{"id":16082,"date":"2012-10-24T16:25:36","date_gmt":"2012-10-24T16:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=16082"},"modified":"2012-10-24T16:25:36","modified_gmt":"2012-10-24T16:25:36","slug":"speaking-of-pundita","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=16082","title":{"rendered":"Speaking of Pundita…."},"content":{"rendered":"

She has a post up that skillfully weaves the case of Colonel Tunnell<\/strong> into a much larger, demoralizing, political and policy context:<\/p>\n

On the perversion of nonviolence and religious tolerance in service of politics and war<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two recently published\u00a0essays, one by Belmont Club’s Richard Fernandez, one by Zenpundit’s Mark Safranski, when taken together reveal a portrait of human evil so horrific that young people and the severely depressed should not be allowed to see it. The rest of us need to contemplate\u00a0what we have wrought by looking the other way as NATO military commands ordered\u00a0soldiers in Afghanistan to act like saints\u00a0in the face of ruthless armed militias and democratic governments\u00a0promoted the lie\u00a0that nonviolent resistance\u00a0could topple dictators.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In\u00a0The Limits of Myth<\/em><\/a>, Richard Fernandez amplifies on the theme I presented\u00a0in\u00a0On the Taliban shooting of Malala Yousafza: Pakistani human rights activists need to step believing in American fairy tales<\/em><\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pundita argues the notion of bloodless resistance has been oversold by the advocates of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. It was a convenient alternative narrative to that perennial problem-solving algorithm, war.\u00a0 By skipping over the War of Independence and the Civil War and emphasizing the Salt March and Selma, Alabama they gave the mistaken impression that resistance was all about speeches and heroic poses.<\/strong>
\n[…]<\/strong>
\nBut nonviolence is a useful myth she argues, because it gives diplomats an excuse not to act. It makes a virtue of doing nothing by characterizing it as actively breaking the cycle of violence and counseling that eventually the tyrant will die of shame. But not before you die of a bullet.<\/strong>
\n[…]<\/strong>
\nThe truth is that every resistance movement \u2014 even largely nonviolent ones \u2014 carries with it the implicit threat of force. The police and army of the regime often switch sides when they see that the cost of dealing with impending storm of popular violence exceeds the cost of turning on the tyrant. They fear force and therefore decline to exercise it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The idea of consequences was once deeply rooted in the public consciousness. Yahweh thundered. And even Christ came to save us from the fires of hell. But hell there was. The opportunity for nonviolent change was always understood to be the \u2018last chance\u2019 prelude to violent consequences.\u00a0\u00a0…\u00a0 This kind of reasoning is now out of fashion…..<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She has a post up that skillfully weaves the case of Colonel Tunnell into a much larger, demoralizing, political and policy context: On the perversion of nonviolence and religious tolerance in service of politics and war\u00a0 Two recently published\u00a0essays, one by Belmont Club’s Richard Fernandez, one by Zenpundit’s Mark Safranski, when taken together reveal a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[527,46,20,126,199,499,210,39,270,502,187,441,127,211],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-analytic","category-coin","category-counterinsurgency","category-insurgency","category-islamic-world","category-islamist","category-military","category-national-security","category-pakistan","category-politics","category-pundita","category-strategy","category-terrorism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16083,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16082\/revisions\/16083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}