As mentioned in my last blog a couple of weeks ago I’ve been laid low by back issues and unable to sit up for long periods of time. Because of the wonders of medical science, I am once again mobile…at least mobile enough to sit up for longer periods. I was even able to get back on my bike this weekend for a very short ride! I’m a glass half full person and being forced into inactivity gave me a chance to watch and reflect on ongoing world events. Thought I’d share some of my thoughts.
Afghanistan
Challenging times with media reports today of an attack on a CIA facility, the recent assassination of a former Afghan President and the attack on the U.S. Embassy. A couple of things came to mind. As NATO completes the training of the Afghan Security forces and follow- up on plans to depart the country, there will be a real and/or perceived power vacuum and various factions will try to move in. NATO has stopped the momentum of the Taliban but is that enough? I decided to go back to basics and reread Sun Tzu’s, The Art of War. I also took a look at Robert Cantrell’s, excellent analysis of that work, Understanding Sun Tzu and The Art of War. What jumped out at me were Cantrell’s comments on the principle winning whole:
How to Win Whole
1. Remove your enemy’s hope for victory
2. Use all your advantages
3. Exploit your enemy’s weaknesses
4. Attack along an unexpected line
It seems to me what remains to be done is to remove the hope for victory from the Taliban and groups like the Haqqani network. I know this is a tall order and I understand the budget and constraints and political fall out for spending more time, money, and effort in Afghanistan. I’m also not advocating we stay another 10 years only that in the time left we give the NATO forces the support they need to “remove the enemy’s hope for victory”. My concern is if we don’t get it right we will have to deal with it in some form in the future. The seeds for WWII were sown in the way the peace for WWI was formulated. Vietnam showed potential enemies the U.S. public would not tolerate a lengthy conflict with loss of U.S. life. Enemies exploited that in the most recent Iraq conflict as well as in Afghanistan using high profile IED attacks against U.S. and coalition forces knowing in this environment wars are fought in the media as well as out in the field. The media tends to focus on the negative Afghan stories while giving very little attention to the successes except in rare instances.
For instance, in the Sept. 24th edition of the Colorado Springs Gazette they quote: “Fort Carson soldiers say they have seen a dramatic decrease in violence in one of Afghanistan’s most dangerous cities. Violence in Kandahar, where the post’s 2nd Brigade Combat team has been on patrol since June, was down 70 percent in August compared to the same month a year ago, and followed a 38 percent drop in July.” I’ve seen very little information elsewhere on the positive aspects of the Afghanistan situation.
Palestine
When I saw Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ask the United Nations to recognize a state for his people I was reminded of the Civil Rights movement in the United States. At one point senior government officials were asking Martin Luther King to be patient, sit down and wait it out. Here are some comments he made concerning waiting and being patient on December 18, 1963 at Western Michigan University:
“Now in order to do this, we must answer and deal with one or two myths that are still disseminated and often block powerful social action in order to grapple with the evils of society. One argument is the myth of time. This myth says in substance that only time can solve problems that we face in the area of human relations. So there are those who say to individuals struggling to make justice a reality. Why don’t you wait and stop pushing so hard. If you will just be patient and wait 100 or 200 years the problem will work itself out. Well this argument still goes around. The only answer that one can give to this myth is that time is neutral. It can be used either constructively or destructively. I’m convinced that the people of ill-will in our nation have often used time much more effectively that the people of good will. It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and violent actions of the bad people who will bomb a church in Birmingham, Alabama but for the appalling silence of the good people who sit idly by and say wait on time. Somewhere along the way we must see that time will never solve the problem alone but that we must help time. Somewhere we must see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels on inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. Without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the insurgent and primitive forces of irrational emotionalism and social stagnation. We must always help time and realize that the time is always right to do right.
Now the other myth that gets around is the idea that legislation cannot really solve the problem and that it has no great role to play in this period of social change because you’ve got to change the heart and you can’t change the heart through legislation. You can’t legislate morals. The job must be done through education and religion. Well, there’s half-truth involved here. Certainly, if the problem is to be solved then in the final sense, hearts must be changed. Religion and education must play a great role in changing the heart. But we must go on to say that while it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that is pretty important, also. [APPLAUSE] So there is a need for executive orders. There is a need for judicial decrees. There is a need for civil rights legislation on the local scale within states and on the national scale from the federal government.”
The negotiations between Israel and Palestine are stuck and have been for some time. One can argue whose fault that is; that is not my intent in this blog. Dr. Wayne Dyer has said there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. The winds of the Arab Spring are still blowing. I would hate to see the U.S. on the wrong side. It is my hope that rather than a veto in the UN Security Council the U.S. would at a minimum abstain. I believe and have blogged that we really need to take a hard look at our National Security Policy. Is Cuba still a threat? What about our Taiwan policy?
The Civil Rights movement in the U.S. was a success because Dr. King refused to listen to the establishment which wanted him to go away and wait. Palestine is showing the same spirit by bringing the gridlock to the UN. I believe Palestine statehood is an idea whose time has come and would hope that cool heads prevail and both Palestine and Israel will come to the table to make it happen. I’ll end with a famous quote from Margaret Mead:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
As always my thoughts are my own.
