Farewell Afghanistan

The United States has just about completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan. The 20 year war is over. Instead of the Afghan government fighting the Taliban for another two years, a year, or even a measly six months the Afghan government and military collapsed in a matter of days. 

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani evidently decided that instead of taking a last stand with some death or glory hardcases who would ensure that their names lived forever as sources of fear to the Taliban, it was better to do like every other Taliban Afghan opponent and run away.  Yes brave President Ghani ran away.

The President showed up in the United Arab Emirates, alternately saying that he left for the good of the people and because he didn't want to get hanged. The President also denied that he had left with a bunch of cash (most likely because he had already transferred his wealth out of the nation). Other Afghan leaders who had worked with Ghani basically called him a punk. So it goes. 

Smart collaborators (and that is what Ghani was) tend not to stick around once the occupying force packs up and leaves.

Representative Rashida Tlaib, Netanyahu and Trump

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at the alleged behest of President Donald Trump, recently barred US Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar from visiting Israel and the Palestinian occupied territories. Tlaib and Omar are decidedly pro-Palestinian and pro-justice. 

The Representatives do not agree that Jewish people in Israel should have more rights than the Palestinians. It is possible that Netanyahu was going to ban them anyway and Trump just gave him political cover to do so. 

After the uproar Israel cynically agreed to allow Rep. Tlaib to visit her grandmother in the West Bank but only if she agreed in writing to not say or do anything critical of Israel during her time there. Desperate to see her grandmother, Tlaib briefly acceded to this humiliating condition, but faced with outrage by some relatives, constituents and supporters on this issue, Tlaib  stood strong and refused to adhere to Israeli speech restrictions.

"In my attempt to visit Palestine, I’ve experienced the same racist treatment that many Palestinian-Americans endure when encountering the Israeli government. In preparation for my visit, my grandmother was deciding which fig tree we would pick from together, while Palestinians and Israelis who are against the illegal military occupation were looking forward to Members of Congress finally listening to and seeing them for the first time.

Italy turns away migrant ship

One of the hot button topics across what is referred to as the "West" is immigration, particularly illegal immigration and refugees. This issue was part of why Trump was elected. It was also behind the electoral success of some right-wing politicians across Europe, including, Italy. The new government in Italy made news recently when it refused to accept a French NGO ship crammed with apparent African and Arab refugees. France ostentatiously criticized Italy's decision but also refused to take in the migrants, something that caused the Italians to go off on the French hypocrisy and arrogance. The Spanish stepped up to take in the ship. Nationalists across Europe cheered Italy's decision.

PARIS — A boat crowded with hundreds of Africans sailing across the Mediterranean after being turned away by Italy this week has exposed anew the shaky fault lines in Europe’s approach to the migrant crisis. On Sunday, Italy’s new far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, ordered the Aquarius, a rescue ship operated by humanitarian groups, to stop 35 nautical miles off the coast of Italy, refusing to let it dock.

The ship is now on its way to Spain, which showed up its neighbors by solemnly announcing that it would “respect its international engagements” and accept the boat after Malta, too, refused it, and France stood idly by. Brussels, the seat of the European Union, looked on in relative silence. There was no common policy to receive the Aquarius and no authority to impose one if there were.

The Italian refusal to offer safe harbor to a ship loaded with what aid groups described as 629 migrants — including 123 minors, 11 small children and seven pregnant women — was intended to underscore a long-simmering grievance.

The Italians have bridled for years that they have been left alone by their European Union partners on the front line on the Mediterranean with an unmanageable burden of migration that Mr. Salvini pledged to reverse in his recent election campaign. But his refusal to accept the boat did more than pit humanitarian necessity against political expediency. It roiled tensions with European allies in ways that made President Trump’s performance at the G-7 summit last weekend look almost diplomatic by comparison.

Demise of the Nation State???

The British Indian novelist and essayist Rana Dasgupta recently wrote a very long earnest piece about the alleged demise of the nation-state. You should read it. Dasgupta makes a few good points. It is true that many rights which we don't normally allow governments to violate (at least in theory or without a really good reason established via due process) are "violated" every single day by corporations. Corporations have become powerful enough to begin to unfetter themselves from meaningful oversight or control by some of the nations where they do business. It's true that for some countries that globalization has caused greater diversity and in others raised average incomes. Dasgupta badly missteps when he argues that globalization in its current form is inevitable or that the increasing nationalism in some countries is merely a reactionary last gasp against needed permanent change to political, economic and cultural systems. Dasgupta tips his hand near the end of this piece. Dasgupta doesn't evince much interest in independently occurring nationalist, sectarian, ethnic or racial feelings outside the West, though their intensity can rival anything in today's West. 

No the main point that Dasgupta wants you to take away from this 6000 word essay is something that he initially obfuscates but ultimately just can't resist bluntly stating. He thinks that citizenship itself is manifestly unfair. To be precise, Dasgupta thinks that citizenship in the West and especially citizenship in the United States is unfair. And he wants to end it, primarily to make people in the Third World wealthier.

The history of the nation state is one of perennial tax innovation, and the next such innovation is transnational: we must build systems to track transnational money flows, and to transfer a portion of them into public channels. Without this, our political infrastructure will continue to become more and more superfluous to actual material life. In the process we must also think more seriously about global redistribution: not aid, which is exceptional, but the systematic transfer of wealth from rich to poor for the improved security of all, as happens in national societies.

President Trump Attacks Syria Again

In response to what he claimed were chemical weapon attacks against Syrian rebels, President Trump ordered missile attacks against targets in Syria. These bombings were done in concert with France and the UK on Friday night. The number of casualties and other damage is at this time unclear.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States, France and Britain launched military strikes in Syria to punish President Bashar Assad for an apparent chemical attack against civilians and to deter him from doing it again, President Donald Trump announced Friday. Pentagon officials said the attacks targeted the heart of Assad's programs to develop and produce chemical weapons.

Explosions lit up the skies over Damascus, the Syrian capital, as Trump spoke from the White House. Syrian television reported that Syria's air defenses, which are substantial, responded to the attack. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said there were no reports of U.S. losses in what he described as a heavy but carefully limited assault.

Trump said the U.S. is prepared to sustain economic, diplomatic and military pressure on Assad until he ends what the president called a criminal pattern of killing his own people with internationally banned chemical weapons. "The evil and the despicable attack left mothers and fathers, infants and children, thrashing in pain and gasping for air. These are not the actions of a man; they are crimes of a monster instead," Trump said. The Syrian government has repeatedly denied any use of banned weapons.

The decision to strike, after days of deliberations, marked Trump's second order to attack Syria. He authorized a barrage of Tomahawk cruise missiles to hit a single Syrian airfield in April 2017 in retaliation for Assad's use of sarin gas against civilians. The strikes that hit early Saturday in Syria came hours before inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons were set to arrive to inspect the site of the apparent attack. LINK

The Resurgence of Nationalism

Politics is not a field where predictions are easy to make. We learned that from the 2016 election. People are complex. They want different, oft contradictory things. Although the Right is currently ascendant in American politics, Republican Representatives and Senators are not always unified. 

Without the spectre of President Obama to scare their base, Republicans don't have as much in common as they thought they did. They failed to deliver a legislative replacement to the PPACA. Trump signed a budget that was widely seen as a loss for conservatives. Republicans disagree on immigration levels. The Right's overreach and the disdain that many on the Left hold for Trump means that the Left could make strides in Congress in 2018 and possibly even win the White House in 2020. Who knows? But that's all movement on the political surface. 

I'm more interested in the underground political resentments that helped to get Trump elected in the U.S., made Brexit a winning policy in the UK, put a scare in the French establishment which has President Macron sounding like Marine LePen, caused Italy to shift policy on immigration, saw the rise of anti-immigrant and racist parties in Italy's most recent election, brought the virulently anti-immigrant German party Alternative for Germany to Parliament for the first time, made Hungary and Poland turn to the right, just brought another anti-immigrant party to power in Austria, and has seen the Czech Republic refuse to take in any more refugees.

Trump, Kim Jong Un, North Korea and Nuclear War

As you may have noticed President Trump and North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un have been trading insults and threats over the past few weeks about just how bad they're going to curb stomp the other country. Kim has made threats to attack Guam while Trump has said that any North Korean bad behavior will be met by fire and fury the likes of which the world hasn't seen. Trump says that the US military is locked, loaded and ready to go. Many people, both intelligent and not, attacked Trump's statements as unpresidential. They were. But at the same time if someone is threatening your country you're probably going to threaten them back. There tends to be an expectation among some experts that whatever Trump says will be wrong. That's usually a pretty good expectation. But in the case of the North Korean regime there has been a decades long bipartisan failure to prevent what the U.S. sees as bad behavior by North Korea. North Korea has nukes. North Korea isn't giving up its nukes. North Korea has been continuing to test missiles. Those missiles have been getting better and better. This is simply not a problem that Trump created though he is certainly capable of making things worse.

There may have been, sixty years ago, a small window to settle the North Korean question militarily on terms favorable to the United States, as Douglas MacArthur would have told you (and did tell other people), but in the current day with a nuclear armed Russia and China, that window has likely closed.

Turks Attack Washington D.C. Protesters

Generally speaking, and all the lawyers who are qualified to speak on it can chime in if they wish, if you are are an official representative of one country doing official business in another, you have diplomatic immunity. Unless your home country decides for its own reasons to waive such immunity you usually aren't subject to prosecution by your host nation. All they can do is expel you. Consider this a form of guest right, if you will. No one kills, arrests, or otherwise harms the messenger. It's bad form. It would open up your diplomats and representatives to similar treatment if you went around, justifiably or not, arresting or abusing foreign diplomats. But the deal in having diplomatic immunity is that the foreign diplomat or other representative is supposed to live by the laws of of the host nation. Some diplomats or other representatives have a problem doing this. 

The latest example of this, and it's by no means limited to Turks, occurred recently in Washington D.C. where members of the Turkish President's security team and apparent Turkish embassy staff, charged through a line of D.C. police officers to kick, punch and pummel a group of mostly Armenian-American and Kurdish-American protesters. For whatever reason the D.C. police did not use deadly force. Arguably they should have done so. American citizens have been killed by police for far less. 

Joy Reid and Gary Johnson: Big Dummies!

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so"-Mark Twain
Everyone makes mistakes. No one knows everything. There are so many different realms and levels of knowledge that you can, despite what Scott Adams thinks, spend a lifetime becoming expert in one particular area of human endeavor and still have more to learn. So there is no shame required if you are ignorant of a particular fact or unfamiliar with a given experience. No, the shame doesn't come with being ignorant. The shame comes with wanting to stay ignorant, being uncurious or trying to pass yourself off as an expert in a given field when actually you know nothing about the discipline. I saw two examples of this recently that I thought were humorous enough to share. One deservedly got more attention than the other because the man who made the gaffe is running for President, but both show that an unfamiliarity with facts is not good for people in high profile positions. As you probably know there is a multi-faction civil war in Syria ongoing. The largest city in Syria, Aleppo, is currently the site of a battle that involves just about every faction still extant, including foreign adventurers. Every faction has committed atrocities or has been accused of committing atrocities. The civilians are getting it in the neck, as is usually the case with civilians trapped in war zones. Libertarian Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson, as Libertarians tend to be, has been skeptical of committing the US to new foreign wars or "interventions". This non-interventionist stance tends to drive the so-called "serious" foreign policy journalists and gurus (especially neo-cons) up the wall. They see it as dangerously naive and virtually treasonous. With this in mind MSNBC's Mike Barnicle asked Johnson what would Johnson do about Aleppo if he were elected President. Unfortunately Johnson, who looked tired and sounded even more inarticulate than normal said he did not know what Aleppo was. After Barnicle snidely explained what Aleppo was and where it was, Johnson gave a desultory dispirited answer that basically boiled down to using more diplomacy and avoiding foreign entanglements. But the story of the day wasn't that Johnson, like almost everyone else in the current or would-be foreign policy establishment, doesn't know how to fix Syria. 


The story of the day was that Johnson didn't know what Aleppo was, possibly because he had been smoking too much bud. Many people thought that this seeming ignorance of basic foreign policy was disqualifying. Maybe it is; maybe it is not. The voters will have to decide. But I do think that Johnson's answer shows the danger of not doing the very basic work of knowing current politics and geography. If you want to be President you should know that stuff as least as well as a former plagiarist like Barnicle. When someone asks you about China's activities in the South China Sea or North Korea's nuclear tests or the settlements in the West Bank, they may well be trying to prove to their audience that your solutions are silly or won't work. But you don't do yourself any favors by appearing to not even have the most rudimentary understanding of geography and current events. Johnson later released a statement saying he thought Barnicle was using an acronym.

This morning, I began my day by setting aside any doubt that I’m human. Yes, I understand the dynamics of the Syrian conflict — I talk about them every day. But hit with “What about Aleppo?,” I immediately was thinking about an acronym, not the Syrian conflict. I blanked. It happens, and it will happen again during the course of this campaign. Can I name every city in Syria? No. Should I have identified Aleppo? Yes. Do I understand its significance? Yes. As Governor, there were many things I didn’t know off the top of my head. But I succeeded by surrounding myself with the right people, getting to the bottom of important issues, and making principled decisions. It worked. That is what a President must do.

Staying with MSNBC for a moment commentator Joy Reid, a Harvard graduate, has made no secret of her preference for Hillary Clinton and her intense disdain for Trump and for that matter Stein or Sanders. I have no real issue with this because at least you know where she's coming from. Spending too much time getting upset about someone else's political preferences is a losing battle. The few times I have tried watching Reid's show or other shows where she's a substitute host I have found her conversational style to be less that of a commentator or facilitator and closer to that of a district attorney. Reid seems to be personally offended and outraged that everyone doesn't see the world exactly as she does. She goes after the lies, mistakes, omissions or differences of opinions of Trump surrogates with a sarcastic zeal that would make Inspector Javert proud. I think that Reid is basically trying out for the job of Press Secretary for the Clinton Administration. I think she would be very good at it. She seems to like interrupting and correcting people. The problem with that though is that if you're going to live by the sword you have to be ready to die by the sword. When criticizing Trump for an apparent affinity for Russian President Vladimir Putin Reid made these tweets

That said, for most Americans it's shocking to see an American presidential candidate openly touting authoritarian, communist Russia...

— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) September 9, 2016

Even Jill Stein, who's taken the socialist Green Party full Putinite, and the Putin-tilting Snowdenistas haven't been nearly as successful.

— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) September 9, 2016

I imagine the old time American Communist Party is spinning in its collective grave with envy at what Trump is accomplishing.

— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) September 9, 2016

There are a few things wrong with Reid's grasp of facts which should be obvious.

• Russia is not Communist and has not been since at least 1991 with the dismantling of the Soviet Union and the (choose a term) imposition or acceptance of shock therapy free market capitalism. There have been numerous books, papers and studies written about this. It's sort of a big deal.
• The American Communist Party hasn't run a Presidential candidate of its own since 1984. In every election since that time it has endorsed the Democratic candidate for President. This year is no different. The Communists have endorsed Hillary Clinton for President.
• Trying to link American dissidents or gadflies with foreign Communists as Reid does with her "Putinite" and "Snowdenistas" slurs is an old old trick that goes back to at least the early 20th century. Almost every prominent black intellectual, labor activist, civil rights agitator, religious leader or politician eventually faced this tactic. Such moral exemplars as J. Edgar Hoover and Joe McCarthy used this slander against their enemies in their attempts to destroy any and all left wing political or social movements. To see Reid stoop to use this weapon, however ineptly, is just horrible. She has no shame.

If you think that Clinton just walks on water and sweats gardenia scent that's fine. If you don't like the fact that Sanders ran against Hillary or that Stein is running against her, have a Coke and a smile. I have no interest in trying to change your mind. But if you're going to write that 2016 Russia is Communist or that people to the left of Clinton are Putinites then you need to go get a refund from your University. Because you don't know what the hell you're talking about. And if you're just making stuff up and refusing to acknowledge errors you're no different than your hated political opposites.

Saudi Arabia's Threats, 9-11 and President Obama

You may recall that there was a Saudi connection to 9-11. Fifteen of the nineteen men who committed the attack were Saudi Arabian citizens. Saudi Arabia practices, underwrites and exports a fierce puritanical brand of Islam, one which is implacably hostile to all other religions including other versions of Islam. Thomas Friedman gets it mostly right when he writes that  Nothing has been more corrosive to the stability and modernization of the Arab world, and the Muslim world at large, than the billions and billions of dollars the Saudis have invested since the 1970s into wiping out the pluralism of Islam — the Sufi, moderate Sunni and Shiite versions — and imposing in its place the puritanical, anti-modern, anti-women, anti-Western, anti-pluralistic Wahhabi Salafist brand of Islam promoted by the Saudi religious establishment. It is not an accident that several thousand Saudis have joined the Islamic State or that Arab Gulf charities have sent ISIS donations. It is because all these Sunni jihadist groups — ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Nusra Front — are the ideological offspring of the Wahhabism injected by Saudi Arabia into mosques and madrasas from Morocco to Pakistan to Indonesia. And we, America, have never called them on that — because we’re addicted to their oil and addicts never tell the truth to their pushers.
So I wasn't that surprised to learn that the Saudi Arabian government, alarmed at the possibility that the Congress might pass a bill allowing exceptions to foreign governmental immunity in the case where American citizens have been murdered, made some crude threats about selling off US assets were that bill to become law. "Nice economy you got here kid. Be a shame if anything were to happen to it. You savvy??"


Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. 

The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block the bill’s passage, according to administration officials and congressional aides from both parties, and the Saudi threats have been the subject of intense discussions in recent weeks between lawmakers and officials from the State Department and the Pentagon. The officials have warned senators of diplomatic and economic fallout from the legislation. Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the kingdom’s message personally last month during a trip to Washington, telling lawmakers that Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts. 

Several outside economists are skeptical that the Saudis will follow through, saying that such a sell-off would be difficult to execute and would end up crippling the kingdom’s economy. But the threat is another sign of the escalating tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United States. LINK

While I don't like ambulance chasers or attorneys/organizations who seek nothing more than to shake down institutions with big pockets, I also don't care for foreign nations trying to insert themselves and their interests into US politics. Saudi Arabia is hardly the first or worst offender but it seems as if their concerns might have been better addressed privately. If there is evidence that some additional Saudi citizens, in or out of their government, knew about, planned, financed or assisted in the 9-11 attack then I would certainly want them held accountable, preferably criminally but civilly is fine. I have relatives and friends who worked in or visited the World Trade Center. It could just as easily been some of them there that day. This contretemps also shows that somehow Saudi Arabia has forgotten who is the superpower and who is not. It might be time for the President to remind Saudi Arabia of that rather than run interference against 9-11 families who want answers and/or possible recompense. This is a larger problem than Saudi Arabia. There is something wrong with our political establishment and foreign policy when so-called allies from Tel Aviv to Ridyadh feel free to inject themselves in American politics, skim off billions in financial and military aid, insult our leaders and tell our legislators what they'd better not do. This needs to be fixed. One way that the President could respond to the Saudi threats is to declassify the 28 pages from the Joint Inquiry Intelligence Committee report on 9-11 which, according to former Senator Bob Graham, outlines a Saudi network which allegedly aided and assisted in the attacks. For what it's worth, as a candidate Barack Obama promised to fully declassify this report but as President, he hasn't done it. So it goes. The President will be in Ridyadh on Wednesday. I hope that he has something positive to report afterwards but I'm not sanguine about that possibility. It is important to remember that no matter what, each country has and will pursue its own interests. Saudi Arabia is no exception to that rule. This would be an excellent time to redefine our relationship with that country.

Paris, Terrorism and Politics

On Friday the 13th the group ISIS attacked a concert hall and stadium in Paris because well that's what they do. Over one hundred people died. Many more were wounded. The proximate cause was retaliation for France's support of the bombing campaign against ISIS targets in Syria. The deeper cause could be revenge for a long history of Western intervention in the region. And the deepest cause of all could be, well that the sorts of people who attack civilian targets are cowards and a$$holes. Today France struck back on the ground.The button men are all over the street looking for anyone and everyone who had something to do with the attacks. With few exceptions, these attacks will just make most people even stronger in their previously held convictions. People across the political spectrum immediately used 11-13 to demonize their political opponents or argue that events proved their pet political theory correct. If you are on the right these attacks may have strengthened your conviction that immigration or refugee movement (particularly of racially, culturally or religiously disparate people) needs to be slowed, halted or reversed. Unlike the United States, which theoretically has no formal or informal link between race, religion, ethnicity and citizenship, many other nations in the Old World, especially in Europe, are more or less ethnic homelands of very long standing. When you say that someone is French or German or Japanese that usually brings up a different image in your mind than to say someone is American. This has changed in Europe, particularly Western Europe after WW2, but there are plenty of shall we say self-proclaimed "indigenous Europeans" who strongly dislike these changes. That at least some of the people who carried out the attacks were apparently European nationals of non-European origin will give fuel to various political parties across Europe who want to stop any further demographic transformation. Many people who will vote for a LePen or a Orban are stone cold racists. Nevertheless just as the US didn't accept massive immigration from Germany during WW2, there just might be something to be said for not accepting immigration from countries you're currently bombing. Because some of those folks will surely hold grudges. The fact that some of these grudges are beyond ridiculous (the people who carried out the Madrid bombings were still po'd about the Reconquista) doesn't matter.

Now if you are of the Left you may see attacks like this as reminders that France must try harder to live up to the slogan of "liberty, fraternity and equality". Why, for example, does France apparently have more of a problem assimilating non-white non-Christian immigrants than the US does? Why has France outlawed Muslim headwear or in some cases refused to provide non-pork meals at public schools? You may argue that France needs to do more to make its Muslim immigrants welcome so that they no longer identify with a crazy warped version of end times Islam. This is not about political correctness as much as it's about building a society that is both fair and cohesive. You might ask why has the atrocity in Paris attracted so much attention when ISIS and fellow travelers have committed similar crimes in Kenya, Nigeria, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Some French who found the ISIS attack on Russia humorous are presumably no longer laughing. The West has been bombing in the Middle East, South Asia and the Horn of Africa almost non stop over the past twenty-five years or so. Has that worked? And turning to the US in particular, although some governors have claimed that they will refuse to accept any Syrian refugees and some Presidential candidates have suggested only accepting Christian refugees, the truth is that the law doesn't allow for religious discrimination in the refugee process. And the Federal government, not the 50 states, gets to decide refugee status. Governors can talk smack but in the face of a sufficiently determined President, they would have to shut up, take it and smile. But this is just demagoguery. The US has accepted fewer than 2000 Syrian refugees. Hilarious is not the word to use but it is blackly humorous how people's willingness to restrict civil liberties depends on whether they think they will use the liberty in question. Some people on the right don't think very highly of the Fourth, Fifth or Sixth Amendments so in the wake of 11-13 there are calls from that segment of society to increase surveillance, shut down mosques, establish government backdoors to encrypted communication, consider collective punishment and generally chip away at the presumption of innocence (at least for those people). The people calling for these steps are often the same folks who stoutly resist private background checks for all gun sales and are unmoved by arguments that saving lives requires limits on gun ownership. And some other people (often but not always on the Left) who would like to strongly discourage or even eliminate private gun ownership because somewhere somebody might commit a crime appear to be blithely unconcerned about letting in people who might want to get some payback on the country that bombed theirs. 

So what's the answer? The problem is that there is none. 

Or rather there is no quick answer or one that can be sufficiently dumbed down for Ben Carson to get it. I don't think that you can ever blame any sovereign nation state for taking swift action when someone murders your citizens and basically says "Yeah we did it. So what are you going to do about it b****?" But look at the Afghanistan War. It started as a righteous crusade to get Bin Laden and put the fear of God into the people who took down the Twin Towers. It is currently in a pointless stalemate featuring moral atrocities such as the bombing of wedding parties and hospitals and US soldiers being ordered to ignore child sex abuse. ISIS would not exist if the US had not post 9-11 gotten the bright idea to invade Iraq and thus further destabilize the entire region. The Taliban would not exist if Russia had not invaded Afghanistan, causing the US and Pakistan to arm and train people who would later execute 9-11. So will more intervention solve the problem? I doubt it. The only sort of intervention that might work would be a multi-generational crusade/colonial project that would put Western troops on the ground from Aleppo to Mecca. And that's not going to happen. All that can be done now is to manage the conflict. That's unsatisfactory but that's reality. This is going to include a lot more death and mayhem before things get better. Something else we can do is to start to put the squeeze on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States to get with the program. Some elements in those nations provide ISIS material and ideological support. Some leaders in the Middle East simply don't see ISIS as the worst group. They have other concerns. I do think that there will be some permanent changes in how European nations manage and accept refugees and immigrants. That train has left the station. Expect certain political parties in Europe to find more success with messages of unabashed nationalism, immigrant restriction, xenophobia and not so hidden bigotry.

President Obama: No Boots On the Ground In Syria!

One of the things that drives me crazy in any sort of relationship whether it be professional or personal is when someone changes their mind and/or does the exact opposite of what they said they were going to do. That's bad enough. But hey people change. Facts on the ground change. That's life. I can deal with that. We all have to deal. But, to paraphrase H.L. Mencken what can make me spit on my hands, hoist the black flag and start running berserk is when the person who has just changed their mind or reversed themselves has the sheer audacity to lie to your face and tell you that no they're not changing their mind. You just misunderstood them. Apparently you are just that stupid. It's not their problem that you apparently have a leaky brain. Actually they should get a medal for having to deal with your dumb behind. When dealing with people like this, black is white, up is down and good is evil. It literally does not matter what sort of proof you have of the person making declarative statements that they weren't going to do something. You can provide signed and notarized triplicate forms of the person telling you to do or not do something. Rest assured that none of that matters. The person will simply ignore reality until you agree that yes they were right all along. These folks are odious pious devotees of the Church of Cover Thy A$$. No matter what they are always right. If they predicted rain yesterday but it doesn't rain then as far as they were concerned they didn't predict rain. They are always right. Bottom line. It's easier to avoid these sorts of people in my personal life but unfortunately they are tremendously over represented among upper management and Presidents.

Remember that President Barack Obama made definitive statements that he would not put boots on the ground in Syria. Period. End of story. Also remember that after a rather public Hamlet like internal debate President Obama tried and failed to get Congress to authorize ground troops in Syria. Now in a functioning republic that's the end. Unfortunately we lack a functioning republic. We have one in which Presidents (Obama wasn't the first and won't be the last) have seized for themselves the right to attack, bomb and invade countries without any sort of Congressional permission. So yesterday we saw White House spokesman mouthpiece Josh Earnest announce that US Special Forces troops would be on the ground in Syria (they're probably already there). According to Mr. Earnest this didn't contradict the President's prior assertions. Also according to Mr. Earnest this didn't fall under the War Powers Act. Mr. Earnest claimed this was legal despite the fact that the government of Syria didn't invite US Special Forces. Mr. Earnest claimed that the 2001 AUMF gave the President all the authority he needed. That the President believes that a law created for one country and one organization gives him authority to interfere in another country without Congressional or for that matter United Nations approval is telling.


Anyway, here is what the President said on a prior occasion. His hardcore defenders, just as they did with the "If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor" statements will likely tie themselves in knots as Earnest did yesterday, trying to find some obscure loophole that apparently justifies this change. I'm tired of this. There aren't any good options in Syria. Nobody has clean hands. Some of the people we're assisting are Al-Qaeda affiliates. Others are considered terrorists by our NATO Turkish allies. It's okay if the President changed his mind. But he should admit that he changed his mind. Don't p*** on my head and tell me it's raining. And he should get Congressional approval before sending in troops. That is the law, even if no one bothers to obey it any longer. One of the really infuriating arguments which Earnest and presumably President Obama tries to put across is that if Congress doesn't do what the President wants (in this case give him an authorization for military action in Syria) then he has the right to act because Congress has "failed". Again, that is not how our system works.

The Interview: North Korea Punks Sony and Hollywood

I don't like confrontations. However there are situations where some people or organizations will provoke a conflict to take something from you or yours. Maybe it's your lunch money or a job promotion. Maybe it's your self-respect. Maybe someone has insulted your little sister. When these things happen the only thing you can do is fight. Someone wants to throw down? You give them all they expect and more. You need to punch the bully in the mouth. You won't always win. You may get a beatdown, figuratively or even literally. But by fighting back you raise the cost of the clash. Bullies, like other predators, seek easy weak prey. If they have trouble taking things from you then even if they win the resulting fight this time, the next time they may leave you alone.  When you fight back you might win. You show the bully and other observers that the bully made a mistake. By refusing to cave to extortion you reveal that it's the bully, not you, who is the weak cringing coward. Sometimes just standing up to a bully may end the situation. It's hard to say for sure. But it's certain that allowing yourself to be bullied, to be insulted, to be humiliated, will bring more of the same. Once you get on your knees for someone it's pretty difficult to stand up straight again. Unfortunately Sony executives, other Hollywood magnates, film distributors and theater owners never seemed to learn this critical life lesson. Hackers connected to the North Korean government broke into Sony's databases to steal sensitive, private and confidential information. They warned Sony not to release The Interview, a Seth Rogen satirical comedy about the assassination of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. 

The hackers threatened to publicize other private information or to engage in unspecified 9-11 type actions. They also threatened Sony's vendors and business partners. Sony and US film distributors crumpled like a wet paper bag. Major theater chains declined to show the film. Sony pulled the film from release. 

Fearing that the exact precedent about bullies which I described above was being set, other theaters planned to feature the older movie Team America: World Police, which made fun of Kim Jong-Un's equally oddball late father Kim Jong-Il, but Paramount Studios pulled that film as well. And just in case anyone who was super special stupid might have missed the point of what was going on here, the severely English language challenged hackers sent an email to Sony that congratulated Sony for the speed and intensity of its kowtow to their demands. The email also stated that if Sony knew what was good for it, it would ensure that that The Interview was never released in any format, theatrical, video on demand, web based or otherwise. 

"Very wise to cancel 'the interview' it will be very useful for you," read the message. "We ensure the purity of your data and as long as you make no more trouble." "Now we want you never let the movie released, distributed or leaked in any form of, for instance, DVD or piracy," wrote the hackers.
LINK

So let's review. The US claims to have a belief in freedom of speech. The important concept in freedom of speech is not that a work can't be criticized or mocked or even boycotted but rather that our government can't put in prior restraint to tell the artist what he or she can create. And obviously the government can't allow private actors to employ threats of violence or actual violent acts to prevent an artist from creating or sharing his work. North Korea has no First Amendment or concept of free speech. The only rule in North Korea is don't upset Fearless Leader. That may work for North Korea but US Sony and the theater chains made a big mistake in allowing North Korea to export its censorship into the US market. If a bovine butterball like Kim Jong-Un can get Sony to wet its Depends, what might other dictators or for that matter interest groups seek to do? The implied power of hackers just went to an entirely different level, one light years beyond where they were previously. Make no mistake, Sony will not be the only corporation or organization impacted by this surrender. Other groups and other governments will seek to target US based media companies for censorship. Other studios are already "rethinking" films that are set in North Korea or make any sort of reference to North Korea. This was a test. Sony and Hollywood failed it. They talk a good game about freedom of speech and standing up for artists but when it comes down to it they're just cowards. I should point out that I'm not the biggest Rogen or Franco fan. The Interview could very well be an unfunny movie full of jokes about body functions, obesity and gay sex, all of which seem to fascinate Rogen greatly.

Being cynical I wonder if distributors were really just worried that this movie would be a financial turkey and therefore jumped at the opportunity to drop it. That could be. But that's not the point. We wouldn't permit the US government to tell us we couldn't make or watch a movie. So why are we letting the North Korean government tell us what to watch? If globalization means letting Pacific Rim communist dictatorships influence or censor American media,  then we need to reset some things. Hollywood once made movies and shorts satirizing Nazis. It made movies about evil communists during the Cuban Missile Crisis. But today's studio heads have no guts. More's the pity. It should be a reminder to us that media corporations  have no real interest in First Amendment rights. Kim Jong-Un just made Sony cringe and roll on its back. American business leaders have gotten soft. Sony has stated that it still intends to release The Interview but we'll see.

Senate Intelligence Committee Releases CIA Torture Report

The Senate Intelligence Committee just recently released a declassified (by the White House) report on torture engaged in by the CIA and other agencies under the Bush Administration post 9-11. There's not too much here which is surprising or that was unknown to anyone who was paying attention to some of the leaks and other allegations that have come out over the past decade. And certainly it's not unknown to the people who were tortured or the governments which assisted the US in activities which are illegal under both national and international laws. No, the only people who might be surprised are American citizens who don't pay a tremendous amount of attention to what their government is doing. Because the Obama Administration whiffed on bringing these perpetrators to justice immediately after the inauguration it's unlikely that any of these folks will ever be identified and held to account under the American criminal justice system. Prosecutorial discretion is a wonderful thing sometimes, eh? But that aside as others have said in a democracy, in a constitutional republic, in America, theoretically the citizens are still the boss. And the boss always has the right and for that matter the obligation to know what his employees are doing. It is amusing to me that some of the conservatives who were against this release claim to be more concerned about the possible negative impact on US interests or citizens overseas than they are about the rights of US citizens to know the crimes the government has committed in their name. 

I think that secrecy in government, even where needed or legitimate, tends to corrode trust. But in this case, unlike say diplomacy, there is no need or right for the government to commit crimes and then claim that we have no right to know what they did. It's important to point out that the torture techniques were harsher and more expansive than we were first given to believe. They also didn't work. Although this report release is only a very small step in doing the right thing, I think it's a good start. Let justice be done though the heavens fall.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA used sexual threats, waterboarding and other harsh methods to interrogate terrorism suspects and all were ineffective at eliciting critical information, according to a U.S. Senate report released on Tuesday. Senator Angus King, an independent, told CNN releasing the report was important because it could persuade a future president not to use these techniques.

Besides the now-well-known practice of waterboarding, tactics included weeks of sleep deprivation, slapping and slamming of detainees against walls, confining them to small boxes, keeping them isolated for prolonged periods and threatening them with death.

Three detainees faced waterboarding, the simulated drowning technique. Some were left broken by the treatment, pleading and whimpering, one described as assuming a "compliant" position on the waterboarding table at the snap of an interrogator's fingers.

"We did things that we tried Japanese soldiers for war crimes for after World War Two. This is not America. This is not who we are. What was done has diminished our stature and inflamed terrorists around the world."

• Rectal feeding
• Interrogators with histories of sexual assault
• Russian Roulette
• Kidnapping mentally challenged people to use as hostages
• Stress Positions
• Threats to kill and rape the children or mothers of prisoners

Executive summary of Senate Report

Scottish Vote For Independence Fails

In a vote that was watched closely by independence movements in Europe and throughout the world, the people of Scotland decided to remain as part of the United Kingdom instead of breaking away to become an independent state. The final vote in favor of remaining British was a decisive 55-44. There were plenty of good economic arguments for staying together and obviously a strong nationalist interest in forging ahead separately. I think that not only did the economics not make sense but that also there wasn't quite the fierce level of simmering hostility or just "difference"  which is normally required to break apart a state. Unlike, say multi-ethnic states in Eastern Europe, Eastern Africa or the Middle East, the Union of Scotland and England dating back to 1707 has been pretty stable. I didn't think there was enough fire in the belly on the parts of the Scots to separate from England. I have a few friends who are Scottish residents as well as a few acquaintances descended from recent Scottish immigrants. It will be interesting over the next few days to see what they thought of this vote and of course how they voted, if eligible. Although every independence movement is different, with its own peculiar set of real or imagined historical grievances, ethnic, racial, religious or geographical identities and planned goals for the future, just about every separatist movement would have gotten a real boost if Scotland's independence had become something real in 2014 instead of remaining a memory. Nevertheless this is another example of the power of nationalism and memory in the modern world.
LINK

President Obama Approval Ratings and Leadership

I am not a President Obama partisan. I supported other candidates. I think the President has been a more or less average President. I have been severely disappointed on his foreign policy and civil liberties moves. I think that by instinct and training the President is too often cautious when he should be bold. That aside, given the nature of the United States political economy one would have been foolish to expect any President, let alone the first Black President to have been a fire breathing transformative figure of justice for race, gender, class or any other issue that is near and dear to the Left. That's just not how things work, despite what Cornel West says. It's not original to me and I can't remember where I read it but just recently I perused something that claimed (perhaps jokingly, perhaps not) that just as soon as any US President is inaugurated he is shown an unreleased tape of the events in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963 and asked if he has any questions. I don't know about that but for whatever reason President Obama has been something of a disappointment to some notable progressive figures, most recently filmmaker Michael Moore. For some reason some white progressives always seem to be surprised and vaguely disappointed that not every black politician is Nat Turner Malcolm X the 3rd, a fire breathing reject from a 70s blaxploitation movie who's here to kick a$$ and stick it to the Man. I'm not entirely sure such a man would have been elected President. Nah, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have been. But it's not just rotund Michiganians that the President has to worry about pleasing. His approval ratings for leadership have reached new lows just as he plans to address the nation this evening to discuss his strategy for dealing with the group ISIS.

Barack Obama’s rating for strong leadership has dropped to a new low in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, hammered by criticism of his work on international crises and a stalled domestic agenda alike. With the midterm elections looming, Americans by a 10-point margin, 52-42 percent, see his presidency more as a failure than a success.

Just 38 percent now approve of Obama’s handling of international affairs, down 8 percentage points since July to a career low; 56 percent disapprove, a majority for the first time. Fifty-two percent say he’s been too cautious in dealing with Islamic insurgents in Iraq and Syria. And the public is ahead of Obama in support for a military response to that crisis, with 65 percent in favor of extending U.S. air strikes to Syria.  

LINK

Now you can always find reasons to blame the guy in the Big Seat before you for leaving you a big old s*** sandwich to chow down on. Almost every President does that, especially if the previous President was a member of the opposite party. Heck, even if the previous President was a member of your party, would be Presidents often find it prudent to distance themselves policy wise, just ask Hillary Clinton. I think that the Iraq war pursued by President Bush and the entire Mid-East policy pursued by previous Presidents have been utter failures. ISIS would not exist as it does now had the US not invaded Iraq and unwittingly released and restoked ethnic and religious tensions across the region. Unlike what Cheney and other neocons claimed, invading Iraq did not lead to peaceful multiparty democracies in the Middle East. But that's not important now. President Obama is in charge. He will have to convince people that he knows what he's doing and that he has a coherent and applicable foreign policy strategy. Ironically, Congress, which has the constitutional power to declare war and end funding for war, has been in hiding on the issue, scared to say yea or nay. It is much safer to effectively vote "Present" and then blame the President if things turn out bad or say you were with him all along if things work out. That's a failing in our system.

Nevertheless whether it is "optics" as the President and his supporters dismissively term it or an actual "failure of leadership" as trained conservative critics bray on command, there does seem to me to be a certain hesitation, a certain reluctance, a willingness to "lead from behind" which can be somewhat offsetting to the American public. As pointed out in the ABC NEWS link though the saving grace for the President is that the Republicans in Congress and Congress in general are seen in an even worse light. Their constant "no" on everything and their embrace of racialized ugliness have left Republicans in a bad place, nationally. Also I think that people forget sometimes, in part because of the 24-7 news cycle and constant "scandal that fizzles out", that we do not live under a parliamentary system. Even if almost everyone thinks the President is the worst President ever and the Democrats get slaughtered in the midterms, absent impeachment and conviction, President Obama still has two years and change left in his term. He's not going anywhere.

Still, from a purely partisan perspective, it might help Democrats heck it might help the country, if the President could provide or be seen to provide some stronger leadership and clarity. I don't understand how he can claim he doesn't need congressional approval for war in Libya, turn around and say he probably does need it in Syria and now hint that he may not need it for Iraq and Syria. You have to give your supporters something to rally for, not just constantly say the other guys are worse. Although that may be true I'm not sure that gets people to the polls in November or helps your party keep the White House in 2016.

What do you think?

Do you think the President has provided strong leadership?

Do you have any serious disappointments with the President?

If you could talk to him what you like to him to say in his speech tonight? Will you watch his speech?

What policy changes would you ask him to make? What can he do to improve the public perception of his leadership?

President Obama and Foreign Policy: Et tu, Hillary?

I could never ever ever be a politician. There are just too many times that you must smile and eat a big bowl of crap while pretending that it tastes good. And if you're good at pulling off that trick you can expect that many more such bowls will be delivered to you. h/t The Wire. You must occasionally pretend to be all things to all people, be on all sides of any issue at once and come up smelling like roses even as you're wading knee deep in the sewage of backroom deals and donor stroking. One of the most important skills you must have as a politician could be to never take anything personally. It's just business, after all. Everyone is self-interested. Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama are consummate politicians. And Mrs. Clinton is basically running an as yet so far formally undeclared campaign for the 2016 Presidential election. I think that with two years and change left in the Obama Administration it's a little early for her to be getting her name out there but she apparently operates on the principle of don't put off until tomorrow what you could be doing today. 

As a key member of the Obama Administration, former Senator, and Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton, should she run, would be wise depending on the President's popularity around 2016, to keep her options open on whether her Administration would represent a break from the Obama Administration or a continuation of Obama policies. Recently, Mrs. Clinton sent a very deliberate message that at least as far as foreign policy is concerned, she would do things differently than President Obama.

This signal was sent loud and clear in a recent interview with centrist-right author and correspondent for The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg. You can read it here in its entirety. I urge you to do so. It's long but gives you a great idea of how much Mrs. Clinton had to bite her tongue during her stint in the Obama Administration or perhaps more accurately how much she might want possible voters to believe she had to bite her tongue. Although she talks about how smart the President is, she unhesitatingly called out his foreign affairs principle by name saying:

• Great nations need organizing principles, and “Don’t do stupid stuff” is not an organizing principle. It may be a necessary brake on the actions you might take in order to promote a vision.  
• "You know, when you’re down on yourself, and when you are hunkering down and pulling back, you’re not going to make any better decisions than when you were aggressively, belligerently putting yourself forward.” 

Clinton openly identified with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's refusal to countenance an independent Palestinian state saying that:

• If I were the prime minister of Israel, you’re damn right I would expect to have control over security, because even if I’m dealing with [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas, who is 79 years old, and other members of Fatah, who are enjoying a better lifestyle and making money on all kinds of things, that does not protect Israel from the influx of Hamas or cross-border attacks from anywhere else. With Syria and Iraq, it is all one big threat. So Netanyahu could not do this in good conscience. 

She also hinted that ISIS might not have become the problem that it is now had the US armed Syrian rebels. In short Clinton as President would tack a bit more to the right than President Obama has. It's not fair to uncritically proclaim, as some have stated, that she sees him as a wimp, but it is fair to infer that she would have a more aggressive foreign policy and would not be as cautious about the use of military power. It's amusing to read what Mrs. Clinton had to say about President Obama considering he has stretched executive authority on drone use far beyond what the second President Bush thought prudent, attacked Libya, and is currently at the time limit for the War Powers Act regarding intervention in Iraq, but life is strange. Obama loyalist David Axelrod not so subtly tweaked Mrs. Clinton for her "stupid" vote for the Iraq war, a signal that President Obama and his inner circle might be more than a bit peeved about Mrs. Clinton's interview.

Now it's not unusual for politicians to work with or even include on their team people they don't like. JFK wasn't very fond of LBJ. Eisenhower was coolly contemptuous of Nixon. Nobody liked Hoover. So it goes. And it only makes sense that Clinton would hint that she would chart her own path should she become President.way. Still, given the nastiness shown between Obama and Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary, I was a little surprised that the President welcomed her into his Administration in the first place, let alone gave her such a high profile position as Secretary of State. If I were the President I wouldn't have hired her. And if advisers claimed I had to do so I would have given her a relatively low profile unattractive position and then micromanaged the hell out of her, all the while leaking to the press how disappointed "high ranking officials" were with her work so far. But that's just me. I would not have wished to help her burnish her resume.

It is a delicate balance to seek to succeed someone for whom you worked. Show that you're your own (wo)man but at the same time show that you're going to provide continuity for successful policies. The issue with Clinton's criticism is not that she made it. The issue is that it hearkens back to charges she made before and which Republicans make today, that the President is in over his head and substitutes sloganeering for action. It's not necessarily a fair critique but I wonder if the President, who has been accused of being rabbit eared about criticism, is at at least in part reacting to such feedback by intervening in Iraq without Congressional authority when just a few months earlier he claimed that he needed such authority to intervene in Syria. If Obama's approval ratings were higher I doubt Clinton would be running her mouth. But as they say about politics, if you want a friend, get a dog. 

So what do you think?

Are Clinton's criticisms just par for the course and no big deal?

Is Clinton disloyal?

Is she putting her name out there too early?