability, the human and material capacity to wage war, is harder to develop, easier to lose, and expensive to maintain in readiness. The budget deficit demands that not simply senior military personnel and elected officials consider the real military needs of the US. Rather, this is a subject all of We the People need to consider, to debate, to answer. After all, it is our security, the physical integrity of our country, the interests of our economy, society, and polity around the world which are in play whenever the subject of "national security" is raised. It is our collective future which is at stake should we have too little military capacity to support our diplomacy or to deter potential enemies. Similarly, it is our collective economic future which is placed in peril should we have too much "defense," too great an expenditure on "national security" (whatever that might mean).
This implies that the proper starting point is not simply the budget chasm. The British made that major error; there is no need for us to repeat it. Dollars must be considered. Dollars and what they purchase must be near the center of things. But the mounds of dead presidents as well as the hardware they buy or the people they hire cannot and should not be the primary consideration.
The foundations of any national security budget must be a rational, conservative consideration of what does the US need to protect and to what extent does American diplomatic influence rely upon the big stick. In this connection we have to keep in mind that the US will be a target due to its size and geographic location as well as its social, political, and economic norms and values. We also must remember that nbe o country has ever been allowed to resign its status as a Great Power. It would be wise to note as well that international organizations such as the UN are no more effective than their most powerful members allow them to be.
The realities of the world demand that the US, quite unlike the UK or Germany or even the European Union as a totality, must be ready and able (even if not willing) to have a genuine "broad spectrum" capacity. We have to able to deter or to fight and win every type of war from the nuclear to the asymmetrical. As a Great Power, the US must have a comprehensive diplomatic portfolio which includes the capacity for the credible use of military force in every sort of mission from an exercise in coercion to humanitarian relief.
The realities of the world also demand that the US acknowledge that it has active enemies. Some are multidimensional in capability such as China or Russia. Others may have limited capabilities but are no less a threat for that reason such as advocates of violent political Islam. The US must not lack the basic capacities to deter, fight and defeat both ends of the spectrum. This means that no matter which battlefield the enemy chooses from the vacuum of space to the deepest oceans, from the most remote and barren mountains to the virtual worlds of cyberspace the US must be ready and able to fight and win should deterrence and the diplomacy of talk or sanction fail.
None of this means nor implies that the American "national security" budget cannot or should not be cut--even significantly chopped. But it does mean that the cuts, the reposturing, the redeployments must not be made without careful consideration and full debate not only inside the Pentagon or within Congress but among We the People, the people who both pay the bills and stand at risk if our "national security" components are not up to the challenge.
Implicit in the process is a consideration of what constitutes an "ally," a "partner." There needs to be a reconsideration of old alliances, of old relationships in light of the post-Cold War realities. It will be necessary, for example, to disabuse European "allies" of the belief that the US will provide for their defense, will support their diplomatic gambits with our military or step in when the political or diplomatic aspirations of a partner is not supported effectively by their own organic hard power instruments.
Whether he realizes it or not, David Cameron has provided a fine object lesson for the US. His SDSR has shown us the dangers of allowing deficits to define national security capabilities. And, his desire for a spot of glory in Libya has illustrated the pervasive nature of the don't-worry-the-Yanks-will-do-it fantasy.
Every time in the past when the US has wound down a war it has cut the defense budget. In the past, after World War II, Korea, Vietnam all come to mind, the US has cut too much, too fast. By so doing we made the world a more dangerous place. We also made the process of reconstituting our military capacities much more expensive and time consuming. Perhaps, just perhaps, this time will be different.
Not that the Geek is going to bet his ranch on it.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
A Slick Trip Down The Islamist Tubes?
The Islamist AKP has gained an apparent unassailable superiority over the armed forces of Turkey. The shocking simultaneous "early retirement" of the military chief of staff and three other service commanders over the weekend seemed to have put the final nail in the coffin of the military's role as the ultimate guarantor of Turkish secularism and the legacy of Ataturk.
The act came on the eve of the semi-annual meeting of the combined armed forces senior leadership with the head of the civilian government, the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and has been seen by many observers, Turkish as well as foreign, as a welcome sign of Turkey having become a normal democracy where civilian supremacy over the military is a given. In the past, there has been a great deal of discomfort in the US and Western Europe over the periodic military excursions out of the barracks and into the presidential palace. The European Union (or at least France) demanded that the armed forces be defanged as a prerequisite for membership.
The recent mass resignation must be taken in conjunction with the ongoing trial of nearly three hundred past and present senior commanders (ten percent or so of the entire flag officer complement) on charges which are at best politically motivated and most likely fabricated in whole or major part. The massive series of arrests over the past year or so constituted the AKP's direct attack on the military, which was the only plausible obstacle to permanent Islamist domination of Turkish politics.
The armed forces and AKP have been at daggers drawn since the once-banned AKP won power in 2002. The military missed its chance to send the Islamists packing in the wake of the narrow electoral victory mainly out of regard for EU sentiments and a proper regard for the benefits of EU membership. As the years slipped by, the chances for a military coup slipped away until they were lost beyond any hope in the most recent election where AKP took no prisoners at the polls.
Erdogan had made much of his stated intent to pursue EU membership even though it was more than slightly obvious that France would spare no effort to block the application. The economic success of the AKP has been based not on trade with the EU but upon increased ties with the Mideast and the Turkish speaking Central Asian Republics. In the process, a new class of very rich middlemen and entrepreneurs drawn from urban migrants originating in the Anatolian highlands has become a key component of the AKP base. These new millionaires join with displaced peasants in the slums of Istanbul and Ankara and "conservative" clerics to provide the electoral majority.
The rivals to the AKP drive to the east have been the senior officers of the armed forces along with the "traditional" business and commercial elite of Istanbul. The military has at its upper ranks men who are far more Western in their outlook, far more liberal in their views as well as far more educated than the mass of the political class and the new moneyed class. Their instinctive perspective is Western. That of AKP and its base runs to the East, to the Muslim marches of Central and Northwest Asia--and the states of the old Ottoman Empire.
The seemingly decisive victory of AKP over the inheritors of Ataturk is not universally welcomed in Turkey. There are more than a few Turks who fear that without the army as a counterweight there will be no limits on Erdogan and AKP. There is an undercurrent of apprehension that now the Islamists will be free to pursue the goal of reestablishing the old caliphate with all that implies. Others, unsurprisingly, pooh-pooh that notion and welcome AKP confining the armed forces to a subordinate role and, thus, allowing a return to the values and norms of the pre-Ataturk era.
Very few Turks are aghast at the new diplomatic muscle enjoyed by Ankara in the Mideast and Central Asia. Likewise, very few resent the new economic options brought by the "Ost politik" practiced by Erdogan. Other than some trepidations over Turkey's ever closer ties to Shia Iran, there have been few complaints over the foreign policy of Erdogan and company. There is definitely majority support for the very hard line drawn by Erdogan over Israel, particularly the IDF takeover of the Mazi Marmora "humanitarian relief" ship over a year ago.
The net effect has been the tilting of the longstanding conflict between nationalist and Islamist, secularist and Islamist in favor of the latter. For the moment this is just jake with the majority of Turks. But, there is likely to be a quick withdrawal of support for AKP should there be heavy handed attempts to "purify" Turkish society of "infidel" aspects. So far, the party has been sensitive to this dynamic and has moved only slowly to "Islamify" Turkey.
Almost overlooked in the political discussions of the resignations has been another, critical subject: The impact of Turkey's Muslim oriented "Ost politik" on NATO. In as much as Turkey's membership in the alliance has been considered, it has been in the boilerplate terms of "NATO's second largest army." As if size matters.
Turkey's large army is also quite irrelevant to NATO in the post-cold war period. Not only is the army incapable of any effective action outside of Turkey, it has not shown any particular utility in the local "forever war" against the Kurdish defensive insurgency. Pace NATO public statements (or those of Admiral Mullen), the armed forces of Turkey are totally irrelevant to NATO today and into the future.
The armed forces of Turkey, while large, are also largely immobile, poorly trained, indifferently equipped, overly expensive, a drain on the Turkish fisc, and a political drag on the alliance. The new Erdogan ministry strongly opposed the US driven invasion of Iraq making much political hay from proclaiming the operation as a "war on Islam and Muslims." In addition, the Turks have been a major non-participant in the NATO mission in Afghanistan. And, the AKP government bitterly opposed the no-fly zone and its follow-on in Libya.
There is no reason not to believe that Turkey has passed along critical NATO information to Iran as a part of its charm offensive with Tehran. The same may be true regarding the opposition in Afghanistan and, possibly, Libya. Having Turkey in NATO today is tantamount to having the Italy of Mussolini sitting in on the Anglo-American Combined Chiefs of Staff during World War II.
If it is true, as it appears to be, that the Islamists have won in Turkey, the time has come to restructure NATO without Ankara. The hoary alliance is at a difficult crossroads. There is looming, embarrassing failure in Libya joining with the rush for the exit in Afghanistan to undercut any lingering credibility accruing to it. Given further that most NATO members have shown an ability to hit the funding targets akin to the performance of a visually impaired sniper, the time is now to rethink the alliance. The time is now to contemplate the impossible: The dissolution of NATO.
It is questionable whether or not NATO has any utility or even relevance to the world of now and tomorrow where the major enemy of any and all civilized states are the advocates of violent political Islam. The best way for civilized states to counter the threat resides not with NATO or any other Cold War artifact but rather with "coalitions of the willing," ad hoc structures of states with coinciding national interests which perceive the threat from violent political Islam or the challenges presented by any particular failed, failing, or hollow state in similar ways.
As George H.W. Bush showed during the Gulf War, the ad hoc coalition can work well provided the necessary preliminary diplomatic work is done with care. Even George W. Bush's ham handed counterparts worked reasonably well. In comparison, the NATO effort in Libya has been an example of how not to go about the task. While this can (correctly) be blamed on the relative absence of the US from the shooting war, the real lesson to be learned is that the effort was not undertaken by a genuine coalition of the willing.
The AKP has taken Turkey away from the West. Its lurch to the lands of Islam is understandable and even forgivable. It is, after all, a choice made by the Turkish electorate--at least up to a point. We can have no beef about it.
Rather, we should embrace the Turkish policy. We should use the stimulus to take a long hard look at the role of NATO in our alliance system, and jettison it as currently constituted unless a very strong argument can be made for its continuation. The inclusion of Turkey was contextual to the cold war; it has no permanent root in the Atlantic community. This is the geographical, cultural, and political reality. We should admit it with at least as much honesty as have the Turks.
The ideological and political blocs of the world have reformed since the end of the bi-polar world. Turkey has recognized this. The AKP has acknowledged bluntly that religion and language ties trump the artifacts of global alliance politics. Erdogan and company have chosen their side.
The US and Western Europe can and should do no less.
The act came on the eve of the semi-annual meeting of the combined armed forces senior leadership with the head of the civilian government, the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and has been seen by many observers, Turkish as well as foreign, as a welcome sign of Turkey having become a normal democracy where civilian supremacy over the military is a given. In the past, there has been a great deal of discomfort in the US and Western Europe over the periodic military excursions out of the barracks and into the presidential palace. The European Union (or at least France) demanded that the armed forces be defanged as a prerequisite for membership.
The recent mass resignation must be taken in conjunction with the ongoing trial of nearly three hundred past and present senior commanders (ten percent or so of the entire flag officer complement) on charges which are at best politically motivated and most likely fabricated in whole or major part. The massive series of arrests over the past year or so constituted the AKP's direct attack on the military, which was the only plausible obstacle to permanent Islamist domination of Turkish politics.
The armed forces and AKP have been at daggers drawn since the once-banned AKP won power in 2002. The military missed its chance to send the Islamists packing in the wake of the narrow electoral victory mainly out of regard for EU sentiments and a proper regard for the benefits of EU membership. As the years slipped by, the chances for a military coup slipped away until they were lost beyond any hope in the most recent election where AKP took no prisoners at the polls.
Erdogan had made much of his stated intent to pursue EU membership even though it was more than slightly obvious that France would spare no effort to block the application. The economic success of the AKP has been based not on trade with the EU but upon increased ties with the Mideast and the Turkish speaking Central Asian Republics. In the process, a new class of very rich middlemen and entrepreneurs drawn from urban migrants originating in the Anatolian highlands has become a key component of the AKP base. These new millionaires join with displaced peasants in the slums of Istanbul and Ankara and "conservative" clerics to provide the electoral majority.
The rivals to the AKP drive to the east have been the senior officers of the armed forces along with the "traditional" business and commercial elite of Istanbul. The military has at its upper ranks men who are far more Western in their outlook, far more liberal in their views as well as far more educated than the mass of the political class and the new moneyed class. Their instinctive perspective is Western. That of AKP and its base runs to the East, to the Muslim marches of Central and Northwest Asia--and the states of the old Ottoman Empire.
The seemingly decisive victory of AKP over the inheritors of Ataturk is not universally welcomed in Turkey. There are more than a few Turks who fear that without the army as a counterweight there will be no limits on Erdogan and AKP. There is an undercurrent of apprehension that now the Islamists will be free to pursue the goal of reestablishing the old caliphate with all that implies. Others, unsurprisingly, pooh-pooh that notion and welcome AKP confining the armed forces to a subordinate role and, thus, allowing a return to the values and norms of the pre-Ataturk era.
Very few Turks are aghast at the new diplomatic muscle enjoyed by Ankara in the Mideast and Central Asia. Likewise, very few resent the new economic options brought by the "Ost politik" practiced by Erdogan. Other than some trepidations over Turkey's ever closer ties to Shia Iran, there have been few complaints over the foreign policy of Erdogan and company. There is definitely majority support for the very hard line drawn by Erdogan over Israel, particularly the IDF takeover of the Mazi Marmora "humanitarian relief" ship over a year ago.
The net effect has been the tilting of the longstanding conflict between nationalist and Islamist, secularist and Islamist in favor of the latter. For the moment this is just jake with the majority of Turks. But, there is likely to be a quick withdrawal of support for AKP should there be heavy handed attempts to "purify" Turkish society of "infidel" aspects. So far, the party has been sensitive to this dynamic and has moved only slowly to "Islamify" Turkey.
Almost overlooked in the political discussions of the resignations has been another, critical subject: The impact of Turkey's Muslim oriented "Ost politik" on NATO. In as much as Turkey's membership in the alliance has been considered, it has been in the boilerplate terms of "NATO's second largest army." As if size matters.
Turkey's large army is also quite irrelevant to NATO in the post-cold war period. Not only is the army incapable of any effective action outside of Turkey, it has not shown any particular utility in the local "forever war" against the Kurdish defensive insurgency. Pace NATO public statements (or those of Admiral Mullen), the armed forces of Turkey are totally irrelevant to NATO today and into the future.
The armed forces of Turkey, while large, are also largely immobile, poorly trained, indifferently equipped, overly expensive, a drain on the Turkish fisc, and a political drag on the alliance. The new Erdogan ministry strongly opposed the US driven invasion of Iraq making much political hay from proclaiming the operation as a "war on Islam and Muslims." In addition, the Turks have been a major non-participant in the NATO mission in Afghanistan. And, the AKP government bitterly opposed the no-fly zone and its follow-on in Libya.
There is no reason not to believe that Turkey has passed along critical NATO information to Iran as a part of its charm offensive with Tehran. The same may be true regarding the opposition in Afghanistan and, possibly, Libya. Having Turkey in NATO today is tantamount to having the Italy of Mussolini sitting in on the Anglo-American Combined Chiefs of Staff during World War II.
If it is true, as it appears to be, that the Islamists have won in Turkey, the time has come to restructure NATO without Ankara. The hoary alliance is at a difficult crossroads. There is looming, embarrassing failure in Libya joining with the rush for the exit in Afghanistan to undercut any lingering credibility accruing to it. Given further that most NATO members have shown an ability to hit the funding targets akin to the performance of a visually impaired sniper, the time is now to rethink the alliance. The time is now to contemplate the impossible: The dissolution of NATO.
It is questionable whether or not NATO has any utility or even relevance to the world of now and tomorrow where the major enemy of any and all civilized states are the advocates of violent political Islam. The best way for civilized states to counter the threat resides not with NATO or any other Cold War artifact but rather with "coalitions of the willing," ad hoc structures of states with coinciding national interests which perceive the threat from violent political Islam or the challenges presented by any particular failed, failing, or hollow state in similar ways.
As George H.W. Bush showed during the Gulf War, the ad hoc coalition can work well provided the necessary preliminary diplomatic work is done with care. Even George W. Bush's ham handed counterparts worked reasonably well. In comparison, the NATO effort in Libya has been an example of how not to go about the task. While this can (correctly) be blamed on the relative absence of the US from the shooting war, the real lesson to be learned is that the effort was not undertaken by a genuine coalition of the willing.
The AKP has taken Turkey away from the West. Its lurch to the lands of Islam is understandable and even forgivable. It is, after all, a choice made by the Turkish electorate--at least up to a point. We can have no beef about it.
Rather, we should embrace the Turkish policy. We should use the stimulus to take a long hard look at the role of NATO in our alliance system, and jettison it as currently constituted unless a very strong argument can be made for its continuation. The inclusion of Turkey was contextual to the cold war; it has no permanent root in the Atlantic community. This is the geographical, cultural, and political reality. We should admit it with at least as much honesty as have the Turks.
The ideological and political blocs of the world have reformed since the end of the bi-polar world. Turkey has recognized this. The AKP has acknowledged bluntly that religion and language ties trump the artifacts of global alliance politics. Erdogan and company have chosen their side.
The US and Western Europe can and should do no less.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Norwegian Ethical Exceptionalism
Svein Sevje, Norway's ambassador to Israel, delivered a rather unique ethical proposition in an interview the other day. Presumably reflecting the official position of the leftwing government in Oslo, the ambassador opined that Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli civilians were more morally justifiable than the bombing and shooting actions of Brevik a week before.
This stance makes manifest the belief within the highest circles of Norwegian politics that the throat slitting of a sleeping infant along with slightly older siblings and the parents during the hours of darkness by a group of Palestinian men was not a criminal act but rather the necessary and understandable consequence of Israel's ongoing semi-occupation of the Palestinian Authority governed West Bank. The fact that Israel continues to dominate in most salient respects the Palestinian population of the lands taken from Jordan during the Six Day War apparently makes right any and all terrorist outrages committed against any and all Israelis. The actions of Mr Brevik in sharp contrast cannot be justified in any way, shape, or form.
With respect to the latter contention, the Geek is complete agreement. Considering the first proposition, the one holding Palestinian Muslim throat slitters, gunslingers, suicide bombers, and rocket firing gangs totally blameless is, in the Geek's estimate, a mind boggling exercise in cultural relativism. Stripped to its essentials, the ambassador's remark as well as the government policy it reflects holds that there is no such critter as an absolute standard of right and wrong, moral and immoral, ethical and unethical.
This is a destructive, preposterous position which serves to undercut the norms and values which, while developed in the West over centuries of bloodshed, have become the centerpiece of such testaments to hope and aspiration as the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Before the rise of the pernicious notion of cultural relativism, the West generally held that there existed a set of ethical (or moral, should you prefer) absolutes which served to define rigidly the outer limits of acceptable individual and state conduct. These absolutes served to progressively render the West more peaceful, more humane, more given to fairness and acceptance, more willing to negotiate, and less ready to reach for the nearest trigger.
These absolutes, primarily predicated upon Christian and Jewish concepts, made the West an evermore kind, decent, generous, and humane place. These bright and shinning lines separating the acceptable from the unacceptable also served to make the wars of the West somewhat less brutal, somewhat less all consuming in their butchery, a bit more ready to seek the possible as opposed to the ideal outcome.
In recent years the rise of cultural relativism, the idea that no culture, no society, no system of beliefs or norms and values was in any way superior to others, has risen to grasp the elites of the West in its bony, clutching fingers. Particularly, people of the Left have allowed themselves to be mentally and morally strangled by the notion of relativism by coming to accept the proposition that by doing so they make themselves paragons of "fairness," of "open mindedness," of "acceptance," and of "tolerance." As the Left elite of academia, of politics, of the media have embraced relativism, these public opinion molders have sought to marginalize anyone who disagreed from the glories of relativism as "racists," or "xenophobes," even as "fascists."
To believe and argue that not all cultures, not all societies, not all belief systems, not all norms and values are equal in moral or ethical strength became politically incorrect to the highest degree. To accept relativism was to be progressive, fair minded, and sophisticated. The best way to parse between a member in good standing of the elite, the hoi olligoi, and a hairy palmed, knuckle dragging, slope browed denizen of the hoi polloi was on the basis of acceptance or rejection of cultural relativism.
Norwegians, particularly those on the Left and in the elite of politics, media, and academia have prided themselves and their country on its open minded, fair, and tolerant acceptance of those different from themselves. That is, of course, laudable--up to a point. The point comes when recurrent acts of terror including those of the most bestial sort are excused as the legitimate response to "illegal" military occupation. That point comes when acts of equal barbarity are assessed as morally different with one justified by purely contextual matters including cultural differences.
It is ironic in the extreme that the Norsk ambassador by his words reinforced one of the main points made at great and repetitive length in Brevik's manifesto--the pernicious pervasiveness of cultural relativism in Norway and Europe generally along with the lethal effects of this belief on political and social structures. Mr Sveje and the government which issued his credentials just don't get it. Neither, one might surmise, do a large number of Norwegians--and Europeans as well as Americans.
The "it" that Sveje and others don't get is simply that both history and contemporary affairs demonstrates clearly that some cultures, some societies, some norms and values, some belief systems, some governmental systems are better, more ethical, more moral, if you prefer, than others. In this context, it is clear that the West is superior in all ethical respects to the Muslim states. The West has gone through a very, very long learning curve of blood, destruction, mass death, suffering on a cosmic scale, and has come out purified in many essential respects. At the same time, the West is aware of its ongoing imperfections and continues to seek to rectify them.
The West may not have been blameless. But, in comparison to Muslim states and societies, it is not blameworthy today. And, in this connection Israel must be considered to be part of the West.
Consider the reaction throughout the West to Brevik's one man massacre. Universal condemnation even from those who share the fears of "Islamification" expressed by the terrorist murderer. Christian entities and clerics have been monolithic in their denunciation of Brevik's actions.
In sharp contrast Osama bin Laden remains a celebrated hero in Muslim societies and states. So do his emulators, his subordinates, his followers, and successors.
Consider Somalia. Thousands starve. Tens of thousands flee starvation. The Muslim group, al-Shabaab, prevents famine relief while engaging in an orgy of religiously predicated violence. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation sits back with folded hands and indifferent expressions watching the famine do its deadly work apparently convinced that starvation on this cosmic scale is the will of the deity such that any relief effort would be blasphemy at best, apostasy at worst.
At the same time it is the West which seeks to provide succor to the displaced and dying Somalis. It is the West which provides food and money, management expertise and aircraft, trying desperately to save lives written off by al-Shabaab and the OIC.
Consider Israel. While there are Israelis both in and out of government who are intransigent in the extreme, there is also a large, vibrant contingent of civil society and religiously motivated Israelis seeking peace, willing to see Palestine come into full, free existence. At the same time, the Palestinians are unwilling to grant Israel's right to exist (Hamas) or unwilling to acknowledge the realty that Israel is a Jewish state (Fatah.) The historical record demonstrates clearly that the "sins" of the Israelis are far outnumbered by those of the Palestinians--going back over eighty years.
Consider terrorism around the globe. How often does one read of radical extremist Buddhists taking hostages or detonating suicide vests? How many violent political Hindus fly aircraft into civilian structures shouting praise to one or another of their pantheon? Are Catholics, or Lutherans noted for their commitment to "martyrdom operations?" The use of terror attacks, of IEDs, of suicide bombings is almost exclusively the dominion of Muslims in service to what they perceive as their duty to their almighty.
No, Mr Ambassador, you are wrong. Dangerously wrong. Your attitude and that of your government and the Norwegian elite behind that government are sabotaging all that makes the West what it is. You, with your dedication to the specious and historically unjustified notion of cultural relativism, are attacking all which has been learned over a score of deadly, bloody centuries by the West and which makes the West today the last best hope of humanity.
Murder is wrong. Period. Terror, which is to say, murder for a political goal, is wrong. Period. The Arab Muslim slitting the Jewish infant's throat is equal in evil to Brevik with his bomb and gun. Period. Get a grip on it, Svein.
This stance makes manifest the belief within the highest circles of Norwegian politics that the throat slitting of a sleeping infant along with slightly older siblings and the parents during the hours of darkness by a group of Palestinian men was not a criminal act but rather the necessary and understandable consequence of Israel's ongoing semi-occupation of the Palestinian Authority governed West Bank. The fact that Israel continues to dominate in most salient respects the Palestinian population of the lands taken from Jordan during the Six Day War apparently makes right any and all terrorist outrages committed against any and all Israelis. The actions of Mr Brevik in sharp contrast cannot be justified in any way, shape, or form.
With respect to the latter contention, the Geek is complete agreement. Considering the first proposition, the one holding Palestinian Muslim throat slitters, gunslingers, suicide bombers, and rocket firing gangs totally blameless is, in the Geek's estimate, a mind boggling exercise in cultural relativism. Stripped to its essentials, the ambassador's remark as well as the government policy it reflects holds that there is no such critter as an absolute standard of right and wrong, moral and immoral, ethical and unethical.
This is a destructive, preposterous position which serves to undercut the norms and values which, while developed in the West over centuries of bloodshed, have become the centerpiece of such testaments to hope and aspiration as the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Before the rise of the pernicious notion of cultural relativism, the West generally held that there existed a set of ethical (or moral, should you prefer) absolutes which served to define rigidly the outer limits of acceptable individual and state conduct. These absolutes served to progressively render the West more peaceful, more humane, more given to fairness and acceptance, more willing to negotiate, and less ready to reach for the nearest trigger.
These absolutes, primarily predicated upon Christian and Jewish concepts, made the West an evermore kind, decent, generous, and humane place. These bright and shinning lines separating the acceptable from the unacceptable also served to make the wars of the West somewhat less brutal, somewhat less all consuming in their butchery, a bit more ready to seek the possible as opposed to the ideal outcome.
In recent years the rise of cultural relativism, the idea that no culture, no society, no system of beliefs or norms and values was in any way superior to others, has risen to grasp the elites of the West in its bony, clutching fingers. Particularly, people of the Left have allowed themselves to be mentally and morally strangled by the notion of relativism by coming to accept the proposition that by doing so they make themselves paragons of "fairness," of "open mindedness," of "acceptance," and of "tolerance." As the Left elite of academia, of politics, of the media have embraced relativism, these public opinion molders have sought to marginalize anyone who disagreed from the glories of relativism as "racists," or "xenophobes," even as "fascists."
To believe and argue that not all cultures, not all societies, not all belief systems, not all norms and values are equal in moral or ethical strength became politically incorrect to the highest degree. To accept relativism was to be progressive, fair minded, and sophisticated. The best way to parse between a member in good standing of the elite, the hoi olligoi, and a hairy palmed, knuckle dragging, slope browed denizen of the hoi polloi was on the basis of acceptance or rejection of cultural relativism.
Norwegians, particularly those on the Left and in the elite of politics, media, and academia have prided themselves and their country on its open minded, fair, and tolerant acceptance of those different from themselves. That is, of course, laudable--up to a point. The point comes when recurrent acts of terror including those of the most bestial sort are excused as the legitimate response to "illegal" military occupation. That point comes when acts of equal barbarity are assessed as morally different with one justified by purely contextual matters including cultural differences.
It is ironic in the extreme that the Norsk ambassador by his words reinforced one of the main points made at great and repetitive length in Brevik's manifesto--the pernicious pervasiveness of cultural relativism in Norway and Europe generally along with the lethal effects of this belief on political and social structures. Mr Sveje and the government which issued his credentials just don't get it. Neither, one might surmise, do a large number of Norwegians--and Europeans as well as Americans.
The "it" that Sveje and others don't get is simply that both history and contemporary affairs demonstrates clearly that some cultures, some societies, some norms and values, some belief systems, some governmental systems are better, more ethical, more moral, if you prefer, than others. In this context, it is clear that the West is superior in all ethical respects to the Muslim states. The West has gone through a very, very long learning curve of blood, destruction, mass death, suffering on a cosmic scale, and has come out purified in many essential respects. At the same time, the West is aware of its ongoing imperfections and continues to seek to rectify them.
The West may not have been blameless. But, in comparison to Muslim states and societies, it is not blameworthy today. And, in this connection Israel must be considered to be part of the West.
Consider the reaction throughout the West to Brevik's one man massacre. Universal condemnation even from those who share the fears of "Islamification" expressed by the terrorist murderer. Christian entities and clerics have been monolithic in their denunciation of Brevik's actions.
In sharp contrast Osama bin Laden remains a celebrated hero in Muslim societies and states. So do his emulators, his subordinates, his followers, and successors.
Consider Somalia. Thousands starve. Tens of thousands flee starvation. The Muslim group, al-Shabaab, prevents famine relief while engaging in an orgy of religiously predicated violence. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation sits back with folded hands and indifferent expressions watching the famine do its deadly work apparently convinced that starvation on this cosmic scale is the will of the deity such that any relief effort would be blasphemy at best, apostasy at worst.
At the same time it is the West which seeks to provide succor to the displaced and dying Somalis. It is the West which provides food and money, management expertise and aircraft, trying desperately to save lives written off by al-Shabaab and the OIC.
Consider Israel. While there are Israelis both in and out of government who are intransigent in the extreme, there is also a large, vibrant contingent of civil society and religiously motivated Israelis seeking peace, willing to see Palestine come into full, free existence. At the same time, the Palestinians are unwilling to grant Israel's right to exist (Hamas) or unwilling to acknowledge the realty that Israel is a Jewish state (Fatah.) The historical record demonstrates clearly that the "sins" of the Israelis are far outnumbered by those of the Palestinians--going back over eighty years.
Consider terrorism around the globe. How often does one read of radical extremist Buddhists taking hostages or detonating suicide vests? How many violent political Hindus fly aircraft into civilian structures shouting praise to one or another of their pantheon? Are Catholics, or Lutherans noted for their commitment to "martyrdom operations?" The use of terror attacks, of IEDs, of suicide bombings is almost exclusively the dominion of Muslims in service to what they perceive as their duty to their almighty.
No, Mr Ambassador, you are wrong. Dangerously wrong. Your attitude and that of your government and the Norwegian elite behind that government are sabotaging all that makes the West what it is. You, with your dedication to the specious and historically unjustified notion of cultural relativism, are attacking all which has been learned over a score of deadly, bloody centuries by the West and which makes the West today the last best hope of humanity.
Murder is wrong. Period. Terror, which is to say, murder for a political goal, is wrong. Period. The Arab Muslim slitting the Jewish infant's throat is equal in evil to Brevik with his bomb and gun. Period. Get a grip on it, Svein.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Christian(?) Terrorism and Cultural Relativism
Reading the manifesto of Anders Behring Brevik is a bit of a trudge, a long yomp uphill with wind and a cold rain in your face--and mud sucking at your boots. But, it is worth it. More than, say, the Unibomber's treatise on the ills of technology, the Norwegian's great effort, "2083: A European Declaration of Independence" provides real insight into a warped mind. In this it is not unlike reading Osama bin Laden's "declaration of war" against the US some fifteen years ago.
This is an appropriate analogy as Mr Berserker Brevik is a mirror image of the assorted practitioners of violent political Islam. Brevik, like bin Laden, made a list of quite valid objections to key aspects of contemporary life in the areas of the world in which each lived. Bin Landen's negative views of US policy to (and presence in) the Mideast were neither lunatic nor trivial. Brevik's critique of both multiculturalism and the impact of assimilation resistant Muslim immigrants upon Western Europe are also neither lunatic nor trivial.
The objective, intellectual predicates of bin Laden and Brevik were unobjectionable. Neither was over the edge in their thinking in and of itself. Where each went over the edge was in the manner by which they made their thoughts manifest. It was in the reliance upon lethal violence as the only way of obtaining redress for unacceptable conditions that the two men--one a Muslim with Salifist roots and the other a "fundamentalist" Christian (whatever the word "fundamentalist" might mean in this specific case)--became brothers in spirit.
The spiritual kinship between Brevik and his Muslim opponents carries a risk for all of us in the West which needs both recognition and effective addressing. The public opinion molding "elites" of Western academia, journalism, and politics, as well as many of us in the non-elite are damned currently with an overabundance of fairmindedness, openmindedness, tolerance, and a desire to accept the other which is evident only in its absence within the ranks of those who subscribe to political Islam.
This tendency, which is both a source of strength and weakness within the West, is already evident. The NYT has set its sights on those who have written and spoken negatively regarding Islam--particularly those cited and quoted in "2083." There can be little doubt but other individuals and organs will take the same censorious path.
This is as wrong as a soup sandwich--and as dangerous as tossing sweating dynamite against a stone wall. Any effort to suppress open and critical assessment of negative aspects of Islam such as the myriad contained in political Islam, particularly the form which admires and employs violence in pursuit of its goals, simply because as one person quoted by the NYT put it, "words have consequences," is both anathema to the ideals of the US and other Western states but dangerously counterproductive. Regardless of individuals such as the apparently delusional Brevik, there is a crying need to expose the dark underside of Islam.
Had Brevik been a Muslim, his actions would be applauded by many around the majority Muslim countries--and within the self-segregating Muslim enclaves dotting the European landscape from Norway to the UK to France, Germany, and beyond. But, Brevik was purportedly a Christian, and thus his actions receive only the condemnation they deserve from Christians around the world.
In this there resides the most significant distinction between the two religions. Islam celebrates violence undertaken in either the defense or the expansion of the faith. Christianity denounces violence. Regardless of the many, many times that Christians have violated their faith, the reality remains unchanged--Jesus was not the Man of the Sword (or the bomb or the semi-automatic rifle.) There is no faith rooted excuse or reason for offensive violence. There can be and is no greater difference between the two largest monotheistic religions than that.
Whether the people and opinion molders of the West like the idea or not, there is and will be for some while to come a struggle between the advocates of violent political Islam and the civilized states. As part of this struggle there will be ongoing attempts to use the openmindedness, the tolerance, the desire to be fair which characterizes the West against it. The only defenses against this are understanding of the nature and motives of the adversary and a willingness to reject the pernicious concept of cultural relativism.
Cultural relativism hides behind the bland and "fair" term of multiculturalism. This doctrine holds that no society, no polity, no culture is inherently "better" or "superior" to any other. Cultural relativism holds that it is impossible to have absolute standards regarding human behavior, that all standards can be applied only within specific cultural contexts, preferably only by individuals living within the context.
This idea is, of course, utter bilge. The Christians who condemn the acts of their fellow, Brevik, show this. So do the Norwegians who make no excuses for their fellow countryman. In this affirmation of condemnation there is a recognition of a universal principle--murder most foul is just that, murder most foul. It cannot be excused nor justified by even very legitimate concerns. There is no excuse.
It is the willingness to condemn Brevik which gives the West the right to condemn the actions of his spirit brothers of al-Qaeda or Taliban. Murder most foul is murder most foul. No excuses. No moral justification. No resorting to theological spinning and weaving.
In sharp contrast, Muslims of the Mideast and Northwest Asia have been willing to pile vitrupitation upon vitriol in their consideration both of Brevik and the early speculation that a Muslim group might have been behind the atrocities. At the same time, there is not and never has been the slightest rejection of the murder most foul committed by Muslims in the name of the Prophet and faith.
In this difference resides the justification for not censoring criticism of Islam. In this difference resides the need to continue critiquing that which deserves it within Muslim ranks. Brevik is an anomaly and has been cast out as such both in Norway and throughout the West. In the lands of Islam, however, Brevik's spirit brother, Osama bin Laden, remains a hero, a model, a zenith to which all too many aspire.
Consider that difference and ask yourself, "Are all cultures really equal?"
This is an appropriate analogy as Mr Berserker Brevik is a mirror image of the assorted practitioners of violent political Islam. Brevik, like bin Laden, made a list of quite valid objections to key aspects of contemporary life in the areas of the world in which each lived. Bin Landen's negative views of US policy to (and presence in) the Mideast were neither lunatic nor trivial. Brevik's critique of both multiculturalism and the impact of assimilation resistant Muslim immigrants upon Western Europe are also neither lunatic nor trivial.
The objective, intellectual predicates of bin Laden and Brevik were unobjectionable. Neither was over the edge in their thinking in and of itself. Where each went over the edge was in the manner by which they made their thoughts manifest. It was in the reliance upon lethal violence as the only way of obtaining redress for unacceptable conditions that the two men--one a Muslim with Salifist roots and the other a "fundamentalist" Christian (whatever the word "fundamentalist" might mean in this specific case)--became brothers in spirit.
The spiritual kinship between Brevik and his Muslim opponents carries a risk for all of us in the West which needs both recognition and effective addressing. The public opinion molding "elites" of Western academia, journalism, and politics, as well as many of us in the non-elite are damned currently with an overabundance of fairmindedness, openmindedness, tolerance, and a desire to accept the other which is evident only in its absence within the ranks of those who subscribe to political Islam.
This tendency, which is both a source of strength and weakness within the West, is already evident. The NYT has set its sights on those who have written and spoken negatively regarding Islam--particularly those cited and quoted in "2083." There can be little doubt but other individuals and organs will take the same censorious path.
This is as wrong as a soup sandwich--and as dangerous as tossing sweating dynamite against a stone wall. Any effort to suppress open and critical assessment of negative aspects of Islam such as the myriad contained in political Islam, particularly the form which admires and employs violence in pursuit of its goals, simply because as one person quoted by the NYT put it, "words have consequences," is both anathema to the ideals of the US and other Western states but dangerously counterproductive. Regardless of individuals such as the apparently delusional Brevik, there is a crying need to expose the dark underside of Islam.
Had Brevik been a Muslim, his actions would be applauded by many around the majority Muslim countries--and within the self-segregating Muslim enclaves dotting the European landscape from Norway to the UK to France, Germany, and beyond. But, Brevik was purportedly a Christian, and thus his actions receive only the condemnation they deserve from Christians around the world.
In this there resides the most significant distinction between the two religions. Islam celebrates violence undertaken in either the defense or the expansion of the faith. Christianity denounces violence. Regardless of the many, many times that Christians have violated their faith, the reality remains unchanged--Jesus was not the Man of the Sword (or the bomb or the semi-automatic rifle.) There is no faith rooted excuse or reason for offensive violence. There can be and is no greater difference between the two largest monotheistic religions than that.
Whether the people and opinion molders of the West like the idea or not, there is and will be for some while to come a struggle between the advocates of violent political Islam and the civilized states. As part of this struggle there will be ongoing attempts to use the openmindedness, the tolerance, the desire to be fair which characterizes the West against it. The only defenses against this are understanding of the nature and motives of the adversary and a willingness to reject the pernicious concept of cultural relativism.
Cultural relativism hides behind the bland and "fair" term of multiculturalism. This doctrine holds that no society, no polity, no culture is inherently "better" or "superior" to any other. Cultural relativism holds that it is impossible to have absolute standards regarding human behavior, that all standards can be applied only within specific cultural contexts, preferably only by individuals living within the context.
This idea is, of course, utter bilge. The Christians who condemn the acts of their fellow, Brevik, show this. So do the Norwegians who make no excuses for their fellow countryman. In this affirmation of condemnation there is a recognition of a universal principle--murder most foul is just that, murder most foul. It cannot be excused nor justified by even very legitimate concerns. There is no excuse.
It is the willingness to condemn Brevik which gives the West the right to condemn the actions of his spirit brothers of al-Qaeda or Taliban. Murder most foul is murder most foul. No excuses. No moral justification. No resorting to theological spinning and weaving.
In sharp contrast, Muslims of the Mideast and Northwest Asia have been willing to pile vitrupitation upon vitriol in their consideration both of Brevik and the early speculation that a Muslim group might have been behind the atrocities. At the same time, there is not and never has been the slightest rejection of the murder most foul committed by Muslims in the name of the Prophet and faith.
In this difference resides the justification for not censoring criticism of Islam. In this difference resides the need to continue critiquing that which deserves it within Muslim ranks. Brevik is an anomaly and has been cast out as such both in Norway and throughout the West. In the lands of Islam, however, Brevik's spirit brother, Osama bin Laden, remains a hero, a model, a zenith to which all too many aspire.
Consider that difference and ask yourself, "Are all cultures really equal?"
Thursday, July 21, 2011
One More Famine In Somalia
Records of both history and climate data show recurrent droughts have hit the horn of Africa generally and Somalia in particular with regularity. It was a drought induced famine which invited the US humanitarian intervention in the dismal geographic expression called Somalia during the waning days of the George H.W. Bush administration. This adventure in feeding the starving brought with it a bout of mission creep and finally the humiliating withdrawal of US personnel following the ill-advised, poorly planned, and hastily executed failed raid on a chief warlord.
Since then the US has provided aid, humanitarian as well as military, to the Somalian people and their most recent experiment in government, the Transitional Federal Government. The aid has been cut substantially in recent years due to well founded concerns that it might have been benefiting the al-Shabaab gunslingers more than the civilians for whom it was intended. When the Mighty Warriors of the Koran ordered an end to the activities of international aid organizations including the UN, American aid functionally ended along with that provided by other civilized states.
The situation in al-Shabaab dominated portions of the country has grown ever worse. Partially, this is the effect of the drought. But more it has been the result of the combination of ineptitude and brutality which is the hallmark of al-Shabaab's notion of proper governance according to the finer points of Islam. The joining of hunger beyond description and fear of the thugs of Islamic purity has resulted in a flood of refugees pouring into vastly overcrowded camps in Kenya and new rather informal facilities in Ethiopia--a country where famine also stalks the land.
The UN and international organizations such as Oxfam have declared that an official famine exists in large portions of Somalia. Oxfam has pointed the great finger of blame at the US and the European Union, alleging that both entities have been slow and inadequate in their response to the emergency despite ample warnings and importuning.
The Flying Finger of Guilt is misplaced to say the least. The US has increased its food aid to the region, including an additional twenty-eight million bucks worth of food for Somalis. The EU has done likewise. At the center of affairs the UN believes it can successfully negotiate a mode of existence with al-Shabaab which will allow the food and accompanying aid workers to work in the regions they dominate. But this remains an open question.
Dark hints have been made to the effect that the ongoing US effort to counter both al-Shabaab and its close affiliate, al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, are complicating the business of making a deal with the gunsels of al-Shabaab. The necessary inference is that the US should stop its semi-clandestine war with both advocates of violent political Islam. Ironically, Oxfam, the same group which deplores the US drone attacks on al-Shabaab fighters has also mentioned the need to invoke Responsibility to Protect in order to meet the current crisis. Of course, R2P would require a massive military campaign including ground combat forces, but that seems to have eluded the Lofty Minded of Oxfam.
In their orgy of finger pointing at the West, the folks at Oxfam and other NGOs seem to have overlooked a couple of salient facts.
Fact the first: The states of the African Union have contributed not even penny number one to famine relief in the Horn.
Sure, Kenya is taking a hit with the refugee camp, the largest on Earth, but that does not make up for the utter lack of interest in helping on the part of the AU generally. This reinforces the perception that while the AU likes to talk about African solutions to African problems, they are unable or unwilling to do more than talk. Let the West do the heavy lifting seems to be the unstated motto of the Union.
Fact the second: The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (formerly the Organization of the Islamic Conference) has provided no money, no food, no logistics, no nothing. Perhaps the OIC has forgotten that Somalia is a majority Muslim state--a member of the organization. Perhaps the OIC and its over fifty members have forgotten the many strictures regarding the Muslim obligation for charity. Perhaps the OIC is simply too worried about something they call "Islamophobia" and cartoons of the Prophet to notice a few hundred thousand starving Muslim women and children. Or, perhaps the OIC and all its members--some of whom have most of the money in the known universe--simply believe it is the Will of Allah that so many perish so wretchedly, and thus it would be blasphemous at best to intervene with food aid.
The West ought to propose to the OIC the following deal. You pay and we will feed. You fork over some of your petrodollars and we, particularly we Americans, will provide food at fair market price to be distributed in Somalia or the refugee camps. You pay for transportation and distribution. And, if we need to use force to get the food past your fellow Muslims in al-Shabaab, you pay for the bullets necessary.
Of course the money heavy governments of the OIC will not accept this deal, fair as it is. This means the taxpayers of the US and the other civilized states will have to carry the freight for some generations to come. It is both a curse and a blessing that the West has learned through past experience that some things, like mass starvation, are simply unacceptable. So, Westerners will do the heavy lifting while the AU and OIC sit by with folded hands and indifferent expressions.
Frankly, the idea in and of itself flatly rankles the Geek's rear end. Famine should be equally unacceptable to the governments of the AU and, even more, the OIC. The fact that both seem totally unconcerned about the bitter reality of life and death in the Somalia of al-Shabaab stands as stark accusation against not only the two organizations but the religious faith which purportedly provides the foundation of one.
Since then the US has provided aid, humanitarian as well as military, to the Somalian people and their most recent experiment in government, the Transitional Federal Government. The aid has been cut substantially in recent years due to well founded concerns that it might have been benefiting the al-Shabaab gunslingers more than the civilians for whom it was intended. When the Mighty Warriors of the Koran ordered an end to the activities of international aid organizations including the UN, American aid functionally ended along with that provided by other civilized states.
The situation in al-Shabaab dominated portions of the country has grown ever worse. Partially, this is the effect of the drought. But more it has been the result of the combination of ineptitude and brutality which is the hallmark of al-Shabaab's notion of proper governance according to the finer points of Islam. The joining of hunger beyond description and fear of the thugs of Islamic purity has resulted in a flood of refugees pouring into vastly overcrowded camps in Kenya and new rather informal facilities in Ethiopia--a country where famine also stalks the land.
The UN and international organizations such as Oxfam have declared that an official famine exists in large portions of Somalia. Oxfam has pointed the great finger of blame at the US and the European Union, alleging that both entities have been slow and inadequate in their response to the emergency despite ample warnings and importuning.
The Flying Finger of Guilt is misplaced to say the least. The US has increased its food aid to the region, including an additional twenty-eight million bucks worth of food for Somalis. The EU has done likewise. At the center of affairs the UN believes it can successfully negotiate a mode of existence with al-Shabaab which will allow the food and accompanying aid workers to work in the regions they dominate. But this remains an open question.
Dark hints have been made to the effect that the ongoing US effort to counter both al-Shabaab and its close affiliate, al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, are complicating the business of making a deal with the gunsels of al-Shabaab. The necessary inference is that the US should stop its semi-clandestine war with both advocates of violent political Islam. Ironically, Oxfam, the same group which deplores the US drone attacks on al-Shabaab fighters has also mentioned the need to invoke Responsibility to Protect in order to meet the current crisis. Of course, R2P would require a massive military campaign including ground combat forces, but that seems to have eluded the Lofty Minded of Oxfam.
In their orgy of finger pointing at the West, the folks at Oxfam and other NGOs seem to have overlooked a couple of salient facts.
Fact the first: The states of the African Union have contributed not even penny number one to famine relief in the Horn.
Sure, Kenya is taking a hit with the refugee camp, the largest on Earth, but that does not make up for the utter lack of interest in helping on the part of the AU generally. This reinforces the perception that while the AU likes to talk about African solutions to African problems, they are unable or unwilling to do more than talk. Let the West do the heavy lifting seems to be the unstated motto of the Union.
Fact the second: The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (formerly the Organization of the Islamic Conference) has provided no money, no food, no logistics, no nothing. Perhaps the OIC has forgotten that Somalia is a majority Muslim state--a member of the organization. Perhaps the OIC and its over fifty members have forgotten the many strictures regarding the Muslim obligation for charity. Perhaps the OIC is simply too worried about something they call "Islamophobia" and cartoons of the Prophet to notice a few hundred thousand starving Muslim women and children. Or, perhaps the OIC and all its members--some of whom have most of the money in the known universe--simply believe it is the Will of Allah that so many perish so wretchedly, and thus it would be blasphemous at best to intervene with food aid.
The West ought to propose to the OIC the following deal. You pay and we will feed. You fork over some of your petrodollars and we, particularly we Americans, will provide food at fair market price to be distributed in Somalia or the refugee camps. You pay for transportation and distribution. And, if we need to use force to get the food past your fellow Muslims in al-Shabaab, you pay for the bullets necessary.
Of course the money heavy governments of the OIC will not accept this deal, fair as it is. This means the taxpayers of the US and the other civilized states will have to carry the freight for some generations to come. It is both a curse and a blessing that the West has learned through past experience that some things, like mass starvation, are simply unacceptable. So, Westerners will do the heavy lifting while the AU and OIC sit by with folded hands and indifferent expressions.
Frankly, the idea in and of itself flatly rankles the Geek's rear end. Famine should be equally unacceptable to the governments of the AU and, even more, the OIC. The fact that both seem totally unconcerned about the bitter reality of life and death in the Somalia of al-Shabaab stands as stark accusation against not only the two organizations but the religious faith which purportedly provides the foundation of one.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Egypt (Or Its Generals) Looks To Ataturk's Turkey
In a set of moves which is in no way surprising, the supreme command of Egypt's armed forces is seeking a continued, large role in the upcoming government. The reason for the sudden political aspirations of the generals is not hard to unpack. They are more than a tad scared of the Muslim Brotherhood and other advocates of political Islam.
Both the Washington Post and New York Times have taken note of the development. That implies the US government will soon do so as well. One would hope that the Deep Thinkers of the current administration have already taken cogniscence of this development, but you can never be sure given the number of blunders which constitute the Obama and Company's excuse for a Mideast policy.
It is clear both from the US media accounts and those appearing in Egypt that the senior leadership of the Egyptian armed forces sees the military as the guarantor not only of territorial sovereignty but also the integrity of the government. As the ultimate protector of state, nation, and government, the Turkish model is completely accurate.
Until the recent stare-down between the Islamist predicated AKP and the military, the people of Turkey not only allowed but expected the army to take over whenever the civilian government was unable or unwilling to put a stop to internal violence of whatsoever origin and goal. Parsing the public remarks of Egyptian generals in recent days, it is evident that they see the army as the only neutral party able to impose and maintain peace between highly motivated contestants willing and able to resort to violence in pursuit of political goals.
The armed forces' moves in the direction of greater authority to be exercised over an indeterminate span of time has perturbed some of those who provided the muscle of the "Lotus Revolution." Many of these individuals see the armed forces' counsel, the transitional government, as having stolen the fruits of the revolution, of having become a set of Mubarak clones. This sense of betrayal has motivated the recent sit-in demonstrations in the same Cairo square as those which brought down Mubarak.
Months ago as Mubarak prepared to call it quits, the demonstrators chanted, "The Army and the people are one!" Now to many, the memory of that chant rings hollow and empty. Many in the younger demographic segment of the Egyptian population no longer see the armed forces as a protector or the powerful force multiplier which assured Mubarak had no choice but abdication.
The generals who run Egypt behind the screen of carefully chosen civilian political nonentities have made concessions to the outraged "kids" in the square. Hundreds of senior police officials were forced to take early retirement. Mubarak, his sons, and close associates have been arrested and face trial on a number of charges even though the armed forces high command had promised initially to spare the aging autocrat this fate.
The concessions have not been enough to satisfy the dissidents. They could not be. The very success of the protesters assures that. In a completely understandable way, the heady aroma of having dumped the dictator has clouded a lot of folk's judgement. The armed forces commanders have recognized something of which the dissidents are either totally unaware or, at best, have a dim awareness.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a threat to any sort of secular Egypt. The Brotherhood has employed very slick public relations moves to convince many in the West, in the US particularly, that the MB is not a collection of Muslim crazies with delusions of power. The leadership, or at least the visible portion, has denied any ambition of taking power--immediately. They have publicly distanced themselves from any imposition of Shariah upon the state--again immediately. They have declined to run a candidate for president and will not enter a candidate in many of the upcoming parliamentary elections. The message is: See, we are not hell-bent on taking over Egypt, of establishing a new Cairo caliphate.
Not unlike the senior echelons of the world's foremost seat of Islamic learning, al-Azhar university, located in Cairo, the commanders of the Egyptian military do not believe the Muslim Brotherhood's protestations of innocence. Alone or in conjunction with other apostles of political Islam, including those willing to use violence, the Muslim Brotherhood will move as quickly as is politically expedient to establish a Shariah compliant state, a Cairo Caliphate. This is what the generals hope to preclude.
Kemal Ataturk had the same fear in the wake of World War I and the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire. He and his fellow officers knew the power of Islam, its raw emotional force acting on a people who had been oppressed and humiliated for years. The inevitable internal violence which would accompany a religious conflict would destroy Turkey at worst or, at best, prevent its entering the modern world for generations. The Turkey of Ataturk would be resolutely secular--and the army would guarantee that.
In the days following the Second World War, the Turks discovered that secular political ideologies could be as violent and disruptive of social and political life as any religious conflict. Thus, the army was expected, empowered really, to step in and take over whenever political passions overflowed the dikes of civil discourse. Much as the periodic military takeovers bothered the states and people of Western Europe, the Turks saw them not only as unexceptional but quite necessary.
(Her Geekness was a student at METU in the early Seventies when the Left and Right exchanged gunfire on campus. She found no dissenting voices--save among the ideological combatants--when the army moved onto the streets and lowered the noise level to a saner level.)
The Egyptian generals are not any less perceptive than Ataturk and his supporters. They know the Egyptians and the Muslim Brotherhood with the fine grained detail that no foreign observer can muster. They also are aware that the armed forces of Egypt (like those of Turkey in an earlier period) have a level of universal approbation that no other institution possesses. They fear the passions of a long oppressed people which can be tapped with ease in the full flush of democracy poorly understood as to practice. They fear with good reason the potential power of the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies, a power which can unleash the passions with no good result for Egypt.
The move by the senior commanders to keep a firm hand on the levers of power is both prudential and justifiable. It can be hoped that they use the firm hand with caution and restraint, a caution and restraint which was often lacking under Mubarak and Sadat. If they fail to use their authority in a controlled and minimal way, their failure will bring more problems, problems which cannot be solved by tanks and troops. For decades the Turks played the game well, so there is a paradigm for the Egyptian military to follow.
It is questionable whether or not the Obama administration recognizes the motives of the generals in Egypt. It can be hoped that the Deep Thinkers will understand that stability in Egypt and the region requires not only an exercise in plausible democracy but also mechanisms to assure the passions will not swamp a civil society and a polity sailing in new and troubled waters.
Well, one can hope. Can't one?
Both the Washington Post and New York Times have taken note of the development. That implies the US government will soon do so as well. One would hope that the Deep Thinkers of the current administration have already taken cogniscence of this development, but you can never be sure given the number of blunders which constitute the Obama and Company's excuse for a Mideast policy.
It is clear both from the US media accounts and those appearing in Egypt that the senior leadership of the Egyptian armed forces sees the military as the guarantor not only of territorial sovereignty but also the integrity of the government. As the ultimate protector of state, nation, and government, the Turkish model is completely accurate.
Until the recent stare-down between the Islamist predicated AKP and the military, the people of Turkey not only allowed but expected the army to take over whenever the civilian government was unable or unwilling to put a stop to internal violence of whatsoever origin and goal. Parsing the public remarks of Egyptian generals in recent days, it is evident that they see the army as the only neutral party able to impose and maintain peace between highly motivated contestants willing and able to resort to violence in pursuit of political goals.
The armed forces' moves in the direction of greater authority to be exercised over an indeterminate span of time has perturbed some of those who provided the muscle of the "Lotus Revolution." Many of these individuals see the armed forces' counsel, the transitional government, as having stolen the fruits of the revolution, of having become a set of Mubarak clones. This sense of betrayal has motivated the recent sit-in demonstrations in the same Cairo square as those which brought down Mubarak.
Months ago as Mubarak prepared to call it quits, the demonstrators chanted, "The Army and the people are one!" Now to many, the memory of that chant rings hollow and empty. Many in the younger demographic segment of the Egyptian population no longer see the armed forces as a protector or the powerful force multiplier which assured Mubarak had no choice but abdication.
The generals who run Egypt behind the screen of carefully chosen civilian political nonentities have made concessions to the outraged "kids" in the square. Hundreds of senior police officials were forced to take early retirement. Mubarak, his sons, and close associates have been arrested and face trial on a number of charges even though the armed forces high command had promised initially to spare the aging autocrat this fate.
The concessions have not been enough to satisfy the dissidents. They could not be. The very success of the protesters assures that. In a completely understandable way, the heady aroma of having dumped the dictator has clouded a lot of folk's judgement. The armed forces commanders have recognized something of which the dissidents are either totally unaware or, at best, have a dim awareness.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a threat to any sort of secular Egypt. The Brotherhood has employed very slick public relations moves to convince many in the West, in the US particularly, that the MB is not a collection of Muslim crazies with delusions of power. The leadership, or at least the visible portion, has denied any ambition of taking power--immediately. They have publicly distanced themselves from any imposition of Shariah upon the state--again immediately. They have declined to run a candidate for president and will not enter a candidate in many of the upcoming parliamentary elections. The message is: See, we are not hell-bent on taking over Egypt, of establishing a new Cairo caliphate.
Not unlike the senior echelons of the world's foremost seat of Islamic learning, al-Azhar university, located in Cairo, the commanders of the Egyptian military do not believe the Muslim Brotherhood's protestations of innocence. Alone or in conjunction with other apostles of political Islam, including those willing to use violence, the Muslim Brotherhood will move as quickly as is politically expedient to establish a Shariah compliant state, a Cairo Caliphate. This is what the generals hope to preclude.
Kemal Ataturk had the same fear in the wake of World War I and the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire. He and his fellow officers knew the power of Islam, its raw emotional force acting on a people who had been oppressed and humiliated for years. The inevitable internal violence which would accompany a religious conflict would destroy Turkey at worst or, at best, prevent its entering the modern world for generations. The Turkey of Ataturk would be resolutely secular--and the army would guarantee that.
In the days following the Second World War, the Turks discovered that secular political ideologies could be as violent and disruptive of social and political life as any religious conflict. Thus, the army was expected, empowered really, to step in and take over whenever political passions overflowed the dikes of civil discourse. Much as the periodic military takeovers bothered the states and people of Western Europe, the Turks saw them not only as unexceptional but quite necessary.
(Her Geekness was a student at METU in the early Seventies when the Left and Right exchanged gunfire on campus. She found no dissenting voices--save among the ideological combatants--when the army moved onto the streets and lowered the noise level to a saner level.)
The Egyptian generals are not any less perceptive than Ataturk and his supporters. They know the Egyptians and the Muslim Brotherhood with the fine grained detail that no foreign observer can muster. They also are aware that the armed forces of Egypt (like those of Turkey in an earlier period) have a level of universal approbation that no other institution possesses. They fear the passions of a long oppressed people which can be tapped with ease in the full flush of democracy poorly understood as to practice. They fear with good reason the potential power of the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies, a power which can unleash the passions with no good result for Egypt.
The move by the senior commanders to keep a firm hand on the levers of power is both prudential and justifiable. It can be hoped that they use the firm hand with caution and restraint, a caution and restraint which was often lacking under Mubarak and Sadat. If they fail to use their authority in a controlled and minimal way, their failure will bring more problems, problems which cannot be solved by tanks and troops. For decades the Turks played the game well, so there is a paradigm for the Egyptian military to follow.
It is questionable whether or not the Obama administration recognizes the motives of the generals in Egypt. It can be hoped that the Deep Thinkers will understand that stability in Egypt and the region requires not only an exercise in plausible democracy but also mechanisms to assure the passions will not swamp a civil society and a polity sailing in new and troubled waters.
Well, one can hope. Can't one?
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