Author: Warren Coats

So the next war has started. At least we are not acting alone, though we seemed to have followed more than lead. Try to remember the emotions that led us into it. Natural sympathy for the rebels/insurgents/freedom fighters—for the under dogs is one of the reasons. And disgust for the mad man Qaddafi is another. And of courage there is the American testosterone charged swagger that we can squash the villain so why not.  Hold those thoughts, as it seems to you now looking forward with only a few bombs dropped so far. Try to remember it six months from now, two years from now, five years from now (We have been fighting in Afghanistan for over nine years and have been in Iraq for seven).

Looking back it will seem very different. We will know by then who the new guys are and whether they are better or worse than Qaddafi. We will not know whether we were right to side with the Sunnis or the Shias (which ever it turns out to be). Some of us will say that it was not wise to take sides in this great intra Muslim struggle. We will have pored more billions into someone else’s economy at a time when we MUST cut back our government’s spending of money it doesn’t have thus forcing us to cut domestic spending even more than otherwise.

I have no idea how this will go (which is one of the compelling reasons why we are being very fooling to undertake it), but I do know that it will all look very different looking back.

More voices are being raised to urge caution before sliding into yet another war. General Wesley K Clark’s reflections deserve careful reading and reflection, before the old cold warriors, still looking for new causes, seduce an empathetic public and their representatives into another economically and politically draining war. “Libya doesn’t meet the test for U.S. military action”

What we do need to do is redouble our support (directly to the extent it is accepted and via international organizations) to the new governments of Arab countries to build and strengthen institutions that support the rule of law, the rights of individuals, a free press, and other checks and balances on the exercise of political power. We should encourage the development of the legal framework and institutions that promote entrepreneurship, justice, and tolerance of religious and other differences. The Arab Spring can be the beginning of a positive transformation of a backward part of the world or another false start. It is not up to us, but we can contribute to a more promising outcome if we choose to.

Here are some sensible thoughts from my friend Steve Clemons

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

There is a big rush by some to impose a no-fly zone over Libya.  Bill Clinton’s voice has joined others like Senators John McCain, John Kerry, and Joseph Lieberman as well as former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson in calling for NATO and the US to impose a no fly zone.

I think this is a mistake — and is more of an emotional impulse than one that really helps the Opposition in Libya.  The blowback costs could be huge — and there are other options, perhaps much better ones, to try and help those trying to rid themselves of Moammer Gaddafi’s rule.

My thoughts are here:

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2011/03/no-fly_zone_ove/
No-Fly Zone Over Libya Could Backfire & Undermine Protests in Middle East

All best,

Steve Clemons

Once again the drums of war are beating. President Obama has said that “President Gaddafi must go” with no obvious plan for removing him. Indeed, we would all like to see him go and it would be painful to watch him attach his own citizens. But many distasteful things happen in life that we can do nothing about or choice to do nothing about for reasons of prudence. We are not (yet) at war with Libya. Libya has not attacked us or our interests. We would be extraordinarily foolish to attack Libya.

We should support the principles our nation was founded upon and operates under. These include “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” We should support in appropriate ways those in the world, including Libya, who share these values. This does not include war or measures that would suck us down a slippery slope to war.

Two recent Washington Post articles sound the right warnings and ask the right questions. They are well worth reading: Anne Applebaum “The Arab World Isn’t Clamoring for Our Help” and George Will “Then What?”

Dubai – American foreign policy should aim to support American interests. Those interests—security of American lives and property, free and open trade and movement, and human dignity—are not independent of American values—respect for the rights and responsibilities of each individual, free press, etc. I have written on this theme from time to time, e.g. https://wcoats.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/outside-imf-guesthouse-kabul-afghanistan/ or https://wcoats.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/a-south-african-hero/ or https://wcoats.wordpress.com/2010/06/15/kyrgyzstan-in-crisis/ .

What does it say about what our policy should be toward the regime and events now underway in Egypt? I am sure that, like me, most American’s are cheering for the Egyptians in Tahrir Square in Cairo to throw the tyrant Mubarak out and establish a democratic government. Several questions and issues arise.

We are citizens of a free country and can cheer for whomever we like. We cheered the Hungarians rising up against their Soviet oppressors in 1956.  But when the U.S. government seemed to urge them on via Radio Free Europe and the Voice of American, many Hungarians felt betrayed when America did not come to their aid. Imagine for a moment, as glorious as it might have seemed at the time (at the beginning), if we had sent troops to Budapest to fight the Soviets. No one can know how that might have come out, but it is pretty certain that the most peaceful collapse of an empire—the Evil Soviet Empire—between 1989-91 never would have occurred peacefully.

While our private cheering comes easily—too quick and easy sometimes—our government must worry about whether a change in the status quo is likely to result in a better arrangement for the average Egyptian and for our own security and that of our allies in the area (Israel). Our government is not as free as you and I are to publicly express its opinions about the rulers it prefers to see in other countries. The United States had good reasons for developing good relations with the Egyptian government. With billions of dollars in aid and diplomacy we bought considerably enhanced security for Israel. With the signing of the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty Egypt became the first Arab nation to recognize the state of Israel ending the state of war that existed between them. Egypt has been a good partner with the U.S. in promoting acceptance of Israel and peace in the area.

But while we can and should cooperate with Egypt and other governments in areas that promote peace and security, we should never turn our backs on our underlying values of human rights and democracy. This is not always an easy balance to maintain and the Obama administration has been doing a reasonably decent job of it. Mubarak has displayed the bad habit of almost all dictators of imposing increasingly nasty measures to remain in power. The popular uprising in Egypt justifies America’s pressure on Mubarak to step down and allow fair elections. While Israel’s current attacks on the United States for its betrayal of Mubarak can be understood from the perspective of Israel’s perceived, but shortsighted, security interest, it provides a vivid example of the fact that though America is rightly committed to the military defense of Israel, Israel’s interests are not always identical with ours.

The American government is also right to worry that replacing a corrupt and repressive government does not automatically result in a better one. It needs to use its diplomatic influence to guide the process toward a peaceful, orderly change in government with open and fair elections in September. It must not repeat President George W Bush’s mistake of insisting on elections in the West Bank and Gaza and then refusing to recognize the results when they favored Hamas. That sad episode made a mockery of American’s commitment to democracy. Democracy does not always produce good results (results that are consistent with the rule of law and human rights that are core American values) and we should not always push for it when conditions are not promising.

Egypt, like Turkey, is a relatively secular, largely Islamic country. The mildly outlawed Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is very unlikely to dominate a new government unless we badly misplay our cards. According to Daniel Levy, an Israeli now at the New America Foundation: “The ability to use the Islamist boogieman to fuel US fears draws on a combination of unfamiliarity and ignorance, cultural arrogance, and real policy differences on regional issues, notably on Israel. That Arab publics left to their own devices should freely choose to support religious conservatives should largely be none of our business: Americans in many states make a similar choice at the ballot box. That American policymakers have so few links into the MB or serious channels of communication is simply a failure of American policy.” “Complicating the Transition in US – Egyptian Relations” Foreign Policy”

The Obama administration should pressure Mubarak to make changes to the Egyptian constitution that will allow fair elections, appoint a technocratic caretaker government until the September elections, and encourage the Egyptian military, which receives about $1.2 billion a year in U.S. assistance, to maintain security in a politically neutral way. Obama should tell Mubarak firmly that it is time for him to go, as President Reagan did to Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines in 1986.

The groundswell for reform from Tunisia, to Egypt, to Sanna and beyond opens opportunity for positive change in the Middle East.  Such events cannot be controlled but they can certainly be influenced for better or worst. The United State must remain rooted in its core believes and values while supporting the strengthening of the rule of law and the rights of individuals.

Exactly 50 years ago President Eisenhower delivered his famous warning about the risks of a large standing Army supported by an equally large military-industrial complex. His warning is more obvious and prescient today even than it was then. For my further thoughts on Ike’s warning please see: http://dailycaller.com/2011/01/17/ikes-farewell-address-fifty-years-on/

One of America’s great strengths is its critical introspection, which invariably reacts to and corrects excesses once they become clear. This seems to be happening with the nasty tone and character assassination focus of too much of our so-called public debate of policy issues. This reaction is epitomized by the President’s Tucson speech: “President Obama’s Tucson memorial speech” and a Washington Post op-ed by Senator John McCain, “After the shootings, Obama reminds the nation of the golden rule”. If your heart was not moved by the President’s words, you don’t have one. The outcry for more civility offers hope that future debates (at least for a while) will focus on real issues rather than caricatures. We face serious policy issues that demand serious and constructive debate.

Three cheers for the likes of Bruce Fleming “He was fired over his videos, but Capt. Owen Honors did the right thing,” and Kathleen Parker “Leave Twain alone.” In quite different ways each has illuminated the importance of candor when discussing important community issues and the difference between candor smothering Political Correctness (PC) and traditional politeness.

I watched the video produced four years ago by Owen Honors, then the second in command of the USS Enterprise, for the entertainment of his crew while deployed in support of the Iraqi war. A great public outcry over the vulgarity (“jokes about masturbation, sex in the showers and over-reliance on the f-bomb”) and insensitivity of the videos led me to see for myself. Given that the videos were made by Navy men for sailors (that saves me from having to say Navy men and women), I didn’t find anything really offensive. A few references to gay guys didn’t really offend me. What in the world was all of the fuss about? Capt. Honors, now (or at least last week) Captain of the Enterprise, has been removed from command as a result. It all struck me as a big over reaction.

Bruce Fleming has put all of this in a very different light and his commentary in the Washington Post is well worth reading. Captain Honors, he argues, was helping his crew confront and deal with the challenges of close quarters for men, women, the third sex, GLBT, etc where the usual outlet for youthful sexual energy of masturbation is difficult if not impossible. “It’s not homophobic to point out that most people are more comfortable being naked around strangers whom they think (perhaps wrongly) have no sexual interest in them. That’s why we have single-sex bathrooms in public places…,” he notes. One of the first things we tend to do when confronted with tragedies or lesser challenges is make jokes about them. It is a healthy and constructive outlet that can defuse the pain or the awkwardness. Remember all those horrible, sickly, but funny jokes we told following the explosion of the Space Shuttle Columbia that killed its seven astronauts?

Fleming “think[s] Honors realized that problems everybody talks about privately become worse if the command structure pretends they don’t exist. He’s like a parent who decided to make clear to his kids that he knew they were thinking about sex and drugs, and to take control of the topic. He should get a medal for being proactive….   Do we think they’re unaware of the problems of same-sex or mixed-sex or mixed-sexual-orientation intimacy that the closed quarters of ships, submarines, showers or sleeping quarters can create? They deal with these issues by joking about masturbation, gay sex, having things shoved up their rectums – all the subjects that their executive officer was showing them they could joke about and move on.”

In a very different corner of our misplaced and stifling insistence on political correctness, Kathleen Parker has lambasted the dishonesty of replacing “Niger” in a new edition of Twain’s Huckleberry Finn with “slave.” The N word, as she calls it, is a truly nasty and rude word these days. The polite word as I was growing up in California where we new better was Negro. Negro later fell into disrepute and polite people replaced it with Black, which was subsequently replaced by African Americans. The wonderful and thoughtful Washington Post columnist William Raspberry, himself negro, black, or an African American, complained that periodic changes it what blacks (if I may stick with that) thought was the properly respectful way of being addressed, tended to settle for form rather than substance and thus contributed nothing to resolving genuine problems (or issues as we now call them).

Parker’s complaint is of dishonesty and the slippery slop. “While on Earth, let me add my voice to the chorus of those who, in the name of all that is hallowed, object to the alteration of literature for the benefit of illiterates…. And no one would argue that the word in question isn’t emotionally charged and, in certain contexts, highly offensive. The issue here isn’t whether the word is good or bad (I personally despise it), but whether one should rewrite another’s literary work.” She is also making the same point as Fleming’s that the mere avoidance of some offensive words can too easily contribute to the avoidance of serious and honest discussion of bigotry, or of differences that any civilized and humane society should strive to understand and accommodate if not embrace. Vive la différence.

But then we have the opposite extreme from both ends of the political spectrum, but mainly the extreme right these days, of using the most inflammatory language they can find to describe and condemn those they disagree with. Believing that our society’s greatness derives very importantly from our freedom and thus the need to be responsible for our own and our own family’s well being to a larger extent than most other societies, I was often critical of extensions of the federal government under George W and Barak Obama into our economy and our lives. But when public figures and TV pundits say (they more often shout) that Obama is a socialist, for example, I reflexively join his side in reaction.  Are these people simply ignorant of what socialism is, or what? In reality they don’t seem interested in a reasoned discussion of whatever the issue is. I am not interested in being lectured to (shouted at) by such people of whatever political persuasion. But more importantly, the shouters impede healthy and badly needed public debate of the merits of this policy or that.

And now we have the tragic murders in Tucson Arizona of Federal Judge John Roll and five other worthy souls, and the critical wounding of U.S. Congresswoman Giffords by Jared Lee Loughner, a deranged 22 year old loner. While the extremist shouters, who claim to be toning it down, are pointing fingers of blame at each other, the more sober voices of George Will (“Charlatans” blame game” The Washington Post) and Michael Gerson  (“Small man, terrible act” The Washington Post) have pointed us in a different direction. Our free society is based, among other things, on the myth that we are each fully responsible for our own acts. Without such personal accountability freedom would not be possible. I have called it a myth, not because it is not true to some or even a large extent, and certainly not because it is not an important and useful principle. Rather it is a myth because the actions we take are in fact influenced by many things: from our genes, moral up bringing and beliefs, the society in which live and act, the morning news, the afternoon’s radio commentary, and what we ate for breakfast. But as free men and women we must take responsibility and be held accountable for our choices and acts whatever collection of factors may have influenced them.

But the quality of our freedom does certainly depend on the society we live in and the behavior of our neighbors. I do not respect people who are dishonest or mean spirited. I enjoy and benefit from spirited debate of the pros and cons of this or that if the debaters are honestly seeking the truth even if they have different visions of it. I am uncomfortable, to put it mildly, around people who seek to humiliate, or otherwise harm others. If someone has done something wrong, let him pay the price society has set for that wrong and move on. We pride ourselves as a second chance nation.

For large numbers of people to live peacefully and fruitfully together, many compromises are needed. They are more likely to be achieved out of careful, thoughtful evaluations and discussions of the issues than by the shouting of extremists. In addition to civility, a very important factor contributing to public harmony is that our constitution and public consensus have minimized the number of things that must be collectively agreed to. It is much easier to agree, for example, that religion is a private matter and that we are each free to believe what we want, than to agree that we must all be Catholics, Baptists, Jews, or Muslims (or keep quiet).

Rudeness is, well, rude, to put it politely. Politeness is a virtue we should all strive for and teach our children, but politeness does not call for a lack of candor and honesty in stating what we think and what we feel and subjecting our views and reasoning and biases to honest challenge and debate.