What the Quran burnings tell us

[Ken White]

Too late now, but it concerns me when the Army wants to take the lessons learned from Afghanistan. What lessons did they take away from it?

Dunno but if Viet Nam is any guide, it'll be mostly the wrong ones...

Everything in that report Ol' Carl linked was absolutely predictable. Yet another example of why big bodies of troops in interventions are a really bad idea. Always have been (Carl's Roman Legionnaires probably had the same sorts of reactions and thoughts in Britain and Gaul...).

[KingJaja]

America's problem is not that it lacks book smarts, it lacks street smarts.

I have watched, in anguish, over the past twelve years as America is being led down a path to disaster by smart men and women with degrees from the best Ivy League schools but little common sense.

This is the same country where politicians from both major parties have an almost Pavlovian response to Israel ("Israel is the best thing that happened to mankind"). Where the most bellicose Israeli Prime Minister in recent times is given a standing ovation 29 times, where the US is one of the few nations on earth that plans to/planned to veto the Palestinian bid at the UN and plans to withdraw funding to UNESCO over Palestine.

These same people also know that 70% of the Arab World watches Al Jazeera, yet you expect the Muslim World to love you!


You are not going to get the Muslim World to love you by building an embassy the size of the Vatican in Baghdad. You've got to make bold changes to your Middle East policy.

Anyway, this is Orwell's essay, it illustrates the relationship between colonised and coloniser. This is exactly the way my dad and grandad felt about the British.

http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/887/

[slapout9]

America's problem is not that it lacks book smarts, it lacks street smarts.

I have watched, in anguish, over the past twelve years as America is being led down a path to disaster by smart men and women with degrees from the best Ivy League schools but little common sense.

Couldn't agree more! America gets Zero respect in the world and yes College Degreeism is the biggest threat Mankind has ever faced.

[Fuchs]

America's problem is not that it lacks book smarts, it lacks street smarts.

This is - considering that the country is huge at about 310 million inhabitants - likely a systemic problem.
The selection for leadership is certainly broken (to a greater degree than in some other places; it's brokene verywhere).

On the other hand, looking at the current Republican Nominees for the #1 job of the country, I cannot resist the suspicion that it's not the process alone that's broken, if it's the process itself at all.


It may be a cultural thing instead.

Tolerance for BS is probably way too high, often with the excuse of free speech or under the pretense of balance (false equivalenciesbetween different political wing's BS).

The idea that a country's prime responsibility is to keep its about 5-10% harmful A-holes away from power is underdeveloped because of an exaggerated believe in one's greatness.

The readiness to learn from other countries' experiences and examples is underdeveloped.

The readiness to believe science over ideology/mythology/religion is underdeveloped.

The tolerance for big money influecne on elections and policy in general is overdeveloped.



Then again, Germany gets it wrong as well. We allow an overdevelopment of political institutions; our parties are too well-rooted, too influential.
Our federal government is run by people who excel in building party-internal alliances and at silencing/degrading their political opponents.
Too many ministers are incompetent at everything else and ethics are at best mediocre.
Our chancellor is so much focused on power that ideology is a mere tool for her, not a belief. This would be nice if she replaced it with rational analysis ona case-by-case basis, but instead it merely means that her policies are entirely unpredictable and can experience a U-turn any time, given some exogenous shock.
Our tolerance for this political culture is shocking (but we got a new, more youth-supported party that appears to shake things up a bit like the greens did three decades ago).

[carl]

KingJaja with educated stupids, Fuchs with our systemic problem in developing leadership-absolutely.

Bill, the report confirms that the problems were exacerbated by the buildup in Afghanistan, just as you said. We used to depend more on local resources many years gone by. I think we could again. But our leadership is afraid to ask us to.

Ken, I think the Romans get a bad rap often. Spain, Gaul, Britain, all conquered by Rome, all became Rome and their people Romans. Their was no need for Legions to occupy those areas to suppress restless people. They weren't restless. In the late Empire, I may be hazy on this, the Legions were mostly on the frontiers or fighting each other in dynastic power struggles. One of the patterns of Celtic town construction was fortified hilltop settlements before the Romans came, open settlements in the valleys for the centuries the Romans were around, and after they left, back to fortified hilltop settlements.

Of course that didn't happen in just a few years. It took many to bring it about. But they did it. And they didn't do use just the kill 'em all Russian school of small war fighting. They worked through local elites and brought genuine benefits to the areas. They would kill 'em all though if the situation required it. Genuine carrots and genuine sticks.

How did you know Rome fascinates me?

[Ken White]

KingJaja:

America's problem is not that it lacks book smarts, it lacks street smarts.

True...

I have watched, in anguish, over the past twelve years as America is being led down a path to disaster by smart men and women with degrees from the best Ivy League schools but little common sense.

Sigh. Me, too. Actually, I've been watching it for over 60 years and the downslope is generally steady.

slapout9: Ain't that right...

Fuchs: Sadly correct on all counts...

Carl: Yes, to what the Romans did but as you note, the Roman successes did in fact take many years and effectively, the Romans and the locals assimilated. That's a multi-generational effort and we, the US, are not going to do that; wouldn't even if we could -- and we cannot. Nor should we.

I suspect and suggest those Romans initially deployed had much the same reactions as cited in the report you linked, as assimilation occurred, that tension disappeared.. Dunno, wasn't there but I do know that in several deployments I've seen the same reactions (on both sides) as exist today in Afghanistan. Third party interventions do more harm than good, generally due to that as well as to other factors.

You cite the Romans often as successful -- and they were -- they also had time we do not have. They are also long gone -- just as we will be. We may get as much net time as they did, may not...

[Firn]

I suspect and suggest those Romans initially deployed had much the same reactions as cited in the report you linked, as assimilation occurred, that tension disappeared.. Dunno, wasn't there but I do know that in several deployments I've seen the same reactions (on both sides) as exist today in Afghanistan. Third party interventions do more harm than good, generally due to that as well as to other factors.

You cite the Romans often as successful -- and they were -- they also had time we do not have. They are also long gone -- just as we will be. We may get as much net time as they did, may not...

At least in Gaul good old Gaius did not let a good pretext go to waste to help some Gallic leader and tribes against other tribes and leaders both Gallic and Germanic. Of course many were not quite happy as the Gaius made it clear that they were here to stay, and found the big Germanic walkabout who fifty years earlier which triggered the creation of Marius professional mules in relative terms no longer that bad.

In the end the Romans offered a ferro e fuoco or panem et circenses plus attrative deals and baths for the Gallic nobility. So in a sense they were of course much more dead serious about their business and invested more time, Barbaric force and Roman civilisation into their enterprise. Many years later they had developed a regional Roman identity.

P.S: Ironically many Germanic leaders taking over part of the Roman empire seemingly felt that they were only changing the leadership. In the end the mostly melted with local population, in many cases adopting the local tongue being in the Franks reign or in the Lombardia. I can not quite imagine that Nato will go along that path...

[Fuchs]

The Romans had a simple method of romanizing new provinces:

The conquered them in battle, bribed local elites and lured their youth with the comforts of Roman civilization and career opportunities, then after 20-30 years they destroyed the last hope for freedom by crushing a general uprising in force.


In Parthia they failed with the conquering part, in Germany they failed with the 'crush the general insurrection' part.

They weren't exactly good at pacifying within a decade.


Hmm, maybe every village should have been asked send one or two bright youth to a U.S. University and be handed a cheap laptop with webcam and mobile phone connection?