To Those Who Demand A Tougher Stance Toward the Egyptian Mob
Here's the thing.
We just spent half a trillion dollars and over 2,000 American lives trying to clear Afghanistan and prevent it from serving as a safe haven for terrorists. And it's far from clear whether we will have succeeded for any meaningful length of time.
We actually invaded Iraq at a much higher cost in both blood and treasure, and while that country has a somewhat more stable government, it seems perfectly clear that this big, expensive lesson in American resolve and strength sunk in not one bit to the average anti-American Middle Easterner.
Now, thanks to the Arab spring and whatever part we played in that, we have unstable democracies sprouting up throughout the region, and if Benghazi is any example, each one of them offers a potential safe haven to terrorists.
So we can fault the president for not showing sufficient resolve and not being tough enough, but this is not the world of Ronald Reagan where tough talk and a big stick could cow the leaders of the Soviet Union. There is no peace through strength strategy that makes any sense for this threat. Because there is simply no amount of force for which we would ever have the stomach that could effectively cow this mob.
And let's be honest with ourselves. Even if the United States had stood behind Mubarak, his government would never have lasted for any meaningful length of time -- certainly not beyond his own death. The strong man era of Middle Eastern politics is imploding, with or without our blessing, so to fault the president for being responsible for that is foolish.
Our best hope is not to mentor these countries in democracy, charm them with our cultural sensitivity, or to frighten them with our military might, but to persuade them through capitalism. The only thing that will reduce the long term security risk emanating from this part of the world is a general improvement in their standard of living so that they actually have something to lose from inviting and encouraging zealous chaos. A middle class, Middle East will not harbor terrorists or condone suicide bombings for fear of discouraging Trader Joe's or IKEA from coming to town.
So I would like to hear someone speak of that reality in cogent tones.
Until then, for all our indignation over lines in airports, I fear that large American cities will increasingly have to resemble Tel Aviv.
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Comments:
May '10
Re: To Those Who Demand A Tougher Stance Toward the Egyptian Mob
As an aside, I heard Romney's foreign policy chief on NPR today. He did an excellent job of shutting down the "intemperate, ill-advised comment" meme, though he fell far short of most of the recommendations on this stream.
May '10
Re: To Those Who Demand A Tougher Stance Toward the Egyptian Mob
Got it. So, how?
Devereaux: I am pretty amazed at all these comments about doing this and doing that. What seems to be missing here is an understanding of who the enemy is. I would submit that without that knowledge, all the rest of this is rather useless. It might well be argued that the reason we are at this dilema is that we really have no clear idea of who or what our enemy is.
We didn't go after communists; we went after communism. In the same way we have to go after islam, not the muslims. Islam is our enemy, and until we get serious about defeating islam - as an ideology, religion, what-have-you, we will not "win" anything. · 21 minutes ago
Aug '10
Re: To Those Who Demand A Tougher Stance Toward the Egyptian Mob
So if you want to understand the enemy, you have to first understand that they are tribal in nature with a loyalty that starts with family and ends in tribe - and only vaguely translates to other muslims.
Actually, one of the best presentations was this one from an Army Captain Travis Patriquin (RIP Dec 6, 2006) explaining the situation on the ground in Anbar province, Iraq.
Here is a link to a Youtube version of his presentation.
Here is a link to the powerpoint. (Preserved by the Army in their COIN repository)
Note the cultural baggage (for example the Provisional authority law that doesn't permit the sheiks to wield power, despite their prominence in the region since recorded history). A must read for anyone wanting to understand the region better.
Jun '12
Re: To Those Who Demand A Tougher Stance Toward the Egyptian Mob
Trace Urdan: Not resorting to Google but I'm hearing Billy Crystal...? Or maybe Robin Williams?
ConservativeWanderer
Trace Urdan
Tough crowd. · 7 minutes ago
Bonus points if you know what movie that's from (that's from memory, so the quote might not be exact). · 4 hours ago
Edited 4 hours ago
Edited 6 hours ago
6 hours ago
The voice I was hearing was Shrek's, from the first movie. :)
Jun '12
Re: To Those Who Demand A Tougher Stance Toward the Egyptian Mob
Trace Urdan
That's a fair point.
But it's not that I don't appreciate the cultural difference but just that it strikes me that we will never be safe until we actually change the culture, and I have not come around to the hopelessness of that task. Not yet, though you all are sadly persuasive. · 6 hours ago
The big problem with changing the culture is -- to paraphrase the old psychiatrist's saw -- the culture has to want to change.
If the Mideast cultures wanted to, they could invest their oil dollars in building and growing businesses even without our foreign aid dollars. Your own example of Dubai shows that they can -- if they want to -- create and build large businesses.
Clearly, more don't exist because the people don't want to create them, and the reasoning is probably cultural. We have the American Dream, but the Muslim Dream is somewhat different, because of the culture they were raised in.
Jul '10
Re: To Those Who Demand A Tougher Stance Toward the Egyptian Mob
Trace - the how is by going after the underpinnings of islam. Islam is an ideology like any other. It has religious components, but that's only part of it. We need to demonstrate on an intellectual basis why we ie. Western Christian civilization, is superior to islam. We seem to be afraid of doing that. But if we don't have the courage of our convictions, we will lose. Because they have the courage of their convictions. Those may be wrong, but it is what they believe. If you are going to win, you have to beat islam. I would submit that is the job of all the "think tanks" we have about - to craft such an argument that is meaningful, logical, and historical.
Second, we have to have the will to win. That means losing Fred Cole's squeamishness about turning Cairo into glass. Perhaps this is not the time to do that, but we have to be willing to do that. ?Else what is our response going to be when the "insurgents" get a bomb from Iran and detonate it in Israel.
May '10
Re: To Those Who Demand A Tougher Stance Toward the Egyptian Mob
Australia:
Jun '12
Re: To Those Who Demand A Tougher Stance Toward the Egyptian Mob
See what we mean about these people being steeped in this culture?
Sep '10
Re: To Those Who Demand A Tougher Stance Toward the Egyptian Mob
Trace, yours was a valiant attempt in a noble cause. But I think you have to admit there's little cause for optimism. For the sake of everyone, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, let's hope we can find a way out of this that leaves everyone standing. As CW noted, they have to want to change.
May '10
Re: To Those Who Demand A Tougher Stance Toward the Egyptian Mob
They don't want to change. Neither did the Nazi's and those that supported them. Fascism is now out of favor. That was not winning hearts and minds with food, it was bullets, bombs and guns.
If we want to force change, then we have to make them feel like their ideology is a lost cause.
Jun '12
Re: To Those Who Demand A Tougher Stance Toward the Egyptian Mob
Tom Lindholtz: Their strength is, presumably, in their numbers. Probably 3,000 years ago, a man from the same general region wrote, in Proverbs 14:28, "A large population is a king’s glory but without subjects a prince is ruined."
Our strength, in this situation, lies in our ability to make a city a wasteland devoid of population. If that is the only message they understand -- and I suspect it is -- and if our leaders refuse to send that message, for whatever reason, then we are doomed. · Sep 14 at 10:09am
Tom, I actually agree with you. That is probably a very effective strategy, but can you get the American population to support this strategy?
Jun '12
Re: To Those Who Demand A Tougher Stance Toward the Egyptian Mob
I recommended this Malaysian Counter-terrorism Article which I find to be unbiased and true on DocJay's thread. For those of you who are interested to see the arduous process of containing terrorism in South East Asia. These measures would not be possible in the USA. The internal Security Act alone will do not be supported by Americans nonetheless, you can see how hard it is to keep this chronic "cancer" in check.
Edited on September 16, 2012 at 5:01amJul '10
Re: To Those Who Demand A Tougher Stance Toward the Egyptian Mob
Interesting that you would post that article. First of all, I would hardly call Malaysia a "secular" democracy with an official religion of islam. That said, there are several issues that are only lightly touched upon that probably have significant impact.]
First of all, they all appear to be sunni. Uniform islaamic constituency will lend itself to less violence within the nation. Some of the most violent upheavels in the ME are related to sunni-shia rivalry.
Second, what is described seems to be little more than modern Ottoman Empire ruling. The Ottomans presided over a vast empire, much of which was not islamic. They did so with a system much like Ghengis Khan - "tolerance" if you stayed within their boundries, swift punishment for stepping outside, and the usual islamic carrots to try to convert you to islam.
We are not in a struggle to find common ground with islam - it has declared war on western civilization, which is basically Christian. We need to find the methods of DEFEATING islam (and why they aren't)- and that will take both intellectual argument about why we are better, and as noted above by others, bullets and bombs - swift and unremorseful reprisal.