Exploring America

An infographic showing the major ways mid-century America got to know their country, and some of what they found there.

I've been to many of these places, but I know one of the locations well. The fort pictured as location 65 is not actually on Tybee Island, but on Cockspur Island on Savannah River between Tybee Island and the port of Savannah: it's Fort Pulaski, named after Casimir Pulaski, a Polish nobleman who came to join the Revolution and fought alongside Americans because he believed in their program of liberty. He once saved the life of George Washington and is honored by an equestrian statue in Savannah. 

About twenty-five years ago I worked on a documentary interviewing the CCC veterans who had restored Fort Pulaski during the Depression, as an oral history project while pursuing a degree in that discipline. They were a fun crew of older gentlemen with good stories to tell about the CCC and the War. I mentioned that experience about ten years ago.

Savannah has another fort, Fort James Jackson, named after that hero of the Revolution and early Georgia history. It's also a brickwork fort, an older installation that Pulaski was intended to replace. It was not reduced during the Civil War because the Union Navy was content to bottle up Savannah further up the river, though Sherman's army occupied it when they took the city much later in the war. It's quite lovely and right by the city; it's where the local Scottish Highland Games are held.

A third fort, Fort McAllister, was an earthwork fort that was much more successful at resisting rifled naval artillery than brickwork designs proved to be. It was attacked seven times but not taken or reduced until Sherman captured it with land forces. The Wikipedia page has an interesting anecdote I had not heard:

During the evening that the fort fell, [the fort's defending commander] Anderson was being held at the McAllister family home, the new headquarters of General William Babcock Hazen. General Hazen and Lt. Col. Strong invited General Sherman to dinner, to celebrate their victory. In a kind gesture of respect, General Hazen also invited Major Anderson to attend the meal, after clearing the request with Sherman. The discussion was surely lively - during the meal Anderson engaged in a heated exchange with General Sherman about the tactics employed to defend the fort and the bravery of all who fought there. Cigars were exchanged and smoked, and tributes were made to the fallen. However, Sherman remained greatly upset at Anderson's use of land mines in the defense of the fort, and ordered the Major [General] to personally join his fellow captured Confederates on mine-clearing detail.

My wife painted the ruins of Fort McAllister once when she was pursing a fine arts degree at the Savannah College of Art and Design. I don't know after whom the fort was named; the family was locally important. One of them was mayor of Savannah and his son was a state senator. I would guess it was probably one of them.

The map has many other interesting locations, and is fun to explore.

Tradition! Tradition!

A San Bernardino County train was under fire Monday night after bandits attempted a Wild West-style heist.

A group of suspects fired on officers with the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway (BNSF) in what appeared to be an effort to rob the train as it passed through the desolate Cajon Pass between the San Bernardino and San Gabriel mountains.

Americans have traditions too. Wild West train robberies are a valued part of our national heritage.  

UPDATE: The only time I've seen Fiddler on the Roof was when my high school did it as its annual musical. I don't know why they picked it; we didn't have any Jewish students in the county as far as I know. I only went to see it because my sister played the mother, which in a way was family tradition too. She became a Thespian because my father had been one, although in fairness to him he only built sets. He didn't have a non-genuine bone in his body, so pretending to be somebody he was not wasn't a skill he ever developed.

Russia's Desperate Maneuver

Russia's desperation for cash meets China's desperation for oil: in a move unprecedented even in Soviet times, Russia is attempting to send a large fleet of oil tankers and supertankers through the Arctic to reach its buyers in Asia.

At the fleet’s current position, only four vessels are operating farther north: the Swedish icebreaker Oden, China’s polar icebreaker Xue Long, Norway’s research icebreaker Kronprins Haakon, and the ice-class expedition vessel Virgo, according to ship-tracking data. 

The routing places Russia’s Arctic oil fleet among the northernmost commercial vessels ever recorded. The route passes north of 81 degrees north, roughly 10 degrees farther north than Utqiagvik, Alaska, which sits at about 71 degrees north latitude.... 

Arctic shipping experts say they cannot recall commercial traffic of this scale using the route, making the operation unprecedented despite isolated Soviet-era voyages several decades ago.

The convoy includes the Suezmax tanker Dinasty, which industry observers say may become the highest-latitude commercial Suezmax tanker ever to operate. Suezmax vessels, among the largest tankers routinely engaged in international crude oil trade, are rarely seen operating in the high Arctic because of their size and the challenging ice environment... 

[T]he voyage remains challenging. Significant sea ice continues to cover parts of the East Siberian Sea. Three Russian nuclear icebreakers are currently deployed to escort commercial shipping along the Northern Sea Route.

Desperate times, desperate measures they say. 

Consciousness

A new theory about consciousness proposes that the brain doesn't create it. I think this is right; such a theory has been a rare but occasional topic of this space for some years. 

My version of it is a form of panpsychism, which holds that all of reality is conscious, but that we get the sense of being unique individuals because our brains work as a receiver and interpreter locally. This is much like how a television or radio doesn't produce the content you experience through it -- it's just tuned to a particular station, and thus is picking up a part of the TV or radio signals that are available in the air (radio still; television not usually anymore); you can account for things like brain injury altering the apparent personality of the brain-owner by analogy to adjusting their receiver so that it now is pulling from a different part of the radio spectrum (say).

The new version is by Christof Koch, who has been doing this work even longer than that; he and David Chalmers, also mentioned in the article, had a longstanding bet (which Chalmers won) on the subject.

To address that question, Koch turns to a philosophical framework known as analytic idealism, which proposes that consciousness may be a fundamental feature of reality rather than something generated by the brain.

Within this framework, the brain is viewed less as a producer of consciousness and more as a filter or shaper of conscious experience.

Sounds like he's on the right track this time!

Since consciousness debates are now tied up with AI, he adds this: 

The ideas also have implications for artificial intelligence. If consciousness is not simply the product of increasingly complex computation, the path toward conscious machines may be more complicated than simply building increasingly powerful AI systems.

That does not mean future AI systems could never become conscious. Rather, he argues that the debate cannot be settled simply by making computers more intelligent or more computationally sophisticated.

Well, take it further: the implication is that anything can become conscious if you tune it the right way. That then is merely a technical question: how do you tune the receiver? Have we done it already, by accident? Could we adjust our reception to improve it? We can certainly alter it, as he acknowledges from personal experience.

Several years ago, while sitting alone on a beach, he recalls the boundary between himself and the world dissolving, describing the experience as a timeless and universal reality.

In his essay, Koch describes the experience as "the most meaningful of my life," writing that it "flipped my view of reality".

Koch is careful not to present the experience as scientific evidence. Instead, he writes that it gave him "a view of Mind-at-Large" and prompted him to re-examine the metaphysical assumptions that had guided much of his scientific career, taking alternative philosophical perspectives more seriously. 

Sitting alone on a beach taking mushrooms, I would guess!

The Wailin' Jennys

The name is a tribute to Waylon Jennings, but the music is their own.

More below the fold

Now That's Real Journalism

I've generally found motorcycle rallies and biker bars to be extremely friendly places, in truth. Still, if you just wandered in and you don't have any background, this is an actually helpful newspaper article that will convey information that will improve your life. 

Partly this is by actually writing down the "unwritten rules." 

Rule No. 1: Hands Off

A motorcycle is not a park bench.

Don't sit on one.

Don't lean against one.

Don't climb aboard for a photograph.

I won't copy the whole list, but here's another bit of real wisdom:

Rule No. 4: Leave The Old Lady Alone

A surefire way to get your ass kicked at Sturgis is by "messing with someone's old lady,” Pretty Bobbie continued.

The term itself might sound less than flattering to an outsider.

In biker culture, Pretty Bobbie said calling a woman “old lady” is "the utmost term of respect."

Come to think of it, versions of both of those are in the Ten Commandments. They had asses instead of motorcycles, but it made the list. 

Some Brighter Anecdotes about Japan and Security

So, to use that awful academic word, I have problematized the US-Japan relationship in my last two anecdote posts. Mainly, I wanted to give a brief overview of how the Japanese l talked with seemed to see the defensive alliance with the US as well as their own domestic concerns about their developing role in international security. Here, I want to relate some experiences that I think point toward a strong US-Japan relationship for the future.

First, whatever else the Japanese remember about their war with us, they have a powerful memory of the US feeding them and helping them rebuild their nation after they surrendered. The Japanese people were quite literally starving by the beginning of August 1945. I have had elderly Japanese people, complete strangers, come up to me in the street, ask me if I was American, and then thank me for feeding them after the war. I was clearly a couple of generations younger than them, so there was no possibility they thought I had actually been there in 1945. They remember their debts, even debts to a former enemy.

Their nation has prospered under the US security umbrella and while they may complain about one aspect or another of the relationship, they are grateful for that, too. It's been good for both nations and they know it.

It may seem much less important, but the Japanese in their teens and twenties and thirties (more than a decade ago now) seemed overall to have a positive image of the US. American music and movies are perennially popular there. Sure, they have criticisms of us (as we have of them), but it doesn't seem to blunt their enjoyment of American culture. If anything, I was typically a bit of a disappointment to them because I was mainly interested in doing traditional Japanese things. I would have been much more popular if I'd played tennis or golf.

Another positive development in Japan seems to be, if my sources are correct, that Marxism appears to be on the wane there, even while it is blossoming in the US. I can't walk across a US campus without tripping on a Marxist and the SDA is booming, but the fall of the Soviet Union seems to have begun a slow retreat from Marxism in the Japanese academy and society more broadly. The Japanese Communist Party is also slowly slipping, with numbers decreasing steadily since about 2014. These are good signs.

I hesitate to offer specific suggestions for improving the relationship in the ways we might want because I have been out of the field for so long and really don't know the current situation. That said, I will say that broadly speaking there is a strong foundation on the Japanese side for our two nations to cooperate to an even greater degree than we have been. At this point, I would simply make the maybe banal suggestions that, one, some sensitivity to how we approach changes in matters of security, being mindful of the domestic issues surrounding Article 9, would be wise. And, two, it's good to keep in mind that honor remains important to them. Yes, they like money and the things it buys, but there is still a little bit of samurai ethos in them, even the pacifists.

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Postscript: Another good sign is the LDP is usually in power and one of its goals is amending Article 9. It takes a 2/3 majority in both the lower and upper houses of parliament to accomplish that, so the problem for a long time now has been the LDP hasn't ever gotten those numbers. Right now, they have 2/3s in the lower house, but, even with their coalition partner, are about 40 or so short in the upper house. For some reason I just assume everyone knows this; the LDP have been in the majority since 1955 with two brief lapses: 1993-96 and 2009-12. So, they're almost always in power.

Darker Anecdotes on Japan and Defense

In my previous post, I gave what I take to be some common Japanese views of their own Self Defense Forces. In this post I want to give some much less frequent, darker experiences I had that bear on the topic.

I mentioned that most Japanese seem to connect the terms army and navy with the 1930s & '40s militarism and are offended if you describe the current JSDF with those terms. I try (usually successfully) not to judge other people's linguistic associations, but it seemed a bit silly all these decades after the end of the war. However, on a couple of occasions I ran into Japanese ultranationalists who gave me pause.

In one case, I was touring a very small military museum that I ran across. It had a number of small displays about the Japanese Imperial Navy of the 1940s with photographs of young men in naval uniforms. I talked to the gentleman at the front desk about some of the exhibits and in answering he explained, as best as I can remember, that they highlighted the courage and sacrifice of the officers and sailors in particular engagements. He went on to tell me that, as an American, I should know that Japan's leadership did not order any atrocities during WWII, although there were small rogue units that unfortunately did commit war crimes. Also, he claimed, many of the stories about Japanese atrocities in China were just Chinese communist propaganda. He said he didn't hate Americans and was glad our nations were friends now, but we should learn the real history of the war. Although I think he's completely wrong, I was very interested in hearing his version of things and just asked questions and tried to look thoughtful. He did not strike me as the kind of man I could discuss this with openly, so I didn't try, although looking back maybe I should have. It's hard to say all these years later.

While I was in Japan, the government approved a number of new history textbooks that either didn't cover or downplayed Japanese war crimes during WWII. Schools (or prefectures? I'm not sure) can choose from a list of approved textbooks, so it just gave them these options, in addition to other textbooks that did cover the war crimes.

It is hard to know what to think of that. Japan's war crimes in WWII are in a way similar to the slavery issue here. One of the functions of national history is to have a shared story that forms a sense of being one people. How should we treat such evils as slavery and national war crimes while still maintaining a sense of national worth and national honor? How to remember the war is something that has remained very contentious there. Those who want a reduced emphasis on Japan's war crimes claim that too much time is spent on it and that such self-flagellation (as they see it) is unhealthy for a people.

On the other hand, many Japanese fear that, if schools don't teach about the evils of Japan's 1930s and '40s militarism, more and more Japanese will come to believe that Japan did nothing wrong in WWII. They fear that this would lead to a new rise of ultranationalism and a new militarism.

To be fair to them, there is a strain of Japanese history that points out that the US Navy forced Japan to open in 1853 and that European colonization of China and other parts of Asia forced Japan to industrialize and arm itself. So far, that's true. Where the narrative line gets pretty questionable is the further claim that European and American threats and aggression forced Japan to invade its neighbors and continually expand its empire in order to be strong enough to defend itself. It then becomes natural in this line of thought that Pearl Harbor was America's fault; our oil embargo prevented Japan from defending itself. Those that peddle this line bitterly resent the United States.

So, the supporting narrative is there for a new anti-American ultranationalism wherein Japan was the victim of WWII. There are also a number of ultranationalist groups in Japan that want to get rid of the constitution altogether and return to the Meiji constitution that gave significant political power to the Army and Navy. They oppose democracy and capitalism and the civil rights the Japanese enjoy under their current constitution. I have no real idea how big these groups are. They drive around in these big black buses painted with nationalist emblems, blaring out nationalist songs from what I think are the 1930s. They occasionally go out and parade around in Imperial Army uniforms, or outfits that look similar, and wave the old flags around. They always struck me as being a bit like the KKK here in that they wanted to demonstrate they're still around but they didn't have many adherents or much power. They seemed quite marginalized to me. Thankfully, they don't seem to be stabbing foreigners or pro-democracy political leaders or pro-capitalism business leaders to death on a regular basis as their predecessors in the 1920s did.

In this environment, for many Japanese, talk of amending the constitution, particularly Article 9, brings fears of a new rise of ultranationalism and militarism with a great loss of democracy and civil rights. Obviously, the ultranationalists are all in favor of ditching Article 9 and rearming, so anyone talking about ditching Article 9 and rearming seems a bit suspect. 

My opinion is the ultranationalists have few people and little power, so the chance of a resurgence of ultranationalist militarism is quite remote, but I can't say it's non-existent. And in any case, what I think doesn't matter. It's what the Japanese think that matters.

Anecdotes on Japanese Defense Issues

CDR Salamander objects to a lack of plain speaking on the part of a fellow expert:

A very strange and rather short article came out yesterday from Richard Fontaine, the CEO at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).

I shouldn’t have to say this, but I will: this isn’t personal, this is professional.

I had to double-check the publication date as it just read, well, strange. But no, August 4th, 2026. Its title, Japan isn’t rearming. It’s adapting to a new era. It is something if it were written by someone else, I might ignore…but Richard isn’t just some rando anon pounding away on Substack…so here we go.

I don't know why Richard Fontaine said Japan isn't rearming, but I do know that anything that sounds like militarizing is problematic within Japan. Legally, that problem begins with Article 9 of the Japanese constitution:

Article 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

Even so, Japan has maintained the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) since 1954. The Ground SDF has tanks and attack helicopters, the Maritime SDF has destroyers and F-35s, and the Air SDF has various fighter jets as well. It all looks like "land, sea, and air forces." They have been challenged in court by groups trying to get the JSDF disbanded entirely, but the Japanese Supreme Court has so far refused to take up the question. The government claim is that in only having forces for the defense of the Japanese homeland, they are not maintaining forces for using force as a means of settling international disputes or recognizing a right of belligerency. The counter-argument is to take Article 9 literally and point out just what I pointed out: The JSDF would certainly seem to be what everyone else in the world recognizes as "land, sea, and air forces."

It's important to keep in mind that, as it stands, Japan is one Supreme Court ruling away from possibly having to disband the SDF or having a constitutional crisis when parliament refuses to obey such a ruling. I think it is extremely unlikely that the Supreme Court would ever take up such a case, but it is at least hypothetically possible.

The Liberal Democratic Party, which is the main conservative party in Japan, would like to amend the constitution to at least allow the JSDF and maybe to get rid of that article altogether, but so far it has not had the numbers or public support to do so.

I would like to add my own personal experience in Japan to help understand the situation further. This comes from my own studies and from living, studying, and working in Japan for the larger part of a decade. I do speak and read Japanese and spent most of my time there with Japanese people, not hanging out with other ex-pats as is common. The following are just my impressions from a lot of conversations with Japanese people over the years.

First, the great majority of Japanese people strongly reject the militarism of the 1930s and '40s. Some are true pacificists who want to see the JSDF disbanded. I've asked them, "What if China invaded Japan? What should Japan do?" and they replied, "We should do nothing. War is always wrong." 

Others saw the contradiction between maintaining the JSDF and Article 9, but accept the situation for pragmatic purposes. Of those, some were pragmatic in saying there are real threats Japan must be prepared for and others were pragmatic in saying that the US insisted Japan have SDF and since the US is Japan's protector they must have the JSDF. Although I talked to Japanese people who seemed amenable to amending the constitution to resolve the contradiction, I don't remember talking to any who would outright endorse getting rid of Article 9.

One way this plays out in conversation is that saying Japan currently had an army (rikugun*) or navy (kaigun) was a real faux pas. The pragmatists were fine with "self-defense forces," but the words rikugun and kaigun are strongly connected in the Japanese mind with the 1930s and '40s militarism. Even if the constitution is amended, I would expect the SDF designation to continue rather than a return to rikugun and kaigun.

Socially, while Americans may comment on the military-civilian divide in America, it is even greater in Japan. Far fewer Japanese are willing to serve in the SDF, for one thing. Another factor, though, is Japan's culture of employment that emphasizes loyalty to the employer. Until the recession of the '90s, being employed by the same company for one's entire working career was common. Financial problems since then have weakened that tradition in corporate work, but not in government work. Once someone joins the SDF, they are very likely to stay for life. This means there are far fewer veterans in the civilian working population than the US has. Even the pragmatists who supported the existence of the SDF were often uneasy about meeting SDF personnel. I remember one woman's reaction when I told her that I had met some SDF guys: She physically recoiled and exclaimed "They're scary!"

Considering all this, if we want to encourage Japan to amend or delete Article 9 and take up a nation's normal military forces (as our allies, obviously), my opinion is that the last thing we would want to do is speak plainly about it. Educated Japanese tend to pay attention to foreign reporting on Japanese affairs; they care about how Japan is seen in the world. If we start saying we want Japan to have a normal army and navy, that will get translated as rikugun and kaigun and all that emotional baggage from WWII will come with that. If the Japanese people swung decisively toward getting rid of the JSDF, a future Supreme Court might oblige them.

I doubt this answers CDR Salamander's question of why Mr. Fontaine rejected the term "rearming," but I think it's relevant to the overall situation. On the other hand, a lot of this is just my experience, not the result of academic research. Make of it what you will.

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* I put guntai (軍隊) here earlier, but the actual term is rikugun (陸軍), though the related guntai would also be problematic.

Gerrymander

There's a whole article on the bad situation that my Congressional district is in right now. 

The issue is simple: the NC Republicans gerrymandered this district so badly that any loser could win it as long as he was a Republican. Unsurprisingly, you get losers in that situation.

Adam Smith, the Green Beret who tried to replace Edwards and who ran an air force out of the Asheville Harley dealer during the hurricane, that guy was the guy you should have been running all along. You Republicans get another bite at the apple. Stop whining and accept the good fortune you've been granted.

Delta Dawn

There's a really strong Gospel tradition in country music; Johnny Cash diverted a good part of his career to it, the part no one remembers because no one really likes listening to Gospel. Nevertheless, it provides very powerful underlying motifs to the genre. 

For example, here's Tanya Tucker doing what became a classic:

And here is the Waylanders covering it. They're a fantastic two-person band, the man providing strings and harmonica, and the lady providing drums. I saw them at the Tennessee motorcycle and music festival, and they were by far the best act.

A Brief Lesson in Cherokee

The local tribe nation has a Facebook page associated with cultural education, which is interesting to follow. Learning these words won't help you, I imagine; almost nobody speaks Cherokee even here. However, it does provide an interesting opportunity to learn something about their writing system. Cherokee has a syllabary rather than an alphabet. It was developed by Sequoyah in the very early 19th century. You'll see it on road signs around here, especially near the Cherokee boundary lands. 

At first it looks very strange because there are around half of the expected number of characters to represent a word. This is because each character represents both consonant and vowel sounds. Thus, "August" is reduced from six characters to three; "Blackberry" from ten to three. This happens even though the word for "August" has more syllables than the word "August" itself: it's just one character for each syllable. 

A Small Matter

The mayor of Robbinsville, the town closest to the Tail of the Dragon motorcycle road, has been arrested for dealing meth and cocaine. He has a series of minor traffic violations in his past, suggesting that he and the sheriff didn’t get along very much. 

Updated

My Congressman, Chuck Edwards, I mean. You may recall that I switched parties to vote against him in the primaries this year, sadly to no effect. Today he's being recommended for censure by the House ethics committee. Apparently he is thought guilty of sexually harassing his female staffers, but in a remarkably pathetic and ineffective manner according to the panel:

The committee said it found no evidence that Edwards engaged in sexual activity with or explicitly propositioned any of his staffers. However, he was aware “that his excessive attention toward the young women had led to rumors and innuendo in the office,” the report said.

The committee found that while Edwards believed that none of his conduct was intended as a sexual or romantic advance, his behavior patterns “would lead a reasonable observer to interpret it as such.”

According to the report, Edwards provided the two staffers “with lavish and recurrent gifts,” made “comments regarding their appearance and dress,” invited them “to intimate dinners and vacations” and sent notes “regarding his effusive affection.”...

On one occasion, he and a staffer appeared to take a private trip to Las Vegas together, the report said. Edwards booked rooms at the Bellagio for him and the staffer, and also promised to get them tickets to shows in the city.

At one point, after the staffer asked Edwards for ideas on what outfits to pack for the trip, Edwards texted: “A pair of jean shorts and a yellow blouse that you wore to a concert is baked into my memory, and a red dress you wore to a neighboring office event was a SHOW STOPPER!”

Later in the conversation, before the flight, Edwards sent the staffer flowers, which she noted made her “uncomfortable.”

“Just want to make sure this trip isn’t meant to be anything it’s not?” she texted.

“I’m sorry it made you uncomfortable. Nothing was meant by it,” Edwards replied.

On another occasion, Edwards offered to miss a House vote to help one of the staffers set up her Christmas tree, the report said. In another, he offered to reschedule a tele-townhall to meet the staffer for dinner.

Other messages included in the report show that Edwards regularly invited the staffers out for dinner and drinks, as well as outings to casinos, theater, comedy and musical shows.

One doubts he was more effective as a lothario than he has been as a Congressman. He was absent and useless during Helene. 

UPDATE: He’s out. 

Although he was completely ineffective, both at Congressmanning and at seduction, I realize that I misjudged the man. He apparently at least has the decency to feel shame and to withdraw himself from consideration now that his shame is public. That makes him an order of magnitude better than many of our politicians. I apologize for underestimating his virtues, such as they are; but they're still more than I thought he had.

What About Confession?

Captain Red negotiates a little cannibalism.

Almost any comments on any blog or website that are built around the President are likely to be without value. To borrow a random selection from one of your websites "some 'Catholics' voted for Trump, a perpetual liar and known thief...."

What about Confession? What do you think Confession's for? 

Respecting Religion

Here is an account of why you shouldn’t respect religious prohibitions that aren’t your own. 

One of the senior officers in the auditorium spoke up quickly, and started to say we should not drink, eat, or smoke in front of Iraqis during Ramadan, to respect their culture. This CIA dude immediately locks eyes with this officer and asks very loudly “WHY?!” 

The officer was a little caught off guard, and before he could answer the CIA guy started explaining. “You are American, you are Christian, you DO NOT celebrate Ramadan, and if you don’t carry on as an American during Ramadan it will be seen as weakness. It reinforces their idea that their god is the only true god, and that all others will bow before Islam. If they don’t offer you a drink when you come to their home, ask for one, during Ramadan!

There's something to be said for this refusal to be bound by religious conditions other than your own. Back in 2007 I drank beer at a bar cart on the streets of Zamboanga during Ramadan. The Zamboanga peninsula is a region where Islam and Catholicism are in conflict. Terrorist groups like Abu Sayyaf -- a subset of the Islamic State, these days -- were kidnapping Christians for ransom and murder. Showing that your own civilization's rules are the ones that apply to you can be important. 

On the other hand, showing respect is also important for any sort of human relationships, and it can be particularly profound in establishing ties across large divides like religious differences. It could be received as submission to their god's norms and rules, or it could be received as a first offer in what could become mutual respect if it is returned. Developing terms of mutual respect on which you can live together peacefully is highly desirable in most cases. 

In Egypt, I declined to tour some of the beautiful mosques because they required that I remove my shoes in order to go inside their holy building. This is a middle ground: I respect the rule enough to not violate it in their own mosque, but not enough to obey and submit to the rule, enough to just not go inside where the rule becomes an issue. That seemed fair to me. 

Not being offered a drink in someone's home in Iraq, by the way, was usually a danger signal. I gather the new movie The Odyssey makes a big deal about the sacred nature of hospitality. That is a real thing, and a live issue in the Middle East to this day. If you were not offered a drink because it was Ramadan and you asked for one and were refused it, that would be even more reason to think that you'd better be on your guard in that part of the country.