The Perils of “Leading From Behind”
“It’s always America’s fault”, Egypt says. When you don’t know whether to agree with this accusatory trope or not, then you really have a problem. The Associated Press notes how the Arab Spring is turning out in Egypt.
Egyptian security forces stormed the offices of 10 human rights and pro-democracy groups on Thursday, including several based in the U.S., accused by the country’s military rulers of destabilizing security by fomenting protests with the help of foreign funding.
The raids on 17 offices throughout Egypt are part of the ruling generals’ attempt to blame “foreign hands” for the unrest that continues to roil Egypt since the 18-day revolt that ousted longtime leader Hosni Mubarak in February, but that activists say failed to topple his regime.
The Cairo-based Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, which is not under investigation, said in a statement that the raids went beyond the type of Mubarak-era tactics that spurred hundreds of thousands of Egyptians to take to the streets demanding freedom and democracy during this year’s uprising.
The irony is that many of these NGOs congratulated themselves on playing a role in starting the Egyptian protests in the first place. The lesson the secret police are teaching is that it is one thing to start a revolution and another to win it. The World Policy Blog carries article by Carmel Delshad: “Unwanted: NGOs in Post-Revolution Egypt”.
Translation. You’re no longer useful, so scram.
In recent months, Egyptian banks have been ordered by the Central Bank of Egypt to inform the Central Bank and the Ministry of Solidarity of any transactions between NGOs and charity groups. The interim government also launched an investigation into the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) funding of unregistered NGOs in Egypt, which prompted U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson to hand over a list of organizations that have taken U.S. funds (USAID’s director in Egypt quit in August). A reported $40 million has been given to groups since the revolution.
Things look a whole different today than in February, 2011 when Mark Mardell of the BBC wrote “Obama adopts Egypt’s revolution”. The President had just taken retroactive credit for overthrowing Hosni Mubarak. It was a pattern that would repeat itself in subsequent months until the heading, “leading from behind”.
Barack Obama looked supremely happy making his speech on the exit of Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak. It was not just that he could complete the one he had started prematurely yesterday. It was not just that, despite all the brickbats that have been thrown at the White House for clumsy handling of this crisis, the administration has got exactly what it has wanted for a couple of weeks: the exit of Mr Mubarak, the entry of the military as caretakers, the promise of democracy, and the absence of violence.
It is more personal, and more political than that. Maybe it is the old community organiser in him, maybe it is the admiring, almost envious, student of the great civil rights leaders, but something tells me few things light him up more than seeing ordinary people overcoming obstacles to seize their own future.
This triumph allowed Mr Obama to revert to the visionary candidate of the campaign, as he did in Tucson after a tragedy.
When he talks about the “moral arc of the universe” you know he is in his element. This is what he is best at. Weaving a selection of facts into a simple story that builds into a grand moral narrative that speaks to his greater vision. He instantly cast the Egyptian revolution as part of a pattern. …
Film stars can adopt foreign orphans, Mr Obama has adopted a foreign revolution, and with it a foreign policy narrative that allows him to restate his core manifesto of inspiration and unity.
It will be interesting to see whether President Obama disinherits his adopted revolution now that it appears to be blowing up in his face. The Islamists and the Army, both of whom were once partners in days before Nassar, may reminding President Obama of a few English-language saws he may have forgotten. Among them: “he who laughs last, laughs best.” Or “never count your chickens until they’re hatched.” Still another is “it ain’t over till the fat lady sings”. Each of these sayings makes a single point: if you’re not in control of events, don’t pretend you are. The problem with the strategy “leading from behind” is that it’s a contradiction in terms, besides being indistinguishable from opportunism.
Maybe the President will remember some lessons a true Man of the Left should never forget: the fate of the Old Bolsheviks; the men who made the Russian Revolution, who finished up mostly dead or in exile. They all started ahead of Stalin. They all finished behind him. That is because revolutions were made to be betrayed; and its mantle is always up for grabs. In revolution, the race is not to the swift, but to the shameless. Like the Old Bolsheviks, just because President Obama took credit for overthrowing Mubarak in February doesn’t mean someone else couldn’t come along and lift the mantle from his shoulders. Anyone who would successfully see them through to their conclusion has got to watch its progress like a hawk. A teleprompter and 15 minute speech doesn’t cut the ice.
The interesting thing about the Old Bolsheviks is that they retained faith in the monstrous system which was destroyed them until the last. Some even contrived to praise Stalin with their dying breaths. Dr. Johnson, writing in Marxists.Org noted that betrayal was endemic; not the exception to the rule but the rule itself. One set of victims were African Americans who believed that they would find solidarity among their ideological bretheren. They thought wrong:
it invited some Negroes to Moscow to make a film which would depict lynching and the other features of Negro life in America. The company was selected and reached Moscow. American capitalism, however, realizes that, although it can deceive the people at home, it would be difficult for it to pose abroad as the friend of democracy if its treatment of Negroes were exposed in so popular a medium as a film. Washington was at that time engaged in negotiations with Moscow over recognition of the Soviet government, and made it quite clear that if the Russians made any such film, it would be regarded as a serious obstacle in the way of an understanding.
The Moscow bureaucracy reacted in characteristic fashion. It capitulated before the capitalists. It sought to deceive and browbeat the workers. The Negroes who had gone to Moscow were told that it was impossible for the Soviet production studios to find time and room to make the film. When some of the Negroes protested, several attempts were made to frame them as drunkards, disorderly persons, etc. in order to discredit in advance any protest that they might make when they returned home. In all this the Daily Worker, which now cannot contain its rage at Hollywood’s crimes, played its usual obedient and servile role as a tout for the Kremlin’s crimes.
Among the Negroes who went to Moscow to help in the making of the film was Langston Hughes, the Negro poet. Hughes is one of the most pertinacious fellow-travellers of the Stalinists. He is, or was, vice-president of their stooge organization, the American Writers Congress. He has represented the Stalinist point of view at international congresses in Europe. Some of his works are published by Stalinist publishing houses. When the Moscow bureaucracy tried to impose its lies on the Negroes who had gone to Moscow to make the Negro film, he accepted the “explanation” entirely and cooperated with the Moscow bureaucrats, to smash down those who refused to accept this transparent lie.
That kind of doubletalk, of course, is exactly what the President may soon find himself doing before too long. He’s caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. In order to continue to depict his support of the Egyptian revolution he must continue to maintain that the raid on the NGOs is nothing but a momentary abberation, just a hiccup in the “arc of history”. Or else he must eat crow; admit he was duped; confess he was taken for a fool. For now, the second tier is protesting the raids on NGOs. Will the President admit that he’s made a mistake? Well, how could he?
Another senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that in private channels, the United States had sent an even stronger message: “This crosses a line.”
“It’s triggered by ongoing concerns about control,” the official added, as the ruling military council confronted the mounting pressure to hand over power.
Others called the raids a major challenge to Washington’s policy toward Egypt, which receives $1.3 billion in year in American military aid.
Besides “not counting your chickens before they’re hatched” there’s one other English phrase the Egyptian Islamists and Army might remind President Obama of : it is, “there’s a sucker born every minute.”
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Dang, where do we get the Demintern (NED, NRI, McCain/Graham) on the case? After all, the video depicting Egyptian troops whose salaries are paid with U.S. taxpayer dollars (what a certain presidential candidate refers to as ‘subsidizing Israel’s enemies’ in Haaretz) blowing protesters’ brains out was shown by Russia Today. Shhh, just don’t tell John McCain, and stash that video in the archives with the beat downs of protesters in Tblisi and hooting Georgian soldiers in U.S. Marine-issued BDUs firing grenades into Ladas full of Ossetians civilians.
Revolutions are made to be betrayed, as are political parties. The Republican center cannot hold any better than the Democratic one can when there’s no stash and the President is as pro-drone killin’ and Gitmo indefinite detainin’ as his hated Bushchimpyhitler predecessor.
And poor Spengler, he thinks toppling Assad is going to be great for Israel, by removing the great military threat the Syrian army poses to Israel — a military threat which somehow has been kept at bay in a cold peace for the past twenty some-odd years!
Poor Michael Ledeen doesn’t realize the Qataris either won’t be able to or won’t be willing to keep their MBO charges in line after the Al-Jazeera victory parade of Assad fleeing. Or perhaps it won’t even get to that point at all since the Alawites will simply use their abundant Russian or Chinese weapons (smuggled via Iraq, of all places, even if the Med gets cut off!) to slaughter all the Sunni Libyan jihadis no matter how many guns the French and NATO supply them with — which may have been the Saudi plan all along. The jihad against the Americans in Iraq after all allowed a lot of the House of Ibn Saud’s $%#@ list of the Kingdom’s most troublesome lads to end up smeared on the pavement in Baghdad. I see plans within plans as Frank Herbert said in Dune…
Am I evil for suggesting the Devil one knows is better abroad than the Devil you don’t know, while it’s time to up the Devil’s pay domestically? Or are the neocons’ evil for being too clever by half and being shocked, shocked when all they get is more chaos rather than order out of chaos? Was it evil to ally with Stalin to defeat Hitler? You tell me…
At any rate, most of PJM (our host and Glenn Reynolds excepted) or at least the Tatler seems convinced poor frail old Ron Paul is the Antichrist. As I said in the previous thread, if Paul is so horrible, what worse being slouches towards Bethlehem to be born to take his movement, his donor lists, and roll with them? Rand? Whoever they are, they’ll be younger, tougher, and won’t have the baggage of the old man, and eager to smack down neocons with a simple refrain of, “We…can’t…afford…it” and “Would you rather we start cutting veterans benefits?” when they whine about military bases being dismantled.
Make no mistake Baby Assad is a bad SOB, and so was Mubarak. But…what’s next? Allowing the Duck of Death to be lynched by that mob while U.S. drones looked on certainly has precluded the Assad surrendering possibility, at least for now.
I’m not worried for Obambus, because “You can’t cheat an honest man.”
There is one other problem with leading from behind. When the troops that you are following reverse direction now you are suddenly out in front. To avoid being trampled you have to run like a deer. Going with the flow turns into fleeing from the foe. Not a vote getter.
If Obama wanted to enhance Muslim radical fundamentalism, expel/kill all nonmuslims in the middle east, increase muslim religious control of mideast oil, destabilize the US economy and prevent the US from reducing its dependency on mideast oil, what would he do differently?
anyone… anyone… Buehler…?
misleading from behind.
Cry War, and let loose the dogs of Havoc!
Or something like that.
The Egyptian generals were originally put in power by Hosni Mubarak. The generals embraced political change and ousted Mubarak after it became clear that the old political order could no longer hold.
Many political assumptions in Egypt were based upon the old political order.
Due to overpopulation and economic mismanagement, Egypt is no longer self sufficient. If the US cuts off Egypt’s food subsidy, the Egyptian poor will starve. The Israeli/Egyptian peace treaty allowed Israel to give up its buffer zone in the Sinai peninsula based upon the assumption that the Egyptian government would keep the peace. Israel will probably be compelled to reconquer the Sinai peninsula if Egypt abrogates its peace treaty with Israel. If the Sinai peninsula is reconquered, Egypt will lose its source of income from Suez canal tolls. Egypt’s biggest foreign exchange earner is tourism. Tourism in Egypt is based upon the assumption that foreign tourists would not be murdered by Islamic fascists and Islamic fanatics would not vandalize Egypt’s antiquities.
Effectively all of the political assumptions of the old political order will go away if the Muslim Brotherhood gains political power. Recent elections indicate that the Muslim Brotherhood enjoys wide popularity with the Egyptian population. The Egyptian generals are pragmatic men and must understand that Egypt commits economic suicide if the Muslim Brotherhood gains real political power.
The Egyptian generals face an acute dilemma. They must appear to be support Egyptian democracy while not enabling Islamic fanaticism to lead Egypt to national suicide.
If you ask me, there would be nothing wrong with the Arab spring if it had been guided, directed and scripted by the US. Then you get what you plan for. On the other hand, there would be everything wrong with an Arab spring that you lead from behind, because it will go in the direction those leading from the front take it in.
So if you’re going to take Vienna, take Vienna. If you’re going to bring Democracy to the Middle East, do it. At the point of a gun maybe, but if you aren’t willing to call the shots, someone else will.
The problem with President Obama is that he thought he could do it on the cheap. A little palaver here, a little speechifying there. So he leaves Iraq, basically abdicates Egypt to the Muslim brotherhood and tries to adjust its course through NGOs; he fails to overthrow Assad, or worse, watches while someone else overthrows Assad. What could go wrong?
Everything. Events happen when you make them happen. This whole idea of leading from behind is for the birds. Who ever heard of it till now. Certainly not Saul Alinsky, who only recommended leading from behind as in “leading from behind the scenes”; not really, truly and actually trying to take credit after the fact.
The good news for the Left in 2008 was that it elected Obama. The bad news was that it elected Obama.
Eggplant, it also occurred to me why Russia is not so keen on a U.S. attack or long term destabilization of Iran (i.e. using some of the same techniques that hastened, but not triggered, the collapse of the USSR). And it has nothing to do with the old Z. Bzrezinski/The Grand Chessboard trope that once the mullahs are overthrown Iran’s oil fields could be properly developed with oil pipelines through Georgia to EUrope and Iran and the West will once again be the best of buddies while Teheran and the hated Muscovites will resume their old rivalry in the Caucasus.
It has to do with the question of their being this very large, jobless Iranian youth bulge, and in an environment where Iran’s oil production has collapsed due to bombing or a very ugly messy war in the Persian Gulf. Moscow’s would remains high, whereby the Tadjiks, Kyrgiz and other Central Asians immigrating into Russia’s cities and already provoking considerable anger among young Russian men and not a few women. What if several million Iranians started heading north to look for work? After all, where else would they go? China would ruthlessly kick them out as competition for their own ant army, but the Russians ironically care somewhat more about Western sensitivities. I think you see where I’m going with this. Rogozin pointed to something similar a while back when he said that NATO would leave Russia holding the bag in Central Asia against Islamism when it inevitably retreats from Afghanistan.
So ask yourself, what if ole’ Victor (who must be popping champaigne corks this week about the F-15 deal with the Saudis) is right and the Israeli FM really is a Moscow stooge? If he were, would he be calling for bombing Iran, or not bombing Iran? In the short term you could see how a nice spike in oil prices would benefit the Kremlins. In the long term, a collapsing Iran would be a disaster for them, putting pressure on every former Soviet ‘Stan bordering Russia.
Once again, one side has to live next to or relatively close to Iran. The other parties especially the U.S. and France do not. I think that lends itself to the perspectives here, while Perry and co. are just thinking about who can look the most hawkish in this election.
The trouble with the Obamaroids and the Paulbots is one and the same.
Neither group understands the word “capabilities”. So they both dance the tarantella uponst their male members in the ferverent belief that the utopia-by-another-name will thus be brought about. Nothing to do but lick the so-and-sos.
Wretchard @8: Right—as you have a certain tendency to be. Just to take Libya as the easiest example: A single battalion of Marines, dispersed among the rebels could have taken de facto charge of the whole shooting match, finished the job much sooner and set Libya up as a coalition of affiliated city-states incapable of making mischief for us. An opportunity was lost.
Christopher Hitchens was still praising Trotsky in 2010
–he particularly praised Trotskys slaughter of Russian priests and the destruction of Christian churches in Russia .
Trotskyists may change their color but not their stripes
–witness the huge number of current neocons who were Trotstyists–scary–that is why they write hagiography for Hitchens–
The only American interest in Egypt is to keep the Suez canal open-that is cheap and easy and Europe should pay their percentage.
When we harvest domestic and Canadian energy and the North Passage melts then Suez will be largely irrelevant to American fundamental interests.
Historically–the majority of democracies have emerged after bloody civil wars–sad but true.
Now in the US we have a verbal civil war every 4 years–it is going on right now.
Israel is facing a bloody civil war between the extremist religious groups + the Russian immigrants + the settlers who together dominate the IDF
– against the moderate Israelis who value separation of church and state and womens rights.
The moderate Israelis are now emigrating in droves to Europe and the Americas.
The same dynamic is happening throughout MENA–except they have nowhere to emigrate
Ron Paul says we should
1/ pull up the drawbridge and only allow educated Christians from the MENA and elsewhere to enter the US.
2/ He also says that we should adopt “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” Jefferson
He is correct in 1 and 2
Enough is enough
“…prompted U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson to hand over a list of organizations…”
We have a little list,
of folks who won’t be missed.
We can hope that the North Korean and Iranian regimes are approaching their Thermidor. With luck prominent members of their juntas will end up like Ceausescu or the Jacobins or Mussolini. Even that is unlikely to get Barky to lower his chin. The Sunni “Arab Spring” MBO revolutions are spin offs from the earlier episodes, and the hand of the SVR is likely behind them, but they have a long way to go and unless subject to extreme external pressure, probably will cause much more destruction for at least a generation before they collapse. While some movements flame out quickly, like those in Germany and Hungary in 1919, those that are allowed to entrench, as Obama has abetted the advance of the Muslim Brotherhood, are difficult to remove. They are cancers and even with surgery they might kill the patient.
After the toppling of the Old Regime the Useful Idiots and surplus ideologues become reclassified as Useless Eaters. Their life expectancy becomes poor. It showed a fine sense of irony that the new Soviet Cheka took over the HQ of the All Russia Insurance Company in the Lubyanka.
I dunno, wretchard, you have something against self-determination?
You know, if you love something set it free, and if it doesn’t come back to you, (a) it was never yours in the first place, or (b) hunt it down and kill it.
So maybe we’re still in phase (a).
“Ron Paul says we should
1/ pull up the drawbridge and only allow educated Christians from the MENA and elsewhere to enter the US.” I don’t remember him ever saying that, but then again, I don’t recall him saying he hates black people or Israel and slept with Mahmoud Ahmadinnerjacket, despite what PJM’s the Tatler says.
“The Sunni “Arab Spring” MBO revolutions are spin offs from the earlier episodes, and the hand of the SVR is likely behind them,” Blast you give Russia’s external security organs a bit too much credit, I’m afraid. I’ve been fairly close to MGIMO and while they have some talented Arabists, Primakov being the most famous example (he wrote a nice book too), you vastly overestimate the apparat’s reach in Egypt, unless you think all those Natashas sunning themselves and getting hit on by the Egyptian tourist resort staff were really spies. I can imagine you or one of the older Cold War veterans here at BC going to Israel and muttering, “Everyone’s speaking Russian! They must all be KGB plants!”
End of thread for me. And no, I have no idea who Confederate is. But in response to his detractors, there have been a hell of a lot more anti-Paul than pro-Paul bots swarming PJM or darn near any other righty blog of late. Two guesses as to which faction is more likely to be paid, and the first doesn’t count.
“But in response to his detractors, there have been a hell of a lot more anti-Paul than pro-Paul bots swarming PJM or darn near any other righty blog of late.”
In reading comments here at BC by pro-Paul commenters, what comes across to me is frenzied, mostly hysterical posts. Anti-Paul comments, OTOH, I’ve perceived as even-handed, calm, and well reasoned point-by-point responses to those posts. So I’ve generally concluded that the Pro-Paul posts are far more likely a “hit and run” drive-by style. Drop off a post here, drop off a post there, blog-wise.
Many of those purged/murdered by Stalin were Jews who went to their trials and executions proclaiming the greatness of the Party and its historical destiny; it was only making a shocking mistake in identifying them as counter-revolutionaries. But they would loyally avoid making a scandal and accept death asking only that Stalin hear their last message of their undying love for him and the movement he represented.
In short, there was a failure to see that the revolution wasn’t making a “mistake” but was actually a force that positively required an endless stream of arbitrarily-chosen sacrificial victims to keep up the show of a struggle to redeem the past and build a “progressive” future. Given that the Jewish and Christian tradition, proper, has evolved in large part through opposition to idolatrous cults of human sacrifice, it is interesting to think about just how the heretical political religionists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries failed to see that they were involved in reversions to human sacrifice and not in legitimate forms of repairing the world. We have the advantage of hindsight to know that “Communism” can’t actually exisgt in anything beyond a hunter-gatherer society. I admit it could not have been unquestionably obvious in 1917 except to a few brave enough to rely on certain forms of uncommon wisdom. But still, why did it take so long (and why do some still fail to see) that “Communism” was but a cult of human sacrifice that could never have been anything other than such a cult?
Will Obamabots ever be able to admit that they have been backing a process that leads to violent civil war and rule by the biggest thugs in Araby? I suspect it will be easier to declare their failure to recognize certain Egyptian realities than it will be to recognize that their cult of victim worship leads to many ruined lives at home, among both the chosen wards of the welfare state and those whose lives become regulated out of productive existence. The recognition that “community organizers” are normally just “organizing” a sacrificial mob mentality against the scapegoat du jour is somehow impossible for those who are true believers in being “progressives” repairing a fallen world.
Ultimately, it is a crime to support those who just want to bring about the ruin of the fallen world more quickly, if those so willing are just offering another variety of Gnostic political religion in turn. To understand the mess of Western culture, i.e. that we have been banking on false revolutions for the last three or four centuries, we ultimately need a revival of our best religious/anthropological sensibilies, and our ability to build new covenants, a deep understanding of the need for a renewed tradition as the vehicle for real dynamism and progress, a movement or event that really can encompass the diversity of our societies and prove wrong those who think (in typically Western, if half-baked ways) that Western traditions are just the cause of some retrograde constituency of the unduly privileged.
Theodore Dalrymple, a few years ago, looking at the drunken cultural ruin wrought by the British welfare state (though I’d say the origins of the cultural/political disease go back at least to the Puritanism of the 17th-century failed revolution – which is not to denounce the possibility of a well-grounded republicanism), wrote that Britain desperately needed another Wesley. And what is needed is likely, eventually, to come to be. He just hoped this next one wouldn’t be carrying a Koran. I’d say it can no longer be a question of waiting for one great revivalist leader. It has to be a revival of many little people, a nation ruled by some share understanding of what is sacred and beyond the power of any man. And in that, the Jewish tradition still has much to offer those who need clues to how it can be done. When Victor writes about an impending civil war in Israel he only shows his failure to appreciate how a society can be home to the most fierce political debate and still witness a deep sense of shared destiny and sacrality that makes anything like full-scale conflict most unlikely. There’s a reason both secular and religious Israelis still have very positive fertility rates, unlike anything else in the developed world.
Victor: “Israel is facing a bloody civil war”
Somebody get Vicky a paper bag.
I am the only one who hears “lead from behind” and thinks “blocking units”?
#15 trupeers
In short, there was a failure to see that the revolution wasn’t making a “mistake” but was actually a force that positively required an endless stream of arbitrarily-chosen sacrificial victims to keep up the show of a struggle to redeem the past and build a “progressive” future.
The same could be said of the USSR’s mirror image state, Nazi Germany. When Hitler ran out of Jews, Gypsies, political prisoners, etc., he started moving to more mainstream groups like Catholic clerics. Some bunch always needed to be getting carted off to the camps to maintain fear levels in the general population.
That they were previously or even currently loyal was, of course, as irrelevant as the previous and even continuing loyalty of Jews killed by Stalin. Many leftists in the West would do exactly the same thing even now. “If only the right people were in charge” is still an attitude that flourishes, after all.
Maintaining simultaneous fear of and dependence on the state by creating bogeymen that can be identified (hatred of which evolves into the cherished anchor of certain people’s worldview, obviating the need for hard and critical thought and analysis) and killed or oppressed is just the latest variation of Girard’s concept of primitive need for human sacrifice.
In the US, the bulk of the left is of opinion of all practitioners of Christianity more serious than Unitarians are evil and dangerous, and this is our analog. The fact that most leftist Democrats cannot and WILL not distinguish between Christians of even middling devotion and Osama bin Laden and his followers is proof of this. Our state-funded leftist propaganda organs – NPR, PBS, and the education industry – promote this. They need their bogeyman, and will not give it up. To do so would require the kind of deep and difficult thought and reappraisal and rebuilding of their philosophy and worldview they lack the mental work ethic to accomplish.
Doubtless there are analogs in Europe and the developed countries of the Pacific rim.
Hillary also needs to eat a serving of crow for this, and it is a liability for any theoretical “Obama-Clinton 2012″ ticket.
W
If you ask me, there would be nothing wrong with the Arab spring if it had been guided, directed and scripted by the US.
You are mad.
The one thing that the Arab spring did not need is guidance from anybody other than Arabs. The spring was doomed to failure, just as Arab society is doomed to failure. To associate the US with its failure would perpetuate the Arab view that Arabs are the responsibilty of everybody else on the planet. Hence the US $1.5B jizya. And on and on…
Here’s the pseudo dilemma: is 1m Arab dead better than 2m Arab dead?
Here’s the real dilemma: is 2m Arab dead, blameable on the US and its President, better than 1m Arab dead blameable on Arabs.
And of course, the answer depnds on your perspective. From the perspective of the jizya receiver, the latter is preferable.
Stay out, stay out. Arabs must fail on their own two feet, because only then can they stand on their own two feet. And, of course, then no longer be Arabs, but genetically survive.
ADE
The one thing that the Arab spring did not need is guidance from anybody other than Arabs.
I think is probably getting plenty of guidance from outsiders. There is a fair chance that the Russians, the Persians, the Turks and even the Jews are doing there best to determine the course of the Arab spring. Iran isn’t shy about intervening in Iraq or in Syria nor the Qataris in Libya. Ironically, if one goes back to the time of Nasser, you’ll find almost the same alignments that you see today.
The biggest players in Egypt were the Islamists and the Left. Nasser was an Islamist militiaman in the beginning before he turned on the Muslim brotherhood from his position of power as a putschist officer. Then he cast around for allies. At the time the Soviets, CIA and even the holdover Nazis from World War 2 were very actively trying to ride the wave of something even bigger than the Arab Spring — the wave of postcolonial nationalism.
Eventually Nasser chose his ally. The Soviets. Ironically Ike supported Nasser against the Brits and in return Nasser lined up with the Soviets. Not for the first time did America overestimate the power of gratitude. In the end, the nationalist movements of the 1950s and 1960s were in the end led by anybody but “the people” and the resulting regime structure lasted almost to this day. This was true not just of the Middle East, but even in Muslim countries like Indonesia. Sukarno was a “man of the people” — one beholden to Moscow.
Now it’s deja vu all over again. The interest of outside parties in Islam isn’t so much religious as in the name of convenience. The Caliphate, were it to be revived, would be an instrument of domination, perhaps by the Turks over the Arabs. But in no wise would the Arab people be left alone to run the Arab Spring — unless of course an outside power like the US saw fit to neutralize the other outside forces intent on dominating it — then the Arabs might run it for their respective countries.
Realistically everybody is going to be trying to control the Arab Spring. Everybody that is, except the America, it would seem. Intervention will be the rule rather than the exception. About the only side stupid enough to maintain a hands off attitude, or to try to influence events through unarmed, idealistic NGOs is Washington.
Let’s see if that works. I have nothing against NGOs, but for them to succeed, they have to operate in partnership with other forms of power, in order to cover them against the bad guys and serious players from outside powers who are probably all over the place even as we write. In fact, we ought to look at the raid on the NGOs from other eyes. To the other interventionary powers the NGOs are America’s agent network in Egypt. Would that it were so, but anyhow that’s probably how they are seen. So they’re breaking them up because they have plans of their own. Nobody is going to leave the Arab Spring to the Arabs if they can help it, except maybe Washington.
“When he talks about the “moral arc of the universe” you know he is in his element.
We’re talking Kim Jon Il right? What exalted drivel.
“On the other hand, there would be everything wrong with an Arab spring that you lead from behind, because it will go in the direction those leading from the front take it in.”
And yet it would seem these NGOs are neck deep in the insurrection which ignited Egypt’s fuse. For years I have deplored these murky NGOs – they are all socialist front groups in nature, they promote the “World Government” model of the cancerous UN, and operate largely out of the scrutiny of their ultimate boss, the People of the USA. I’m not suggesting that Obama is just feigning his pathetic “leading from behind” stance, he is after all a coward, a poseur, and a moron as a leader. Bust just as comrade Obama, Community Organizer and insurrectionist, is using the myriad levers of unaccountable “czars” and agencies like the EPA, DoJ, ATF, DHS, and even the IRS, to fulfill his his own American coup, these NGOs perform in the same manner to forward all manner of communist and supra-legal goals – all under the meek cloak of “helping the poor” and “feeding the starving” and other such communistic pretexts.
I am sick to the gills watching ships unload millions of tons of food and medicine and handing it out to thankless and hateful enemies across the globe. From Pakistan, to Egypt, to Indonesia, to Nigeria and Sudan, Iraq, etc. we see this American generosity betrayed by fulminating Islamic hatred, and the bounty is used primarily for the preservation and the breeding of more enemies of America.
“Leading from behind” comes from Larry Niven’s “Ring World.” It refers to the puppeteers, an alien, nonhuman species, and is synonymous with extreme cowardice. All-in-all an accurate epithet for this President.
“If you ask me, there would be nothing wrong with the Arab spring if it had been guided, directed and scripted by the US.”
Exactly my thought. And that’s the way we were headed, under G.W. Bush.
What Obama did was like advancing to the Rhine River in WW2, taking Iwo Jima, and then saying “Well, guess we showed them. Bring the boys home.”
The approach to “end” the Korean and Vietnam Wars was so successful that why should we not make that our new standard of “successful conclusion to the conflict?” For that matter, Desert Storm was really great, so why not follow that precedent? Indeed, why should we not have done WW2 that way?
Wretchard #21:
“Ironically Ike supported Nasser against the Brits…” And that support consisted almost entirely of not getting involved in the Suez furball ourselves. It was not RAF Hunters against USAF F-100′s over Egypt – if we had taken a more active role, perhaps offered a “peacekeeping” force to prevent the conflict, things might have turned out differently. Ike led from behind.
ADE #20:
Certainly, the A-Rabs have proven their ability to cross thread a bowling ball without even using a manual, other than the Koran. That argues for some outside help and direction. As Wretchard says, it’s gonna come from somewhere. And until we invent the Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor – and probably even if we do – we cannot ignore that part of the world.
Leading from behind; isn’t that what pedophiles do?
I don’t recall Obama discussing his deep foreign policy while on the presidential stump. How is it one man can subsume the policy of a nation on a personal whim, not vetted or overseen by any other body of government or democratic process? It seems clear to me that there is too much power concentrated in the executive and all that is needed is a corrupt alliance with the apparatchiks of the state department and the Democratic wing of the CIA. This is not a constitutional government.
The problem with President Obama is that he thought he could do it on the cheap. A little palaver here, a little speechifying there. So he leaves Iraq, basically abdicates Egypt to the Muslim brotherhood and tries to adjust its course through NGOs; he fails to overthrow Assad, or worse, watches while someone else overthrows Assad. What could go wrong?
About the only side stupid enough to maintain a hands off attitude, or to try to influence events through unarmed, idealistic NGOs is Washington.
I believe Obama called such international behavior ‘smart diplomacy’ when he was running against the horrible militarist McCain. He got elected, didn’t he? This is what democracy looks like.
One solution for Egypt and the ME in general is to push all the Arabs back onto the Arabian Penisula and start again from there.
truepeers – Well done! To our discredit, we often disregard that case studies are available which provide clear insights from an unimpeachable source. Recall again the David – Absalom struggle. The flawed leader, the machinations and schemes of revolution, and the tragic outcome. Decisions and actions accompanying suffering, death, defeat and victory.
Such is the destiny of mankind. The outcome is foreknown, though the decisions and actions are yet to be executed. Many commentors seem to delight in the schemes and plans of those behind the actions, as if humans are ultimately in control of the outcome. Foolishness & vanity.
All the master planners and all the King’s men cannot alter the course of human history. Absalom played his role, but the outcome was predetermined.
What, then, is to be done? Is all human action futile? Not at all. Just as David set in motion the plan for espionage, responding to Absalom’s actions, we all have some role to execute. Those actions were part of the real master’s plan.
Fast forward to current events, the middle east retains the center stage in world events. It is not by accident that such a large fraction of essential energy supplies lie underneath all that sand. It is not coincidence that three major religions claim birth there. Consider the present and historical impact of the animosity of the descendants of the slave child against the descendants of the free child.
Since we have available the operator’s or instruction manual for the human soul, it is ultimate folly to disregard the trove of information therein. Much intrigue is ignited by those prophesies of the final battle on the plains of Esdraelon near Megiddo. The description is similar to what one would expect from nuclear holocaust.
We could spend our time being fascinated by the schemes and motivations of Absalom, and, thereby, miss the importance of the understanding the motivations of the victor.
For the first time since 1973, the Egyptian armed forces are demonstrably responsible for the success of the state. I think they are finding out that it’s easier to rule behind the curtain, as was done under Mubarak. Now, they turn to the same tools any military junta does, repression through the use of military units. This might be tolerated by the public, as it often is in South America, if the junta uses its authority and power to bring stability and economic growth. I don’t think the Egyptian military has the knowledge or experience to pull this off. The military junta might wind up playing Kerensky to the Islamists Bolsheviks.
We should scrutinize our fascination with democracy which is en vogue aujourd’hui. What is the certain outcome? We may look at the current state of America for some perspective. Waffling indetermination of future course. Inability to avoid the future economic catastrophe.
Are we to become a welfare state, surrendering greater control to incompetent federal usurpers with commensurate deprivation of liberty? Does the salvation lie in increased government directed “investment” to “win the future” or in permitting individuals freedom to control and direct their own labor?
Recognize that a majority or consensus did not produce the Constitution guiding the development of our constitutional republic. Nor could such a document result from democratic processes. It was a result of wise men who had developed prescient understanding regarding the fallibility of mankind, the human insufficiency. Great promise coupled with tragic flaws. Those who are granted power must be constrained from their proclivity to control the lives of others for “the betterment of all”. Simple arrogance and lack of foresight.
Democracy is not the solution in Egypt or anywhere else! Adherence to a rule of law derived from such a document as our Constitution is a better solution. However, it will never work within an environment where religious faith is allowed to ascend over individual volition. Islamic beliefs proscribed in their treasured documents deprive individuals of volition. Indeed, it deprives “people of the book” of life, not to mention liberty and pursuit of happiness.
The current struggles will have a bad outcome, if you treasure liberty and self determination.
History will show Carter lost Iran, Obama lost everything else. That is the short term POV, of course. Short term being the last year of this administration and the first two years of the next. In the long term, that being the rest of this century, Democracy of an Islamic nature is inevitable. Ideas can only be stopped by other ideas and the cell phone spreads ideas faster then bullets can stop them.
Meanwhile Iran’s threat to close the Strait is as hollow as Obama’s re-election plan.
And then we have Mr. X pushing Pooties plan to trick the USA into abdicating it’s unwanted role as world cop.
Despite the denials of the Paulbots, Congressman Pauls Foreign Policy is Isolationism pure and simple.
He might be right, or at least there needs to be a serious debate on Foreign Policy. For over a century now, the USA has bounced between Manifest Destiny (aka Neocons) and Isolationism.They are mutually exclusive and trying to do both leads only to an epic fail. So lets have that debate.
Congressman Paul needs to explain the advantages of isolationism AND the disadvantages. He also needs to explain his plan to alleviate those disadvantages.
So far it seems his plan is to hide under the bed until the boogieman goes away. Not very Presidential.
Stoicheion #32:
“For over a century now, the USA has bounced between Manifest Destiny (aka Neocons) and Isolationism…”
Consider Bill Clinton. He sounded like an isolationist in his first Presidental campaign, the economy was his priority, because it was supposedly so bad. He had to take that approach – the MSM were willing to tout the “economic emergency” – and at the end of the Bush I admin the international situation was the best it had ever been in known history. He had no where to go and no hope of matching the Reagan and Bush international accomplishments.
Once in office Clinton developed a new enthusiasm for military adventurism. He had the US Army deployed to 100 countries within a couple of years and went uphill from there.
G.W. Bush thought that Clinton’s focus on the One and True Final Mideast Peace Process to be pointless, basically saying the people in the ME would make peace when they were ready to. But of course 9/11/01 changed that viewpoint to some extent – Bush was going to help make them ready, knowing that “Peace” only follows a successful War. Get rid of the worst of the dictators and change the dynamic in the region. And he did that.
Obama is doing both isolationism and military adventurism as well and Clinton-style peace brokering too, all at the same time. He’s using everyone’s playbook because he does not have one of his own.
Just as I figured would happen. The fed is bailing out the ECB.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-thinly-veiled-fed-bailout-of-europe-2011-12
Correct me if I’m wrong, but even the Old Bolsheviks stole the original Russian Revolution, whose participation was broader based (remember the Mensheviks? Me neither).
Off Topic: A million years ago in another life, I did orbital mechanics software development for USAF/SAMSO “Low Altitude Satellites”. Everything was classified and compartmentalized. I only saw a tiny piece of the total puzzle. For example, at the level that I worked at, we never called the satellites “KH-9″ or “Big Bird”. Instead we used terms like “DOZ-A” and “DOZ-B”. To this day, I do not know what “DOZ” stands for but if “DOZ” was written on an official document, it became classified. About 10 years ago, some significant information was leaked out onto the Internet by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) through John Pike but none of that information had official standing. After a while the FAS web pages with the leaked information mysteriously disappeared (somebody was displeased). Today, for the first time I saw some officially declassified information available to the general public. This can be seen through the following link:
http://www.nro.gov/history/csnr/gambhex/Critical to US Security.pdf
Scroll through the initial public relations baloney and get to the declassified documents that are attached as appendices. Those are genuinely interesting. What I found particularly interesting was a significant amount of information was redacted. Some of this stuff is over 40 years old and the Soviet Union is long gone. Why are they still trying to keep some of this secret?
34. Charles
OT leading from behind, a letter writer to the Financial Post today says:
” ….It is just 18 months since Bernie Madoff was jailed for a period of two normal lifetimes for behaving like a government. For years he took in more money than he paid out and was able to keep his clients happy. The jig was up when fewer people would buy his paper than the amount needed to fund his obligations. The actions of Bernie Madoff are no different than the actions of governments who sell debt to finance their payouts.
………leaders of governments should be subject to the same rules as Bernie Madoff. If their revenues exceed their payouts they can be given latitude to put in place any vote-buying schemes they like. If their payouts exceed their revenues, they should be sent to jail for 150 years.”
This leaves aside the question of how much revenue a government should be allowed to raise, especially just to spend on vote buying schemes. Even so, his basic point about applying the same rules to Bernie Madoff and governments is correct.
“Leading from behind” gives one the vibe of a homo-erotic BDSM cross-over term.
——
As a poker ‘tell’ the Wan is showing all and every that he’s a big fan of Stalinist mass manipulation — which see the MSM (D).
——
Pocketbook calculations show that the Egyptian currency position is imploding.
Hence we may well see an islamist ‘unity drive’ to meld Libya back into Egypt.
——
The Peace Accords provide for Sinai as a demilitarized zone. We ALWAYS have a one battalion observation force in that desert. It is joined by other NATO elements/ mutually agreed parties.
If the Wan pulls our boys out the balloon goes up.
——-
America is now glutted with gasoline. So much so that it is being exported in a grand manner.
I would expect European refiners to use this as an opportunity to accelerate their transitions towards heavy, sour crude.
It is pretty apparent that American gasoline has made its way to Europe — crushing current operating margins for Petroplus and others.
Indeed, Petroplus is headed for the wall.
It would appear that KSA is willing to re-ramp heavy, sour exports…
Perhaps even at the expense of certain Shi’ite exporters in the Gulf.
Charles @ 34 said:
“Just as I figured would happen. The fed is bailing out the ECB.”
Did you notice the graph in your link showing the expansion of assets on the ECB’s balance sheet? It appears to have gone singular. It’s cute that the ECB is doing quantitative easing (QE) with greenbacks loaned to them from the Fed. The Fed can print money but supposedly the ECB can not. Looks like the ECB has “solved” their liquidity problem.
Oddly enough, the PPT did not pump the markets today. I guess the PPT’s objective was to have a net DJIA positive for the year. Mission accomplished! The MSM now has their thirty second sound bite. It’s amazing what the Fed can do with digital fiat money.
Eggplant #36:
That info might give excessive insight into both the capabilities of the satellites and the methods used to analyze the data.
A thousand years ago in another life I taught a course on launch pad layout and design for CIA overhead photo analysts. The kind of things they were interested in sometimes were baffling to me but no doubt perfectly understandable given the data they had. Sometimes we would tell them what a particular structure on the pad was used for and they would say, “Oh! Can we go inside and look at it?” about facilities that were less interesting than a phone booth. In some cases we had to say “Sorry, but we don’t have the keys to the place with us today, but there is nothing there but a metal building with a concrete floor.” I still have no idea why they wanted to see what they did.
Don Rodrigo #35:
Yes, I believe that is the case. And one of the few things I recall about the movie “Reds” was the American female “socialist activist” telling Warren Beaty after the communists took over in Russia, “This is becoming the sort of place where people like me will not be allowed.”
“When he talks about the “moral arc of the universe” you know he is in his element.
Obama’s speeches are written by young, shallow limpnoodles who are deft at faux eloquence. It is precisely the “eloquence” that so bedazzled our “betters” that proved to me that our current President was a fraud. Many of us learn to spot this kind of bullshit as early as high school. Maybe our annointed “elites” skipped the high school part, which explains their ignorance and cluelessness.
RWE @ 40,
It’s funny what they tried to keep secret. Many years ago, I was touring a facility at Lockheed Missiles and Space Corp. (LMSC) with a bunch of aeronautical engineering graduate students. They had the Agena propulsive section for a KH-8 satellite right there on the shop floor. None of us had security clearances (my secret clearance expired after I went back to university). I guess the guys at LMSC assumed the Agena by itself had no national security importance or none of us would recognize it for what it was. At the time, I commented to one of my classmates that this was the closest I would probably ever get to an actual low orbit satellite.
Related to this: The other day I saw with my kids the movie, “Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol”. It was an entertaining movie. One thing that made me smile was this scene showing a Russian SLBM going from launch to impact at San Francisco. That whole scene was utter and complete nonsense. It was obvious that the guys who made that movie did not have a clue about how an SLBM or its RVs functioned. It would have only required about 10 minutes of web surfing to find out how an SLBM actually functioned. I guess it didn’t matter to the guys who made that movie.
Wretchard @ 21 – A few more bits of wisdom “All politics is local”. Re-read Carmel Delshad’s piece and see how the Egyptian diaspora is re-focusing its efforts to support already extant Egyptian NGOs. The traditional NGOs (through the Obama favorite organization the UN) are not really helpful to the recipient nations. Where has the investment of the World Bank paid off? How many multinational peacekeepers are worth their salt (the Arab League in Syria anyone?). So being wary of NGOs is actually smart. Given the history of Egypt, the people should be wary of neo-colonialists. “Once burned, twice shy”.
The United States has been a loyal friend and donor to Egypt, despite the perfidy of Nasser et al. View him as an example of teenage rebellion, not as representaive of the hearts of the Egyptians.
All that predates Obama. It will post-date him too. So just as the Libyans welcomed U S Defense Secretary Panetta, not the British or French who led the revolution there, the Egyptians would be wise to welcome American influence. That influence is strongest in military to military relationships. So the Egyptian military needs to keep the democracy process on track while using force to blunt the violent excesses of the Islamists etc. They protected the protesters in Tahir Square. Now they need to protect the Copts for example.
As Josh @ 12 put it
“I dunno, Wretchard, you have something against self-determination?
You know, if you love something set it free, and if it doesn’t come back to you, (a) it was never yours in the first place…”
Egypt does not belong to foreigers, let them try and sort it out. Support them with aid through the military and their own NGO organizations. Let the dust settle.
Let them build political local organizations to deal with local politics.
norm @ 14: “In reading comments here at BC by pro-Paul commenters, what comes across to me is frenzied, mostly hysterical posts. Anti-Paul comments, OTOH, I’ve perceived as even-handed, calm, and well reasoned point-by-point responses to those posts. So I’ve generally concluded that the Pro-Paul posts are far more likely a “hit and run” drive-by style. Drop off a post here, drop off a post there, blog-wise.”
If you are talking about me and my overly emotive post last thread (sorry ’bout that) I’ve been reading the BC and commenting intermittently since at least 2005. google can bear this out for you if you like.
regards
“Some of this stuff is over 40 years old and the Soviet Union is long gone. Why are they still trying to keep some of this secret?”
1.) Bureaucratic inertia. Secrets have power in the bureaucracy. Not in what they are but that they are.
2.) CYA. Some of the people are still part of the bureaucracy. They have to be protected.
“It would have only required about 10 minutes of web surfing to find out how an SLBM actually functioned. I guess it didn’t matter to the guys who made that movie.”
They probably did, then decided that reality wasn’t “optical” enough.
Ever tossed a hand grenade? Not much of an explosion. Certainly nothing worth paying 12$US to see.
That is why the grenade tossed by the good guy blows up half the village and wipes out battalions of bad guys. Those are the visuals the ticket buyers want.
The irony is that many of these NGOs congratulated themselves on playing a role in starting the Egyptian protests in the first place
From the LA Times report: Reporting from Cairo and Washington— Egyptian security forces on Thursday raided the offices of 17 nongovernmental organizations, including three U.S.-based agencies…Egyptian soldiers and black-clad police officers swept into offices, interrogated workers and seized computers across the country. Those targeted included U.S. groups the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute and Freedom House, which are funded by Congress to monitor elections and promote democracy overseas.
Maybe the irony is in calling these groups NGOs.
Back in the day it was common for the Communist Party to accuse its underground rivals of the most heinous crimes. One favorite accusation was “sexual opportunism”, which generally meant that you cut a wide swath with the ladies. This was actually a capital offense. One individual so condemned came to me and lamented, “I never did this.”
Then he thought on this for a while and finally said, “you know it occurs to me that I might as well do whatever they accuse me of, because they’ll accuse me of it anyway.”
The concept of “It’s Always America’s Fault®” is structurally similar. Since you’ll always be guilty, what reality does actual guilt or innocence have? And in that world, what is the incentive to honest behavior?
The raids on NGO offices are perfect example of why “Leading From Behind” has no advantages over “Leading From the Front”. Because whatever goes wrong, “It’s Always America’s Fault®”. When you hang back, as in the case of Egypt, they raid the NGO offices and blame America for all the trouble they themselves have caused.
Another example was recently exemplified by Hugo Chavez. He claims that his cancer was caused by US intelligence agents; not just his cancer, in fact, but cancers among a whole lot of other Leftist leaders. It’s only a matter of time before they hang the rap of Kim Jong-il’s death on US intelligence.
So it’s not true. But what does it matter if they believe it anyway?
The new North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un has already accused America’s “puppet”, South Korea, of preparing for war. What? And puppet? Bet you didn’t know that Seoul is America’s puppet; that as an American you can just go there and order people around. You can’t, but that doesn’t matter because “It’s Always America’s Fault®”.
This creates perverse incentives. Notice, for example, that America is getting less criticism for bombing the living daylights out of Libya than it is for messing with the internal affairs of Egypt. Now if it were true that blame on America is proportional to its involvement, you would expect the opposite.
But it’s not. Blame is actually proportional to the degree to which the side America back wins. If the US leads from behind and loses, it’s the goat. But had it led from the front and won, it is the champeen of the world. Winners write history. Losers are just losers.
What I’m really waiting for is some US politician to come to the same realization that long-ago underground operator came to. That is, “if they’re going to blame you anyway, well why the heck not just do it?”
I could find no answer back then besides uttering the commonplace, “let your conscience be your guide.” But you have to believe in God or something to mind an injunction like that. Otherwise if it is Fortune and Men’s Eyes you are after in sexual opportunism as in bringing democracy to the Arab world, then, yeah, why not?
The answer to “It’s Always America’s Fault®”, is to reply “do you realize that absolves me of everything?”. That is, unless you believe in God. Put that choice to the Party and observe how, in spite of themselves, they will at least partly come to Jesus.
wretchard, I’d love to see a clandestine or open US support and guidance of these various groups. if we had even a halfway-qualified secretary of state, perhaps we would. but we have Hildabeast, who either hasn’t a clue, doesn’t care, or has been totally ridden by the famously disfunctional state department apparat. but, on exactly what principled basis could such a thing be done, and could it possibly work in dar al-Islam or would it just crystallize the opposition, attract more funding from our friends the Sauds or Hilda’s reset buddies in Russia? the edge of the wedge here already seems to be western technology, the Internet, twitter, facebook, etc. let it continue to work, with a little luck it will be sufficient, and the price is right.
with a little luck, their paranoid accusations and suppression will only work further against them. maybe Obambus really is Buddha conscious, and his policy of doing nothing is actually high art.
yeah right.
still, …
Eggplant @42
Agena was cut loose for NASA’s Gemini program…
Remember?
Armstrong’s Agena docking went so awry that the mission was aborted/ terminated…
He’d used essentially all of his propellant.
Astounding that he survived… one rev per second!
Between that mission and the flying bedstead…
He’s the luckiest Astronaut.
Which was the real reason he commanded Apollo 11.
“why “Leading From Behind” has no advantages over “Leading From the Front”.’
Actually, it does. Leading from behind is the best way to avoid getting shot in the back. An old political commissar trick. Ever watch “Barbarians at the Gate”?
The scene where they are charging unarmed across the Plaza is pretty much within description of both sides. Soviet Machine guns behind them, Nazi machine guns in front. Bullets are non-political. The only respect gravity.
The guy standing BEHIND the Soviet machine gun with pistol in hand was the political commissar. He was there to shoot the machine gunner in the back of the head if there were doubts.
Socialism is a joke without it’s murderous thugs. With them it’s a sick joke.
Eggplant #42:
The Agena Bell “Hustler” engine was used for a number of different missions even fairly late in the program. Aside from all those Corona and other NRO missions on Thors and Atlas SLV-3A’s it flew on Seasat, was supposed to fly on another similar mission before Lockheed blew the integration costs through the roff, and flew on a bunch of Titan IIIB missions.
The closest I have ever been to a launch, outside in the open and not in the blockhouse, was a Titan IIIB that went from SLC-4 while I was watching from SLC-3, in early 1982.
And relative to the expertise of fiction writers, yesterday I picked up novel that had a pretty good start, but then they had the launch of a NASA Delta III from VAFB, carrying a spy satellite that used an RTG. I just about put the book down at that point. There is so much wrong with that scenario that it would take too long to describe – but it would have required very little research to find out the turth. That’s one of the good things about Tom Clancy’s books as compared to all the others – he gets a lot less wrong.
Wretchard #47:
Way back in the 70′s I gave it some thought and came up with the same conclusion. We are going to be accused of trying to take over the world anyway, so we may as well do it. It’s probably much harder to protect ourselves and our allies, pursue our legitimate national interests, support humanitarian missions, protect the biosphere, promote democracy, be the World’s SWAT team if not the World’s policeman, and at the same time NOT take over the whole shootin’ match.
Well it may take one to know one but I’ve observed a fair number of the insane know fear. It needs to used with discretion and a certain amount of randomization though.
Being unpredictable generates a certain amount of fear and a tendency to think before acting also. Continuous fear breeds continuous hate. I sometimes think Frank J. Flemming has the right idea, “Nuke the Moon.”
Of course I also want a gold backed US dollar, a bb gun, a pony, and a sleazy blonde.
Running other countries’ governments as the power behind the throne only works in a true unvarnished Empire. True Empire comes with too many bad features to be an option for the U.S. Fake Empire doesn’t work either. If it did the phrase “Banana Republic” wouldn’t have become a term of ridicule.
I think that step one in foreign policy is to determine who are friends, who are enemies and who are neither. Being nice to one’s enemies won’t make them into your friends. That’s what is wrong with Obama’s “smart diplomacy”. Who cares what your enemies say about you or what they decide to blame you for? But you do care what your friends say about you. It pays to listen to and cultivate your friends. Those who are neither friend nor enemy can’t be trusted and need to be watched so that you know when to change their label to friend or enemy.
My totally unsophisticated, un-nuanced and probably unrealistic foreign policy is:
~be nasty to your enemies
~cultivate and support your friends
~watch those who can’t be trusted; don’t meddle in these neither/nor countries in hopes of turning them into friends; know when they turn friend or enemy and behave accordingly
~limit trade with your enemies; expand trade with your friends and with those who are neither friend nor enemy.
Well, obviously as Wretchard has stated, the whole ‘notion’ (one of Barak’s favorite terms) of ‘Leading From Behind’ (LFB) is ridiculous. It is merely a term whose purpose is to create the impression that the U.S. is and has been in charge of the Arab Spring. Obama has merely been credited with the idea since he is the current occupant of the WH and his learning curve in the Middle East created the necessary conditions, but I’m in support so far as it works.
As is evident from the recent military hardware tech sales/deployments to Saudi Arabia and U.A.E. in concert with the U.S. Naval presence in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar, the notion of LBH has nothing left to feed on.
A strong argument can be made that Obama, in his attempt to be seen by the Arab world as a ‘good guy’, accidentally swerved into what in retrospect may turn out to be a watershed period in terms of consolidation of U.S. global hegemony. The real linchpin is Syria and I think we are playing it right. The pairing of Iran and Syria has been, for 30 years, like to knights protecting each other on the chessboard of the Middle East. While Syria has been the weaker of the two, either alone, especially with Saddam Hussein out of the picture, is hopelessly isolated. The mullahs in Iran cannot afford to lose the steadfast support of it’s partner and will do everything in it’s power to prevent the Assad regime from falling. The mullahs position is coming under increasing pressure from a growing number of directions. The dominant naval presence of the U.S. Navy is and has been a constant. Recently, and most importantly in my view is the loss of support from much of the population due to the brutal crackdowns of the protests following the electoral fraud. Starting to hurt also are ever increasing economic sanctions applied as a result of it’s naked nuclear ambitions. The same nuclear ambitions have compelled its neighbors to pursue massive military defensive postures opposing Iran. Now, finally it’s partner, the Assad regime is in dire jeopardy and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s support of (participation in) the bloody crackdowns in Syria ensure that a post-Assad Syria will not be inclined to save the regime in Iran from further isolation and pressure. The U.S., having ‘LFB’ in the Syrian uprising in the way that it has, is trying to strike a balance between supporting the opposition not appearing not to force the situation.
In the larger global perspective, the situation in the Middle East, with Iran at it’s core, has been the main thing that has kept the U.S. military from focusing its posture squarely in opposition to the Russians and now to an extent, the Chinese. These two countries will then be squarely in opposition to anything that will definitively topple Assad. It appears there is not much they can do now but try to prevent military intervention on behalf of the rebels. The job of the U.S. now is to surround Syria and keep the Iranians, Russians, and Chinese from providing critical support to Assad while clandestinely providing as much support as possible to the opposition.
Unless something unforeseen happens, like Ron Paul getting elected president, I think the U.S. is, depending on the outcome of the Syrian situation, in possibly the best global military position it has ever found itself in.
Some major Gordian stress has been relieved from the Middle East as a result of the recent convulsions and the U.S. has been the beneficiary. It seems that letting go a little bit, for whatever reason, has been the right thing to do. Were Obama’s motives purely selfish? Probably, but I’ll take it anyway.
“Egypt does not belong to foreigers, let them try and sort it out. Support them with aid through the military and their own NGO organizations. Let the dust settle.”
MachiasPrivateer, I’m surprised. I didn’t think you were that naive.
Egypt is weak. That means SOMEBODY will meddle in their internal affairs. The only question is WHO?
The Egyptians HOPE it is America. The US Department of State is inept at best, incompetent on average. Their idea of clever is dumping loads of money on the table and leaving the room. Then when the gunfire ends they walk back in and declare an open bar.
Egypt’s military needs to worry about Israel, Turkey, KSA, Russia, Al Qaeda Et. Al. before it worries about the USA.
Remember, all bureaucracies are corrupt, military bureaucracies are conspiratorial.
I would be worried more about Pootie or Ahamadamnnutjob then POTUS, who couldn’t find his a$$ with both hands and help from coach Jerry.
If I counted right, this is love potion #4
@stoicheion 56.
Maybe the question is: Can the USA prevent undue foreign influence/interference in politically unstable Middle Eastern countries like Egypt and Syria without itself committing undue influence/interference?
I realize you have no more bullets on this topic, so not expecting a response here.
Eggplant @ 42: “The other day I saw with my kids the movie, “Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol”. It was an entertaining movie. One thing that made me smile was this scene showing a Russian SLBM going from launch to impact at San Francisco. That whole scene was utter and complete nonsense.”
If it is any consolation, newspapers in the UAE were griping that Tom C. experiences a sandstorm that could never happen in Dubai. Even though he was allowed to use the Burj Khalifa as a prop! Could hurt the tourist trade, you know.
But hey! If they manage to nuke San Francisco, it might just be worth paying to see the movie. Does Nancy P. get to make a speech before the missile hits? A kind of “We have to let the missile hit to see what’s in it” sort of thing.
Happy New Year to one & all, especially Wretchard; you are making a difference.
sfBlue, you write as though we are playing a game of Risk, as though it is not central that the “Arab Spring” is looking to be one of those catastrophic convulsions in which human sacrifice will hold center stage, millions will die, tyranny will stalk a good portion of the globe, and the world we find ourselves powerfully perched athwart, by your scenario, will be a sad shadow of what it was a short decade ago.
K @ 58 “Does Nancy P. get to make a speech before the missile hits? ”
That made me laugh. Make the movie worthwhile? Hell, might make letting them do it worthwhile. It isn’t like they’d be attacking America…well hardly.
I don’t know what opportunities are left in MENA to nudge nascent democracies in the right direction.
I am left with the impression that we botched Egypt and made up for it by botching Libya.
Maybe now soft power is all we have to wield in the region. I can’t help but wondering what GWB would have done unfettered by the MSM counter-revolutionary rhetoric but that is water under the bridge. I have come to believe that we have no compelling interest to become entangled in the ensuing mess and we should do what we always have managed to do. That is, reward our friends and punish our enemies. In other words, talk softly and carry a big stick. I think the best thing is for the US to maintain a profile Navy in the gulf region and the eastern Mediterranean. We don’t have to be the world’s police but it is in our interests to be the guarantor of is seas.
Are we still on yesterday, or isn’t it tomorrow already in Oz?
Happy 2012!
sfb @ 54: Well, obviously as Wretchard has stated, the whole ‘notion’ (one of Barak’s favorite terms) of ‘Leading From Behind’ (LFB) is ridiculous. It is merely a term whose purpose is to create the impression that the U.S. is and has been in charge of the Arab Spring.
Let’s try just a little synthesis here of the major ideas in this thread, maybe they are all sort of true, kumbiyah, blind men and the Obamaphant.
In charge of the Arab Spring is just what the Obamaphant does NOT want to be, and yet he wants to be seen as helping the good and opposing the bad, not to mention we wanted our NATO allies to at least pretend to take care of the nasty case of Libya, so the geniuses down at the PR department came up with the term LFB. Because, on the one hand, we don’t want to mix in with the savages as it’s a lost cause every time, and anyway modernity is starting to grind on them and once the Saudis let women drive, Voltaire has already won, so we should just stand pat. On the other hand we owe it to the poor heathen bastards to help them, so a little encouragement is appropriate, some material for posters, a couple of free iPads, and we’ll send some of those geniuses from the PR department over there to help you with polling and narrative construction, oh yeah and a few surgical excisions of unwanted jihadis is fully in keeping with Islamic traditions, it shows we understand them, and that we do it out of love. Not to mention that, y’know, we hate to mention it, but we owe them just a bit for 9/11 and some other stuff, then and even now, with the Pakistanis still attacking US troops in Afghanistan, Tehran attacking US troops in Iraq and building themselves some nukes, well, so it seems THEIR choice that we all stay engaged, you want us you got us, I mean we are obliged to play with y’all but we’re busy already so you can’t really expect to make it to the top of the president’s list, what with reelection and golf and menu planning with Michelle, so a little LFB is what we’ve got for ya, and we do hope you like it.
61. Josh
Yep, it’s 2012 in Oz. Happy New Year, Wretchard! What’s it like living in the future?
This is a cool site for all of your time-related questions:
http://www.timeanddate.com/counters/newyearmap.html
I meant to note in my last comment that the entire country of China is a single time zone. I didn’t know that.
SFblue #57:
It has been said that great powers do not have friends; they have interests.
It can also be said that there is no such thing as a great power exerting “undue influence” over foreign countries. There is only Influence that is inadequate to serve our Interests, Influence that is adequate to serve our Interests, and Influence that costs too much, a condition that can occur accompanied by either adequacy and inadequacy.
Countries that are too weak to deal with outside Influence are a fact of life. Like the poor, they will always be with us. And overall, dealing with the USA’s Influence is one of the better problems to have, compared to the alternatives. The Philippines decided that the USA had undue Influence, so we packed up and left at their government’s direction. The combination of Mt Pinatubo and the end of the Cold War meant that the results of that decision probably was rather more far-reaching than they thought it would be, but overall they are doing about as well as could be expected. And I would expect the majority of people there wished we had never left.
Vietnam got rid of our undue Influence and today the saying there is “Our past is from the French, our present is from the Soviets, and our future will be from the Americans.” As far back in the early 90′s Vietnamese were mentioning that Cam Ron Bay would make a nice American naval base after we moved out of Subic Bay.
And so on, South Korea, Iraq, and a whole bunch of countries can decide how to deal with our Influence – but since it is American Influence, that is an option they have.
At this point, whether we “lead” from ahead, behind, above, below, either flank, or in complicated moving formations worthy of the Rose Bowl half-time show; there are no good outcomes in prospect.
Current events can be viewed as the summation of the results of previous events. And we are facing inputs that are not amenable to modification.
Among the proximate causes of the Muslim Brotherhood takeover we refer to as the “Arab Spring” is a worldwide increase in the price of food. This has two precursors. The first is a shortage of food in the world. There are a few countries who produce the bulk of wheat available for export. Russia, the Ukraine, Canada, Argentina, Australia, and … the US.
Due to drought, Russia and the Ukraine have stopped exporting to make sure that they can feed their own people [and avoid a "Slavic Spring"]. Canada’s crop is not that good [I believe due to drought and unseasonable cold]. Argentina exports, but their crop is not that big and right now they are in the middle of one of their generational economic collapses. Australia had floods in the vegetable growing east, and drought in the grain growing regions. That leaves the US. As a matter of considered policy, 60% of our grain crop is being converted to ethanol for fuel; creating more pollution when you consider life cycle process’, burning more gasoline and diesel when you consider that same cycle, and costing more when you figure in the subsidies in a time of raging deficits. but it is all good, because it was created by the incipient American GOSPLAN.
Short form, there is a lot less wheat on the world market, and it costs a lot more.
The second precursor is the desperate gaming going on in the US and EU financial markets. Quantitive Easing, under many names, functionally means that the computer equivalent of printing presses are running 24/7/365 putting more and more dollars and Euros out there, creating inflation that they do not admit, but is real [they like to cite inflation figures that do not include food or energy]. Net result, higher prices in dollars and Euros for the food that MENA imports.
The economies in the MENA have not kept pace with the inflation in the First World, and so they are getting a double whammy on the price of imported food.
The governments in the MENA have subsidized the price of grain/bread in the local markets with price controls and the government paying the difference. Grain/bread is a huge part of the caloric intake and food is the largest item in most personal budgets in the MENA; and a 5-10% increase in the price means hunger and possible starvation for a lot of the locals.
The economies in the MENA are dependent on petroleum, tourism, and in the case of Morocco, hashish for foreign exchange. The slowdown in the economies of the First World [recession tipping into the dreaded "D" word at a quick pace] means less demand for oil, and raising prices reduces demand. Being a tourist in the MENA is measurably akin to suicide today. They cannot sell enough dope to make up the difference.
And the local culture and overlaid Pan-Arab socialism endemic to the region prevent an increase in local production.
In the absence of foreign exchange, there is no way that the local governments can afford to subsidize the imports of grain, which means that either there is no grain, or it is ruinously expensive for the masses. Starving people are not good candidates for the annual Kiwanis good citizenship award.
Spengler has done good work in trying to track Egypt’s foreign exchange reserves. The most populous country in the Middle East, which imports 60% of its total caloric intake, apparently will be out of money to import food very early next year. Other countries in the region are on the same path to various degrees.
There will be famine. There will be widespread civil disorder. There will be mass deaths and in some cases genocide. And since the traditional response of dictators when conditions at home are bad, is to start a war as a distraction; bet on it.
And it will be spiced with nuclear weapons, courtesy of Russia, China, North Korea, and Pakistan helping Iran develop nuclear weapon systems. Israel will be involved, and their response cannot be guaranteed to remain non-nuclear.
We cannot [and should not, but one never knows what Buraq Hussein will do to try to protect this country's enemies] feed them. Thus, having helped sow the wind from behind; no matter what we do we are not going to be able to avoid reaping the whirlwind.
I generally hide during what I call “round-eye New Years”. Too many amateur drunks on the road. We do celebrate Chinese New Year, and the greeting is not “Happy New Year”, but rather something in Chinese akin to “May the coming year be better than the last”. I have a funny feeling we are going to look back on 2011 [Deity help us] with nostalgia. Yeah, that’s how bad it is going to be.
Subotai Bahadur
Today’s headline from Fox News http://tinyurl.com/72ayqhp
Iran, Hit by Sanctions, Calls for New Nuclear Talks
So all of a sudden Iran wants to play nice! Santa would be proud!!
I guess the message just got through from China that the U S Navy aircraft carrier (USS Stennis) which just exited the Strait of Hormuz really, really can choke the strait closed, cutting off a lot of China’s supply of oil and Iran’s imports of gasoline to fuel the scooters used by their Basij rent-a-thugs. Ooops, maybe threatening to close the strait was a dumb move!
After seeing what is happening to Putin, the Chinese are bound to become more wary of internal discontent.
Contrast that with recently liberated Libya. http://tinyurl.com/7v6ddlt
Libya’s Largest Oil Port to Resume Exports
So Libyans have gotten rid of Gaddafi and now are seeing the economic benefits of ending his despotic rule. All with some help from the Good Old US of A!!!
Go ahead and “Blame America” for That Too!!
Now are the Egyptians, Syrians and Iranians watching wide-eyed as freedom and liberty come to their neighborhood?? Do they also want a good thing?? Remember my motto, “It’s easier to make friends than to make enemies”. And your bestest friend ought to be Uncle Sam.
Meanwhile Obama has been dispatched to the golf courses of Hawaii where he can remain out of the way while the big boys play!! Even Hillary and her Valkyrie pals are nowhere to be seen. What they don’t know won’t hurt America. they can just wait and “Lead From Behind!”
Josh @ 48: A huge component of global leadership from the perspective of the USA diplomatic/military situation room could (should?) be misdirection. So there might be a “drunken monkey” type effort in effect, where we purposely try to appear inept or distracted, meanwhile hitting as hard as possible behind the scenes and only making the apparently inconsistent, disjointed, overt moves when necessary. Really, the power of the term, “LFB”, is in its multivocality, from which each audience can plausibly interpret the proper meaning/meaninglessness.
24 @bob sykes
“Hindmost” would be a most satisfying title for Buraq Hussein Obama (mmmm mmm mmm).
Subotai #65
On a trip last month from the east coast of Florida up through eastern Georgia I saw lots of cotton being grown. On a previous trip a year before through that same area I had seen lots of corn, in both large fields in the flatlands and small ones tucked between hillsides. Now there was cotton.
Of course the price of corn had gone up due to the use to ethanol in gasoline. There was even concern that much of the South’s infrastructure to process cotton would be lost once corn became the preferred crop in some areas. But why is so much cotton is being grown now?
Well, Egypt is a major cotton exporter. Or was. I do not know the present status of their industry, but it can’t be too good given the turmoil in the country. And you can’t eat cotton. Presumably, Egypt could grow corn. Can Egyptians get to like tortillas?
Meh, sorry to bust in on this thread one more time, but it appears PJM’s The Tatler and several contributors needn’t have gone ape$%^& over Ron Paul winning Iowa and being one of only two candidates to qualify for the ballot in Virginia after all. The Repubs can always change the rules any time they darn well please even after the fact to let sad sack Newt back into the race:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/31/virginia-attorney-general-intervenes-in-gop-primary-ballot-dispute/#ixzz1i8d33gyj
Perhaps PJM’s Bryan Preston, whom I earlier verbally lashed for working for the Texas GOP back in the early 2000s when Ron Paul was cool with his office or at least not the mortal threat to the Republic and all that is holy that he is now, will now calm down about exposing whether Ron Paul sleeps with Ahmadinnerjacket and will get back to the main task at hand of saving us from Romney (i.e. promoting Newt).
S novom godom!
RWE…
American cotton is not normally fungible with Egyptian cotton…
Fiber length and all.
Perhaps genetic engineering has changed all of that.
The story with cotton ( and rice, dates, coconuts, melons … ) is terrific water consumption.
Meaning that crop intentions revolve hugely around weather forecasts ( rain ) and watershed allotments.
If only the USDA would permit more peanuts…
blert@71 “If only the USDA would permit more peanuts…”
Cheney in his book “In My Time” attributed to Kissinger the comment that troop withdrawals are like salted peanuts, once you’ve had one you just can’t stop.
W
I think is probably getting plenty of guidance from outsiders. There is a fair chance that the Russians, the Persians, the Turks and even the Jews are doing there best to determine the course of the Arab spring.
But not the jizya of $1.5bn. Always the jizya.
The idea that the US can guide the evolution of Arab society over the next hundred years (and pick the winners) suffers from precisely the conceit that A J Hayek pointed to in the idea that our ‘betters’ could guide the evolution of Western societies. In short, live’s too complicated and too short.
The US must let the Arabs fail on their own clear terms, and rebuild on their clear terms.
Let me be crystal clear here: I think Barak Obama is a shit. He has done the classic demagogue: praise a bunch of losers in order to provoke ever more losing (the Cairo Speech) so that he detroys them – just as he has done to US liberals. However, I am completely in favour of destroying Islam and its miserable house. That’s why I support his (possibly inadvertent) actions in the MENA – play the fools.
OK, in the spirit of glorious high principle, I wish it were otherwise. If I were he, I would not do what he has done.
However, Arab society has met its date with destiny. Nothing is going to preserve it as at is. No one, especially a 10-man committee in DC that cannot even manage the US is going to save 1.5b Arabs from their next 100 years.
ADE
ADE,
…save 1.5b Arabs…
You have fallen into a common error here of conflating Arabs and Muslims. Most Muslims are Indonesians, or South Asians from Pakistan and India, or Iranians or Turks, Uzbeks etc. Even if categorizing North African Berbers as Arabs due to the high degree of intermixing, when the non-Muslim Arabs, Christians and Druze, are counted separately and Copts Assyrians and other non-Arab groups are deducted, then fewer than 80% of the inhabitants of the countries dominated by Islam in the Middle East and North Africa are considered Arabs. At most there are 275 million Muslim Arabs in the lands of the old Caliphate. It is true that there is currently a campaign of genocidal ethnic and religious cleansing that is depopulating that region of those mostly Christian ancient non-Muslim and non-Arab communities. This mirrors the earlier expulsion of the native Jewish communities.
Over half of the above 275,000,000 are concentrated in just 4 counties, Egypt Sudan Algeria and Morocco. In those lands they are unable to feed themselves and face demographic catastrophe. Note that of those four only Algeria is a significant energy exporter. While it is possible that the Muslim Brotherhood may attempt to unite Egypt and Libya in an effort to stave off disaster the history of such schemes under Nasser and Ghaddafi argues against it.
Ancient Bedouin culture that was the basis for Islam was rooted in extracting wealth through raiding settled communities and caravans. Arab Islam is akin to Socialism in that both are dependent on having access to “other people’s money.” As petroleum and gas stocks in the OPEC countries are drawn down and other supplies are opened in the consuming nations the amount of outside wealth available to redistribute among the Arabs will decline. As the pernicious effects of ethnic and religious cleansing reduce the ability of Arab dominated nations to generate wealth the amount of internal wealth to redistribute will also decline. As desperate leaders resort to wars to distract their peoples or fulfill apocalyptic fantasies then the combined effects of these disasters may well drastically reduce the numbers of Muslim Arabs. In 100 years Islam may be almost as rare in these lands it once dominated as Buddhism is in India.
Nevertheless this is likely to be a drawn out difficult and bloody process as well as a terrible human tragedy. It will be very dangerous for the world at large as waves of violence emanate from the region and millions of desperate people seek to flee, bringing the cultural dysfunction with them. Outside nations have every reason to seek to intervene for their own protection. The old Arab-Islamic order cannot and should not be sustained but its transformation should be guided.
“And you can’t eat cotton.” Hello – cotton candy
“I think Barak Obama is a…” An Egypt with a robust democracy would have been a boon the region. 20 years of the benevolent dictator should have yielded to free elections. The precedent of toppling the garbage heap will serve no democratic purpose. Not once did the Obama administration call for democratic elections, they first backed MuBarak then asked that he stepped down. Crappy move that made a peaceful succession impossible. Then assassinating Khadafy. Democrats know thugocracy but struggle with the concept of democracy.
65. Subotai Bahadur: Agreed, as one of the posters over at ZeroHedge said, we no longer have problems to solve but predicaments to survive.
In the last few months more Democrat members of the US house have announced they aren’t going to run in 2012 and Nelson in the Senate has announced that he’s not running. Me thinks the rats smell disaster coming.
I wish all my friends at the Belmont Club a very happy New Year. If you are not being happy on purpose, nobody’s doing it for you.
As under Jimmy Carter, when America weakens and retreats, Chaos and Strife boil over. As we watch Egypt, Libya, Iraq descend into despotism and despair, I think of the family I lived with in Tehran in ’77 or the guys I worked with in South Africa in ’79, and I wonder if they feel it was a good thing for America to leave them behind….
God love us all.
“accused by the country’s military rulers of destabilizing security by fomenting protests with the help of foreign funding.”
This is essentially correct. What government doesn’t fund the destabilization of its enemies, friends, too, for that matter. All governments are competitiors that make vultures and sharks look chummy.
“some lessons a true Man of the Left should never forget:”
In the movie of the Man of Left, he casts himself as Stalin–the winner, thus achieving the “never forget, never learn” typical of Leftists.
“In order to continue to depict his support of the Egyptian revolution he must continue to maintain that the raid on the NGOs is nothing but a momentary aberration”
To the contrary, the employees and supporters of NGOs are tools and dupes. They’re not Obama’s or Holder’s people. The problem is one of PR only. He cares for their lives less than he cares for America.
Blast From The Past
I agree with you. I did conflate Arabs and Muslims, and I was wrong.
Letting the Arabs self-destruct into the next century does not mean we should (or will be able to) ignore their mayhem. That is why I am in favour of containment, but not meddling. There is some evidence that this is actually the US strategy, particularly if you look at the roll-out of drone bases circling the Arab world, and the US withdrawal from the centre.
ADE
if the US achieves energy independence, does the middle east matter to us any more? and anyone who talks about “strategic necessity” or any other abstract notions, BZZZZZZTTTTT thank you for playing. i want to know concrete commercial or national defense reasons for being involved there in any capacity.
cjm…
Think of the lowest cost energy supplies — in bulk liquid — to be the nexus of the real and economic worlds.
The “Ring of Power” …
Rather unlike TLOTR its loss would implode Pax Americana — triggering hostile take-overs until the world reached a Nash equilibrium — as in 1984 — with only three survivors — perhaps just two.
——
You appear to be a Paulistinian…
What say you?