An open letter to Obama from Academia and what a layman biker dude finds wrong with the memo.

An Open Letter to President Barack Obama

January 30, 2011 By journalist

Dear President Obama:

As political scientists, historians, and researchers in related fields who have studied the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy, we the undersigned believe you have a chance to move beyond rhetoric to support the democratic movement sweeping over Egypt. As citizens, we expect our president to uphold those values.

For thirty years, our government has spent billions of dollars to help build and sustain the system the Egyptian people are now trying to dismantle. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in Egypt and around the world have spoken. We believe their message is bold and clear: Mubarak should resign from office and allow Egyptians to establish a new government free of his and his family’s influence. It is also clear to us that if you seek, as you said Friday “political, social, and economic reforms that meet the aspirations of the Egyptian people,” your administration should publicly acknowledge those reforms will not be advanced by Mubarak or any of his adjutants.

There is another lesson from this crisis, a lesson not for the Egyptian government but for our own. In order for the United States to stand with the Egyptian people it must approach Egypt through a framework of shared values and hopes, not the prism of geostrategy. On Friday you rightly said that “suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away.” For that reason we urge your administration to seize this chance, turn away from the policies that brought us here, and embark on a new course toward peace, democracy and prosperity for the people of the Middle East. And we call on you to undertake a comprehensive review of US foreign policy on the major grievances voiced by the democratic opposition in Egypt and all other societies of the region.

Sincerely,
Jason Brownlee, University of Texas at Austin [contact to sign]
Joshua Stacher, Kent State University
Tamir Moustafa, Simon Fraser University
Arang Keshavarzian, New York University
Clement Henry, University of Texas at Austin

and 95 additional names. The list is a dynamic list, inviting more and more signatures.

Editor's notes: we have just read a brief but substantial letter to Mr. Obama from the reigning intelligentsia of this country with the hopes of influencing him to a not-so specific end. They are academics with impressive resume' and I, your humble editor, am much more a recreational biker dude and wrestling coach than anything else.

Here is the problem this layman sees in the above letter: it is borne of the opinion that "geostrategies" and a "shared values" agenda are mutually exclusive. The memo implies that Obama should stop with the one and begin with the other. Nonsense.

First, if we allow for nations to be sovereign, we have no choice but to draw from certain geo-centric considerations.

Second, international politics are not monochromatic in their construct. On the one hand [for example] you have the hopes and dreams of "the people." On the other hand, you have a government that may or may not be in sync with those hopes and dreams. A successful international politic must weigh one reality against the other and develop a particular strategy for each country and, again, for each region of the world.

Third, our strategy -- we are talking about the United States of America, right? -- should always reflect a third and critical factor, the values and dreams as described in our founding documents. Understand that if the "founding documents" of this country are not a determinant factor in the staging of a particular strategy, to what shall we appeal as we measure our national values and hope against those of our neighbors? Karl Marx? Bill Maher? The hundred cosigners to the above letter? Or the very philosophies driving this nation's political evolution, correcting wrongs along the way and providing for the common good?

I personally thought it somewhat humorous to read an Obama quote in the above memo, "suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away." Funny, but that is exactly what Obama is attempting to do, he and his Marxist hordes in both the Socialist Free Press and the college classroom - you know, where these academics earn their living and drive their agendas. Try pressing conservative values and agenda and see how far it takes you in Academia Land.

Finally, if Academiaville intends to be helpful in the giving of advice, it needs to be the master of the specific and purveyor of practical application. Tell us, for example, what we should have done differently and specifically over the past 30 years. Should we have ignored Egypt? Should we have refused to partner with that country at any level, in spite of the fact that it was critical to peace in the region. And why is this not about the "evil and misguided" agenda of nation building, only "for the right" reasons?????

It is easy to criticize and sound great in that rhetorical polemic. It is something quite different to map out a strategy that works at some level for all concerned -- assuming that such is possible.

Is the open letter off base or wrong headed? Not really; it is just that the author(s) did not take time to finish the thing.