Collounsbury, thank you for coming back and taking the time to post here. I’ve learned a great deal from this thread
A small question in the scope of this thread, but important, I think, because the effects can serve to fuel extreme anti-American sentiment. I haven’t seen an Arab perspective on it, and I’m asking you in the word-on-the-street sense: Have you heard opinions on the Columbia disaster, and the intense sandstorm now hampering American troops? Are these viewed as a vengence of Allah? I have the standard American view that stuff happens, but I can see that it can be viewed as viewed as a volatile timeline by other cultural glasses.
elelle
A pretty mixed reaction, overall. Most Arab opinion makers were surprisingly sympathetic. In fact, they seemed to have a greater respect for the American space program than many Americans do. Phrases like “the American space program is part of the scientific heritage of humanity” cropped up a lot.
Some had a more mixed reaction
**
There was a good deal of rejoicing in some quarters, but this was most limitied to websites.
I’m curious as to how Turkey thinks their incursion into Northern Iraq is going to help with their admission into the EU. What is the current read on this situation and any potential for a miserable expansion of this war’s scope?
Oh, I’m sure it can only hurt, considering the current level of European opposition to the war ( granted said opposition is not universal, but every little bit hurts in Turkey’s case as even pro-war Europeans aren’t going to jump for joy at any messy Turkish intervention ).
However Turkey has historically been pretty paranoid about any hint of internal unrest and secessionism. If they get sufficiently panicky, they may well decide that EU membership pales next to what, for them, might seem like an issue of territorial integrity.
I don’t think anyone knows. The situation is too fluid and could shift in an hour. So far they seem to be resisting the temptation. Good for them.
If they did go in - Well, the potential for ugliness is pretty profound really. Though the U.S. is technically obligated to defend civilians if any fighting breaks out, I have hard time seeing them actually engaging the Turks if the KDP, PUK, or both get in a dust-up with them ( as they’ve quite explicitly stated they will if Turkey moves across the border in force ). As the Kurdish held-area actually includes most of what rugged highland territory exists in Iraq, you could then see a very ugly guerilla struggle. The permutations are endless, really. There is a somewhat pro-Turkish Turcoman minority in the Kurdish areas as well that could get drawn in. The Assyrians are in the north and have historically strained relations with the Kurds. etc.
Hopefully none of the above will come about.
However there is still a very serious problem about what to do with post-war Kurdistan ( “Mahabad” ). You can do a search on my name and Kurds to get some recent comments I made in another thread or two about the essential fragility of the Kurdish alliance in the north and a few of the many differences that divide the numerous factions, both major and minor. It is an unstable situation.
This is a rather general question. I have little first hand knowledge of the Middle East.
Do many Arabs see the borders between their nations as arbitrary lines in the sand? Or are those of each particular nation highly partisan to their own nation. On one hand I see expressions of solidarity for Iraq or the Palestinians, but also I see each Arab government jealously guarding its own power base. In the 1960’s Nasser aimed at uniting the Arab world, and briefly accomplished a union between Egypt, Syria, and I believe Yemen. After he died and Sadat made (relative) peace with Israel, the idea of transnational Arab political unity seemed to crumble.
Is there any viable movement to unite different Arab states again? Could outrage over Iraq and Palestine convince the leaders of any two Arab states to form a new UAR type state?
And this is exactly what the coalition is doing. Risking coalition soldiers’ lives to save civilians.
The British just went into Basra to engage in urban warfare, because a civilian uprising was being crushed by Saddam’s Fedayeen. Urban warfare can cost 10-30% of the attacker’s troops, historically. Basra is not a necessary military objective. The British have the city isolated - they could just sit outside the city in safety and let the people slaughter each other. They are not doing that.
The American 3rd Infantry is running a dangerously thin supply line. Why? Because once a war starts food and medicine and water stops moving through the civilian regions, and a humanitarian crisis develops. So rather than bringing in an extra two heavy divisions and moving slowly to Baghdad in a large, protected front, the Americans are making a mad dash for the capital, and taking additional casualties as a result.
Saddam’s Republican Guard encircling Baghdad is ensconced in built-up areas, with tanks parked in civilian areas and near homes. The traditional doctrinaire way of handling an embedded force like this is an Arclight. In other words, the U.S. could essentially carpet-bomb that entire area with heavy bombs from B-52’s. Instead, the U.S. is using attack helicopters to fly through a hail of gunfire to pick off the tanks one by one. They’ve already lost two crews this way.
Coalition rules of engagement forbid returning fire against shooters who are not clearly visible. So they’ve had to sit and take fire from hidden positions among civilians. A number of soldiers have been killed this way so far. The coalition has the capacity to wage this war by simply flattening anything that looks threatening.
Ten Marines were killed in an ambush because of liberal rules around accepting Iraqi surrenders. A large number of Iraqi soldiers have escaped and regrouped by dropping their weapons and retreating - coalition rules of engagement forbid firing on soldiers that appear to be disbanding. This is what happened in Umm Quasar, where several thousand ‘surrendering’ soldiers were allowed to withdraw unimpeded. They withdrew right into the town and re-armed.
I’m not sure what else you think the coalition could do to show a greater willingness to put themselves in harm’s way to protect civilians.
Now Sam, to be fair I don’t think Collounsbury ever said at any point that in his opinion the coalition forces weren’t doing enough in that regard. Only that was his view of what the Arab street would demand.
To that, I simply added the comment that the Coalition forces are already doiing that. I was not levelling an accusation at anyone. I just wanted to make sure that this point was not overlooked. Coalition troops are dying because they are being extra careful to protect civilians. This should be recognized.
No criticism of Collounsbury’s point was intended. In fact, I agree with it, and so do coalition commanders. If the military launched one of those Arclight raids they used in SE Asia, it might result in fewer coalition losses, but it would be a public relations disaster.
It would also be immoral. My belief is that if you are an invading force, there is a moral burden on you to do everything in your power to limit casualties in the civilian population, even at the expense of the lives of your own soldiers. The line should be drawn at the point where the war plan itself is compromised. Short of that, the overriding concern should be civilian casualties.
It actually appears to be a rather complex mix of sentiments. However even the most artificial of these states, like Lebanon and Iraq, are now at least a couple of generations old and nationalism definitely seems to have taken root to a greater or lesser extent in almost all of them. Also a few were fairly natural and historical units to begin with and some, while young, built their own nationalism through self-expansion ( Saudi Arabia is a perfect example of this ) or a shared experience ( like the anti-colonial uprising in Algeria ). Collounsbury can doubtless go into greater detail on the extent of this nationalism at the street level in different countries.
The expressions of solidarity are natural, but are not necessarily made at the expense or in place of nationalism. Though among, say, some Palestinians in Jordan or Lebanon, that may well be the case.
Well, pan-Arabism at one time was one of the more potent ideologies in the MENA, particularly in the immediate post-colonial era, though it was hardly universal ( for instance I don’t think most of the monarchies embraced it with any great fervor, for obvious reasons ). However that particular model of pan-Arabism - the secular, socialist model best articulated as Nasserism - is pretty much dead. It may still have some appeal in certain westernized segments of the population of a certain age ( **Collounsbury[/b could probably speak better to the extent that it lingers in certain circles ), but in general it appears to have fallen by the wayside, mortally wounded in 1967 and dieing a slow, lingering death through the 1970’s and '80’s.
But as a romantic notion, I think it still has a fair bit emotional appeal. Arabs are very aware of the past glories of history and it seems the notion of a ‘return to the Caliphate’ still stirs some response, even if it is a bit more metaphorical these days. Generally though, when I’ve seen pan-Arabism pop up in more moderate literature in recent years it is usually more in the context of greater cooperation among Arab countries, like intertwining economic zones and co-development projects, rather than out-and-out political fusion.
Of cpourse then there is the extremist view, which quite literally want to resurrect The Caliphate. Or so they say. These are the extreme theocrats, ObL among them, that claim to strive for a revival of a unified Islamic empire. It’s stil a potent image and has some recruiting force, I dare say. However…There is still some disconnect between reality and vision here, I think. Take ObL - On the one hand he talks big about resurrecting such a state. But if you really start to look closely at his writings I think an undeniable strain of Saudi nationalism seeps through. IMHO, anyway.
Personally I’m more inclined to see pan-Arabism in the modern days to be more as I described it above - A romantic notion that people may occasionally pay lip-service to, but don’t really take seriously, except perhaps in the most ephemeral of ways.
But that’s just the conclusion I’ve tentatively come to looking from the outside - **Collounsbury[/b[ might disagree and I’d be more inclined to trust his judgement based on his far greater in-region experience.
I agree, by the way - The coalition forces do seem to be making a real attempt. Whether it will be enough to mollify anyone in the long run remains to be seen of course.
I mentioned a paper about “Nietzschean Development Failures” earlier. I have been unable to find the version I have on the net, but here is a slightly longer version of the same paper: (pdf file). The world of that paper is highly perverse: laziness is a virtue, productivity causes inefficiency.
Thanks, Eva Luna for looking into the former Soviet state stuff. It’s appreciated.
I think I was the one who used the word “gangster”. They’re not idiots. But the rule of law requires a cultural and institutional basis that they simply have no experience of. IIRC, Archbishop Tutu said that one of the tragedies of apartheid was that it robbed victims of their innocence.
Good stuff Collounsbury and Tamerlane. I wish greco loco was around as well.
My question to either of you:
I heard someone on ABC a few days back suggest , citing Syrian sources IIRC, that Iran had some hand to play in the stiffer than expected resistance in the South and the absence of any large-scale Shia revolt. What do you think of this?
I would imagine that Iran wants Saddam to go but they would like the war to be sufficiently difficult that the US is dissuaded from attacking them next. Is this the fallout of the axis of evil speech? Common sense would have suggested that any attack on Iraq be accompanied by an effort to improve relations with Iran. Instead the administration has given them an incentive to make things difficult for the US with its rhetoric.
That is already true. The issue in my mind is should the Anglo-American forces lose patience and inflict massive civilian casualties and have the appearance of doing so to spare our precious blood, then you have the worst of both worlds, the Big Bully that is too afraid of the fair fight, willing to spend innocent Arab blood to spare its soldier’s blood. This is how it will play if we are not careful. (Of course the argument will be made, so what I am saying is care must be taken not to give it too much life.)
On the War Benefit
Thus my commentary to date.
Precisely.
Excellent restatement of my point. There are a lot of routes to legitimacy, and Americans, in my opinion, not often encountering them, have a very hard time understanding this.
Knowing Sadaam’s history, there is one thing he is not. He is not a coward. He is a beast, a gangster, cruel and mean. But he has always shown he has balls. It may make people feel better to call names, but I think they at least should be accurate ones. This guy is going to go down fighting to the last. His sons… well they are another matter.
It’s not impossible, I guess. Though really I’m not sure if that would be a well thought out plan in Iran’s side if that were the case. Seems if they had that much influence they’d stand to gain as much or more from a successful revolt that left substantial parts of the south in the hands of pro-Iranian forces who would for diplomatic reasons would be problematic for the Anglo-American forces to deal with.
The problem is, as discussed earlier, is nobody really seems to sure about exactly how much influence Iran and their ally/proxy SCIRI actually has in Iraq itself.
But of course there could be a simpler answer. Shi’a Iraqis in the south may not be rising up in as great as numbers as hoped, because a) they feel betrayed by the Americans after the aftermath of the last Gulf War ( and most interviews and analyses tends to bear out that this is exactly how they feel ) and b) they are understandably more cautious about sticking their necks out a second time until they are certain Saddam is on the run.
And there is also the wildcard c) - that there may be a stronger than anticipated patriotic response among Shi’a Iraqis, that may not be pro-Saddam necessarily, but just may still feel a certain nationalistic offended pride at the coalition invasion ( which may combine with a general distrustfullness of past American betrayals and present intentions as above ).
But at this moment - I dunno. Not enough info to really say.
Ask istara, I don’t usually use the English lang. press from the Arab world. Arab News… I seem to recall they are very Saudi. Gulf News, perhaps. Jordan Times, and Star of Lebenon are more local, the Gulf English sources are very… expatish. If you read French the North African French press gives a fair view of Arab views in a moderate end of the specturm (or middle?).
I like al-Jazeera but it is not as good as its first years. I do feel the quality of reporting has slipped. They used to be better.
That being said, the coverage is fairly fair. Yes, someone mentioned translations that sometimes are not so fair, but I feel that is the exception rather than the rule. Now, often the translators will phrase things in a manner that sounds perhaps harsher than the English… translation is an art and in heated times. I may add that in the opposite direction, Arabic to English you often get the same phenomena - depending on the source. Israeli sources are particularly bad in this respect, IMO. Spin, spin, spin.
Now, al-Jazeera and the other Arab news sats, like the new al-Arabiah (or al-Arabiyah) do focus heavily on the Iraqi POV – much like CNN sometimes seems like American Armed Forces TV, with an unseemly focus on every last thing Americans do. Frankly, I turn to BBC and TV5/TV2 (France) and sometimes DeutscheWelle for the most balanced perspectives.
In the final analysis, al-Jazeera and its new compatriots reflect the biases and so forth of the ARab world. Ex-Qatar(*) coverage, al-Jazeera pretty much says what it wants, so we need to engage those biases, not engage in the idiotic scaremongering "Terror TV " bullshit the Pentagon was talking about last year.
(*: Frankly Qatar is so weeny that who the hell gives a fuck if al-Jazeera gives their funder a pass. It’s whole lot fucking more important what they do for the rest of the Arab World.)
Reread the damned discussion and try to step outside of your highly peculiar world view.
What is being described is a particular set of circumstances surrounding a certain set of countries. Historical frameworks and hard circumstances wishery and magical thinking will not make go away.
I frankly resent the idea I have indicated “Arabs” are “incapable” of democracy. I actually highlighted that there are democratic institutions, indigenous ones even, but they are weak and sickly plants that need careful long term care.
Others have made the rebuttal also, but I felt the need to emphasize that your understanding is very far away from what I am conveying.