Hearing ourselves through the ears of others

Yesterday Father Orthoduck posted on the fatwa that was announced against the jihadists by a prominent Islamic scholar. Sometimes we ask ourselves why did this not happen sooner. But, since Americans have very little tendency to listen, despite all the Oprah-like shows that emphasize learning to listen, and since Americans know very little history or geography, they then have a tendency to be somewhat clueless when dealing with world affairs. Even our Psych-Ops people inside and outside the Armed Forces tend to be oriented only towards neutralizing a perceived immediate threat rather than preparing the ground for a lasting change among those whom you have defeated in battle.

On top of this general cluelessness, Americans have a tendency to judge everything as black or white and to make that as a snap judgment. The trouble is that it is in the shades of gray that one begins to understand the dimensions of a problem. We actually got that right in World War II. Notice that both General Douglas MacArthur in the Pacific and Secretary of State George Marshall in Europe understood that. Both men resisted outcries from the populace and the Congress to punish the conquered enemy. They also resisted outcries that everyone who had held any position of any authority in the former regimes had to be banned from being used by the Allies. Both men knew their history and their human psychology and knew that to produce lasting change in the two main Axis countries, they had to be cognizant of the two factors of history and psychology.

On the history side, they were well aware that the reparations that were levied on Germany after World War I impoverished and humiliated the country and led directly to the rise of the anti-European reaction that was the National Socialist Party. In fact, just this past week, one of the Ripley’s Believe It or Not cartoons pointed out that Germany is still paying off the reparations from World War I. Can you imagine that?! On the psychology side, they were well aware that outside the top leadership, many people simply serve the current regime because they have to eat and not necessarily because they agree with the current regime. More than that, the longer a regime is in power, the more of the infrastructure is managed by people who are supposedly tainted with some affiliation to the party in power.

So both men executed the same basic simple plan. Part one of the plan was to avoid reparations that would lead to hopelessness and resurgent anger. So, they set about rebuilding the infrastructure and making sure that a functional economy was in place that could provide decent employment for almost everyone. They were so successful that, “By 1952 as the funding ended, the economy of every participant state had surpassed pre-war levels; for all Marshall plan recipients, output in 1951 was 35% higher than in 1938.” Folks, they actually improved the economy of Europe so well that the economy was 1/3 better than under the pre-World War II governments! Who would even want to rebel against the occupying forces under such a scenario? The populace remained calm after World War II out of sheer amazement at what their conquerors were doing.

But, they also understood human psychology. Most people are followers of one type or another. They may rise into supervisory positions, but they tend to implement policy rather than to originate policy. And, as long as that policy does not have them personally involved in something evil, as long as the evil things happen somewhere else, they can convince themselves that they bear no personal moral responsibility for the other actions. Add a healthy dose of fear (the Gestapo, Saddam’s secret police, etc.), and one can keep large portions of the populace quiet, even if they do not agree with you. If, in addition, you make some type of party affiliation necessary for any post beyond a very low level supervisor, then you can morally taint a large number of people who will know that the party with which they are affiliated is doing evil things, but are too afraid to critique or to not join. Uhm, Saddam knew that lesson, too.

Both MacArthur and Marshall knew this psychology. And so, they did not punish those with party affiliation. Rather, they told them to stay in their supervisory jobs and to run the country, under the new rules. In one fell swoop, they turned a large portion of the management people into supporters of the Allies. Those people were not followers of either the Emperor or the Führer, they were simply scared out of their wits and caught in a system they thought they could not change. You can read the horrendous arguments that broke out in the USA at those policies! Yes, just like today, we wanted to judge black and white. We wanted to create an underclass of permanently unemployable (or incarcerated) people because justice had to be done. But, both those men knew that the long-term stability of those countries was more important for our security than the punishment and impoverishment of them. And, they also knew that gratefulness is a better teacher of repentance than punishment. Uhm, Jesus knew that too; just look at the Samaritan woman or the woman caught in adultery. The end results were both a Germany and a Japan that were psychologically changed and freely chose to become our allies. In fact,  major European wars have stopped. There has been no major European war since then. Sadly, the same has not been true in Asia outside of Japan, but notice how stable Japan is.

So, what does this have to do with the Middle East?

===MORE TO COME===