the answers to those questions, but I don't.
However, my concern is if they are not asked, then we will continually do the same thing over and over again.
Very good points, JC.
Pulling off of JC's comments, and getting back to the original post, have you noticed that few in the US (or outside it) buy into the narrative offered? Most "answers", if they aren't of an "X=Y" form, tend to be implicit stories, i.e. they have a meaning, moral and story line attached to them. The story about bringing democracy to _____ (fill in the blank) isn't selling well, mainly because there is a lot of comptetition.
Will we do the same thing over and over? Probably... most cultures do.
Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
Senior Research Fellow,
The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
Carleton University
http://marctyrrell.com/
"Why are we doing this" holds the key to the other two.
If there is no good answer to that final question in the eyes of the beholder -- not in the eyes of he, she or they who made the commitment to do 'this' whatever it was -- then the other issues become clouded and people get confused.
For example, attacking Iraq made perfect sense to me on the basis that we had responded poorly or not at all to 22 years of provocations emanating from the ME. Having lived there for a while and thus having some small insights into the prevailing mentality there, I took it for what it was (to me and simplistically here stated); a massive response by the entire Tribe to numerous assaults on the dignity of the Tribe in the form of typical desert pin-prick raids which of themselves are not terribly effective or harmful but which do tend to erode the superior position of the Tribe. Thus, in my view, the attack was worthwhile and made a great deal of sense. I believe that my view was shared by some, particuarly in the ME (who none the less objected because they didn't like the precedent).
A more west-centric view would discard my thought process and opt for the belief that the attack was ill advised. IF the west-centric viewer in question was sorting out TTP or solutions to use in Iraq, the probability is that some bad decisions would be made simply because the 'why' quotient was not known or was misunderstood...
Thus, as Marc says, "most cultures do" make the same mistakes over and over because they do not do a good job of determining why they are doing what they are doing -- or of properly explaining why they are doing what they are doing. Proper understanding by all concerned of that last point is the factor that causes confusion on the answers to the other two questions.
That's why WW II got broad popular support (on both sides), the 'why we are doing this' was quite clear and unambiguous. Most wars since then have been poorly handled in most regards because even the fighters weren't sure why they were doing what they were doing. That, I suspect will get worse before it gets better.
Last edited by Ken White; 04-16-2009 at 04:36 PM. Reason: Typos
We're trained that if we are stuck in restricted terrain and misoriented, then we stop, take a knee, pull out the map and compass, and reorient ourselves...
I don't see why that simple tactic should not be applied to many other issues.
v/r
Mike
The problem is that 24/7 media cycles, international agendas, and internal bickering never take a break so a lot of times you won't see changes until after they have actually already started.
Kinda brings back why doing whats right is a better direction than doing things the "right" way. The former generally remains the same for everyone while the latter tends to be a reflection of prisms.
Any man can destroy that which is around him, The rare man is he who can find beauty even in the darkest hours
Cogitationis poenam nemo patitur
Generals (among others... ) do not like to admit error for obvious reasons in most cases -- to the extent of not making course corrections because that implies an earlier failing -- and you have a recipe for a screw up. Complicate that by putting in another relatively clueless person high up the food chain and it only gets worse. Until someone comes along and unsticks it..
Plenty of historical examples. Some hysterical ones also -- unfortunately, when the occur in conjunction with geopolitics and this trade, they're rarely funny.
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