When we talk about American politics today and somebody brings up "the Social Issues" he almost always means gay marriage and abortion. These two ongoing debates have been shackled together for decades as matters that pit the urban creative elite against more traditional heartland voters. America had gradually moved leftwards with the pro-choice movement leading the charge. Over the past ten years however there has been a remarkable divergence. In 2004 Karl Rove and the George W. Bush campaign put a gay marriage ban on the ballot in Ohio in an effort to motivate social conservatives to come vote for against gay marriage and while in the voting booth re-elect the president. Bush's victory in Ohio that year was the difference between his successful re-election and what otherwise would have been a Kerry presidency.
Fast forward ten years and courts are readily striking down gay marriage bans from state to state.
Opposition to the new marriage equality movement has become socially unacceptable in all but the most traditional circles. The progress has been astounding.
Meanwhile the abortion debate has hardly changed at all. In fact Republicans are using the state legislatures they control to chase abortion providers out of their states at an astounding pace. For us on the political left this is too often painted as a sort of residual bigotry. But why is the pro-life movement slowly gaining strength in a nation where opposition to gay marriage is rapidly collapsing?
The answer is in the details of the debates over these issues. America has long accepted that the law has no business regulating sex or the sort of relationships people form. Most social conservatives today would not advocate a criminal penalty for sodomy―for them it is simply not a matter for the law. Thus liberals have gone on to argue that gay marriage ought to be simply another facet of regular marriage. Homosexual couples act in just the same ways as straight couples when married. They simply want the same institutions for the same conduct. Thus it becomes a matter of civil rights. When two sets of people who act in the same way receive different treatment under the law, there is a serious problem. The argument is premised in the idea that gay people simply wish to be allowed to conduct themselves in the same way as the rest of us outside of their sex lives. An argument that allows gay couples to act as if they are married in every way except maintain the formal status raises the obvious question: why can't they have the formal status. Thus as the left has spread the argument that homosexual Americans are no different from anyone else those listening naturally come to the natural conclusion. Gay people ought to be treated like anyone else.
Regarding abortion social liberals are equally virulent in spreading their message. "Women have a right to do what they want with their bodies. Denying them the ability to end a nine month phenomenon is tantamount to making the condition of their bodies something that is publically legislated". This is a good argument on its own. The trouble is that social liberals seem to be ignoring the argument of their opponents. The right believe that a foetus is a living person and that allowing ordinary women to kill a living person is tantamount to murder. Of course the logical core of the liberal argument is that a foetus is not a living person like you or me. But instead of explaining when, if not at conception, life beings, the left wing media simply scream about property rights more loudly.
Of course if social liberals convince American voters that a foetus is not a human being then the case against abortion will immediately collapse. Who would want to tell somebody "no you can't remove an object from your body"?
Of course, mainly as a way of riling up a base with a desperate fear that their bodily functions will be regulated, the political left continues to harp on about property rights. The trouble is that nobody denies the property aspect of the matter it's just that everybody regards life as more important than property. If the pro-choice movement explains why this is not a life issue they'll win. It's a pity most social liberals are so stupid.
Saturday, November 8, 2014
Friday, October 24, 2014
The Syllabi Scandal
The Arts & Science Council, on which I serve, is the chief governing body of the University of Toronto's faculty of Arts & Science. Recently the Dean's office released a report about a new online tool the faculty is developing to standardize the production of syllabi. In essence it would be a digital form containing fields for required course information. Each professor would be required to fill out the form in lieu of a paper syllabus. The new standardized syllabi would be offered online.
The university administration evidently didn't expect this to cause significant controversy. They calculated that this would simply be one more element of university modernization akin to applying a new coat of paint. Those supporting the idea were gravely mistaken.
The trouble with this matter and why it garnered so much opposition is in what it represents: a transfer of power from individual professors to the Dean's office. A traditional view of education is as a transaction between professor and student. The one wants to learn what the other has to tell him and is willing to provide compensation for the trouble of doing so. Of course there is a need to facilitate this relationship and at a large institution like the University of Toronto there is a need to provide administration to serve as an intermediary between students and faculty.
Of course in the modern university administrators have moved far beyond clerical work. Today they manage massive grants, solicit contributions from donors, provide resources for students such as healthcare, promote the University's brand, manage student life, and even lobby politicians. Modern universities have a dual concept--as places where students and professors are linked a la airbnb and also as massive research and youth centered management centres.
The trouble with the proposal from the Dean's office is that it represents an ongoing shift away from faculty-administration dualism and towards the establishment of the primacy of the latter over the former. Administrators no longer manage all the mechanisms around professors to make it easier for them to teach; administrators now tell faculty how the administration thinks they should instruct students.
The problem this dynamic threatens is the very nature of education itself. Administrators under pressure from business interests are trying to turn education into a standardized commercial product. Education is ultimately a form of providing what one, a teacher, specifically has. An administration cannot very well know what one professor might decide to tell his students versus another. Only a teacher can know what he has to say and it is very hard for a third party to distinguish between the different voices of distinct individuals with the same qualifications and duties.
Education fundamentally cannot be standardized because its value is inherent. Any attempt to quantify it will leave us with well qualified yet uneducated students. There is no need to spend a lot of money on professor's as standardized information providers who are meant to provide a standardized "learning outcome" for a given course regardless of who is teaching. It's a relatively logical jump to start requiring the same syllabus for the same course through the new online tool. One professor said at the council meeting "I want to be able to put a picture of a cow on my syllabus"; he wants for it to be under his control.
There's nothing wrong with administration as a facilitator and offering to put faculty information online is a good form of facilitation. The problem is in coercing scholars to jump through a bureaucratic hoop. That changes who holds power. Dean Cameron please make the new tool non-mandatory; that will effectively disseminate most information while preserving the independence of education which is the bedrock of UofT.
Nota Bene: I will address restoring the process of learning in classes at a later date.
The university administration evidently didn't expect this to cause significant controversy. They calculated that this would simply be one more element of university modernization akin to applying a new coat of paint. Those supporting the idea were gravely mistaken.
The trouble with this matter and why it garnered so much opposition is in what it represents: a transfer of power from individual professors to the Dean's office. A traditional view of education is as a transaction between professor and student. The one wants to learn what the other has to tell him and is willing to provide compensation for the trouble of doing so. Of course there is a need to facilitate this relationship and at a large institution like the University of Toronto there is a need to provide administration to serve as an intermediary between students and faculty.
Of course in the modern university administrators have moved far beyond clerical work. Today they manage massive grants, solicit contributions from donors, provide resources for students such as healthcare, promote the University's brand, manage student life, and even lobby politicians. Modern universities have a dual concept--as places where students and professors are linked a la airbnb and also as massive research and youth centered management centres.
The trouble with the proposal from the Dean's office is that it represents an ongoing shift away from faculty-administration dualism and towards the establishment of the primacy of the latter over the former. Administrators no longer manage all the mechanisms around professors to make it easier for them to teach; administrators now tell faculty how the administration thinks they should instruct students.
The problem this dynamic threatens is the very nature of education itself. Administrators under pressure from business interests are trying to turn education into a standardized commercial product. Education is ultimately a form of providing what one, a teacher, specifically has. An administration cannot very well know what one professor might decide to tell his students versus another. Only a teacher can know what he has to say and it is very hard for a third party to distinguish between the different voices of distinct individuals with the same qualifications and duties.
Education fundamentally cannot be standardized because its value is inherent. Any attempt to quantify it will leave us with well qualified yet uneducated students. There is no need to spend a lot of money on professor's as standardized information providers who are meant to provide a standardized "learning outcome" for a given course regardless of who is teaching. It's a relatively logical jump to start requiring the same syllabus for the same course through the new online tool. One professor said at the council meeting "I want to be able to put a picture of a cow on my syllabus"; he wants for it to be under his control.
There's nothing wrong with administration as a facilitator and offering to put faculty information online is a good form of facilitation. The problem is in coercing scholars to jump through a bureaucratic hoop. That changes who holds power. Dean Cameron please make the new tool non-mandatory; that will effectively disseminate most information while preserving the independence of education which is the bedrock of UofT.
Nota Bene: I will address restoring the process of learning in classes at a later date.
Monday, September 22, 2014
On Campus Sexual Violence
My guess is simply seeing the words “Sexual Assualt” in this title have stirred many of you to anger or concern. I am aware that anything which is said on a topic such as this will be a lightning rod for controversy. Nonetheless I feel that I cannot let it go unaddressed and so in the following paragraphs I will discuss the issue and hopefully add something new to the conversation we as a society are having.
So what is there to be said? Sexual Assault on Campus (which is the setting I’ll be focusing on here) is a lot like racism; all of the easy policy solutions have been taken. Much of the discussion involves commentators like myself calling for “robust policies” and “new approaches” as if the problem is some document or doctrine.
Likewise there is too much of a willingness to separate universities from society as a whole. Such ideas run headlong into the administrative complexity of modern society. If a student from one university sexually assaults a student from another institution we would most certainly categorize the offense as being “on campus” or related to that issue. Yet which institution should investigate or conduct disciplinary proceedings?
One of the sad failings of our modern society is how we seem to outsource important matters to private institutions. I think that it should not be a football league that is primarily responsible for punishing domestic abusers any more than I believe universities are best equipped to investigate rape. Society must take more responsibility for consoling victims, investigating incidents, and punishing wrongdoers. It is our society rather than any university or college that is in need of…um…a robust policy.
Likewise there is too much of a willingness to separate universities from society as a whole. Such ideas run headlong into the administrative complexity of modern society. If a student from one university sexually assaults a student from another institution we would most certainly categorize the offense as being “on campus” or related to that issue. Yet which institution should investigate or conduct disciplinary proceedings?
One of the sad failings of our modern society is how we seem to outsource important matters to private institutions. I think that it should not be a football league that is primarily responsible for punishing domestic abusers any more than I believe universities are best equipped to investigate rape. Society must take more responsibility for consoling victims, investigating incidents, and punishing wrongdoers. It is our society rather than any university or college that is in need of…um…a robust policy.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
On Recent Events in Ferguson
The protests and attention given to Ferguson MO in recent days have nothing to do with what happened there and everything to do with the wide and varied history of racial tension in the United States. That said, examining what occurred may yield some important lessons.
The police believed Michael Brown, a young black man, had stolen a small amount of tobacco from a nearby store. Brown was at the window of a police car with officer Darren Wilson inside. A scuffle broke out which resulted in Brown initially being shot. Brown moved away from the police car injured. Then he either attempted to raise his hands and surrender or began to aggressively approach Wilson again at which point he was shot until dead.
In a case where a police officer was involved in a physical fight with an adversary, I find it hard to believe that the use of deadly force constituted an offense under current norms.
What seems clear however is that Wilson used far more power than necessary throughout the encounter. Potentially lethal force need not necessarily be the answer to a fist fight nor need an approach by an injured adversary trigger sudden death. The problem then is probably not officer Wilson's actions but rather standard procedure. Quite simply the police have a duty to avoid deaths, even of those who they believe to be bad. In the US cops are armed even while directing traffic which smacks of an excessive comfort with the use of guns. Police forces ought to be trained and equipped differently.
Nobody can prove that Wilson would not have shot Brown if he were of a different race and the protests that have sprung up as a result of this seem more inclined towards unleashing anger at the perceived state of affairs than advocating for any kind of change.
These protests show the grimmest picture of recent events. Rioting as well as the damage and occupation of others' property have no place in any society. Like any other matter this present case must be investigated individually without assumptions from countless other cases of racial tension leading to a pre-determined verdict. What is necessary is an organized process of discussing ways to prevent what occurred and patience waiting on an investigation. Nothing justifies public violence and a muscular response to restore order is inherently necessary. It's a bit of a bity that for all the anger over race in the United States nobody is discussing how to fix it.
The police believed Michael Brown, a young black man, had stolen a small amount of tobacco from a nearby store. Brown was at the window of a police car with officer Darren Wilson inside. A scuffle broke out which resulted in Brown initially being shot. Brown moved away from the police car injured. Then he either attempted to raise his hands and surrender or began to aggressively approach Wilson again at which point he was shot until dead.
In a case where a police officer was involved in a physical fight with an adversary, I find it hard to believe that the use of deadly force constituted an offense under current norms.
What seems clear however is that Wilson used far more power than necessary throughout the encounter. Potentially lethal force need not necessarily be the answer to a fist fight nor need an approach by an injured adversary trigger sudden death. The problem then is probably not officer Wilson's actions but rather standard procedure. Quite simply the police have a duty to avoid deaths, even of those who they believe to be bad. In the US cops are armed even while directing traffic which smacks of an excessive comfort with the use of guns. Police forces ought to be trained and equipped differently.
Nobody can prove that Wilson would not have shot Brown if he were of a different race and the protests that have sprung up as a result of this seem more inclined towards unleashing anger at the perceived state of affairs than advocating for any kind of change.
These protests show the grimmest picture of recent events. Rioting as well as the damage and occupation of others' property have no place in any society. Like any other matter this present case must be investigated individually without assumptions from countless other cases of racial tension leading to a pre-determined verdict. What is necessary is an organized process of discussing ways to prevent what occurred and patience waiting on an investigation. Nothing justifies public violence and a muscular response to restore order is inherently necessary. It's a bit of a bity that for all the anger over race in the United States nobody is discussing how to fix it.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Which Whackos?
The President just ordered military action in northern Iraq along with the dispensation of humanitarian assistance. This is in reaction to recent actions by ISIS fighters. Basically ISIS were the strongest group of rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al Assad. ISIS are radical Sunnis whereas Assad's government is made up of Alawite Shiites. The border between Syria and Iraq is largely porous desert and ISIS had likely been shuttling resources across it for quite some time, probably with a determined blind eye shown by the US back in those days when Assad was the bad guy and ISIS were the good guys (we called them the Syrian rebels back then). As the front lines in Syria stabilized ISIS turned their attention to Iraq. Meanwhile the US had badly screwed up Iraq. Remember W and the whole Saddam has WMD thing? Of course the country had been run by a minority Sunni dictator and as soon as voting was allowed the Shiites elected their own man. Of course the Shiites wanted to punish the Sunnis, the Sunnis didn't like going from oppressed to oppressors, and the non-Muslim Kurds saw a chance to take action towards forming the state they'd always wanted to. Naturally the years that followed were...unpleasant.
As the situation stabilized Nouri Al Maliki, the Shiite in power, saw that the US was presenting him from oppressing the Sunnis. So he played the democratic leader card and told the US to get out. Barack Obama wasn't going to cause a diplomatic controversy to stay in Iraq. So then Maliki started to tighten the screws on Iraq's Sunnis. When Sunni ISIS started pouring over the border into the Sunni regions of Iraq chafing under Maliki's Shiite rule they naturally welcomed them. It all reminds me of some of the speeches various statesman (are said to) give to the Athenian people in Thucydides Peloponnesian War; basically these leaders urge the Athenians to aggressively oppress and enslave many weaker poleis because if they don't dominate others then others will dominate the Athenians. Whither this course is right or wrong doesn't appear in the logic of the orators either due to their own thought process or more likely that of the Athenian people.
Anyway ISIS quickly took over the mostly Sunni parts of the country but seemed to have no luck advancing into the Shiite center of the country. The western media had been publishing anticipatory stories about ISIS taking Baghdad and, when this did not promptly happen, sort of forgot about them. Instead of continuing along the line of the Tigris, ISIS turned its advance west towards Kurdistan. Kurdistan had been semi-autonomous as a result of US efforts and the Kurds had taken Kirkuk and a number of oil fields in the confusion of the initial ISIS invasion. Now cut off from the Shiite government in Baghdad they are for all practical importance an independent state. Kurdish peshmerga fighters who were supposed to be formidable, were quickly pushed back by ISIS likely as a result of ISIS' fighters being battle hardened by fighting in Syria unlike the Kurds whose recent conditions had been comparably peaceful. As Kurdish forces rapidly fell back, various minorities sheltering under their protection become exposed. Although Iraq's only Christian settlement was recently destroyed, most attention has been focused on a religious group called the Yazidis whose doctrine seems to be a typically near eastern fusion of Zoroastrian and Abrahamic dogmas. They wound up trapped on a mountain. The US parachuted food and water down to them and launched airstrikes against ISIS allowing the Kurds to advance. Recently Maliki has called troops into Baghdad to protect himself against parliament and the new Iraqi president who are trying to remove him at the behest of the US.
So who are the good guys? ISIS being Sunni comes from broadly the same block as Saddam Hussein, Hamas, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, as well as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE et cetera some of whom have played an important role in bankrolling the group. Meanwhile Assad and the Shiites in Iraq including (until recently) Maliki are both backed by Shiite Iran as is Hezbollah. The Kurds in Iraq are naturally connected to those in Turkey who have historically posed a military threat to that NATO ally which is Sunni and so semi-sympathetic to the Saudi block. Neither list is one all of our enemies or friends. It does speak to the utility of Israel as an ally whose isolation at least means that it doesn't involve such twisty affiliations.
Anyway we need to put pressure on Iran to stop its nuclear program which means weakening Assad and the Shiites in Iraq which is exactly what ISIS does which is why we were/are so big on their operations on the Syrian side of the border while vehemently opposed to the mess they've exposed in Iraq. Backing them however would lead to further instability and genocide as well as attacks on the west as ISIS is basically a hideous al Qaeda offshoot that is posting photos of mass killings on social media. So which side do we back?
This is why our best course would be to avid getting involved in the Middle East at all. The expansion of fracking means that the Middle East is useful for nothing at all strategically at a time when mass military provocation and small scale violence between China and its neighbors in East Asia could set of a conflict. Any sort of conflict over there military or not threatens to maul major stock indexes and seriously injure the global economy. In light of that seeking employ significant resources in the Middle East seems foolhardy. There is space for minor actions such as the occasional airstrike, the use of drones, and aid. There is also good reason for backing Israel as it is an ally because it lacks a dangerous ideology or undesirable commitments as well as possessing a developed economy. Beyond the buzzing of a few drones however, it would be prudent to aviod becoming entangled in the region. Why, remember we nearly gave weapons and a no-fly zone to ISIS and now we are having to act against them who are anyways using US equippement given to the Iraqi army and captured by them. Now think about arming the Kurds, how long until we regret that?
As the situation stabilized Nouri Al Maliki, the Shiite in power, saw that the US was presenting him from oppressing the Sunnis. So he played the democratic leader card and told the US to get out. Barack Obama wasn't going to cause a diplomatic controversy to stay in Iraq. So then Maliki started to tighten the screws on Iraq's Sunnis. When Sunni ISIS started pouring over the border into the Sunni regions of Iraq chafing under Maliki's Shiite rule they naturally welcomed them. It all reminds me of some of the speeches various statesman (are said to) give to the Athenian people in Thucydides Peloponnesian War; basically these leaders urge the Athenians to aggressively oppress and enslave many weaker poleis because if they don't dominate others then others will dominate the Athenians. Whither this course is right or wrong doesn't appear in the logic of the orators either due to their own thought process or more likely that of the Athenian people.
Anyway ISIS quickly took over the mostly Sunni parts of the country but seemed to have no luck advancing into the Shiite center of the country. The western media had been publishing anticipatory stories about ISIS taking Baghdad and, when this did not promptly happen, sort of forgot about them. Instead of continuing along the line of the Tigris, ISIS turned its advance west towards Kurdistan. Kurdistan had been semi-autonomous as a result of US efforts and the Kurds had taken Kirkuk and a number of oil fields in the confusion of the initial ISIS invasion. Now cut off from the Shiite government in Baghdad they are for all practical importance an independent state. Kurdish peshmerga fighters who were supposed to be formidable, were quickly pushed back by ISIS likely as a result of ISIS' fighters being battle hardened by fighting in Syria unlike the Kurds whose recent conditions had been comparably peaceful. As Kurdish forces rapidly fell back, various minorities sheltering under their protection become exposed. Although Iraq's only Christian settlement was recently destroyed, most attention has been focused on a religious group called the Yazidis whose doctrine seems to be a typically near eastern fusion of Zoroastrian and Abrahamic dogmas. They wound up trapped on a mountain. The US parachuted food and water down to them and launched airstrikes against ISIS allowing the Kurds to advance. Recently Maliki has called troops into Baghdad to protect himself against parliament and the new Iraqi president who are trying to remove him at the behest of the US.
So who are the good guys? ISIS being Sunni comes from broadly the same block as Saddam Hussein, Hamas, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, as well as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE et cetera some of whom have played an important role in bankrolling the group. Meanwhile Assad and the Shiites in Iraq including (until recently) Maliki are both backed by Shiite Iran as is Hezbollah. The Kurds in Iraq are naturally connected to those in Turkey who have historically posed a military threat to that NATO ally which is Sunni and so semi-sympathetic to the Saudi block. Neither list is one all of our enemies or friends. It does speak to the utility of Israel as an ally whose isolation at least means that it doesn't involve such twisty affiliations.
Anyway we need to put pressure on Iran to stop its nuclear program which means weakening Assad and the Shiites in Iraq which is exactly what ISIS does which is why we were/are so big on their operations on the Syrian side of the border while vehemently opposed to the mess they've exposed in Iraq. Backing them however would lead to further instability and genocide as well as attacks on the west as ISIS is basically a hideous al Qaeda offshoot that is posting photos of mass killings on social media. So which side do we back?
This is why our best course would be to avid getting involved in the Middle East at all. The expansion of fracking means that the Middle East is useful for nothing at all strategically at a time when mass military provocation and small scale violence between China and its neighbors in East Asia could set of a conflict. Any sort of conflict over there military or not threatens to maul major stock indexes and seriously injure the global economy. In light of that seeking employ significant resources in the Middle East seems foolhardy. There is space for minor actions such as the occasional airstrike, the use of drones, and aid. There is also good reason for backing Israel as it is an ally because it lacks a dangerous ideology or undesirable commitments as well as possessing a developed economy. Beyond the buzzing of a few drones however, it would be prudent to aviod becoming entangled in the region. Why, remember we nearly gave weapons and a no-fly zone to ISIS and now we are having to act against them who are anyways using US equippement given to the Iraqi army and captured by them. Now think about arming the Kurds, how long until we regret that?
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Governance in the East and West
For the first time since the collapse of Communism in 89-91 a good deal of debate is going into the superiority of different systems of government most recently:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/opinion/david-brooks-the-battle-of-the-regimes.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0. Here David Brooks asserts that there is an ongoing battle between "centralized authoritarian capitalism and decentralized liberal democratic capitalism"; and he then proceeds to list the achievements of the former and failings of the latter before suggesting that more creative entrepreneurs are necessary to defend the current Western system.
This is extraordinarily misguided thinking. In places' like California's Silicon Valley, famed for their creative culture and prosperity, dissatisfaction with the US government abounds as it does in more economically depressed places. Following from this example, there is little reason to think that similar success would lead to support for Western style government in Brooks' example of Africa.
The fact of the matter is that Western governments are not only losing their competition with the Eastern alternative identified by Brooks and others but are failing and suffering from fundamental flaws. What has become clear is that the system which defeated Communism and that we Westerners have been taught as much by faith as reason is failing.
The problem then is not that states like China and Singapore have hit upon a golden model. Their faults such as corruption and lack of creative thought are something most Western thinkers can list today. The problem is not that they are succeeding but that decentralized liberal democratic capitalism is failing. If Western states are to compete they cannot defend traditional systems on faith and worn out arguments. Rather it is time, for the first time in generations, to rethink many of our fundamental ideas about the composition and role of government.
This is extraordinarily misguided thinking. In places' like California's Silicon Valley, famed for their creative culture and prosperity, dissatisfaction with the US government abounds as it does in more economically depressed places. Following from this example, there is little reason to think that similar success would lead to support for Western style government in Brooks' example of Africa.
The fact of the matter is that Western governments are not only losing their competition with the Eastern alternative identified by Brooks and others but are failing and suffering from fundamental flaws. What has become clear is that the system which defeated Communism and that we Westerners have been taught as much by faith as reason is failing.
The problem then is not that states like China and Singapore have hit upon a golden model. Their faults such as corruption and lack of creative thought are something most Western thinkers can list today. The problem is not that they are succeeding but that decentralized liberal democratic capitalism is failing. If Western states are to compete they cannot defend traditional systems on faith and worn out arguments. Rather it is time, for the first time in generations, to rethink many of our fundamental ideas about the composition and role of government.
Friday, July 25, 2014
Israelis Mowing the Lawn
Yet again the situation in Israel-Palestine has turned from a period of relative calm to one of violence. Of course it began with a series of murders by crazy people on both sides but soon devolved into the normal pattern. Hamas shot rockets at Israel; the Israelis responded with air strikes. Hamas continued launching missiles and Israel soon launched a ground offensive. This is not the first time this has happened and it will not be the last. Even if tomorrow John Kerry announces a permanent deal agreed to by all parties promising a settlement along the lines of the 'two state solution' model, the conflict will go on. Imagine it: provocations would still go on and soon a few nutty whack jobs in Palestine would launch a few rockets over some perceived insult and Israel would respond with force. Permanent borders don't matter at all. In Israel this sort of military actions has become known as "mowing the lawn" and I cannot imagine a metaphor that more aptly describes these cycles of constant violence.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
More Trouble in Ukraine
Before the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the future of Ukraine appeared to be growing increasingly clear. With Russian troops firmly entrenched in strategically important Crimea it seems clear that the peninsula will remain firmly under Russian control for the foreseeable future. With the election of chocolate magnate Petro Poroshenko as president of the remainder of the country and moderate détente with Vladimir Putin matters took a much clearer turn. The western Ukraine would be governed from Kiev by a pro-European administration, Crimea would be part of Russia, and the Eastern Ukraine would be allowed to remain a part of the country but perhaps under an agreement preserving regional autonomy akin to the Kurdish part of Iraq. The fall of Slavyansk to troops loyal to Kiev and the destruction of Ukrainian military aircraft with Russian made equipment re-enforced this course. Putin's interests in Ukraine, beyond controlling Crimea, did not merit the size of the confrontation necessary to detach the eastern Ukraine. Furthermore removing the eastern Ukraine would drive the remainder of the country rapidly and certainly into the western embrace. Russia was content to slowly deescalate the situation at the most rapid rate possible without seeming to abandon the rebels.
The destruction of the Boeing 777 was a disaster for all parties involved. This event at once embarrassed the Russian state, made the Ukrainian terrorist look like a global threat rather than an unimportant pawn or even victim in the region, it abundantly clear the ongoing failure of the Ukrainian state to maintain a very basic level of security, it has complicated Europe-Asia air travel, has shown how utterly incapable European NATO is at influencing its own back yard, and worst of all throws complications into the process of securing a speedy resolution to the conflict in the region. Basically the disaster has brought the situation into the eyes of the world and any conflict with influenced by a body so utterly divided as the world's population is sure to be the subject of more strife rather than less.
The trouble is pretty simple. While this discredits the Ukrainian rebels (who are almost surely responsible), it garners the attention of the more hawkish elements in Russian politics who might otherwise be fussing about the American attempt to prevent the sale of French ships to Russia. To the extent that more nationalistic elements change their focus, the Russian government is forced to concentrate it's efforts towards prolonging the separatists violence instead of simply complaining about the US in various international venues.
Likewise western citizens just now tuning in are likely to push for investigation of the crash site. Allowing westerners (Nazis in the view of many) to investigate the eastern Ukraine is sure to cause anti-western sentiment to build prolonging efforts to achieve reconciliation with a pro-Europe Kiev government. The best we can hope to do not is dispense with this issue as quickly and quietly as possible so as to speed the region on to a peaceful resolution.
This debacle certainly shows the dangers of arming rebels with more anger than professionalism with high tech weaponry. It also shows the tendency towards violence when global attention is thrown onto any region where western and traditional values and structures conflict. It certainly vindicates the Obama administrations hesitancy on involving itself in the Middle East even if it gives a sad prognosis as regards the ability of the western public to improve matters in far off parts of the world.
Before the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the future of Ukraine appeared to be growing increasingly clear. With Russian troops firmly entrenched in strategically important Crimea it seems clear that the peninsula will remain firmly under Russian control for the foreseeable future. With the election of chocolate magnate Petro Poroshenko as president of the remainder of the country and moderate détente with Vladimir Putin matters took a much clearer turn. The western Ukraine would be governed from Kiev by a pro-European administration, Crimea would be part of Russia, and the Eastern Ukraine would be allowed to remain a part of the country but perhaps under an agreement preserving regional autonomy akin to the Kurdish part of Iraq. The fall of Slavyansk to troops loyal to Kiev and the destruction of Ukrainian military aircraft with Russian made equipment re-enforced this course. Putin's interests in Ukraine, beyond controlling Crimea, did not merit the size of the confrontation necessary to detach the eastern Ukraine. Furthermore removing the eastern Ukraine would drive the remainder of the country rapidly and certainly into the western embrace. Russia was content to slowly deescalate the situation at the most rapid rate possible without seeming to abandon the rebels.
The destruction of the Boeing 777 was a disaster for all parties involved. This event at once embarrassed the Russian state, made the Ukrainian terrorist look like a global threat rather than an unimportant pawn or even victim in the region, it abundantly clear the ongoing failure of the Ukrainian state to maintain a very basic level of security, it has complicated Europe-Asia air travel, has shown how utterly incapable European NATO is at influencing its own back yard, and worst of all throws complications into the process of securing a speedy resolution to the conflict in the region. Basically the disaster has brought the situation into the eyes of the world and any conflict with influenced by a body so utterly divided as the world's population is sure to be the subject of more strife rather than less.
The trouble is pretty simple. While this discredits the Ukrainian rebels (who are almost surely responsible), it garners the attention of the more hawkish elements in Russian politics who might otherwise be fussing about the American attempt to prevent the sale of French ships to Russia. To the extent that more nationalistic elements change their focus, the Russian government is forced to concentrate it's efforts towards prolonging the separatists violence instead of simply complaining about the US in various international venues.
Likewise western citizens just now tuning in are likely to push for investigation of the crash site. Allowing westerners (Nazis in the view of many) to investigate the eastern Ukraine is sure to cause anti-western sentiment to build prolonging efforts to achieve reconciliation with a pro-Europe Kiev government. The best we can hope to do not is dispense with this issue as quickly and quietly as possible so as to speed the region on to a peaceful resolution.
This debacle certainly shows the dangers of arming rebels with more anger than professionalism with high tech weaponry. It also shows the tendency towards violence when global attention is thrown onto any region where western and traditional values and structures conflict. It certainly vindicates the Obama administrations hesitancy on involving itself in the Middle East even if it gives a sad prognosis as regards the ability of the western public to improve matters in far off parts of the world.
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