Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
Robert, if I may address you so,

First, a general question that pervades all: why should I or any other resident of the Islamic World accept principles of governance from the United States ? What do you have to offer that cannot be found within the four walls of the Islamic House ?

Second, yes - "Stop being an obstacle to good governance". And, withdraw your support from governments in the Islamic World - their fates have been ordained. As you know, I wrote of good governance many years ago.

Third, I may not understand this - "Start competing AQ IAW our own professed principles as a nation." However, this seems inconsistent with your other statements. Are you speaking only of diplomatic discussions; or are you speaking of interventions to change our professed principles (albeit, "kinder and more gentle" as one of your presidents said) ?

Fourth - what does ""De Oppresso Liber" translate to (to you) in the modern-day realities of the Islamic World ?

Fifth - if the US "We just need to find a new, less abusive of the people of the region, approach", why not just depart and allow the People of the Islamic World to seek out what we want and do not want from the US ?

Sincerely,

Abul
(last address, Buffalo, NY, 1979)
Point One: (And Dayuhan always twists this one and throws it back at me, so I have apparently never been clear) Our principle is to allow people to live and govern by their principles. When we enable a single strongman to govern such populaces with impunity WE do not live by our principles, and men so corrupted with wealth and power soon do not govern by the principles, ways and means acceptable to the populaces they are supposed to serve.

When I read principles such as "all men are created equal" I realize that the actual value assessed is situational and varies wildly over time and by culture. Even with in the four corners of the US values change. Where we go astray is when we demand anyone, anywhere adhere to our current assessed value.

I have always been adamant that we need to stand for Self-Determination (another principle that we loudly profess, but then tend to subjugate to newer values, such as the specific form of governance found in "Democracy." The fact is that Self-Determination is the ultimate form of democracy, regardless of what form of government adopted, as it implies that these people are being governed as they desire to be governed.

On your second point, I do not ever say we need to withdraw our support, but we do need to stop granting unconditional support to individual leaders and regimes while ignoring how they are not treating their populace within the norms of their own culture. We need to become more attuned to how the people feel about their government and not get into positions were we are reasonably perceived as the obstacle to self-determination and the enabler of impunity.

On my third point, when I say "compete" with AQ, that is a competition for influence with, and the trust of, the people of every nation. Most importantly for this mission are those that are in high levels of suppressed insurgency that AQ is targeting so aggressively to leverage that energy for their own ends. Those people deserve a new champion that is not so committed to extreme versions of their own religion, or extreme tactics for influencing governments.

As I type this the talking heads on "Morning Joe" are already saying "Great on Bin Laden, but the real danger is not AQ base in Pak, but rather is AQ on the AP." That is so WRONG. AQ conducts UW, and yes, they have agents working on the AP with members of the many oppressed populaces that exist on that beating heart at the core of the energy that AQ has leveraged from the very beginning. If we shift to massive CT against these insurgents and AQ operators, coupled with massive security force capacity building to suppress such internal threats, we will have totally and completely blown this opportunity. Now is the time to completely change the tone and focus of GWOT to focus on root causes. Let the SOF community and the CIA worry about finding and disrupting the UW hubs of AQ as a silent, relentless supporting effort. The main effort must be the relationship between the populaces as a whole and their own governments.

Fourth, De Oppresso Liber is to liberate the oppressed. When one is not free or when one is oppressed is an assessment of the individual in question, and of a populace as a collective norm. Many of the most oppressive regimes in the world still exist in the Middle East, and many of those are counted as our allies, and many of those are the primary source of recruits to support AQ operations around the globe. When we merely conduct CT against those who dare to stand up; when we build the capacity of those governments to suppress more effectively (great article on Al Jazerra on this point http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth...644559572.html ) we miss the main point. This is politics, this is governance. Yes, it is good go help protect populaces from the insurgent, from the terrorist. But first, me must ask, have we protected them from their own governments as well??

5th. At the end of the day we are still a great and mighty country. A country with interests. Many of those interests have critical nodes in the Middle East. We must engage to promote those interests. What we must learn is that old techniques that were cavalier to the issues of the populaces affected by such engagement are rendered invalid, dangerous and obsolete by the modern information age. Great Britain learned this lesson to a certain degree when they made the decision that the cost of a colonial empire exceeded the benefit. Today, the cost of the accidental, functional "empire without colonies" built largely through the control measures born of 60 years of Containment also exceeds the benefit. We need to find a new, more efficient model for managing such interests.