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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (118870)	11/7/2003 1:34:36 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

re: fighting shame-based cultures: Thanks for those two articles. I was pre-disposed to disagree with Pipes, (since he is a Bush appointee), but, after reading a couple of articles by him, I find myself agreeing with much, and taking seriously all, of what he says. Even when he doesn't have the right answers, he asks the right questions. <But in order to win their hearts and minds, mercy had to follow might, not precede it. When mercy shows first, the shame-prone will view it as a sign of guilt and weakness; but when generosity follows total war, it is like Allah’s mercy, a blessing from a power of unquestioned omnipotence.> OK. This makes sense. Mercy, a willingness to compromise, is often interpreted as weakness. Gandhi recognized this problem, that if pacifism was adopted out of weakness and cowardice, it would lead to defeat and permanent subjugation. He said: "It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence." His solution is that mercy and might must go together. Either one, alone, will fail. Waging total war, with an unlimited willingness to hurt the Other, this worked for Alexander and Napolean. Also Sherman in Georgia, and Patton in Germany. But, here's the relevant questions for today's (and tomorrow's) reality: 1. How do you deal with a shame-based culture armed with nuclear weapons? 2. How do you defeat the guerrilla war that Muslim shame-based nations will wage, whenever they suffer a defeat/occupation in conventional war?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (118870)	11/8/2003 1:00:52 PM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

excellent article on the difference in dealing with shame-based vs guilt-based cultures, and its implication for the WOT: #reply-19475823 The important thing to ask, is does this explanation have predictive power? I think it sure did in the Israeli/Pal conflict. Not to mention its pertinence to the recent speech by Mahathir that generated so much bandwidth of commentary just recently. That speech fairly reeked of what this article talks about.