Alexis de Tocqueville was an apt, if early political scientist who chronicled the rise of the uniquely American body politic in his seminal 1835 book, “Democracy in America,” contrasting it to the fading aristocracy of continental Europe:
The uniquely American morals and opinions, Tocqueville argued, lay within the origins of American society and derived from the peculiar social conditions that had welcomed colonists in prior centuries. Indeed, the basis of much of the colonization was the search for religious freedom, the right to worship the Almighty in one’s own way. Unlike Europe, venturers to America found a vast expanse of open land. Any and all who arrived could own their own land and cultivate an independent life. Sparse elites and a number of landed aristocrats existed, but, according to Tocqueville, these few stood no chance against the rapidly developing values bred by such vast land ownership. With such an open society, layered with so much opportunity, men of all sorts began working their way up in the world: industriousness became a dominant ethic, and “middling” values began taking root.
It turns out that the French philosphe also traveled to Algeria, where Andrew Bostom thinks his observations still have merit, at least as regards our adventure in Afghanistan:
Nearly 170 years later, it is a bitter, tragic irony that the harshest and most valid critiques of Stanley McChrystal — leveled by military officers in Michael Hastings’ now infamous Rolling Stone essay (“The Runaway General“) — hinge upon the general’s ignorant and willfully misconceived formulation of the same timeless Islamic doctrines so plainly elucidated by Tocqueville.
Contrasted to Tocqueville’s plangent, if Orientalist, observations on the nature of the Prophet’s more enthusiastic followers, I recently spoke with a Marine 1st lieutenant returned from Helmand Province.
“They’re just farmers,” he said.
I guess we’ll see.
Link please?
A link to Bostrom’s article for the fans Lex? s’il vous plait?
Updated, gomen nasai.
Are you and I on the same drinkin’ schedule, Flat? ‘Cause it CAN’T be workin’! (Not in my case.
)
Indeed, VX, as I have recently joined the ranks of those seeking gainful employ. How would you say it in New Orleans – au Chomage? It sounds so dreadfully descriptive.
Issue here isn’t with the Farmers, it is with the insidious bast-rds that are leaking acorss the border who aren’t interested in crop yield, only terrorizing the population and railing against anything or anybody who speaks to the west. Like hanging a 7 year old boy because he was a spy…Yeah, try to show me where it says you should do that in the Koran….
We need to take care of the “PAK” part of the AF/PAK issue as that is where all your issues start…average Afghani likely wants just to be left alone to do his own thing…with his wife, goat and whatever else he has handy…
I think Bostom has the right of it. OTOH, both McChrystal and Petraeus designed COIN strategies because they were under orders to do so.
The main problem I see is that we are trying to build a nation. We will not suceed at that as the Afghans simply don’t have the civilizational history needed to become a nation. At the same time, the people of the US are not nation either, so what kind of arrogance allows the morons in the district of corruption think they can create one in the AF?
Many of us old cold warriors did not want Bush going into Iraq, and if we had real goals in AF we might gain something. I’m all for insuring they don’t harbor our enemies. At the moment the PAKS seem to be providing a sanctuary for the Taliban and AlQ. If we had a military force worthy of the US, we might do something about it. As it is, Obama doesn’t have the moral courage to call the country to arms, and that’s really what we need.
Given the debt bomb we have here, even if the Obamanation had the courage to issue a call to arms, we don’t have the economic strength to prosecute the kind of war that would be required. Both parties have made sure we are well and truly screwed.
I wouldn’t be so certain that the Afghans don’t have the civilizational history to become a nation. Kabul was, as recently as the 1960′s, fairly Western in appearance, at least in the cities. In the more rural areas of course tribal allegiances held more sway than what was said from the Ministries in Kabul. On the other hand, America today isn’t far different — your average dirt farmer in Kansas or Iowa or North Dakota or Montana gives not a whit what the Department of Agriculture has to say unless it involves a subsidy payment.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/27/once_upon_a_time_in_afghanistan?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full
Question is, how many Afghans today can remember the 50′s and 60′s and want it back, versus so many knowing only war?
– Max
MD, what those pictures document is an aberration enforced by the power of the state, as far as the state’s power reached, which was about to Kabul city limits. Think Turkey, think Baghdad in the 1930s, think Alexandria under British rule. All aberrations. The Taliban is a new thing, to be certain, but the mental malfunctions of the farmers and the Taliban are ancient. Besides, if even the West says it is a racist imperialist model not worthy of emulation, why should the Afghans try to create copies of it, however deficient, in Kabul?
Zane,
If I’m reading you right then I beg to differ.
I think the takeaway from De Toq’s writing is that the Taliban are NOT a new thing.
Talib’s are the old thing and the state to which all Islamic societies revert sooner of later. Been watching Turkey lately?
I meant new in the sense that the Taliban is a new “tribe” in Afghanistan (in fact, what is significantly modern about them is that they are not tribal in origin, but ideological). But as far as Islamic bullies go, no, there is nothing new there. But I don’t think we disagree that secular regimes or moments in the Islamic world have been very few and very short-lived.
Turkey lasted as long as it has because the Army Kemal established determined they would not allow the reversion to Islamic dysfunction. The Kemalist regime has been subverted and it will fall in the near future.
It is interesting to note the mechanism by which the AKP has torn the Kemalist regime down – incrementally. That’s how the progressives have subverted the US. The establishment of tyranny often works like that.
Greetings:
I’ve become convinced that our strategy must include actions to diminish worldwide the impact of Islam, not Islamism, not radical Islam, not any other post-modern construct, and if not to destroy it then to drive it into disrepute.
The way forward is to confront Islam, the ideology, directly and often. I’ve read about an Egyptian Coptic priest, Zacarias Botros, if I remember his name correctly, who broadcasts radio programs that elucidate and discuss some of Mohammed’s sexual proclivities such as having sex with his 9-year-old “wife” and sucking on the tongues of children. While understanding the “jihad” part of Islamic doctrine is useful, I think that exposing the depravity, murders, thievery, lying, throughout the muslim scriptures is a better way to erode the thin veneer of religion and reveal the supremacist, political ideology that is the core of Islam. I believe that is why the muslims put so much effort into precluding, and/or punishing criticism of Islam or Mohammed.
What they want to protect is what we must attack.
I have a cunning plan — we have Mitt Romney publicly declare he’s converted to Islam and will run for President in 2012.
That ought to have Islam made a laughing stock by Thursday lunch.
– Max
LOL!
You nailed it Infrntry.
Too bad that none of our “leaders” have the cojones to confront, accept, and articulate this reality — yet.
I’m just surprised that you think that Tocqueville’s and Bostom’s views are somehow “nuanced” by the comment the Afghans are “just farmers.” Because it isn’t whether they are farmers, or tinkers or tailors for that matter, but that they are Muslim and think in certain ways that are predictable and understandable by anyone who cares to study what Muslims are taught and believe (and if that’s all that Marine had to offer, God help him). The point of the whole article is that no one in the self-licking ice-cream cone known as COIN has ever bothered to do that, despite the mountains of observation that adherence to Islam tops all other considerations for an Afghan. As Diana West’s article highlights, what is most damning in the Rolling Stone article isn’t the smart-assed comments, it was the General’s naive insistence on a murderously flawed ROE in the face of troops who know the General was just plain wrong.
I know I’m a bit slow, but I just don’t get your point here.
+1. Nailed it. Ignore my earlier comment then.
“They’re just farmers,” he said.
Yup, that’s what the VC were during the day, and the Khmer Rouge were during the day, and the Huks were during the day, and Abu Sayyaf are during the day, and…
Charlie was also Barbers, cooks, you name it. Many on our stations.
Whenever we got mortared after midnight, we knew the PA&E local hires who worked on road repair wouldn’t show up for work — they were sleeping in after a busy night.
That and more.
My father just missed orders to ‘Nam. One of the airmen under him at Adair AFS (near Corvallis, OR) just returned from ‘Nam and regaled everyone with stories from the place. The DFAC he was at was in an outlying station and they noticed all the local help was disappearing one afternoon. Just as the alarm was being sounded, some of the locals came back with weapons to try to off the troops running the DFAC. Even the Blue Suiters found themselves in questionable circumstances in that paradise.