Comments on: Why Does Romney Hate Democracy? http://larison.org/2007/05/07/why-does-romney-hate-democracy/ n. the principle of good order "Observe the strange inversion of all order and sense! Dignity debased; how vilely is the function of a consul prostituted!" ~The Craftsman Sun, 01 Aug 2010 07:32:28 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.4 by: Eunomia » Romney Should Not Discuss Foreign Policy If He Can Help It http://larison.org/2007/05/07/why-does-romney-hate-democracy/#comment-8945 Wed, 03 Mar 2010 21:17:30 +0000 http://larison.org/2007/05/07/why-does-romney-hate-democracy/#comment-8945 [...] I don’t revisit all of this just to attack Romney for sport, as entertaining as this can be, but to emphasize the real dangers that come from such profound misunderstanding of America’s jihadist enemies, their relative strength and the rivalries that exist among jihadist groups. Adopting an approach that conflates discrete and significantly different groups into a single force that the U.S. is supposed to combat will blind us to the political realities of the Near East and South Asia. As I said in response to Romney’s conflation of groups three years ago: Rather than exploiting the cleavages that exist between different kinds of Muslims and different groups of jihadis, as a savvy George Kennan-like foreign policy thinker might propose, the insane plan of leading Republican candidates and the party leadership is to keep reinforcing the image of a monolithic, unified “worldwide jihadist effort.” The net result of this thinking will be that America will have that many more implacable enemies to fight and we will have missed that many more opportunities to turn jihadi against jihadi and use natural Baathist hostility to the same to our advantage. Rather than playing on national and sectarian divisions and exploiting opposition between relatively secular Muslims and their religious counterparts, talk of a “worldwide jihadist effort” helps to push these groups into collaboration where none existed before. [...] […] I don’t revisit all of this just to attack Romney for sport, as entertaining as this can be, but to emphasize the real dangers that come from such profound misunderstanding of America’s jihadist enemies, their relative strength and the rivalries that exist among jihadist groups. Adopting an approach that conflates discrete and significantly different groups into a single force that the U.S. is supposed to combat will blind us to the political realities of the Near East and South Asia. As I said in response to Romney’s conflation of groups three years ago: Rather than exploiting the cleavages that exist between different kinds of Muslims and different groups of jihadis, as a savvy George Kennan-like foreign policy thinker might propose, the insane plan of leading Republican candidates and the party leadership is to keep reinforcing the image of a monolithic, unified “worldwide jihadist effort.” The net result of this thinking will be that America will have that many more implacable enemies to fight and we will have missed that many more opportunities to turn jihadi against jihadi and use natural Baathist hostility to the same to our advantage. Rather than playing on national and sectarian divisions and exploiting opposition between relatively secular Muslims and their religious counterparts, talk of a “worldwide jihadist effort” helps to push these groups into collaboration where none existed before. […]

]]> by: GAjjan http://larison.org/2007/05/07/why-does-romney-hate-democracy/#comment-6467 Tue, 08 May 2007 10:30:07 +0000 http://larison.org/2007/05/07/why-does-romney-hate-democracy/#comment-6467 Excellent post Dan - Brownback too was talking about "moderate Muslim regimes", and he mentioned Pakistan and Egypt. True, it wasn't too "moderate" of the Syrian regime to have mowed down thousands of civilians in Hama, 1982. Our leaders have shown the ability to do little else but learn new vocabulary words and then structure policy based upon their simplistic understanding. "Shiite crescent", "worldwide jihadist effort", etc. Excellent post Dan - Brownback too was talking about “moderate Muslim regimes”, and he mentioned Pakistan and Egypt. True, it wasn’t too “moderate” of the Syrian regime to have mowed down thousands of civilians in Hama, 1982.

Our leaders have shown the ability to do little else but learn new vocabulary words and then structure policy based upon their simplistic understanding. “Shiite crescent”, “worldwide jihadist effort”, etc.

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