Israel Attacks Gaza and Kills Palestinians: Again

As you may have read in the news the State of Israel has launched military attacks by land, air and sea against the Palestinians in Gaza. Israel claims to be trying to degrade Hamas' military capacity and prevent Hamas from launching rocket attacks against Israel. As virtually every US politician who sees himself or herself as a national figure has rushed to the nearest microphone to intone, "Israel has the right to defend itself" and "No country could accept rockets being fired into its territory". Those are true statements. What you won't hear many, if any, US politicians say is that Palestinians also have the right to defend themselves against Israel. As Palestinians are literally children of a lesser God in the view of many in the "West" the idea that they have the right to resist is something completely alien to the narrative. The other idea which is completely alien to the narrative is the idea that massive and exponentially disproportionate retribution isn't always actually a moral or even useful method to respond to violence or resistance. At the time of this writing, a little over 400 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, most of them non-combatant men, women and children. That's what happens when people with a first rate air force, navy and army drop bombs on and shell people who lack any air force who live in an area roughly the size of Detroit. Children have been deliberately targeted while playing on a beach. Hospitals and disabled centers have been attacked.                                          
It's simply impossible to oppress, demean and humiliate a group of people without simultaneously coming up with an ideology that transforms your oppression into sober, fair minded treatment and the people being subjugated into either irrational, mindless beasts howling for blood or folks who are sadly simply culturally deprived and don't understand all the benefits your "oppression" provides them.

This is something which is true in Israel today but it bears repeating that this is something which is true across humanity in every time and place. It's exactly because we all have shared humanity that in order to brutalize another human being we have to find some sort of method of denying their status as human beings. This was true with British colonists in Kenya or French colonists in Algeria who murdered, tortured and raped indigenous people who resisted their invasions and depredations. It was true with European settlers in Australia and the Americas. It was true with White American slave owners or supporters of Jim Crow and Black Americans. It was true with Arab slave owners in Africa. It's true with Hindu caste systems. And so on. Any time someone is on top and doing their best to keep someone else on the bottom they come up with justifications. And nobody likes being dominated, humiliated or exterminated. They resist, often even when resistance seems or actually objectively is, futile. So the current "round of violence" against Palestine is thoroughly predictable. But even using that frame of "round of violence" ignores the root cause of all the violence. It's the occupation stupid! The Israelis have been occupying and/or controlling the West Bank and Gaza for longer than I've been alive. Palestinians inside those territories are regularly and routinely brutalized or killed. In Gaza, particularly, they lack access to clean water, medicine, food, housing, almost everything that makes life worth living. 

The Palestinians have no representation, no way to address grievances, no protection against the Israeli military. That's what happens under military occupation. This is made worse by the fact that thanks to American and European diplomatic and military support Israel is convinced that it can have peace, military occupation and increasing numbers of Jewish settlements. The moribund peace process has only seen an increase in the amount of West Bank Jewish settlements. Israel has embarked on ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Some Israeli politicians are openly calling for ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza. Knesset Member Moishe Feiglin is open about what he wants: 

After the IDF completes the "softening" of the targets with its fire-power, the IDF will conquer the entire Gaza, using all the means necessary to minimize any harm to our soldiers, with no other considerations.

Gaza is part of our Land and we will remain there forever. Liberation of parts of our land forever is the only thing that justifies endangering our soldiers in battle to capture land. Subsequent to the elimination of terror from Gaza, it will become part of sovereign Israel and will be populated by Jews. According to polls, most of the Arabs in Gaza wish to leave. Those who were not involved in anti-Israel activity will be offered a generous international emigration package.

Knesset Member Ayelet Shaked echoes and goes beyond Feiglin's statements by explicitly calling for the death of Palestinian mothers and the destruction of their homes. She has endorsed a call for utter war against all Palestinians, viewing them all as worthy of death. How about that idea that female leadership will lead to less war and violence? Yeah, not so much. Shaked may lack testosterone but she has no deficit of hatred and bile.

"They have to die and their houses should be demolished so that they cannot bear any more terrorists," Shaked said, adding, "They are all our enemies and their blood should be on our hands. This also applies to the mothers of the dead terrorists." "Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there."

One would wait in vain for any prominent American politician to condemn those ugly racist statements. All they will do is bleat about how Israel has the right to defend itself and the Palestinians must accept Israeli hegemony. I see no difference between what these Knesset members called for and the insane justification for a local murder of a two year old. The Israeli brutalization of the Palestinians also requires a torturing of the English language. NJ Governor and possible Republican Presidential candidate Chris Christie, a supporter of Israel, was nonetheless compelled to apologize after he mistakenly used the term "occupied territories" when referring to the occupied territories.  Occupation supporters such as casino mogul Sheldon Adelson prefer the terms "disputed territories" and certainly won't be writing checks to any politician who doesn't use the proper terminology. So, what is the solution to this? While one prominent anti-war libertarian thinks that Israel as it exists today must be dismantled, I think that just as the Palestinians aren't going anywhere, neither are the Jewish Israelis. I think the two-state solution is dead and has been dead for quite some time. Israel has no intention of removing its hegemony from either the West Bank or Gaza. The only long term solution is one state for both Jews and Palestinians, with equal rights for all. That seems like a pipe dream now. But as the family of murdered Jewish teen Naftali Frenkel said in a statement, "There is no difference between Arab blood and Jewish blood. Murder is murder". That is the message that needs to be nurtured and grown in Israel, not the weed of Jewish supremacist ugliness. In the same way that IRA bombing attacks in England did not result in massive indiscriminate bombardment of Dublin, Israel needs to find a different way. Because morality aside, what it's doing isn't working.

The Palestinians do not currently have nor are they likely in the near future to gain the military power to break the siege of Gaza or eject the West Bank settlers. And despite the constant invocation of "tiny Israel surrounded by 300 million Arabs who hate them", it's also very unlikely that other Arab nations will be riding to the Palestinian rescue. You may have noticed that those nations have their own problems. And none of them have a military that is remotely comparable to Israel's, let alone America's. But unless Israel thinks that it can openly get away with genocide or expulsion, the Palestinians will still be there. So long term, one state with equal rights for all and special rights for none is the only way. Otherwise, sometime in the distant future, when the Israeli and West Bank Arab population has far outstripped the Jewish population, there may be a settling of accounts that might not be to Israel's benefit. Right now the US needs to enforce a cease fire. Short term, politicians in the West, particularly the US, must turn off military, diplomatic and financial aid to Israel. Stop giving them weapons. Stop letting the tail wag the dog. Stop sharing intelligence. That's the only thing that has a remote chance of making Israeli politicians see the light. It is close to being too late. My only remaining hope that if the filthy apartheid state of South Africa can reform and become an imperfect democracy for all of its people, then so can Israel. But it's going to have to be forced into doing so. Of course at a minimum that would require a President who wasn't afraid to tell Israel "No". And we haven't had that for a while. #FreePalestine.

Iran Sanctions Deal: Good for US or not?

First off just to state the obvious. No one can see the future. One can make informed guesses about it and presume that most states will act in what they perceive to be in their best interest but that's about it. So whether the new proposed deal concerning Iran's nuclear energy program is good in the long term or not I can't say. I believe that both Iran and the US worked out a win-win situation in which both sides talked tough for domestic constituencies but really didn't offer a whole lot that was new. To the extent that Iran "won", it maintained its right as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to continue uranium enrichment. This was a red line for the Iranians.They weren't going to formally give up rights to which they were entitled by international law. And for a lot of rather obvious reasons the US didn't want to talk too much about fidelity to international law. 
Some of the agreement highlights include

• Iran will continue to enrich uranium, but at less than 5%.
• Higher enriched uranium will be eliminated and/or converted to non-weapons grade uses.
• The agreement is an interim one which lasts for six months.
• The Iranian heavy water research facility at Arak will not be activated. This wasn't supposed to happen until 2016 anyway and was behind schedule.
• Iran will receive sanctions relief of roughly $7 billion, about half or more of which is frozen Iranian assets.

The US congress can still torpedo this deal, at least as far as the United States is concerned while Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu has been scathing in his denunciation of the deal. In a rather obvious temper tantrum and diplomatic slap in the face to the United States, Israel announced yet more settlements in the occupied West Bank. Israel would like the sanctions on Iran to remain in place and be increased. It also demands removal of Iranian nuclear technology, infrastructure and know-how in toto. This last is implausible of course unless you intend to kill or lobotomize a number of Iranian scientists/physicists and engineers. The Israeli Prime Minister may be more popular in the US Congress than President Obama is right now. He has shown a previous willingness or even eagerness to leverage bi-partisan support for Israel's interests, or rather what the right-wing Netanyahu perceives as Israel's interests. It is here rather important to point out that Israel, which does have nuclear weapons and thus a nuclear weapon program is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Iran which according to the US intelligence released, does not have a nuclear weapons program, is a signatory. What happens next depends on the Congress as well as diplomats in the US and in Israel.  

“I spoke last night with President [Barack] Obama. We agreed that in the coming days an Israeli team led by the national security adviser, Yossi Cohen, will go out to discuss with the United States the permanent accord with Iran,” Netanyahu told members of his Likud party.

I think it would be counterproductive for people concerned about Israel's security or Sunni vs. Shia rivalry to go to the mat over this deal. This deal doesn't change very much, doesn't last very long and certainly is not something which should lead to anyone attacking anyone else. It's not 1939 and this is not "peace in our time". It's critical to remember that Iran engaged in a long fruitless war with Iraq that more or less ended in stalemate. That would be the same Iraq that the US wiped the floor with. Israel and the US will continue to maintain conventional and nuclear weapons supremacy over Iran. This agreement is not major. It is just the equivalent of picking up the phone and talking to someone you don't like. Netanyahu has stated that Israel is not bound by any agreement. True. Israel is free to attack Iran any time it likes and place its soldiers in harm's way.  Saudi Arabia or any of the other Gulf States voicing concern can also spend their own blood and treasure if they want to.

War on Syria??

Syria has been undergoing a bloody civil war. Over 100,000 people are said to have died. There are numerous rebel groups which are opposed to the Assad regime. However these groups are not exactly all a ragtag bunch of reluctant revolutionaries who sadly took up the gun and look forward to ending the war to return home and peacefully live out their days on a Tatooine moisture farm. Many of them are a pretty nasty bunch, who when they aren't enjoying such activities as cannibalism on government troops or gang rapes of women (and boys/men/girls too for that matter), are often seeking ways to impose Islamic rule over the previously secular Syria. Well that is Sunni Islamic rule. The Assad regime, despite being secular, is from the Alawite branch of Islam, and is considered akin to apostate or heretic by some fundamentalist Sunnis. This conflict isn't only a political revolution but also has ethnic and religious undertones. This last is of course being funded and fanned by our very good friends, the Saudis. Ironically of course the Muslim Brotherhood and associated groups, whom we claim to despise in Egypt, form some of the opposition in Syria. So does Al-Quaeda. Hezbollah, a Lebanese primarily Shia group, has come to the aid of the Syrian regime, without asking the Lebanese people if that was a good idea. Israel has bombed what it claimed were Syrian weapons transfers to Hezbollah. Iran and Syria have threatened Israel. Syrian Kurds, unpopular with and worried by all of the sides in the conflict have been fleeing to Iraq. Well, that is they've been fleeing to the northern portion of Iraq, which is heavily ethnically Kurdish and has enjoyed a sort of de facto home rule from the rest of Iraq. Greater numbers of Kurds could eventually pull Iraq back into a new civil war if the northern section gets emboldened to declare formal independence. Syrian refugees of all ethnicities and faiths have been fleeing the country. Both the rebels and the government have committed atrocities.

Allegedly the Syrian government used chemical weapons. I doubt that claim. It wouldn't make sense as they've been winning the war as of late. There are some issues with the evidence, not least of which is that the Secretary of State can only publicly offer youtube videos as casus belli. It's unclear as to who used chemical weapons and even if they were used. Still anything is possible. The US may or may not attack Syria in the next few days or even the next few hours. I don't know. I'm not invited to the meetings where those decisions are discussed. Neither are you in all likelihood.

This is, to quote noted foreign policy expert Yogi Berra, deja vu all over again. I don't have time or interest frankly to list all of the arguments against US involvement. You can read some of them here in the post on Libya. I'm trying to write shorter posts anyway.

No I will just raise a few issues here.
First off I agree with the man who said this :

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. 

Imagine if we had such a person in office today. 

• By what authority does this President muse attacking Syria?
• Next what is the point of attacking Syria? What is the US interest? Syria has not attacked the US. I have no doubt that the US can successfully drop bombs/fire missiles anywhere in Syria with zero or minimal US casualties. Then what?
• What is the political impact of bombing Syria? Is that going to make Russia and China more or less amenable to listening to us on issues where we need their assistance? Will other countries decide that they need to either upgrade their air defense forces or more likely go nuclear? After all, you must have noticed although North Korea has a fat crazy dumpling of a Fearless Leader, nobody is talking about bombing North Korea. North Korea has nukes and deliberately gives off the impression that they're itching to use them.
• Does the fact that Russia is moving additional warships to the Eastern Mediterranean concern anyone? 
• The American people are overwhelmingly against it. Is that of any interest to politicians?
• There are many violent struggles in the world, including some against rulers we support. What makes this one our business?
• If the US does attack Syria would it be time to just drop the pretense and admit that some of us don't think that the people in the Middle East are smart enough to run their own affairs?
• Do the people claiming that only a barbarian uses chemical weapons feel the same about nuclear weapons usage? If not why not? Why is it okay to incinerate people and not okay to gas them? Similarly why is it a bad thing to line up people against a wall and gun them down but just fine to drop bombs on them from three miles up and never see, hear or smell the effects of what you do? Are chemical weapons worse than depleted uranium usage? Why or why not?

None of this is meant to defend the Syrian government. But I'm not sure Syria is any nastier than Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Bahrain or any of the other nations funding the rebels for their own reasons. The Middle East is not exactly a region known for toleration of peaceful dissent. And no matter how they gained power there are few governments anywhere in the world who won't respond in kind when peaceful dissent turns violent. I say if other countries wish to intervene in Syria and likely bring about either a new military dictatorship or a fundamentalist Islamic state they are free to spend their own money, resources and lives. I'm not seeing why the US needs to be involved. And thanks to democratic blowback over a rush to judgment in Iraq, it looks like the UK may be prevented from tagging along this time as well. I think that it's past time that Congress put its foot down and wrestled back war making authority from the Executive Branch. But as always I could be woefully wrong. Let me know.

What's your take? 

Should the US do something? 

Was there a chemical attack? 

Do we owe something to the Syrian people?

Military Coup and Violence in Egypt

Imagine that the US Armed Forces, whose officer class generally tends politically conservative, lose patience with President Obama. The generals don't approve of what they see as his Constitutional end runs, his recess appointments, or his defense policies. Troops surround the White House, easily and casually disarm, subdue or eliminate any laughably outgunned loyalist Secret Service/FBI agents/DC police officers. They take the President and his associates into custody. The military shuts down unfriendly media. Liberal supporters lead marches or sit-ins but the military brass has given the green light. Protesters are arrested or killed by the dozens. The military also issues arrest orders for hundreds of other Administration supporters, who flee overseas or go underground. 

The military appoints John Boehner temporary President. But Boehner is a patsy. Reporters speak to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the real boss. The Chairman speaks vaguely of future elections but won't commit to a date. He won't even admit that he initiated a coup. He claims that his actions were necessary to save democracy. The Department of Justice finds new crimes with which to charge former President Obama. 

Undeterred, the deposed President's supporters organize a massive sit-in at the Washington Monument. They are surrounded by police and military personnel in tanks. After 10 days of peaceful protest, one morning without warning the military and the police move in. This time instead of dozens being killed, it's hundreds and possibly even thousands. People are gunned down from helicopters without regard to age, sex or actual threat. Snipers target protest leaders. Those who are lucky enough to get arrested face charges that could place them in prison for decades. There are then bloody revenge attacks on police, military and civilians who are believed, rightly or wrongly, to support the coup. Fox News, Investors Business Daily, The Washington Times, The WSJ, The National Review, and other "responsible" media speak of the need for stability and the necessity of fighting the liberal-socialist threat.

Well that is what has been going on in Egypt over the past six weeks. Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, supported by the Muslim Brotherhood, was heading down a political path that was unpopular within broad segments of the country, though it's unclear whether the majority wanted him out. Unfortunately for Morsi however, what he saw as reforms or political consolidation, was seen as unacceptable by the military, who overthrew him on July 3. Defense Minister General Abdel Fatah-el-Sisi gave the order. I do not wish to defend Morsi or the Muslim Brotherhood. I don't care one way or the other about them. But whether the US liked it or not Morsi was the freely and fairly elected President of Egypt. There is a system by which Morsi can be checked and/or removed from office. Military intervention should not be part of that system.

US law clearly indicates that US military aid is not supposed to go to a nation which has had a coup. In a move that is sadly typical, the Administration has claimed that although that may be the law, it is not required to determine if a coup has taken place. Additionally Secretary of State John Kerry stated that the generals were "restoring democracy".

This weak response may well have emboldened the Egyptian military establishment to give the orders for the latest bloody assault on the protesters and also for the apparent murder of 36 prisoners who were alleged to support the deposed President Morsi. At least 1000 people have died so far. Most of them were apparently demonstrators.

CAIRO — The Egyptian government acknowledged that its security forces had killed 36 Islamists in its custody on Sunday, as the country’s military leaders and Islamists vowed to keep up their fight over Egypt’s future.

The deaths were the fourth mass killing of civilians since the military took control on July 3, but the first time so many had died while in government custody.The news of the deaths came on a day when there appeared to be a pause in the street battles that had claimed more than 1,000 lives since Wednesday, most of them Islamists and their supporters gunned down by security forces.

The Islamists took measures on Sunday to avoid further confrontations, including canceling several protests over the military’s ouster of a democratically elected Islamist-led government.

While confirming the killings of the detainees on Sunday, the Ministry of the Interior said the deaths were the consequence of an escape attempt by Islamist prisoners. But officials of the main Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, described the deaths as “assassinations,” and said that the victims, which it said numbered 52, had been shot and tear-gassed through the windows of a locked prison van.

Both the country of Israel and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States have lobbied the US not to cut off military aid. The second group has even offered to make up any loss in aid to Egypt out of its own pocket. After all the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia wouldn't want its own subjects to look at successful democracy in Egypt and start to get big ideas about political changes. There are also US interests to consider. These include favorable access to the Suez Canal, overflights and refueling over Egyptian airspace, as well as concerns about the nature of the state that Morsi or other Muslim Brotherhood backed politicians might seek to run. I mean, judging by some of their supporters' actions, religious freedom and safety for minority points of view or minority public safety don't appear to be high on their agenda.

So there aren't any good answers. But there is a right answer. The US simply can't try to gin up support for the overthrow of Syrian President Assad by piously claiming "He's killing his own people" when Egyptian generals are doing the same thing. The US can't claim to support democracy and lecture other nations on free and fair elections and then turn a blind eye to a military coup. The lesson that the US and its Arab client states are teaching opposition movements is clear. Elections don't matter. If you win we will try to get rid of you via other means, including violence. So opposition movements will not try to engage in electoral politics, rationally deciding that such things are meaningless. This means more radicalization and violence in the long term. Now this is good if you happen to be the world's largest arms dealer like the US, but I'm not sure it's actually good for living beings who aren't weapons merchants. The US should follow the law and suspend the military aid (which is frankly a subsidy to US military contractors) Also I don't think it's in the US interest to let any client state dictate what our response should be. The tail doesn't get to wag the dog.

Thoughts?

China-The New Frenemy

There is a long ugly history of Yellow Peril in American and Western literature and thought. This phenomenon generally looks at the much more numerous Chinese and/or East Asian peoples and sees in them not only unfathomable cultural and racial differences but also finds an insidious threat to the American way of life. This fear and hatred was once so great and well respected that authors like Jack London  (Call of The Wild) could write fiction calling for the complete and utter annihilation of Chinese-total genocide. Obviously no one is calling for such steps today but people from across the socio-political spectrum are starting to realize that while China may not quite be a threat but it's very much not a friend to the United States. China may be something a bit more dangerous than a competitor. Some have pointed out steps that the US must take to aggressively pursue its own desires vis-a-vis China.

These calls to action are not necessarily based in racist thought but in the very real fact that China's rise to economic prominence, its relentless demand for natural resources and its increasingly muscular foreign policy is not necessarily in the United States' or even the world's best interest. And when I say United States' best interest I am referring to the military-security state, the corporate superstructure, and the generally muted concerns of labor and environmentalists.

All of these groups' concerns are somewhat endangered by China's growth and behavior over the past few decades. Labor's concerns are obvious. Cheap Chinese labor reduces job and wage growth within the United States. The corporate sector was generally in favor of this of course but some corporations have belatedly realized that China simply does not believe in intellectual property protection in the same way that the US does, at least not for foreigners. And the military-security state may finally be reaching a point where it's not only concerned by China's rather pugnacious statements about several Pacific regions, including but not limited to Taiwan but also worried about the allegedly successful and ongoing penetration of corporate and government databases by Chinese hackers. When Vietnam, Japan, S. Korea and The Philippines are all trying to get closer to the US to get backup against Chinese bullying and over the top territorial claims, it may be that China is overplaying its hand. With rising inequality in China, the state may be deliberately fanning nationalist furies to take people's eyes away from internal problems. Imagine that.

Because President Obama is meeting with Xi Jinping this weekend, there have been a remarkable series of analysis pieces and op-ends detailing what's going on and what the nature of the US-China relationship will and should be going forward. I'm only going to link to two. If you can find it there is a great piece on China in the latest ISR (International Socialist Review). The ISR piece is longer than the two I've linked here but takes the view that China is now acting as a classic imperialist power just as the United States has. It details more of the history and interactions between the two countries.

Economics professor and gadfly Peter Morici's piece  has a list of steps that the US can and must take in a variety of places to, if you will, stop the Chinese batter from hogging the plate. There's nothing like a brushback pitch high and inside to get someone's attention.

Again, the Obama Administration turns to diplomacy, and China responds with denials. If not to change China then at least insulate the U.S. economy and national security from reckless and cynical behavior, the Obama Administration needs to act more aggressively. Moderate and progressive economists, such as Fred Bergsten and Paul Krugman, as well as this conservative voice, have advocated direct action on the currency issue: U.S. market intervention to raise the value of the yuan, slash the bilateral trade deficit, boost manufacturing and accelerate growth.

Limit Chinese investments to those sectors posing no security threats and to only minority stakes—no wholesale purchases of U.S. assets without reciprocity for U.S. businesses seeking to participate in the Chinese economy. If China wishes to engage in cyber warfare, after fair warning and without not much delay the United States should do more than harden defenses, but rather go after China's commercial secrets and security defenses as well. 

Be plain, demand transparency and engage in talks from a position of strength. Through fruitless diplomacy U.S. presidents have permitted China to become stronger and bolder—the lessons of history regarding appeasement are clear. Only stronger recognizable actions that impose costs on China may bring real change in its conduct and cultivate Beijing to act more responsibly and constructively.

The NYT piece points out that China's state financed economic model is in the short run defeating the US' market driven one. This is not a good thing as it will lead to misallocation of resources and an even more unpleasant changes in US worker expectations.

It is important to remember what is really behind China’s global economic expansion: the state. China may be moving in the right direction on a number of issues, but when Chinese state-owned companies go abroad and seek to play by rules that emanate from an authoritarian regime, there is grave danger that Western countries will, out of economic need, end up playing by Beijing’s rules. 

As China becomes a global player and a fierce competitor in American and European markets, its political system and state capitalist ideology pose a threat. It is therefore essential that Western governments stick to what has been the core of Western prosperity: the rule of law, political freedom and fair competition.

They must not think shortsightedly. Giving up on our commitment to human rights, or being compliant in the face of rapacious state capitalism, will hurt Western countries in the long term. It is China that needs to adapt to the world, not the other way around.

However it turns out I think from self-interest more and more people are thinking twice about the Chinese-US relationship. But the barn door is already open. We can't go back to the 1970's vis-a-vis China. And Chinese cheap labor will continue to be quite attractive to US and European corporations. The question is how do people outside of China deal with what has been described, fairly or not, as a devouring dragon. We have to find a way to ensure that continued interaction with China is beneficial to both countries and the entire planet, not just for one nation or for a small number of elites within each country. I like the idea of raising the value of the yuan and taking steps to make China pay for any hacking.

Thoughts?

Shakeup on Obama Foreign Policy Team: Susan Rice to be named National Security Adviser

Samantha Power, Susan Rice, President Obama

Susan Rice will depart as US Ambassador to the United Nations and head over to the White House where she will have direct access to the President, as National Security Adviser. Rice will replace Tom Donilon who is leaving the post, after serving on the Obama Foreign Policy team for more than four-years. Replacing Rice as Ambassador to the United Nations will be Samantha Power. Though I'm still a little bitter with Rice for her withdrawal from consideration for Secretary of State, I think that this may prove to be a good move for her. Rice gets to bypass Senate confirmation for this position. 




From The Washington Post:

National security adviser Thomas E. Donilon will resign his post, White House officials said Wednesday, and will be replaced by U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice, a close confidant of President Obama with deep foreign policy experience who is disliked by Republicans buthad been widely expected to move into the job.

White House officials said Donilon’s resignation will take effect early next month. Aseasoned Washington insider, Donilon has held senior national security posts in the administration since Obama took office, rising from the principal deputy national security adviser to his current job.

But his reputation for protecting Obama politically has caused friction with other agencies over the years, beginning in the fall of 2009, when he advocated for a far smaller deployment of U.S. troops in Afghanistan than the Pentagon had requested.

Executing the administration’s shift to a stronger focus on Asia in its foreign policyhas been one of Donilon’s primary policy initiatives; his resignation is timed to follow the summit meeting he helped organize between Obama and China’s President Xi Jinping this weekend.

Rice has long been among Obama’s most trusted foreign policy advisers, and her move from the United Nations has been expected since she withdrew her name from consideration as secretary of state late last year.

Rice withdrew amid criticism of her role in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, which killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

Republicans on Capitol Hill accused Rice of misleading the public over the nature of the attack in an attempt to protect Obama from criticism during a difficult re-election campaign.

The Senate does not need to confirm her as national security adviser.

The news of Donilon’s resignation was first reported by the New York Times.

White House officials said Obama will nominate Samantha Power to replace Rice at the United Nations. Power, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her book “A Problem from Hell” on the U.S. response to genocide, served as a senior director for multilateral affairs and human rights on the National Security Council during Obama’s first term.

Her much-anticipated nomination to become ambassador to the United Nations will require Senate confirmation.

North Korea: Crazy Like a Fox?

Have you ever used public transportation on a regular basis? I used to when I was younger. Fortunately I don't any longer. The problem with public transportation is the public. Most people are okay but there is often some joker at the back of the bus who stinks of excrement and body odor and spits when he talks. This person will often be carrying on a complex conversation with nobody in particular. Of course like most sane people you try to ignore this person but every now and then this person notices you. And they start a profane commentary about you, what you look like, who you're probably sleeping with (or not sleeping with), how much money you make or what a loser you are and how (occasionally depending on your gender) they would either sleep with you or knock you the f*** out. This last can escalate into threats and fights. Remember the epic bus man video or the woman who thought it was a good idea to hit the bus driver after a torrent of insults. But in most cases the person who's running his mouth all the time is generally harmless. His right hook is usually not as dangerous as his unwashed aroma. So you keep your eyes to yourself or laugh it off as the ravings of a lunatic and curse yourself for not getting a new BMW so you won't have to share rides with idiots like this. Often it's not worth getting into it physically with the crazy nut because the police might put both of you in jail or you might be late for work or the nut might have even crazier friends. Unless of course this person either assaults you or makes a credible threat to do so. Then, well you f*** with the bull, you get the horns.

In the world today that crazy bus vagrant with the killer bo would appear to be North Korea or more precisely its new leader Kim Jong Un.

North Korea has long had a reputation for unstable behavior that appears odd to those outside its borders. The new dictator, Kim Jong Un appears to want to keep up the family tradition.

He has been making threats against the US, Japan and South Korea and speaking of war as a distinct possibility. He's told foreigners that he can't guarantee their safety. He has taken more steps to put his country on high military alert. All in all he's been talking a LOT of smack, sounding similar to an East Asian Jim Jones. His neighbors Japan and South Korea are getting VERY nervous and starting to ramp up their own military readiness. Even the US is flexing muscles to show off its much greater capacity for organized violence. Everyone wants to be ready...just in case. As Sonny Corleone said in The Godfather "I don't want him [Michael] to come out of that bathroom with just his d*** in his hand!". If it's about to go down hard you probably want to get in the first shot. That's what I was always taught anyway. That's what Han Solo and Raylan Givens would do. And that's how nations tend to operate too if they can.

The problem however though is that North Korea has nuclear weapons although it may not have consistent delivery devices. So if anything like a nuclear exchange or conventional attacks did happen, it would likely be limited to the Korean peninsula and the surrounding area. As much of the surrounding area includes a little place called China, the Chinese government rather atypically released a statement that was interpreted by most observers to be a warning, or as I like to consider it, a collar pop, to North Korea.

The new Chinese President Xi Jinping, appeared to make an unusual veiled rebuke of North Korea on Sunday. "Countries, whether big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, should all contribute their share in maintaining and enhancing peace," Xi said at an international conference, the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua reported. No one should be allowed to throw a region into chaos for selfish gains, he said, according to Xinhua.

The question then is why would North Korea act in a seemingly "crazy" way? Well there are a number of hypotheses, some of which overlap with each other.

• Kim Jong Un really is crazy. Full Stop. He is someone that should have been locked up and pumped full of thorazine and ritalin every 6 hours. 
• Kim Jong Un is young and unproven. He hasn't made his bones. As a result, similar to some Western politicians, he's searching for an easy "win", one that will prove to his domestic military establishment and any ambitious subordinates who may be considering a sudden and permanent change of leadership that Kim Jong Un is no punk. He's got guts and isn't going anywhere.
• Kim Jong Un is peeved about increased sanctions against North Korea and is throwing a temper tantrum to attempt to get these sanctions reduced or only enforced in theory.
• Kim Jong Un has been deliberately let off leash by the Chinese to show the Americans that there are costs to confronting the Chinese about their own massive hacking and spying operations, financial manipulations, economic protectionism, intellectual piracy and nationalist expansionism in the Pacific Ocean.

I tend to lean towards the last explanation though the second makes a lot of sense to me as well. I don't think that Kim Jong Un wants to be vaporized in a nuclear exchange or see his toilet bowl nation routinely bombed with impunity. But in diplomacy it can often be useful to give the impression that you're crazy just to get what you want. Over the next 6 months let's watch US and UN policy very closely towards China and North Korea to see if there are any alterations or tips toward those two countries. This all may be a big game. As anyone who's ever been in a serious verbal conflict knows sometimes a person says things that can't be unsaid or does things which require a physical response. And the next thing you know you're either on your way to jail for hurting someone or experiencing the wrong end of a brutal beatdown, simply because you couldn't let something go. I hope this doesn't turn out to be the case here. Let's hope that Kim Jong Un is just running his mouth. This is why I sometimes think we should have let General MacArthur finish the job all those years ago but that's life...

What are your thoughts?