Riots in Tunisia (and throughout the Middle-East)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Superwizard, great to see you here. I very much appreciate you sharing your perspective.

[superwizard]

Thanks V Always a pleasure!

[anthriel]

Well, it sure did MY heart good to see you here, Mr. Wizard.

I honestly cannot tell you how infuriating it is being a Muslim during these times. When the riots occurred over the silly trailer I felt honest to goodness shame. Shameful and angry. People naturally look to me to explain this kind of behavior and I see myself having to explain that I don't personally believe in this behavior and it's just plane painful.

I SO feel for you. I know it's just a shadow of what you have to deal with, but I often feel like I am being personally held responsible for all the beliefs and actions of everyone in my demographic, too.

I guess it's hard to understand the range of beliefs in one "group" unless you are in that group. Sometimes you can't see the edges at all, from where you are standing.

[Frelga]

Sometimes being IN the group makes the edges even more mindboggling.

S'wiz, glad to see you! Do stop in some social thread and give us an update.

[superwizard]

Well, it sure did MY heart good to see you here, Mr. Wizard.

You're really sweet Anthy (as usual-nothing new here!).

Sometimes being IN the group makes the edges even more mindboggling.

Often I'm just in awe of the complexity of these situations and the realization that all international incidents must be so much more complicated than they are made to be in the media. [/code][/quote]

[Impenitent]

S'wiz! Good to see you, and to hear your perspective.

I hear you, and I'm so sorry you (and 95% of muslims all over the world) have to deal with being expected to somehow justify or explain things that you don't identify with at all.

It's horrible.

I hope you stay around here.

[IdylleSeethes]

Some collected comments from the thread:

River
I really really really hope this doesn't open the door for extremists to take power.

eborr
maybe I am just a romantic taking a rosy view of the world, but when a popular uprising gets rid of a bad leader it makes me feel good. Problem is that all it does is create an oppurtunity for the next bad leader.

yovargas
Wow. Amazing. Here's hoping real democracy ultimately wins the day.

eborr
Ghân putting whether or not I was being condescending aside, one thing your extensive travel in the middle east will have taught you is that there is a huge gap between those citizens who are well educated and those who are not. There societies are highly stratified, and the chances of moving from one group to the other very limited.

Ghân-buri-Ghân
Just like nostalgia, democracy ain't what it used to be.

eborr
The only example we have of a secular democracy in a Muslim country is Turkey, some may cite Malaysia and Indonesia, but I remain unconvinced that they are certainly not secular and I am not sure how democratic they actually are.


I was reading this thread yesterday morning when I noticed Impenitent nudged it. I had a view into a few countries as the "Arab Spring" unfolded. I wrote extensively about these events elsewhere over the last 2 years. I'll make some brief comments here.

I think it is simplistic to link this too closely to a reaction against the US or the West. Libya belonged to the Chinese, but we were the ones who helped displace Gaddahfi. We have been assisting Syrian rebels for months with training, arms, and supplies. In Egypt, we supported an "elected" dictatorship for decades.

Post WWII US foreign policy was fairly straightforward. We always took the side of the faction most likely to succeed against Communism. That mostly ended with the fall of the Soviet Union and a dormant China. For the next few decades we thought of ourselves as helping the side that advanced US strategic interests. This was followed by a focus on anti-terrorism. Current foreign policy is erratic, drifting with the wind. Short term objectives are visible, but there is no comprehensive plan. I have been around the military in several capacities since 1970. An early experience was with Filipinos fighting terrorists in the Islamic south. I knew mercenaries in the Congo through several stages of their conflict. The US has never been as active in covert conflicts, in all of those years, as we are now. We are involved in dozens of activities scattered around Africa, the Middle East, and south of our border. They are a hodge-podge of isolated activities. There are extremely strong indicators we are trying to gain control of African resources, but for whose benefit is not clear. Special Operations (SOCOM) dominates the activity. SOCOM looks more like an army of mercenaries as time goes on.

A large part of our activity is in Africa, but mostly not in the countries associated with the "Arab Spring". The major exceptions are Libya and Syria, on the side of the rebels, generally thought of as a good thing, Egypt, for which we can be blamed for supporting a dictatorship, and Yemen which is also a recent activity in support of the government that resulted from the demonstrations.

Something important missing from most discussions of this issue is easily demonstrated for Egypt. Shortly before the coup, Pew did a survey of the Egyptian people. The most important statistic was that 85% of Egyptians think Egypt should be ruled by Sharia Law. The demonstrators that caused the fall of Mubarak were mostly urban, educated, and young, the other 15%. They demonstrated for democracy. The same pattern exists in the other countries.

There was no chance that having overthrown Mubarak, Egypt would become close to the democracy hoped for by the early demonstrators in Tahrir Square. The Islamists who have struggled for decades against Mubarak were destined to take power. Morsi's transition from MB leader, to former MB leader, to President, to dictator should be a lesson to the West.
I won't argue that Mubarak should have been allowed to stay, but the foreseeable outcome of him exiting as he did, with our assistance, was never in the interest of the US.

Eborr seems to disagree, but in the view of the US, we paid Egypt billions of dollars a year to help protect Israel. Their land army is one of the best equipped in the world. Besides having thousands of M1 Abrams tank, and the predecessor M60A3s, they have the only currently operational M1 factory in the world, although they are dependent on the US for supplying most of parts. I think the Egyptian army capitulated like the military in Iran in not supporting the Shah against the religious leaders. The Iranian soldiers I knew agonized for several years before the revolution over what they should do when the revolution came.

So now we have a well armed Islamic Army, run by the MB, the parent of many terrorists groups in the Middle East, sitting on the border of the Sinai. To the north, we arm Lebanon, another undependable ally.

Eborr's assessment of the "next bad leader" is usually correct. We left behind a disaster in Iraq, with the Shiite government giving the death penalty to Sunni members of the government. Hundreds die every month in bombings. Remember, we aren't there anymore, Iraq is now a friend of Iran, and it isn't American companies who are profiting from Iraqi oil . Afghanistan will be worse. Our foreign policy seems to be spawning disasters at a record pace. Kenya is turning sour, Somalia may or may not be getting better, Mali is a disaster, some of our "friends in West Africa, still sanction Arab ownership of black slaves, Libya is actually 2 unstable countries, Nigeria has several bombings a week, we are only one of several militias roaming around DR Congo while or allies openly support other factions, we are the enemy to many Pakistani's...

In Yemen, we sat on the sidelines and waited for a new government. We are aligned with the urban educated side, so it will be a struggle. Much of the country was under the control of the other side, mostly al Qaeda.

Syria has been controlled by a minority for decades. We are aligned with al Qaeda in supporting the rebels. In the early days, we were training rebels in Turkey and arming them with M-16s. This was odd, because we generally supply AK-47s, so as not to be so obvious and since it is the favorite weapon of rebels/terrorists. This summer, we started shipping them the leftovers of Gaddahfi's armories and collecting "freedom fighters" in Benghazi to ship to Syria.

Ghân is correct about democracy. There is no longer a valid example of democracy in the world, which seems to be outmoded anyway, in the view of Justice Ginsburg. It is also unsuited to a culture for which governance is derived directly and entirely from the Koran. Extremism in its application seems to be an everyday event. A teenage Muslim girl was beheaded this week for refusing to marry her assigned groom. There is one known Jew left in Afghanistan. The Buddhist shrines were destroyed years ago by the Taliban. Now a common event in Islamist regions is the destruction of offensive Muslim shrines. Mali, and even Mecca are falling prey to that thread of extremism. A proposal to destroy or cover up Egyptian antiquities has surfaced twice since the fall of Mubarak. That amount of intolerance isn't likely to foster a democratic society. Eborr was correct in saying that once democratic Turkey has fallen. Its protector was the military. Erdogan accepted the resignations of the entire military leadership and some are on trial for treason.


Someday, I'll start a thread on the past and future of governance in the West, addressing Ghân's suggestion.

IdylleSeethes

[superwizard]

Thanks Impy! I come by every now and then, I'll try to drop in a line and say hello more often

IdylleSeethes you bring up some interesting points. I agree that our current foreign policy is all over the place.

That being said, this is a hole we've dug ourselves in for a while now. Supporting people like Bashar Al Assad and Mubarak may have been the easiest thing for maintaining the status quo, but in the long run such regimes invariably fail and we end up where we are today.

That being said, things could have been worse. Now there is no love lost between me and the Muslim brotherhood but they seem to be attempting to moderate themselves somewhat. There have been some alarming signs such as Morsi giving himself excessive power and a poorly written new constitution but what we need to concern ourselves with right now is making sure the egyptian people retain their freedoms (speech, religion, vote etc). Hopefully we will see the emergence of a moderate government in Egypt.

It is also unsuited to a culture for which governance is derived directly and entirely from the Koran.

Here's the thing: There's very little 'governance' in the Quran. It rarely dealt with legal matters. Shariah was never a codified set code of law. You couldn't go and pull it off the shelf like you can with current western law. What happened was that during the colonization of the Middle East, the western governments attempted to adopt their system of law to the middle east and that is how Shariah law has become what it is today.

In reality, Shariah should be a fluid, ever changing entity. For example, a prominent Muslim Scholar (he is a Sheikh) and Professor at UCLA wrote a small book about what he envisions democracy would be like when bound to Shariah. Using his analysis of Shariah, he came to the conclusion that the only acceptable governance would be one with separation of Mosque and State. Now I'm not saying that his views are the ones most accepted right now in the Middle East, but what I am saying is that a static view of Shariah law is one dimensional and flawed.

Lebanon is a huge mess. The only thing that could save Lebanon, is for it's people to move away from seeing the current political climate in a sectarian mindset. What is interesting about Lebanon, is that it doesn't conform well with a one dimensional view of the world. It is not a case of 'moderate' Christians facing violent and extremist Muslims. Instead, you have both Muslims and Christians split up into many different factions all of which have positioned themselves in strange ways. For example, Michel Aoun, a former Prime Minister who had been exiled from Lebanon for years due to his harsh rhetoric against Syria, has decided to ally himself with Hizbollah and, by default, the current Syrian government (his current party controls 7/30 parliamentary seats)!

[Holbytla]

I'll have cogent responses when we are discussing green on blue or the viability of Afghanistan as a state, but beyond that I have no input that is meaningful..

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Holby, I would be interested in your thoughts on both of those subjects.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I split off the discussion about the U.S. Constitution and governmentto a separate thread