See, many Sunni Mosul residents felt that Maliki was oppressing them: that the troops were there to keep them down.
What people don’t get; what they refuse to get, is that people like ISIS believe and that matters. Like the early Communists or Hebollah, they are far less corrupt that their opponents. ISIS does what they think is right. That includes things we don’t like, such as their treatment of women, but it means that they can be trusted more than their opponents. The Taliban kept the peace, ended the drug trade and so on.
Napoleon said the moral was to the physical as ten is to one. Only by immense application of power and money can the West keep people like the Taliban or ISIS in check. The Taliban is winning in Afghanistan on a budget that is not even a rounding error on a single Pentagon appropriation.
We no longer offer a credible alternative which is ethical and which provides prosperity. We don’t actually believe in democracy, or human rights, or equality for all people. Our actions say we don’t; our troops know we don’t.
We did, once. Go find pictures of Afghanistan in the 60s. You’ll see women dressed like western women; you’ll read about colleges, you’ll see economic growth and hope.
A hegemonic ideology offers something to people that they can believe in. We don’t: out western secular philosophy has failed the people of the Middle East and Africa (and large chunks of Asia) for decades now.
Of course many are transferring their loyalty to another hegemonic ideology.
(And note, again, that their armies are FAR cheaper to maintain than ours, and better able to actually maintain order in areas they control. Only an overwhelming spending advantage allows us to “win”. That should chill any smart statesman or military strategist to the core.)
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Celsius 233
Ian, there is so much chaos on the ground; why do you bother trying to keep up?
In the end, when you play the U.S., Iran, Malaki, Sunni, Shi’ite and all the other players; how the hell can one know the outcome or even the game on the ground?
What I think I know is that things are going shit in Iraq!
Surely this comes as no surprise, yes?
We thoroughly fucked up a functioning, non-threatening country; now we get the fruits…
JustPlainDave
One thing that I would point out, having read the posts and commentary here and elsewhere regarding recent events, is that the laser-like focus on ISIS/ISIL is appropriate primarily if one wants to elucidate American strategic interests. If one wants to understand what is happening in Iraq (which seems to be the main focus), really the dominant questions should centre on what’s going on elsewhere among the Sunnis.
As to the larger point of the piece, which seems to be that we used to offer a credible alternative to locally generated movements but now do not, I don’t really buy it. “We” never did really offer a viable, credible “alternative”. We offered things that make us in the present *feel* better, compared to what we offer now, and some of the locals adopted trappings that look pleasingly western when looked at from the remove of the present, but our “alternatives” have almost always been outcompeted by movements of local genesis over even the medium term.
Cold N. Holefield
The Taliban kept the peace, ended the drug trade and so on.
That was the Old Taliban — the New Taliban has embraced the heroin trade and as a result, business is booming under their auspices. In fact, it’s how they arm themselves — they exchange the heroin for weapons procured from the Russian mafia, which as we know, pretty much has cover and protection from the FSB and thus the Kremlin and Putin. Or is it that Putin and his Henchmen are too busy prosecuting rebellious young women like Pussy Riot to be bothered with cracking down on the corruption that has come to define the Russian state?
Bill H
And Hezbollah, which we have labelled a terrorist organization, provides food, shelter and medical care free of charge for all people in the territories it occupies. Not that one thing has to do with another, but its military arm has the finest fighters in the world.
Cold N. Holefield
Only by immense application of power and money can the West keep people like the Taliban or ISIS in check.
Only by immense profit (taxpayer expense) can it inculcate the existence of such and pretend to keep it in check. If you’re in the money, return on investment opportunities are like taking candy from babies. That’s a universal rule that applies to all Oligarchs everywhere, not just Americans and The Jews. Artificially high-priced oil provides tremendous ROI for those who have the money to invest. It’s a backdoor tax on the plebes. To justify the artificially set high price of oil, a strategy of tension and conflict must be established and that strategy in tactical terms provides immense profit to those who invest in supplying the MIC responsible for implementing this perpetual strategy of tension and conflict. If you’re not in the money, you’re a Mark. Perhaps we should all change our screen names to Mark, considering. And it doesn’t even matter if you know — in fact, it’s better not to know so maybe it’s why so many otherwise intelligent people refuse to accept they’re Marks in this game that goes on and on and on.
markfromireland
@ Ian;
It’s par for the course for a substantial proportion of a town that’s just been overrun to flee and then to return once they judge it safe. “Safe” in this context means once the usual orgy of killing civilians, remaining defenders/political opponents, and looting dies down. Which in the context of recent experience (Lebanese civil war, post-American invasion Irak, and Syria) is usually after 24-48 hours have elapsed.
mfi
markfromireland
@ Ian,
Agreed but with the caveat that I can discern no evidence whatsoever that Western Secular Philosophy was ever intended to help them.
mfi
Cold N. Holefield
A hegemonic ideology offers something to people that they can believe in. We don’t: out western secular philosophy has failed…
The West has given them something to believe in. They now believe, if they didn’t before, that America and The West are the Great Satan, so no, it hasn’t failed. You just have to change your perspective concerning what’s failure versus success.
Ian Welsh
Thanks for the information on the returns. I should have realized/known that, but did not.
The evidence in Africa is that in the 50s and 60s economic growth, in general, was pretty good (about 2X what it is now, iirc)
The Bretton Woods style management of the international order, which allowed managed trade, and which did not commoditize food nearly as much (though there was still plenty, of course), did a better job than the order that came after.
Whether Westerners believed in the other stuff then is harder to say: the coups and so on would indicate otherwise, but I will say that they at least kept the dirt under the rug a lot better back then. Still, in many countries, you did see significant improvements: playing by the Western book was working for a lot more countries back then.