I don't think religious militants disagree that we live in the here and now and have to face our issues in the here and now. They just identify a very different set of issues.

I don't think "more secular" is a better guideline than any other. It would have led to supporting the Bolsheviks in the Russian revolution (had we taken any side). I think the right move is to have NO ironclad rules other than doing what seems, through the gutwrenching view of the moment and the best you can do, to be the RIGHT decision, taking into account your own national sense of right, the interests of your people, and some kind of guideline about when to get involved *at all.*

Any other rules are just waiting for history to sneer at them.

"I don't think religious militants disagree that we live in the here and now and have to face our issues in the here and now. They just identify a very different set of issues."
That's perfectly fair, but then my conversation with them is terminated and I hope that so is my government's.

"I don't think "more secular" is a better guideline than any other. It would have led to supporting the Bolsheviks in the Russian revolution (had we taken any side). I think the right move is to have NO ironclad rules other than doing what seems, through the gutwrenching view of the moment and the best you can do, to be the RIGHT decision, taking into account your own national sense of right, the interests of your people, and some kind of guideline about when to get involved *at all.*

Any other rules are just waiting for history to sneer at them."

No, we wouldn't have supported the Bolsheviks. Their "belief" in communism and their later veneration of certain communists can be qualified as a religion. Stalin presented himself as a saviour just as much as Jesus did. And there's a difference between choosing sides and tending towards a side. We could have set, about the Russian revolution, that we both disagree with the Tsarist repression, as well as with the Communist utopists.
I'm also not saying we should make a rule or a law, it's more that I feel western governments are adrift, that all they do now is respond in a politically correct fashion to every incident ("we strongly condemn the violence") that is starting to feel (to me) as meaningless, if it is not underpinned by a more solid diplomatic direction.

Wait, I withdraw my first paragraph. I thought that you meant to say they disagree, but you said they don't disagree.

"No, we wouldn't have supported the Bolsheviks. Their "belief" in communism and their later veneration of certain communists can be qualified as a religion. Stalin presented himself as a saviour just as much as Jesus did."

I kind of think you're just reverse engineering now to get the result you want. As between the Tsar and the Orthodox church, and the Bolsheviks, I think it's pretty clear who thought that the here and now was *all* that should influence our thinking; and anyway, I disagree that Communism was a religion. If you interpret your new position consistently, you would say that you just oppose anybody with a strong devotion to any belief system. That would presumably include America, with its (colorably) religious devotion to freedom and democracy.

"it's more that I feel western governments are adrift, that all they do now is respond in a politically correct fashion to every incident ("we strongly condemn the violence") that is starting to feel (to me) as meaningless, if it is not underpinned by a more solid diplomatic direction. "

Maybe. But that doesn't mean that any old rule would be an improvement. I certainly don't see this as one.

If you really want a rule, I'd say this: we'll support whoever more credibly promises to expand freedom -- economic, speech, religious, and family -- and to build the institutions that would enable that to last. Between two sides which both oppose freedom, we'll throw up our hands and say, "A pox on both your houses!" and leave them to it; except when they're killing each other in disturbing enough numbers, when we'll club them across the face and tell them to shape the heck up.

If you forced me to make a rule, that would be it. But I don't believe in rules, including that one.

I stress that I don't mean rule as in "law" or anything written down in a policy paper. I mean in the sense of guideline.

The communists weren't all bad. Literacy increased dramatically during the communist years. I think the communists were religious in their anti-religiousness (prosecution of Christians, closing down of monasteries). I would identify them as having strong religious traits, even in the beginning.

Devotion to freedom is a different thing. If you fight for my right to believe *anything*, I don't believe that that is religious in the sense that I believe it is religious of a communist to try to batter the religion out of me. Democracy is not a religion either, when implemented correctly. It means that you allow pluriformity. Communism and muslim extremism impose uniformity.

IMHO, when you say "I'd say this: we'll support whoever more credibly promises to expand freedom -- economic, speech, religious, and family -- and to build the institutions that would enable that to last." perhaps you phrase it differently, but to me that is a secular way of working and I'd say you agree with me, choosing different tone and wording.

I'm not a big fan of organized religion, and greatly dislike, therefore, religion-as-government. But I think choosing religion vs secularism is a false choice. I think what you are looking to support are those governments who support freedom of speech, allow the growth of NGOs (non-governmental organizations), freedom of religion, etc. Yes?

How are governments that "support freedom of speech, allow the growth of NGOs (non-governmental organizations), freedom of religion, etc." *not* secularist? It's perfectly possible that the people *in* that government have profound religious views and go to church on sundays, donate to it, raise their children in church tradition, while still being secular politicians, right?

So I don't think it's a false choice. In Egypt, I think it means that with both the military and the muslim brotherhood partly in the right, I prefer to do business with the military if information that I get indicates that both groups are in a morally grey area.

'doing business' with the military in this case means supporting the overthrow of an elected president.

(not that I feel that president was acting particularly democratically. however, if you support every strongman who isn't overtly religious, how do you have ANY credibility to pretend that you support freedom?)

Let me pursue your first overall thought, though. You are proposing a guideline for a government as to 'which side" it will support in a struggle. So at the point when you decide, the only data you have is the groups' past actions plus their rhetoric. In 1917, the Czar was corrupt, the church was complicit, the peasants were enslaved, in effect. The communists had no track record, perse, other than supporting the people and opposing the church. At THAT point in time, your guideline would endorse supporting Lenin, yes?

Well, that depends on which information you'd include into your decision. The Germans supplied a lot of money and means to Lenin, since his ascent would mean the Russians would withdraw from WWI.

Would it endorse supporting Lenin? Well, perhaps in the case of Lenin it would be conditional support, given the religious character I assigned to communism earlier. Perhaps you could insist that the new Russian constitution would include free elections after Lenin's death, or in ten years time. There's no need to unconditionally choose a side that you don't really like.
Of course, with the knowledge we have today about the tremendous crimes of the Soviet empire, you may not have chosen Lenin's side, *but* the decision *not* to support Lenin would then be made with hindsight information, not with the information available in 1917.

Sounds like we agree - this guideline would support Lenin over the Czar, given the information you have at the time.

So: let's go back to the first Egyptian uprising. You have a corrupt but efficient government who suppresses civil organizations and freedoms but is religiously equitable. would we agree that is a good description of that government?

More importantly, at the time of the russian revolution it would have been much harder to tell that Stalin would become a jesus-like figure, nor that there communism would be so brutal (it had never been tried before...)

In fact the mensheviks were equally secular by much less extreme, having compromised with social democrats; but how could you have picked between Bolshevik and Menshevik?

I think that goes to the heart of the issue now, you see it through the eyes of religious/sectarian conflict because that's what you're looking for.

People should make their own minds up, self-determination. Thats the only principle i can really hold for who to support. That doesn't mean selling weapons to Assad; but it also doesn't mean standing by as he murders his population. Same in egypt. (except the US is giving Egypt weapons, tanks and fighters, not selling them)

If you decide to support one revolution, and then a similar country rises up against their dictator - hoping they will have the same support - but instead they get massacred. You are partly responcible. (contrasting libya with syria here)

it's a complicated world :)

I'm not sure about Lenin. semck brought it up, it was a different time and different circumstances. Communism under Lenin was not in the black and white area. Like I said, Communism brought literacy to large parts of Russia and broke the worldly power of the clergy. These are good things. Communism has this religious element in it. Also, I think the allies later went too far in their support of Stalin, they should have created more Finland-like states after WWII, militarily neutral but with democratic institutions. Poland should have been a neutral state and Germany should have remained unified.

I'm not sure we could define a corrupt government as efficient. I think Egypt is a complicated country with limited options compared to my own country. I believe the Mubarak government was not the worst government imaginable for Egypt, no. Particularly a stable peace treaty with Israel, a stable domestic situation in which you could have some economic growth etc. are things Mubarak did well. I think he should have done more to stop the explosive growth of Egypt's population.

@orathaic
I'm not saying the "guideline" I hope our leaders will start to use is somehow the final solution to all problems in the arab world. I just believe the focus so far has been too much on bringing democracy (or actually, it's been on keeping elections, which is not the sole element of democracy) and not on bringing a sense of modern statehood (secularism, separation of powers etc.)

"whenever two opposing sides emerge that appear to be equally deserving of our support, let's default to the secular side"
Keep in mind I am an agnostic when I say this, but that is a very, very stupid statement.

Muslim Brother vs Egyptian Military (The ones that have killed 500 people since coming to power): Its obvious which side is more secular
Kurds vs Sunni Rebels vs Assad (Assad has killed tens of thousands in the last 2 years): The Christian and secular communities of Syria are backing Assad because they fear the Islamic roots of the rebels. The Kurds only have support near the Iraqi border.
Palestine vs Israel: Israel supports free religion, but that hardly justifies the multiple human rights violations Israel has committed against Palestine.

If you take the side of the secular, you will always come off as anti-muslim and that will only makes things worse in the Middle East.

As an agnostic or atheist you should realize that religion doesn't matter. It should be based on the will of the people, and the path that results in the least blood, should be the one that we support.

Personally I think we should stay out of the region and I don't see any reason we need to get involved, either now or in the future.

"Communism under Lenin was not in the black and white area. Like I said, Communism brought literacy to large parts of Russia and broke the worldly power of the clergy."
Not sure where your getting your facts from, taken from wikipedia:
Destruction of the economy during the Russian Civil War and War communism years led to a sharp drop in the number of schools and enrolled students. Whereas in 1914, 91% of the children were receiving instruction in the schools, in 1918 figure dropped to 62%, in 1919 to 49% and in 1920 to 24.9%.[2] As a result, illiteracy grew rapidly."
it wasn't till Stalin did the USSR have the infrastructure to sustain mass schooling, and being taught how great Comrade Stalin is, hardly counts as education.

Yes this lead to higher literacy, but there are far better examples of mass education over a short time period that were more effective and didn't revolve around brainwashing the kids.

@rh,

"IMHO, when you say "I'd say this: we'll support whoever more credibly promises to expand freedom -- economic, speech, religious, and family -- and to build the institutions that would enable that to last." perhaps you phrase it differently, but to me that is a secular way of working and I'd say you agree with me, choosing different tone and wording."

You're committing the fallacy of affirming the consequent, though. It's true that the ideals I named could be viewed as secular, in themselves. But it's *not* true that all secular ideals line up with the ideals I named. Therefore, it's not at all true that my criterion is similar to yours in any way -- particularly because, in a given conflict, it might be the church that is fighting on the side of freedom and the secularists against it.

"The communists weren't all bad. Literacy increased dramatically during the communist years."

And this is just an example of the kind of horror your views would produce.

Another excellent example of your standard being really horrible, by the way, would be the Chinese civil war.

No, semck, because as I explained earlier, I consider a communist to be a religious person. Karl Marx is his Jesus, Das Kapital is his bible, Lenin is his Mohammed. Note that communists have always been involved in indoctrination, their equivalent of conversion. They have banned books, killed those who disagreed with them etc.. To me it's 90% religion and I'll treat them as such.

""The communists weren't all bad. Literacy increased dramatically during the communist years."

And this is just an example of the kind of horror your views would produce."

How so? How is literacy a bad thing? (By the way, I'm not sure about Fasces' data, possibly they're correct, in school I was always taught that the high literacy rate in the USSR was one of the few upsides of communism, as was the universal access to health care, and that the downside was pretty much everything else.)

"No, semck, because as I explained earlier, I consider a communist to be a religious person."

OK. I can't imagine what definition of "religious" you are using, so before we proceed, why don't you define that word for me?

"'"The communists weren't all bad. Literacy increased dramatically during the communist years."

"'And this is just an example of the kind of horror your views would produce.'

"How so? How is literacy a bad thing?"

Literacy is not a bad thing. But it had nothing to do with increasing freedom; and viewing literacy as so important that the horrors of the Bolshevik regime weren't "all bad" is certainly a bad thing.

Trying telling an Indian that the Raj wasn't so bad, because at least they got a good legal system out of it. I think he'll explain to you what I'm talking about.

(Not, incidentally, that I consider the Raj and the soviet regime comparable).

Literacy has everything to do with increasing freedom and you know that very well.

There's an ocean of difference (literally) between the Raj in India and Communism in the Soviet Union (or Russia) as Russia (most of the USSR) was autonomous and India was a colony. People hate being dominated by a foreign power.

"OK. I can't imagine what definition of "religious" you are using, so before we proceed, why don't you define that word for me?"

I can't. Religions share elements, not all religions share these elements, some religions have elements others don't have, but indoctrination, the notion of a "Savior", a "book" that remains an absolute truth long after most of it became obsolete, are typically religious things.

But we're drifting off, I'm talking about how to solve the problems in the arab world in the here and now and the possible positive role secular movements, or movements tending more toward secularism than others, could play.

"Literacy has everything to do with increasing freedom and you know that very well."

No I don't. If it did, the USSR would have been freer than what went before. It was not.

It's true that there's usually high correlation. But examples such as the USSR just go to show that the two are nonetheless very distinct, and it is freedom that I am ultimately interested in. (Yes, it will usually bring an increase in literacy).

"There's an ocean of difference (literally) between the Raj in India and Communism in the Soviet Union (or Russia) as Russia (most of the USSR) was autonomous and India was a colony. People hate being dominated by a foreign power."

Wait -- are you still arguing the USSR wasn't really that bad?

"I can't. Religions share elements, not all religions share these elements, some religions have elements others don't have, but indoctrination, the notion of a "Savior", a "book" that remains an absolute truth long after most of it became obsolete, are typically religious things."

Well, then, your criterion doesn't seem very useful. In practice, in trying to apply it, people would just end up arguing about what was actually religious and what wasn't. That's one step less relevant than just arguing about which side they should support in the instant situation.

Let's consider your criteria. What exactly is "indoctrination"? If it is forcing the religion on people through brain-washing techniques, then a great many world religions would not qualify as religions. On the other hand, if it teaching people the truth and benefits of the religion from an early age, then western liberalism qualifies. The notion of a "savior"? George Washington, duh! And as for "a book that remains an absolute truth long after most of it became obsolete" -- well, whether it became obsolete is, of course, always a question, isn't it? You may say Das Kapital became obsolete, but a Communist would disagree. Many people alive today think the US Constitution is obsolete, but like most liberal (in the European sense) Americans, I disagree, and am fiercely devoted to it.

Yep, I guess American liberalism is a religion. We should oppose it.

"But we're drifting off, I'm talking about how to solve the problems in the arab world in the here and now and the possible positive role secular movements, or movements tending more toward secularism than others, could play. "

If you are just saying that radical Muslim governments are troubling and should not be supported, I think I agree with you.

But beyond that, I don't really see our warrant. We putatively believe in Democracy, for example. Where is our warrant to take the side of a minority secularist splinter group against a majority-Muslim but tolerant democracy, should that choice arise? I'm not saying it has, but it's easy to imagine it could.

"What exactly is "indoctrination"? If it is forcing the religion on people through brain-washing techniques, then a great many world religions would not qualify as religions."

Not wishing to start an enormous tangent here but that claim is highly debatable.

"Not wishing to start an enormous tangent here but that claim is highly debatable. "

That's fine, Hereward. We don't really have to go down that tangent. It suffices to remark that the same methods are used to teach young children that their religion is true and that democracy, freedom, and the principles of their government are good -- teaching it to them from a young age. So if one of them is brainwashing, then the other is at least open to the charge of being brainwashing.

Now, there may be some argument for why it's not. But at the point where you find you're arguing about what is and is not a legitimate method for teaching young children different kinds of subject matter, and you're doing it to define religion, I think there's an argument to be made that you haven't chosen a very effective foreign policy criterion.

That is exactly the argument I am now making.

My university dissertation was on the topic of political education and I actually argue in it that almost all forms of political education are indoctrination so I actually have some sympathy for the claim that both are a type of brainwashing.

Moving on though, I'm finding your debate interesting so please, do continue.

semck, you keep trying to cast my argument as some kind of absolute, taking a pretty legalist view on my thread I didn't intend it to have (but which I'm happy to explore and which I possibly invited, but for the record, didn't intend). I don't need a strict definition of religion to see that communism has religious characteristics (which I think I did a good job explaining).

You don't believe in your constitution like a communist believes in certain communist writings. The US constitution is an organic document that has been modified many times when some extra rules were needed or when others became obsolete. In fact, the rules on *how* to change the US constitution are *actually in* the US constitution. The constitution itself implies that it is possibly incomplete at a given stage after it's been written. It's also a lot more open-ended than a book such as Das Kapital is.

"Where is our warrant to take the side of a minority secularist splinter group against a majority-Muslim but tolerant democracy, should that choice arise? I'm not saying it has, but it's easy to imagine it could."

In fact, I think this is *exactly* what's happening in Egypt and this is *exactly* what we should be debating. There's a small majority (52%) of people who want the country governed by (moderate - extreme) islamists and 48% that don't. I'm with the 48% that don't; the large secular minority that I feel will be repressed by what I'll gladly admit to be a fair and square majority.