Some Rules For Aiding Revolutions

For John, BLUF:  Don't do Syria.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

Historian Edward Luttwak published an article on 17 June at the Foreign Policy blog site.  It is timely, "5 Rules for Arming Rebels".  His assertion is "Before going to war in Syria, the Obama administration should heed the lessons of history."

Rule 1:  Figure out who your friends are.

Rule 2:  Be prepared to do all the work [don't count on allies].

Rule 3:  Don't give away anything that you would want to have back.

Rule 4:  Do not invite an equal and opposite response by another great power.

Rule 5:  Lay some ground rules for the endgame.

The nuances are in the article, but the points are important.

And, this just in, per Reporter Jeffrey Goldberg at Bloomberg.  "Pentagon Shoots Down Kerry’s Syria Airstrike Plan".  Two decades ago then US UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright famously ask Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, “What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”

Flash-forward to this past Wednesday.  At a principals meeting in the White House situation room, Secretary of State John Kerry began arguing, vociferously, for immediate U.S. airstrikes against airfields under the control of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime—specifically, those fields it has used to launch chemical weapons raids against rebel forces.

It was at this point that the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the usually mild-mannered Army General Martin Dempsey, spoke up, loudly.  According to several sources, Dempsey threw a series of brushback pitches at Kerry, demanding to know just exactly what the post-strike plan would be and pointing out that the State Department didn’t fully grasp the complexity of such an operation.

Say it ain't so, Joe!

Our former Senior Senator here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, that one time anti-war candidate for the seat that Ms Niki Tsongas now holds, wasn't advocating that we commit acts of war against Syria, was he?

He was.

Back to the five rules from Eddie Luttwak.

Regards  —  Cliff

Hunger Strikes at GITMO Prison

For John, BLUF:  GITMO has to go.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

Listening to Democracy Now I am hearing a Professor George Annas and I find him to be an arrogant and class conscious pedant.  He was talking on the force feeding of prisoners at Guantanamo.

He looked down on certain members of the medical profession, including nurses.  He questioned whether those other than medical doctors could hold the same high ethical standards as doctors.♠  His argument was that they are not empowered by the Hypocratic Oath.♥  In the interest of full disclosure, my late Mother was a Registered Nurse and one of the most ethical people I have known.

Oh, and news reader Amy Goodman referred to The [Manchester] Guardian as being "The Guardian of London.

By the way, this is the same program I heard yesterday, on the same LTC channel, in the same time slot.

As for the prison at GITMO, I am of the opinion that the prisoners should be, to the extent possible, released back to their own nations and the rest should be moved to the United States as Prisoners of War—not that they merit such status, but it would be good foreign policy to grant them that status.

As for hunger strikes, we have to decide if we are going to put up with it and what it is going to cost us.  The hunger strike is a very powerful tool, as prisoner Bobby Sands demonstrated at Long Kesh back in 1981.  This was a situation where the Provisional IRA scored a major propaganda coup against the British Government.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Maybe he isn't old enough to remember the Fee Splitting scandal of the 1950s.
♥  The powerful magic of the oath only applies to medical doctors, apparently.

Picking a Restaurant

For John, BLUF:  Sending our military overseas results in broader options for dining at home.

When we send our military forces overseas in large numbers they tend to pick up some of the local culture and bring it back home to the United States.  When I was down in Northern Virginia last week, in a Haymarket (Prince William County) shopping mall I found this restaurant, "K Kabob":

As you can see in this closeup, this is Kabul Kabob, as in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Traveling overseas is broadening of one's outlook, perspective.  Not an excuse for foreign military adventures, but a consequence thereof.

Regards  —  Cliff

Long History of Domestic Surveillance

For John, BLUF:  As you note, the Government has been spying on us for a while.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

The Volokh Conspiracy takes us back to the Bush Administration and 2004 and "domestic spying".  The title is "Did the Definition of “Pen Registers” Lead to the Goldsmith/Comey Threat to Resign in 2004?"  As Qoheleth says, "Nothing is new under the sun." (Ecclesiastes, 1:9)

Leakers help the US Congress understand what is going on and what questions to ask during hearings.

Hat tip to the Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Where is the Street Car Heading?

For John, BLUF:  We don't really know where President Obama is leading us.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

Over at Pajamas Media Mr Ed Driscoll has a piece titled The Bonfire of the Journalistic Vanities.  For me this is the bottom line (and for Mr Driscoll):

And that’s the problem:  to reveal who Obama is and what his agenda is, would be to a shine a light on the goals of what passes for “liberalism” and “progressivism” in the second decade of the 21st century.  And no MSM journalist wants to be accused of telling the American public what those truly are.

Where are progressives progressing to?

Regards  —  Cliff

Critique of US Foreign Policy

For John, BLUF:  "Nasr offers the zero-sum, realpolitik focal point of great power competition with China as the “bedrock” that should shape US grand strategy in the Middle East."

A book review from Small Wars Journal, The Dispensable Nation:  American Forward Policy in Retreat.

Vali Nasr’s book, The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat, is a dark offering.  Nasr is clearly disillusioned with the process and results of America’s foreign policy in recent years, asking “why, despite our overwhelming power and potential, our influence is diminishing.  The answer lies in how we exercise our power and how we see our role in the world.”  In crafting this answer, Nasr’s book ranges well beyond the Afghanistan-Pakistan issue (on which he was the senior advisor to U.S. Special Representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, from 2009 to 2011) in an attempt to reestablish the foundational logic of America’s foreign policy in the Middle East.

Nasr pulls no punches in stating his case.  “We have abandoned Iraq and Afghanistan to instability, pushed Pakistan away, destabilized but not ‘denuclearized’ Iran, let down countries of the Arab Spring, and still managed to also alienate authoritarian allies in the Persian Gulf.”  Nasr’s goal is much larger than his criticized interpretation of events and actors in Afghanistan and alleged hagiography of Richard Holbrooke.  He wants the US to do more in what he sees as “the single most important region of the world.”  We should have done more in Iraq, we must do more in Afghanistan, and we should do more in Syria, Bahrain, Egypt, and the Gulf.  Nasr’s activist bent does not follow the neoconservative or liberal interventionist logics that have driven America’s recent military adventures.  His argument rests on a classical realist foundation: the coming great power reckoning between the US and China.  “The Middle East will be at the center of that clash when it happens,” he warns (emphasis added).

There are links embedded at the original.

Having just read the review and not yet the book, I would assert that we need to really shift a lot of focus to the South, toward Mexico and nations further South.  Otherwise we will find a lot of problems boiling up down there.

Just one more book that needs to be read to understand what is going on.

Regards  —  Cliff

Mr Goldman Doesn't Do Analysis

For John, BLUF:  The Sun's Mr Goldman is a blowhard.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

I suspect I use the term "Hack" too little in describing some of those engaged in politics.  My computer dictionary says;

a writer or journalist producing dull, unoriginal work: [ as modifier ] : a hack scriptwriter.
• a person who does dull routine work.

But, once in a while Mr Michael Goldman's column in the Sunday edition of The [Lowell] Sun makes we think that he is a Democratic operative, vice a columnist, and a hack.  This last Sunday was an example.

Mr Goldman starts out by slamming Senate Candidate Gabriel Gomez for saying that our Commonwealth "doesn't need limits on the availability and size of ammo clips".  A whole lot of angst and no analysis.  Where are his facts?  He has none.  So much for that.

Then Mr Goldman jumps on the Patriot Act and those who voted for it.  Remember, it passed the House of Representatives by 357 to 66 (423 votes out of 435 possible).  It passed the US Senate, 98 to 1.  So, while Mr Goldman may think they "voted in a panic", it was a very large number of them.  On the other hand, Mr Goldman would appear to be clueless if he thinks reading other peoples' mail hasn't been going on for a long time, notwithstanding US Secretary of State Henry L Stimson stating "Gentlemen don't read each other's mail."  This was about withdrawing Department of State money from funding of the US Black Chamber operation.  In a way, the Patriot Act is a continuation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), introduced in 1977 by Senator Edward Kennedy and cosponsored by Senators Birch Bayh, James O. Eastland, Jake Garn, Walter Huddleston, Daniel Inouye, Charles Mathias, John L. McClellan, Gaylord Nelson, and Strom Thurmond.♠

There is something about Rutgers University, which is a New Jersey issue, but it was a chance to take a swipe at Governor Christie.  Swipe away.

Then Mr Goldman is on to racism.  The problem is again a lack of asking the second and third level questions.  Yes, it is a bad thing that police are arresting Black people in Brooklyn and Manhattan ten times as often for marijuana possession than they are white people Caucasians.  What are the odds that if you sliced the statistics another way it would be a class issue rather than a race issue?  There are problems that need to be fixed, but if we focus on the wrong aspects we will not fix those problems and perhaps make them worse.  Thanks for not helping us here, Mr Goldman.

Then there is Mr Goldman's putdown of candidate Gabriel Gomez and his polling numbers.  I figure he is correct to call into question the polling by Republicans.  On the other hand, I am finding folks who are interested in Gomez bumper stickers and lawn signs.  Not everyone is happy with Mr Markey as a candidate.  Damon Runyon would tell us that Mr Markey is the way to bet.  The disruptive thinkers out there are always looking for a way to shake up the market.  Mr Goldman wants things to continue the way they are going, no matter the fact that they are not going well.  Good luck to you Mr Gomez.

As for the idea that a member of the General Court might ask for reports seems beyond belief to Mr Goldman.  One suspects he just doesn't want his fellow hacks to be disturbed by providing information on what is going on.

Then there is the praise of Representative Niki Tsongas.  The point about "patent trolls" is good, although it should have asked why she was not also doing something about our Mickey Mouse copyright laws.  Is the absence some sort of deference to Editor Jim Campanini or some other entity?

But, the issue that I think is also a sign of an inability to do analysis is his comment about Ms Tsongas and the issue of sexual assaults in the military.  Mr Goldman makes no mention of the fact that more military men report being sexually assaulted or harassed than military women in our uniformed members.  He doesn't answer the interesting question of if he thinks his daughter would be safer from sexual harassment or sexual assault away in some college environment than she would be in the US military.  The military does need to change, but the fact is that, like with race relations, the military will be in the forefront in changing how the nation deals with these problems.  This paragraph is just a way of throwing praise at Ms Tsongas, not a serious comment on the issues involved.

As for his comment on the trial of Mr James "Whitey" Bulger, he is right on the mark.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  This was a reaction to the revelations of the Church Committee findings based upon an examination of the Nixon era, although the more cynical might suggest that President Nixon was just the end of a line that passed back through LBJ to, who?