Curb Your Authoritarianism? The 2016 Conventional Wisdom Thread (Elections, Part 6)

While there's been simplifying rhetoric forever, that particular statement of Bush's* stands out because of its position at the start of what a lot of people know about the conflict - rather than provide any shading of hey maybe we shouldn't have fucked over Afghanistan quite so hard in the 80s, it sets out the whole thing in Manichean terms - not only are we the good guys, but they hate us for our goodness, nothing else we can do about that. It's of a piece with unironically declaring it a War on Terror.

*I'm assuming it's from Cheney / Rove / Rumsfeld, just because it's so good at what it does.

^ Exactly.

The USS Cole may have happened less than a year earlier, but most Americans hadn't thought twice about Al Qaeda or Osama Bin Laden before 9/11.

maybe we shouldn't have fucked over Afghanistan quite so hard in the 80s

haha wait what how did we fuck Afghanistan in the 80s, by not fighting WWIII w/the USSR after they invaded?

Also FYI none of the people involved in 9/11 (not the hijackers, not OBL, not Ayman Al-Zwahiri, etc.) were Afghans

you guys are bad at history

I am heartily sorry for Florida and its bad chicken wings, eaten by Mohammed Atta and crew

"they hate our chicken wings"

was what Dubya meant to have said

you can always find crimes to pin on the west to blame for the rise of islamic fundamentalism (isn't sykes-picot the trendy new explanation?) but i think when trying to understand why radicals kill gays in their country, or attack them in ours, "they hate their freedom" is pretty succinct. we don't spend lots of time trying to understand what legitimate grievances inspire white supremacists or violent misogynists. that kind of tact always strikes me (maybe unfairly) as sick apologetics.

and to be sure ppl don't just do it when talking about fundamentalist terrorists. that's kinda the subtext behind these articles about how trump support is really about the disappearing middle class. sometimes the answer is the obvious one - it's easy for humans to hate the other.

tbf I have no idea how "trendy" it is but Sykes-Picot was p egregious/disastrous bit of post-imperial hubris that fucked that region good, I don't think it's incorrect or ahistorical to point it out as such.

It is maybe not so helpful (or accurate) as a rhetorical shorthand for why a Muslim nut would gun down a bunch of latino gays though, or for explaining why a bunch of Egyptians felt compelled to fly planes into the two towers.

xp

I wish there were photos of Wilson, Clemenceau, and George kneeling on the carpet in 1919, carving up the world, and Wilson asking, "Is it Upper or Lower Silesia we're giving away?"

sad lol

my somewhat non-PC take on the history of the european west and islam is that both are/were world historical forces that when they weren't killing + conquering each other were busy enslaving, murdering and colonizing every other ppl on the planet and that islam seems like a historical victim today has more to do w/ just how successful the west became at monopolizing that game than any kind of honest look at the historical narrative.

a fair assessment imo

yeah dismissing the sykes-picot explanation as trendy is just like WAYYYYYYY too glib.

But I agree that you have to account for dormant imperial yearnings that rise up in every land and that not everything is just about victimhood.

I mean that's definitely part of what's going on in the "humiliation" I'm talking about. The fall from power, defeat at the hands of the west. It's not like the west displaced a more benevolent empire though, it's always been bloody business.

my somewhat non-PC take on the history of the european west and islam is that both are/were world historical forces that when they weren't killing + conquering each other were busy enslaving, murdering and colonizing every other ppl on the planet and that islam seems like a historical victim today has more to do w/ just how successful the west became at monopolizing that game than any kind of honest look at the historical narrative.

― Mordy, Monday, June 13, 2016 5:19 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't think ISIS would disagree with you; they certainly have no trouble w/ enslaving, murdering and colonizing

they would be upset at the insinuation that we're better at it than they are lol

Put yourself in the shoes of an Iraqi citizen. Everyone thinks they're the good guy. We're not waging a war on Islam any more than "they hate us because we are free."

― flappy bird, Monday, June 13, 2016 11:08 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Who 'everyone', what 'Iraqi citizen'? The Ba'athist? The Kurd? The Assyrian? The Turkmen? The Armenian? Perhaps the Mandean? Or the Yazidi?

You haven't the fucking clue what your talking about.

The west iis already waging a war on Islam. And it's telling ppl pile all the factions and peoples of broken country Iraq together as 'Iraqi'. The country outside America American solderiers spent most time for for two decades, yet haven't a single clue about. It's depressing.

Also FYI none of the people involved in 9/11 (not the hijackers, not OBL, not Ayman Al-Zwahiri, etc.) were Afghans

A fair point, I didn't mean to imply that the invasion was just. Bin Laden famously received his military training from the CIA in Afghanistan, together with experience of what happens when a country isn't strategic to the US any more.

I'm kind of curious now, Shakey - what age were you on 9/11? I think of your whole fatalistic "things could only ever have happened as they happened" schtick as a product of the post-2001 era, but never really wondered whether your contemporary experience of politics went back much further than that.

Now, how old are you / Where is your harbor / Have many things to do / Open the door…

I presume anyone who qualifies for an Iraqi passport should be considered an Iraqi citizen. Just because a country is a poorly formed hodgepodge of often mutually hostile groups doesn't mean it has no citizens.

I def dont think 9/11 was inevitable nor do i think dubya handled it correctly - it was a disaster of epic proportions and he was the worst president in the history of the country.

I was 28 on 9-11. That night i said to my wife "well, i guess this means we'll be invading iraq in a little while."

Xp

Okay, I definitely didn't mean to imply you had warm feelings for GWB :)

We can't say weren't warned:

http://jungleofsmilez.com/wp-content/uploads/A-Fantastic-List-of-27-Great-Princess-Bride-Quotes-18.jpg

A few of my humble thoughts:

1. Sikes-Picot is one of many paternalistic/imperialist actions fueling middle eastern anger at the west. Afghanistan, though, is less a creation of Anglo-French capricious mapmaking than Iraq, Jordan, and ahem Israel are, right?

2. Vizzini aside, we only needed to look at the British and Soviet experiences in 'Stans to know going to war there would be quagmire in the extreme.

3. The self-promoting Charlie Wilson line is that once we'd aided resistance to the USSR there - which pretty directly helped end the Cold War - it would have been a good idea to also drop a few dollars on schools or bridges or something, to keep it from descending into the chaos it did in fact descend into. I'm not sure how true that is, but AFAICT no one even tried.

4. While OBL and crew were not from Afghanistan, there was a MARGINALLY better case to be made for the war in AFG because the Taliban had mos def harbored and encouraged Al-Q. Marginally better, that is, than the case for war in Iraq.

My guess is that turning all of Afghanistan into a modern state easily governable as a single unit would have required a Marshall plan kind of investment. A few bridges and schools would not have cut it.

I think that's probably right, fwiw. You're also quite right that "It's not like the west displaced a more benevolent empire though, it's always been bloody business."

Had Sikes and Picot not drawn those lines, it's not as if everything would be sunshine and rainbows.

Ken Burns shared some thoughts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F8zCQ4YnZ8

xp: Afghanistan is as it was for much of history. Local warlords and titular monarchs have used the intrigues of external Powers over this central Asian crossroads to win their local conflicts for centuries. It is the Asian nation arguably least dominated by European powers (or Ottomans), so while the Great Game contributed to Afghan sorrows, it looks like its progression to a modern state would have benefited from successful colonialism.

The progressive elements in Afghanistan, favoring female education, national (rather than tribal) identity, etc. largely favored the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan in 1978. Unfortunately, the U.S. saw everything through the lens of containment of communism at the time, and sided with the most regressive elements. By 1992, Afghan intellectuals and much of the middle class had emigrated or was in hiding, and while winning Charlie Wilson's battle we lost the cultural war.

Bridges and schools won't fix the loss of these groups. It takes several generations to reconstitute what's lost.

The world would be a much better place had the CIA learned the word "blowback" in 1947. While intelligence is an necessity to a modern state, its difficult to identify any positive changes effected by their covert operations arm, a bunch of adventurous, ambitious but arrogant/culturally naive recent Ivy League grads since the early days. See Legacy of Ashes by Tim Wiener.

1. Sikes-Picot is one of many paternalistic/imperialist actions fueling middle eastern anger at the west. Afghanistan, though, is less a creation of Anglo-French capricious mapmaking than Iraq, Jordan, and ahem Israel are, right?

This is complex - in the wake of the fall of the Ottoman Empire it isn't like there were fully formed governments throughout the Middle East, each representing a particular ethnicity and with healthy state + social institutions ready to step up... oh if only those British and French didn't fuck it all up. The British overpromising the Levant to too many different groups I'm sure bred some animosity but what - if they had only promised it to the Arabs then the Jews wouldn't have tried to overthrow the mandate to reclaim their State? If they had only promised it to the Jews then the Arabs wouldn't have been furious about losing part of the historical ummah?

See Legacy of Ashes by Tim Wiener.

excellent book

Russian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trump

christ

I know we're way off topic, but I think the alternate history of the middle east probably would have been various leaders competing to "unify" the ME, possibly leading to wars. There were a bunch of different pan-Arabist/pan-ME proposals put forward by various rulers, as well as competing plans for the treatment of Palestine.

The romantic in me likes the idea of TE Lawrence helping shape the Middle East after WWI. Not sure what effect that would have on WWII...

DNC thing seems more comical than scary

telling that they didn't hack RNC for oppo research cuz lol oh right there isn't any

cuz they've been studying HRC for over 20 years

The foregrounding of the Trump data doesn't make much sense given they had access to everything else for at least a year. I'd assume the RNC just hasn't noticed yet.

Who is this mysterious Donald Trump? What is he all about? If we only had a way to plumb the depths of this enigmatic private figure.

obama just about lost his shit, to the extent that he actually loses his shit.

about what?

his shit, location of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWK7eyxczgg

It's such a goddamn shame that broad swaths of the country that won't listen to a word he says just because he's the one saying it.

yes, that.

timestamp of shit-loss? I don't have time to watch 25 mins.

it's the whole thing. he doezn' like, start yelling and barking. it's just what he says.

here's a synopsis: http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/14/politics/obama-pushes-back-against-criticism-over-terrorism-rhetoric/index.html

"Dismissing the "yapping" from "politicians who tweet," Obama described Trump's suggestions as harmful to the country's national security.
"We are now seeing how dangerous this kind of mindset and this kind of thinking can be," he said. "We're starting to see where this kind of rhetoric and loose talk and sloppiness about who exactly we're fighting, where this can lead us."
Obama, sounding infuriated at critiques of his foreign policy, pushed back against criticism for not using the term "radical Islamic terrorism." And he accused Republicans of fostering resentment among Muslims that could generate further attacks.
"What exactly would using this language accomplish? What exactly would it change?" Obama asked during remarks at the Treasury Department. "Would it make ISIL less committed to try and kill Americans?" he continued, using a different acronym for ISIS.
"Would it bring in more allies? Is there a military strategy that is served by this? The answer is none of the above," he said. "Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away.""

Full story: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/14/obama-lashes-out-on-loose-talk-on-terrorism-islam/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_obama-115pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory