Subject:
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Still more perspectives on the tragedy
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 20 Sep 2001 09:31:12 GMT
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237 times
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Hello everybody,
after my first, spontaneous posting I realized that a lot of discussion was
already going on. I decided it would be a good idea to read through some of
it, before I post again myself. In a sense, this posting is an answer to
many postings I have read, but I found it more suitable to condense it into
one posting than to answer each of these postings individually.
I would like to first take you for a journey through history, humble and
incomplete as it may be, before I draw some conclusions for the current
situation.
Let me start my historic journey with WW2, which I view as the center (not
only on a time scale) of German, European, and to some extent even World
History in the 20th century. I also view WW2 as the birth date of the USA as
a global superpower. It may also be the point where the US, for the first
time in their history, became what Larry Pieniazek called a "World Savior".
At the point the US entered (or rather, were forced into) WW2, no doubt,
freedom not only in Europe, but on a worldwide scale was at stake. The
Western European Allies had not realized early enough that Germany was
developing into an evil superpower, so there was no chance for a "limited
response" once they realized what was going on.
After WW2, the west allies looked back in history, and realized which share
the Treaty of Versailles had in making Nazi Germany possible, and they
developed an entirely new strategy to deal with the defeated Germany.
(Unfortunately, as the Cold War was already on the horizon, there wasn't as
good a chance for the eastern part of Germany. Also, for understandable
reasons, the Soviets were a lot less forgiving.) On the side of the west
allies, the Nuremberg Trials, denazification, and Care Packets got Western
Germany started to be what it today is. The overall result, from the
standpoint of WW2's west allies, is pretty successful, I would say. So, a
new kind of appeasement was born in the late 1940s, and did indeed work,
while a similar strategy had definitely failed in the second half of 1930s,
just ten years earlier. What amount of change must have taken place in
Germany, within those ten years! Admitted, most of that was war, and it is
possible that this amount of change would not have been possible in Germany
without a lost war. Nevertheless, my conclusion is that there are no silver
bullet answers to complex questions, and, make no error, world politics is
always complex. In any situation, the full range of possible action must be
sensibly checked for whether or not its preconditions for success are met.
If they are not, the proposed "solution" may not be feasible, or at least it
is incomplete in that there is missing something at its beginning.
Let me continue my journey through history with Zionism and Israel. Zionism,
as a political and religious movement, has its roots in European
anti-Semitism of the Middle Ages. It has existed in an organized from since
the end of the 19th century. Practically, while some Jewish people have
lived in Palestine for long times, more of them started to buy land and move
into the British Mandate of Palestine from the beginning of the 20th
century. In the late 1920s, more and more Zionists were seeking independence
from British and Arabic forces. Radical Zionists even started terror against
Arabic and British people, to enforce this. One of the radical leaders at
the time was later Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
However, it was Nazi Germany's Holocaust that put Zionism on top of the
political agenda after WW2. In 1948, the British gave up on their mandate in
Palestine, and, sanctioned by UN (under US and other west allies control),
the state Israel was founded. From the beginning, Israel found itself
frequently in war with its Arabic neighbors (1947/48, 1956, 1967, 1973,
1982), who denied their legitimacy. In the course of these wars, Israel
expanded threefold beyond its 1948 borders. While originally Israel claimed
to occupy these areas only to guarantee its safety, this soon changed to a
policy of Jewish settlement in the occupied areas, encouraged by the
government. Over time, a number of UN resolutions against this and other
Israeli policies has accumulated, but Israel as well as the US never seemed
very interested in those.
During the cold war, the US supported Israel, while the Soviet supported
their Arabic neighbors. After 1979's peace treaty between Israel and Egypt,
it became increasingly clear that the Arabic world is not monolithic, rather
it has more and less radical forces. The PLO, long seen as one of the
radical forces for the terror it conducted against Israel, by now can be
seen as one of the moderate forces (with the implication that its aged
leader, Arafat, has less and less influence on radical forces). Under US
intervention, the Israeli finally agreed to sign a treaty with PLO, to
enable an independent state of Palestine. However, from the restart of the
Intifada about a year ago, Israel's government took the consequence to not
adhere to this treaty any more.
We also need to look at the Cold War in general. To me, it seems that the
US, after ending WW2 by throwing The Bomb, soon realized that the next big
war would not have a winner, only losers. But, once they had taken (or, to
some extent, were forced into) the role of the "World Savior", the US got
involved in an increasing number of smaller conflicts, where it was a lot
less obvious than in WW2 that freedom within the US was at stake. Maybe the
initial idea was to prevent "evil" leaders elsewhere in the world to become
as powerful as Hitler had been in Germany, by stepping in earlier. On the
other hand, because there was no obvious and immediate threat to their
homeland, the US more and more slipped into the role of a "world policeman",
with the notable difference that they were also the ones who made the law.
While the Cold War may have made it necessary, to have a clear distinction
between "good" and "bad", the Vietnam War made pretty clear that things are
not that simple. The Vietnam War, as well as, later, the Soviet invasion to
Afghanistan, also made clear that much smaller forces, organized in a new
way, can withstand the type of strength military superpowers have today.
The strategy "He may be a bastard, but at least he is OUR bastard.", though
never officially committed to, became the leading principle of the US
foreign policy in later years of the Cold War. The culmination of this
certainly was the Aliende case, where US Secret Services helped
significantly to replace a democratically elected leader by a military
dictatorship. I cannot see in which way the dictator stood for more freedom,
so for the first time the US not only HAD a hidden agenda beyond freedom,
but one which everybody could REALIZE. This severely damaged the credibility
of the US in their role, be it "world savior" or "world policeman". Later,
the cases of Iraq and Afghanistan showed that "our bastards" cannot be
relied on -- I don't want to repeat Jason J. Railton's argument here. It
could be asked why the US, once they realized he was no longer "their
bastard", didn't actually put an end to Saddam Hussein, like they did to
Adolf Hitler before. I find it hard to see all this as "some admitted flaws"
(Larry Pieniazek). Rather, there is something fundamentally wrong, when the
claim is humanity and freedom, and the result is dictatorship and killing of
large numbers of innocent people, with null effect on their violent leaders.
So, even though the US have ultimately won the Cold War (or, rather, the
Soviet have lost it), in the course they have lost their innocence, because
they put power above their claimed values, at least in some cases.
For me, the end of the Cold War has never caused a feeling of more security,
because, even before the Sep. 11 terrorist attack, it became increasingly
clear that technology would eventually enable smaller countries, even small
groups of people to not only defend themselves against, but even attack
superpowers as well as anybody else. What if, at some point after we helped
them to finish their Bomb, Pakistan changes to a more fundamentalist
government, and decides to declare Holy War to the Western World? - Given
the fact that one of the superpowers has already collapsed, this could well
mean the end of the "Age of Superpowers", as we know them. Being a
superpower no longer means being invincible, so what use does it have to be
one? We can defend against many kinds of threats, but hateful people will
invent new ways to attack us at an even faster pace.
I wrote so much about history, because I have read too many oversimplified
and one-eyed models about what radical islamistic terror comes from. Also,
after the Sep. 11 terrorist attack, I think we are as much at a milestone of
history as we were in 1939 and 1945. Some of the action taken back then,
from a position of strength, yielded the effect intended, while some other
part did not. Now, when something does not work, it usually does not help to
find someone to blame. Also, there is usually no point in trying "more of
the same". If we apply this, from a historic perspective, to moslem
fundamentalism and terror, it is probably as much built upon the outcomes of
WW2 as Nazi Germany was built on the outcomes of WW1. I am not saying that
this could have been foreseen back then, nor do I want to justify any
actions of Nazi Germany or moslem fundamentalists. However, a solution based
on escalation will not work this time. How should a "killing them all will
be cheaper" (Christopher Weeks) scenario look like, given radical moslems
are scattered all over the world, and many of them cannot be distinguished
from their moderate neighbors? It has been written by Dave Kingsley, and I
wholeheartedly agree, that "a limited war is a lost cause" [0]. On the other
hand, I fear that an unlimited military response will miss most of the
radicals, and kill lots of innocent people, thereby not only voiding any
moral claims of the civilized world, but also creating tons more of
radicals. It might even escalate into a World War, as did the single
shooting of a single person in 1914. Obviously, the WW3 scenario would no
longer be a question of "how much we are willing to pay for it", it would
soon be a question of survival of mankind on this planet ...
So, the question how to deal with the current situation cannot be guided by
"who STARTED", rather by asking Carl Watson's "who has the strength &
greatness to END it" [1]. Or, as German Minister for Foreign Affairs Joschka
Fischer put it in less heroic words, "any solution must be designed with the
end in mind". Why should it be that "now is not the time" (Larry Pieniazek)
for that? IMHO the only way that has SOME chance to actually work [2] is, to
admit there has been injustice towards the Palestine people, and take action
to correct at least part of it. Obviously, Israel doesn't have the strength
to do this alone, but maybe the US do, and can help them a bit with it. This
will involve to use (as opposed to end!) the good relationship with Israel,
and I am pleased to see that some of this seems to have happened the last
few days. It may even involve talking to terrorists, which many may find a
disgusting thing to do. However, it has been done with success in South
Africa, and, admittedly without complete success to date, in Northern
Ireland and Middle East. This concept goes far beyond Dave Johann's idea of
what it means to "give peace a chance"; Richard Marchetti has elaborated on
that in excellent words. Probably the situation after the Sep. 11 attack is
different from each of the historic examples given above, so this idea comes
without any warranties. In absence of more promising options, though, it may
still be worth trying. Along with that, or better yet, for psychological
reasons, after that, it does make sense to punish the terrorists who
continue on their evil path, as far as we can get hold of them [3]. I could
imagine the Den Haag Court deal with these cases, like it does with former
Serbian leader Milosevic. While some radical moslems will not accept this
court as being neutral, it can only worsen the issue, if the US insist on
carrying out justice themselves.
Let me close this lengthy posting with a quote from French poet Marcel
Pagnol:
"The weakness of reason is that we use it to justify our beliefs"
I don't claim to be free of that, so let me know about any "weakness of
reason" you find in my posting ...
Germany is with you
Horst
PS: Some other people, like Ross Crawford, seem to share my opinion,
for whatever reasons, ...
>> Huh??? Yes, I'm against military action. That doesn't mean
>> I'm against action.
>
> So what is your plan then? Ask nicely? What if asking causes
> Pakistan to topple and the Taliban to launch a war?
... but Larry Pieniazek's answer seems to be pretty forward-looking
here. Of course, if any COUNTRY feels like declaring war to some
other country, it needs to be dealt with accordingly. Earlier
today, I heard that tenthousands of Afghan people are fleeing the
seemingly inevitable war -- good to see they don't really stand
behind their radical government, bad to see they can't do away
with it. Like with the non-Nazi Germans in the 1940s, they should
be sheltered now, and helped generously to rebuild their country
once the Taliban have been removed [4]. This is how we can unify
justice with friendship, and be sure we don't just replace the
radicals we punish, with new ones we create.
[0] Not only because it limits its overall effect, but because it is
limited to the wrong targets in too many cases -- to give just one
example, you remember the bombing of what was supposed to be a
poison gas plant, but turned out to be a pharmaceutical factory?
I also happen to disagree on his notion that this was the reason
for the lost Vietnam War, or for Israel's failure to get done with
Palestine terror.
[1] As for strength and national symbols: Having been to the US, I
think I can understand at least part of the relationship between
these two. I hope you also understand that we in Germany are a
lot more cautious with the symbol part, because our history is
one of misuse of these symbols. I don't think that this, or our
partly different view on history, limits the solidarity we have
with the US and its citizens in these sad times.
[2] work, for me, means: significantly decrease the likelihood of
further terror from radical moslems
[3] without too much "collateral damage", I mean. In the light of
this concept, it DOES make a difference whether or not bin Laden
is behind the Sep. 11 attack. If, before that attack there wasn't
enough reason to accept the amount of collateral damage involved
with getting him, why should that have changed by now, unless it
becomes evident that he actually is behind the Sep. 11 attack.
[4] If this involves bombing Afghanistan, so be it. In this case, I
like Larry's idea to start the bombing with leaflets, telling
them what's going on, and how they can help with it, or at least
get themselves out of danger. It seems Afghanistan's neighbors
are not able to accommodate all refugees, so I would like to see
a donation call to help them with this important task. Time for
Care Packets again ...
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Still more perspectives on the tragedy
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| In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Horst Lehner writes: <snip> Wow! Now THAT is what I call a reasoned and thoughtful post. I have to spend some time re-reading it, but thank you very much! It is always great to see someone who is "not one of the usual (...) (23 years ago, 20-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Still more perspectives on the tragedy
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| In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Horst Lehner writes: [snipped] Horst, I also need to spend some more time reading this. I think this is the kind of review / opinion that politicians[1] need to read, maybe you should consider sending a copy to your (...) (23 years ago, 21-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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