What the Quran burnings tell us

[Fuchs]

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/...rnings_tell_us

Close your eyes, and imagine the following situation...

Suppose the town or city where you live had a bunch of heavily-armed foreign soldiers living nearby. As part of their normal duties, they sent patrols down your street with some frequency, bristling with guns and other instruments of war. Imagine that these soldiers were from a very different culture and nearly all of them did not speak your native language, although they could occasionally use a local translator to order you around. You have been (...)

I used this technique for the same purpose repeatedly; it shows the innate stupidity of the really quite primitive policy against distant extremists.

Second-order effects appear to be too difficult to grasp for today's politicians and loudmouths / pundits. Well, either that or the West is stuck in political systems that let policy drift into stupid against the better judgements of the not-so stupid power elite.

[carl]

Agree with the general thrust of your statement. I don't agree that the power-elite is not so stupid. These are the guys who have been gulled by the Pak Army/ISI for over a decade so far after all.

The report A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility,

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/ima...patibility.pdf

illuminates the problem in much more, and much more alarming detail than the article you cited. We have screwed this up beyond recognition.

[Bill Moore]

This is the nature of all occupation operations, and while the foreign occupiers may believe they're seen as heroes with white hats, the local population at best tolerates them, and more than likely learns to hate them over time, and usually that hate is returned so the cycle never stops.

Surging in Afghanistan was inappropriate, and it only made it more difficult to change course, because no one likes to admit they got it wrong. A small presence of foreign forces would force them to depend on the Afghans, which in turn would result in a much different and more effective relationship with the Afghans. 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?

[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?

[KingJaja]

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?

What the Romans did is quite similar to what the Brits did - they ruled through the local emirs, maharajah etc., and made sure their children went to Oxford or Cambridge. They also crushed a few uprisings though.

The problem was that they also needed an army of clerks, soldiers, teachers and low-level administrators and these people got to know just enough to understand that colonialism wasn't right. By working closely with the British, they got to understand the Brits weren't all they were hyped to be. (Some of the most ardent anti-colonial figures were members of the West African Frontier Force who fought against the Japanese on behalf of the Brits in Burma. One recalls that at certain point, the Brits fell like a pack of cards and a lot of the fighting was done by Indians).

The age of European empires is over and so is the age of conquest via assimilation (although American televangelists seem to be very successful on that front in Africa - that's a topic for another day) is over. In that regard, Iraq and Afghanistan was a $1 trillion dollar social science experiment that went terribly wrong. (A more realistic people, less blinded by their own hubris would have seen it coming, though).

Would another Iraqi / Afghanistan type adventure in a non-Arab/Muslim nation work? We don't know, but the US can spend another $1 trillion to find out .

You mentioned "sending bright young things to American Universities and giving them laptops". Well, those bright young things were at Tahrir Square being interviewed by Anderson Cooper (the spoke excellent, unaccented English). In the background the Salafists and the MB who speak the language of the streets were doing their thing - the rest is history.

You cannot change a people by merely sending a few to Harvard!

[KingJaja]

I think the three most important trends in the developing world are:

1. Ethnicity/tribalism.
2. Fundamentalist Islam.
3. Evangelical Christianity.

All these three find fertile soil in impoverished and/or poorly educated societies. The important thing to note is that there is nothing the West has (not MTV, not McDonalds and not even Coca-Cola) that compete with the appeal of these three.

Afghanistan and Iraq pitted the West against the first two. If the "long war" ever extends beyond the Sahel region of Africa, the West could be dealing with all three. (If Afghanistan and Iraq are complex, imagine Nigeria. In Nigeria you will have to deal with all three!).

Call it quits.

[carl]

(Heh, heh, heh. I see you've all fallen for my cleverly conceived plan to get everybody talking about Rome.)

KingJaja: Do you think that if the Brits had been able to offer full citizenship to the people of Nigeria, that would have made a difference? I realize that Rome was a contiguous empire, but just for arguments sake, would the prospect of British citizenship have made a difference to your father and grandfather?

I am not so sure a comfortable life can't compete in the long run with spiritually thrilling ideologies. Those 3 things you cited are wonderfully exciting, but after a man has been married for a few years and a few children he may begin to see the advantages of wealth. One side won't ever wipe out the other of course, but I think wealth or the promise of it can compete fairly effectively.

Assimilation keeps coming up. I wonder if that is what the Romans actually did. When the Mongolians conquered China, they eventually became Chinese. They were assimilated. When the Romans conquered places, those places became Roman. They were not. That is not an absolute of course, each group influenced the other, but I think a case can be made that the Romans transformed those they conquered more than they were transformed by them.

[KingJaja]

(Heh, heh, heh. I see you've all fallen for my cleverly conceived plan to get everybody talking about Rome.)

KingJaja: Do you think that if the Brits had been able to offer full citizenship to the people of Nigeria, that would have made a difference? I realize that Rome was a contiguous empire, but just for arguments sake, would the prospect of British citizenship have made a difference to your father and grandfather?

I think the French actually offered full citizenship to some Senegalese (Leopold Senghor was a member of the French national assembly) and generally did the whole "assimilation" thing better than the British.

(Also compare Muslim North Africa - Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia with Pakistan and Muslim India, you'll realize that the French did some things better than the British).

On the other hand, the British Empire was a slightly more exclusionary thing (both in theory and in practice) than the French Empire. The British had a deep mistrust of educated Africans and preferred to deal with uneducated traditional rulers than with the educated elite. This could be one of the reasons why predominantly Muslim Senegal, Mali and even Niger practice a more moderate form of Islam than Northern Nigeria (but that is a topic for another day).

The level of affection Francophone West Africans have for France (with a few notable exceptions) is much greater than the level of affection Anglophone West Africans have for England (in many cases it is non-existent).

If the British were more serious about assimilation, the relationship between the British and Nigerians today would have been deeper and more meaningful.

So the answer is yes.

I am not so sure a comfortable life can't compete in the long run with spiritually thrilling ideologies. Those 3 things you cited are wonderfully exciting, but after a man has been married for a few years and a few children he may begin to see the advantages of wealth. One side won't ever wipe out the other of course, but I think wealth or the promise of it can compete fairly effectively.

A large part of the appeal of those three things is the support networks they provide - and help that was offered in times of need is never forgotten, no matter how many children you have and how much money is in your bank account.

The only thing that can beat the appeal of those three things is a robust economy and a fully functioning welfare state. There is absolutely no religious organisation in Africa / Latin America / Asia that is serious about increasing its market share that doesn't invest heavily in its benevolence arm (and that includes the Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood).

We all know that a fully functioning welfare state is not going to happen anytime soon in those parts and somebody has to handle social services. You are smart enough to know what happens next.

Assimilation keeps coming up. I wonder if that is what the Romans actually did. When the Mongolians conquered China, they eventually became Chinese. They were assimilated. When the Romans conquered places, those places became Roman. They were not. That is not an absolute of course, each group influenced the other, but I think a case can be made that the Romans transformed those they conquered more than they were transformed by them.

Are you suggesting that the World is becoming more American / Western? Probably, but watching MTV, drinking Coca-Cola and speaking English does not make one an American. We may superficially resemble Americans, but I can assure you that we don't think in English and that is what really counts.

In case you haven't been paying attention, the global media and entertainment scene is increasingly more competitive and more regional. As recently as 1991, CNN was the only player in 24 hour news TV. Today, that space has been taken up by several players such as Al Jazeera (nothing the West has can compete against Al Jazeera in the Arab World).

You might not know this, but tens of millions of Africans who have never sat through a Hollywood movie have devoured hundreds of Nollywood movies. The same applies to the Indian Sub-continent and Bollywood (also very popular in the Arab World).

In my mind, the greatest agents for assimilation into a common global culture today are (a) fundamentalist Islam and (b) evangelical Christianity. Think about it, the most visible fashion trend in the World today is not the proliferation of blue jeans but the popularity of the hijab. Look at the impact evangelical Christianity has had on the work ethic in many parts of Latin America and Africa.

[carl]

KingJaja: My comment about assimilation had to do only with Rome some 2000 years ago. It had nothing to do with American cultural influence, or lack thereof.

I knew about Bollywood but I didn't know about Nollywood. I have seen some Kenyan and Nigerian soap operas though. The Nigerian one was more shoot-em-up. The Kenyan one revolved around a father. That was the first I ever saw that took that point of view.

Cultural influence waxes and wanes with the times I suppose. We had an inordinate amount of influence for a long time, perhaps because we caught on to what sells in movies quicker and shortly thereafter the rest of the world was wrecked by WWII. WWII was a long time ago and the rest of the world has caught up.

[Dayuhan]

I think the three most important trends in the developing world are:

1. Ethnicity/tribalism.
2. Fundamentalist Islam.
3. Evangelical Christianity.

All these three find fertile soil in impoverished and/or poorly educated societies. The important thing to note is that there is nothing the West has (not MTV, not McDonalds and not even Coca-Cola) that compete with the appeal of these three..

In Africa perhaps, and in parts of the Middle East and South Asia. That's not "the developing world" by a long shot.

In large parts of the developing world, mainly the parts that are actually developing, greed and materialism have almost completely trumped tribal affiliation and the assortment of superstitions that constitute religious extremism.

[Surferbeetle]

KJ, Chowing, Everybody,

The work week is over...mostly...hopefully Fuchs will forgive some of the sidebar...

The age of European empires is over and so is the age of conquest via assimilation (although American televangelists seem to be very successful on that front in Africa - that's a topic for another day) is over. In that regard, Iraq and Afghanistan was a $1 trillion dollar social science experiment that went terribly wrong. (A more realistic people, less blinded by their own hubris would have seen it coming, though).

Hmm...this is a very interesting observation that i often wonder about (having spent two years in Iraq). I wonder if you are willing to provide a conscise breakout of the baseline conditions, timeline, criteria/dimensions, and geographic areas which you are measuring?

When we (US) and everybody else(World) looks at the 'deliverables' of GWOT/OIF/OEF and then goes on to define success or failure i wonder if consciously and unconciously comparisons are being made to the Marshall Plan and the follow on results?

For my breakout, i want to first say that war is a very, very, blunt, imprecise, inaccurate, and bloody instrument. Furthermore, there are usually better ways to effect change than resorting to war. My observations are further limited to Iraq...are of 2003 and of 2010...are broad brush strokes...and address Kurdistan and 'The Rest of Iraq', as two separate entities. Baseline conditions in Kurdistan in 2003 included a mix of agricultural community, and functional infrastructure (UNDP despite it's flaws was getting things done), functional rule of law, functional security, a functional business community, and a nascent telecommunications backbone. 'The Rest of Iraq' suffered from threadbare infrastructure (held together with bailing wire and bubblegum in many instances), a confessional/tribal type rule of law, dysfunctional and deteriorating security, not quite equal part official and grey-market business communities, and no cell-phones-internet-satellite-tv for telecommunications. Seven years later i was amazed at the wild leapfrogging of Kurdistan towards the conditions of the 'second-world' (between poverty and prosperity). 'The Rest of Iraq' had made tremendous strides with respect to telecommunications yet infrastructure, rule of law, security, and the business community seemed to be at least ten years of dedicated effort behind Kurdistan.

IMHO a portion of the 'trillion-dollar-GWOT-rock' which we dropped into the oxbow lake that was Iraq in 2003 has served in some ways to reconnect it to the river that is globalization, and has had additive effects upon the wave that is the Arab Spring. The Arab World is not Europe however, and i wonder if the resultant trend veered more towards a Morgenthau Plan type deliverable in some dimensions...all sides have to cooperate in order to build...

You cannot change a people by merely sending a few to Harvard!

vs.

Think about it, the most visible fashion trend in the World today is not the proliferation of blue jeans but the popularity of the hijab.

Marketing Strategy/Market Segmentation tells us that trends can be started/increased by influencing 'key people'/'target markets' does it not?

With respect to the hijab as uber-trend, let's run some quick napkin math. There are approximately 7 billion people in the world. China has ~ 1.3 billion, the majority of whom are non-muslim and who follow 'non-hijab' fashion. India has 1.1 billion, the majority of whom are non-muslim and who follow 'non-hijab' fashion. Africa has ~ 1 billion, the majority of whom are non-muslim...~350 million live in the middle east...~500 million live in 'Europe'....these observations seem to be in keeping with the wikipedia entry which states that ~1.6 billion people in the world are Muslim...half of which are female...and what percentage of those wear the hijab?

As to the burning of the Koran...this issue is a senseless one on all sides, and all of us know that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind...yet...all of us read history and know that the clash of religions/demographics is an endless continuum of man's inhumanity to man...

[Bill Moore]

http://www.hulu.com/watch/152340/rethink-afghanistan

this documentary was made in 2009, and it accurately predicted the results of the surge. Nothing followers aren't aware of, but a good summary of the issues from the other perspective (not our public relations side).

Moderator's Note: can only be watched within the USA.

[Fuchs]