The American Achilles
“For this cause he sent me to instruct you in all these matters, to be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds."
- Phoenix, Iliad, (9.440-1)
Petulant and arrogant, Achilles removes himself from the battlefield on the windy plain of Troy because his king, Agamemnon, has insulted him. The king knows he cannot win the battle without the brutal and skilled warrior, so he sends a delegation to convince Achilles to return to the ranks. Agamemnon also knows the fastest way home is to secure the destruction of Troy. Phoenix, a former warrior and current counselor to the king, arrives in the distant tent of Achilles and announces his purpose, to instruct the younger man to both "speak" and "do". The leader cannot perform one without the other.
On the international stage, a violent and horrific drama continues to play. In today's Washington Post, Senator John McCain and former Senator Bob Dole compare the current situation in Sudan, replete with its massacre and displacement of civilians, to the not-so-distant crisis in Bosnia and Serbia. Instead of invoking the equally apt comparison to Hitler's reign of terror, Messrs. McCain and Dole pull from recent memory as if to say "here we are again." In the mid-1990s the UN, NATO, Europeans, and Americans acted in concert to prevent a spreading genocide. Even with this effort, the brutality shocked the world. But it was stopped.
Let us also realize the opportunity here for the United States. The Sudanese government has allied with the Janjaweed militias, a group of Islamic radicals. Some, but not all, of their actions spring from the radicalized worship they practice. These militias systematically rape, torture, and murder non-Muslim Sudanese civilians, described, of course, as rebels against the government. The opportunity for the United States is to fight another battle in the 21st century War of Ideology. The Sudanese want protection and food not democratic reforms. We should provide the former as the initial salvo launched at those governments who prefer to destroy its citizenry rather than provide for it.
Fareed Zakaria, in his book The Future of Freedom, explains that economic reform and its corollary, taxes, develop and sustain democracy. In essence, without a vibrant middle-class that pay fair taxes to the government, democratic reforms are doomed. He states that governments, such as Saudi Arabia which receives no income from taxes, offer the promise of "we don't ask much of you economically and we don't give much to you politically" (p. 76). In this War of Ideology in the Sudan theatre, the United States has the opportunity to reverse this promise by providing the essential protection of life that would allow the oppressed population to grow and develop its own economic resources. In short, the War of Ideology is about "what do I get with radicalized Islam versus a legitimate capitalist/democratic government." If we cannot provide more than the Islamic radicals, then we will lose 10 times out of 10.
Phoenix's call to Achilles rings throughout the halls of Congress and down Pennsylvania Avenue. We have begun speaking the words; now we must do the deeds.
- Phoenix, Iliad, (9.440-1)
Petulant and arrogant, Achilles removes himself from the battlefield on the windy plain of Troy because his king, Agamemnon, has insulted him. The king knows he cannot win the battle without the brutal and skilled warrior, so he sends a delegation to convince Achilles to return to the ranks. Agamemnon also knows the fastest way home is to secure the destruction of Troy. Phoenix, a former warrior and current counselor to the king, arrives in the distant tent of Achilles and announces his purpose, to instruct the younger man to both "speak" and "do". The leader cannot perform one without the other.
On the international stage, a violent and horrific drama continues to play. In today's Washington Post, Senator John McCain and former Senator Bob Dole compare the current situation in Sudan, replete with its massacre and displacement of civilians, to the not-so-distant crisis in Bosnia and Serbia. Instead of invoking the equally apt comparison to Hitler's reign of terror, Messrs. McCain and Dole pull from recent memory as if to say "here we are again." In the mid-1990s the UN, NATO, Europeans, and Americans acted in concert to prevent a spreading genocide. Even with this effort, the brutality shocked the world. But it was stopped.
Let us also realize the opportunity here for the United States. The Sudanese government has allied with the Janjaweed militias, a group of Islamic radicals. Some, but not all, of their actions spring from the radicalized worship they practice. These militias systematically rape, torture, and murder non-Muslim Sudanese civilians, described, of course, as rebels against the government. The opportunity for the United States is to fight another battle in the 21st century War of Ideology. The Sudanese want protection and food not democratic reforms. We should provide the former as the initial salvo launched at those governments who prefer to destroy its citizenry rather than provide for it.
Fareed Zakaria, in his book The Future of Freedom, explains that economic reform and its corollary, taxes, develop and sustain democracy. In essence, without a vibrant middle-class that pay fair taxes to the government, democratic reforms are doomed. He states that governments, such as Saudi Arabia which receives no income from taxes, offer the promise of "we don't ask much of you economically and we don't give much to you politically" (p. 76). In this War of Ideology in the Sudan theatre, the United States has the opportunity to reverse this promise by providing the essential protection of life that would allow the oppressed population to grow and develop its own economic resources. In short, the War of Ideology is about "what do I get with radicalized Islam versus a legitimate capitalist/democratic government." If we cannot provide more than the Islamic radicals, then we will lose 10 times out of 10.
Phoenix's call to Achilles rings throughout the halls of Congress and down Pennsylvania Avenue. We have begun speaking the words; now we must do the deeds.
posted by Henry Plantagenet at 10:13 AM
1 Comments:
Hank:
Sudan vs. Darfur is simple, but you missed the picture. Yes, the US should speak and act, but no, we can't do much to create a self-defended Darfur. Darfur has almost no infrastructure, either physical or cultural, to support a middle class that would build a self-governing (and protecting) community. In fact, the present massacre was ignited by local warlords and, for all the murderous action of the government, the fighting has been sustained by local tribes and chieftans grasping for power.The action in western Sudan must be simple military defense, shooting the horsemen who raid the villages, disarming the bandits that are supported by the Sudanese, and even crashing a few Sudanese helicopters. Once civilization strikes back at the barbarism of the Sudanese government and the killing stops, the US and other countries can go back to work to wrestle Sudan into the order of nations and let it turn to economic development instead of genocide. It is the ruling class of Sudan that must be restrained, then built up, morally built up, to ensure peace for the people of Darfur. If they are left alone, with a modicum of respect from their government and a good measure of enlightened and muscular civic order, the people of Darfur will be able to live in peace. But the problem in Darfur is not in Darfur; it is in Khartoum.
BH
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