Discussion for article #223767
“As the United Nations, the United States, Europe, and other powers urge their partners on the ground not to cede ground to violence, they must also encourage peaceful solutions and the development of democratic institutions that will broaden the base of legitimacy for these states.”
What utter pabulum. If I copy out stuff like this, can I become an Associate Professor too?
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No, not so much.
Bruited? Impuissance? Inimical? Guess I shoulda studied more for my SATs.
OK, here’s my problem with the essay: Except for the Rohyingya, which I admit I’d never heard of before yesterday, there doesn’t seem to be room for compromise. These may be organizations with grievances, but they are also loyal to other entities that will never relent until they have achieved complete and total control. What do you do when the other side wants nothing but scorched earth?
And at the risk of sounding snarky, all you have to do is look at the GOP.
Personally, I appreciated the elevated vocabulary, although I think using “bruit” as he did was gratuitous (since the context of use was pretty far from the central sense of the word) and hence a bit pretentious.
On the main point, I would imagine that while you probably can’t compromise with Boko Haram, you may be able to encourage a social order in which they’d find far less support among the populace. That’s certainly the case in Ukraine. The extremists need to be delegitimized.
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Seems to boil down to one simple consideration to bring up to flailing states:
you cannot expect to gain a unified nation when you ignore - or worse, work against - the welfare of those without numbers or influence.
Something that should also be brought up to our own political leaders.
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The professor is right and not to recognize it is shortsighted. To achieve political, social, economic, and ecological stability, which are the primary interests of the US and other civilized societies, we must promote more open and fair governments and condition our help to those governments upon their successes in achieving such reforms. We can not afford to simply take sides as it only perpetuates the historical patterns of instability and animosities. Otherwise, we feed the very problems that are now rampant and that will go on for the foreseeable future as a result of the Bush/Cheney/GOP simple-mindset of unilateralism.
However, we can not achieve foreign policy and global trading success that may result, if we can not root out extremism both at home and abroad, since extremism is effectively rejection of democratic values and a willingness to engage in rational negotiation. Humanity is faced with a daunting challenge of finding a middle way before our inability to respond collectively to global warming overwhelms us. Those who advocate for the purity of their extremism must be prepared to answer what such purity is worth, if it can only lead to self-destruction and perpetual violence. If they don’t have a good answer to this question, then they need to be ignored and marginalized.
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Pet peeve time Prof. Trumbull IV: it’s “rein in” not “reign in.” Think of pulling back on the reins of a horse.
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