The Troubles Reignite

The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. 
The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think.
The problem is that Johnny doesn't know
what thinking is;
he confuses it with feeling
--Thomas Sowell 

The problem with leaderless uprisings taking over 
is that you don't always know what you get 
at the other end. 
 If you are not careful you could 
replace a bad government with one much worse! 

*   *   *  

The only thing we have learnt from experience
is that we learn nothing from experience
--Chinua Achebe
______________________________

Subtitle: Read the Problem.

Sometimes it s necessary to step back from a problem and to evaluate what is actually happening, rather than reacting to what you think is happening. This is doubly important when the assumptions diverge from observable reality. In order to reify our behavior we need to look clearly and interpret the flow of events, from origin (cause and effect) to the present.

As we walk down the lane in the Middle East, it is clear that the center is not holding. It is not even clear if there is a center. The situation is reminiscent of the acrobatic plate spinners of yore: each hand spins the plate around his own center, and there a lot of plates spinning in the air at the same time. Eventually, the motion of all will stop.

The quagmire in the Middle East as we are told will be solved when a power-sharing accord can be reached, but this concept is easier said than done. Terrorism is the bee in the bonnet, but this it is far from exclusively a Mid-East tactic. Let us look at the recent flame-up of the revanchist sentiment in Ireland.

While they have their moments of detente, the internecine violence British in Northern Ireland and Irish Republican Army has resurged recently; the1998 Good Friday Agreement did not hold.

These entities have not achieved a lasting truce in Northern Ireland because the quiet times are actually consolidation and reorganization periods, time to retrain and establish networks. In light of this ongoing and intractable conflict, what are the implications for the Middle East?

If two Christian entities cannot peaceably  resolve their differences, then how much less likely is it for the Sunnis  and Shiites to do so? The Northern Ireland conflict between two civilized societies (Ireland is often seen as the savior of civilization for its monastic academic efforts in the Dark Ages) is centuries old, reaching back to the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The end game is elusive.

Ranger Simple Question of the Day:

Why think that the Islamists can achieve a peace that still eludes Christian players?

Harem Scarum

--The Week magazine, 5.19.14 issue

Said I remember when we used to sit
In the government yard in Trenchtown
Oba, ob-serving the hypocrites
As they would mingle
with the good people we meet 
--No Woman No Cry, 
Bob Marley 

Woman is the nigger of the world...yes she is
If you don't believe me,
take a look at the one you're with
Woman is the slave to the slaves 
--Woman is the Nigger of the World, 
John Lennon

 “I have reason to believe Boko Haram
will see reason and let these girls go.
I think they will have a conscience
to let these girls go.”
Oronto Douglas, special adviser on strategy 
to Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan
 __________________

The New York Times reported last week that Nigeria's army was "Holding Up the Hunt" for the abducted schoolgirls in Nigeria. "Foreign diplomats say that the Islamist group Boko Haram appears to be winning the struggle with a weak military." Yet Nigerian President Jonathan's policy strategist says "reason" and "conscience" will hold the day.

Good luck with that. 

And ... why is it we care? Not in the human, Christian, Enlightened sense, but would we take any military action (U.S. Sends Troops to Chad to Aid Hunt for Nigerian Schoolgirls)? Puppies, kittens, girls -- most people become upset when the innocent are abused, but why would we risk even one soldier's life or limb over Nigeria's endemic problems?


Is it because this Muslim group chose a really scary name? It sounds like the bogeyman from hell. Is it because they're taking young women and returning them impregnated -- the oldest "survival of the fittest" ruse in the book? Are we afraid there are sleeper cells of Boko Haram in Detroit or Cleveland, or that they'll come over here to get our women and children? 

Islamist groups do these things, have been doing these things, for a long time now. Our intervention in the Middle East had nothing to do with it, unless you think they are clever enough to be committing these abductions to provoke the guys in white, like catnip to the cat. Nigerian's Islamic leader Abubakar Shekau said of the girls in a released video, "They are slaves and I will sell them because I have the market to sell them"

If the military in their own nation is not too gung-ho on the matter, why should we be? Is it because we have a blackish President who is as angry over veterans dying for lack of medical care as he is over women in Nigeria nation being kidnapped? 

It's not our sense of immense paternalism toward the weaker sex, though I'm sure the military would like to feel or project the notion that they really are doing some good in the world. No -- if this were so we'd be intervening in too many countries to name that subject their women to servitude, prostitution and worse. Women will continue to be the Second Sex until enlightenment reaches all humans.

Since this has not happened here in the belly of the democratic beast, do not expect it to be enforced upon a tribal warrior mindset anytime soon.

No matter how many cups of tea you lay out, even with clotted cream, berries and scones.

No uh way.

[expanded version @ milpub]