Conference on World Affairs

Overall Impression:Being the hot topic of the day I found this panel most enlightening. General Jim Smith was able to present the military and its role in a very clear way. Most conversations involving war and the military are so emotionally charged that is is hard to have a dialogue on the matter. His presentation was very clear and set the tone for the rest of the panel. that allowed me to get a much cleaner perspective of the military's role. We shall see if it comes through at all in my summary.

Jim Smith

Behind the US War on Iraq was a sequence of events that looked like:

• Idea ----- Policy ----- Implementation

Somebody somewhere has an idea. That idea is debated by politicians. After some debate, revision, and maybe some voting that idea can become policy. Once you have a policy you can then look at ways to implement it. From there one question might arise - "Does the use of combat force help implement that policy?" For me the phrase "use of combat force" was a key idea. The word "war" is so emotionally charged that it can get in the way of an clear discussion.

Jim pointed out that we need to be aware of both the ideas and the policies before we blindly condemn the implementation methods. This echoed an idea running through my head lately while watching protesters yell against war. I think you need to be able to say, "I understand the goal, but I think there is a better way." Emotional language tends to polarize people in a debate and prevents a dialogue from taking place. That dialogue seems to be the best way to reach solutions we can all agree on. Is beating someone over the head with a stick all that different from beating someone over the head with your point of view?

Achim Ködderman

Professor Lightening Tongue here will get a list because I had such a hard time following his theme, and I may have also lost several of his references to philosophers and their ideas along the way. Achim is a philosopher and that is the viewpoint he chose.

• Hobbes: In which he argues, as I understand it, that we are always at war. That is our basic nature. The state (government) exists for two reasons, to prevent civil war, and to protect us from warring neighbors. To do this the state has to take all of our rights away and then give some of them back. (see Thomas Hobbes - The Leviathan for more information.)
• Machiavelli: Fear leads to disorder. You cannot reign in disorder. (There is a nice website with a complete summary of Machiavelli's - The Prince: INSERT ULR HERE)
• He mentioned a couple of religious perspectives on war. He mentioned the various possible interpretations of the text in religious books and raised question: "How do you keep a tap on your fringe groups?"
• A reference was made to Manifest Destiny, a US doctrine from the 1800s about spreading our influence. The point was made that the other guy has that same idea too.
• Useful background knowledge can also be found in something called "Just War Theory." A google search is the easiest resource I found.
• How many peacekeepers do we want to pay for?
• Instead of war we should send loving people, perhaps we could bomb them with the Jazz Band. (Referring to the great Jazz concert we get every year at this conference.)

Kathy Christison Laurent Guérin

At this point I cannot tell which of these two people gets credit for these ideas so I am forced to list them together. My apologies to them, although I think they were on similar pages with their observations. Kathy has written a book about the Perceptions of Palestine. Laurent is a photojournalist who seems to understand the Palestinian position well. All the following notes cannot be thought of as points of view, but as ideas as a basic for discussion.

• Does it make sense to send soldiers to do peace? (It might, although see the QA note about using combat power to set conditions.)
• We are still using a colonialist idea that Arabs only understand force. This may no longer be true.
• How long until we teach our leaders how to make peace? (Probably not until the majority of the population is smart enough to understand it themselves.)
• The Genocide Convention was brought up. Somethings are too atrocious to allow to continue. [Although I am not sure we, as a planet, have discovered the best ways to intervene.]
• There is a whole area of discussion on our friendship with the Israelis. Were we protecting them from Saddam? The Israeli-Palestinian issue sounds like some nasty escalatio. The 2000 Camp David Accord was not much of an offer for the Palestinians. (no settlements dismantled, 3 non-contiguous sections.) Bush and Sharon do not seem interested in negotiations. And we may have a permanent military frontier to keep back the barbarian hordes. [This is a mess of notes. A good exercise would be to sort it out and fill in the blanks.]
• Should be Middle East be more independent states? The Soviet Union went from one entity to nineteen.
• The Palestinians think the American taxpayer is the answer. We should put more conditions on the use of our money.

QUESTION PERIOD IDEAS

• What is the best solution or the best solution now? Jim brought up two key ideas.
  1. "You use combat power to set conditions." In other words combat force is an intermediate step in a larger plan.
  2. There is a known counter-terrorism model. First you take out the leader. Secondly you resolve the reasons for joining the insurrection.
  People have basic needs. They need jobs, hope, and they want to keep their families safe. This means you need a political commitment to enterprise before you fire the first shot.
• Are we out to reform the Arab world, or just to create conditions for reform. Looking at the tools of love or war, ask what conditions are created. The Arabs need to be the ones to reform the Arab world.
• What sort of global reaction should we have to narrowly located problems? The most powerful militaries in the world have been taken down by small, motivated groups.
• The "neo-conservatives" have been outlining this war strategy for 6 years or more. (Roots go back to 1992) [Or, ideas stay in the pipeline for a long time. If you have a better idea, start working on it now. In six years it might be refined enough to become policy.]
• Don't let fear, or the atmosphere of fear, control us.
• John Wayne never drew first.
• The panel closed with a young Israeli lady who was absolutely certain the the Israelis were in the right and the Palestinians were wrong. The panelists told her she really needed to do her homework. It was interesting to see someone so attached to what they had learned that there was no humility about the possibility that other points of view might exist. I'm always cautious about a lack of humility in a dialogue.