Rethinking US Foreign Policy in Syria

    Is it ethical to take part in supporting one side in a foreign civil war?  I would put forward that it is only ethical on the large scale where American support would ensure a swift and efficient end to hostilities.  I lobby that the slow and tepid American support of anti-Assad factions in Syria is actually less humane than staying out of the conflict despite the tragic validity of the rebel cause.   If we truly cared about the wellbeing of the Syrians, we would have invaded the country en masse.  Instead, we have prolonged the civil war by using the rebels as a proxy fight against Russia.   Perhaps the Russian troop drawdown will impact American policy or allow for a quick resolution, but our record of answering atrocities with short and shallow speeches is not promising.  Imagine two great outside forces taking sides in the American Civil War.  Sure, each side would have welcomed assistance, but at what cost?  What if the war had lasted years longer because each time one side came close to defeat it received an influx of supplies from a third party?  What if these were never enough supplies to actually turn the tide of the war but instead felt more like a pay day loan that keeps someone who is treading water from drowning completely if only for a little while.  History would look back at this hypothetical situation with disdain and condemn the person in the boat for only throwing out a couple of children’s lifejackets when they could have reached out a hand and pulled the victim up over the side once and for all. 

    Syria needs regime change, and it needs it quickly – but if we are not prepared to push hard to make it happen we have no business prolonging someone else’s civil war.  If we continue with mild support, the currently six-year-old conflict could continue for many more.  Go big or go home should be the mantra of an American Doctrine of Compassion.  And if you believe that it is not in our interest to be majorly involved in another ground war in the Middle East at this time, the hard decision to stop trying to help must be made.  At what point does being ruled by a tyrant outweigh thousands of civilians dying in the streets for over half a decade?  After all, it is all relative anyway.  For those ideologues who will stand up and decry my position as inhumane, you must ask yourself the question: why Syria?  Are their people any more valuable than the citizens of Iran or the debacle of Libya that we so cleanly washed our hands of already?  Our foreign policy in the region is inconsistent at best and borders on whimsical at worst.  What values are we currently standing on in Syria – it certainly is not human rights.

#remembertheredline

The Prophetic Background of President Reagan’s Challenger Speech

    As we marked the 30 year anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster this past week, I knew that I wanted to hear President Ronald Reagan’s iconicly comforting speech once again.  Having read most of President Reagan’s speeches from his long career, I appreciate well crafted rhetoric that truly inspires the listener.  The day of the challenger disaster was no different.  Scheduled to give the State of the Union Address to Congress that very night, Reagan’s plans for January 28, 1986 took a much darker turn after the seven person crew of the space shuttle Challenger died instantly when their ship exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Kennedy Space Center in Florida due to a faulty rubber seal.  No doubt having just spent days refining a major policy speech that was destined to be postponed, the president took the national television stage from behind his desk in the oval office instead.  He spoke of the first couple’s personal sadness at the news of such a great loss.  He continued to speak of a resolute vision to continue space exploration despite tragedy.  But he ended his speech with these haunting words: “We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God."[1]

    What most people don’t know is that the president was actually quoting from a poem written by a Canadian fighter pilot who had joined the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II.  Born in Shanghi, China in 1922, John Gillespie Magee, Jr. was the son of Canadian and American parents serving as Anglican missionaries to the region.  He was an avid writer of poetry as a young adult.  One such poem he titled High Flight after composing it in August of 1941.  He included it in a letter to his father, now a minister, on September 3, 1941.  On December 11, only four days after America was attacked at Pearl Harbor, the young pilot took off in a Spitfire on a training mission near Lincolnshire, England.  Diving out of the clouds at high speed, he collided midair with another plane at 1,400 feet – a height too low for a parachute to successfully open.  Magee died at the age of 19, but his poem lives on in the Library of Congress today and in the hearts of millions because of its first and last lines: "Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth […] Put out my hand, and touched the face of God."[2]  A fitting, if not prophetically chilling connection to the midair disaster 45 years later, neither the Challenger crew nor Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee should be forgotten.

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[1] Click HERE for President Reagan's full speech.

[2] Full text of High Flight: "Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.

Where never lark, or even eagle flew —

And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

- Put out my hand, and touched the face of God."

Legalized Looting of the Less Fortunate is Never the Best Option

The government of Denmark is currently debating the controversial proposal to confiscate valuables from all asylum seeking refugees attempting to enter their country as an ad hoc form of payment for services that the Government is predicting that they will provide at an equal or higher cost.  There are several ethical problems with this proposed solution, and we must address the most obvious first.  On a base and completely amoral level, confiscation prior to any service being provided to them is misguided as a free market principle.  What services are being offered?  What guarantee will there be that these do indeed equal the value of the property seized?  A big issue relating to this is the reality that everyone will possess items of varied intrinsic value.  While some may have a cell phone and a wedding ring, others may have a case of reserve cash, precious metals, or a valuable watch.  At its heart, this socialist principle that takes everything from all to provide for the whole will only lead to corruption and distrust. 

Secondly, what hope do you have in a government for giving refuges a better life in their future if they strip them bare of anything that might have helped them get started on the road to prosperity in their new life?  This is placing the entire responsibility of their success in the hands of government officials and truly dropping everyone to the lowest common denominator rather than looking to embrace those who might contribute to society in a positive way much sooner if they had private assets with which to buy goods and services that they deem necessary.  But of course, the government would have to tell them what was necessary if they get their way.

Now we get to the heart of the issue.  This is not an effort to recover costs.  This is truly a deterrent masquerading as a tariff on humanity.  While those in America that called out for a ban on refugees were often misguided and angry, all who spoke out were vilified.  The EU has given little space for dissenters as well, so this action allows for a de facto ban on refugees that will be self imposed, all the while saving face with those who require them to keep their borders open.  If passed, this will become a big issue only if refugee quotas are enforced, and all of a sudden, thousands of refugees are assigned to go to Denmark without a choice of their own and they are robbed blind at the border.

We have seen where this leads.  History has shown us in the form of stolen artwork from Jewish homes across Europe and mountains of gold fillings in concentration camps.  This legalized covetousness will only lead to an increase in the social divide between ethnic minorities and those in power.  Ban all refugees or accept them with open arms, but do not make them purchase your salvation by stripping them of the last vestiges of their lifelong possessions.  Thievery does not become us as humans - we waste far more in political adds everyday than what you would ever hope to gain by robbing the needy.

Robin Hood was Not a Socialist: How a Story of Justice has been Transformed into Marxism

The story has always been one of my favorites: the nobleman of a bygone era fights to right the injustices enacted upon his people by the newly arrived foreign occupiers who were exploiting every avenue to abuse their new subjects.  The beauty of the story is its simplicity (and the epic sword fights).  The message of the classic story is good versus evil; no complex characters to speak of.  The characters were either good or they were bad, and we as spectators never felt compassion or empathy for the bad guys, nor did we feel that they had earned their great wealth.  We saw the wealthy and opulent Norman rulers of England for what they were (in the story).  That is, conquerors living off of the backs of those they had conquered.

Recently, I was reading while my children watched a modern retelling of the story of Robin Hood in a daily children’s show on PBS.  I was paying little attention except for the occasional glance until the plot thickened.  In their version, a princess was carrying so many potatoes that she was unable to lift them while a poor character had only a few potatoes that were going to be too few to feed her.  Both characters complained about their situation.  One naturally decried her lack of food, while the other bemoaned having too much.  As I looked up from my reading to see how they would handle this travesty against human logic, I noted that Robin’s task at this point was not one of ‘robbing the rich’ so to speak, but rather helping the afterwards thankful wealthy character redistribute her burdensome abundance to her poor compatriot.  Everyone left happy – except me.

This retelling of the classic tail decries the basic flaws in the thinking of many today.  The first issue is the obvious misunderstanding of the issue at the root of the original Robin Hood tale.  At its heart, the story is not about an economic system at all.  In 1066, William the Conqueror ushered in a new era in England when he led his Norman army to victory in the Battle of Hastings.  In the years that followed, many French speaking Normans seeking fortune and status poured across the Slightly-Less-English Channel to take a place in the newly expanded kingdom.  The real history is more complicated, but in the Robin Hood story, they never earn their wealth in England.  They did not work hard to achieve it, but they did enjoy it.  In fact, they put down every challenge that attempted to take this wealth and status from them.  In short, we did not sympathize with them as capitalists because they had not earned their wealth – they had taken it. 

A second issue raised by this flaccid reinvention of the story is the assumption that ‘plenty’ is a burden to those who experience it.  While I am sure there are a precious few individuals out there who feel undue pressure because of having too much, the vast majority of people who do well in any area of society are in fact pleased rather than tortured by the experience.  This does not have to be limited to our understanding of wealth alone.  For example, if a farmer has a much better than average yield, they are excited – even if it will not all fit in the barn.  They are excited because this influx means new opportunities for them as well as signaling and affirming their successful use of farming methods and hard work to get to this point.  If they do chose to give to their neighbor, it is then done out of generosity and benevolence, not out of a desire to throw their precious cargo overboard.  In a capitalist system, if someone works hard to gain something, they are very upset if that is taken from them.  In fact, the legal system regards this as theft unless it is due to taxation.

In the classic Robin Hood story, the Normans understood this ethical conundrum and usurped it by qualifying every illegal seizure as taxation.  This gave them the legal high ground, despite simultaneously holding court in the moral gutter.  A modern understanding of the issue fails to see the element of injustice as the driving force in what motivated the fictional Robin Hood and many other actual historical heroes to leave lives of safety and security to fight for the rights of the downtrodden.  Historically, no one risks death, loss of all status and property, and lack of access to their soul mate on a daily basis to redistribute wealth.  In the real story, and the real world, everyone does not want to do the right thing, and injustices have to be righted – be it by fictional vigilantes or by the justice system. 

So, Robin Hood was not, nor should he ever be a socialist.  He was never interested in helping the rich relocate their assets to those around them that were in need.  They stole it, he took it back, and they hated him for it.  In the PBS version, both parties thanked Robin Hood after a successful utilization of Solomonic wisdom.  Our society is selling an attitude that does not exist in real life, logical humans.  A socialist society has no need for a hero, but glorifies the collective instead.  My question for the children’s television show is: who grew the potatoes?  It was never addressed, and I am afraid we as a society have lost our interest in asking this question in real life as well.  

Who grew the potatoes?  No one cares anymore.   

Should a Christian Defend American Exceptionalism?

King Louis XVI lost his head to the French Revolution on 21 January 1793, primarily because of the root notion that he was born great.   His over-zealous constituents failed to share his self-admiration, and constructed a devise that would attempt to sever this very concept of Divine Right not only from his body (which it did quite handily by all accounts) but also from every elitist-thinking mind on earth.

As America flirts with disaster around the world and tries to climb out of the foreign policy tar pit she wandered into over the past several years, her citizens are faced with the opportunity and often responsibility to truly defend their core ideology of freedom for the first time in their lives.  Are we really a blight on the world stage?  Was there ever anything special about the United States?  Many American Christians struggle with how to address these questions.  On one hand, they feel they should defend their patriotism with a resounding ‘yes’ to all of the above.  But on the other, they feel the weight of the shared condition of humanity and have tasted too much of the grace offered by a loving Messiah to look past their own sin and claim to be anything greater than the rest of the world.  After all, what is a true Christian except someone who first understands their extreme need for salvation because of their own depravity?   Is there even space for anyone to be exceptional in Christian theology?  One of the founding fathers actually addressed this same paradox.  Benjamin Franklin alongside Silas Deane wrote this note while in Paris in 1777 during the height of the American Revolution:[1]

Tyranny is so generally established in the rest of the world, that the prospect of an asylum in America for those who love liberty, gives general joy, and our cause is esteemed the cause of all mankind […] We are fighting for the dignity and happiness of human nature.  Glorious is it for the Americans to be called by Providence to this post of honor.[2]

There is a difference between being inherently great and being called to do great things.  For the American Christian, God has granted an immeasurable occasion for being about the business of greatness.  To answer one’s calling and to do it well is never a mark of shame.  A good Biblical example comes in Exodus 31 when God mentions to Moses that he has “called by name Bezalel” and his fellow craftsman Oholiab to spearhead much of the detail work on the Tabernacle – the house of worship that would be replaced by the Temple generations later.  The text continues: “And I have given to all able men ability, that they may make all that I have commanded you.”  God called these men out of obscurity, equipped them with knowledge, and placed them in the setting for doing great things.

Sitting in pre-Revolution Paris on diplomatic business, Franklin certainly understood the complexities of favoring the American system of freedom over those of other nations.  Perhaps he could have gained more political points with his would-be allies if he had claimed that the French monarchy had its merits too.  But he unashamedly called America an asylum from the tyranny that plagued the rest of the world. 

This same tyranny still survives across so much of the world today, and Christians in America must realize that to understand American Exceptionalism is to understand the concept of calling.  They should agree with Franklin that Americans did not make themselves great, but rather, they simply answered the call to greatness.  I would urge all American Christians to put aside any sense of entitlement or arrogance that they may hold on to lest we become a nation waiting in line for our own cultural guillotine.  Instead, they should unashamedly remind others of those great individuals upon whose shoulders we stand that answered their own call and answered it well.  And they must never forget that excuses do not work when you are called.  For America to continue to be a great nation, exceptional individuals must continue to rise up and offer hope of a better future to those walking in darkness both at home and abroad.  Thus American Exceptionalism is a Providential gift that should never become past tense in the heart of American Christians.

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[1] Silas Deane was an on-again-off-again supporter of American Independence.  He died shortly after returning from a visit to France only a few years before the Revolution there.

[2] As quoted in Paul A. Varg’s Foreign Policies of the Founding Fathers (Michigan State University Press, 1963), page 3.

McCarthy has Left the Building

    In light of the recent shift in US/Cuba policy, I had to ask myself: ‘what changed?’  While I was busy worrying about Ebola, mid-term elections, and government shutdowns, did the Castro boys skip town?  Were the lack of diplomatic relations with Cuba just a forgotten holdover from the United States’ Cold War policy, or was there something different with the island nation in December of 2014?  What changed last week to cause President Obama’s announcement?  The answer: very little.

    In the 1990s, the United States began to normalize relations with Russia and the former Soviet nations, and some people have drawn a comparison between the current action and that as if the US had simply forgotten to end the Cold War with its closer neighbor in the Caribbean.  The reality is quite different.  Russia underwent a massive shift in leadership, direction, and policy in response to western pressure.  Big changes took place – then the policy shift occurred.  Meanwhile, the Castro Bros. and their status quo remains in full swing 90 miles south of the border.

    However, I do not believe that this foreign policy shift is unique to this administration.  In fact, there is a definitive and traceable pattern developing.  What we are seeing is transference of the (arguably) failed Middle East policy into Latin America.  I.E. if we play nice, give them a seat at the table, we will gain ground.  Whether you like the honey over vinegar approach or not, it has clearly not proven to be tenable currency in the world of Islamic extremism.   Perhaps it will work better in Cuba.  After all, a case can be made that this is similar to the model we followed with China as it erupted into the world economy a few decades ago. 

    The biggest change did not happen last week, but actually took place over the last decade.  The American people simply are not scared of Communism anymore.  With Islamic terrorists as public enemy number one, McCarthy has left the building without so much as a raised eyebrow.

    Like it or not, America is on track to spend at least the next two years attempting “restorative justice.”  I’m sure some of our other antagonists are watching the situation very closely.  Sadly, sometimes being the ‘bigger person’ just makes you a larger target.

The Crimean Trail of Tears

   An entire ethnicity uprooted and forced to march across hundreds of miles of rough terrain.  Possibly 46% of the total population dies along the way to their new “homeland.”  While this sounds like the United States’ relocation of the Native American nations in the 1830s, it is actually the story of the Crimean Tatars from the Crimean Peninsula as the USSR orchestrated its own Trail of Tears in 1944. 

   The buildup to deportation included a decades-long pattern of [Russian] government induced starvation of the regional population, but the final excuse for removal came after the Second World War.  The Tatars were collectively blamed for collaborating with Nazi Germany and relocated into camps and then dispersed to other Russian controlled territories to the east such as Uzbekistan for their alleged treason. 

   But the purge went beyond deportation.  A massive effort was made to completely erase them from the history of the region.[1]  Everything written or translated to their language was burnt and grave markers were destroyed.  Even Tatars who fought in the Russian army during WWII were deported upon their return home while others who had been captured as POWs by the Nazis rarely escaped work camps or execution at the hand of those who should have been their liberators.

   Be it their Islamic roots, their history of antagonism towards Russia and Europe over centuries of raiding and capturing slaves, or the Nazi collaboration of a few, Soviet leaders were happy to be rid of the entire population and quickly bequeathed the entire peninsula to their trusted Soviet Socialist member state: Ukraine in 1954. It would be over 30 years before significant efforts were made to bring this people group back to their homeland.  Today, the Crimean Tatars struggle to champion civil rights and the interests of their people in the region and to reestablish their history, brutally erased in the name of ethnic cleansing.    

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[1] Allen W. Fisher, The Crimean Tatars (Hoover Press, 1978), page 172.

Crimea 2.0

Don’t have a clue about the Crimean Peninsula that everyone on the news is talking about?  Read on, because ignorance is not bliss.

   This is not the first time that the Crimean region has been fought over.  Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s famous poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (that all you homeschoolers almost certainly memorized – or maybe it was just me) immortalized the events of an ill-fated charge into almost certain defeat ordered by poor military leaders during the Crimean War.[1]  The conflict was plagued by terrible leadership and planning all around.  Between 1853 and 1856, Russia fought against an unusual alliance of the Ottoman Empire and France, England, and other European nations over (1) who had access to the Holy Land and (2) Russian territorial expansion.  Russia favored the Orthodox Church while France and the others pushed for Catholic supremacy.  (Rabbit to chase: Thus Russian Expansionism is not new or somehow tied to communism.  Communist leaders simply used nationalism to fuel public opinion since expansion was already part of their collective heritage.)

   Eventually, Russia lost the war, and the territory reverted back to Ottoman Control for a brief time after going back and forth over the century before. 

   The Crimean War bears horrifying similarity to the growing tension today, and longtime Columbia professor Shepard Bancroft Clough’s (d.1990) prophetic words capture the situation best even though they were published in 1969: “The Crimean War, which cost the lives of half a million men, was not the result of a calculated plan, nor even of hasty last-minute decisions made under stress. It was the consequence of more than two years of fatal blundering in slow-motion by inept statesmen who had months to reflect upon the actions they took.”[2]  Let’s hope that while the last half of his statement has most certainly happened, the massive loss of life can be prevented before it is too late in 2014.

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[1] The opening stanza really foreshadows the end result: 

“Half a league half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred: 'Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns' he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.”  Read the whole poem: http://www.nationalcenter.org/ChargeoftheLightBrigade.html#sthash.ykp0Ojd7.dpuf

[2] Shepard Bancroft Clough, A History of the Western World, vol 2 (D.C. Heath and Company,1969), page 1010.

(1) Why was Russia culturally and politically isolated?

Map of the Break-up of the Ottoman Empire
(Years in the green areas show when territory transferred to Russia).
From William R. Shepherd's Atlas of Medieval and Modern History (Henry Holt: London, 1932).

If you watched US coverage of the opening ceremony of the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, you might have caught the fact that Peter the Great (Tsar of Russia from 1682-1721), made a real effort to westernize his nation.  So what happened in the last 293 years?  Why did Russian history travel its own path as an isolated and anti-Western country?  If your answer was that it began with communism or the Russian Revolution, think again.

Peter the Great died on 28 January 1725 leaving his wife Catherine I to rule in his place, but her poor health did not allow her much time on the throne (she died in 1727).[1]  However, she used this time to continue to bolster foreign alliances including The Treaty of 1726 with the Austrian Empire that insured mutual military aid if the Turks attacked either nation (Sochi was part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire at this time). 

But in the chaos following the death of Catherine I, we begin to already glimpse the push back of the nobility to keep the West out.[2]  Many favored moving the capital away from St. Petersburg and instead to Moscow in an effort to set their own path independent of the tsars.  While the family was able to right the autocratic ship in the years to come, these ideas of toppling the elite (who were synonymous with their elite family members ruling in the rest of Europe) kept growing and finally were consummated with the Revolutions of 1905 and 1917.

The bottom line: Most of the interaction ordinary Russians had with the West came about because of the ruling elite, so when they pushed back against them, they were indirectly pushing back against Western ideas. 

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[1] Walter Keating Kelly, The History of Russia (Henry G. Bohn: London, 1854), page 400.

[2] Arthur Hassall, The Balance of Power: 1715-1789 (Rivingtons: London, 1963), pages 114-115.

Healthcare: A Proxy War for Liberty

The 20th century witnessed an abundance of proxy wars.  These local conflicts around the world mirrored the greater chess match of the Cold War struggle against communism.  Without having to commit ourselves fully to an all out war, we championed our ideas through aid to other nations. 

The current healthcare debate is a proxy war.  It is a proxy war for our personal liberty in the face of government oppression.  Some say we could be more like Sweden or the United Kingdom.  I would remind you that our founders left the oppression of these very European shores where Government had already become a byword for control.  You show me a nation who dictates your education, your healthcare, your livelihood, and your religious freedom, and I will show you a society built on obligation rather than passion, fear rather than determination, and depression that devours the very essence of the word "hope."  

We stand on the precipice of forgetting the very concepts that drove the huddled masses to the ships in the first place.  For do not be fooled into thinking that they have corrected the past government oppression in Europe.  On the contrary, their current system is simply the natural progression of the one our ancestors abandoned and warded off with muskets and bayonets.  In these United States we have fought and died to establish and perfect our freedom, and I say we are, and will remain free.  'America the beautiful' is but a mere, foggy memory as we look into the faces of millions of our own who live in government supported and government sanctioned poverty with little hope.  In the America I know, mediocre is not praised as the dream, but there is always something greater on the horizon - something that transcends a single generation of thinkers - something that burned deep in the hearts of our founding fathers when they penned the words "We the people" in open opposition to the imperial notion of 'we the government.' 

Our children's future lies not in the next great plan or the next towering stack of legislative morass, but rather the near dormant promise of freedom embedded in our national conscience.  We must awaken this vision so the sounds of liberty may once again toll out across our entire nation.   Why do people fear the very name of our nation's capital?  Why is it spoken of as a place of corruption and bloated spending? 

No, my pride in our nation runs deep, and I believe it is time to shed the veil of contempt for our protectors and return the government to its role of service to our great nation.  We can once again taste the freedom of the pioneer as we join together in one voice to declare that we are again the United States - united in freedom, justice, and hope.  Do not let brightly colored lies distract from the true goal of liberty.  Hold fast in its defense, and pray that God blesses our great nation in the coming days.  

The Back-story: Why is the Word Plague so Scary?

The Biblical book of Exodus chapter eleven records the tenth and final plague leveraged against the land of Egypt by a God bent on delivering His people. The Plague of Death killed the firstborn of all who neglected to mark the surroundings of their doorways with the blood of a freshly killed sacrificial lamb. The famously dreadful plagues of the Torah only further to connect our fears of mass pestilence and disease. The fear is timeless. It is a faceless terror with no organization to wreak vengeance upon; no person to blame. Pandemics have happened across time. In fact, I myself had a great-grandmother die of the Spanish Influenza in 1918, and most of us recall the Bird Flu scares of more recent years. Yet however heinous these other epidemics, the word ‘plague’ conjures up grotesque and putrid images that must certainly dull in comparison to the real experiences of true eyewitnesses. 

The most historically famous instance is the massive spread of the bacteria Yersinia pestis in the 1340s and 50s. One third or more of Europe’s population died (roughly 25% of the world’s total population). The Black Plague, or Black Death, had traveled out of Asia on the backs of rats who took to the new era of open trade and commerce with gusto. The Xenopsylla cheopis [Oriental Rat Flea] was the prime carrier of the plague and simply transferred the infection to humans after biting the infected rats. In many cases, the plague became bubonic, one of several manifestations of the bacteria in question. Lymph nodes under the arms and groin swelled along with a litany of other appalling symptoms that subjected victims to tremendous torment before an ever imminent death. All of this terrible suffering happened in the cradle of our modern, Western civilization. Thus, all of the fear experienced by the survivors of the 14th century plague was passed on as readily as the disease itself. As cultural descendants of these individuals, we now cringe at the word ‘plague’ because it personifies the powerlessness and utter despair we feel when faced with an uncontrollable and unpredictable enemy. But will we ever face such a threat again?

Our modern world is much better equipped to identify and contain naturally occurring diseases. However, in the future there may very well be faces to blame, organizations to seek out, and terrorists to arrest. Could someone weaponize the worst nightmare of the Medieval world and attempt to unleash it on the 21st century? It has happened before, and could easily happen again. Unit 731, biological warfare, and a global society will all be discussed in an upcoming post in an effort to learn from our past experiences with the Plague. 

*For an interesting story of what could happen based on what has happened, see Tim Downs’ novel Plague Maker.

“Mr. Obama, Tear Down this Façade:” Why the Arab Nations Hate the United States, Part 1

The year was 1967.  The world watched as the small nation of Israel went to war with its neighbors.  But in Cold War reality, the world also watched as East fought West.   However, little did everyone know that this proxy war would have so much more at stake than just territory or rights.  The end result shaped the Arab perceptions of the West and specifically the United States.   Fawaz A. Gerges,  a professor of Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations at the London School of Economics, argues that “the Six Day War had a devastating , negative impact on Arab views regarding the U.S. role.”  Perhaps more telling is Gerges’ later revelation that “as a result [of American support for Israel in the Six Day War], Arab nationalist did not trust the United States to act as a neutral mediator in the quest for peace.”¹

The year is 2012.  Anti-American violence thrives in the Middle East.  And for the first time since February of 1979 in Kabul, Afghanistan (33 years ago), an American ambassador was attacked and murdered while in office.²  Ambassador Chris Stevens died in Libya on September 11.  All the while, Washington has been operating under the auspices that the negative perceptions of the U.S. will be changed primarily by rhetoric.  However, what many people, especially those in the Middle East, have found is that rhetoric is futile if it does match a coherent policy for the region.  For many Arabs, the fact that perceptions have been set since the ‘60s makes it exceptionally difficult to change them without a radical shift in U.S. support of Israel – and it is naïve to assume anything else will serve as the magic bullet.  The situation is not hopeless, only bleak without a clear direction and vision from the top.  If we have learned anything from the history of the Middle East, it is that actions shape perception, not talk.  Clearly.

¹David W. Lesch, ed., The Middle East and the United States: A Historical and Political Reassessment, (Westview Press: Boulder, Colorado), 2003.  Gerges’ chapter is on pages 191-210.  The above quotes come from pages 191 and 204.

²Ambassador Arnold L. Raphel was actually the last sitting U.S. ambassador to die in office.  He died in a suspicious plane crash in Pakistan in 1988.  However, Adolph Dubs was the last victim of a direct attack in 1979 as mentioned above.

The US and Iran: Periphery Decay Creates Nuclear Spit-wads

Iran has clearly been a hotbed of issues for thousands of years; however, recent developments have proven that the Supreme Leader has little to no fear of outside interference. The tide has turned in such a way that rouge states have the upper-hand simply because they believe that the only viable options on the table for the UN or the US are empty threats and meaningless sanctions. With other terror threats spreading US militaries thin and wearing on home moral, Iran threatens to spit nuclear paper wads while the teacher is busy in the hall.

The single largest issue in play is the erosion of ‘Western’ supremacy. Whatever your opinion of American foreign policy, a century of dominance kept Iranian tension inside its borders (though with some local exceptions). While the US never actually had direct control of Iran, the model of periphery decay applies much the same as it does with many great imperial powers of the past. Ancient Rome began its downward slide many decades before its final ‘fall.’ A good example of this is their control of what is now much of Great Britain. When Rome was strong, they could afford to bulk up military assets on the island and wage a long-term pseudo cold-war. As tension at home in the form of infighting, poverty, and often poor leadership shifted the policy of strength and offence to one of preservation, local peoples rose to drive out the weak Roman forces along with many of their cultural attributes in an effort to restore what they felt had been overshadowed or taken from them for so many years by a foreign power. Later, the same islands saw the decline of the British Empire with the gradual independence of colonies into the mid-20th century. As Imperial power weakened, local nationals could vie for freedom (or slowly rip the decaying limbs of the empire apart, depending on your perspective).

As American power weakens – or is even perceived to have weakened abroad, there will be more nations like Iran. While the belief of American exceptionalism may still be true for some of us, President Ahmadinejad and others are no longer intimidated by the world police force that had belonged to the United States for so many years.

We Three Kings: 50 Years of Egyptian Revolution

Rarely is the ancient history of a society more engrained in the common knowledge of the world than its modern one, but this is obviously true of Egypt. If you are one of the millions of people who heard about the turmoil in the streets along the Nile and scratched your head, you are not alone. Until recently, almost no American could tell you the background of the Egyptian government and only a few more could identify its long-term leader, President Mubarak. Perhaps the 2011 Egyptian Revolution is not isolated frustration with an authoritarian state, but a continuation of a failed hope began in the 1952 Revolution that racked the same ancient streets 59 years ago.
While a constitution insuring some liberty and balance of power was installed in 1923, Egyptian governments continued to fall short of expectations and this dissatisfaction created the perfect storm for revolution in the early 1950s. When revolution finally happened, civilian governments proved unstable and a group of 9 men known as the Free Officers took charge. They ferreted out communists and extremists including the Muslim Brotherhood. (In fact, the Brotherhood has been illegal since 1954). On June 18, 1953 General Mohamed Naguib became the first president. His tenure was short-lived and ended in confusion. By 1956, Gamal Abdel Nasser officially became the second president of Egypt. The nation grew stronger and more westernized under Nasser, and this included Western styles of entitlement programs that stabilized some of the unrest. They also moved towards modernization with the building of modern infrastructure such as the Aswan High Dam as well. The apparent social advances appear to have temporarily pacified the general population but failed to address true progress and created a false hope and reliance on the state. When the government failed to deliver to the same degree, the unrest began to ripen once again.
When Nasser died in September of 1970, his VP Anwar el-Sadat took control and was officially elected in on October 15, 1970. The administration continued to focus on a secular state, angering the many religious fundamental groups despite a war with Israel that ended in a peace treaty. On October 6, 1981, Islamic extremists assassinated Sadat during a military parade. 11 others were killed including four American military liaisons. The soon-to-be fourth president, Hosni Mubarak was injured but the then vice president was elected president later on that same month. He had been vice president since 1975 and faced many of the same problems that had been tied to Sadat.
Here’s the bottom line: Since 1956, the people of Egypt have seen only three presidents – all of whom served as vice presidents for their predecessors (in comparison, the US has had 11 different leaders beginning with Eisenhower’s 1956 successful re-election bid and there have been six shifts in political party). Consequently, the three Egyptian leaders carried on the ideals of their mentors/groomers essentially creating a monolithic persona for over half a century. This pseudo monarchy seemed to work well enough when the programs of Socialized Islam provided security and peace but failed when held up to the international standard of freedom in wake of the overthrow of the Tunisian President. So, when choosing sides, ask yourself if you would be happy with the Dwight Eisenhower administration in 2011 America. Love him or hate him, Ike would have needed to adapt to fit the modern world and that is exactly what the Nasser/Sadat/Mubarak administrations indeed are failing to do. Adopted in 1971, Egypt’s current constitution extols the power of the people: “The dignity of every individual is natural reflection of the dignity of his nation, for each individual is a cornerstone in the edifice of the homeland. This homeland derives its strength and prestige from the value of each individual, his activity and dignity.” Hopefully, the country that produced the Pyramids can once again realize the value of the human cornerstone before it is too late.

(http://www.parliament.gov.eg/English/Constitution/AnnouncementDocument/)

The Crisis in Tunisia and its International Significance

The once thriving North African nation of Tunisia continues to languish in near chaos. Former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali remains in self-preserving Saudi exile after his January 14, 2011 resignation and flight. During his longtime administration, he was first elected in 1987, the president made efforts to Westernize the nation and to effectively utilize and market the Tunisian oil fields. The tiny nation had seen an effective relationship with the European Union and especially with the nation of France who was vital in the development of nuclear power plants though they were not to be completed for some time. Now these plans lay in tenuous indecision as cries of unfair elections and long-term corruption ring out against the backdrop of burning train stations. The most recent election of 2009 saw Zine El Abidine Ben Ali apparently win by a landslide. And as Americans it is right to side with the people of Tunisia against a de facto dictator. The danger lies in the power vacuum.
While the interim government fights to regain order and maintain civil peace, the implications are massive for the United States. If a Western friendly nation can be installed and maintained, the fallout may not reach beyond the borders of the tiny nation itself, but clearly another failed nation in northern Africa presents a formerly uncharted safe haven for potential and established terror organizations. One has only to compare the collapse to Tunisia to the rogue nation of Somalia to cause immediate nervousness on the parts of US diplomats and policy makers. Couple this with the nuclear research set to transform into peaceful power stations by 2019 and you create a nation that cannot be allowed to fail. Perhaps the Tunisian nation will look forward from this experience and realign itself with European allies to forge a better future for this historically volatile region rich in cultural tradition and natural resources. In the meantime, the rest of the world, both good and bad, will closely watch their progress.

Mistrust Thrives at the Mideast Table

The background of recent Mideast peace talks in Washington, D.C. is notably long and complicated, but few could trace it to its modern day political origins. You could credit President Carter with taking the first step in formal peace talks with the Camp David Accords in 1978 but this agreement came after decades of tension and warfare and we’ve all seen how well it worked. To find the true origin of the 20th century conflict as we know it, one must look deeper into the aftermath of the First World War. As the Ottoman Empire, based in modern Turkey, crumbled after their ill-fated alliance with Germany, the great Western powers carved up this last vestige of the classic empires of old. Both France and Great Britain hoped to gain large portions of the newly available countries rich in history, and a newly desirable product: oil.
Representatives of both nations met behind closed doors to develop an agreement that divided the Middle East into “spheres of influence.” French representative François Georges-Picot and Sir Mark Sykes of Great Britain signed the secret Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916 essentially ending all hopes of Arab sovereignty that had been dangled in front of many local fighters in exchange for their aid in WWI. (You may remember the agreement if you paid close attention at the end of the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia). This ‘gave’ Syria and parts of Turkey to the French, and Jordan and Iraq to the British while allowing Allied control of today’s Israel. This set up the later creation of the nation of Israel in 1948, but also significantly marked the lack of concern for Arab interests by Western powers.
The hard fact is that Arab nations and peoples do not trust the West, yet we continue to hold the exclusive reigns of any peace effort bandwagon. We should certainly not give up what we believe to be the noble cause because it is difficult, but America needs to look beyond the typical methods and make an effort to bring new negotiators to the table. The unanswerable problem remains that the nation of Israel was established by mandate of the West thus usurping local Palestinian control. Consequently, Israel can never break free of this ‘buddy’ status with the West. They are hated by many pro-Palestinian groups simply for existing, and regardless of your opinion on this issue, this prejudice makes the peace efforts truly a process that America is hardly helping by continuously reminding everyone of the privileged relationship of Israel. I have no good solution here but merely an observation. If you have 4 children and chose a favorite one publically, you would hardly be the person to sit down and discuss fair justice when they all got in a fight. Palestinians believe that the Americans will always side with Israel and that they are merely being pandered to. They need to believe that their presence and opinions are valued and that we are not merely listening just to say we let them talk.

Presidential Requirements? Because Everyone Keeps Wandering Into That Job, Right?

Two men have proposed requiring new United States presidents to present the Chief Justice a hand-written copy of the US Constitution prior to being sworn in. They state that this would make the president’s pledge to uphold and defend the framework of our government against all enemies more real for them. (Read the article) If nothing else it would be a tangible sign they had read it at least once. But whether manually copying the document is a good idea or not, this shows evidence that people are worried about who leads our country and if there are enough requirements for elected officials.
Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution states the only current requirements imposed on a president of the US: “No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.” The 22nd amendment added term limits in 1951 rounding out who cannot be the Commander in Chief.
The bottom line: if anyone can survive the American political process at the national level, raise millions of dollars, speak hundreds of times, and get elected, we deserve what we get. Some are angry at our current president and some fear the Sarah Palin’s of the Conservative movement, but individuals on both sides wanting to restrict the highest and hardest to obtain office in the world more than it is already are straining with these ridiculous gimmicks. If you can give a speech that makes chills run up legs or raise millions through $20 online donations you can certainly read well enough to write something word for word out of a book. Instead, the defense should be the American voter. If you don’t believe someone has read the Constitution, or doubt they will truly support it, let people know and vote against them. The founders of our nation placed a few reasonable restrictions on our leadership but understood that the real decision came from the power of the electorate. On a side note, it wouldn’t do us any harm to give that Constitution a look ourselves once in a while even if we aren’t running for office.

Quran Fire Not Quite Out...Maybe

If the vacillating of the reverend Jones teaches us anything it is that his decision to put a hold on the Quran burning event scheduled for Saturday September 11 was not a sincere faith-reasoned judgment. Some believe he cooked the whole thing up with full intentions of using it as a bargaining chip to move the “Ground Zero Mosque.” However, his fervent and erratic statements do not support this theory. Who’s to say what will happen only two short days from now, but there seems to be no genuine change of heart and recognition of error. While a graceful exit would still be possible if the church stated that they were simply driven forward with zealous patriotism and faith and took it too far, I do not believe anyone thinks this will happen. The church simply does not regret its actions and regardless of the impending outcome, their ideas have entered the minds of America and there are always people willing to take up where they left off...if they do leave off, that is.

Quran Burning: Murder with a Match

Modern America touts it toleration above all other nations in the world. You can believe what you want and say almost anything without fear of retribution thanks to stiff language of the Constitution insuring these basic freedoms and rights. And that’s good. In fact, this freedom is what drove people to the American land of opportunity over the past centuries. But we must always remember to use our freedom wisely. We have the great responsibility to be prudent in the exercise of freedom and everything must be weighed against this simple rule: just because it is not illegal does not mean I should do it. As ethical decisions are based in individual hearts, the government cannot legislate morality.
To the issue of religious demonstrations against other faiths: this is never wise. Recently, a Florida pastor announced his plan to publically burn the Quran in an outcry against the September 11, 2001 attacks. This ignited a firestorm of outcry on both sides about the rights of his church and the value, or danger, of such actions. Churches of all stripes believe that they should bring others into agreement with them and they must recognize that over-the-top demonstrations will achieve nothing but hate. Most people agree that a sincere and intelligent dialogue goes much further than angry rhetoric. Some conservatives site the burning of Bibles among some Muslims as a legitimate excuse for burning the Islamic holy text, but any parent of an elementary child could remind them that the egregious disrespect of another does not make it right for you. Sadly, this debate is nothing new.
Historically, society should learn from the mistakes of the past. Book burning in the Middle Ages was common as heretical, or ‘crooked,’ teachings were rounded up and torched along with their owners. Despite a highly intolerant climate across most of the European continent during this time period, the land that would become medieval Spain shown as a beacon of what many scholars describe as the most tolerant society ever. They didn’t all agree and participate in some form of national, ambiguous religion. Instead, the Muslim controlled state of al-Andalus allowed Christians and Jews to practice their religion freely under an old Islamic respect for these other faiths. The phrase Ahl al-Kitābor, or ‘People of the Book,’ is used in the Islamic tradition to describe members of faiths that also rely on religious texts that Muslims believe have been directly revealed by God. To quote the book itself from chapter 29 verse 46, the Quran states: “Do not argue with the people of the scripture (Jews, Christians, and Muslims) except in the nicest possible manner - unless they transgress - and say, "We believe in what was revealed to us and in what was revealed to you, and our god and your god is one and the same; to Him we are submitters’” (from the Authorized English Edition). While Christians do not agree that their text is the inspired word from God as they do of parts of the Bible, this climate of respect had value in the 800s, 900s, and 1000s and it has value today in the 2000s a millennium later.
There were instances of tension when people overstepped the allowed actions and infringed on the other faiths. One story includes a Christian man intentionally blaspheming Allah in front of the religious and governmental authorities in an effort to gain martyrdom and incite anti-Muslim fervor. Sound familiar? Today’s religious conflicts often lack fuel until misguided people prop up a burning straw-man to give them a rally cry. We need to look closely at our political and religious leaders. Are they upholding their long-held values or are they using us and our passion to whip-up an out of place and unusual anger? Modern America could learn from Islamic Spain. We do not need to endorse all faiths but simply respect them if they uphold certain moral standards and recognize their members as valuable parts of our collective society. If burning a book in spite has no effect on your personal safety, it is very easy to do and you have that right. Just remember that someone will be blown up and the perpetrators will credit you with pushing the button. It may be a farming family at the food market or an American in uniform. Either way, it should keep you up at night for a while.

Define Radical, (correctly).

A common claim of many liberals is that they don’t have any real problem with Republicans as a group and would love to take part in bipartisan business. Instead, it is the “radicals” that they blame for continued strife. However, when they are put into a position of acting on their bipartisan rhetoric, the pool of radicals grows, and soon there is no one apparently capable of forming serious policy. Sadly, we have once again witnessed the smelting of semantics to promote personal interests. The term radical used to be reserved for murdering dictators and a few openly communist Americans. Now anyone can be sidled with this moniker. The problem is the sly way this is presented to appear self-deprecating by liberals. “I realize there are radicals on both the right and the left but we need to come together in the middle” actually translates as “you all are so stupid that I will appear to admit fault for my party to gain your sympathy (i.e. support).” Here’s the question to ask your liberal friends: Name radicals on both sides. The likely answer is as shocking as predictable. For the left, the astute person will likely list the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) responsible for blowing up many things in the name of the environment. For the right, they will proceed to list Sarah Palin, members of the Tea Party Movement, and a litany of Talk Radio Hosts. The failure of this logic is that the right wing ‘radicals’ listed have never destroyed anything or advocated violence. There are real radicals out there on both sides but they are not the ones gaining national support. Lets reserve ‘radical’ for those who truly are and respect the fact that the rest of us really do care about our nation and want what is best for our citizens.