About Beast Barracks.
Eric
Tuesday, 18 September 2012
Friday, 14 September 2012
Links after the Chris Stevens assassination
Ann Coulter points out that, in contrast to the Arab Spring, the American Revolution was controlled by our Founding Fathers, not a mob overthrow. Coulter includes a President Obama quote from his speech on Libya last year that is ironic given the attack's pretextual protest over an obscure youtube clip: "[We] must stand alongside those who believe in the same core principles that have guided us through many storms: . . . our support for a set of universal rights, including the freedom for people to express themselves".
Forensic psychiatrist Marc Sageman explains terrorist networks. His conclusion: "So in 2004, Al Qaeda has new leadership. In a way today’s operatives are far more aggressive and senseless than the earlier leaders. The whole network is held together by the vision of creating the Salafi state. A fuzzy, idea-based network really requires an idea-based solution. The war of ideas is very important and this is one we haven’t really started to engage yet." Thanks to Belmont Club commenter Highlander.
Ed Husain overlooks political Islam.
Ambassador Stevens warned about extremists near Benghazi in 2008.
White House asks Google to take down youtube clip. Does the youtube clip constitute an exception to protected First Amendment speech? No. Reminder: President Obama taught ConLaw at Chicago Law. Half-serious question: I wonder if Nakoula can be charged under 'bullying' statutes, given that their liability is judged by the effect and impact on the victims.
Why the attacks on broadly West-identified targets? The Islamists identify the youtube clip as merely a symptom of the cause, Western values. Obama wants to blame the youtube clip as the cause; if the problem is thus defined, the solution can be focused on domestic actors. In his September 20, 2001 speech to Congress, President Bush famously said, "They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." At the time, President Bush was mocked. Bush was right.
Libyan President al-Megarif contradicts US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice on the basis of the attack. Defining the problem frames the solution. The way the Libyan president is defining the problem would seat Libya in the War on Terror against the Islamists, thus demanding greater American involvement in Libya as the solution and calling Obama’s hands-off strategy to the Arab Spring into question. Whereas Ambassador Rice is attempting to define the problem so the incident is a one-time ‘spontaneous’ incident and therefore no basis for greater American involvement nor indictment of Obama’s strategy. Last year, Obama pointedly contrasted the American roles in post-Qaddafi Libya and post-Saddam Iraq. But Libya is now taking a step closer to needing US intervention in post-Qaddafi Libya. The US seems to be running from that approaching call for help. Reminds me of the US State Department spokesmen who did their best to avoid using the term "genocide" during the Rwandan genocide in order to avoid US intervention in Rwanda. The Islamists primary purpose is to clear the field of local competitors in order to construct an Islamist future in the Middle East. The 'protest' of the youtube clip is a competitive maneuver to equate Free Speech with anti-Islam. The Arab Spring liberals are associated with Free Speech. Most vulnerable are the Arab Spring liberals, and it looks like we're abandoning them and conceding the Arab Spring to the Islamists.
Wow - connection made. Susan Rice was on President Clinton's National Security Council as the Director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping from 1993 to 1995. Rice was instrumental in the US avoiding the defining label of "genocide" for the Rwanda genocide in order to avoid the solution of US intervention. Rice appears to be repeating the same tactic responding to the Stevens killing in order to limit the US reaction and uphold the Obama policy for post-Qaddafi Libya.
Marc Thiessen says Obama's Middle East policy has actually been on the wrong side of history: illiberal, supportive of autocrats, leading from behind the mob, even cutting funding to democracy promotion while claiming to support liberals, thus helping to explain the Islamist surge in the Middle East.
Liberals and Islamists facing off in Libya. This event recalls my observation at Professor Nacos's blog that the critical contest is not between the US and Islamists but between Muslims and Islamists where the winner will declare the loser is the intolerable apostate. Pakistani Raza Rumi discusses the intra-Muslim contest.
Middle East unrest . . . blame the Soviets? This book says Russian interference in the Middle East is severely underestimated.
Washington Post fact-checker charts the Obama administration's changing story on the Benghazi attacks.
Eric
Forensic psychiatrist Marc Sageman explains terrorist networks. His conclusion: "So in 2004, Al Qaeda has new leadership. In a way today’s operatives are far more aggressive and senseless than the earlier leaders. The whole network is held together by the vision of creating the Salafi state. A fuzzy, idea-based network really requires an idea-based solution. The war of ideas is very important and this is one we haven’t really started to engage yet." Thanks to Belmont Club commenter Highlander.
Ed Husain overlooks political Islam.
Ambassador Stevens warned about extremists near Benghazi in 2008.
White House asks Google to take down youtube clip. Does the youtube clip constitute an exception to protected First Amendment speech? No. Reminder: President Obama taught ConLaw at Chicago Law. Half-serious question: I wonder if Nakoula can be charged under 'bullying' statutes, given that their liability is judged by the effect and impact on the victims.
Why the attacks on broadly West-identified targets? The Islamists identify the youtube clip as merely a symptom of the cause, Western values. Obama wants to blame the youtube clip as the cause; if the problem is thus defined, the solution can be focused on domestic actors. In his September 20, 2001 speech to Congress, President Bush famously said, "They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." At the time, President Bush was mocked. Bush was right.
Libyan President al-Megarif contradicts US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice on the basis of the attack. Defining the problem frames the solution. The way the Libyan president is defining the problem would seat Libya in the War on Terror against the Islamists, thus demanding greater American involvement in Libya as the solution and calling Obama’s hands-off strategy to the Arab Spring into question. Whereas Ambassador Rice is attempting to define the problem so the incident is a one-time ‘spontaneous’ incident and therefore no basis for greater American involvement nor indictment of Obama’s strategy. Last year, Obama pointedly contrasted the American roles in post-Qaddafi Libya and post-Saddam Iraq. But Libya is now taking a step closer to needing US intervention in post-Qaddafi Libya. The US seems to be running from that approaching call for help. Reminds me of the US State Department spokesmen who did their best to avoid using the term "genocide" during the Rwandan genocide in order to avoid US intervention in Rwanda. The Islamists primary purpose is to clear the field of local competitors in order to construct an Islamist future in the Middle East. The 'protest' of the youtube clip is a competitive maneuver to equate Free Speech with anti-Islam. The Arab Spring liberals are associated with Free Speech. Most vulnerable are the Arab Spring liberals, and it looks like we're abandoning them and conceding the Arab Spring to the Islamists.
Wow - connection made. Susan Rice was on President Clinton's National Security Council as the Director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping from 1993 to 1995. Rice was instrumental in the US avoiding the defining label of "genocide" for the Rwanda genocide in order to avoid the solution of US intervention. Rice appears to be repeating the same tactic responding to the Stevens killing in order to limit the US reaction and uphold the Obama policy for post-Qaddafi Libya.
Marc Thiessen says Obama's Middle East policy has actually been on the wrong side of history: illiberal, supportive of autocrats, leading from behind the mob, even cutting funding to democracy promotion while claiming to support liberals, thus helping to explain the Islamist surge in the Middle East.
Liberals and Islamists facing off in Libya. This event recalls my observation at Professor Nacos's blog that the critical contest is not between the US and Islamists but between Muslims and Islamists where the winner will declare the loser is the intolerable apostate. Pakistani Raza Rumi discusses the intra-Muslim contest.
Middle East unrest . . . blame the Soviets? This book says Russian interference in the Middle East is severely underestimated.
Washington Post fact-checker charts the Obama administration's changing story on the Benghazi attacks.
Eric
Thursday, 13 September 2012
Our Middle East choices: autocrats, Islamists, liberals
The contest for dominance in the Middle East is a 3-way contest between autocrats, Islamists, and liberals. We want the liberals to be dominant. However, due to urgent political economic needs, we historically worked with the autocrats in power, who at least participated in the conventional nation-state system. The autocrats checked (repressed) both populist threats, Islamists and liberals, to the autocrats' dominance.
Political scientists from the 'realist' school that guided our foreign policy during the Cold War believe that liberal dominance in the Middle East is an unrealistic option. Therefore, they believe the realistic option in the Middle East is working with autocrats who will repress Islamists, even if the cost is sacrificing the liberals who are most compatible with us.
In the Arab Spring at Step One, we used the various tools of our superior power in the nation-state system to defeat the autocrats on behalf of the liberals. However, removing the autocrats' check on the liberals also removed the autocrats' check on the Islamists. The Islamists are less affected and influenced than the autocrats by our conventional power, so we need the liberals to check the Islamists at Step Two. But in the post-autocrat populist contest, the Islamists are far more powerful than the liberals. The liberals need sufficient smart assistance from the liberal West in order to have a feasible chance (note: not a guarantee) of winning dominance over the Islamists.
The best example of sufficient smart assistance to liberals competing with Islamists in the Middle East is the Bush-era Counter-Insurgency 'Surge' in Iraq. President Bush understood the dynamics of our 3 choices in the Middle East when he championed liberals in the Middle East with the Freedom Agenda, but President Obama ended the Freedom Agenda and decided to implement a more 'realist' foreign policy. Obama's change in course, though popular with opponents of Bush's foreign policy, rendered the West ill-prepared to assist the liberals in Step Two of the Arab Spring.
In short, when it came time to put up or shut up on behalf of liberals in Iraq, Bush put up. If we want - need - the liberals to defeat the Islamists and achieve dominance of the Middle East, then Obama and the West need to put up in Libya and the rest of the Arab Spring. Earlier, I asked the presidential candidates whether liberalism still defines American foreign policy. What kind of leadership do we need now from President Obama and the West? See the New York Times article on President Bush's decision for the 'Surge' in Iraq.
Eric
Political scientists from the 'realist' school that guided our foreign policy during the Cold War believe that liberal dominance in the Middle East is an unrealistic option. Therefore, they believe the realistic option in the Middle East is working with autocrats who will repress Islamists, even if the cost is sacrificing the liberals who are most compatible with us.
In the Arab Spring at Step One, we used the various tools of our superior power in the nation-state system to defeat the autocrats on behalf of the liberals. However, removing the autocrats' check on the liberals also removed the autocrats' check on the Islamists. The Islamists are less affected and influenced than the autocrats by our conventional power, so we need the liberals to check the Islamists at Step Two. But in the post-autocrat populist contest, the Islamists are far more powerful than the liberals. The liberals need sufficient smart assistance from the liberal West in order to have a feasible chance (note: not a guarantee) of winning dominance over the Islamists.
The best example of sufficient smart assistance to liberals competing with Islamists in the Middle East is the Bush-era Counter-Insurgency 'Surge' in Iraq. President Bush understood the dynamics of our 3 choices in the Middle East when he championed liberals in the Middle East with the Freedom Agenda, but President Obama ended the Freedom Agenda and decided to implement a more 'realist' foreign policy. Obama's change in course, though popular with opponents of Bush's foreign policy, rendered the West ill-prepared to assist the liberals in Step Two of the Arab Spring.
In short, when it came time to put up or shut up on behalf of liberals in Iraq, Bush put up. If we want - need - the liberals to defeat the Islamists and achieve dominance of the Middle East, then Obama and the West need to put up in Libya and the rest of the Arab Spring. Earlier, I asked the presidential candidates whether liberalism still defines American foreign policy. What kind of leadership do we need now from President Obama and the West? See the New York Times article on President Bush's decision for the 'Surge' in Iraq.
Eric
Wednesday, 12 September 2012
US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens assassinated
The assassination of Ambassador Stevens [graphic picture] with 3 other Americans yesterday at the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya was likely retaliation for the killing of Libya-born al Qaeda commander Abu Yaya al-Libi. The armed assault on the consulate, possibly conducted by members of Libyan Islamist group Ansar al Shariah, was apparently disguised with the pretext of a protest, reminding of the attack on the embassy in 2000 movie Rules of Engagement. Reports say the other 3 Americans killed were foreign service officer Air Force veteran Sean Smith and two Marines not yet identified. (Update: The other 2 American dead have been identified as Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.)
Ambassador Stevens apparently was visiting Benghazi to attend the opening of an American cultural center. A consulate is a diplomatic outpost, not a fully equipped embassy, which would help explain the light security. The terrorists chose a 'soft' target to attack the temporarily vulnerable US Ambassador and accomplished their mission. A troubling question is why the security for the American diplomats wasn't stronger given the recent series of Islamist attacks on security forces, and diplomatic and cultural targets with poor response by Libyan security forces. The 2 dead former Navy SEALs apparently were bodyguards for the Ambassador. I wonder if the elite quality of his bodyguards made Stevens overconfident about his security, perhaps believing they could save him from any situation.
This account cites a Libyan minister saying the Americans moved to a safer location but the Libyan guards directed the attackers to the 2nd location. Secretary Clinton says the Americans and Libyans fought side by side against the attackers, but I haven't heard of any Libyan casualties to match the American dead. (Update: Apparently, the outnumbered and outgunned Libyan guards declined to defend the consulate but surviving staff were taken to a safehouse and the firefight occurred at the 2nd location.) The New York Times provides more details on the sequence of events. Reuters reports the involvement of many more staffers and Marines than 1st reported and a heavy assault on the supposedly secret safehouse (which again, may have been revealed by the consulate guards) during the evacuation. How was it that 4 died when 37 staffers were able to escape?
The full-spectrum fluid War on Terror continues apace. The contest is between autocrats, Islamists, and liberals. We can defeat the autocrats, but we need the liberals to defeat the Islamists. But the liberals cannot compete with the Islamists without our help. Maybe Stevens's death will galvanize the Obama administration to intensify American investment in peace-building in Libya, perhaps with COIN.
Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods died in the line of duty in service to their country. Rest In Peace.
14SEP12 Add: Regarding the wider series of attacks on Western targets, it doesn't take a lot of insight to understand that the enemy understands himself to be engaged in a total clash of civilizations. His world order is incompatible with the world order we champion (or used to champion) that includes the UN and other Western nations and organizations. The fact that we don't want a clash of civilizations with him won't stop his clash with us.
The enemy doesn't mind war. War is change. War is the creative destruction needed to eliminate the competition. The enemy's greatest objection is to our kind of peace, a world order based on fundamentals that are incompatible with his fundamentals. For example, all of Operation Iraqi Freedom is labeled by most people as a "war" (I've done it as lazy shorthand, too). In fact, the war ended when we achieved regime change. However, the post-war in Iraq has been far bloodier and costlier than the war because the terrorists are most threatened by our post-war peace-building construction.
The heart of the War on Terror is not the war, but rather the competition to define the new order that emerges from the destruction of the old order. Bush understood that. Many leaders in the West do not.
Sergio Vieira de Mello, who headed the 1st post-war UN delegation to Iraq and was quickly assassinated, rejected US security in order to distinguish the UN's constructive role from the US mission. He didn't understand that Western construction of post-Saddam Iraq was the most urgent threat to the enemy in his clash of civilizations. I wonder if Ambassador Stevens, despite his extensive personal experience with Libya, made the same mistake as Vieira de Mello in believing his mission of peace would protect him. I wonder if Stevens failed to understand the particular peace he sought for Libya is the thing that the enemy is most dedicated to killing in his clash of civilizations against us.
Eric
Ambassador Stevens apparently was visiting Benghazi to attend the opening of an American cultural center. A consulate is a diplomatic outpost, not a fully equipped embassy, which would help explain the light security. The terrorists chose a 'soft' target to attack the temporarily vulnerable US Ambassador and accomplished their mission. A troubling question is why the security for the American diplomats wasn't stronger given the recent series of Islamist attacks on security forces, and diplomatic and cultural targets with poor response by Libyan security forces. The 2 dead former Navy SEALs apparently were bodyguards for the Ambassador. I wonder if the elite quality of his bodyguards made Stevens overconfident about his security, perhaps believing they could save him from any situation.
This account cites a Libyan minister saying the Americans moved to a safer location but the Libyan guards directed the attackers to the 2nd location. Secretary Clinton says the Americans and Libyans fought side by side against the attackers, but I haven't heard of any Libyan casualties to match the American dead. (Update: Apparently, the outnumbered and outgunned Libyan guards declined to defend the consulate but surviving staff were taken to a safehouse and the firefight occurred at the 2nd location.) The New York Times provides more details on the sequence of events. Reuters reports the involvement of many more staffers and Marines than 1st reported and a heavy assault on the supposedly secret safehouse (which again, may have been revealed by the consulate guards) during the evacuation. How was it that 4 died when 37 staffers were able to escape?
The full-spectrum fluid War on Terror continues apace. The contest is between autocrats, Islamists, and liberals. We can defeat the autocrats, but we need the liberals to defeat the Islamists. But the liberals cannot compete with the Islamists without our help. Maybe Stevens's death will galvanize the Obama administration to intensify American investment in peace-building in Libya, perhaps with COIN.
Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods died in the line of duty in service to their country. Rest In Peace.
14SEP12 Add: Regarding the wider series of attacks on Western targets, it doesn't take a lot of insight to understand that the enemy understands himself to be engaged in a total clash of civilizations. His world order is incompatible with the world order we champion (or used to champion) that includes the UN and other Western nations and organizations. The fact that we don't want a clash of civilizations with him won't stop his clash with us.
The enemy doesn't mind war. War is change. War is the creative destruction needed to eliminate the competition. The enemy's greatest objection is to our kind of peace, a world order based on fundamentals that are incompatible with his fundamentals. For example, all of Operation Iraqi Freedom is labeled by most people as a "war" (I've done it as lazy shorthand, too). In fact, the war ended when we achieved regime change. However, the post-war in Iraq has been far bloodier and costlier than the war because the terrorists are most threatened by our post-war peace-building construction.
The heart of the War on Terror is not the war, but rather the competition to define the new order that emerges from the destruction of the old order. Bush understood that. Many leaders in the West do not.
Sergio Vieira de Mello, who headed the 1st post-war UN delegation to Iraq and was quickly assassinated, rejected US security in order to distinguish the UN's constructive role from the US mission. He didn't understand that Western construction of post-Saddam Iraq was the most urgent threat to the enemy in his clash of civilizations. I wonder if Ambassador Stevens, despite his extensive personal experience with Libya, made the same mistake as Vieira de Mello in believing his mission of peace would protect him. I wonder if Stevens failed to understand the particular peace he sought for Libya is the thing that the enemy is most dedicated to killing in his clash of civilizations against us.
Eric
Tuesday, 11 September 2012
September 11, 2012
9/11/01 was also a Tuesday and had similar weather as today. My thoughts today on the 11th anniversary of 9/11 are the same as they were on the attacks' 10th anniversary.
Last year, I commemorated the anniversary by visiting Columbia, the locus of my personal response to 9/11. What will I do this year, today? Probably take a long walk down to the World Trade Center and reflect.
Eric
Saturday, 8 September 2012
More Stuy cheating news and a new sheriff principal in town
The follow-up investigation to the Spring semester Regents exam cheating scandal has revealed more Stuy kids cheating. The suspension count is up to 66. As to my earlier question about the point of recording test data for classmates taking the same test at the same time, the Daily News clarifies the Stuy kids were messaging each other during the tests; more on the mechanics of the scam from the Atlantic. The Stuyvesant Spectator reports Ahsan was caught because a student reported Ahsan to the principal. The cheating scandal is making headlines across local and national MSM, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
Ex-principal Stanley Teitel, who taught at Stuyvesant when I was there, suddenly 'resigned' his post and retired in August. Lax enforcement of academic integrity, including ignoring a NYC DOE-wide ban on cellphones in schools, is cited as a factor in the scandal. Jie Zhang, an experienced NYC DOE teacher and administrator, including HS principal, and 2-time Stuy mom herself, has been brought in as interim principal. Fittingly, Zhang started her teaching career at Rikers Island. She has been charged with cleaning up not only the particular cheating scandal but the revealed endemic cheating culture at Stuy.
My take as a long-ago Stuyvesant graduate is the personal identities of teenagers in general are overwhelmingly formed within the social context and by the societal pressures of high school. Moreover, a Stuyvesant student has followed a rigorous childhood path just to reach the start line of Stuyvesant and his family typically values school first and above all. The school's exalted reputation among NYC teenagers only adds pressure on Stuyvesant teenagers to make the most of the envied opportunity. At home, with peers, and in school, the Stuyvesant identity is defined in the near term by academic achievement, measured primarily by GPAs and test scores, and in the long run by the be-all/end-all goal of admission to an Ivy or Ivy-peer college/university. Stuyvesant teenagers internalize all of it. In their minds, there are no alternative life paths. A Stuyvesant student typically has been branded since his earliest memory of school with the 'potential' label, verified again with the Stuy test. But potential is not substantial. Potential is nothing proven, nothing established. Potential is an overbearing burden of aspirations and expectations with a short shelf life. The Stuyvesant teenager's fear is that there is no room for error; any academic misstep at Stuyvesant will be a trip and fall off the only conceivable life path for a Stuyvesant student. In order to stay on the path, students are held accountable for their quantifiable academic achievement, not their honesty and integrity (unless they're caught and punished for cheating). Falling off the path means utter collapse of the Stuyvesant teenager's entire identity, ostracization by family, school, and peers, and an unforgivable waste of his potential. Even the few students who are cynical enough to recognize the game for what it is can't escape it. When weighing tainted success versus honest failure, a Stuyvesant student is smart enough to understand the bottom line and the life stakes. Academic success at Stuy is considered a matter of survival.
How strong is the formative pressure of the Stuyvesant identity? It's a major reason I attended Columbia after the Army despite having fallen off the Stuyvesant life path years earlier. I felt compelled by my Stuyvesant pedigree to check an Ivy League degree off my bucket list even if possessing one no longer made a difference to anyone but me.
New York magazine has a long expose on the Stuy cheating scandal, including an interview with Nayeem Ahsan. It sounds like he had 89 GPA smarts but wanted a 95+ GPA and needed to cheat in order to score better than his natural ceiling. For the Stuy entrance exam, he studied as hard as he could and only scored in the low 600s. My advice as a Stuy grad to Ahsan? The social networking skills he's developed are very useful. His confidence skills will take him far in the real world. But for the rest of it, work ethic and fundamentals will take him farther in the long run than short cuts and cheating. An Ivy League degree is not the be-all/end-all.
Left to their own 'state of nature', most people - including gifted and talented Stuy kids - will make cost/benefit choices that follow the path of least resistance to greatest reward and least burden (punishment). An environment that binds its members with higher standards and integrity, as Stuy aspires to, requires leaders who take it upon themselves to push back against human nature and create artificial incentives that alter the membership's natural cost/benefit choices. As social creatures, a 'cooperate and graduate' mentality comes naturally. A few exceptional people will adhere to internalized codes of honor regardless of their environment. Some people are inveterate 'if you ain't cheating you ain't trying' opportunists. Most people can recite an ethical code and prefer a fair arena but will, when responding to real incentives and pressure, adjust pragmatically to their environment. I learned that leadership lesson as a CC platoon sergeant at USMAPS who set his own standards and enforced them for his peers when the TACs, secure in the knowledge that the remaining CCs had passed the hurdles required for West Point admission, had become virtual absentee landlords in the 4th quarter and, in the absence of TAC oversight, my classmates were falling out.
On a social level, cheating at Stuyvesant and other elite educational institutions needs to be addressed. The cheat-to-eat mentality carries over from school into professional life. While the real social damage caused by cheating students is mostly contained and minimal, the damage caused by cheating graduates who continue to cheat in the real world can be catastrophic.
Eric
Ex-principal Stanley Teitel, who taught at Stuyvesant when I was there, suddenly 'resigned' his post and retired in August. Lax enforcement of academic integrity, including ignoring a NYC DOE-wide ban on cellphones in schools, is cited as a factor in the scandal. Jie Zhang, an experienced NYC DOE teacher and administrator, including HS principal, and 2-time Stuy mom herself, has been brought in as interim principal. Fittingly, Zhang started her teaching career at Rikers Island. She has been charged with cleaning up not only the particular cheating scandal but the revealed endemic cheating culture at Stuy.
My take as a long-ago Stuyvesant graduate is the personal identities of teenagers in general are overwhelmingly formed within the social context and by the societal pressures of high school. Moreover, a Stuyvesant student has followed a rigorous childhood path just to reach the start line of Stuyvesant and his family typically values school first and above all. The school's exalted reputation among NYC teenagers only adds pressure on Stuyvesant teenagers to make the most of the envied opportunity. At home, with peers, and in school, the Stuyvesant identity is defined in the near term by academic achievement, measured primarily by GPAs and test scores, and in the long run by the be-all/end-all goal of admission to an Ivy or Ivy-peer college/university. Stuyvesant teenagers internalize all of it. In their minds, there are no alternative life paths. A Stuyvesant student typically has been branded since his earliest memory of school with the 'potential' label, verified again with the Stuy test. But potential is not substantial. Potential is nothing proven, nothing established. Potential is an overbearing burden of aspirations and expectations with a short shelf life. The Stuyvesant teenager's fear is that there is no room for error; any academic misstep at Stuyvesant will be a trip and fall off the only conceivable life path for a Stuyvesant student. In order to stay on the path, students are held accountable for their quantifiable academic achievement, not their honesty and integrity (unless they're caught and punished for cheating). Falling off the path means utter collapse of the Stuyvesant teenager's entire identity, ostracization by family, school, and peers, and an unforgivable waste of his potential. Even the few students who are cynical enough to recognize the game for what it is can't escape it. When weighing tainted success versus honest failure, a Stuyvesant student is smart enough to understand the bottom line and the life stakes. Academic success at Stuy is considered a matter of survival.
How strong is the formative pressure of the Stuyvesant identity? It's a major reason I attended Columbia after the Army despite having fallen off the Stuyvesant life path years earlier. I felt compelled by my Stuyvesant pedigree to check an Ivy League degree off my bucket list even if possessing one no longer made a difference to anyone but me.
New York magazine has a long expose on the Stuy cheating scandal, including an interview with Nayeem Ahsan. It sounds like he had 89 GPA smarts but wanted a 95+ GPA and needed to cheat in order to score better than his natural ceiling. For the Stuy entrance exam, he studied as hard as he could and only scored in the low 600s. My advice as a Stuy grad to Ahsan? The social networking skills he's developed are very useful. His confidence skills will take him far in the real world. But for the rest of it, work ethic and fundamentals will take him farther in the long run than short cuts and cheating. An Ivy League degree is not the be-all/end-all.
Left to their own 'state of nature', most people - including gifted and talented Stuy kids - will make cost/benefit choices that follow the path of least resistance to greatest reward and least burden (punishment). An environment that binds its members with higher standards and integrity, as Stuy aspires to, requires leaders who take it upon themselves to push back against human nature and create artificial incentives that alter the membership's natural cost/benefit choices. As social creatures, a 'cooperate and graduate' mentality comes naturally. A few exceptional people will adhere to internalized codes of honor regardless of their environment. Some people are inveterate 'if you ain't cheating you ain't trying' opportunists. Most people can recite an ethical code and prefer a fair arena but will, when responding to real incentives and pressure, adjust pragmatically to their environment. I learned that leadership lesson as a CC platoon sergeant at USMAPS who set his own standards and enforced them for his peers when the TACs, secure in the knowledge that the remaining CCs had passed the hurdles required for West Point admission, had become virtual absentee landlords in the 4th quarter and, in the absence of TAC oversight, my classmates were falling out.
On a social level, cheating at Stuyvesant and other elite educational institutions needs to be addressed. The cheat-to-eat mentality carries over from school into professional life. While the real social damage caused by cheating students is mostly contained and minimal, the damage caused by cheating graduates who continue to cheat in the real world can be catastrophic.
Eric
Thursday, 6 September 2012
A question for Romney and Obama about liberalism in American foreign policy
President Obama, Governor Romney, is liberalism dead as the defining and galvanizing principle of American (and American-led Western) foreign policy?
Vladimir Putin accuses the American-led West of acting in dangerous short-sighted opposition to corrupt and brutal but also stabilizing autocratic governments (re Syria) to achieve regime change, but without effectively advancing a viable liberal substitute (re Afghanistan). Rather, Putin says the US, by acting in opposition to autocrats without liberal substitution, is effectively empowering the competing 3rd party in the conflict, Islamist radical revolutionaries. Perhaps Putin is also making an implied comparison of our actions in Syria to the eventual fall-out of American arms-length opposition to the Soviet Union's efforts in 1980s Afghanistan in the conflict that empowered al Qaeda for their modern transnational revolution.
As painful as it is to concede, Putin has a point. In the 'Arab Spring' countries, the liberal activists who appealed to the West have been pushed aside in the regime changes. Without sufficient support, such as we eventually provided Iraq, the region's liberals simply aren't powerful enough to compete for dominance.
President Obama, Governor Romney, is America still the 'Leader of the Free World' that actively champions and affirms a liberal world order? Do American leaders still believe liberalism is viable and worth competing for as an international organizing principle? If we are not and you do not, then acting to tear down the existing order in a country without empowering a viable acceptably liberal substitute carries the danger of empowering an aggressive, opportunistic 3rd party - such as al Qaeda and their fellow travelers - to fill the vacuum with an equally or more intolerable organizing principle.
“In the century we're leaving, America has often made the difference between chaos and community; fear and hope. Now, in a new century, we'll have a remarkable opportunity to shape a future more peaceful than the past -- but only if we stand strong against the enemies of peace.”
-- President William J. Clinton announcing Operation Desert Fox, December 16, 1998
07SEP12 Add: ABC's Richard Engel provides a thumbnail sketch of the anti-liberal course of the Middle East since the Arab Spring and concludes, "What happens if the [sic] Washington continues to watch from afar?" However, Engel undermines his question by sidestepping a thoughtful exploration of the hard choices we face there. Engel only implies the bad-or-worse nature of our options in the Middle East with his premise that the liberal promises of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Arab Spring have drowned in the region's religious tribal contests. Engel also warns that al Qaeda has been damaged but not defeated, which means the al Qaeda cancer remains dangerous. He refers to the American tactical victory over al Qaeda in Iraq and our broader tactical success combating al Qaeda, but then warns of the dangers of alienating Sunnis and al Qaeda's intelligent 'shifting antigen' adaptive capability. Engel argues local American commitment hurts al Qaeda, while American absence allows openings for al Qaeda to make inroads with the anti-government forces, such as the reformed tactics al Qaeda is now employing in Syria.
Eric
Vladimir Putin accuses the American-led West of acting in dangerous short-sighted opposition to corrupt and brutal but also stabilizing autocratic governments (re Syria) to achieve regime change, but without effectively advancing a viable liberal substitute (re Afghanistan). Rather, Putin says the US, by acting in opposition to autocrats without liberal substitution, is effectively empowering the competing 3rd party in the conflict, Islamist radical revolutionaries. Perhaps Putin is also making an implied comparison of our actions in Syria to the eventual fall-out of American arms-length opposition to the Soviet Union's efforts in 1980s Afghanistan in the conflict that empowered al Qaeda for their modern transnational revolution.
As painful as it is to concede, Putin has a point. In the 'Arab Spring' countries, the liberal activists who appealed to the West have been pushed aside in the regime changes. Without sufficient support, such as we eventually provided Iraq, the region's liberals simply aren't powerful enough to compete for dominance.
President Obama, Governor Romney, is America still the 'Leader of the Free World' that actively champions and affirms a liberal world order? Do American leaders still believe liberalism is viable and worth competing for as an international organizing principle? If we are not and you do not, then acting to tear down the existing order in a country without empowering a viable acceptably liberal substitute carries the danger of empowering an aggressive, opportunistic 3rd party - such as al Qaeda and their fellow travelers - to fill the vacuum with an equally or more intolerable organizing principle.
“In the century we're leaving, America has often made the difference between chaos and community; fear and hope. Now, in a new century, we'll have a remarkable opportunity to shape a future more peaceful than the past -- but only if we stand strong against the enemies of peace.”
-- President William J. Clinton announcing Operation Desert Fox, December 16, 1998
07SEP12 Add: ABC's Richard Engel provides a thumbnail sketch of the anti-liberal course of the Middle East since the Arab Spring and concludes, "What happens if the [sic] Washington continues to watch from afar?" However, Engel undermines his question by sidestepping a thoughtful exploration of the hard choices we face there. Engel only implies the bad-or-worse nature of our options in the Middle East with his premise that the liberal promises of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Arab Spring have drowned in the region's religious tribal contests. Engel also warns that al Qaeda has been damaged but not defeated, which means the al Qaeda cancer remains dangerous. He refers to the American tactical victory over al Qaeda in Iraq and our broader tactical success combating al Qaeda, but then warns of the dangers of alienating Sunnis and al Qaeda's intelligent 'shifting antigen' adaptive capability. Engel argues local American commitment hurts al Qaeda, while American absence allows openings for al Qaeda to make inroads with the anti-government forces, such as the reformed tactics al Qaeda is now employing in Syria.
Eric
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