'...And now though, to be lectured that, “Well, you guys are all sounding kind of angry,” is what we’re hearing from the establishment. Doggone right we’re angry! Justifiably so! Yes! You know, they stomp on our neck, and then they tell us, “Just chill, okay just relax.” Well, look, we are mad, and we’ve been had. They need to get used to it.”...'
You know, the sentiment here is real, it's widely spread, and it's valid to some extent.
The rage may be misdirected, but it is there, and it isn't going to go away because some argument is constructed that invalidates it.
These considerations should be borne in mind. Ridiculing what I would call 'the reactionary right' is just going to make it stronger.
'Only 20 percent of insurgencies are decisively defeated on the battleground, a la Sri Lanka. Mostly negotiated peace is outcome.'
...Then it all depends whether we call it a civil war or an insurgency?
In any case, plenty of insurgencies are decisively defeated on the ground. For that very reason, they remain obscure. The following come to mind: the Forest Brethren in the Baltic States and Stefan Bandera in the Ukraine, the Mau Mau in Kenya, the Communist insurgency in British Malaya, and the Moro in the Phillippines.
Others simply win...then they're not the insurgents, are they? The (original) IRA in Ireland, the rebels in the American colonies (since we've decided to label civil wars insurgencies), the FLN in Algeria, the Viet Minh in Viet Nam, and virtually all of Spain's former colonies in the New World. Naturally, negotiations often conclude the fighting, but these usually aren't compromises in any sense so much as ceremonies essentially conceding sovereignty and tidying up the mess: financial separation, repatriation of loyalists, etc.
So we can label all these conflicts civil wars, or we can label them insurgencies. I don't actually see negotiated peace as a common outcome -- it's certainly not the outcome in 80% of the cases as you imply.
More to the point, I certainly don't see a negotiated peace as a plausible outcome in a conflict which has become as bitter as the one in Syria, which represents so many profound divisions, and in which so many foreign powers have taken a decidedly unhelpful interest. Ourselves, the Turks, the Iranians, Hezbollah, Russia, and the Saudis are all entirely ready to fight to the last Syrian -- and to keep fighting for as long as it takes to reach that outcome.
There is also the matter of the spillover -- which is all but literally pouring gasoline on the once-dying embers of the 'clash of civilizations' so beloved of xenophobes. Above all, we need to end this now. Once someone wins, at least the killing will become more selective, and for most people a semblance of normal life can resume.
I say that in Syria, any negotiated settlement would be a long way off, and in any case, wouldn't emerge until one side has clearly gained the upper hand. So we need to quit being part of the problem by trying to impose our preferred solution -- that's what everybody is doing now.
We need to decide who we can help win quickest and throw our weight into the scales on their side. That is the course of true wisdom -- and true humanity. The dead aren't going to appreciate how all this time you were hoping for a better, kinder Syria. Anyone can speak for th dead, and so I will too. They'd rather you'd just helped to end the fighting.
That means forgetting about getting your way and just agreeing to whoever can most plausibly impose peace, and impose it quickly.
Hate to say it -- I'm really kind of a Muslim Brotherhood fan myself -- but the man we need to get behind here is Assad. Who else?
What struck me was the call for 'all Syrians to come to a political settlement of the civil war.'
Has this ever happened? Don't ALL civil wars end with unqualified victory for one side or the other?
Labels notwithstanding, that would seem to apply to the English Civil War, the French revolution, the American revolution, the Russian revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the Chinese civil war, the war in Viet Nam, and our very own hometown favorite, the American Civil War.
This last ending in totaler sieg for one side and one side only in spite of the considerable good will and desire to compromise evinced by many on both sides in both the run-up to the fracas and in the early going. Lee, for example, didn't support succession -- he was merely unwilling to fight against his home state. See also some of Horace Greeley's calls for a settlement.
About the only example I can think of of civil war actually ending in compromise was Austria's settlement with Hungary in 1848 that produced the Dual Monarchy. First off, I'm not sure that could be considered civil war in much of any sense -- wasn't it simply Hungary seeking independence?
Second, it didn't really solve the problem for Austria. The empire only lasted another seventy years before ultimately perishing at the hand of the same nationalism she had sought to defuse in 1848.
But to return to the point: isn't it therefor utopian foolishness to call for a 'settlement' in Syria? Can we afford to waste time pursuing such a chimaera? Isn't our idealism simply going to add to the final toll in death, misery, and fuel for 'the clash of civilizations' in the form of exported terrorism?
Shouldn't we simply decide who we want to win and help them to expedite their triumph? That may not be very 'nice' -- but sometimes things aren't 'nice.'
'...And now though, to be lectured that, “Well, you guys are all sounding kind of angry,” is what we’re hearing from the establishment. Doggone right we’re angry! Justifiably so! Yes! You know, they stomp on our neck, and then they tell us, “Just chill, okay just relax.” Well, look, we are mad, and we’ve been had. They need to get used to it.”...'
You know, the sentiment here is real, it's widely spread, and it's valid to some extent.
The rage may be misdirected, but it is there, and it isn't going to go away because some argument is constructed that invalidates it.
These considerations should be borne in mind. Ridiculing what I would call 'the reactionary right' is just going to make it stronger.
'Only 20 percent of insurgencies are decisively defeated on the battleground, a la Sri Lanka. Mostly negotiated peace is outcome.'
...Then it all depends whether we call it a civil war or an insurgency?
In any case, plenty of insurgencies are decisively defeated on the ground. For that very reason, they remain obscure. The following come to mind: the Forest Brethren in the Baltic States and Stefan Bandera in the Ukraine, the Mau Mau in Kenya, the Communist insurgency in British Malaya, and the Moro in the Phillippines.
Others simply win...then they're not the insurgents, are they? The (original) IRA in Ireland, the rebels in the American colonies (since we've decided to label civil wars insurgencies), the FLN in Algeria, the Viet Minh in Viet Nam, and virtually all of Spain's former colonies in the New World. Naturally, negotiations often conclude the fighting, but these usually aren't compromises in any sense so much as ceremonies essentially conceding sovereignty and tidying up the mess: financial separation, repatriation of loyalists, etc.
So we can label all these conflicts civil wars, or we can label them insurgencies. I don't actually see negotiated peace as a common outcome -- it's certainly not the outcome in 80% of the cases as you imply.
More to the point, I certainly don't see a negotiated peace as a plausible outcome in a conflict which has become as bitter as the one in Syria, which represents so many profound divisions, and in which so many foreign powers have taken a decidedly unhelpful interest. Ourselves, the Turks, the Iranians, Hezbollah, Russia, and the Saudis are all entirely ready to fight to the last Syrian -- and to keep fighting for as long as it takes to reach that outcome.
There is also the matter of the spillover -- which is all but literally pouring gasoline on the once-dying embers of the 'clash of civilizations' so beloved of xenophobes. Above all, we need to end this now. Once someone wins, at least the killing will become more selective, and for most people a semblance of normal life can resume.
I say that in Syria, any negotiated settlement would be a long way off, and in any case, wouldn't emerge until one side has clearly gained the upper hand. So we need to quit being part of the problem by trying to impose our preferred solution -- that's what everybody is doing now.
We need to decide who we can help win quickest and throw our weight into the scales on their side. That is the course of true wisdom -- and true humanity. The dead aren't going to appreciate how all this time you were hoping for a better, kinder Syria. Anyone can speak for th dead, and so I will too. They'd rather you'd just helped to end the fighting.
That means forgetting about getting your way and just agreeing to whoever can most plausibly impose peace, and impose it quickly.
Hate to say it -- I'm really kind of a Muslim Brotherhood fan myself -- but the man we need to get behind here is Assad. Who else?
What struck me was the call for 'all Syrians to come to a political settlement of the civil war.'
Has this ever happened? Don't ALL civil wars end with unqualified victory for one side or the other?
Labels notwithstanding, that would seem to apply to the English Civil War, the French revolution, the American revolution, the Russian revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the Chinese civil war, the war in Viet Nam, and our very own hometown favorite, the American Civil War.
This last ending in totaler sieg for one side and one side only in spite of the considerable good will and desire to compromise evinced by many on both sides in both the run-up to the fracas and in the early going. Lee, for example, didn't support succession -- he was merely unwilling to fight against his home state. See also some of Horace Greeley's calls for a settlement.
About the only example I can think of of civil war actually ending in compromise was Austria's settlement with Hungary in 1848 that produced the Dual Monarchy. First off, I'm not sure that could be considered civil war in much of any sense -- wasn't it simply Hungary seeking independence?
Second, it didn't really solve the problem for Austria. The empire only lasted another seventy years before ultimately perishing at the hand of the same nationalism she had sought to defuse in 1848.
But to return to the point: isn't it therefor utopian foolishness to call for a 'settlement' in Syria? Can we afford to waste time pursuing such a chimaera? Isn't our idealism simply going to add to the final toll in death, misery, and fuel for 'the clash of civilizations' in the form of exported terrorism?
Shouldn't we simply decide who we want to win and help them to expedite their triumph? That may not be very 'nice' -- but sometimes things aren't 'nice.'