{"id":16733,"date":"2016-01-20T14:02:27","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T19:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=16733"},"modified":"2016-01-20T14:02:27","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T19:02:27","slug":"turning-change-into-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=16733","title":{"rendered":"Turning Change into Chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Turning Change into Chaos<\/a><\/h3>\n

Early U.S. presidents warned that foreign entanglements could endanger the Republic, but it turns out that modern U.S. interventions are hazardous to the rest of the world as well, achieving neither democracy nor human rights, while spreading chaos and death, a tragic turn addressed by ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller.<\/p>\n<\/header>\n

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A renowned Arab religious scholar in the Fourteenth Century, ibn Taymiyya, is sometimes quoted as saying,\u00a0\u00a0Al-zulm afdal \u2018ala al-fawda\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 \u201coppression is to be favored over anarchy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although ibn Taiymiyya was no establishment figure in his time, this perspective was welcomed by all rulers since it provided explicit religious justification in support of arbitrary and often oppressive authority.<\/p>\n

\"President<\/a><\/p>\n

President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush (with First Lady Michelle Obama and former First Lady Laura Bush) walk to a White House event on May 31, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Maybe there\u2019s not a lot new here: all rulers at all times and all places like to wrap themselves in the robes of religious, ethnic or patriotic legitimacy in order to maintain power.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s something else: ibn Taymiyya lived in a period when the holocaust of the Mongol invasions was sweeping across Asia and into the Middle East sowing destruction. It was a time of fear, widespread violence and war, calling for political caution. Sound familiar?<\/p>\n

Is this thought, then, the product of a political reactionary? Or does it represent a fundamental insight into basic human psychology? Which of us, when confronted with anarchy in the streets \u2014 possibly getting murdered or kidnapped while simply going out to buy a loaf of bread \u2014 might not prefer authoritarian crackdown to unbridled chaos; where just staying alive is the best we can hope for in a precarious political and social environment?<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Turning Change into Chaos Early U.S. presidents warned that foreign entanglements could endanger the Republic, but it turns out that modern U.S. interventions are hazardous to the rest of the world as well, achieving neither democracy nor human rights, while spreading chaos and death, a tragic turn addressed by ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller. A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6963,11855,1343,1174,865],"class_list":["post-16733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-consortium-news","tag-graham-e-fuller","tag-regime-change","tag-us-foreign-policy","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16733"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16734,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16733\/revisions\/16734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}