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HOW ABOUT A VIRTUAL PEACE CORPS?

By Guest Contributor Joan Wadelton

(WV editor - Patricia H Kushlis' comment:  It seems to me that many returned Peace Corps volunteers would be delighted to have the opportunity to teach and engage again with people in their countries of service over the Internet whether they be recently returned PCVs whose stays were abruptly cut short because of the COVID-19 pandemic or others who returned years ago.  Joan Wadelton's proposal below is creative, innovative and would be cost effective.  I would hope that the Peace Corps leadership would consider it seriously. )  

The Peace Corps is a wonderful organization that has sent 230,000 Americans as volunteers all over the world since 1961.  I was fortunate to spend three years in Niger as a health worker, in a village away from the capital many years ago.  My Peace Corps service prompted my life-long love of Africa.

The Peace Corps mission is:

• To help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
• To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
• To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

Although countries with a Peace Corps presence have changed over the years, and the number of volunteers has fluctuated, this mission is as valid today as it was in 1961.

Generally, volunteers have been young adults just beginning their careers and not yet encumbered by family responsibilities.  Indeed, a look at the official Peace Corps website shows a skew toward this demographic.  A demographic that brings enthusiasm and a willingness to live in new places, get the job done, learn about a new culture and actively engage local populations.

This traditional model – with volunteers living and working in other countries -- has been productive and successful.  It has been refined over decades and should be retained.

But is there another way to accomplish the capacity building that is at the heart of the Peace Corps mission?

Yes, and that is remotely, through the internet.  In this approach, volunteers would remain in the United States and conduct their training and teaching activities online.

The Peace Corps would conduct its overseas and virtual volunteer programs side-by-side. 

How would the virtual volunteer program work?

Virtual volunteers would be hired under the same terms and conditions as the overseas volunteers (taking into account the fact that they would not be working overseas).   That is, they would be expected to work on a regular basis -- but not be paid.  They would need access to the internet and the ability to manage Skype, Zoom or similar programs as teaching tools. 

What would virtual volunteers bring to the table?

A virtual Peace Corps would draw from a broader universe of potential volunteers than the existing in-country programs.  For example:

• People who are older and more advanced in their careers – with more knowledge and experience to share – who would not normally move to another country;
• People whose family commitments prevent them from traveling, but who have a passion for sharing their knowledge;
• People who cannot easily travel, but who have always wanted to teach and learn about other countries and cultures.

Would the virtual program be consistent with the core Peace Corps mission?

Yes, a virtual program would reinforce and amplify the key Peace Corps’ mission goals, noted above.  It would also build collaborative working relationships, drawing on wide ranging expertise.

• Greater numbers of more experienced volunteers would add to the capacity building potential of the Peace Corps.
• A virtual program would widen the pool of Americans who would be interacting with people in other countries, thereby promoting greater understanding of the United States and its values abroad.
• And, exposing more Americans to diverse cultures, situations and peoples would strengthen US understanding of the world and enhance our interactions with it.

How would the virtual program be managed?

The virtual programs would be managed alongside existing in-country programs.  Just as with the in-country programs, Peace Corps offices overseas would work with host country officials to identify programmatic and training needs.  Peace Corps recruiters in Washington – dedicated specifically to the virtual program – would identify appropriate candidates to address those needs. 

What would be the administrative and logistical issues?

To implement a virtual Peace Corps program, Congress would need to appropriate additional funding and staff.  However, as a virtual program would not require volunteer travel and housing expenses, a large amount of new money might not be necessary.

The host countries would be responsible for providing adequate internet access and classroom facilities to support the virtual volunteers’ teaching needs.  They would not be able to charge for any training provided by the US government and would have to absorb all the associated costs.  Host countries would also be responsible for identifying gaps in local capacity that virtual volunteers could fill.

What would the host country get out of the virtual program? 

The universe of volunteers available on a virtual basis is likely to be larger and more experienced than the number of Americans willing to relocate to another country.  Host countries would therefore be able to provide a broader array of training programs to their citizens.  It would also be an opportunity for host countries to forge closer, long-term ties with a wide range of US business, educationa,l civil society and technological entities.

Conclusion

The Peace Corps should transform into a two-track organization.  Peace Corps missions overseas would administer both the in-country and virtual programs.  Peace Corps headquarters in Washington would recruit for, and support, both programs.  In this way, a venerable institution could continue on its successful and traditional path, while simultaneously moving into the 21^st century.

Annals of Appropriation: The Blue Jeans Scandal

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Levi Strauss is probably writhing in his grave. Let’s set him at peace. The outrageous appropriation of his distinctive contribution to American national dress must end—and it must end soon. I’m calling for global closet searches and bon fires. Blue jeans belong in America on Americans.

Until recently I’ve been willing to classify the global dispersion of denim-wear as an extremely successful form of U.S. aid. It’s clear that no American contribution to world welfare has been more popular than blue jeans. They’re practical. They’re durable. They’re machine washable and don’t need ironing—and they don’t wrinkle, if you get the right fit. Above all, they’re cheap. Any one can afford them.

Correction: they should be cheap, which is why I propose to prosecute especially severely those who have not only appropriated our national dress but undermined our national identity, turning good old blue jeans into obscenely expensive designer wear of the sort affordable only by the 5%, thus discriminating against ordinary Americans, who have a right to display their heritage on their own bodies. At the very least these alien brands must named and shamed. Furthermore, patriotic Americans must boycott the entire fashion line any designer who presumes to exploit jeans without concern for American sensitivities.

Excuse me if I also propose that such shocking rip offs be ripped off any non-American daring to flaunt them within 24 hours after a publically announced cut off date. Those who end up in a mooning posture in the middle of a winter snow storm will have only themselves to blame for their exposure.

For the longest time I believed that it might be culturally sensitive, even generous, to overlook this egregious cultural theft, preferring to see it as a form of respect and admiration. But no more—and I’ll tell you why. I bought a great big fuzzy Uzbek sheepskin hat while I was in Central Asia a few months ago. It gets cold in Santa Fe, and an Uzbek hat would solve the annual frostbitten ears problem. If it’s stupid to reinvent the wheel, after all, it’s stupid to reinvent a superb cold weather hat.

No, I wasn’t going to wear my Uzbek prize to a Halloween party replete with ghouls and witches, Batmen and Wonder Women, wookies and vampires. I wasn’t going to turn it into the Central Asian version of “black face.” I was going to wear it as intended, thank you very much.

But just this week I was informed in no uncertain terms that wearing an Uzbek hat as a winter head covering in America would be a highly visible example of cultural appropriation, an affront to proud, respectable Uzbeks—as if it hadn’t been sold to me by proud respectable Uzbeks out to make an honest living. It would be particularly shocking, I was told, on the part of a person who sometimes thinks of herself as a global citizen.

But whoa! Isn’t global citizenship about coming together, getting to know one another and sharing? Sharing music. Sharing ideas. Sharing food. In sum: treasuring traditions and also mixing things up. The sort of thing that Yo Yo Ma does so well. Also the sort of thing that’s truly American. We are such a mish-mash of cultures and customs that we exist in a constant dizzy state of promiscuous cultural appropriation. It’s creative. It’s exciting. What sane person would wish (or try) to unmix the mix? (Except for Donald J. Trump, perhaps, who prefers to divide and conquer.)

I read not so long ago that an American university cafeteria had been excoriated for serving inauthentic Thai and Chinese food, a particularly insulting form of cultural appropriation evidently. Well, if Thai and Chinese has to be removed from the menu, shouldn’t pizza go, too? And French fries! And tamales? And sushi? And so on. Must I eat nothing but baked beans and succotash because of my New England heritage? Must I close the curtains and swear everyone to secrecy when I cook (highly inauthentic) Indian curries?

And so I’m hitting back. If I have to empty my closet because it’s full of Indian garb I’m now forbidden to wear (although no one in India thought it was offensive), it’s time to put a stop to the promiscuous and heinous appropriation of American jeans. What are young men everywhere in the world wearing? Jeans. What are their sisters wearing? Jeans. What are covered women in Saudi Arabia wearing under their abeyas? Jeans. What’s taking the place of sarongs in Tahiti? Jeans. What did smugglers smuggle into the Soviet Union? Jeans. What did our Uzbek guides in Tashkent wear? Jeans. It has to stop.

Jeans are an American cultural treasure. Given the current thinking on cultural appropriation, all jeans must be repatriated or destroyed. Those who resist must be shamed and shunned, if not shot.  Let Levi Strauss rest in peace.

 

The Empires Strike Back

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Imagine waking up tomorrow and discovering that Matteo Renzi’s Rome—I mean Italy—had sent several legions—I mean an army—to recapture Brittania—I mean, England—and some triremes—I mean freighters—are heading to Carthage—I mean, Tunis—to confiscate the year’s wheat harvest.

That would seem pretty weird, wouldn’t it?

But isn’t it equally bizarre to find that Turkey is justifying its participation in the effort to drive ISIS out of Mosul not only on the pretext of protecting itself from potential PKK safe havens in the Kurdish Autonomous region of Iraq but on historic grounds. Once upon a time the Ottoman Turks controlled all the Middle East, including Egypt—Watch out, President Sisi!—and much of southeastern Europe. Meanwhile, says Nensur Akgun, director of the Global Political Trends Center in Turkey: “A century ago [Mosul]was Turkey.” But alas! Turkey chose the wrong allies during World War I, leaving France and The U.K to squabble over the territorial spoils that seem to be up for grabs once again.

Meanwhile, China is belligerently devoted to claiming every islet or outcropping of rock in the South China Sea, plus every cove from which a Chinese fishing boat may have brought up a catch over the past several millenia. So watch out, Indonesia! Some Javan rulers once paid tribute to a Chinese emperor. Of course, Beijing is still trying to digest Tibet and Xinjiang, both of which had the misfortune of coming under Chinese control for various discontinuous periods in the past. But maybe Comrade Xi should be a little more circumspect. Some extraordinarily well-preserved, 4000-year-old Caucasian mummies dressed in European textiles have been disinterred from the Taklamatan desert. Surely the European Union can claim rights to this portion of the old Silk Road.

And need I mention Vladimir Putin’s appetite for reclaiming truant SSRs? Perhaps he forgets that Sweden has an earlier claim to the Baltic nations. Finland, too, was Swedish, once, with plenty of Swedes left to testify. Fortunately Sweden prefers cooperation to annexation these days. Russia, meanwhile, has been nibbling away at Georgia and Ukraine with some success, so when Putin dropped in on Tashkent after the Group of 20 meeting in China, he clearly expected Uzbekistan to behave like a Russian fief again. The feedback I got from the locals: no way! They’ve been corrupted by 25 years of independence, as Moscow no doubt perceives it.

There are some other possibilities that haven’t surfaced yet. Brexit may actually happen, but isn’t it time for the sun never to set on the British empire again? Surely India sees the glory in that.  But wait! There’s a prior claim on India. The Timurid descendants of Mongol conquerer Genghis Khan (b.1163) ruled in Delhi for centuries. In fact, the octopus-like Mongol empire encompassed Russia, took in Persia, threatened medieval Europe and controlled China as well.  Has Mr. Xi forgotten this?

And maybe we shouldn’t wait for ISIS to invade Spain. Since Muslims were ruling much of the Iberian peninsula before Ferdinand and Isabella kicked out the Jews, why not get the re-reconquista over without bloodshed? But wait on that, too. The Romans were in Spain before the Moors.

And this is where we began.  Don’t throw away your old maps and globes.

Uzbekistan Transitions in Moscow’s Shadow

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

When I arrived in Tashkent, the country was still officially mourning the the death of President Islam Karimov. Karimov, appointed Governor of the Uzbekistan SSR by Soviet President Gorbachev, parlayed that position into a brutal 25 year dictatorship over a newly independent country. The few ordinary people with whom I was able to manage a one-on-one chat in Tashkent (including the proverbial outspoken taxi driver with a sister living in the Bronx), mourned Karimov’s death because he had provided peace and stability without stinting on development. Others echoed that sentiment, which surprised me, but only at first. Without security, after all, both justice and happiness are fragile.

Unfortunately Karimov had also stayed in power by creating a durable climate of fear and repression, which led our Uzbek trip leaders to choose their words carefully and request that we not include them in group pictures. Even with Karimov gone, they couldn’t relax. Like all reasonably well-informed persons, they expected that a clone would inherit his power. But it could have been worse. The transition was being managed without violence.

Enter Vladimir

Then, just as a city that had been shut down for the customary period of mourning was about to get back to normal, Vladimir Putin arrived, supposedly making a condolence visit on his way home from a Group of 20 conclave. Thanks to his motorcades, the center of the city was closed to non-official vehicles, including tour buses. The result for my tour group? More days of “death marches” in full sun at temperatures in the high eighties to reach itinerary sites.

Most of us on the tour were suffering severe withdrawal pangs from the lack of public information sources in Tashkent. Anything resembling a newspaper is non-existent in Uzbekistan. Even BBC news on TV is tailored to avoid alarming censors. But the official line was that Vladimir had dropped in to say a sad farewell to his good friend Islam Karimov. No one swallowed that story, of course. Not our guides. Not the few locals we managed to speak to. Not my very savvy tour group. We all knew that Putin was there to make sure that those managing the transition to a new regime were sufficiently aware of Russia’s importance to the country’s (and their) well-being. The USSR might have disintegrated, but Moscow still expected to call the shots.

Sloughing Russian

Meanwhile, reminders of Russia’s role in post Silk Road Uzbeck history were constant and ubiquitous. Once written in an Arabic-like script, the Uzbek language had been switched to Cyrillic under the Russians, although the government is currently promoting the Roman script. The dizzying result is that “sign language” in Tashkent comes in both scripts. And because English is now being encouraged as a second language, many young people are no longer fluent in Russian. Nevertheless, my vocabulary of six or seven Russian phrases/words was very useful: Yes! No! Please! Thanks! Great! No matter! Cheers! Especially the latter. I rediscovered a taste for vodka, which flowed freely in this Muslim majority nation. (Uzbekistan is making some drinkable wine, too.)

Older adults, on the other hand, still find a good use for their knowledge of imperial Russian, especially when there’s business to be done. If you speak in Uzbek, I was told, you have to be emotionally effusive, which takes time. Using Russian allows you to be cold and efficient. My experience was a little different. Many of our hotels were run and staffed by Russians who treated guests as nuisances to be endured. Ditto the officials overseeing the immigration and customs process. They dallied over procedures and barked at impatient travelers. Again and again in Uzbekistan, I was reminded of the frustrations of trying to get things done in Soviet Moscow. By contrast, when I encountered Uzbeks in non-official contexts, helpfulness and friendliness were indeed the norm.

Putin Clones

Most amusingly, the persistent Russian influence is strongly reflected in the body language, male version, of ethnic Russians and young men of Uzbek-Russian parentage. They carry themselves like Vladimir Putin himself, gruff, sullen, aggressively masculine, Mafia-like. As a woman, I felt vaguely uneasy in their presence. The Uzbek mode, by contrast, was comforting.

Why should anyone be surprised? Several centuries in a stifling Russian bear hug was bound to leave its mark on Uzbek life, just as English colonial rule, though officially ended some sixty years ago, continues to influence culture and politics in India.

Proudly Independent

But even as Uzbeks were recognizing the passing of Islam Karimov, they were also in the midst of proudly celebrating 25 years of independence. That’s a quarter of a century of freedom from Russia. If Vladimir Putin thinks he can treat these proud people as little more than neo-serfs, existing mainly to enhance his own position on the world stage, he is sadly mistaken. Uzbeks come across as proudly aware of their ancient history and its profound intellectual contributions to world culture, especially in astronomy and mathematics.

Although China is promoting economic projects related to its efforts to revive trade along the old Silk Roads, it’s unlikely that modern Uzbekistan will submit any more willingly to Chinese dictation.

A Tolerant Tradition

Let’s go back to those ethnic Russians who remain in Uzbekistan and add a few more genes to the ethnic mix. One of our Uzbek guides was pure Arab, he said. The other was of Tajik descent. Both happily identified as Uzbek nationals. Historically, they insisted, ethnic and religious tolerance were key Uzbek traits arising partly from the cosmopolitanism of trade but also from the role of Sufism, which continues to dominate Muslim practice in the area. When it comes to religion, our guides insisted, “we are not fanatics.” The laws of the land, they said, are designed to prevent children from being propagandized before they are able to think straight. There are no religious schools, and children under the age of sixteen not allowed to pray in the mosque.

Anti-clericalism was Soviet policy, too, but it’s notable that an independent Uzbekistan has not reverted to a repressive version of Shariah law. When members of our tour group mentioned that some Uzbeks had been accused of promoting terrorism, our guides reminded us of the sizeable Uzbek minority in Taliban-ravaged Afghanistan.

Interestingly enough, although many of us had been attracted to the tour in order to see with our own eyes the elegant remnants of the past in the form of blue-tiled mosques, madrassas and mausoleums, there were few minarets or domes, which is to say, few newish mosques to be seen, as we passed, via bus and train, through towns and villages en route to Bukhara, Samarkand, Kiva, Urgench. What we saw were cotton fields ready for picking and tidy, comfortable looking villages. The absence of domineering mosques is ambiguous, of course. It may be that a repressed Salafism is seething unseen. Or it may mean that the easy-going Sufi tradition continues to dominate.

Appealing Modernity

In any event, as I traveled around with the group, I found myself infinitely more fascinated with a surprisingly prosperous contemporary Uzbekistan than with the beautiful, but too familiar monuments. I’d been told that Tashkent is a bore, not worth visiting, but I found it to be an utterly charming capital, full of parks and tree-lined avenues in harmony with the necessarily large bureaucratic buildings as well as the well-swept commercial streets. The female street sweepers, by the way, also reminded me of Moscow, especially their posture, hunched over old fashioned straw brooms.

I wouldn’t mind going back to Uzbekistan, but I’d go alone, traveling at my own pace, lingering to take tea with people, poking into quiet streets, doing all the things you have to do to really get to see into the heart of a place. But should you go, solo or with a group, remember to keep your papers in order. Some of our group wasted a lot of time straightening out glitches. Uzbekistan is still a post-Soviet police state, after all.

 

Sochi Ho: Some Sensible Words of Warning Before You Go

By Patricia H Kushlis

The US State Department recently issued a travel advisory to American citizens planning to attend the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Sochi, Russia in February and March.  Often the media ignores or fails to publish the Department’s Travel Advisories.  This one’s circulation, however, has received relatively widespread coverage – from Fox News to the New York Times almost as soon as it hit the web.  

State’s Advisory contains practical information for first time vistors to Russia and reminders to more seasoned ones particularly those traveling to the troubled Northern Caucasus where Sochi is located.

My advice: if this is a trip you plan to undertake, print the advisory out before you head off, take a copy with you, heed its contents, and watch the website for updates.  The information will have been coordinated with the US Embassy Consular Section in Moscow. And a special unit from the US Consular Section (tough but likely busy duty?) will be at the Games to help American citizens in distress. 

Russia has changed greatly since it became the successor state to the Soviet Union in 1991 and certainly since the Moscow Olympics in 1980 - but still not all is sweetness and light.  

Laying out the welcome mat

Putting aside politics – and whatever one thinks of President (for life?) Vladimir Putin – the country, for the most part, will lay out the welcome mat to Olympic athletes and guests:  Much international prestige rides on the conduct of successful games.  Besides the Russians are proud of their own athletic prowess especially in winter sports and want to come off as winners (who can blame them) in the international spotlight:  sports and international politics intermingle in the Russian psyche.

Furthermore, Sochi itself is a long time domestic Black Sea tourist destination for Russians seeking refuge in a less harsh climate – namely the chance to bask in the sun - dating back to the days of the Czars and the country wants to develop it into a popular international resort. 

If there’s one thing that Russia will do to make the Games go off without a hitch is impose tight security.  American counter-terrorism experts may grouse that they have not been involved – at least that’s what Fox News reported – but expect the Russian Federation’s police-state security experts to do everything they can to keep the sites protected from potential terrorist acts.  That doesn’t mean they won’t happen:  remember Atlanta, Munich and for that matter the 2013 Boston Marathon (which if US counter terrorism experts had been in closer contact with their Russian counterparts perhaps could have been avoided).

Inevitable politics

The dilemma is that the Olympics, regardless of location, are natural attractions to groups and individuals intent upon making political statements before an international audience of millions.  This stage doesn’t come their way all that often. Such statements have been made through peaceful demonstrations or occasionally premeditated acts of murder.  Those who make them are looking for front page headlines and top of the news coverage.

The Russian government is fighting jut the latest round of the Chechen rebellion since the Soviet Union collapsed.  Sochi is very much a piece of the troubled North Caucasus.

The Russian authorities succeeded in regaining power in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, only to have the conflict spread to neighboring regions like Dagistan and among other ethnic Caucasian minorities - like a vial of mercury dropped on the floor. 

Two suicide attacks in Volgograd – Russia's transportation hub into the North Caucasus - in December followed by the accidental traffic death in Moscow of a major Chechen leader just show how acts of domestic terrorism are not far away.  The Boston Marathon murders last April by two radicalized Chechen young men just show how far the troubles can reach.

The New Great Game? Russia, China and Central Asia

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Throughout the Gorbachev years and before, the Soviet Union’s five Central Asian Republics (otherwise known as the -stans) were the strongest supporters of the Soviet Union.  When the collapse came, they were also the least prepared for independence politically or economically.  Prior to their forced assimilation into the Russian Empire in the 19th century, they had been Turkic or Persian speaking Muslim khanates with all that they entailed.

As part of the Soviet Union, a kind of modernization was brought to the region.  Women were freed of the veil – sometimes forcibly - and required to go to school.   They still, however, often produced large families – and when the Soviets sought “hero” mothers with 14 or so children to deify, the authorities turned to the Central Asians because few, if any Russians, Slavs, Balts or Moldovans, met the numeric requirements.

Meanwhile, Moscow used Central Asians as wartime cannon fodder and conscript brigades were sent to repair Moscow’s streets, water and sewer systems. Stalin divided the khanates into republics fractionalizing the ethnicities according to the best divide and rule policies of the time – an historic fact of life that continues to prove an irritant to amicable relations among and within the republics thereby causing friction and instability domestically and providing a convenient way for Russians and others to manipulate the five largely authoritarian countries to their advantage.   

What is perhaps less generally known is that by the 1970s the Soviets regularly transferred wealth from the European parts of the Union to Central Asia to keep the Central Asians materially satisfied so that the Russians and other Slavs could continue to rule the vast region and its resources unchallenged.  They also controlled the republics through a "second in command" system (namely by placing a Central Asian to the top position and a ethnic Russian as deputy.)

Furthermore, for the most part, the Soviets kept the Central Asians isolated.  Strict travel and emigration restrictions meant that they had little contact with the West, could not establish residency in the prestige cities of Moscow and Leningrad and their only bases for comparison – if they had them at all – were India, Pakistan and Afghanistan – countries most directly to their south.

Of the Central Asian republics, only Kazakhstan has produced substantial petroleum.  So it’s no surprise that today this republic remains the richest of the five. And by 1991, it’s quite likely that a majority of the republic’s population was Slavic – if not Russian – despite what the then census claimed.

The other Central Asian republics had basically been caravan stops on the ubiquitous Silk Road with multiple branches that ran from eastern China to Istanbul from the Middle Ages onward although Uzbekistan's cotton crop was prized within the Soviet Union itself.    

"Voting Against Freedom"

In Joshua Kucera’s article, “Voting Against Freedom,” in the Winter 2013 Wilson Quarterly, the author seeks to answer the question as to why democracy has failed in the former Soviet Union – with the exception of the Baltic Republics and Moldova – and criticizes the Clinton State Department and Obama Administration for pretending that democracy building there remains a realistic goal for US foreign policy. 

SYRIA: WHY RUSSIA AND CHINA ARE APPLYING THE BRAKES

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

From any normal human point of view, the disinclination of Russia and China to enthusiastically join efforts to restrain Bashar Assad from his slaughter fest is incomprehensible.  So far as I can tell, not even the most horrified foreign leaders are eager to put boots on the ground or even to provide the degree of assistance that Libyan rebels received, but China and Russia are not ready for serious jaw-boning, either. Nor have they joined the chorus suggesting that Assad and his family might seek a cozy retirement site. If recently leaked emails are authentic, the Assads would settle for nothing less than world class luxury aka life among the global 1%.  Bribing the unjust with chateaux leaves a very bad taste in the mouth, but it’s a time honored way to dislodge tyrants with minimal loss of life.

Meanwhile, what a bonus for the enablers!  While supporting a brutal dictatorship, China and Russia  masquerade as global  good citizens upholding long understood principles of international law.

Yes, a state is allowed to protect itself from most civil unrest and to defend itself from external threat. But only up to a point, in each case. 

The Assad regime claims to be restoring peace and stability by neutralizing “armed gangs” beholden to outside forces. When restoring order requires the scale of destruction we’ve seen in Homs, including day-after-day blanket shelling of residential areas followed by the systematic house-to-house slaughter of survivors, it’s probably safe to say the regime  has lost its legitimacy.  At this point what’s labeled unrest more closely resembles revolution, To date, in Syria, nearly 10,000 people have been killed, and yet unarmed civilians continue to take to the streets in their thousands at the risk of being picked off by snipers stationed on roof tops. Individual soldiers and even whole units of the army have joined the rebels.  So have some high ranking officers and even a minister in the Assad government.  It seems a shame that many more people will have to die before Bashar finally admits that his day at the top is over.

Yes, external meddling in the internal affairs of a country is normally to be deplored and resisted.  The sovereignty argument has always made considerable sense because international neighbors, if bigger and stronger, tend to be greedy and aggressive. So it might be argued that China and Russia are taking the high road in respecting Syria’s sovereignty.  However, the genocides and other brutalities of the twentieth century have given rise to an important sovereignty-trumping principle. It is known as the “responsibility to protect,” which means that rulers do not have carte blanche in terrorizing their own citizens. When external interference prevents internal massacre, it is not judged to be a classic invasion of sovereignty. The Assad regime, it would seem, has set itself up for some meddling, to put it mildly.

Unfortunately for the rebels, Syria is not Libya.  Syria is a heavily populated country.  It is well institutionalized and the regime controls all subordinate centers of power, including a very large army officered  by members of the minority Alowite sect to which the Assads belong.  

This brings us to the problem of minorities in Syria, most of whom, it's argued, continue to support the secular-minded  Assad regime.  Syrian Christians have no doubt noted that the Coptics in Egypt fared better under Mubarak than they seem to be doing now.  Alowites may fear the sort of retalitory maltreatment that Sunnis are presently suffering in Iraq.  The Asad regime may be brutal, but it is an equal opportunity oppressor, which is a grudging way of recognizing its relative tolerance for minorities.  The U.S. Constitution's  Bill of Rights protects minorities from the tyrrany of the majority.  As the aftermath of the Arab spring indicates, tolerance doesn't always come automatically with democracy.

Minorities' not unfounded fear of repression gives some altruistic cover to the Chinese and Russian tenderness toward the Assad regime, but other motives for their behavior are no doubt more persuasive.  Neither country is governed by figures who find it convenient to respect the will of the people.  Russia’s Vladimir Putin maintains his hold on power by manipulating elections, curbing the media, jailing opponents and breaking up demonstrations before they get too large and enthusiastic.  China tolerates absolutely no debate or street activity at all.  What’s more, both regimes rigorously suppress the political and cultural demands of their ethnic and religious minorities, especially those who happen to form majorities in ancestral territories with historic claims to independence.  Like Homs, Chechnya was ravaged to keep it Russian; brutality keeps it Russian.  Suppression of protest over cultural genocide in Tibet is so complete that an increasing number of monks have resorted to setting themslves aflame, although Tibetan Buddhism does not encourage such acts.  Meanwhile, Beijing floods Tibet with Han Chinese in order to reduce Tibetans to a minority in what was once their own country.  (The Soviets did the same in the Baltic states, which has led to many complications for the post-Communist governments in those countries.) 

Freedom of speech?  Freedom of assembly?  Freedom to chose one’s leadership in free and fair elections? Syrians want these freedoms.  If China and Russia acknowledge the validity of Syrians’ desires, how can they continue to deny them to the people within their own national boundaries?

Afghanistan, the U.S. and Attila the Hun

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Goths.  Vandals.  Huns.  I bet you  experienced a twinge of distaste as your eyes passed over those names.  That’s not surprising.  They were enemies of Rome, and our sources for the history of the period are Roman.  I’d be willing to bet that the same nose-wrinkling occurs when you encounter a reference to the Taliban. 

Back in the fifth century A.D.  Rome was an over-extended status quo power (divided into Eastern and Western wings) on the defense against the resurgent and/or newly arrived peoples on its periphery.  The crux: too many challenges, not enough divisions.  The Vandals had seized half of North Africa, including Carthage.  The Goths were in control of much of what’s now Spain and more.  The Huns, or at least a formidable branch of them, had settled into the Hungarian steppe.  Settled is the operative word.  They were no longer nomadic.  They were trading with their more powerful neighbors and, up to a point,  they were often happy to accept tribute in gold instead of wiping out populations.  Not that they wouldn’t go on a rampage if crossed.     

Christopher Kelly, author of The End of Empire: Attila the Hun and the Fall of Rome, calls the Huns’ emphasis on tribute a “protection racket.” Think of it as a money-making scheme not so different from the extortions of many post-ideological  insurgent groups today.  Threatened entities pay up to ward off death and destruction, thus strengthening and emboldening the very forces they fear. (The Huns' racket is also reminiscent of the process by which U.S.-hired contractors and sub-contractors pay Taliban units for safe passage.  The supplies reach our troops, but the enemy gets the funds to buy countervailing armaments.)

At any rate, Rome had serious problems.  Bad enough they had in the Huns a formidable enemy.  Worse, the Roman leadership clung to a cliched, mythologized  image of the enemy.  Kelly shows how the Hun descriptors used by an influential late 4th century A.D.  Roman historian derive from the fanciful evocations of the Greek historian Herodotus (484-425 BCE.) and, for that matter, Homer’s Odyssey (9th-8th century BCE).  To simplify: barbarians are beasts or monsters.  Huns are barbariens.  Ergo....

Unfortunately, there are no written records in the Hunnic language, which, even as a spoken tongue, is extinct.  But one Priscus was sent from Constantinople on an embassy to Attila’s court in 449 A.D.  Based on his experiences, Priscus wrote A History of Attila in eight volumes. ( It was published too late to do any good strategically.)  Thanks to mindlessly brutal pruning in the tenth century, only 35 fragments of the old manuscript survive to our times, but what’s left, according to Kelly, allows us a glimpse of Attila’s capital and court at the time of the end game, not long before the so-called barbarian invasions reduced the Western Roman empire to a peninsular affair with borders not so different from modern Italy’s.

As I read Kelly’s conscientious revisionist portrait of Attila, trying to keep all the wars, battles and personalities straight, I found my view of Attila transformed.  I also found myself thinking of the amorphous war in Afghanistan and the fact that it’s only one of the wars the U.S. is waging, overtly or covertly, against militant Islam. Like Rome’s, America's efforts lack strategic coherence and sustainability .  The U.S. doesn't have enough armies or fractions of armies to operate, simultaneously, in Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, to say nothing of the mess involving Israel and the war that is likely to erupt in southern Sudan when the referendum on independence for the South is tallied.  Like Rome, we rely on more or less unsavory proxies and more or less unwilling allies to deal with a protean enemy, and still we must extract troops from one shakily controlled locale to reinforce another. 

The U.S. isn’t poor.  It’s still the richest country in the world.  Ditto Rome back then.  But as Rome was acquiring and consolidating its empire, the world was changing.  Long before Attila became leader of the Huns on the Hungarian steppe,  Rome was on the defense in every quarter.  Rome's armies had become border police. Tribes that had been pushovers in earlier times had acquired new technologies, more sophisticate tactics, more worldly leaders, more ambitious goals, etc., and they had begun a pushback  Inch by inch, mile by mile, river by river, Rome’s subjugated peoples were reclaiming their lands and freedom.  Attila, the alert and wily leader of a lately rooted, originally nomadic people, was one such leader.  The arrows in his quiver included imaginative diplomacy as well as brutal applications of the age-old scorched earth policy.  Sometimes he was Rome’s ally.  Sometimes he was Rome’s antagonist.  He was a master of surprise, ambiguity and unpredictability, according to Kelly. His intelligence was always very very good.  Need I say that Taliban leadership isn't so bad either?

Naturally, since I was already reading about Rome when the now infamous Rolling Stone article about the runaway general hit the internet, I couldn’t help thinking how poorly President Barak Obama had handled the necessary dismissal of his own insubordinate general in Afghanistan. 

Obama,  foolishly, underplayed the constitutionally-important subordination issue by accusing McChrystal of “divisiveness” vis-à-vis administration policy.  On a pragmatic level, whatever the pretext, the dismissal served his purpose: he got rid of a general who wasn’t sympatico.  This is every president’s prerogative. Yet, in the very next breath, and then repeatedly, Obama explicitly and very unwisely re-committed himself to a failed—or at least badly applied—policy.  I can understand the politics here.  Attempting to appear steadfast in order to neutralize  enemies  who persist in portraying him as a backboneless wimp, Obama embraced a foolishly short-sighted rigidity instead, welding himself to a policy he will have to modify in the not too distant future.   What’s more, by avoiding the trap set by one bunch of  Republicans, he fell afoul of another Republican critique: being too transparent to the enemy.  He'd already set a date certain for initiating withdrawal.  Now he's made a public proclamation of strategy, which could put him into a strait jacket domestically.  Worse, as  Attila could have admonished him, he's told the enemy exactly what he plans to do.   McChrystal made this mistake, too.  The Taliban have had months and months to prepare for the promised American campaign in Kandahar. 

According to Kelly, the Romans were abysmally ignorant of their opponents.  Americans, meanwhile, scratch their heads and wonder what on earth those Afghans want.  As if Afghans were beasts and monsters with minds inaccessible to noble creatures like us! 

Let me help a little.  I think Priscus would approve.  Using a combination of ordinary fellow feeling, gleanings from journalists’ interviews with Afghans and an awareness of Muslim texts about governance, I reach the conclusion that  Afghans want three things. Security.  Justice and the rule of law.  Honest administration and policing.  Any government that delivers these three desiderata will be supported.  In fact, because of their reputation for honesty and keeping order, the Taliban were welcomed when they first marched into Kabul.  As we know, they muffed that golden opportunity.     Hamid Karzai, unfortunately, does not meet any of those three criteria, which is why Afghans do not rally to the government.  They are truly between a rock and a hard place.

Oh, yes.   Afghans want something else: they want a purely Afghan government.  American troops can learn Pashtu or Dari.  They can say “pretty please” as they demand to search a house.  But the Americans and their allies are a foreign occupation.  Romans were also renowned for their engineering skills and administrative abilities.  They kept the peace. Coopted elites prospered.  But, as Kelly shows,  the Goths, the Vandals and the Huns along with many smaller tribes kicked them out as soon as they could.