Occam’s Razor

No Easy Answers on Islamic Terrorism

Perhaps it got your attention on Wednesday when Senator and Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said this about the Pakistani government:

There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. . . . If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.

From the back of the Republican pack, on Tuesday representative and presidential nominee Tom Tancredo had this suggestion for what we should do if there is another 9/11 type event:

If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina.

Obama at least tempered his remarks by saying that he would double foreign aid to $50 billion a year, and allocate $2 billion to combat the influence of Islamic madrassas schools and to improve our public relations. These are actions that I support. However, statements like those quoted suggest to me that neither Tancredo nor Obama are ready to be our next president. Perhaps this is why I find myself drawn toward candidates who truly grasp the dimensions and nuances of the terrorist threat. Maybe it is time for me to give money to Senator Joe Biden’s campaign. At least Senator Biden gets it.

There is no question that our erstwhile ally in the war on terrorism, Pakistan’s president and possible dictator for life General Pervez Musharraf, could do a lot more to root out elements of al Qaeda. It, along with the Taliban, controls a rather lawless area of northwestern Pakistan. Osama bin Laden, if he is still alive, is likely living in that remote area. Even if he is not, it is clear that what leadership al Qaeda has is likely concentrated in that area.

The real goal of the United States is to reduce and eventually eliminate Islamic sponsored terrorism. Would capturing Osama bin Laden solve this problem? It probably could not hurt. Certainly, the man deserves to be brought to justice. However, al Qaeda has no centralized leadership. Those who think al Qaeda would go away with his capture or death are likely deluding themselves. Indeed, it could be argued that we are better off with bin Laden alive but on the run than we would be if he were dead. There is no way to know for sure, of course. That is part of the problem. The chessboard we are playing is bafflingly complex. One thing we have learned is that our actions, which often seem entirely reasonable and logical, are often counterproductive. Our invasion of Iraq is a case in point.

If our military were to strike in northwestern Pakistan with a limited but sustained military campaign to root out al Qaeda, what would be the results? It is hard to say for sure but I doubt we would end up safer than we are now. I hope that we would not try to emulate our tactics in Iraq by essentially occupying that part of Pakistan and hoping for its eventual pacification. I hope that if we did go into that lawless area that our mission would be targeted, surgical and we would withdraw after a matter of days or weeks. However, even if we succeeded in finding bin Laden and destroying the nexus of al Qaeda in that area, I doubt we would end up more secure from Islamic terrorism. I think it is much more likely that it would inflame anti-American feelings, already very high in that area of the world. I think it would lead to the recruitment of fresh terrorists to take up their cause. Islamic inspired violence directed against our country would increase rather than decrease.

Osama bin Laden understands all this of course. The reason he chose to attack us on September 11, 2001 was that he knew we would respond with 20th century tactics to a 21st century problem. By doing so, it aided his ends, as the spread of terrorism inspired by al Qaeda since that event demonstrated.

Just as we cannot solve Iraq’s problems through military force, neither can we win the war on terrorism through military force. Iraq’s problems, in the unlikely event they can be solved at all, are political in nature. The same is true with our war on terrorism. This is a political war that is won through succeeding at political tactics.

Obama was half-right by realizing that in order to end terrorism we have to address the issues that feed it. It is much as firefighters create fire lines to stop forest fires. We need to focus most of our resources in the war on terrorism, not by sending occupying troops or selling high tech military hardware to Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, but by working toward political reconciliation and improving the living standards of people in the region. We must replace religious fanaticism, oppression and despair with its most potent antidote: hope.

Principally this means bringing a just and lasting political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It will require personal diplomacy, it will require the United Nations, it will require the organizations like the League of Arab States, and it will require any resource that can be brought to bear. While we are doing this, we must invest massively in sound non-partisan non-governmental organizations. We need to use these organizations as proxies to address the poverty, oppression and lack of opportunity that feeds the cycle of violence in that area. It means building schools by the hundreds in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It means creating affordable housing instead of refugee camps. It means building and improving roads, bridges and water treatment plants.

It also means making our military aid to Israel conditional on their solemn commitment to remove government support for Jewish settlements outside the state of Israel. It means making our aid to Israel conditional on their agreeing in principle that it will eventually withdraw to their 1967 borders. The conflict in that part of the Middle East is has its roots, not so much in the creation of the state of Israel, as it does in aftermath the 1967 Gulf War. Obviously, these are not easy things to do, which is why new workable political and economic tactics are vital.

Our real national security interests are in fact intimately tied to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. We must not do this unilaterally but together with the United Nations and other multinational organizations. We need to reduce the number of sticks and increase the number of carrots. The one resource Americans have in abundance is money. We have huge gobs of money, which are a direct result of our peace, freedom and stable democratic government. By the time our debacle in Iraq is over, we will have squandered at least a trillion dollars. Yet even this vast sum will hardly be noticed in our massive economy. We can afford to sponsor a Marshall-type plan for the Middle East, through neutral parties, that should replace hopelessness with hope. We also need to provide huge amounts of basic humanitarian assistance for a region that is still very much war torn and overflowing with refugees. Any new Marshall plan should cost a tiny fraction of what we have already recklessly squandered away in Iraq.

Our primary goal should always be to do what we can to reduce the factors fueling Islamic terrorism. If a particular action is likely to add fuel to the fire, we need to assess whether it is really in our national interest. Certainly destroying cities like Mecca and Medina as Rep. Tancredo suggested would guarantee eternal war and enmity against our country. It would be the most counterproductive, not to mention the stupidest thing we could possibly do in reaction to Islamic terrorism.

Our next president, unlike our current one, needs to be fully mindful of these tradeoffs. He or she must be progressive enough to push for the real political changes that might actually solve our long-term problem with Islamic terrorism. Senator Obama’s unwise remarks suggest he has not grasped the totality of the problem facing us. Let us hope that Democrats choose a nominee, based not on how inspiring they find his or her speeches at political rallies, but on whether they have the maturity, wisdom and judgment to apply our country’s resources wisely in these areas of the world during these very turbulent times.

August 4th, 2007 at 11:18am Posted by Mark | Politics 2007 | 2 comments

No Longer the Top Banana

We Americans are in denial. We assume that our country is a military superpower. The sad fact is that we no longer are one. We were demoted. The rest of the world largely understands this. The polite ones, like most of the European countries, feel it is kinder not to draw it to our attention. Like a once popular diva, they are content to let the realization slowly dawn on us. Eventually, after performing at enough half-empty concert halls, they know we will figure it out.

Other countries have been observing us warily. They have mostly coped by staying at the far edges of the gorilla cage hoping we would not notice them. Of all the gorillas in the cage though, we were the most fearsome. We looked like we weighed 800 pounds. We thumped our chests, howled and hissed a lot. We liked to kick those lesser gorillas who pouted or spat at us. However, often we would settle down. We could smile nicely and even share our bananas with our friends. Sometimes other gorillas tried to acquire favor by giving us some of their bananas. Occasionally they helped us beat up other obnoxious gorillas in the cage. Who though could predict when we would go through another manic phase? Therefore, most gorillas stayed out of our way. More than once, they looked at us with scorn. They wondered what was it about us that even though we had so many bananas, we could still be such a loose cannon. Now, after watching us get kicked hard in the ribs a few times, falling over and squealing in pain, we no longer look quite so fearsome. In fact, now that we are on the floor of the cage, some are working with the other gorillas to figure out a way to keep us there.

How can this be? The United States has the best-equipped, best-trained and most expensive military in the world. We can move our power anywhere in the world. Our aircraft can slip through radars. Our spy satellites can see basketballs on the ground from hundreds of miles away. Our intelligence services reputedly have computers than can sift through millions of calls per second.

The irony is we lost our superpower status in part by being too good at winning conventional wars. We have outthought and outspent our rivals. There is no nation left in the world, except perhaps foolhardy ones like North Korea that would directly attack the United States. In that sense, we have succeeded. Fear and intimidation may be crude methods of ensuring compliance, but they tend to be effective. Unfortunately, what we largely missed is that we failed to prepare sufficiently for unconventional wars. While we have the ability to defend our own borders from attack, we no longer have both the will and the means to require other regimes to bend to our will.

The recent war between Israel and Hezbollah is a textbook case for our changing times. Israel is the 600-pound gorilla in the Middle East part of the gorilla cage, thanks largely to the many bananas we have given it. If it chooses to do so, it is bye bye Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan or any country in that region that threatens its existence. It might come at the cost of using its nuclear weapons and give the country permanent ostracism from the world community. However, as long as it has its nuclear card and other Arab states do not then Israel can win any conventional war against any state in the Middle East.

Of course, these countries are no longer stupid enough to directly wage war against Israel. Instead, they use proxies. Why should Syria put its soldiers at harm when there are passionate paramilitary forces ready to do its dirty work? These forces have no expectation of realizing their ultimate goals in the short term, but they do have tenacity and unbelievable passion. Their method of success is to use the equivalent of Chinese water torture. They are realizing that modern wars are won through attrition. They are realistic and expect that this war will last generations. Yet they are also confident of ultimate success.

Unlike Israel, the United States does not have enemies on its doorsteps. If we had to defend our two thousand mile border with Canada against the threat of rockets, we would be as inept, if not more inept than the Israelis were against Hezbollah. We might even imitate some of their tactics, perhaps by leveling large parts of Montreal and Toronto. It is unlikely though that it would solve our problem. Even if Canada had the will to remove paramilitary groups from its border with us, it is unlikely they would have the means and the people to finish the job. This was the essence of Lebanon’s problem. Its military was too poorly equipped to ensure that Hezbollah could not attack Israel. Not all the Israeli air strikes in the world could coerce them to do something they were incapable of achieving. In fact, the air strikes made Lebanon less capable of restraining Hezbollah.

Fortunately, although Canadians will bitch about us Americans from time to time (and we about them) they do not hate us. We have cordial and even friendly relations. We have a mutually beneficial relationship based largely on trade.

Israel is now uncomfortably awake to its new reality. It is floundering to try to find a solution. It hopes that the presence of tens of thousands of international troops on its border with Lebanon will at least delay the problem. If there is a solution to Israel’s security problem, it cannot be won by arms. It can only happen through political discourse. Given the new dynamics, any viable solution would require significant and probably currently unacceptable conditions from Israel. There is no viable way to neutralize paramilitary forces like Hezbollah until the animus that causes it to work for Israel’s destruction goes away.

The United States was bitchslapped in Iraq. As I warned before the war, we could not succeed with less than half of the forces needed to do the job. While we could have brought sufficient forces to control Iraq, it would have been at the cost of something else. We would have had to leave volatile places like South Korea with a skeleton American presence. Otherwise, we would have had to reinstate the draft. The Bush administration though realized that the draft was not politically viable, since the war with Iraq was a war of choice, not of necessity. Even had we the 250,000 or more troops needed for the invasion of Iraq, it is still unclear whether the strife we are seeing there today could still have been restrained. Regardless, we would still be viewed as an occupying Christian army in a Muslim region of the world.

Apparently though our current administration refuses to acknowledge our karmic lesson in Iraq. It prefers delusion, which has had the consequence of immense folly. Worse, we are making noises that show we have learned nothing from our experience. Because now we are working hard to take punitive actions against Iran. We still suffer from the delusion that through coercion we can really keep Iran from having the nuclear program it wants. Naturally, our administration is straining at the leash to find punitive tools to use against Iran. Its bellicose words, which began with our president’s unwise decision to publicly label Iran as part of an “Axis of Evil”, have been consistently harsh. Now, since Iran has refused U.N. nuclear inspectors access to its facilities, we are pushing for economic sanctions and boycotts.

What a stupid and pointless thing for us to do. Not only will it not work, it would simply give Iran a reason to play its oil card. The oil card trumps any sanctions the world community can put in place. Even the most modest reductions in its oil exports are likely to cause enormous spikes in the price of oil. It is like those old Roadrunner cartoons. Iran is playing the roadrunner. We are the coyote. The anvil that we dropped to kill the roadrunner will instead hit us on the head.

You would think by this point we might have a clue. Yet a reduction in oil exports by Iran in response to sanctions is one of the better scenarios. Iran’s navy has convenient access to the Persian Gulf. It could easily put a stop to much of that region’s oil exports. We could of course use our military to try to stop it, but that would simply cause more tremors in the oil markets. It would also likely cause an all out war between the United States and Iran. Like it or not, the international community will accommodate Iran, not the other way around. Our short-term need for steady oil prices trumps any long term concerns about their potential nuclear capabilities. The United States may not like the idea of unconditional talks with Iran on its nuclear program, which Iran is proposing. However, if we were operating with our prefrontal cortex we would be accepting such talks. We simply delude ourselves if we think that tough talk will have any deterrent effect on Iran. Iran has the trump card and we have nothing to trump it.

This shows why we are no longer a superpower. If we were a real superpower, we would have figured out effective ways to counter these threats. We have not. The game has changed. We are just beginning to assess what it might take to deal with these new threats. The effect though is that America has lost its claim of being a military superpower. Arguably, we retain other superpower statuses, such as the world’s economic superpower. Unless, like the Cold War, we can develop effective tactics against these new military tactics, we will never be a military superpower again.

August 25th, 2006 at 02:16pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2006 | 2 comments

We are all brothers

There are people out there
unafraid of revealing
that they might have a feeling,
or they might have been wrong.
There are people out there
unafraid to feel sorrow,
unafraid of tomorrow,
unafraid to be weak,
unafraid to be strong…

Mother, “Back to Before”, from the musical Ragtime *

You can learn a lot from diversity training.

That is how I spent this Wednesday afternoon: in four hours of diversity training. You can say it is bunk or you can say it is smart, but it is the requirement of my employer that as a supervisor I see workplace diversity as an asset.

Intuitively, embracing a diverse workforce makes a lot of sense. If everyone who worked for me thought and acted like me, would this be good for the organization? Not likely. I like to consider myself a talented guy, but my skills and knowledge are limited. I need the best from my team. I need to take advantage of the strengths that they have that I do not. Consequently, on those few times when I am in a hiring position, I should be looking for people with different skills and perspectives.

Whether people are black or white, whether they are pretty or ugly, whether they are gay or straight, whether they are skinny or obese, each person has potential. According to my training, that potential can only realized when I am able to be accepting of their differences. I need to see beyond the surface and the stereotypes and connect with the person within. By accepting who they are in all their complexity and quirks, it becomes possible for them to feel valued for who they are, and thus give me their best. If everyone who works for me can feel the same way, we become a more harmonious unit. Everyone is happier and more productive because their essential humanity is acknowledged and appreciated.

These observations should not be startling to you. They are almost intuitive.

However, with my mind fresh from diversity training, the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict took on a new perspective. A light bulb went off above my head. This was the essential problem between Israelis and Palestinians. It was not that mixing Arabs and Jews is like mixing oil and water. It was both sides failing to see and respect the essential humanity of each other.

Because “Arab” and “Jew”, like “fat” and “ugly”, are just labels. Here is the thing: being Jewish does not really matter. Being Arab does not really matter either. They mean as much as if your eyes are brown and mine are blue. This means that it means nothing at all. It is an artificial and superficial distinction that was elevated to the level of importance that is undeserved. Self-segregation may be an unpleasant fact in much of this world, but it is wrong. Ironically, it was one of the greatest Jews of all times who taught us this lesson: Jesus. He told us that all men are brothers. And that includes those Samaritans and Palestinians too.

This does not mean that we should all try to be brothers; it means all men are brothers. How do we know? Count our chromosomes. Yep, we all have 46. We all belong to the same species: homo sapiens. We each have two eyes, two ears, one nose, two legs and two arms. If there is a real difference between us, it is by gender. I do not have ovaries. Women do not have penises. Perhaps that is why some biologists consider males and females to be different species.

Therefore, if we all are brothers, anyone who says otherwise is spreading lies. Why did apartheid finally fail in South Africa? Because the world recognized this fundamental truth: everyone who lived there deserved equal rights, respect and opportunities because they were all human beings.

Why was the Holocaust so evil? It was evil because some of us chose to act on their erroneous belief that we were not brothers. It was a fallacy that killed millions of our brothers.

The current state of Israel is a direct result of the Holocaust. A homeland for the Jews seemed like a natural way to permanently address the Holocaust. At the time, it seemed both compassionate and logical. Let us give the Jews their own place where they can be free to be Jewish. The Jews can go there to be with their own kind. (Perhaps the subtext was, “We do not want the Jews in our country anyhow, because they are not really one of us, so let them go to Israel.”) It seemed like a neat resolution at the time. A permanent Jewish homeland meant that Jews could be free to be Jews without worry of discrimination.

There was, unfortunately, one flaw: there were people already living in Palestine. In order to create a Jewish state, others necessarily had to suffer. More specifically, most of the non-Jews in the state that would become Israel were pushed across the Green Line to start a new life of permanent refugees. Many others were simply murdered.

Yet this consequence was tacitly okay with the United Nations. Yes, there were dissents when the U.N. authorized the creation of Israel. Nevertheless, it was, in retrospect, perhaps the most boneheaded decision made by this august governing body. It was very clearly deliberate discrimination: Jews are wanted in Israel, and non-Jews are not, and the world says that is fine.

Antisemitism is defined by dictionary.com as “Hostility toward or prejudice against Jews or Judaism.” Semitism, on the other hand is not quite the opposite of anti-Semitism. It is “a policy or predisposition in favor of Jews.” Thankfully, I am not anti-Semitic. I have no prejudice toward those who are Jews. Therefore, I need to invent a new word: “non-semitism”. I will define it as “the belief that Jews should not be especially favored nor discriminated against”. I believe in non-semitism. I believe it because I believe all men are brothers. To me this is self-evident. I believe it is wrong to favor the Jews or any group over any other group. This does not mean that I am unmindful of the horrors inflicted on the Jews over the millenniums. They were horrible and they were wrong. However, they were not horrible because they were inflicted on Jews; they were horrible because these were crimes against humanity. Some of our brothers chose to kill because they chose to believe we are not all brothers. In my mind the Holocaust was a monstrous crime of large-scale fratricide.

While in general the law in Israel does not discriminate against non-Jewish citizens, in practice there is a lot of discrimination. The situation is not too much different from the status of Negroes in much of the 20th century here in the United States. While they had equal rights in theory, in practice discrimination was widespread. Our own State Department noted this in its most recent report to Congress. It also catalogued the obvious discrimination that occurs on Middle East territories occupied by Israel, which includes East Jerusalem and The West Bank. You have no doubt seen pictures of the unilateral demolition of Arab homes in these areas so that Jews can occupy these lands. (Incidentally, it is forbidden under international law for any occupying force to colonize an occupied territory.)

It is ironic that in Israel of all places, we see a modern version of apartheid. It is like George Orwell’s Animal Farm where some animals are more equal than others are. In doing so, of course, in some small way Israeli Jews are emulating the injustices done upon them. It is much like child abuse. “My Dad used to beat me with a belt, so it is okay for me to beat you with a belt.” One can understand why someone would feel this way having gone through such a traumatic experience, but it is still wrong to act on those feelings.

Yes, it is wrong. Just as no child deserves to be beaten, no person should lose life, home or liberty for not being in the right ethnic class, in this case for not being a Jew. It violates our inherent human worth and dignity. It supports the insidious lie that we are not all brothers in fact.

In trying to conjure a way out of this horrifying Israel-Lebanon-Hezbollah conflict that threatens to turn into a Third World War, I cannot help but believe that the real crime is that both sides will not acknowledge that they are brothers. They are all human beings. We should aspire to treat everyone with dignity and respect, even when we do not agree with them, because we are brothers.

Israel is now engaged in a battle for its survival. That is why this war is so dangerous. As I said a few entries ago, these rockets launched by Hezbollah have changed whole balance of power. At some point, perhaps sooner rather than later, Iran will be able to lob its own missiles at Israel from inside its own territory. By then, it will not need proxy militias like Hezbollah to do it for them. There is no military answer to this emerging reality other than devastating nuclear war. Even that would not solve the problem, but it would leave millions of our brothers dead.

How do we get out of this box?

There is an answer, but it takes much more courage that sending tens of thousands of Israeli troops into Northern Lebanon to ferret out Hezbollah militias. It can come from either side, but in my opinion, it should come from the Israelis. It should be something like this:

To our Arab brothers,

For many decades, we have engaged in overt and covert wars to hurt and kill each other. We must stop this because it is wrong and it will kill more people. We must stop thinking of each other as Arab or Jew. We must start thinking of each other as brothers. We must all make the deliberate and sustained decision to heal, not hurt.

For our part, we acknowledge our terrible transgressions against our Arab brothers over many decades. We look forward to finding ways where we can redress past wrongs and live together in peace and mutual respect.

Please, together, let us find a way to stop the bloodshed immediately. Then let us work earnestly together to build a new Palestine built on mutual respect for each other and peace.

August 4th, 2006 at 07:01pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2006 | no comments

Ozymandias

In Egypt’s sandy silence, all alone,

Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws

The only shadow that the Desert knows: -

“I am great OZYMANDIAS,” saith the stone,

“The King of Kings; this mighty City shows

“The wonders of my hand.” - The City’s gone, -

Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose

The site of this forgotten Babylon.

We wonder, - and some Hunter may express

Wonder like ours, when thro’ the wilderness

Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,

He meets some fragments huge, and stops to guess

What powerful but unrecorded race

Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

–Horace Smith.

I am certainly no Middle East scholar. I suspect even if you grew up in the Middle East and earned a degree in Middle East studies that you would still be challenged understanding the current situation there. I believe that there are too many permutations between the nations, races, ethnic groups, religious groups, paramilitary groups and shifting alliances to understand the totality of the issues and conflicts. As if things were not confusing enough just in Iraq and Afghanistan, now we have this war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Shi’ite paramilitary group, which has blossomed into a larger war. Lebanon is now unjustly receiving the bulk of Israel’s fury.

Make no mistake. This is not a “police action”. This is not a “limited incursion”. This is a war. Israel has always seemed proactive when it comes to their national security, yet they were blindsided by this one. From their actions to date, it is clear they do not understand that the conflict has changed in a fundamentally new way and that the existence of Israel itself is now in serious jeopardy.

The capabilities of their enemies have morphed. In the last couple of decades, short-range rockets have become cheaper to make and easier to move around. In addition, those funding Hezbollah (which doubtless includes Iran) have dug deeper into their pockets. Hezbollah now has longer-range rockets that are reaching deep inside of Israel. Some of these rockets can reach twenty or more kilometers into Israel. They can be moved with relative ease and are often hard to detect. In a way, the Israelis are fortunate that most of these rockets are low tech. Hezbollah soldiers point, shoot and hope they are effective. So far, their effect has been more psychological than lethal. However, these rockets have killed Israeli citizens far from the front lines. Even if the Israelis could shoot them down, given the large quantities of them and the short flight time, it would be impossible to intercept them all.

Therefore, they are left to try to secure southern Lebanon by clearing it of all of Hezbollah’s fighters and missiles. This is already proving to be very daunting. It is a large territory. To secure it and hold it now requires a large and continuing military presence. Moreover, this territory is not desert. Much of it is wooded. Hezbollah is imitating the Vietcong by digging tunnels. This makes destroying all the missiles and removing all the Hezbollah fighters a very iffy proposition for Israel. Moreover, once they capture all this land realistically they cannot secure it indefinitely. They hope that some other armed force will keep it secure for them. If they return the land to Lebanon, there are no guarantees that Lebanon can keep the land secure.

It is unlikely though that Israel will succeed in controlling Southern Lebanon. On some level, I think they know this already. Therefore, they are blowing up much of Lebanon instead. The plan seems to be that if they bomb Lebanon enough, its government will start securing its Southern border. Yet it makes no more sense to expect Lebanon to secure its southern border for Israel than it makes sense for us to expect the Mexican government to keep illegal immigrants from entering our country through Mexico. The Hezbollah militia is far bigger than the Lebanese army is. Even if it had the means, Hezbollah and affiliated Shi’ite parties democratically control 35 of the 128 seats in Lebanon’s parliament. Hezbollah itself has 14 of these seats. Many Lebanese welcome Hezbollah. If Israel is serious about having the Lebanese government control its own territory, it is hard to see how destroying much of its infrastructure aids their cause.

In addition, they are working against their own long-range interests. The Israelis seem to suffer from cognitive dissonance. It amounts to if you hurt me, I will hurt you back ten times worse, and then you will learn never to bother me again. What actually happens, of course, is they leave people deeply traumatized, upset and eager for retribution. In short, they inadvertently sow the seeds for their own destruction.

Most likely Israeli partisans that read this will insist I am anti-Semitic and want to see the destruction of Israel. Aside from the obvious problem that pro-Israeli advocates just love to paint broadly with their anti-Semite brush, I am not stupid. It was not Israel that lobbed the first missile, but Hezbollah. All this is beside the point: the game has changed.

To really secure Israeli citizens, a DMZ is needed. Since indefinitely occupying Southern Lebanon is not practical, the next step is to withdraw civilians from northern Israel and relocate them further south. Hezbollah has demonstrated that Galilee is no longer defensible. Unfortunately, even if Israel were to embrace this strategy, it would only be a stopgap measure. For rockets and missiles will get cheaper and more accurate. It is possible that within years all of Israel will be vulnerable to rocket attacks.

Israel goes after governments like Lebanon because they do not know what else to do. Perhaps it gives the illusion of doing something that will bring results. They have all the firepower they need to render most governments in the Middle East ineffective. Unfortunately, even if they can destroy the governments in Lebanon and Syria, that does not mean they have won this war. For they are no longer battling other nations. They are fighting paramilitaries. Anarchy is what paramilitary groups like Hezbollah prefer. If the state does not exist, their mobility improves. No central government is left that can constrain their behavior.

Although wars between nations are not yet obsolete, their days may be numbered. The future will see more of what we are seeing now: wars between states and paramilitary groups, or, in the case of Iraq, simply wars between paramilitary groups. Cheaper and more accessible armaments, some of it coming from our defense contractors, have lowered the cost of waging insurgencies and paramilitary efforts. Few nations can totally control what happens inside their own borders. Real control requires the overwhelming consent of those governed. The people who live in the country have to have an emotional commitment to their country to keep paramilitary organizations from having any traction. This loyalty to country must come before loyalty to ethnicity, religion or political cause.

One result of this trend will be the slow dissolution of the nation-state. My thoughts on this will likely be the subject of another entry. In brief, I believe the future will move either toward global anarchy or toward one world government. The nation states of today will eventually become as obsolete as kingdoms.

Whether Hezbollah and similar paramilitary groups understand this or not is beside the point. This is the new reality. What it amounts to is a country cannot effectively fight paramilitary groups using armies trained to attack other nation-states. Ready or not, the paradigm and tactics of modern war have changed. We are already learning this lesson painfully in Iraq. I am left to conclude that Israel simply has no future. I believe that in fifty years, maybe less, it will be a memory. Insurgencies and paramilitary groups will have nibbled it out of existence.

How do you counter a trend like this? I know I would hate to try to find a formula that would bring peace to Israel and its neighbors. Frankly, I do not think that one exists. What would help is a pragmatic vision of hope that all parties can latch onto. Perhaps what is really needed is not a Jewish state, but a Semitic state. Semites in this context does not mean Jews. It means the Semite race, and that includes the Palestinians, who are also Semites. There has to be consensus that all that live there must dwell together in peace and brotherhood, or no one can. It is hard to see how this can be achieved when the hatred continues to grow on all sides due largely to Israel’s latest actions in Lebanon.

Meanwhile, here in the United States, more than a few wacked out religious nut jobs are taking this conflict as a sign that Armageddon is near. They are nearly in rapture because they are convinced the Lord is ready to return. Soon they figure they will be occupying their reserved spots inside the pearly gates, for they are the true believers. Arguably, there are more than a few of these nutcases in the West Wing. From my perspective, it looks like Armageddon is already here. Only it is not quite what evangelical Christians had hoped. Armageddon appears to consist of eternal skirmishes, bloodshed, death, destruction and the sad defilement of the area that gave birth to our greatest religions. With each crime against their neighbors, sides dig in their heels further and refuse to learn any karmic lessons. Somewhere up there Allah, Yahweh and Jesus are watching, and they are crying.

July 25th, 2006 at 09:03pm Posted by Mark | Best of Occam's Razor, Politics 2006 | 2 comments

After Iraq, then what?

I have been meaning to write this entry for a while, but vacation got in the way. In addition, I was not quite sure what to write. This is a particularly hard topic for me to think through. After we lose in Iraq, how do we go on and actually win the larger war on terror?

My assumption is that our exit from Iraq will not be particularly pleasant. I do not know how much longer it will be before we formally throw in the towel, but I am convinced that we will throw in the towel. If I had to guess, I would bet we would be mostly out by the end of 2007. The 2006 midterm elections should sober Washington up, assuming it takes that long. As I suggested some months ago we are likely to see a replay of Vietnamization in Iraq. The first three acts have been the same. It remains to be seen if the final act will be a repeat too. At some point, even the polite fiction that we can maintain some sort of rough control in Iraq will be blown either literally or figuratively away. While we can, we might maintain some bases in Iraq to leverage force in particularly lethal battles. However, Iraq is more likely to devolve into a civil war. In this case, since we could not choose sides our forces would be useless. It is very unlikely that brigades of terrorists will launch frontal assaults on Iraqi cities. That is not their modus operandi.

Therefore, although the end is easy to see, exactly how things will play out in the final act remains a guessing game. However only fools or high stake gamblers will bet that we will leave Iraq with a peaceful and democratic government that can maintain control for the long term. There will be a natural tendency to want to bring the all our troops in Iraq home and to make noises, but take little in the way of effective action, against al Qaeda and its agents. This would be a mistake.

I have outlined some pragmatic steps that we should take elsewhere. Many of these I lump for my convenience into a set of “birth control” strategies. It is premised on my belief that like the Cold War, the problem of Islamic extremism is not going to fade away. Consequently, we need effective long-term strategies that lesson the likelihood that new generations of terrorists will arise eager to destroy America. Even the Bush Administration is starting to understand that a genuine and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians is the best long-term use of our time and money. By some estimates, we will have squandered more than a trillion dollars before we leave Iraq. Yet we support Israel’s national security at a cost of about ten billion dollars a year. Surely a few billion dollars a year invested in Palestine to build quality housing and schools would be money well spent. This money needs to be tied to meaningful metrics, like the end of terrorism and a gradual withdrawal by Israel from the West Bank.

We also need better understand how the Islamic world thinks and behaves. You can get a sense of how clueless we are from our actions in Iraq. After more than two years, we still do not even really know exactly who the insurgents are that are fighting us and who is funding them. We guess they are mostly ex Ba’athists and al Qaeda sympathizers, but much of the time we are clueless. No wonder we are so ineffective dealing with them. A good place to start understanding Islam is by engaging Muslim America. We treat Islam as something of a curiosity, rather than the full-fledged religion with over a billion adherents that it is. We tend to fear that which we do not understand. As a result, we get radio talk show bozos like Michael Graham who paint the religion of Islam as “a terrorist organization”.

Sorry Michael. Al Qaeda is no more like modern Islam than Eric Rudolph typifies mainstream Christianity. (Although after Pat Robertson’s bizarre remarks today, you have to wonder at least a little if mainstream elements of Christianity are having a case of al Qaeda envy.) Just as Islamic nations needs to understand us better, so we need to be coaxed into learning more about Islam. In America, we seem almost proud of our ignorance of the rest of the world. In any event, it is clear that we cannot effectively deal with a problem that we do not understand both intellectually and with some degree of empathy. We are using 20th century tactics against terrorism and it clearly is not working. Our military force can and should be leveraged, but they should be used selectively. This war is more likely solved more through winning hearts and minds, and through good intelligence, than through conventional weapons and armies. Therefore, rather than recoil at the plan to put Al Jazeera International on our cable system, maybe we should welcome it.

A more Machiavellian strategy might suggest a policy of containment. While I am not advocating it, I will put it out there for what it’s worth. This strategy suggests that unstable Islamic countries should be isolated politically, culturally and economically from the West. It is based on the assumption that Muslims have to work through their own problems and our assistance is counterproductive. If they are going to kill people, the thinking goes, far better for them to kill each other instead of us. If Islam must go through its own dark ages and reformation like Christianity, why not start now? Just stay to the sidelines and let the Muslim nations implode.

On the other hand, I do not advocate its opposite either. While I think engagement is useful, I think part of the reason 9/11 happened is that we either deliberately or inadvertently introduced too much change too fast into the Islamic world. Yes, PCs and satellite dishes are undeniably convenient. However, we did not have to market to these countries. Moreover, we do not have to go around proselytizing democracy. This strategy does not have much success with Jehovah’s Witness adherents, so it probably will not work for us either. If democracy is inherently good, wayward countries will eventually knock on our doors asking for assistance. Jimmy Carter’s low key approach has been very successful.

As for short and medium term strategies, securing nuclear stockpiles is a fairly easy and inexpensive problem to solve. It is also a lot more doable than trying to impose democracy on unstable countries. I do not feel terribly hopeful that we can restrain the development of atomic weapons, although I certainly think we should continue to try. The price of joining the nuclear club is a lot lower than it used to be. Nevertheless, certainly we can stop doing asinine things like providing nuclear equipment to India, as President Bush did recently. (India has never signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.)

Clearly, Iraq caused us to lose focus against our real enemy: al Qaeda and those who support it. We can certainly refocus on finding and killing Osama bin Laden. That will not solve the problem of terrorism, but it will send an important signal. I am somewhat puzzled why we found it perfectly okay to invade Afghanistan, but we somehow feel as if we cannot send a single troop across the Pakistani border without permission. We need to be clear that any nation that gives sanctuary to our enemy, either deliberately or inadvertently is subject to attack. I am certainly not recommending that we overthrow the Pakistani government, but we should feel free to attack suspected al Qaeda hideouts in that country without advance notice and with impunity.

There are branches of al Qaeda in Indonesia and elsewhere. We should continue to feel free to help governments there find, capture and kill these people, or to do it ourselves if necessary. Nevertheless, we should be judicious in our use of force. Where possible our strikes should be short and surgical. Our footprints should be minimal. Ideally when these counterstrikes happen we should profess ignorance and disclaim responsibility.

There is also nothing wrong with changing policies even if they may appear to be appeasing terrorists. I have pointed out many times that our support for Israel is counterproductive. It buys us far more enemies than friends. I think Israel can and should be weaned off American aid. I do not see why we need so obnoxiously promote American values either. What is the point of rattling the saber when it just riles up those already inclined to hate us? Why do we have to have the equivalent of giant neon billboards associated with our country? Would more mainstream values like greater support for the United Nations and an agreement to join the International Criminal Court really be that bad for the United States? Some of us remember a time when the United States was the U.N.’s biggest supporter. Of course, we are not going to agree with many member countries. However, the point of the U.N. is to have a forum for countries to air their grievances peacefully, instead of through armed conflict. After more than fifty years, it is still an organization that helps keep the world peaceful. We are better off as friends and supporters of the United Nations than openly hostile to it.

Therefore, I think our war against Islamic extremists needs to be fundamentally rethought. If we bring home the troops from Iraq, we could use the time for a devising new and effective strategies to combat Islamic terrorism. It is very clear that our current course is counterproductive. We need new and pragmatic leadership, not leadership that cannot see beyond their prejudices or will not try new strategies when the old ones fail. President Bush is right in one thing: this is not a war that will end anytime soon. However, in time it can end by embracing effective short, medium and long-term strategies. We should be inviting Islamic scholars like Juan Cole to help draft these policies. To win this war we must avoid knee jerk reactions. Instead, we must think with our forebrains.

August 23rd, 2005 at 09:34pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2005 | one comment

On Terrorism: Don’t Feed the Animals

I do not know why we find it so hard to state the obvious. Nevertheless, I will: our war on terrorism is not working. Our current approach is actually increasing terrorism rather than decreasing it. The horrible but predictable bombings in London yesterday, which left over fifty people dead and more than ten times that many wounded, are more grim evidence that we are failing. We need to rethink our approaches to this war on terrorism.

Even our own administration cannot seem to come to consensus on how well we are doing. When it comes to Iraq, for example, Vice President Dick Cheney insists that the insurgency there is in its last throes. According to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the current insurgency might last as much as twelve more years. In addition, as Gary Trudeau pointed out in yesterday’s Doonesbury, Bush seems to believe that our war in Iraq ended two years ago and we are in a mopping up operation.

The London bombings demonstrate that the “flypaper theory” (if we fight terrorism overseas it will not come to visit us) no longer holds much credence. Apparently, terrorists will choose the battlefields they prefer. Since September 11th, terrorist incidents are way up. This hardly demonstrates that we are winning. Our own State Department indicates there were 650 “significant” terrorist incidents last year. In 2003, there were 175. However, the National Counterterrorism Center suggests that the Bush Administration is deflating the numbers. It counts almost 3200 terrorism incidents worldwide during 2004.

Solving the terrorism problem is, as President Bush repeatedly warned us, “hard work“. Few would argue with his assessment, just his methods. Most of our strategies simply are not working. Most nations at war are savvy enough to change their strategies if they are not working. During World War I, for example, German U-Boats sunk Allied ships by the hundreds every year. Our leaders eventually examined the problem and tried different tactics. For example, they tried a convoy system. This made ships harder for the Germans to find in the vast Atlantic Ocean. In addition, since the convoys had armed escort ships, we had an effective means of fighting back. In short, we adapted. As a result, the allies got the supplies they needed to win the war.

However, our current administration cannot admit any mistakes. While I believe that most are naively sincere in their belief that we are winning the war, they demonstrate the follies of myopia, inflexible thinking and ideology. In any war, each side adapts to the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the other. If you do not then you lose, because the other side will. Al Qaeda proved this when it sent our planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We could not think outside the box. So if we want to win this war then we must adapt too.

Here are my suggestions on how to turn things around and actually win this war.

Step 1: Get the hell out of Iraq. Yes, I know that Bush calls it the “central front” on the war on terrorism. It attracts terrorists (most of whom are actually Iraqi insurgents) because we are there. Our withdrawal is not likely to bring peace to Iraq. On the other hand, our occupation of Iraq is not bringing peace to Iraq either. Moreover, many Iraqis want us out of their country. Eighty two members of Iraq’s legislature want us out immediately. However, our fight there is clearly squandering the lives of our soldiers and costing us a fortune. As I pointed out some entries ago, our house of cards must collapse in time anyhow. It is a slam-dunk. With virtually no chance of a draft and with our army full of people who joined up expecting to serve in peacetime but now serving indefinitely in a war, we are squandering our armed forced. We will not be able to bring in enough new recruits indefinitely. We are literally running our army ragged. So let us get them out of there. Let us consider this a strategic withdrawal. In every war, you win some and you lose some. Meanwhile, our troops need to recharge. Our military equipment needs to be repaired and replaced.

Step 2: Demand that Israel commit to achieving a real and lasting peace with the Palestinians. Much of the anger against the United States is a result of real injustices by Israel against the Palestinians. Tie a meaningful peace agreement to the aid we provide Israel. Cut their aid by one fifth for every year that they delay. That will get their attention. Nevertheless, make sure that Israel understands the bottom line of what it will take to accomplish a real peace in that region. Everyone knows the formula, so insist that they do it. Israel must withdraw to its 1967 borders. The Palestinians keep the rest, but give up their right of return. Jewish settlers on occupied territory have to vacate. Water rights must be equitably shared based on population. In addition, East Jerusalem must eventually be the capital of a Palestinian state. It may be necessary for Jerusalem to be run by an international organization like the United Nations. To tempt the Palestinians, we can make large increases in their aid contingent upon meeting milestones for a real peace too. As Palestinians reach important milestones, we need to make sure they are rewarded lavishly. Non-defense aid should be roughly equal for both Palestine and Israel. Yes, it is a lot of money. But it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than war. And this money will provide real hope to long suffering peoples.

Step 3: Narrow the scope of the war on terrorism. This was perhaps our biggest mistake: biting off more than we were ready to chew. Our war is against those elements of al Qaeda that participated or aided in the events of September 11th and other terrorist events against our country. We are not after every tin horned dictator we do not like, no matter how odious we find them. Clearly, Osama bin Laden remains at large. We should do more than give lip service to his capture. However, we need to understand that capturing bin Laden will not cause al Qaeda to cease to exist. So in addition to doing a much better job of infiltrating this and affiliated organizations, we need to understand what is truly motivating them. This way we can devise strategies to stop the inflow of new recruits.

Step 4: Secure nuclear stockpiles. Incidents like what happened in London yesterday are but a bee sting. While they hurt us, anger us and focus our attention, if terrorists get a hold of nuclear weapons then our misery will be magnified thousands or millions of times. We absolutely cannot let this happen. We need a triage to determine which of these nuclear sites are the most vulnerable. We need to convince these governments to work with us to develop short and long-term ways of securing and centralizing these facilities. Where possible we should commit our own troops to guard these facilities until they are less vulnerable.

Step 5: Real homeland security. This means securing our vulnerable ports and doing a much better job of airline security. This includes inspecting all air cargo. However, it also means tracking and controlling ingredients inside this country that are used to make weapons of mass destruction. Ordinary fertilizer proved deadly in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Step 6: Prepare to fight different kinds of wars. In reality, much of our weaponry is almost obsolete. I’m not saying we need to get rid of our aircraft, cruise missiles and armaments, it’s just that we are less likely to fight wars against other countries. In this new war, intelligence is crucial. We need better technology that will help us collect and synthesize intelligence so that is more useful. Of course, we also need spies inside these organizations. Yes, it takes time, so we had best get started.

Step 7: Become mainstream. We need to reexamine our national policies, many of which (like global warming) are way outside the international mainstream. Where we are outside of international norms, let us consider moving into the mainstream. Our unqualified support for Israel is one example. In general the less offensive we are to the world the less attention we attract. Being a boring country may do more to give us real national security than anything else may. We should strive for neutrality. If we have issues with a particular country, we can often be much more effective through low-key diplomatic efforts than bombastic statements from our leaders.

Step 8: Energy independence. While it may seem utopian, many of our problems are a direct result of our addiction to foreign oil. The evidence is clear that oil will become increasingly scarce in the years ahead. We need a Manhattan plan to develop alternative and environmentally sensitive technologies for a post-oil age. For a start, we could increase CAFE standards and set requirements for the percentage new cars that must use hybrid technologies.

These are some of my suggestions. Of course, I do not have any silver bullets. Nevertheless, I suspect my ideas would likely do something to change the underlying and increasingly dangerous dynamics of this war. Now we are just throwing gasoline on the fire. No wonder sparks hit us in places like London from time to time.

As the signs say at the zoo: Don’t Feed the Animals.

July 8th, 2005 at 02:36pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2005 | no comments

Learning Lessons from September 11th

The carnage continues in Iraq but you won’t see too much of it on the news or in the newspapers. 47 dead today and hundreds are wounded outside a Baghdad police headquarters. Just another day of mayhem in Iraq: the new Beirut for the aught decade.

But we are more interested in everyone in Oprah’s audience getting new cars and Kitty Kelly’s new book on the Bush family. And speaking of the Bush he and his ilk are trying to put the label of “flip flopper” on John Kerry despite lots of evidence that John Kerry cannot begin to fill W’s flip flopping shoes. Sideshows are distracing us during the main event.

Professor Juan Cole knows the truth: we have lost the war in Iraq. It is all over but the body count. But there are precious few of us Americans who understand this. The rest of us including John Kerry appear to be as deeply in denial as George W. Bush. As I’ve alluded to before it is a war that cannot be won. It is folly. Perhaps our latest foolish actions like trying to retake the town of Tall Afar from rebels that disappear when we arrive will drive home the pointlessness of it all. Insurgents are smart. They fight skirmishes, not battles with our forces. They use guerilla tactics, withdraw when the firing gets too intense, regroup and then try again when we let our guard down. They know they will eventually win through a war of attrition.

The truth is that we’ve pretty much surrendered the country. In Fallujah we fight insurgents/terrorists (same thing in Bush’s tiny mind) by launching weapons from the air at 6 a.m. and leveling houses. We have no plans to actually go in and invade the city again. It was folly last time and our commanders understand now that would be folly again. But it’s not just Fallujah. There are plenty of other cities that are effectively controlled by the opposition, including the Shi’ite slum of Sadr City in Baghdad that we foolishly try to control at the continuing loss of life and limb.

All this “liberation” and it is only costing us $4B and 50-100 soldiers a month to maintain and increase the anarchy. Our soldiers are repeatedly sniped at. August saw the highest levels of wounded in action to date in Iraq. Goodness, someone needs to tell the president. It’s been more than a year since “Mission Accomplished”.

And Iraq is just a part of the war on terrorism that we are messing up. Bin Laden is still on the loose. The Taliban is resurging in Afghanistan and poll workers there are killed. The Australian Embassy was attacked in Indonesia. Iran is threatening to enrich uranium. We learn South Korea has been surreptitiously learning the process. Meanwhile acting like a kid playing with dynamite North Korea experiments with enriched uranium. Nuclear sites in the former Soviet Union and East Block states have weapons grade material that is comparatively easy picking for terrorists but we argue with Russia over details for securing these sites. Apparently our administration can’t sort out the real threats from terrorists from the fake ones.

The tragedy in Beslan in Russia encourages Russian President Vladimir Putin to push for non-democratic reforms and to embrace Bush’s disastrous doctrine of preemptive war. On the third anniversary of the September 11th attacks one has to wonder if there is any way back to the good old days of, say, the Cold War. Defending the country was much simpler when you only had to worry about other superpowers.

I have been reflecting a lot on this anniversary of 9/11. I keep wondering what could have been done to prevent this terrible tragedy. What lesson could we learn that would keep it from recurring in the future? Just how had we become a target for Bin Laden in the first place?

The answer is simple: Israel. For fifty plus years we have supported and armed the state of Israel. It was President Harry S Truman who eleven minutes after Israel became a state on May 14, 1948 recognized it. Since then Israel has been one of our closest and most valued allies. Through our tax dollars we have kept Israel a viable nation-state. Clearly the United States is seen as allied with Israel. Most Arabs think that without our money Israel would have ceased to exist long ago.

Readers may accuse me of being anti-Semitic. This is a word that paints with a very broad brush. Any compassionate human being can acknowledge the suffering of the Jews and understand their desire for their own state. I am neither for nor against Israel. I do believe though that Israel if it is to survive it should do so with its own resources, not ours. And I like Semites as much as I like any other ethnic group. Lots of Jews are Semites. Palestinians are also Semites. Perhaps there could someday be a truly Semitic state consisting of both Palestinians and Jews. But of course Israel wants to be a Jewish state, or at least a state where the Jews are always in the majority, which amounts to the same thing. I have nothing against Jews, but I don’t necessarily think having a Jewish state is truly in their best interest.

To get some idea of how Arabs feel about Israel let’s imagine. Imagine if fifty years ago a huge Spanish armada had landed in Florida and had taken over the state by force. Suppose for the next fifty years they succeeded in retaining Florida and made it into a Basque homeland, perhaps as a final solution to that perennial problem. (I realize this is a far-fetched fantasy.) Imagine Europe and the Soviet Union provided overwhelming amounts of money and arms to make sure we couldn’t reoccupy Florida. Then imagine the Basques started pushing out Americas from their own houses and sending them to Georgia and Alabama when they could, or confining them to undesirable areas around the Everglades when that was impossible.

Would Americans be mad? You darn betcha! The Spaniards would of course say, “Hey, we were the first to land in Florida! Remember Ponce de Leon? We have the original claim! Get off our friggin’ land!” But we would be ticked and resentful. If some American insurgents blew themselves up on Miami buses we’d likely be cheering them on and calling them patriots.

That’s how the Arabs feel. It’s not that they necessarily hated Jews. It’s just that a Jewish state upset their cultural apple cart. A Muslim area of the world became one somewhat Balkanized by this new state of Israel. It was perceived to have the wrong religion and the wrong form of government. But also non-Jews were not exactly welcome. They were made into second-class citizens.

So is there a lesson to learn from 9/11 that could prevent it from happening again here in America? To me it is this: if we truly want to deter incidents like this from happening again then we have to be much more careful to think through the consequences of supporting countries. (We may be making a similar mistake now by supporting Taiwan.) We all meant for the best when we recognized and supported Israel. We Americans just love democratic states (or quasi-democratic states in the case of Israel). We just didn’t care about or minimized the feelings of the people that Israel displaced and its neighbors.

Bad things happen all the time. But almost certainly 9/11 would not have happened had we not recognized and supported Israel all these years. If we truly want to deter future acts of terrorism against us from Islamic terrorists we should stop trying to micromanage the affairs and people of the Middle East. We also need to cut Israel loose from its apron strings. If it’s a real state it will survive on its own. Is this giving in to terrorism? It can be seen this way. Or we can acknowledge our mistake, learn our lesson and move on.

September 14th, 2004 at 09:12pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2004 | no comments

Wanted: Grownups Running in Israel and Palestine

The grownups need to get back in charge of the planet, but in Israel and Palestine in particular. This week’s assassination of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin by Israel is just more proof.

Yes, I know what Israeli leaders said about the assassination: that they are crushing terrorism and no one who takes arms against Israel is safe from their swift and terrible retribution. Yada yada yada.

Of course being a grownup you know what is going to happen. Is this going to stop terrorism? Is Hamas going to go lick its wounds somewhere and foreswear terrorism forever? Not a chance. Pretty much the whole Gaza Strip turned out for the funeral of Sheikh Yassin. As if there weren’t enough impoverished, angry and desperate Palestinians willing to give their lives before this act now there will be hundreds or thousands more. Rather than striking a blow against terrorism, all it did was provide the fuel for more terrorism.

Israel of course will do its best to prevent the terrorists from penetrating their defenses. But it is just a matter of time before another incident (and scores more like it) kill more Israelis. Each incident, of course, will inflame the Israeli public and put pressure on their leaders to do more to combat terrorism. So of course there will be more raids, more missiles launched at crowds from Apache helicopters (provided courtesy of the United States taxpayer), more targeted assassination and of course more blockades, checkpoints, home demolitions of innocent relatives and general harassment.

Israel’s approach to peacemaking first requires all Palestinians to completely give up all forms of terrorism and violence against Israel. This goal of course cannot happen in the current political environment. It has as much chance of happening as Israeli settlers have of cheerfully and unilaterally withdrawing inside the Green Line because they feel sorry for the poor oppressed Palestinians whose land they occupy.

All this sort of naive attitude does is ensure the conflict continues indefinitely with the level of the conflict slowly ratcheting up over time.

Neither side in this conflict is thinking with the left (logical) side of their brains. Rather they are reacting out of hurt, anger, stubbornness and pomposity. In short the right sides of their national brains are fully in charge.

Of course there are ways out of this conflict. But it requires engaging the left side of the brain and putting the grownups in charge. First of all it requires a frank admission that the root of the problem is a political one. Everyone knows what it will take to get real peace in the Palestine. But no one wants to actually start the process to make it happen. Israel has to move behind the Green Line. Its settlers must give up forever their notion of a greater Israel. Eastern Jerusalem will become part of the state of Palestine. Perhaps Jerusalem itself will become an international city overseen by the United Nations. For the Palestinians, those who were forced off their ancestral lands will have to give up their right to return.

Will it stop the terrorism? No, at least not right away. But it will put in place a climate in which terrorism can finally ebb. Palestinians will have a hopeful future. There will be international aid, increased prosperity, and the ability to trade goods and services with Israel again.

We can see what is likely to work by examining the dicey situation in Northern Ireland over the last forty years. Both sides have had to become engaged in the political process. Both had to have mutual stakes in the outcome. Even today there are still scattered incidents of Protestant or Catholic terrorism in Northern Ireland. But these incidents are fading and are nearly gone. Engagement and negotiation have been a slow process but it shows every sign of working.

Does anyone think that if the British had hunted down IRA terrorists like dogs in Northern Ireland and lobbed missiles from Apache helicopters at crowds that they would have defeated terrorism? Soldiers did their best to keep warring factions apart while a political process continued to engage both sides of the conflict. It’s a model that should work over time in Israel too.

We need are grownups on both sides of the conflict to emerge and to act pragmatically. We do not need more of this hopelessly naive, idealistic and anger driven approach to diplomacy. Until we get grownups on both sides of this issue in charge the region will doubtlessly continue to spire ever slowly into lower levels of Hell.

March 26th, 2004 at 08:37am Posted by Mark | Politics 2004 | no comments