Sic Semper Tyrannis

The Sanford Affair

The man has a mistress with whom he is in love.  From the point of view of his wife this is much worse than Clintonesque prowling, much worse.   Actually, recovery from this ailment is unlikely.  All of them are suffering.  Does this mean that he is A BAD MAN and beyond redemption?  I suppose that depends on whether or not you believe in the possibility of redemption or if you believe that one's character is revealed by one's actions and that this is the whole story.  I am not a Calvinist so I come down on the side of contrition and redemption.  The problem for Sanford is that it may well be that he really is not contrite.  His wife will know.  Perhaps she already does know.

Will South Carolina forgive him?  I have always thought that the state is basically divided into two cultural zones.  In the Highlands, the Presbyterian, Baptist and generally evangelical spirit of Appalachia seems to prevail.   A lot of those people are not going to forgive him.

In the coastal Low Country a much more laid back atmosphere is very visible.  My bet would be that he will be largely forgiven in the Low Country.

In any case, he is finished in national politics.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/30/AR2009063001581.html?hpid=moreheadlines

"Judicious investment" in oil

"Downgrading the forecast, IEA said the oil demand would rise 0.6% or 540,000 barrels per day on average during 2008-2014. In its latest Medium-Term Oil Market Report, the Paris based agency said the oil demand would rise to 89 million barrels per day in 2014."

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OK.  Crude prices declined to around 32 dollars per barrel and now are back up around 70 dollars.

Why?

There is no short term shortage of crude.  Oil producers and traders are impounding the stuff all over the world, holding it in waiting for the steadily rising price to come to the level they want.  Speculation?  The "S" word?  OK.  Let's call it "judicious investment."

Demand is down just about everywhere at the moment, so more and more oil has to be withheld from the markets to keep the price going up.  This is very "judicious investment."

How high will the price of crude go this summer?  That depends on the skill of the producers and investors.  pl

 

An Immodest Proposal - Mexamerica

Some time ago I posted something called "An Un-Muddled but Perhaps Addled Stand" on the subject of US relations with Mexico.  In that piece I advocated separation of the issues of citizenship, ownership and residence in the relationships of the two countries.  Reaction was mixed with some people on the left insisting that to even thnk of such arrangements was a confession of regression to colonialism.  I thought that was nonsense then and do now.  How can economic opportunity for the masses of Mexican people be imperialism?

The border and illegal immigration problems grow ever more severe.  The US border states are growing increasingly desperate in their efforts to control the cross border effects of the rampant organized crime of the Mexican border states.  Poverty is still driving armies of Mexicans and Central Americans across our southern border.  We are fitfully building physical barriers, enlarging the Border Petrol and moving slowly, regretfully toward deployment of; first National guard troops and eventually, inevitably, federal troops to that border.  At the same time, Americans who live in parts of the country where large numbers of Latino migrants, both legal and illegal exist, know that a very large majority of these people are hard working, decent, and family oriented folk who make an important contribution to the work force in many jobs that US born Americans no longer want.  It seems unlikely that the US Congress will pass any law that can "solve" a problem of mass migration.

What to do?

Perhaps we should make the two countries into one.  Perhaps the two governments should enter into negotiations for eventual merger.

One country with one citizenship?  One country with one code of federal laws, one federal judiciary, merged armed forces, national police forces, corporate law, ownership standards, taxes, electoral laws, one constitution.

Why not?  The two "peoples" are too different?  That increasingly seems implausible.  Racial differences?  Religious differences?  Educational differences?  Who will stand up here to argue that?

Jonathan Swift suggested a "Modest Proposal" for the Irish Problem.  He had no more expectation of the adoption of his proposal than I have of mine.  My purpose is to have a freewheeling discussion of what can be done about the "Illegals Problem."   pl

Al-Maliki is celebrating victory over the American invader.

"A great deal of Mr. Maliki’s political support rests on the fact that violence has declined since the carnage of 2006 and 2007, that he has rebuilt the security forces, that he has presided over the beginning of the end of the American war. He rarely mentions any American role in the improved security in Iraq — though 130,000 American troops remain in the country.

“We will not ask them to intervene in combat operations related to maintaining public order,” he said in an interview with Le Monde published last week. “It is finished.”"  NY Times

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Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the neocon scum will be held accountable somewhere, someday for their crimes against the American soldier.

Here is a partial list of my accusations.  It will be argued that some of these things are not technically "crimes."  I think that irrelevant. These specifically apply to Iraq.  You may add your own and I may comment further:

- "Planning and waging aggressive war.." Keitel and Jodl were executed for this.  In this case the "aggressive war was against Iraq, a country that, however ill governed, had not attacked the United States and that did not have WMD weapons any longer.  This latter point was in the process of being proven by the UN's inspectors when the miscreants under dicussion succeeded, with the help of White House staff still in the public square, of deliberately propagandizing the American people by making a false case against Iraq in the public media.  By carrying out these actions those charged involved the United States in a senseless war in which many thousands of American military personnel were killed or mutilated.

-  Those charged directly intervened in the operational planning of the invasion of Iraq in such a way as to risk defeat in detail in many smaller actions.  They did this by denying to the ground component commander (Mckiernan) the forces that he reasonably and prudently requested and by "nickel and diming" him endlessly in such a way that the forces involved were still minimal and barely adequate.  The success of these forces is not an indication of whether or not the force was adequate in strength.  The additional risk assumed by fielding too small a force placed the troops involved at risk.

- Those charged insisted on assuming in pre-invasion planning that Iraqi resistance would be minimal and that the coalition invasion force would be met with "open arms" rather than IEDs by the Iraqi populace.  This foolish and willfully blind assumption caused the death or wounding of many American soldiers.  Many experts tried to tell the accused that their assumption was wrong but they would not listen.

- Those charged insisted on disestablishing the public institutions of Iraq; the army, the police, the civil service, etc.  These actions were taken against the advice of US Army and USMC senior officers on the ground who were in the process of sorting out which units and commanders could be used to re-establish public order.  Considerable progress had been made.  These disestablishments drove many Iraqi officers and men into the various insurgent groups where they formed a hard core of competence that killed and wounded many American soldiers.

- Those charged refused to accept the plain and abundant evidence present in the first two years of the war that what was faced by the coalition was nothing less than a full-blown national resistance insurgency.  By so refusing, they caused US forces to operate in an inadequate planning environment that exposed US soldiers to much greater risks than might otherwise have been the case.

- Those accused encouraged the use of brutal and illegal methods of interrogation of prisoners.  This was done in spite of US doctrine and law that specifically forbade such conduct.  Was this not a crime against the souls of the junior soldiers encouraged and pressured to do such things?

I will stop at this point and wait for your comments.  pl

Why all the bombings in Iraq?

"Thousands of U.S. combat troops will remain at a handful of bases in Baghdad and on the outskirts of other restive cities, such as Mosul and Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, past the June 30 deadline. But U.S. troops say their ability to respond quickly to thwart attacks could erode significantly because Iraqi officials will have unprecedented authority over their mobility and missions in urban areas.

"We won't be providing the same level of security for ourselves and Iraqis," said 2nd Lt. Jason Henke, a military police platoon leader who will remain at one of the few inner-city bases in Baghdad. "With only a small window of time that we are allowed to operate in, it's going to be easier to target U.S. forces when we are outside the wire."

Henke's concerns were heightened this week by a string of powerful roadside bombings near his base, Joint Security Station Loyalty, in central Baghdad.

On Tuesday, one of his squadrons was attacked with an armor-piercing bomb that struck the passenger side of a mine-resistant armored vehicle, igniting the fuel line. His platoon lost another truck Thursday in a similar attack."  Washpost 

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The most important component of the policy package shorthanded as "The Surge" was not the increased US combat presence, however helpful that was.  The most important thing was the successful effort to woo Sunni insurgents away from active or tacit support of the takfiri jihadis and into the "friendly" category.  We did that, and well.  They were not wholeheartedly converted "born again" friends of Brother Dave Petraeus?   What a surprise!  We used money to bring them to our side?  How terrible!  Does that mean that their hearts were not pure!!  Ah, the world is a sad place and this kind of work is always like herding cats.

Now the Americans are clearly leaving.  Power is steadily shifting towards the Shia dominated government that the Americans created.  That Shia government does not seem inclined to honor the variety of overt and implied "promises" that the Americans made to the "Sons of Iraq," etc.  The government's actions toward their Sunni "brothers" surely indicate that this is true.

In that situation it is to be expected that Sunni Arab hostility to the takfiri jihadis will wane and it is waning.  That is why it is possible for there to be more and more suicide bombings.  Get the message?

There are two ways to avoid further difficulty - 1.  The government should understand that bloody minded oppression of the Sunni Arabs will mean unending low level warfare in Iraq, and 2.  Someone should keep paying off the Sunnis sub rosa.  pl

 

Judge Leon's decision in the al-Janko case.

I was so fortunate as to be asked to give my opinion to the court in this matter.  Judge Richard Leon of the DC District Court and the good people of the Oregon Federal Public  Defenders office have returned honor to American justice in the case of Abd al-Rahim al-Janko who has been wrongly imprisoned and abused by the Taliban and then the US Government for eight long years.  pl

Download 6.22.09 Janko Habeas Opinion

Khamenei is still likely to go away...

He, and the clique of IRGC, Baseej and his allies among the scholars await the judgment of the Iranian people.  This judgment wil be delivered in the fullness of time as sentiments, and alliances mature and become the governing factors.

The knowledgable in the West and Israel know that this is the truth.  They know that this clique will be replaced eventually by a different group whose understanding of the world is more sophisticated than the bomb throwers of a generation all but passed.

The war parties in the US and Israel have taken up a new propaganda theme.  They are now saying that a "military coup" by the IRGC and other "radicals" has taken place and that the resulting regime is no longer under the influence and control of the Shia 'ulema.  The new theme insists that the new "coup junta" symbolically headed by Khamenei is even more dangerous and more likely to rashly use nuclear weapons as an expression of their lunacy.

This is an obvious attempt to twist the situation in the best agitprop tradition for the purpose of obtaining American popular consensus for war against Iran.

Ahmadinajad is a fool and he will undoubtedly play into the hands of the propagandists.

Much the same crew is seeking to flood the American media with stories of conflicts between Obama and General Jones.  These stories are directly related to those of the return to glory of Dennis Ross.  We will see...  pl

 

Khamenei is likely to go away.

My view of the Iran situation is that the particular 'ulema/pasdaran/basiij clique now governing Iran is digging a grave for itself with each passing day of unwillingness to compromise, share power or respect the collective right of the Iranians to express their discontent.  Beneath the surface, the 'ulema, the business commmunity and many Iranians are hardeniing in their attitude towards the ruling apparat.  I think there is likely to be a sine curve of resistance that fluctuates between relative quiet and street action.   This will eventually either eliminate this clique or cause a massive change in its policies.  I am not necessarily talking about an end to vilayat e faqih, but there is likely to be a change in the manner of application of this doctrine.

I think Obama is doing the right thing in expressing support for the demonstraters while keeping some distance from them.  Since I  am who I am, I would discreetly provide funds for the opposition, but, that's me. 

Most importantly, the action of the Iranian people has made it virtually impossible for the war party here and in Israel to succeed in dragging us into another one of their adventures.

In the meantime, there is something wonderful happening in re Syria.  pl

"Game changer" in Iran

The paradigm that I have been thinking within regarding the future of Iranian-US-Israeli relations is no longer valid.

You could see that today in the appearance of Bibi Natanyahu on "Meet the Press."  When pressed by David Gregory concerning Iran, he displayed hesitation and uncertainty in his responses.  That is a good thing.

A fuse has been lit in Iran.  The mullahcracy has shown itself to not be the expression of God's will in the vilayet al-faqih.  No, they are shown now to be just another bunch of sleezy politicians intent on keeping all power and willig to kill to accomplixh that goal.  Khamenei may win this round with the IRGC and Baseejis behind him but there will be other rounds in this contest.  The higher ranks of the Shia scholars have already begun to split.  How many among them will want to be associated with the suppression of popular will?

A brutal repression of a popular uprising is rarely decisive.  The British put down the Easter, 1916 revolt in Dublin with great ferocity, but six years later they no longer thought it was worthwhile to try to hold Ireland.  There are many such examples.

This IS a game changer.  The process may take a while but nothing will be the same after this.  pl

What would the Iranian Army do?

The fuss is probably largely over until next time.  What it would come down to in an all out confrontation is whether or not the regular armed forces of Iran would carry out orders to kill their countrymen or allow others in the IRGC or Basiij to do so.  Opinion?  pl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Iran

Harper on Things Iranian

Well, things have taken a further turn in Iran today, with Supreme Leader Khamenei's full public endorsement of Ahmadinejad's victory at the Friday prayer at Tehran University. I suspect that the people around Khamenei and Ahmadinejad concluded that the demonstrations were likely to continue, unabated, through the ten day period of the electoral review by the Guardian Council, and that this would have tremendously weakened the current power structure. They have taken a calculated risk, that the implied threats of crackdown will deter further peaceful demos. I do not see this as a "revolutionary" situation, but, rather, a conflict between two contending factions within the revolutionary class: The hardliners, grouped around Ahmadinejad and Khame nei, with their paramilitary apparatus (Revolutionary Guard, Basij, Martyrs Brigade and a group of radical clerics, typified by Yazdi), versus the more moderate elements. I would not call them "reformers" perse. They have a desire to end Iran's isolation, and see an opportunity now that may not be quite so available a year from now.

Tienenmen Square started out in a similar fashion, although cross-cultural analogies are always somewhat dangerous. A reform faction of the Chinese Communist elites tried to use the students as a leverage against a hardline faction. As time wore on, and the demonstrations/sitins continued, outside forces inevitably started mucking around, and the character of the situation changed at that point--weakening the negotiating position of the reformists who had initially encouraged the student demonstrators. They could not countenance an outside effort to stir a destabilization of the whole system, so they wound up having to go along with the crackdown--and take the political hit.

"In a Staff Shuffle, Signs of Obama’s Direction on Mideast" - Helene Cooper

"As Mark Landler of The New York Times reported on Tuesday, Mr. Ross will be taking on an expanded role covering Iran and other Middle East issues at the National Security Council. White House officials still haven’t officially announced the move — hopefully they won’t keep Mr. Ross hanging on a limb for as long as the State Department did before announcing his job one night back in February. But several officials confirm that it is about to happen.

The big question, though, is why? Obama administration officials have been cryptic when asked about the reason for the shuffle. Does it mean that the White House is the real center of the action when it comes to foreign policy? Were there too many special envoys over at the State Department? Was Secretary of State Hilary Clinton not giving Mr. Ross enough face time? Or is Mr. Ross going to assume more of a role in Mr. Obama’s evolving Middle East policy, particularly in relations with Israel? Helene Cooper

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Simple Question - I ask you all.  If you were the Dennis, would you be happy with what is happening to you?  pl

 

OK, what are you going to want to do if...?

In my opinion, McCain went too far, and Obama so far has the amount of expressed concern about right.  McCain foolishly indicated in his statement that we Westerners should seek to end the theocratic regime in Iran and Obama expressed a kind of vague concern.  Does McCain think that the mullahs are going to do anything that will tend toward an end to their power?  What does he want us to do, invade the country?  Silly.

On "Hardbrain," David Ignatius and Bob Baer held forth on the need to avoid "telegraphing" American support for the incipient change in Iran.  Could that be more obvious?  I doubt it.  All the while, the childlike Matthews gushed about Obama's stylishness, wisdom, wit, etc.

Ignatius and Baer hinted at the underlying dilemma.  Let us assume for a minute that the street demonstrations do not die out, that they become more violent and that Musavi does not accept whatever kind of deal Khamemei, the pseudo grand Ayatollah eventually offers, what then?

Does the United States stand by for weeks or months while the Bassij and the police stamp out resistance?  This is what we did to the Hungarians in 1956, or do we seek to use every diplomatic and information tool at our disposal to support them?

I can hear it now, the plaintive bleating...  Oh, no, not interference in Iran's internal affairs, not that!!  pl

"How revolutions ... actually occur. " Adam Silverman

One of the issues missing from the Iranian election coverage and analysis is the discussion of how revolutions and other forms of political violence actually occur. This is a significant issue that is not concentrated on enough. I have been thinking about the topic for the past five or six weeks as it came up at a workshop I attended back in April when one of the presenters started talking about the root causes of insurgency. The Army, based on doctrine, defines every form of political violence short of interstate war as insurgency.

This includes civil wars, revolutions, insurgencies, guerilla actions, and terrorism. After the speaker laid out all the reasons that people engage in revolutions or insurgencies, I made the point that the root causes he identified exist in most portions of the world at varying levels of strength and severity. As such the much more important question is not why do people engage in revolutions or insurgencies, essentially denying the legitimacy of the state and its governing institutions and seeking to remake them in some other format. Rather the really important question is why don't the majority of people that find themselves living in these conditions revolt or take up arms or even just demonstrate? This is not necessarily an original question - it is the first line of criticism against both Davis' J-Curve and Gurr's Why Men Rebel theories. Moreover, it is the answer to this question of what is preventing action that is likely much more illuminating to our understanding of when these things occur; especially if the root causes are constant and consistent across most states and regions. One possible answer has to do with structural effects on the behavioral process. While behavior is learned and subsequently reinforced through observation of rewards and punishments in a constantly updating feed back loop this social learning is not occurring in a vacuum. Rather there has to be an opportunity to act and in many places there is either no perception or reality of opportunities to make a change.

While many informed observers of Iran would say that to have a revolution there, based on events from the 20th Century, the Religious class, the Merchant/Business Class, and the Students/Intelligentsia have to come together. As the Religious Class is now in charge, with a chunk of what had been the Student Class and Intelligentsia of the 1970s and 1980s, revolution of any sort would appear to be unlikely.

That said it may be that what we're seeing is the result of the populace feeling pushed to make a stand. In reality the lack of opportunity may be curvilinear; preventing revolution or other forms of political violence from occurring, but only up to a point. Once that point is passed, there will be an attempt to force an opening.

If this is the case, then it may not matter who the leadership of the movement is or what societal element it comes from. Once the tipping point has been crossed the attempt to force an opening for change will self reinforce and continue until or unless it is stopped. If this is in fact that case then the focus should really be on what has changed between 2005 and 2009? What is it that made all of the overt and covert manipulation of what is largely a sham democracy by the Religious Authorities who actually run things tolerable then, but intolerable now?

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Adam L. Silverman, PhD is the Social Science Advisor for Strategic Communications for the US Army's Human Terrain System. The views presented here are his alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army Human Terrain System, the US Army Training and Doctrine Command, or the US Army.

"Now is the time..."

"He was 45 but his white hair and lined face made him look 60. Tears filled his eyes as he watched marchers protesting over the presidential election results file past yesterday, chanting “Give us back our Iran!” and holding up two fingers for victory.

He had fought on the side of Ayatollah Khomeini to overthrow the Shah in 1979, he said, but felt betrayed when the cleric returned from exile and imposed strict Islamic rule. He was looking at his younger self. “It’s just like the revolution,” he said, pulling a black cap down over his eyes, declining to give his name because he was an economist in a government ministry.

The hundreds of thousands of men, women and children who marched in sweltering heat nine miles down Enghelab Street in the heart of Tehran hope they can force another turning point in Iranian history. They want change and the annulment of the election they believe rigged by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

They had defied a government ban on the march, and they marched in numbers so great that the police and plain-clothed security, who have been breaking up opposition demonstrations, simply had to stand by."  Timesonline.

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I have heard enough.  Let us side with the Iranians in the streets.  "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country..."  (and women obviously)  Tom Paine and Mr. Jefferson call to us across the centuries to come to the aid of the Iranian people.  Contrary to the nonsense of the propagandists, Americans never meant any harm to the Iranian people.  Americans should now stand with those who want to be free people.  What about it, President Obama?  pl

"Shots fired at huge Iran protest"

"The Guardian Council has 10 days to decide whether to ratify the result of the election or to call another vote. It has asked the losing candidates to provide evidence of electoral fraud.

So there are legal means to reverse the situation.

But this would be a massive upheaval and a great defeat for the president and the Supreme Leader - so it's very unlikely.

This said, I can't see the demonstrations dying down. They are more likely to gain momentum and spread as people are angered by the clampdown.

The Supreme Leader is above the law and he may decree a compromise. He may argue that Islam or the country is under threat."  BBC

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Ha'aretz says that Ross is no longer going to be working at State.  He will go over to the White House.  Good, he can be watched more closely there.  The FBI is still smarting over their defeats in the AIPAC espionage and Larry Franklin cases.  They can keep track of Ross, his Israeli friends and whatever it is that passes across his desk.  In case you have not heard, Franklin's sentence was reduced to next to nothing by the same federal judge who ruled that the AIPAC men were not Israeli spies because for that to be true the government would have to prove that they knew that giving away American classified documents would be damaging to the US.  Hmm!  Does that apply to people who spy for some country other than Israel?  Like China, maybe?

The Iranian election?  I have no idea if the election was rigged.  I lack the data to know that.  There are various ways to rig elections.  One way is to buy votes more or less openly in Lebanon.  The price of oil has been going back up, so I suppose more Saudi money was available for that task.  Yup.  The best government that money could buy... Will the Iranian masses stand up to the IRGC, the Basiij, police, etc.?  Who knows at this point?  Now we will learn if they will be all they can be.

I stand by my opinion that with or without Ross, Israeli agitprop and information operations in America are so successful in creating their own image of Iran that war has become a virtual certainty once the process of indoctrinating Americans is complete.  pl

 

A New Kind of War 3 - Richard Sale

Lack of intelligence, resources plague Obama Afghan strategy

As President Barack Obama seeks to militarize his Afghan policy, some administration officials and foreign policy experts question whether the United States has the intelligence, an adequate knowledge of the Afghan tribal structure and enough men for the new policy to be effective.

     Based on interviews with administration officials, congressional sources and South Asia experts, the following picture has emerged.

    The U.S. forces lack anything approaching adequate intelligence on about the region including tribes and sub-tribes:  “The needed intelligence structures are undeveloped,” said Brookings Institution analyst, Mike O’Hanlon.

     According to Alexander Thier, South Asia expert on the U.S. Institute for Peace, “That’s why the focus is on training the Afghan -- we aren’t going to have local language fluency and hope to use them for that.’

Ahmadinajad wins and so does Bibi.

"Since Mr Ahmadinajad's election in 2005, he has repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map, and denied the Holocaust happened. And he has argued that the Israelis were punishing the Palestinians because of what the Germans did to the Jews in World War II, and called on European leaders to provide the Jews with territory so they could move their state to that continent.

This extreme aggressiveness combined with Mr Ahmadinajad's flaunting of Iran's nuclear program has clearly marked him as Israel's leading enemy.

However, in the run-up to the Iranian polls, Mr Ahmadinejad's re-election has come to be seen as a strategic advantage. "There is no one who has served Israel's information program better than him," wrote columnist Ben Caspi in the daily Ma'ariv yesterday.

Israeli security officials note that decisions regarding major issues such as the nuclear program are made in Iran not by the president, regardless of who he is, but by Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and a small group of senior clerics.

"From an operational point of view, it doesn't make a difference who wins," said one official. And a Foreign Ministry official who deals with the Iranian issue said: "From an informational point of view, he (Ahmadinejad) is the best thing that's happened to us." "  The Australian

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Israeli government officials rarely talk about their political warfare and propaganda operations.  For that reason alone the quotations from "government officials" would be of value.

Ahmadinajad's win is bad news unless you are looking forward to the day when the US goes to war with Iran.  Israeli propaganda will continue to program the American public in preparation for that day.  They have been doing very well in this effort so far.  The media outlets and media friends are busy every day inculcating the idea that Iran is a deadly threat and must be "stopped."  The effort to discredit US intelligence is also progressing nicely.  The goal there is to gain general acceptance in the US of the notion that Israeli intelligence is better, smarter, more effective than US intelligence and therefore the Israeli estimate of the Iranian "menace" should govern decisions.

If nothing interrupts the progress of this "informational" campaign the US will attack Iran at some not too far distant time, not tomorrow, not next week, maybe not net month, but, soon.  The "end of the year" now takes on greater meaning.   pl

 

Analysis: A Two-State Solution? - Richard Sale

In his 1989 book, From Beirut to Jerusalem, Tom Friedman wrote that Israel’s far-right “will never be prepared, for ideological reasons, to allow a Palestinian state in the West Bank or Gaza, explaining: “They are committed to holding forever the Land of Israel, out of either nationalist or messianic sentiments.”

     Friedman has been proved right, but the question of any desire by Zionists to share the Land of Israel with the Arabs stretches far back into the origins of the state. Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, envisioned the Jewish settlement of Palestine as giving rise “a wondrous breed of Jews...The Maccabees will rise again,” and he  talked of the “displacement and transfer” of Palestine’s Arab population, albeit “with full financial compensation,” according to Israeli historian Benny Morris. “We must expropriate gently,” Herzl said.”Both the process of expropriation and removal of the poor (Arabs) must be done discreetly and circumspectly.”

 

A New Kind of War 2 - Richard Sale

Experts: Kabul security build up faces huge odds

Even as the Pentagon released news of progress in the U.S. program to reform the Aghan National Police, that organization is responsible for a major crime wave afflicting the Afghan population, said South Asia experts and congressional sources.

     Even though the Taliban are unpopular, the Afghan people give them passive support because of the unpopular and corrupt government of President Hamid Karzai, these sources said.

     According to Brookings Institution analyst, Vanda Felba-Brown, what the ordinary Afghan population wants “is suppression of ordinary street crime and the rule of law” which the ANP currently renders impossible. Officially, the functions of the ANP are to man check points that monitor the movements of suspicious individuals, help identify IEDs and suicide bombers, and provide intelligence.

 

Born Fighting for the USS Liberty? - Sidney O. Smith III

"One day something will happen. You will take a side."  Graham Greene, The Quiet American

The Vietnam War again.  Can we ever get over those times?  But when it comes to Senator James Webb of Virginia, the Vietnam War is the only place to start.  Putting aside beliefs about whether or not the war was justified, absolutely no one on this planet can deny that Senator Webb, like few others, displayed genuine heroism while serving in Vietnam.  As a platoon leader in the United States Marine Corps,  Jim Webb earned so many medals that, taken collectively,  they speak volumes about the two words he later used to sum up his life and title his book,  Born Fighting.  A Navy Cross, a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts.  

For those of us in the civilian world, the following words from the citation for his Navy Cross give us a glimpse into his sacrifice on the battlefield.   Just visualize the following in slow motion:

“Observing the grenade land dangerously close to his companion, First Lieutenant Webb simultaneously fired his weapon at the enemy, pushed the Marine away from the grenade, and shielded him from the explosion with his own body. Although sustaining painful fragmentation wounds from the explosion, he managed to throw a grenade into the aperture and completely destroy the remaining bunker. By his courage, aggressive leadership, and selfless devotion to duty, First Lieutenant Webb upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and of the United States Naval Service.”

And uphold such traditions, he has continued to do. To put in civilian words, when things get tough, Senator Webb will not sell out but will stand tall, even for the little guy.  Simply to illustrate the point: as an attorney after his military service, he represented veterans pro bono.  And nothing he has done to date as a US Senator, at least one so hopes, indicates he is the type who would walk out on you simply because you are not on the A-list with the Georgetown martini circuit or even dare I say, Castlerock Productions.

 

What a Good Idea!

"In his new job, Faulkner will find his stated commitment to freedom of information and transparent government tested, especially with regard to security and intelligence.

He could make a bold and long-overdue contribution to openness in the public interest by - with the Prime Minister and Attorney-General Robert McClelland - releasing crucial materials on Soviet penetration of our intelligence system during the Cold War.

He should start with the Mitrokhin archive. Voluminous KGB files were smuggled West in 1992 and published in two hefty volumes, totalling 1700 pages, by Allen Lane Penguin in 1999 and 2005. They deal with KGB operations in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa, as well as those behind the Iron Curtain. But there is a notable omission in these books: material dealing with KGB operations in Australia. Such material exists. It was sent by the British intelligence authorities to Canberra in September 1992 but has been suppressed.

That should never have happened and should be remedied. What reason can there be for suppressing the entire file on Australia when so much was published about the rest of the world? Were the materials on Australia so bland and uninformative that they were deemed of no interest and consigned to the wastepaper bin? That would have been an absurd reason for suppressing them, but it plainly was not the case. Something quite substantial and unsettling is in the Australia file. That something must see the light of day."  John Monk

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The Mitrokhin Archive...  The British government allowed some part of this fascinating collection of documents from the KGB's files to be published as "The Sword and the Shield."  The question in my mind has always been - why?  More importantly, what is in that portion of the Mitrokhin papers that the Brits did not allow to be published?  Who are identified therein as "friends" of the USSR?  What countries are identified as having traded information to the KGB for favors wanted?  The implied threat of disclosure remains potent.

Let's see if the Australians follow through on this.  The process would be equally interesting on this side of the Pacific.  pl

 

Daily Star coverage of the election.

There are a number of interesting articles today in the Beirut "Daily Star" concerning the parliamentary election.

One points out the fact that Lebanese voters are still voting en bloc for their sectarian brethren.

Another mentions Israel's formulaic demand for Hizbullah disarmament.  Why do they bother to say this?  Hizbullah is no more likely to disarm unilaterally than is Israel.  In fact, since the beautifully uniformed Lebanese Army is good for nothing except standing around at polling stations, it is unlikely that Hizbullah will ever disarm until there is a regional pax, (pax obamianus?) 

Finally, there is a statement by that paragon of Lebanese patriotism, Sheikh Hassan Nasrullah to the effect that his side accepts the outcome of the election in a spirit of "sportsmanship," and "can't we just all get along?" (paraphrasing)  What a guy, A real mensch.

Next we move on to the Iranian election.  There may be yet more disappointment waiting there for Bibi.  pl

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=102820

PS - I'll bet they still have not caught all the jawasiis.

PPS - And, then, there is always this side of life in Beirut.

Lebanese election - 2009, part 2

If the final results are like this, it does not seem that anything has changed very much.  This is reported to have been the finest election that money could buy - on both sides.  pl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_general_election,_2009

Votes were bought for as much as $2000 and many expatriate Lebanese received all expense paid trips to vote at home.  Absentee balloting is not allowed.  pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/world/middleeast/09lebanon.html?hp

The Lebanon Election - 2009

""I am 44 years old and I have always voted, but this is the most important election we've ever had," said Nabil, one of the Achrafiyeh residents.

"This will really set the tone for the future, we are choosing between two very distinctly different paths," he added.

Inside the polling station, men and women voted in separate wings of the building.

One by one they entered the classrooms where the voting booths were set up.

Some complained about the heat and the slow speed of the process, but many emphasised just how important the election was.

Across Beirut, in the city's southern suburbs, pictures of the Hezbollah leaders hung from the walls of the polling stations.

Hezbollah is in full control of the southern suburbs, where most people say they are voting for the opposition."  BBC

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My guess (and it is only that) is that the Shia/Aouni coalition will either win a small majority or so reduce the March 14th group's majority as to make a super coalition (national unity government) unavoidable.  The necessity of dealing with a Lebanese government in which Hizbullah plays a larger role will force US interaction with representatives of that party.

That development will hasten the decline of the influence of the faction within the Obama Administration that mirrors Likud/AIPAC positions on questions such as the possibility of useful interaction with Hizbullah and Hamas. 

That will be interesting but I remain convinced that the major problems faced in the greater Middle East can not be resolved on a bottom-up basis.  In other words we should not expect to solve the Arab/Israeli dispute by doing things like bringing Hamas and the Abbas "government" together and then "jawboning" the Israelis and Palestinians into accepting a US imposed solution.

I still believe that a top-down solution would be more productive.  That would be a path in which the US resolves the international difficulties among; the US, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.  An ability to "regulate" mainstream Islamic relations would proceed from that and a solution for Palestine would become a real possibility.

Easy?  Of course not.  pl

 

Two Instructive Articles

Max Blumenthal's video from the streets of Jerusalem is instructive. 

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/max-blumenthal-feeling-the-hate-in-jerusalem-on-eve-of-obamas-cairo-address.html

And then there is this story in the Asia Times:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF05Ak01.html

The basic story here is simple.  Israeli intelligence are doing their best to fake the evidence of rapid Iranian advances towards weaponization of nuclear weapons.  In their usual short sighted way, they care not that they are systematically undermining the credibility of the US intelligence community.  The US IC has been the source of 90% of all valid raw intelligence information that Israeli intelligence has ever had.  Israeli collection operations are really rather primitive and the farther the target from their borders the poorer they are.  What the Mossad is good at is covert action and black propaganda, not information work.  It is sad to see an era of cooperation ending in such a way.  pl

"Israel: No policy change after Obama speech" - Steve Gutkin

"..taking down outposts while pressing ahead with so-called "natural growth" construction in the settlements — is not likely to go over well in Washington.

U.S. officials have made it clear they want all settlement activity to stop, without exception.

Most likely, Netanyahu will be forced to choose between going along with Obama's Mideast vision, and risk a crisis in his rightist governing coalition, or rejecting it, and risk alienating Israel's most important ally.

"Benjamin Netanyahu will have to come to a decision soon. It's either 'yes' to Obama or 'no' to Obama," wrote columnist Ben Caspit in the Israeli daily Maariv on Friday.

So far there is little indication Netanyahu will answer "yes."

"With all due respect to President Obama, and there is respect, and to the deep friendship between Israel and the United States, no foreign leader of another country will set policy in Judea and Samaria," lawmaker Ofir Akonis of Netanyahu's Likud Party told Army Radio. Judea and Samaria are the Hebrew terms used for the West Bank."  Steve Gutkin

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It sounds like some group has overplayed its hand. A contest of wills between the Obama Administration and the Natanyahu government is now inevitable.  pl

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i8QVCIdlWEPuKSmihD8pG85yVpuwD98KH0BO3

Baby Steps in Cairo

"..the Christian son of a Kenyan Muslim father and a Kansas mother sought common cause in part by addressing his own roots — and using a middle name that opponents used against him at inflammatory moments in the presidential campaign.

"Much has been made of the fact that an African-American with the name Barack Hussein Obama could be elected president," he said. "But my personal story is not so unique." He went on to say the dream of America exists for all who go there — including nearly 7 million Muslims.

The Israeli government issued a statement saying it, too, hoped for a new era. But it skirted any reference to Obama's calls for a settlement freeze in the West Bank and the creation of an independent Palestinian state — demands that Israel's hawkish prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, continues to reject.

Obama addressed the Israeli-Palestinian dispute pointedly in his address, knowing it goes to the heart of Muslim anger toward the West.

"It is time for us to act on what everyone knows to be true," he said. "Too many tears have flowed. Too much blood has been shed.""  Yahoo News

.................................................................

Baby steps in Cairo, like Bob Wiley's baby steps.   Bob was an emotionally crippled man who feared the very air he breathed.  There are many such among us.  After thinking about the Cairo speech and world wide reaction I have very mixed feelings.

On the most obvious level it was a fairly trivial survey of the complaints of all against all, but after listening to the reflex reaction of many talking heads to his discourse it seems that this level of simplistic rhetoric is needed as a corrective.  So many minds have been closed by propaganda and indoctrination.  This is true on all sides.

Obama's liberal Zionist backers were undoubtedly "paid" with this effort.  I doubt if they are altogether pleased with the outcome.  Their hard right competition certainly are not.  There is always a danger in making a man a king.  Once he is transformed, he is no longer wholely yours.

It is farcical to think that the hostility between the West and Islamdom is rooted in a failure of communication, a lack of mutual understanding and that all would be well if only the "boys" would "play nice in the schoolyard."  Fourteen hundred years of hostility and confrontation are not explicable by resort to various accepted wisdoms;  Christian aggression, Muslim desires for world dominion, etc.  There has always been a basic rivalry between the two culture "continents."  Humans are like that.  They love groups and enemies.  Can that be overcome?  Certainly, but it will take time and effort.  It will do no good to underestimate the difficulty, but one can make a start.  Perhaps this was a start?

Barack Obama would do well to remember that however respectful of Islamicate culture he may be, he is no more capable of bridging the essential chasm between Islam (the religion) and Christianity that anyone else has been.  "Neither does He beget nor is He begotten, and like unto Him there is no other."  These words from what he easily calls the "Holy Qur'an" are not a figure of speech.  Muslims, to the extent that they really are Muslims, believe in the literal truth of these words.  They know that one is either a Muslim or not.  Evangelical Christians are equally aware of the opposite of that, as are, I suppose, a few archbishops.  Some day we may see the truth as Rumi saw it.  That would be a better world.  Obama has to be careful not to encourge those who want to see him as a dissembler. 

An excess of "cultural sensitivity" is not helpful.  It is patronising.  Hilary Clinton in a headscarf visiting pharaonic antiquities is simply absurd.

Ah, well.  "The dog barks but the caravan marches on."  pl

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090604/ap_on_re_mi_ea/obama

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_About_Bob%3F

National Journal Blog - 1 June 2009

http://security.nationaljournal.com/2009/06/what-are-the-ramifications-of.php#1333733

Can you go home again? - Harper

That is my title, not Harper's.  pl

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"In the past few years, a reported one million Israeli Jews have packed their bags and left Israel, going off to, in some cases, their nations of origin, like Canada, the United States, Europe, South Africa, Australia, etc. These are, by and large, the secular, modern Jews, who have given up on Israel as the promised land, and have moved their money out of Israeli banks, sent their children to colleges outside of Israel, etc. It won't show up on the official statistics, because these are mostly dual citizens, who will not necessarily bother to renounce their Israeli citizenship, but several recent visiting scholars from Israel have confirmed that this is true. And the exodus has not ended.

So Israel is being left to religious fanatics, Russian emigres, settlers who are bigger fanatics, and a shrinking percentage of secular pilgrim Jews of the early Zionist period and the post-World War II exodus from Europe. It is a different country, and the last election reflected that tilt. The singular event, highlighting the transformation of Israel was the Rabin assassination, an unprecedented and tragic event, that may be looked back on as the signal event of the failure of the Zionist experiment.

As long as the Bibi government remains in power, reflecting the true will of the Israeli people, Israel will further and further isolate itself from the United States and Europe. The nationalism that Col. Lang correctly identified, will be radicalized, but the further isolation, which began in earnest, with the Gaza action of last December, will accelerate. It is much bigger than President Obama or George Mitchell demanding a freeze on settlements, repudiating the Bush letter, etc. It is a global phase shift away from support for Israel, with no qualification or condition attached.

What is going on now with the Obama Administration is a decoupling from the "passionate engagement" (to use George Ball's adoption of George Washington's term) with Israel. It may not result in a two-state solution, since both the Palestinian house and the Israeli house are both deeply divided and intransigent. It will, I suspect, free the United States to pursue a sovereign foreign policy over time, which is a good in itself.

If there is not some dramatic shift in the thinking of the political leadership of Israel, then we are headed for a protracted crisis, that will, I suspect, ultimately lead to either a very ugly war, a Thirty Years War type religious and tribal fiasco; or an eventual one-state solution, in which the Palestinian struggle for equality and justice is then more akin to the anti-apartheid or American civil rights struggle.

In the meantime, the U.S. should get about the business of repairing state-to-state relations with Syria (already advancing pretty much on a fast-track), and hopefully with Iran. The policy on Iran is to avoid the experiences of the Europeans and the Russians, and deal with the top of the heap--Supreme Leader Khamenei and the National Security Council. It's the only way to hold their feet to the fire, and Gates and company have clearly spelled out a six-month plan for forcing that to happen. We are also quietly cracking down on Saudi funding of Salafi and Wahhabi radicals in the region and in the Indian subcontinent, and that is good, for a change.

Harper"

Who is the "Big Dog?"

"Mobs of Jewish settlers went on a rampage in the West Bank Monday, attacking Palestinian laborers and setting fire to agricultural land to protest against an Israeli government crackdown on unauthorized outposts in the territory.

Six Palestinian laborers riding on a minivan were injured when stone-throwing settlers attacked them, the workers said.

The violence comes as the Obama administration is pressuring Israel to honor long-standing pledges to tear down wildcat settlement outposts in the West Bank and to freeze expansion in existing, government-sanctioned settlements.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has balked at the U.S. demand to halt construction in existing settlements and faces stiff resistance within his hard-line government against taking down about two dozen of the outposts. The disagreement has caused a rift between the allies.

It has also put Jewish settlers and their backers in the Israeli government on the defensive.

Monday's violence was all deep inside the West Bank, where most of the hard-line settlements are located."  Yahoo news.

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I have some sympathy for Natahyahu.  He has the problem of reconciling Americans' notions of Israel and their role as protectors and sponsors of Israel with Israeli and Zionist notions of Israel as a resolutely independent country that does not take "guidance" from anyone outside its own polity.  Americans have tended to think that in this relationship "who pays, says."  Natanyahu does not accept that.  This is a problem for him.

Israel was founded to foster the interests of the "Jewish People," not the interests of the Palestinian Arabs (Muslim or Christian) or the United States.  There is an inherent problem in American relations with Israel that starts with the idea of "the Jewish People."  The notion of the Jews being a "people" is a bit alien in America where Jews are traditionally thought of as a religious affiliation rather than an ethnic grouping.  American government does not deal domestically with Jews as other than a religious choice.  There are no set-aside preferential programs for Jews, no affirmative action, no immigration quotas (that I know of).  The armed forces, the Foreign Service, etc. do not have promotion quotas for Jews in the way these institutions have quotas for African-Americans, Asians, Amerindians, etc.  They are not officially considered to be an ethnic group any more than are Catholics, Buddhists, Wikkans, etc.

A large number of Americans think of Israel as a "project" of recompense and penitance towards the Jews for collective failure in not having somehow stopped Nazi mass murder against them.  Another large group of Americans are simply waiting for the rapture and the "end of days" role of the Jews.

Israelis, not surprisingly do not see themselves in these terms.  Typically, they are highly nationalistic and focused on their own task of survival as a "nation" against the hostile forces of militant Islam and competing Arab nationalism.  Israeli interest in religion as opposed to a supposed ethnic identity varies widely.  Many Israelis are not in the least religious.  Others are so religious that they reject the concept of the Israeli state itelf as inherently impious.

Natanyahu and his colleagues in government are clearly focused on the state interests of Israel.

The Obama Administration seems to see Israel as a client state within the sphere of American interests, a client that should understand who is "the big dog."

A contest of wills between these two understandings is rapidly emerging.  pl