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History and Promoting Global Democracy – Rebuttal III

by CKR

My Rebuttal II (with previous links)
Mark’s Rebuttal II
Mark’s Rebuttal III

Mark and I have agreed that we will end the formal debate with this round of rebuttals. Having the slight advantage of laggard posting on this round, I’ll agree with him that it’s been productive. We’ve found some points of agreement on method and specifics.

As Mark notes, we have turned up many, many topics that are worthy of further discussion. I’m sure they’ll turn up again.

There are many experiments that have been run (they’re called history) that give us some insight into how democracy might be spread. We’ve focused on Iraq in this debate, but I’d like to survey, very quickly, some of the other possibilities with hints at their historical precedents.

Containment worked, a là Kennan’s long telegram, to turn the Soviet Union around. It took 75 years, but Russia, the Soviet republics, and the satellites are all on the road to democracy. They could slip back, and that’s where outside influence comes in.

Hello - Is the US Embassy in Bern on four month holiday?

Hello – Is Any One Home or is the US Embassy in Bern on four months holiday?

I was intrigued by the following Q and A in the International Herald Tribune’s “International Traveler: Readers Inquiries” column on Friday, June 10:

Q. I am American, my wife is Brazilian and we plan to visit the United States later this year. My wife needs a visa to travel with me, but the U.S. Embassy in Bern has told me that I cannot get an appointment to arrange this before the end of September. Is there a way of speeding things up? - William Keyser, Geneva.

A. It would probably make life a lot easier if your wife got an American passport. Try another U.S. embassy, in Paris or London, for example. A good business travel agent, like American Express or Carlson Wagonlit should be able to expedite a visa for a fee. – Roger Collis, Section Editor (contact info: rcollis@iht.com)

Wait a minute. What is wrong with the picture?

The Question

Keyser’s plea for help to the IHT was published in early June. If I’ve got it right, the Keysers are not planning to travel to the U.S. until later this year but the U.S. Embassy Consular Section in Bern can’t arrange an appointment for Mrs. Keyser, a Brazilian and spouse of an American citizen, until late September.

If so, as an American taxpayer, I’d like to know why. Such delays without a good reason should be inexcusable.

When my husband was a consular officer at that very same embassy in the early 1970s – and the visa waiver program that makes it far easier for Swiss tourists and business people to travel visa-less to the U.S. and hence cuts down the workload for U.S. consular officers and Swiss consular staff was not even a twinkle in the State Department’s eye - an appointment for someone like Mr. Keyser’s wife surely wouldn’t need to have been scheduled more than four months in advance.

So what’s the difference now? Understaffing? Overwork? Ineptitude?

PBS: The Only Safe Electronic Babysitter

By PLS

Maternal instinct, if there is such a thing, was totally left out of my make up. With babies I had to learn it all, and the crash course that came with baby number one was rough. I’ll leave out the excruciating details and sing praises to the most wonderful nanny in the contemporary world: TV.

Let’s be honest. Sometimes the only way to relief and sanity for the most devoted and responsible parents is TV.

But not just any TV. PBS. Only PBS.

Why? Three reasons.

First, no commercials hawking candy, sugar-coated cereal and greasy salty stuff.

Second, no consumerism, no message that happiness is something you buy.

Third, the values thing: no violence or cruelty. When my kids were little, PBS meant Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood and Sesame Street with a big yellow bird. These days my grandson loves PBS for the big red dog. But always PBS programs for children have encouraged kindness, honesty, cooperation, generosity, sincerity, friendliness, learning, resourcefulness, cheerfulness, helpfulness, the building blocks for a self-respecting life, a good community, a decent world—the values at the root of every ethic or religion in the world, for that matter.

Tuesday Datura Blogging

by CKR

My datura bloomed this past week. Unfortunately, by the time I managed to get a photo, it was saggy. They last only for a day. Temperatures have been in the nineties for the past several days, so it might have been too dry, although the leaves were turgid.

History and Promoting Global Democracy – Rebuttal II

by CKR

Rebuttal I, with links to previous posts
Mark’s Rebuttal I

Mark and I seem to be in violent agreement on the uses of history. I’m delighted that he finds my thinking in good historical shape. I’m actually recycling the logic I learned in my physical science courses. Logic seems to continue pretty much the same in all disciplines. I’ll also add some heavy credit to my one college World History course, required as part of a liberal arts education and of not too much interest to me until I started looking into history seriously. There was a reason for all those dates! It actually makes a difference that event A occurred before event B.

The problem with analysis and synthesis needing different modes of thinking plagues all academic subjects and has become worse as academia has become more specialized. Analysis is valued because it’s easier to write a thesis that way: you can come to some sort of finite conclusion and therefore minimize your committee’s time and effort. There’s no telling where synthesis might go, or, frequently, how to judge it. The problem is somewhat less in the physical sciences, but it’s there too.

Isn’t It Time To Admit It?

by CKR

News reports and comments by the punditocracy continue to express amazement that a smaller, more poorly equipped and trained force can avoid being wiped out by the funded-as-much-as-all-the-rest-of-the-world US Army, this time in Iraq, while administration spokespeople continue to insist that the insurgency is in its “last throes.”

Isn’t it time to go back to some elementary warfighting principles? Sun Tsu, Clausewitz? That’s what the insurgents in Iraq are doing.

Choose the time and place of your battle. Car bombs, IEDs, ambushes.

Confuse the enemy. The US still doesn’t seem to know who the insurgents are.

The insurgents have an inherent advantage in the way the fight is defined: all they have to do is continue to provide chaos. The US has to provide order.

The insurgents have an inherent advantage in the way the fight is fought: they can hide among civilians. As the US fights through the civilians to find the insurgents, they send civilians to the side of the insurgents.

There are so many relevant quotes on the websites I’ve linked that I didn’t bother to take direct quotes.

The same thing happened, to the same puzzlement, in Vietnam. It also happened, with the Americans on the smart side, in the American Revolution. The British were equally puzzled and offended that the rebels wouldn’t stand in formation for setpiece battles.

Whether we call them fourth-generation warfare, insurgency, or terrorism, hit-and-run tactics by dedicated fighters clearly have an advantage over an occupying army, no matter how well that army is trained and equipped.

It’s important to recognize that, because that will determine the response. Or at least that’s what Sun Tsu and Clausewitz say.

Why I joined the UN Association

By PHK

I just joined the UN/USA organization for the first time. Sent in my $40 annual dues for 2005 on Friday. A symbolic gesture primarily. But I guess this is my small way of defying the Republicans in Congress who think the best way to treat international organizations is to starve them to death because, oh my gosh, there’s graft and corruption and the UN needs reform. So Henry Hyde, Chair of the House International Relations Committee, and his Republican Congressional pals voted 221-184 to cut the U.S. annual contribution to the United Nations to one-half of the $440 million this year as a stick to goad the organization to change its errant ways.

Give me a break. What large organization doesn’t need reform? Doesn’t have its share of corruption that requires application of the hoe and spade? Come to think of it, the U.S. House of Representatives might review some of its own “best practices” some time. Its members might reflect upon their own financial rectitude - who financed their campaigns and to whom they are, therefore, beholden. The oil and gas industry, for example? Big Steel? Brokerage houses? The airlines? Halliburton? SAIC? Agricultural conglomerates? Defense industries? There's a saying: power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There's another: If the shoe fits, wear it. And another about the pot calling the kettle black. Take your choice.

History and Promoting Global Democracy—Rebuttal I

by CKR

Continuing my debate with Mark of ZenPundit.

Update: Mark's first rebuttal
My original post
Mark’s original post (in two parts, here and here)
Challenge from Dr. Demarche

Mark and I agree on many aspects of the uses of history. He has chosen to go into some extended examples in contrast to my sketchier overview with glancing examples. The interesting question then becomes why we come to different conclusions on many issues.

One reason is that we have different assumptions. Mark seems to accept the Bush administration’s assumption that democracy can be spread at the point of a gun. I may be a bit unfair in stating it that way, but I’m not aware that that theory has been clearly enunciated by those in authority. The examples of Germany and Japan miss the point. World War II was not fought for the purpose of bringing democracy to Germany and Japan. It was fought because those two countries attacked others and occupied them. However, once the war was over, both those countries required significant rebuilding. It made sense to couple physical rebuilding with political rebuilding.

Promoting or spreading democracy must be carried out on multiple fronts. This rebuttal will be mostly on spreading democracy by warlike means or after wars fought for other reasons. But I hope we can turn to all the ways America and the democratic nations present themselves and their values to the world, all of which contribute to or detract from the spread of democracy. I might add that if the point of spreading democracy is that democratic nations engage less often in wars, then war is a strange way to spread democracy.