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?

God Save the Queen

Martin McGuinness telling the Queen,
"Slan agus beannacht" ("goodbye and godspeed")
____________________

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II shook hands with "former Irish Republican Army (IRA) commander" Martin McGuinness late last month, called by the press "the ultimate moment in Northern Ireland peacemaking." This is remarkable in many ways.

First, it reinforces RangerAgainstWar's position that warring parties must eventually reach an accord. The IRA, dubbed variously a terrorist organization and a revolutionary military organization has been fighting Britain for the unification of Ireland for almost 100 years. They did this by targeting British interests in a low intensity conflict (LIC) using terror tactics.

Reconciliation and political accommodation are necessary to address long-standing grievances. Although the official party line in the U.S. and Britain is that we do not negotiate with terrorists, this stand is obviously not unequivocal. The English abandoned their military approach to Northern Ireland in favor of a non-military one.

Facing the end of empire, the English are loathe to succumb to the terror, and have given as good as they got. The IRA were painted as thugs who murdered innocent civilians, though they often put out a warning before their bombings. The Queen suffered the murder of her cousin, Lord Mountbatten.

At least, NYT columnist MoDo called it "murder"; in fact, it was a targeted assassination. This parsing of terms is important, since in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) the United States kills people every day but never calls it murder; instead we interdict, neutralize or eliminate a threat.

Next, is the recognition of former IRA leader Martin McGuinness as a "Commander", lending military legitimacy to the group. During the struggle, England refused to recognize the military nature of the IRA and so did not grant Prisoner of War status to captured IRA personnel (much as the U.S. fails to accord this designation to those whom it fights in its current wars in the Middle East.)

When was the last time anyone called anyone in the al Qaeda chain of command a "Commander", or afforded them any military dignity? We make reality by the labels we bestow.

It is instructive to note that many world leaders have started their careers on the terror side of the equation. Luminaries like Gerry Adams and McGuinness have attained center stage and are now viewed as legitimate power brokers. This morphing into positions of legitimate leadership is the logical course for a LIC leader to follow.

This event suggests that the PWOT © has been a colossal cock up, and must eventually be settled by non-military means.

When Terrorists Rule the Coop

There is no clarity if you are clear about economics
and totally unclear about the ways of your own thinking
--Jiddhu Krishnamurti

Q: How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg?
A: Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one
_____________

New Middle East envoy George Mitchell can probably hootch up with Tony Blair and sandbag their windows for all the good they are going to do. Just because Mitchell thinks he knows something of Northern Ireland does not mean that knowledge can be generalized to the Hamas situation (Old Hand for an Old Mission.)

Northern Ireland could be viewed as a legitimate insurgency. Hamas is not comperable because they lack historical validity, coupled with their stated goal of obliterating their opponent, Israel. This is a different thing than the goals of the IRA, which wants England to leave Ireland and/or share power. Israel, unlike England, has no retrograde position.

While Mitchell is credited with the successful resolution to Northern Ireland's civil war in the Belfast Agreement, that is not a given. We really do not know that there has been a successful conclusion the The Troubles, nor do we know if it was a civil war. As usual, the terms are oblique.

Was Northern Ireland a civil war or a war of national liberation? Was it a war at all? Did Irish Republican Army prisoners enjoy the rights of the Geneva Convention?

In fact, IRA operatives were assassinated, tortured and jailed in somewhat barbaric fashion. They suffered the same confusion of categorization as the U.S.'s detainees: were they criminals or prisoners of war?

Was the IRA terrorist, or a legitimate unconventional asymmetric combat force? Were the British a legitimate force or a foreign occupying Army, a colonial vestige of subjugation? Or were they forces of democracy?

Point being, it is difficult to define the problems of Northern Ireland, yet it is clear that people of the same religion and culture cannot, could not and would not live side-by-side in peace. Christians whose enmity reaches back to before the Battle of the Boyne (1690) still hate one another, regardless of Mr. Mitchell's efforts.

Hamas and Israel is another case of intractable hostilities with little agreement upon terminology. Terrorist group Hamas is now legitimized in its freely elected role in the Palestinian parliament (thank you, George Bush), and has progressed through the spectrum of conflict into a military organization.

Since it represents a state, albeit a dysfunctional one, Hamas is a legitimate representative for Palestinians in Gaza. The problem is that Hamas uses terror tactics to achieve its goals, which unlike those of the IRA, are not the expulsion of the perceived occupiers, but rather, their total destruction.

The IRA does not wish to destroy England, but Hamas does wish to destroy Israel. For Israel, terrorists -- especially state-sanctioned ones like Hamas -- are an existential issue. For England, they are a political problem. For the U.S. versus al-Qaeda, it is a criminal matter.

What is clear is that Muslims, Christians and Jews will always be killing one another, in any combination thereof, and always for their God.