Sympathy For The Devil
Seems like we've moved from dominoes falling to bingo balls popping up in the various rebellions and revolutions around the globe. So far, Tunisia and Egypt have succumbed to the instant revolutions, and another dozen governments are scrambling to keep ahead of the tidal wave of so-called "democracy" movements sweeping the MidEast and North Africa. Most governments are liberalizing in the hopes of retaining control. The lone exception so far has been Muammar Gadaffi and his government in Libya.
Let's see if we have a feel for the situation. The President is a divisive figure within the country. Riding on a wave of regional discontent, a group of partisans decides to take him on by staging a series of demonstrations in civil disobedience, some culminating in violence. Some violence was caused by the rebels, some by the government forces in defense of the government.
The President rules with a heavy hand. Civil liberties were curtailed, freedom of the press was restricted, political prisoners were taken. Regional rebellions were causing swaths of territory to break away seeking independence and local control. Government ministers abandon the President and take up sides with the rebels. They defect to the rebel side.
The rebels argue that they have a right to maintain their lifestyle as they see fit, without the oppressive hand of the national government forcing it's prescribed lifestyle on them. They argue for the practice of their heritage as they have traditionally carried it out. They reject the edicts emanating from the capital city.
Several parliament members conspire together to break a section of the country off and to form an independent state. They form a government and declare their separation from the mother country. They name a leader.
The President sends his military in. Many of his senior generals object to firing on their own population. They have roots in the rebellious areas and decide to stand with them and become military planners for the rebels. A civil war ensues. countryman stands against countryman in a battle to preserve the territorial integrity of the country.
The rebel generals have a great degree of skill and are able to pull out many early successes. A few of the victories had the President teetering on the verge of being deposed. The capital city was nearly lost and for a time the rebels controlled a large part of the President's claimed territory.
After a time, the better supplied troops of the President were able to overcome the skill level of the rebel generals. The tide started to turn in the President's favor. The President's military pursued the fleeing and haggard rebels into their claimed territory and took it back. The President's military prosecuted a "scorched earth" policy to leave the rebels with no supplies. This was culminated in burning one of their major cities to the ground.
The rebels surrendered just outside of the capital city, and the independence movement was crushed. The territorial integrity of the country was preserved.
Well, that narrative got way ahead of the facts in Libya, but it is a plausible and horrific storyline. The problem is that the illustration is not Libya, or Egypt, or any of the countries embroiled in the current civil unrest. This was a bare-bones sketch of the United States Civil War, completely without context.
This is what is missing in the various rebellions happening around the globe - context. Context and accurate information really. We receive our reports from MSNBC, CNN and Fox News. We get sound bites. We get pictures. We get stunning video footage. We get rumor. We get rumor reported as fact (Egypt ran rampant with examples of this).
We get opinion from Maddow and Cavuto, Savage and Couric, Cooper and Beck. Olbermann is probably having a cow on that station no one watches. That opinion becomes news. We are really shy on any of the real dynamics on the ground, because few people in western journalism understand the mind and culture of the Arabs and North Africans. Fewer still see the danger in just stripping out the established order for some roll of the dice for an ethereal idea of democracy. Democracy is not plug and play. It is developed over generations.
We do not equate Gadaffi with Lincoln. We do not make that link because we understand the context of our civil war. Lincoln was unpopular with a huge chunk of the country. Lincoln suspended civil rights and curtailed the press. He sought to take away the Southern traditional way of life that held that slavery was good. In his day Lincoln was called a dictator and worse. Lincoln eventually paid the ultimate price for his beliefs and actions. Today, in understanding the context of his actions in his time, he consistently ranks #1 or #2 as our greatest President.
Gadaffi is, by all accounts reported here a thug, no other reports have found their way to American reporting. It may be so, no one is stepping up to defend him except his own military. He's on his own. If that is the case, he will be gone soon enough. It happens all of the time all over the world. Mubarak was toppled by a crowd that never exceeded one half of one percent of the population of the country. That and some egging along by the Obama Administration. Yemen is in chaos partly because every terrorist that the Obama Administration didn't want to hold at Guantanamo got shipped there. It became terror network central.
Right now Israel and Saudi Arabia are surrounded, literally, by governments under siege by this "democracy" movement spreading throughout the area. Should either be threatened it would be disastrous for the United States. Israel is the sole western democracy in the Mideast. If they are threatened we expect that they will defend themselves forcefully - to the point of using those nuclear weapons that no one wants to talk about. According to National Geographic magazine, the upside of this is that global warming will be fixed.
Should the House of Saud tumble, we can expect a doubling of gasoline prices. That's right, a doubling of gasoline at the pump. Maybe more. TPP will not defend a government that has promoted madrases teaching hatred for western culture; a government that oppresses women, minorities and Christians; and a government that is corrupt and autocratic. Not to mention that fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers and Osama bin Laden hail from there. Still they are our pusher, and we are their addict. Until we get another source for oil, we are stuck with them. Democracy bringing in a government unwilling to sell to us would collapse our economy. Really - who would we go to? Hugo Chavez? Ahmadinejad?
Americans get all misty-eyed when we think we are seeing a democracy movement happening. It appeals to our American spirit. We understand democracy to be a good thing - self determination is in our DNA. This is our blessing and our curse.
In reality, especially in areas with no history of democracy, upsetting the apple cart is a very dangerous game. George W Bush found this out when Hamas was elected to govern Gaza, and Hezbollah to govern Lebanon. Of the other great "democracy" rebellions of the past century we have the USSR, Nazi Germany, Communist China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran and Vietnam in the one column. India and the imposed democracy of post WWII Japan come out on our side. Real democracy is receding in today's Russia,and crippling Europe as immigrant populations use the ballot box to wear away traditional western values in the name of tolerance.
As to the whack-a-mole series of civil disturbances going on in the Mideast and North Africa, all we know is what we are told. We like the idea of democracy, but have no idea what that will mean for the region and the world when it moves past theory and into practice. TPP sees long odds on a friendly western-style democracy emerging anywhere in the neighborhood. We've been playing footsie with the threatened regimes for a long time. It has served our national interests, and seriously, that is the job of the State Department, not nation building or democracy seeding. At best the new governments that emerge will be an ineffective mess like Afghanistan or Iraq. At worst the Islamists will make more inroads in the construction of the caliphate that they desire as an ultimate goal.
We need to tread carefully if we are going to poke around in this powderkeg. We need to know what we are doing and why we are doing it. We need to show a far better grasp of the situation than the administration has shown up to now. We need to act in our own national interests primarily. If some democracy grows out of that great, but it is a side product. The last thing we need to do is to add another front to our ongoing wars, and further poison the well for us in that area of the world. We need to act in Common Sense and understand that no action that we take happens in a vacuum. There is consequence to every breeze that comes out of DC. Let us make that breeze a constructive one.
RLB
Categories: National Security, Foreign Affairs, political leadership
Tags: foreign policy Middle East national security political leadership
Look, we have to stick by Egypt just to guide the process there. We don't want a hostile enemy on Israel's border. Libya though? We have no business there. That's for the Brits and the French to carry the water. After all it was the Brits who let the Lockerbie bomber go home. We're stretched to thin as it is. Let someone else pick up the slack this time.
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I don't know - this is looking like it will turn into a regional revolt that will completely screw with the current balance. Strategically, we have to be in because regardless of who buys oil from where, damn near every country is unstable now. If the Islamic radicals take over a large patch of geography and cut off the oil, that's a world war brewing. Add in which area of the world we're talking and the born-agains will get all hot and bothered. Armageddon is a little patch of sand near the Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan borders. None of this is good.
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I agree with govissue. This will probably go badly, and it will be up to us to clean it up - no one else has the capability. If it all goes to hell and they all gang up on Israel, then I really think the term "limited nuclear war" will be an option. God help us.
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This seems kind of inconsistent. Lots of the conservatives are doing a go slow approach now, but were pushing everyone forward an putting democracy into Iraq and Afghanistan. Why the change of heart? You guys not controlling the change in this? Well, wake up - you didn't control it in your two wars either. They are as corrupt and ineffective as any government in the region.
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Hey, what's the rule - you can't win a land war in Asia, and in Africa it helps to have a few thousand tanks. I agree that this is going to get bad, I just don't think there's much we can do to stop it. Short of turning the whole place into a sheet of glass.
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Hey, whatever happened to new pieces on Tuesday? We've got Monday, Friday...
Anyhow, this whole situation is bad because of the oil. If it wasn't for the oil, no one would care. Seriously. Up until oil became the lifeblood of the western world, no one cared about the Mideast. The Arabs could run about imposing sharia with impunity and running their society fresh out of the 8th century and nobody cared. They still can as far as I'm concerned, as long as they don't want to export it here. The only thing I want to import from that nasty sandbox is oil.
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There's a good point there. The west has gone from being a customer to the Arabs and gotten to be what they see as a whiny, pain in the ass customers who constantly makes demands on them. Rights' rights, rights. They were fine taking our money for oil, they don't want to hear us lecture them on how to run their society. We're not much for them pushing sharia on us. Let's go back to simple cash transactions and leave the pontificating to the French.
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That's kind of harsh. Don't you think everyone is entitled to basic human rights?
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Human rights? The west is the only place they exist. Most of the rest of the world lives in squalor and starvation, and mostly because of corrupt authoritarian regimes. That's also why democracy does not export well. The despots and their cronies like things just the way they are. We start exporting democracy and we are interfering with good intentions, but it doesn't play well. We are then colonizers. If a society has done something the same way for a thousand years, maybe it's because it works for them, just like our way works for us. We would do better accepting immigrants who want to live our way, than a counterattack of them trying to impose their way on us.
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We're supposed to be better than that as a society. Would you just have us leave all of those people suffering?
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Our "aid" just lines the dictators pockets. You only have to look as far as Haiti to see that. Billions of dollars in quake relief, and the lives of the average Haitian has not changed one bit for the better. It's the same everywhere else. The only way to effect change is to invade and impose. Then we are there forever. As soon as we start to leave, it falls apart. Look at Iraq.
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Well, now we have Karzai not accepting our apology for some civilian casualties in Afghanistan. 10 years of American blood and this ungrateful SOB lectures us. Libya and all of these countries are more of the same. Let's call up Russia and China, divide the area evenly, and just take the oil. It's not worth trying to bring them around to our way of thinking.
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The reality of it is that we are the only game in town to keep the region secure. We are the only country with the capability to keep the canal open, the oil flowing, and enforce the peace. Wish it wasn't so, but this is going to fall on us one way or the other. Best to plan for it.
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I want to go in a different direction - that of national sovereignty. Really, what business is it of the world at large what goes on in the borders of a sovereign nation? Let's go in from the example of Lincoln. Under today's standards of "global diplomacy", the US Civil War would have been shut down by the United Nations, Lincoln would have been tried at the Hague as a war criminal, the South would have been allowed to secede by recognizing their right to self-determination, and slavery would still exist, as it does in many member nations of the UN. If you don't believe that look at the breakup of the USSR, Yugoslavia and even the credence that is given to French Canada as a unique culture. The world is now organized towards chaos, and every system of government is relative. It is dangerous.
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Until the neo-con takeover of the Bush White House, GWB stood loud and hard against the idea of nation building. He understood that it was a difficult task with questionable payoff. Somehow he was persuaded otherwise and now we're upto our necks in holding the hands of the Iraqis and the Afghans. We moved from pursuing our national interest, which was rooting out terrorists, to exporting democracy. That has proven to be a fool's errand. We have no compelling interest in North Africa. Our only national interests in the area are our oil suppliers, and Israel as our forward base. Let North Africa work out their own solution. Even if they go Islamic, they have nothing that we want or need.
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I realize that there are only a handful of things that we can realistically do, but the callousness on dislay here is overboard. Regardless of our "national interest" we should have a human interest in securing the rights for all people that we claim to be "endowed by our creator" on "all men". There is an obligation beyond sitting on the sidelines while a dictator oppresses his people.
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Nice speech. So what is different this month, with all of these "democracy" movements going on,and last month when we providing aid and support to all of the dictators in trouble now? None - except that last month we were following our national interest, and now our leadership is ashamed that it was doing so. What makes things even more unsettled is that the area has no idea what to expect from America. We have thrown our guys under the bus, and have not come out to support any of the new guys. All eyes are on us to lead, and the Obama administration is doing nothing but wringing it's hands. We have abdicated leadership, moral or otherwise. That makes for chaos.
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Hi Denise - welcome. Look, i know it looks horrible on TV with what's going on in Libya and elsewhere. Or maybe hopeful. The urge is really there to do something and we like the idea of giving liberty out. We based WWII on liberating Europe, and I guess it's still our favorite war. Ashley has a point though. This was the situation in Libya for 42 years, Egypt for 30 and we saw no need to act before the TV cameras started rolling last month. Tha'r because, realistically, we can only do so much. Look at the rest of Africa. Somalia has been a basket case since the first Bush, Liberia is entering into it's 3rd civil war in a dozen years, Zimbabwe has had their dictator killing citizens for almost half a century. It's all in the news, but it isn't immediate. It's not sexy so the news doesn't give it all that much attention. Since it's not in the news, business goes on as usual. I think that Obama is busy treading water and deliberately not doing anything while waiting for the news cycle to turn over. Then we will turn our attention to the next big thing, and Africa can go back to business as usual. That's just the way it is.
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Hate to say it, but John, you're right. There is no national interest in Africa beyond keeping the Suez open and the oil flowing from countries that produce it. Policy has been that it doesn't matter how big a thug runs the country, if the oil is flowing, don't make waves. It's nothing to be proud about, it's just what is.
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Sort of ironic that the only President who could be accused of actually trying to export democracy was Bush II, and people were ready to hang him out to dry. So much for doing the noble thing.
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There's another thing that's out of place - it happened with Egypt too. The media is all reporting form the same template - Quadaffi bad, rebels good. It doesn't matter if it's liberal mainstream or conservative talk radio. There are lots ofnews reports of forces loyal to Quadaffi fighting and retaking territory. Who are these forces and why are they loyal? They can't all be afraid of him. He's only one guy. His own tribe and territory are not rebelling either. I'm not saying he'sany great guy, but there is what looks like a good number of Libyans who support Quadaffi. Isn't that at least worth a look at?
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That's a good point - since when does everyone report from the same point of view. Hell, even Al-Jazeera is anti Gaddafi. So yeah, who are these guys fighting for him? Are we really getting the whole story? What if this is a head of state legitimately defending his country from a hostile takeover from revolutionaries? Is this guy a gangster or is he a leader? All I'm seeing is gangster.I'd think that at least the guys on Gaddafi's staff would be getting out somepress. I haven't seen any.
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I'm thinking that maybe Obama is doing the right play here in holding back and dumping this mess on the UN. This is a no win on so many levels. Even the no-fly zone requires an offensive movement to keep our guys from getting shot at. That, in anybody's book is an act of war. We then have a 3 front war against the Arabs. It's a PR nightmare and our military isalready overstretched. This kind of world policing is what brought down Greece, Rome, and more recently, the British. Let the UN handle it. We'll take a pass.
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See, there's other stuff going on here. Wasn't it Rahm Emanuel who said to never waste a crisis. This BS in the mideast is a great catchall for everything going wrong in Obama's agenda. High oil prices, blame Libya - except only 2% ofthe world oil supply comes from Libya. We're keeping the oil flowing throught he Suez and Sinai. There's no reason for the oil run up other than the real one - the Fed devaluing the dollar. Follow it out - high fuel leads to prices going upon everything, leads to sustained unemployment, and a longer recession. It's almost as if someone had a V8 moment and figured out how to blame all of the ills here on the Arabs.
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I'm going togo with largelife on this one. This whole mideast situation looks like a big trap to get sucked into. There really are no good options and the effective ones commit our military to another open ended commitment. Things always go wrong - what did Rummy say? - "No plan survives contact with the enemy." When it goes wrong, we either pull out and look weak, or commit boots on the ground for who knows how long. Doesn't look like it comes out in our interest at all.
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Ok'i'll agree that there's nothing worth going into Libya for. Well, there's the humanitarian thing, but that has never stopped us from ignoring most of the rest of the world. We still have to commit to keeping the trade routes open and the oil flowing. No one else has the capability. Correct that, no one else has the capability that we can trust to keep us supplied. I don't see any way around it.
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So the French recognized the rebels as the legit governemtn of Libya. Two questions: 1) How are they legit if they are no more elected than Moammar? and 2) Is French recognition really a blessing? Don't they pick the loser most of the time?
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Between you me and the wall we shouldn't be there anyways, a revolution is something best done without outside interference, if they want it enough the government having superior firepower would do the government no good. You can not rule without the consent of those ruling, even if only a tacit consent. Instead we all stick our fingers in there so we can jokey for political advantage with our own personally chosen hand picked winer Insuring that the new government will never have a shred of credibility with it's own populace and earning those involved generations of enmity towards those who interfered
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