Peter Breugel the Elder. Hunters in the Snow. (1565)
When civilization meant food on the table...
Posted on 11/04/2001 7:15:41 PM PST by annalex
Attila In a Boeing
Igor Efimov
1. Peacemakers and Defenders
For nearly 30 years an undeclared war is waged against America. America's soldiers are blown up in Lebanon and in Germany, killed in Somalia and in Saudi Arabia. America's embassies explode in Kenya and Tanzania. America's warship is torpedoed in a Yemeni port, and the widows of the killed sailors don't know what to say to their children that ask who killed their fathers and why. Finally, the enemy strikes Manhattan. More Americans die in the fire than dies in Pearl Harbor 60 years ago.
Yet the enemy remains unknown and invisible. At the same time millions in different countries march in their cities chanting "Death to America!" They don't say "death to France" or "to Spain", or "to Sweden". It is America that is the object of their naked hate. In the newspapers of those cities, the "heroes" that perish in the war on America are glorified; new soldiers are asked to offer their lives to the holy war; donations are collected for the wartime needs.
But not one American journalist, not one politician, would admit that his country is at war. War happens between states. So we'll conduct it by every paragraph of the Hague Convention. If there is no enemy state, there is no war. The attack on our citizens, the death of our soldiers will be called a crime of individual fanatics and extremist groups. We'll use the taxpayers' money to search for the perpetrators worldwide. Then, we'll try them as we abide by every norm of our jurisprudence. Then, we'll provide for them in our prisons. And wait till the next group of terrorists hijacks a civilian plane and demand freedom for the jailed "heroes". Don't agree to our demands? Then we dive into a nuclear reactor, the closer to population centers, the better.
The tragedy of September 11 shook the entire country. But you won't find a single American whose political views changed upon contemplation of the collapsing skyscrapers of the Trade Center. Everyone emerged firmer rutted in his political biases. Those biases, with all their diversity, break down into two groups: "peacemakers" and "defenders".
In 1938 British Premier Chamberlain returned from Munich brandishing a peace of paper, signed by Hitler himself.
"I brought you peace!" he declared walking down form the airplane.
And England rejoiced. The "peacemaker" Chamberlain defeated the "defender" Churchill once more. As does the majority of Americans today, the majority of the British then believed that war is such a terrible business that it would be abhorrent to all humans. That hostility begins only when a people are repressed, tyrannized, robbed, humiliated, insulted. "If we give Hitler the Sudetenland (not our loss, is it?), he will have no rational reasons to start a war" -- Chamberlain's followers repeated after their leader.
The same logic dominates chamberlain brains today.
"If the Israelis allow the Palestinians to form a sovereign state on the West Bank, the Macedonians give equal rights to the Albanian minority, and the British let the Irish Catholics have Belfast; if the Mexicans stop the oppression of the Chiappas, the Ceylonians -- the Tamil, the Indonesians -- the East Timoreans; if Spain, Russia, Georgia, Turkey agree to an independent Basque, Chechnya, Abkhazia, Kurdistan, -- very soon peace will reign over the world" -- plead the "peacemakers". The death of thousands of their compatriots under the rubble of the Trade Center is a new proof of their views. "This is what you have created with your myopic and cruel politics! -- they say to their political opponents. -- You didn't listen to us, now go fix this bloody mess. And expect repetitions!" The fact that every society has its share of those who enjoy tyranny, violence, oppression of fellow human -- is never acknowledged. Each time this committed minority, united in the common passion, easily prevails over the peace-loving majority, that is represented as a fluke, a random deviation from the norm that so snuggly fits the peacemaker's dream. When the "defenders" (if they ever get to speak) try to remind everyone the recent bloody lessons -- the mafia taking over the trade unions, the Bolsheviks and the Nazis usurping state power, -- the "peacemakers" enumerate various "mistakes" of the contemporary leaders that supposedly had lead to these sad outcomes. "They only had to listen to us, and everything would have been OK".
America tries to ignore the war waged against it, but it cannot fail to notice the everyday shooting going on in the world. In accordance with the chamberlainiesque mentality, it attempts to liquidate the "reason for conflicts". And, indeed, these reasons are "so clear"! The "wrong" behavior of various governments with respect to the national minorities. America exerts constant pressure on its allies in this direction, and if the allies do not yield, they must be "punished". And so the two leaders of the most powerful countries, two convinced socialists, Bill Clinton and Blair bomb for two months defenseless Serbia, which never did anything against America nor England.
The bombardment delighted the separatists in the entire world. "Look, what the Albanians could get! The Americans bomb their cursed enemies!.. Time to press our own cause!" Sure enough, after the bombardment of Yugoslavia the intifada in Israel flamed up with the new force, blood in Chechnya began to pour, Irish Catholics interrupted negotiations with the protestants, shooting in Kashmir was resumed, Eastern Timor flared up, civil war in Macedonia began.
Our political wisemen can only spread their arms in amazement in response to all this. The brainier of them allow that into the 21 Century we will encounter the completely new form of political and military conflicts. But is the present situation so new and unprecedented? The history of humanity is long enough. Could we find something similar in the deep well of history, something to shed light on our predicament today?
2. Lessons of History
Wars between states fill historical chronicles from the beginning of time. Egypt makes war on Assyria, the Babylon on Israel, Persia on Greece, Rome on Carthage. But, from time to time, the chronicles report about wars that are unlike any normal war of one country with another. The enemy attacks from not known whence and disappears just as suddenly. He is omnipresent and elusive. He is impoverished, does not know to construct cities and canals, to tend gardens, or toil the fields. But the enemy is persistent, crafty, brave. He gets his weaponry in the same countries he attacks. And the most important thing: it is not possible to retaliate against him. He is everywhere and nowhere.
And so ancient China builds the great wall, attempting to fence off from all these Huns, the Jhou Jhan, the Xianbi, the Mongols.
Powerful Rome is forced into a bloody combat with the Gauls, the Celts, the Germans, the Goths, the Vandals.
Byzantium has trouble to repel the same Huns (yep, they got that far), Arabs, Bulgars, Slavs, Seldjuks.
At the end of the first Millenium AD entire Europe rails under the blows of the hitherto unknown Vikings and Normans.
Kievan Russia constructs its cities under the continuous attacks of the Pechenegs, Polovets, the Khazar, the Tartars.
What compelled these tribes to knock about the boundaries of great empires so persistently, so, -- at times -- suicidally?
Attempting to answer this question, any unprejudiced observer will immediately notice one common feature in these conflicts: the attackers and the defenders are on different stages of the technological mastery of nature. The attackers are nomads, hunters, fishermen, cattlemen. The defenders are states of settled farmers. But in order to fully appreciate this key difference, let us take a small retreat into the philosophy of history.
In one hundred years since Karl Marx's times, volumes of new information were accumulated by history that cannot be packed in the procrustean diagram of the Marxian theory of the development: slaveholding system, feudalism, capitalism, socialism, and further out there -- the shining apex of you know what. In the 20th century Stalin's and Hitler's death camps were clean examples of the recurrence of slaveholding; and vice versa, ancient Egypt and ancient China, where the entire agriculture was pivoted not on the tillage, but on the irrigation, could exist only under the conditions of properly managed centralized socialist planning of canals and water rights on a national scale.
The progress of development of the means of production is another matter. It undoubtedly exists and manifests itself irrefutably, clearly, and convincingly.
Not one nation ever wanted, or was able to return from land cultivation to nomad cattle breeding, nor from industrial production to a purely agricultural economy. (Only the Amish in the US consciously attempt to remain in the agricultural era, but they can only allow themselves this experiment under the powerful protection of American state.) This progress moves as a river flows: smoothly and lazily at times, then leaping over a threshold in the narrows. In the five millennia of known human history we can count three such thresholds, that separate four technological eras, periods or stages.
The first era is barely visible to us. Even remarkable Morgan's studies of American Indians and the studies of other classic ethnographers of wild and semi-barbarian peoples, allow us but a blurred glance of the condition of man whose source of subsistence was only hunting, fishing and gathering wild berries and fruit. We don't know how man overcame the first threshold,-- tamed animals and learned to guard, shepherd and breed them.
We know quite a bit of the second technological era of nomadic cattle breeding. That is because the nomads existed side by side with the first settled peoples, who had written languages. The nomads are present in their chronicles; they are also present today. Their "method of production" was undoubtedly successful, making it possible for them to create viable societies that lasted centuries, threatening the first civilizations.
Stage Three: man mastered the skill of agriculture. But in order to become a settled farmer, he had to part with the most important weapon of the foregoing era: his mobility. A replacement of that weapon was needed, and it was found in the invention of the rock wall. Locks and fortresses became the most important weapons in the farmer's fight with the nomadic cattle-breeder.
Stage Four: the beginning of the industrial era. One by one the settled- agricultural peoples master the forces of nature. Some jump into it directly from the era of nomad cattle breeding (Evenks, Mongols). The armed struggle is, of course, a powerful factor stimulating the transition. Possibly, many in middle 19 century Russia had wanted to preserve the rural old way so dear to their heart. But when in 1854 Russia lost its entire Black Sea sailing fleet -- that seemed so formidable just a few years back -- to the steel dreadnoughts of France and Britain, it becomes clear to one's national consciousness that the old times had come to an end.. When in 1853 American Commodore Perry did not obey the Japanese authorities and the smokestacks of his frigates had steamed all the way into Tokyo Bay, the era of agricultural insulated Japan had ended.
The transition to industrial era has lasted for more than two centuries. Each nation entered the industrial era after severe internal and external conflicts. The wave of revolutions, which was rolling along Europe from 1789 through 1918, was like volcanic lava, which erupted to the surface at the advent of the industrial era. In the 20th century it was the turn of Spain, Turkey, Mexico, India, China, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Indonesia. The countries of Africa are completing the passage from agricultural era to industrial in our days. The bloody conflicts on that continent seem to exceed everything that we saw, until now. It is difficult to extract lessons from the events, which boil so close to us. In order to understand the general laws governing any transition period, let us look closely at the foregoing cultural leap: from the nomadic state to the settled agricultural state.
3. Not "Great migration", but "Great settlement"
Assuming that the nature of man remained unchanged in the past three thousand years, we conclude that today's inhabitant of agricultural state must experience the same feelings at the sight of the sparkling cities of the efflorescent West, that an ancient Goth felt at the sight of luxurious Roman villas on other shore of Danube, the same feelings that a Hun had at the sight of Chinese pagodas behind the unassailable wall. Man's reaction, his behavior with respect to a nation that left him far behind must be the same as in those distant times. As a rule, this reaction was the mixture of envy, admiration, contempt and hatred.
The luxury of life in a large city would stun a nomad. He brought for sale cattle, furs, horses, skins, exchanging those for the fruit, wine, bread, rice, luxurious cloths, richly decorated weapons. The stories the tribesmen visiting the capitals told unrolled a tempting picture of easy life, filled with comfort, entertainment, unimaginable miracles and such pleasures, that the urban hustle, congestion and accumulation of vice no longer seemed too great a price for them. The thirst to be introduced to rich settled life gradually penetrated the hearts of nomads.
But how to obtain such life?
How could a proud soldier, accustomed to the free steppes or the expanse of the open sea, subordinate himself to all forms of dependence imposed on the inhabitant of a settled state? Nomads could not but see that constraint of personal freedom is the price the townspeople paid for their material prosperity. To acquire enormous riches without loosing the freedom became the objective and the aspiration of each member of tribe. The desire for modernity kindled in them an unquenchable aggressive itch, it roused them on the march and wave after wave the nomads threw their hordes against the forbidding borders of the flourishing arrogant empires.
The history of these invasions evolved in different ways.
Some tribes encountered such powerful resistance, that they completely perished in combat as the Cimbrians and the Teutons did, destroyed by Gaius Marius in 101 BC; like the Alans in North Italy, squeezed five centuries later between the Huns and Eastern Roman Empire.
Others would wedge themselves into the territory of a large state, and gradually become converted from conquerors to citizens by force of arms, by diplomacy, or by religion. It happened to the Avars, the Slavs, the Bulgars in Byzantium, to the Jhou Jhan, the Xianbi, the southern Huns in ancient China.
Some managed to tear off pieces of territory from the large power and to base their kingdoms on the captured land. Thus the Franks, the Langobards, the Saxons, theVandals pulled off pieces the western part of the Roman Empire, while the Arabs and the Seljuk Turks busied themselves with the eastern part several centuries later.
Some seized the capital and captured the throne: the Hiksos in Egypt, the Persians in Babylon, the Arians in India, the Manchurians in China.
Others would serve in the military and were assimilated as the privileged military class: the Libyans, the Ethiopians in Egypt, the Germans in Rome, the Goths in Byzantium.
Yet others managed to subjugate the agricultural population lacking a durable state organization, and become the ruling class: the Dorians in Laconia (Sparta), the Normans in England, the Varangians in Russia.
Finally, there were peoples, whose aggressive impulse was so strong (Lev Gumilev called this a "empassionate" culture), that they subjugated not one, but many states and formed gigantic empires: Persian, Arab, Mongolian.
The common features of all nomadic tribes, which attacked the settled states, were: Fearlessness, Irreconcilability, Elusiveness. And one more: it seems, none of these peoples knew how to complete the inevitable cultural leap while preserving its integrity. The internal breakup of the tribe was almost inevitable.
Julius Caesar, who invaded the Gaul in 1 century BC, discovered tribes already solidly settled on the land, which had wooden cities, toiled the fields, had a class society (for example, the tribe of Aedui), and tribes still holding on to the traditions of nomad life (the Sequani). The latter remained enemies of Rome to the end.
The Goths broke into the eastern and the western tribes. The latter accepted Christianity and asked the emperor of Eastern Roman Empire to accept them as citizens; the terrible suffering at the hand of the corrupted Roman bureaucracy, demonstrated to their brethren, who stayed on the left shore of the Danube (the Ostgoths), that they were not too mistaken in their fears regarding a merger with settled people.
The Hun empire of the 2 century also broke into two parts. The South settled on the land and were soon assimilated by China; the North moved to the West, passed a long journey, partially settling along the road in the Urals, in the Baltic States, and appeared at the border of Roman Empire two centuries later.
Parts of the Tatar tribes, subsequent to the breakup of the Golden Horde settled on the land and formed in 15 century the Kazan khanate, which was soon subjugated by the Russians (plundering of Tatar cities made the operation worthwhile); the Crimean Tatars, however, preserved nomadic way of life two centuries later and were a formidable enemy of Russia, attacking its southern borders almost every year.
A question begs itself. What is easier: to learn to plough the earth and build houses or to learn to produce turbines, automobiles, television sets, radio receivers, airplanes? The answer is rather obvious. Therefore we should expect the processes of "mechanization" of life to take no less time than settling the land. This means that the road ahead of us is long, agonizing, cruel.
4. A Leap To the Industrial Era
The "great mechanization of peoples". Thus, in all probability, the future historians will call our epoch. From a distance, they will be able to see clearer that the essence of many international and religious conflicts of our time is the same, as in the epoch of Great Settlement. A nation needs to make the transition from a settled- agricultural stage to the industrial era. A heavy disturbance grips the national soul, which bursts open in uprisings, terror, civil wars, senseless cruelty.
At the agricultural stage, a Palestinian, an Albanian, a Chechen, a Mexican Chiapa, a Tamil in India and Sri Lanka, a Kurd in Turkey, sees himself as the master of his scrap of land, his house, his small herd of sheep, a respected head of family. He lives in a society ruled by settled traditions, where his place is clearly outlined, his duties toward his family, his tribe and his god are known. And suddenly this reliably arranged world is pulled down as a house of cards. The shining air liners fly overhead, cars rush along the roads, tourists from far away point their Japanese cameras at him, a ridiculous freak. Television, cinema, radio sing about the miraculous life overseas. His own children, growing up, have no other dream but to flee from under the impoverished parental roof. He wouldn't mind taking a bite of the foreign novelty himself. How?
To break one's back in foreign fields as the Mexicans, who rush north of the border to the States for the summer season? To wash the streets of foreign cities as the Kurds in Germany? What destiny awaits in a foreign country? Hired labor at the factory, complete dependence on the landlord, fear to lose work? Humiliating loss of authority in his own family, when the wife suddenly can out-earn her husband and begin to order about?
In 1960's I had the opportunity to visit Yugoslavia. In Kosovo I saw the hidden spite with which the Albanians looked from their oxen-pulled carts, at the Serbs zooming by in their Fiats and Volvos. Thirty years later I saw the same spiteful look on Palestinian faces in Israel. For some reason on their territory we saw many unfinished houses, the rebar framework sticking up in the sky. Perhaps, construction began without plan, not knowing how to budget the money necessary to finish. Perhaps the design was faulty. What would a never-do-well Palestinian feel looking at the sparkling lights of new blocks around Jerusalem, lush health resorts, wide highways? Even in farming the Israelis a far ahead, having learned to irrigate with underground hoses so that each drop of water reaches the roots of olive trees. The Palestinians pour the water from the top, the old way, and then complain to the United Nations of water shortage.
Visible inequality brings heartache and outrage in any soul. In the soul of a proud person it brings forth a blind fury. This blind fury is precisely what feeds today the terror, the revolutions, the explosions, death.
During the foregoing cultural leap, the settled states attempted to quench the militaristic flames of the attacking nomads by sending them "gifts": a disguised tribute. This tribute the Huns received from China, Slavs from Byzantium, Crimean Tatars. from the Moscow tsars. In exactly the same manner the industrial countries attempt to cajole the third world with food aid, loans (frequently not expected to be followed by repayment), by technology transfers. But neither in the antiquity nor today did these gifts achieve their goal. Ancient nomads threw themselves against the walls of fortresses with the same suicidal resolve that today's Palestinian plows a truck bomb into American barracks or a Boeing into the Trade Center. Another similarity is the internal split between the peoples entering the industrial era. The struggle between the Gallic tribes, between the South Huns and the North Huns, between the Westgoths and the Ostgoths was not less bitter and long than the struggle between Mao Tsetung and Chiang Kai Shek, between North and South Korea, or Hanoi and Saigon.
As a rule, precisely at the moment of the civilizational leap the traditional foundations of society collapse, an authority vacuum emerges. What better moment for different extremist groups to declare themselves rescuers of the fatherland, to take complete control over the people and the state. Such was the origin of the Khmer Rouge, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Tamil Tigers, the Shining Path, the Taliban, etc. For such ascendant to the national throne group the state of war is the best justification of their rule. They will oppose any steps, which would lead to a real peace. The incomprehension of this simple fact leads to all the dangerous absurdities of international policy and diplomacy of our days.
The sad truth is that "peaceful negotiations" with a nation controlled by an extremist group, are an impossibility. Peace will throw the extremists off the commanding posts to the bottom of the society. Peace will often bring them not only a loss of authority, but a physical death. Since they had enough time to bring so much grief to their people, the vengeance will not be late coming. Even the most advantageous peace conditions are unacceptable to the leaders of the Palestinians, the Albanians, the Tamil, the Kurds, the Chechens, just as it was not acceptable for Attila, Gengis Kahn, or Tamerlane to order their soldiers to put off swords and to grab the handles of a plow.
The "right of the nations to self-determination" is a beautiful theory. In practice, it was waved about by Mussolini, and Hitler, and Saddam Hussein. International respect for the sovereignty of Cuba allowed Castro to send his armed hordes to other continents. The Albanian minority, which took, assisted by NATO, the territory of Kosovo, immediately extended their military operations to Macedonia. If the Tamil separatists succeed in establishing their state in Ceylon, their next step will be to foment the uprising of 50 million Tamils in India. In the antiquity the "self-determination" of the Huns, the Arabs, the Turks, the Mongols flooded the world in a sea of the blood, destroyed flourishing countries, and threw the humanity many centuries back. There is nothing to guarantee against the repetition of this nightmare, -- nothing except, perhaps? ...
5. A Time to Gather Stones
From the very beginning of its existence America was in the state of tension if not outright war with the people whose level of technological progress lagged behind. Military actions against Indians spanned almost two centuries. That was another example of a combat with an undaunted, irreconcilable and elusive enemy. Beginning with 1780 the USA paid a yearly tribute to Algerian and Moroccan sultans, who pirated in the Mediterranean, seizing American merchant ships exactly as today their descendants hijack commercial airplanes.
The pirates quieted down only after Commodore Stephen Decatur entered the Mediterranean, destroyed their fleet, and trained its guns on Tripoli. Two centuries later it became necessary to bomb Tripoli again in order to discipline the pirate Qaddafi. However, no decisive measures, no military actions can remove the roots of conflict.
The explosions, which shook the entire world on September 11, not only exceeded all previous terrorist acts with the number of victims, with the skill and the scope of the operation. For the first time they bared the irrationality of the hatred, which boils at our borders. No known terrorist group took responsibility for the attack on the peaceful inhabitants, no political demands were made. The entire message that twenty suicidal fanatics wanted to send, was: "We will choose death to destroy you!"
What must we do in the face of this fierce irreconcilability? Appeal to the humaneness? Increase the aid to the developing countries? Surrender?
Let us hope that the authorities that we elected would extract a lesson from this terrible event and will take the first aid measures. That they will block a new Attila's access into the Boeing cabin. That a new Commodore Decatur with his flying ships will find the new pirates in the mountains of Afghanistan, and force them to turn tail. But all these will be only tactical temporary victories. The serious far-going changes depend not on our rulers, but on us ourselves. That is because in free countries the leaders depend on our opinions and views. And unless we change them, they cannot change their policy.
Is time for us to recognize, understand, and learn to live with the fact that the unannounced war will be long, tiring, bloody. And if we want to abate its destructive impact on our countries, on the future of our children, we must refrain from presenting impossible demands on our leaders, put them to intractable tasks.
As long as we ask our rulers to "establish a durable and just peace between the nations", we will be ruled solely by chamberlains. They cannot extinguish the volcano of hostility. But our losses from each eruption will grow sharply. That is because all peaceful gestures from time immemorial only kindled the zeal of the attackers.
As long as we do not recognize a state of war, we will require our police and our foreign intelligence to respect the privacy of the correspondence of our enemies, their "civil freedoms" and other rights, guaranteed by the constitution. That is akin to forbidding the military officers to use binoculars, lest, God forbid, they see some intimate details of life in the enemy trenches. Martial law requires sacrifice of some freedoms and people will be understanding if the martial law is openly declared.
Only then we will be able to end the absurd tradition: to try terrorists, even citizens of other country, in the open court by American jury. Imagine a jury trying Goering, Himmler, or Ribbentropp, -- and besides, those were already defeated on the battlefield, and thousands of witnesses were pulled from under their authority. The numerous Mafia trials showed how intimidated the witnesses were to speak against gangsters, how frequently they are found dead from the causes unknown. What fate awaits an Arab witness, who gives testimony against a terrorist sent by bin Laden? He knows full well that neither he nor his family will escape the retribution for the "treason".
If there is a state of war, the court is relieved from the responsibility to prove the guilt of the suspect. An enemy soldier should be rendered harmless before he fired the first shot. A three judge panel would be sufficient to examine the evidence presented by the police, and to determine if the suspect participated in a terrorist activity, -- is he a soldier of the hostile army. If he is, then he should be sent to a prisoners of war camp up to the end of the war. Alas, in the context of this war, this may be equivalent to a life sentence.
As we saw, these conflicts drag on for not one, not two, not ten years.
Advanced England has been battling the forever lagging behind Irish minority for nearly two hundred years. Bloodshed in Belfast will continue, because the Catholic minority, intimidated by terrorists, will not testify against the terrorists in open court.
Advanced Russia has been battling the lagging behind Chechnya for nearly two hundred years. (In prison camps, Dostoyevsky spent time side by side both with Chechens, in for robbery and with a Russian officer, convicted for murder of a Chechen two-bit prince.)
Advanced Israel is doomed to the long fight with the Palestinians, whose new generation only knows to throw stones.
Not to gather them.
Translated from Russian by Annalex.
My translation is functional but does not adequately express the author's style, that transitions from chatty conversationalism to erudite academese with remarkable agility.
We approached these topics in the previous weeks. In particular, in The Contours of Victory I assert the civilizational character of this war and sound similar warnings. Two Articles On Anti-Terrorist Policy by Peikoff, Just Intervention , and Philosophy: Who Needs It? contain a Randian blessing of an aggressively prosecuted war in defense of freedom.
Let me remind everyone that Defense of Liberty (earlier known as Pursuit of Liberty) is a periodical Free Republic publishing operation that I took upon myself to advance our understanding of libertarianism. The previous threads are on my Freeper profile. On occasion I take the intiative to place some fellow Freepers on my bump list, but primarily the list is formed from your requests. If you are not on the list and wish to be on it, let me know; if you are presently on and want off, ditto.
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Peter Breugel the Elder. Hunters in the Snow. (1565)
When civilization meant food on the table...
:
It hasn't been that long since Arafat was offered
everything he has been clamoring for, IIRC. He
turned it down flat.
It appears the Islamic fundies will settle for
nothing less than the disappearance of advanced
society and a dragging of all civilization to their
dirt-dwelling, woman-enslaving, brutal lifestyle.
It won't happen.
You can't unring a bell.
Someday, when we have 'won', there may be
reservations upon which live these primitive
tribes at the sufferance of overarching
civilizations who no longer tolerate
the hatred, envy, and criminality of backward-
looking bands of fanatics. Let them run casinos.
Linguistically, absolutely (I studied Russian in College--I even have a degree). But ideologically, it has much more in common with Western thought in general, and with American political tradition especially, than I am used to seeing from Russion sources. That's one of the very fascinating aspects of the article, actually.
To find all articles tagged or indexed using
taliban_list
Click here:
Excellent analysis.
As long as we ask our rulers to "establish a durable and just peace between the nations", we will be ruled solely by chamberlains. They cannot extinguish the volcano of hostility. But our losses from each eruption will grow sharply. That is because all peaceful gestures from time immemorial only kindled the zeal of the attackers.
Even better.
The dog.
As long as we do not recognize a state of war, we will require our police and our foreign intelligence to respect the privacy of the correspondence of our enemies, their "civil freedoms" and other rights, guaranteed by the constitution. That is akin to forbidding the military officers to use binoculars, lest, God forbid, they see some intimate details of life in the enemy trenches. Martial law requires sacrifice of some freedoms and people will be understanding if the martial law is openly declared.
No sale.
A war such as this requires absolute commitment of the populace to the principles and causes of the state. You do not get that by destroying civil liberites and civic respect for unalienable rights, but by the empowerment of self-government on a local basis. The key here in our defense is the organization of the Militia under the rule of law, more local republican architectures of "neighborhood government," and to replicate that device eslewhere.
transitions from chatty conversationalism to erudite academese with remarkable agility.
You'll enjoy mine.
Thanks for the post. The article reminded me of a similar observation about the relationship of coveteousness to war by the Biblical writer, James:
James 4
1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?
2 You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God.
Cordially,
We don't want their territory. We could use the oil, of course, which should rightly be ours anyway. The victory will mean that the Muslim governments that we support will put those bastards on reservations, -- if they have the mercy.
It is very Russian on three counts. I chose to save myself time and ran the first draft through Babelfish. That preserved the choppy syntax; any professional translation would get the idea of each sentence, discard the Russian syntax altogether and rewrite it in orderly English, yielding a more readable but far less colorful text.
The notion of technology driving history is Marxist and is firmly rooted in the national psyche. Of all that Marx wrote he did that part right, and I find this kind of analysis useful; it is on the money as concerns the terrorist problem.
And thirdly, Russia has a thousand year history of resisting nomads (and disregarding civil rights), so the author here has historical gravitas.
Where is the usual bump?
Thanks again for keeping me on your bump list.
The dog is the question, not the answer. You don't imagine a wolf running up to a Neanderthal, wagging a tail and saying, "Let me give you a hand with these sheep here..."?
You do not get [commitment of the populace to the principles of our state] by destroying civil liberites and civic respect for unalienable rights, but by the empowerment of self-government on a local basis
That is true, and of course I agree on the militias and the local government. Yet an examination of those principles is in order. A non-citizen foreign to his local community and without visible reason to be there and visible means of support could be confronted with suspicion and even hostility without violating anyone's civil rights, -- including his rights. When complicity in a terrorist activity is established, the case should transition from the open court system and trial by jury of the terrorist's peers (ha) to a three judge panel, regardless of avenues of defense that still would be available to the suspect otherwise.
Thank you.
Really, domestication of the dog is regarded by many an ancient historian as man's first step out of the darkness. Actually, dogs and wolves are not the same critter, though it does get blurry in some breeds.
It doesn't work like your little story. I do know a fair amount about dog ethology as I was into protection dog training for a time. Here is a more likely scenario:
Think of a dog or two hanging aground the edge of the fire glow and tossing one a bone. Then add the scenario of some hunters waiting for dogs to corner a large animal (bovine, equine, or other such) and either taking the kill or doing it for them, and then cutting them off from the kill with weapons. The dogs then respect the power of humans as an alpha presence that feeds them in their turn (a big deal with dogs) or they get bashed with a club. The symbiosis takes off from there. BTW, friendly approaches by wolves to humans are in the literature. Sharing food at that point is a powerful gesture to a canid.
I don't mind men over the Internet, but prefer a face to face contact with dogs. Yes, that is probably how it all happened.
I gave my dog a pared lamb leg once, and saw her bury it in the yard. Later she ran off and needed a gift as she came back. She dug the leg out and brought it to me as I was calling out for her before bed time. Some dog. I let her keep the leg.
LOL, no wonder they were extirpated. Imagine OSHA regulations for Neanderthals with tails!
If anything, I'd say the foundation of Western civilization is the Iliad, with its humane and liberal inquiry into human conflict and the tribalism-transcending discovery of empathy. The Decalogue, of course, is not Western. But in so far as you wish to give credit to the Jews, I'd propose Abraham haggling with God to spare the Cities of the Plain.
Perhaps because property is expressive not only of the individual (the unit of the created image of God), but also of integrity, and hence of the right order and essential purity that lie at the heart of the divine mystery.
In "Noun1 Participle1 Noun2, Participle2 Noun3 and Participle3" all participles are controlled by the first noun. To make an alternative meaning one has to write something like "a wolf running up to a wagging his tail Neanderthal, who was saying...".
I'd say that property is the expression of man's dominion over the Creation. "Do not covet" reminds us that while we may use God's Creation, we did not create it ourselves, nor was it created for us: need doesn't produce property rights. That is in contrast to "do not steal", which reminds us that the dominion is a collective enterprise betwen men.
According to the Catholic catechism, in certain extreme and desperate situations, it does, sort of.
They believe in a way that admits no accord with us. Still, when I look at the lengths they've gone to to fight the monster they see in us, I'm (sadly) reminded of one of Nietschze's aphorisms: "Fight not with monsters, lest you become one yourself."
And Abaddon laughs...
Available in paper, I guess, do a search at Amazon for it.
Do you really think they hate us because we have technology, or do they hate us because of what we do with it?
At the agricultural stage, a Palestinian, an Albanian, a Chechen, a Mexican Chiapa, a Tamil in India and Sri Lanka, a Kurd in Turkey, sees himself as the master of his scrap of land, his house, his small herd of sheep, a respected head of family. He lives in a society ruled by settled traditions, where his place is clearly outlined, his duties toward his family, his tribe and his god are known. And suddenly this reliably arranged world is pulled down as a house of cards. The shining air liners fly overhead, cars rush along the roads, tourists from far away point their Japanese cameras at him, a ridiculous freak. Television, cinema, radio sing about the miraculous life overseas. His own children, growing up, have no other dream but to flee from under the impoverished parental roof. He wouldn't mind taking a bite of the foreign novelty himself. How?Somebody noted that bin Laden must harbor a hatred of airplanes (his close relative, don't remember who, died in a plane accident) and of modern buildings (which are the source of his family wealth). But all those Freudian motivations aside, he, along with many Muslim clerics must see with horror the rapid westernization of the Arab world. The horror, by the way, is not misplaced, because the Western materialism indeed devalues spirituality. Since the West was able to produce a rich culture -- both religious and secular -- despite the cheapening influence of materialism, and Islam didn't produce anything of spiritual value in hundreds of years, I can understand his frustration and anger.
I think their hatred might have more to do with the former than the latter, but my mindreading powers don't work as well over long distances...
Why do you think that secular and religious cultures are irreconcilable? They were one through the Renaissance, then separated and continue to coexist and cross-pollinate.
I think secular and religious societies will have serious disagreements about many things (not all, but many) unless they overlook their fundamental differences. Of course, I mean by "secular and religious societies" all secular and all religious--that is, not "mixed" as we are. I'm not criticizing the West's seperation of reason and religion in government; I think that tension provided much of the impetus of our nation, but at bottom the premises of religion and the premises of reason (Enlightenment) both assume the other is not sufficient. Each is incapable of refuting the other; thus, any society which makes one or the other their primary principle (to the extent that such a thing can be done) has to be in conflict with another society which follows the opposite principle. There will be agreement, but disagreements will not be reconcilable except by working on the grounds of the one or the other society--by accepting in speech or fact, the other society's "paradigm," and by ignoring or forgetting one's own.
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