THE JOURNAL URGES US TO FIGHT ON BOTH SIDES IN SYRIA: BELLUM GRATIA BELLI?

9/17/14

In its lead editorial this (Wednesday, 9/17/14, page A14) morning, the Wall Street Journal urges the Obama Administration to lift the siege on Aleppo by bombing Syrian President Bashar Assad’s airfields.  This would put the United States, explicitly, on both sides of the Syrian conflict and clearly on one side of the larger Sunni/Shiite conflict in the Middle East.  Who but someone who urges us to fight a war for the sake of fighting a war would urge such an insane policy?

Even dedicated non-interventionists like yours truly can see some merit in a bombing campaign against ISIS, ISIL, the Islamic State, or whatever it is being called today, especially after this especially cold-blooded group of terrorists has beheaded two Americans and one Brit.   We don’t like our country putting its considerable proboscis where it doesn’t belong, but we also can’t see our country standing idly by while its citizens are tortured, killed, and otherwise abused.  

But I have also urged caution, reminding members of the War Party, and its most stentorian voice at the Wall Street Journal, that only a few months ago, they were urging the United States to bomb Syria in support of the Syrian rebels, the most salient group of which was, and is, ISIS.  (See, for example, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ON THE ISLAMIC STATE:  “I WAS FOR IT UNTIL I WAS AGAINST IT”?,  8/21/14, MORE ENLIGHTENED THINKING FROM WASHINGTON: LET’S FIGHT IN BOTH IRAQ AND SYRIA!, 6/25/14)  A military campaign against ISIS, however, would put us on the side of Mr. Assad, a guy that the Journal and its fellow neocons were urging us to oppose only a few months ago.   Fighting ISIS thus would have the implicit effect of our fighting on both sides of the Syrian Civil War.  Only the geniuses at the State Department and other bastions of deep thinking foreign policy formulation in Washington would put us on both sides of a war.

Now the Journal, by urging the Obama Administration to bomb Syrian airfields and take other steps to lift the siege of Aleppo, is advocating explicitly placing us on both sides of the Syrian Civil War, fighting both the Assad regime and its most powerful and visible opponent, ISIS.

The rationale the Journal provides for getting us on both sides of the Syrian conflict is that

Sunnis will not support the campaign against Islamic State if they think our air strikes are intended to help the regime in Damascus and its Shiite allies in Beirut and Tehran.

This might indeed be the case, though we could, by the intensity and targeting of our air campaign, show the world that our objective, and only objective, is to rid the world, to the extent we can, of a group of extremists who have committed what ought to be the worst of sins on the international stage, i.e., the cold-blooded killing of American citizens.  But I digress.

More to the point, though, is that while the Sunnis may misinterpret an effort solely directed against ISIS as our taking the sides of the Shiites in Syria and in the larger Middle East, what will be the reaction of the Shiites if they see us fighting explicitly on the side of the Sunnis in Syria?  Perhaps they will take solace in that we are supporting the Shiite dominated government in Iraq, but I wouldn’t bet on it.  

The larger point is that it’s easy to see how byzantine the politics of the Middle East are and the best policy is to stay as far away from such intrigue as we can, limiting our involvement to making it clear that killing and torturing American citizens will not go unanswered.

One suspects, though, that the neocons, their manifesto writers at the Wall Street Journal, and the rest of the War Party in Washington care little for either the complexities of the Middle East or the rationalizations they provide for military action there.  Their sole, or at least their paramount, goal in urging us to bomb both the Assad regime and the Islamic State that opposes it is to get us involved in a war, any war…doing so is good for the “defense” contractors who keep War Party members comfortably ensconced in their Washington, D.C. sinecures.  And what could be more important than that?

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ON THE ISLAMIC STATE: “I WAS FOR IT UNTIL I WAS AGAINST IT”?

8/21/14

The Wall Street Journal editorialized this morning (Friday, 8/21/14, “So What Will You Do, Mr. President”) that the U.S. should “do what it takes to defeat these enemies of American and a civilized world.”  The editorial urged President Obama to take some concrete action, apparently beyond the air strikes he has already authorized, to defeat the Islamic State (“IS”), the band of terrorist thugs and crazies also known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (“ISIS”) and the Islamic State in the Levant (“ISIL”) depending on the day and the mood of the politicians and the media.

Even hard core non-interventionists like yours truly are at the point at which we would advocate some action, including heavy and concentrated U.S. air strikes, against IS, especially in the wake of IS’s unspeakable beheading of American citizen and journalist James Foley.   We have few arguments with the Wall Street Journal in that regard, though we suspect the Journal would like to see more than air strikes; the Journal has long seemed to back a recommitment of U.S. ground troops to Iraq after loudly protesting the withdrawal of our troops from the untenable nation.

The Wall Street Journal’s argument weakens, however, when we consider that, just a few months ago, that voice of the neocons was arguing for air strikes in support of IS in Syria.  The Journal wanted the U.S. to conduct air strikes to support the rebels against Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose most salient opponent in Syria was not the reportedly “moderate” Free Syrian Army, but the already radicalized ISIS.   While the Journal, and the neocons for which it is the major mouthpiece, expressed no sympathy for ISIS, the actions it advocated, and the toppling of Mr. Assad in which it helped those actions would result, would have been an injection of some pretty high-powered steroids into ISIS and its zeal to terrorize and radicalize the Middle East.

Further, the Journal was all for the American invasion of Iraq, perhaps the most salient result of which was the establishment of al-Qaeda in Iraq, which morphed into IS.  See 8/19/14’s DAN COATS BLASTS THEISLAMIC STATE…BUT IGNORES HIS OWN CULPABILITY at Rant Lifestyle.

The Journal and its neocon fellow travelers first prescribed an action that created the Islamic State.  Now they want to fight the Islamic State in Iraq but ally ourselves with the Islamic State in Syria.  Such apparently contradictory advocacy does not appear contradictory at all to those of us who believe that the basic neocon tenet is “Any way, any time, anywhere”…as long as the arms merchants, who support neocon pols and the neocon movement in general, can make some money.

RICK PERRY BASHES RAND PAUL: IGNORANCE OR MERETRICIOUSNESS?

7/14/14

On Face the Nation this weekend, Texas Governor Rick Perry took his limited air time to bash fellow Republican, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.  Governor Perry accused Mr. Paul of being an “isolationist,” and wanting to draw a “red line around the United States” because Mr. Paul urges us to stay out of the religious battles and internecine conflicts that now characterize much of the Middle East.  Governor Perry accused Mr. Paul of having his head in the sand because the Islamic State is a dangerous terrorist group that will not be satisfied in establishing a caliphate in large swaths of Iraq and Syria but also doubtless wants to inflict great harm on the United States itself.  How, Mr. Perry asked, can Mr. Paul ignore this threat?

Mr. Perry apparently made all these accusations with a straight face.   That he was able to do so is remarkable given that it was Mr. Perry and those of his ilk who were, just a few short months ago, urging us to join the conflict in Syria on the side of what is now called the Islamic State, the very terror group he (in all likelihood correctly) accuses of wanting to inflict great harm on the U.S. homeland.   It was Mr. Perry (and John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and all the other usual suspects) who was urging us to bomb Bashar Assad’s forces, which are fighting the forces of the Islamic State.   Messrs. Perry, McCain, and Graham deny that they wanted to help out the Islamic State…no sir, they wanted to help the “moderates” in Syria.   That defense for their militaristic impulse is laughable.  Even assuming that these “moderates” are genuine and are not, as are so many of our “friends” in the Middle East, merely striking a pose in order to get access to American money and start numbered offshore bank accounts, the real force behind the opposition to Bashar Assad is provided by the most radical elements of his opposition, most saliently the Islamic State.  Any action against Mr. Assad is de facto support for the Islamic State that Mr. Perry and his pals purport to oppose.

We can draw one of two conclusions about the inherent contradictions behind the Perry/McCain/Graham approach to the Islamic State, professing to be so opposed to the State while urging action to fight its battles for it.

First, Messrs. McCain, Perry and Graham are completely ignorant of the Middle East and/or are completely delusional about the array of forces in the area.  They are either complete dullards and/or they simply cannot fathom a Syria or Iraq in which the U.S. has no visible support among anyone who is not on its payroll.   These pols seem to think that there are legions of people in the Middle East who are absolutely delighted that we have inflicted massive casualties on them and their families in Iraq and Afghanistan and thus have been rendered “moderate” and “pro-Western,” ready to vanquish dictators and establish Arab versions of Jeffersonian democracy at our mere request.

Second, Messrs. McCain, Perry, and Graham are no fools and are completely aware that we have few friends in the Middle East.  Further, they know that they are being completely self-contradictory in urging action against both the Islamic State and its most salient enemy, the regime of Bashar Assad.   But Messrs. McCain, Perry, and Graham simply don’t care.  They want American involvement in every conflict in which such involvement is possible.   They have to make good IOUs to the “defense contractors” who finance their positions of power and prestige, who enable them to remain in jobs in which their most urgent and constant task is to have their hindquarters smooched.   So if going to war anywhere with anyone will make the “defense” contractors happy, the money flowing, and thus the likes of Messrs. McCain, Perry, and Graham comfortably ensconced in the lifelong sinecures they call careers, going to war anywhere with anyone must be a very good thing.

Which one is it, Messrs. Perry, McCain, and Graham?   Are you ignorant or merely servicing the people who keep you in your cushy jobs that would make a Middle Eastern suzerain envious?

QUINN ON EMANUEL’S PHONE TAX, U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN SYRIA AND IRAQ, EXPORTING CRUDE OIL, AND TRADING BASICS

6/27/14

Summer is finally getting to be some fun, and writing these screeds is a major element of said fun.  This week, I feature posts on basic trading and economics, Iraq and Syria (of course)…and a masterpiece, if I can say so myself, on the phone tax increase that illuminates much of Rahm Emanuel’s thinking.

CHICAGO’S PROPOSED PHONE TAX INCREASE:  RAHM EMANUEL’S IDEA OF “CONSTITUENT SERVICE”

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/06/26/chicagos-proposed-phone-tax-increase-rahm-emanuels-idea-of-constituent-service/

You think the property tax can be regressive?  Try this phone tax.  Do you think Rahm Emanuel gives a rat’s hindquarters?   He’s just serving his natural constituency.

MORE ENLIGHTENED THINKING FROM WASHINGTON:  LET’S FIGHT IN BOTH IRAQ AND SYRIA!

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/06/25/more-enlightened-thinking-from-washington-lets-fight-in-both-iraq-and-syria/

There is no limit to the world’s battlefields and potential battlefields, which Washington sees as more opportunities to keep the “defense” contractors happy…and writing checks.

KEEP ALL CRUDE OIL AT HOME?   “LAST NIGHT I HAD A WONDERFUL DREAM…”

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/06/25/last-night-i-had-a-wonderful-dream-keep-all-crude-oil-at-home/

I suppose we’d all like to be swimming in cheap domestic crude, but the world doesn’t work that way.   It looks like somebody in Washington understand this, but it’s not who you’d think.

BAD ECONOMIC NEWS = A HEALTHY STOCK MARKET?  BUT OF COURSE!

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/06/25/bad-economic-news-yielding-a-healthy-stock-market-goes-against-logic-right/

Pretty basic stuff for many of my readers, not so basic for others.  However, in trading and investing, as in so many other fields of human endeavor, ignoring the basics is the source of much misery.   One of those basic points is that you don’t have to like a particular policy or approach to act on, and profit from, that policy or approach.  Ideology and investing, and certainly trading, don’t mix.

Have a great weekend, everybody.  While I don’t pretend to understand this World Cup stuff (For example, why is losing such a good thing?), it’s sort of fun.

For more on Chicago’s politics, see my books:

The Chairman:

http://www.amazon.com/Chairman-Novel-Big-City-Politics/dp/1439255598/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355257845&sr=1-1&keywords=Mark+M.+Quinn

The Chairman’s Challenge:

http://www.amazon.com/Chairmans-Challenge-Continuing-Novel-Politics/dp/1426939108/ref=sr_1_3_title_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1360098045&sr=1-3&keywords=Mark+M.+Quinn

QUINN ON IRAQ, SYRIA, ERIC CANTOR…AND $5,000 SUITS

6/13/14

Somehow I was under the mistaken notion that things would slow down with the summer and the consequent lightening of my teaching load, but that has not been the case.  Still, I’ve managed to comment on what I consider the big story of perhaps the year, or maybe even the decade, the goings on in Iraq, and a few other items for good measure:

SYRIA AND IRAQ:  THE BUSH/OBAMA ADMINISTRATION PUTS US ON BOTH SIDES OF A RELIGIOUS WAR

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/06/13/bushobama-adminstration-put-us-on-both-sides-of-syria-and-iraq-religious-war/

..and we continue to elect these Bozos from both parties who are apparently completely ill-equipped to deal with a dangerous world…or any world in which they are not completely insulated from reality, for that matter.

IRAQ ON THE VERGE OF BECOMING A TERRORIST PETRI DISH:   THANK THE BUSH/OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/06/13/iraq-on-the-verge-of-becoming-a-terrorist-petri-dish-thanks-to-the-bushobama-administration/

Yes, I will blame Bush…and Obama and Hillary Clinton.  They are all guilty of making the Middle East a fiasco…but none is more guilty than George W. Bush, an utter and complete disaster of a president.

WALL STREET DRESSES DOWN TO SEAL A DEAL

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/06/11/wall-street-dresses-down-to-seal-a-deal/

The smart money guys wear $5,000 suits?  O tempora, o mores!

ERIC CANTOR AND THE GOP ESTABLISHMENT GO DOWN HARD IN VIRGINIA

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/06/11/eric-cantor-and-the-gop-establishment-go-down-hard-in-virginia/

Few elections have ever made yours truly happier.

THE BIGGEST FAILURE OF HILLARY CLINTON AT STATE

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/06/09/highlighting-hillary-clintons-biggest-failure-in-current-administration/

Benghazi is only a symptom of a much larger policy failure.

Have a great weekend and a great Father’s Day.  I will.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

QUINN ON SYRIA, PRAYER AT PUBLIC MEETINGS, AND EMANUEL’S DISPENSING HIS WISDOM ON WABASH

5/9/14

Time is tight, as it has been for the last several months, but a man’s gotta write what a man’s gotta write…

WHY DO SO MANY IN WASHINGTON WANT TO HELP AL QAEDA IN SYRIA?

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/05/09/why-do-so-many-people-in-washington-want-to-help-al-qaeda-in-syria/

Contrary to what the likes of John McCain would have you believe, militarism and meddling does not equate to patriotism.

CAPTAIN OBVIOUS STRIKES AGAIN:  SUPREME COURT SAYS IT’S OKAY TO PRAY

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/05/06/captain-obvious-strikes-supreme-court-says-okay-pray/

Maybe this is the beginning of the end of all the silliness inflicted on us by the freedom from religion crowd…but probably not.

RAHM EMANUEL TO DOWNTOWN BUSINESSPEOPLE:  JUST SHUT UP AND PAY

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/05/03/rahm-emanuel-downtown-business-people-shut-pay/

And have you noticed how the local media, or at least elements of the Chicago Tribune, seem to have turned on their consanguineous champion?  Still…bet heavily on the wise and mighty Rahm’s reelection.  In the screwed up politics of enlightened, modern day America, it’s all about money, and Mr. Emanuel has boatloads of it.

Have a great weekend, everybody, and God bless and thank all of you out there who are mothers.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN SYRIA: ESCALATING EVEN BEFORE IT STARTS

9/6/13

President Obama a few days ago was promising that his intentions for Syria were limited to a pinpoint attack, designed to punish Bashar Assad for using chemical weapons on his own people.  He and his minions initially assured us that the attack would feature Tomahawk cruise missiles and the like, weapons that enable us to keep our guys out of harm’s way, to the extent such a thing is possible once combat starts.  (See my 9/2/13 post, OBAMA’S EXCELLENT SYRIAN ADVENTURE: THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER GETS BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM HIS ENEMIES? for only my latest, until now, comments on Syria.)

But now talk turns to the use of manned bombers, perhaps B-1s stationed in the Gulf, B-2s stationed in Missouri, or B-52s stationed in a variety of locations.   The use of B-2s is especially troubling; they are stealth bombers designed not to stand off and fire cruise missiles and the like from afar, like B-52s and B-1s, but, rather, to use their stealthy features to fly right over the target and deliver smart bombs.   So using B-2s means having actual live Air Force personnel penetrating the airspace of Syria, which has among the best anti-aircraft defenses in the world, defenses so formidable that the Israeli Air Force fears to figuratively tread there.

Perhaps this talk of expanding beyond Tomahawks and graduating to weapons systems that put Americans in harm’s way is designed to mollify the likes of Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham who are, as is their wont, hell-bent on getting us deeply immersed in another centuries old, irresolvable, Middle Eastern secular conflict.  And what better way to get a reluctant American public on board for all out war in a place in which we have few vital interests and no chance of coming out on top than the death of a few American soldiers and airmen?  Is this too cynical and conspiratorial?   Does it take too dark a view of the War Party and its most fervent members?   Probably not.   But I digress.

The major lesson to take away from this talk of manned bombers over Syria is that this conflict, which the President promised not to escalate, is escalating even before it starts.   The broader lesson is to never, ever trust a politician, especially when he is preparing to send your kids and your money to war.  In fact, it would be wise to check your driver’s license should a politician tell you your name.

OBAMA’S EXCELLENT SYRIAN ADVENTURE: THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER GETS BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM HIS ENEMIES?

9/2/13

President Obama has finally done the right thing regarding the ghastly situation in Syria.

He may have looked more indecisive than the Dane himself in doing so.   Further, he may be doing so for the wrong reasons; a lot of people think the President is seeking Congressional approval of military action against Bashar Assad only as a ruse for changing his mind once again.   All this doesn’t matter.  We can’t count on people’s good motives; Francis of Assisi long ago vacated this mortal coil and there are few decent replacements.  We can only count on people’s actions.   And, regardless of his motivations, the President has finally done the right thing and gone the Constitutional route in asking Congressional approval before sending American blood and treasure on yet another foreign adventure with dubious, yet frightful, potential consequences.  In so doing, Mr. Obama has reversed the approach of every post-War president, with the possible and ironic exception of Richard Nixon, in committing American firepower, money, and troops to combat, which has been, effectively, I am the State.

This circuitous, stumbling in the dark path to righteousness has come at some cost to American credibility.   In his alternating red lines, expressions of outrage, and admonitions to caution, Mr. Obama has displayed more flip-flops than will be seen on the Jersey Shore this Labor Day weekend.   As Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University put it, the President

“…is becoming a laughingstock in the eyes of friends and foe alike.”

While it is hard in the Middle East, or anywhere, for that matter, to distinguish friend from foe (Was it Kissinger, Metternich, or Richelieu who said “Countries don’t have permanent friends; they only have permanent interests?), Mr. Inbar has a point.  Mr. Obama could have saved himself, and this country, a lot of humiliation by saying early on, and unequivocally, that the U.S. has no interests in Syria sufficiently salient to commit American resources and kids to the conflict.   (See 8/27/13’s  SYRIA:  “WE (WILL) GET FOOLED AGAIN!” for only my latest expostulation on why getting involved in yet another Middle Eastern centuries old irresolvable sectarian conflict would be ruinous, or worse, for the United States and the world.)   But the President, as is his wont, blew that opportunity.  

More importantly, if it took an embarrassing to the point of pain Hamlet act on the international stage on the part of the President to finally get him to do what no president since Roosevelt has done, i.e., abide by the Constitution in committing American troops to conflict, that is a small price to pay.

Will the President be able to persuade the Congress to go along with this latest Bushite adventure for who knows what reason in the Middle East?   Or will he suffer the type of heaven sent humiliation that the clear-headed British Parliament sent to the starry-eyed David Cameron?

First, while things can change rapidly and political predictions are thus always perilous, the odds are not good that the Congress will give the President the nod he ostensibly seeks.   Mr. Obama must persuade not only those Congresspersons with the good sense to stay as far away from Syria as one does from a rabid dog; he also must also mollify the likes of Senators John McCain and his mini-me, Senator Lindsey Graham, who seem to have visions of mushroom clouds, and generous payment of IOUs to the “defense” industry, once again dancing in their febrile brains.   One can only hope that the Republican impulse to oppose anything that Mr. Obama proposes will override the GOP reflexive equation of militarism with patriotism and that they will thus join the Democrats, and the libertarian oriented corners of the GOP, to slap Mr. Obama’s hand and save us from another quagmire in the cradle of civilization.

Second, one does get the impression that the President is secretly hoping that Congress will not go along with the Bushite militarism that has led Mr. Obama and his team to ostensibly flak for another folly in the Middle East.   This will enable the President to avoid conflict, blame it on Congress, and breathe a heavy sigh of relief.   The nation ought to join him in that sigh should that be the outcome of this entire fiasco.

SYRIA: “WE (WILL) GET FOOLED AGAIN!”

8/27/13

Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech yesterday calling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical attack on Syrian civilians a “moral obscenity” left little doubt that we are going to take military action, in some form, against Mr. Assad’s regime.   My opposition to such military action, or to any kind of meddling in the affairs of other states in which our interests are non-existent or indefinable, is well known to my readers.  See, for example, 6/17/13’s SYRIA AND THE WAR PARTY:  “AFTER YOU GET WHAT YOU WANT YOU DON’T WANT IT…”, only my latest post on Syria.

The ultimate irony, and idiocy, of intervention in Syria is that after spending billions of American treasure and incalculable quantities of irreplaceable American blood supposedly fighting Al-Qaeda and terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other venues in the Middle East and in Africa, we are now intervening, with more American treasure and, nearly inevitably, more American blood on behalf of terrorism and Al Qaeda in Syria.

Oh, yes, we comfort ourselves in our pure motives.   After all, Mr. Assad is a thug of major league proportions and we aren’t supporting the more radical, Al-Qaeda linked elements in Syria; we are supporting the “moderate” opposition to Mr. Assad.  By supporting these “moderate” elements, we are, indeed, thwarting Al-Qaeda’s evil designs in Syria.   One of these arguments is true but flawed; the other is a pile of horse excrement.

Mr. Assad is a thug; no one can argue with that.  But the Middle East, and much of the world, is peppered with thugs, and their thuggery never seems to bother us until they oppose our imagined interests and/or provide an excuse for War Party members in this country to enrich the “defense” contractors who sustain the lifelong sinecures those pols call careers.  Mr. Assad is no more of a thug than the likes of Shah Reza Pahlavi in Iran, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, or maybe even Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, with whom we did business quite happily until it became more profitable for some pols in this country to cease such business.  The consequences in all cases have been disastrous.  The consequences will be at least equally horrific in Syria as well because, just as in Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and countless other places, we don’t consider the alternatives before we go off on our neocon adventures of vainly attempting to make the whole world think just like us.

The second argument, that we are supporting the “moderate” elements in the Syrian opposition, reeks like the equine fecal matter that it is.   While there are plenty of people who will proclaim that they are “moderate” if doing so results in getting American cash and sponsorship, there probably are no “moderate” elements in Syria.   And if there are a few such types there, they are overwhelmed, in numbers, influence, and ferocity, by the radical elements we claim to oppose.   A victory by such imagined “moderates,” therefore, will be a victory by Al Qaeda and its wannabes, the very people we supposedly went to Iraq and Afghanistan to oppose.   Those like former President Bush, Senators McCain and Graham, and now President Obama, ought to get their stories straight before embarking on their missions to make the world comfortable for the arms merchants.

The Russians seem to understand what is happening in Syria.  They like Mr. Assad because he is their only friend in the Arab world and because they seem to be predisposed, perhaps because of certain affinities of their leadership, toward sponsorship of thugs.    But even if they had a clearer picture of the genuine evil of Mr. Assad, their sense of realpolitik would lead them to support his regime, and not only because Syria contains their only military base in the Arab world and on the Mediterranean Sea.   The Russians know that if Mr. Assad falls, Syria becomes a terrorist haven.   Russia not only has a huge problem with terrorists in its southern Republics but sits in far close proximity to Syria than we do.   Further, the Russians actually believed us when we said we opposed Al Qaeda and worldwide terrorism.  Silly Russians.

EGYPT AND MR. MASLOW

6/28/13

As Egypt prepares for the huge demonstrations planned for Sunday against the Islamist government of President Mohammed Morsi, we are being reminded of the difficult conditions in Egypt, most notably high food prices and a lack of jobs.  

Back in the days when the Egyptian revolt was brewing, I wrote extensively on that revolution in Rant Political and the Insightful Pontificator.   My only post on this topic for Mighty Quinn on Politics and Money was 1/29/13’s EGYPT:  MEET THE NEW BOSS, SAME AS THE OLD BOSS?   My thoughts on the situation in Egypt have changed not at all since the outbreak of the revolution, to wit, such sentiments as democracy, self-rule, etc., etc., may sound fine in the newsrooms and faculty lounges of the West.   But when people are struggling to eke out what we would consider a pathetically meager existence, people simply don’t care what CNN and the faculty at Columbia think is good for them.   They want to work and they want to eat.   Indeed, most of the frustration with Hosni Mubarak resulted from skyrocketing commodity prices in Egypt; increases in the price of wheat were most acutely felt in what was and is the world’s largest importer of wheat.   Simply recall Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which you learned in your psychology, sociology, management, or marketing classes and you will understand what is going on in Egypt and throughout much of the Middle East as the “revolutions” so adoringly covered by the western media leave the populations of the afflicted countries indifferent, disillusioned, or far worse. 

In Egypt, things are even worse.  Not only is the hardscrabble working population left worse off than when the revolution began, but even the starry-eyed, overeducated, underworked scions of the better off who, to the cheers of the West, sparked much of the revolutionary activity, are left out in the cold as their revolution has been highjacked by Islamists.   The people are poorer.  The naïve idle are frustrated.  The nation sinks into dysotpia.   And who is being blamed for the misery?   You guessed it…the United States.  And deservedly so; until we can learn to keep our proboscis out of places where it doesn’t belong (See, for example, only my latest post on Syria, SYRIA AND THE WAR PARTY:  “AFTER YOU GET WHAT YOU WANT YOU DON’T WANT IT…”, 6/17/13), we deserve the derision we get throughout the Middle East and much of the entire developing world.

But western popinjays and poltroons in the media, academia, and “public life” can strut, preen, and declare their allegiance to high minded ideals like “democracy,” a term that not even they fully comprehend.

SYRIA AND THE WAR PARTY: “AFTER YOU GET WHAT YOU WANT YOU DON’T WANT IT…”

6/17/13

President Barack “W” Obama has decided it’s a good idea to take sides in the Sunni/Shia civil war in Syria (See my 5/24/13 post THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR:  A FRIGHTENING HISTORICAL ANALOGY for a not surprisingly amazingly prescient piece on this aspect of the war for which Mr. Obama now has such enthusiasm.) and has authorized sending arms to the Sunnis radicals to fight the Alawite/Shia radicals; see my 6/15/13 piece SYRIA:   HOW LONG BEFORE WE’RE CALLING OUR STOOGES “BRUTAL DICTATORS”?, only my latest piece on this impending next disaster for U.S. foreign policy.

Suddenly, though, the bipartisan War Party, of which, apparently, “W” Obama is now seeking to become the most salient member, is not satisfied with the small arms it was demanding we send to the Al Qaeda affiliates in Syria.   Prominent War Party mouthpiece Senator Bob Menendez (D., but really War Party, NJ) says

“You can’t simply send a pea shooter against a blunderbuss.”

Senator Saxby Chambliss (R., but really War Party, Ga.) talks of sending more powerful weapons to the “moderates” he is confident we have found in Syria and of enforcing no-fly zones.   Penultimate War Party leader Lindsey Graham (R., but really War Party, SC, pictured with the Dr. Frankenstein to whom he plays Igor, John McCain) says that the rebels can’t bring Bashar Assad down with small arms; they need something stronger.

The old expression regarding giving people inches only to have them demand yards immediately comes to mind.

Senator Mark Udall (D., but really War Party, Colo.) whimpers that he is afraid of a slippery slope but, lest he fall out of favor with the “defense” contractors who keep War Party members well larded and comfortably ensconced in Washington, says

“But I think we ought to be listening to the president, we ought to be listening to the military leadership.”

What Mr. Udall doesn’t understand, or understands but delights in, is that we are already on a slippery slope.  First it’s non-lethal aid, then it’s small arms, next it’s a no-fly zone, then it’s American “trainers” (what the Kennedy and Johnson administrations used to call “advisers,” only the “advisers” knew that they were really “troops,” but I digress.), then it’s….well, you know the logical conclusion of this game.  

Among all this craziness, the voice of reason comes from, of all people, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who asked the West, referring to the Al Qaeda dominated Syrian rebels,

“You want to support these people?  You want to supply arms to these people?  This bears little relation to the humanitarian values that countries all across Europe have been propagating for hundreds of years.” 

It’s not as if Mr. Putin’s horse in this race, Bashar Assad, has his feet firmly planted in the soil from which sprang the Magna Carta, either.   Mr. Putin is backing his thug not only out of a degree of affinity but also out of self-interest; not only is Syria Russia’s sole friend in the Arab world  (See my 5/17/13 post, AMERICAN ASSURANCES IN SYRIA:  A RUSSIAN GUANTANAMO IN AL QAEDA’S COURT?), but if the rebels win in Syria and it either descends into an ungovernable dystopia or becomes a radical Sunni dominated state (the only two options, despite the War Party’s disingenuous reassurances to the contrary), Russia’s terrorist problem, which makes ours look quite mild by comparison, will become virtually uncontrollable.   Mr. Putin is understandably bewildered that the West is so gung-ho about supporting people who mean the West, and Russia, so much harm.   This makes absolutely no sense to him, and understandably so.   For all his faults, the Russian president has something that most western leaders, and certainly the two U.S. presidents he has had to suffer through, lack…a sense of strategic perspective and, well, common sense.  Mr. Putin must be baffled as the United States and its allies sink further into the miasma of another deadly, expensive, and unwinnable conflict in a place we have no business being.

Somewhere, however, LBJ is smiling.  But not nearly as broadly as John McCain, the War Party’s leader, and the arms merchants who support the lifelong ego trip he and his fellow War Party members call careers.

SYRIA: HOW LONG BEFORE WE’RE CALLING OUR STOOGES “BRUTAL DICTATORS”?

6/15/15

British Prime Minister David Cameron, a normally sensible fellow, in attempting to justify western aid to the group of thugs he favors in Syria in their fight against the group of thugs he doesn’t favor, argued yesterday that Syrian President Bashar Assad is

“…a brutal dictator who is using chemical weapons under our nose.”

Mr. Cameron, his French counterpart, and, presumably, our formerly cautious President Barack Obama prefer General Salim Idris, the latest third world fraud parading around calling himself a “moderate” in order to access western cash and a place to defect to if things don’t go his way.

Let’s assume for a moment that General Idris wins this conflict with generous help, including who knows what at this stage, from the west and becomes the latest western stooge to occupy the seat of power in a Middle Eastern ethnic jigsaw puzzle of a “country.”  Should that be the outcome in Syria, one wonders how long it will take Messrs. Cameron, Obama, Hollande and others who are seemingly so anxious to create another dystopic terrorist breeding ground in Syria to call General Idris

“…a brutal dictator who is using chemical weapons under our nose.”

As I have said on numerous occasions in the past (Only my latest post on Syria is 5/29/13’s RUSSIAN ARMS TO SYRIA:   THANK YOU, COMRADE?; please read it and the posts to which it will direct you.), we have no friends in Syria and there are no moderates, whatever that means, in Syria.   We are left with a choice between the devil we know and the devil we don’t.   We do, however, have a promising course of action, to wit, stay the hell out and tell the winner we are willing to do business with him to the extent it is in our interest to do so.  Mr. Obama, though, has just announced his intention to back, with American arms, trainers, and air cover (but only for a “no fly zone” over the areas in Jordan in which we will “train” the Al Qaeda members and wannabes we will be backing), the devil we don’t.  Despite his rhetoric to the contrary, Mr. Obama apparently shares the George Bush view that we indeed can and should save the world and make it over in our image.  Terrific.

We never do learn anything in this country, do we?

RUSSIAN ARMS TO SYRIA: THANK YOU, COMRADE?

5/29/13

U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague, commenting on the EU decision effectively clearing the way to ship arms to the Syrian rebels (but probably not before August 31), stated

“We would only send arms to anybody in carefully controlled circumstances…with other countries and in accordance with international law.”

The French, meanwhile, are considering Gen. Salim Idris, leader of the Supreme Military Council, the latest Middle Eastern potentate disguising himself as a “moderate” in order to get on the receiving end of the Western aid sluice (perhaps Mr. Idris is  a distant cousin of Hamid Karzai, but I digress.), as a possible channel for western arms shipments.

The Western urge to help the citizenry of Syria is understandable; no one wants to stand by while the citizenry is being slaughtered by its own government.   The Western search for a “moderates” to arm to fight the Assad regime is also understandable; no one wants to arm Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda wannabes and have doing so come back to bite the benefactor; think the United States, which virtually created Al Qaeda to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.  

While these impulses are understandable, they are as silly as U.S. guarantees to Russia of their naval base in Tartus in a post-Assad Syria.  See my 5/17/13 post, AMERICAN ASSURANCES IN SYRIA:  A RUSSIAN GUANTANAMO IN AL QAEDA’S COURT?   The West cannot control events in Syria and there are no “moderates,” whatever that means in this context, to arm.  We have three choices in Syria:   support the thuggish, or worse, Assad regime, support the radicals who compose virtually all of the Syrian resistance, or stay the hell out of the whole conflict.   The third is the only logical course of action.  See, inter alia, THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR:  A FRIGHTENING HISTORICAL ANALOGY, 5/24/13 and WHAT IF BASHAR ASSAD WINS IN SYRIA?, 5/21/13.

Ironically, but not for the first time in history, the Russians may be doing us a favor by intervening actively in Syria.  They may not be doing the right thing for themselves;  they, too, should probably stay out, though their interests in Syria are more vital than outs.  Again, see my 5/17/13 post.   In the wake of the EU talk of arming the rebels, the Russians have reaffirmed their determination to send, among other things, the S-300 air defense system to Syria, which is sufficiently sophisticated to quash any Western ideas of air raids or no-fly zones in Syria.   As Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov put it,

“Such steps in many ways restrain some hotheads.” 

And we know who Mr. Ryabkov has in mind when he speaks of  “hotheads.”

Going further, the Russians may be doing us a larger favor by keeping the Assad dynasty in power.   Beyond Syria’s being the Russians’ only friend in the Arab world and containing the only Russian base outside the former Soviet Union, the Russians have a third great interest in Syria, i.e., containing the spread of radical Islamism that is causing the Russians fits in its southern Republics of Chechnya and Dagestan and which we got a taste of in Boston earlier this Spring.   If Assad is overthrown, it isn’t going to be done by the “moderates” we in the West fantasize about.  Syria will become either a radical Islamic republic or, more likely, a lawless no-man’s land, like Afghanistan, a veritable agar dish for radical groups.  

Given Syria’s physical proximity to the southern reaches of Russia, the Russians are understandably very concerned about Syria’s becoming a breeding ground for terrorist troublemakers.   And even though we have the luxury of distance, we should be equally concerned.  Again, the Russians may very well be doing us several favors in Syria.

WHAT IF BASHAR ASSAD WINS IN SYRIA?

5/21/13

News of Syrian government forces’ making major strides in the civil war in that troubled “nation” afforded Senator John McCain the opportunity to (what else?) call for deeper military involvement in the latest quagmire that has drawn his attention.

“This is a significant and dramatic indicator of the Obama administration’s passivity.  For this administration to sit idly by and watch these events unfold, (sic) is writing a shameful chapter in American history.”

After further ripping the Obama Administration for not racing headlong over this cliff without taking a nanosecond to consider the consequences “optimistic to the point of fantasy,” Mr. McCain then fell back on his standard Cold War rhetoric, pointing out that Russia sees and raises us each time we increase our assistance to the rebels.   What Mr. McCain’s point is in this instance is difficult to fathom, perhaps as much for him as for his listeners, but I digress.

We know what Mr. McCain’s motivation is in urging that American blood and treasure be fulsomely expended in this latest Middle Eastern rabbit hole; he has to look for every opportunity he can to pay back, with your money, the “defense” contractors who have so generously bankrolled the lifelong ego trip he calls a career.   We, as citizens, however, have no debt to repay to the contractors.  Unlike Mr. McCain and his colleagues whose “jobs” consist of having their hindquarters smooched by obsequiants who want a piece of your wallet, we work for our livings, and a good portion of what we make goes to support the likes of Mr. McCain and his fellow barnacles on the ship of state. Before we follow Mr. McCain’s advice to repeat what he considers the stunning successes of Iraq and Afghanistan, we are duty bound to examine the three major assumptions behind the argument that we should get more involved in Syria.

The first assumption is that we can influence the outcome in Syria.  Take a look at Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam before you accept the idea that we can guide outcomes of civil wars born of centuries of antagonism halfway around the world.  (See my 5/17/13 piece AMERICAN ASSURANCES IN SYRIA:  A RUSSIAN GUANTANAMO IN AL QAEDA’S COURT?)  At least in the case of Vietnam, the civil war was brewing before we got there.   We rekindled a largely dormant civil war in Afghanistan and started the now rampaging civil war in Iraq.  In none of those cases was the outcome good for America.  Well, ultimately things may have worked out for us in Vietnam, but only because our side lost.

The second assumption behind Mr. McCain’s and his bipartisan War Party’s enthusiasm for intervention in Syria is that it would be a good thing if the Assad dynasty was overthrown. 

There is not doubt that Bashar Assad is a thug, as was his father before him.  Neither shows, or showed, any compunction about slaughtering his own people to keep himself in power.   But what is the alternative?  Thugs were overthrown in Libya and, to a lesser extent, in Egypt.  They were replaced with a brutal stew of chaos and dueling thugs striving for power, only the new thugs like us even less, or hate us even more, than the old thugs. 

Furthermore, in Libya and Egypt, Mr. McCain (and Mr. Obama and the entire Western media and foreign policy establishments) seemed to have been surprised that the revolutionaries they backed did not turn out to be the Jeffersonian democrats they had supposed them to be.   In Syria, the War Party can’t even pretend that it is on the side of the angels; there is no doubt (except perhaps in Mr. McCain’s febrile brain) that the Syrian opposition is dominated by Al Qaeda and others who us ill.  As I said in my 4/28/13 piece OBAMA AND SYRIA:  “…AND A MAN IN MY POSITION CANNOT AFFORD TO LOOK RIDICULOUS!”

We have little to no influence on the parties fighting in Syria and, despite elements of our foreign policy apparatus again having fallen for the usual song and dance about “moderate, pro-Western elements,” we have no friends on either side of the Syrian conflict.   We have plenty of people who will flit around Washington professing friendship with America in order to line their own pockets, but we have no genuine friends in Syria.

The third assumption behind Mr. McCain’s war whoop-whoop is that Al Qaeda and its allies in Syria will win, that Mr. Assad will give up and leave the country.   But given the advances Mr. Assad and his Hezbollah allies have made of late, his defeat is far from a foregone conclusion.  As I said to a friend of mine in the Fall of 2011 (in a White Castle on Cicero Avenue in Alsip), when this conflict was just getting started, Assad could very well win this thing because he is at least as brutal as his father, who killed 30,000, many with chemical weapons, of his own people to maintain power.  

So suppose that Mr. Assad does wipe out the rebellion and emerges victorious, a very realistic possibility.  Not only will that expose us to the charges of flaccidity that Mr. McCain, Lindsey Graham, and other bi-partisan War Party members are always hyper-ventilating about, but we would then have to deal with a Syria that owes us nothing but owes the Russians, the Iranians, and, most dangerous of all, Hezbollah big time.   How receptive will a newly entrenched Mr. Assad feel about peace overtures then?  How will he regard Israel, one of our greatest allies whom he regards as little more than a surrogate for Western domination of an area he feels is rightly his?   Yes, Mr. Assad and his father have always despised Israel, but the Assads have kept an uneasy peace, albeit largely out of necessity, with their far more powerful neighbor for the last forty years.   Would that change if Mr. Assad were to defeat the rebels, and their Western backers, with help from Hezbollah and Iran?   Would you like to take the chance that it wouldn’t?

Of course, Mr. McCain and his fellow messenger boys for the “defense” industry will use the growing chance that Assad can win to argue for further U.S. military involvement in Syria; they will use anything to argue for more U.S. military involvement in Syria.  But wouldn’t a saner, and more enlightened, self-interested policy be to stay completely out of this latest Middle Eastern civil war and try to maintain the uneasy peace with the winner?

But who gets rich, or gets his campaign fund generously stocked, with a policy of enlightened non-intervention?

SYRIA: GROUNDHOG DAY FOR AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

4/11/13

The Obama Administration, after doing a passingly decent job of keeping us out of yet another war in which we don’t belong, is succumbing to domestic and international pressure by moving toward authorizing our further involvement in the Syrian civil war by providing body armor and night vision goggles for the rebel groups in that troubled “nation.”

Why in the world should we be doing anything to help the “opposition” in Syria?   We know that the core of the opposition, certainly on the ground, is composed of people who are al-Qaeda affiliates or wannabes.   They wish us no good whatsoever.   Maybe even more importantly, toppling of the Assad dynasty, out of a misplaced, unquestioning enthusiasm for what the knee jerkers call “democracy” (perhaps not realizing that what we have in this country is, thank God, not democracy but representative government in the form of a democratic republic.   There is more than semantics involved here.   And there is also the question, given the American tendency to squander our time, and prominent slots in the news, on celebrity gossip and other such cotton candy for the mind, of whether even we here in America are ready for representative government, but I digress.  At least I do so parenthetically.) will not lead to some Valhalla of self-determination but, rather, to chaos.  

Look at Egypt and Libya, where western do-gooders decided that we no longer wanted those very bad men Mubarak and Qadafi.  Egypt is on the verge of, and Libya is thoroughly immersed in, complete chaos, with Colonel Qadafi’s former caches of arms feeding the growing flames to Libya’s south and roving, free lance gangs of armed men having their way with the populace and with, lest we forget, foreign consulates.   Even Tunisia, where the numb-skulled panters for “democracy” first had their way by cheering, and then engineering, the overthrow of Zine Ben Ali, things are spinning out of control, with assassination replacing the ballot as a means of transferring power.   Perhaps a less obvious example (And you heard it here first, folks.), is Myanmar, where the military regime is loosening things up in response to western pressure for “democracy”…and where, suddenly, after years of admittedly uneasy yet peaceful coexistence, the Muslims and Buddhists are fighting pitched battles in the streets and burning each other’s schools and places of worship.   Progress indeed.

No one is arguing that the Assads, Mubarak, Qadafi, Ben Ali, or the Myanmarese (?) generals are/were nice people.  They are/were brutal and repressive.   But now we are seeing why, to some extent, they have/had to be.   They are/were in charge of countries whose borders were drawn to suit Western imperial designs, not to account for the ethnic and religious divergences among their populations.  These countries were designed to fail, albeit perhaps inadvertently, by placing ethnic and religious groups whose most salient trait was their hatred for their neighbors, in the same country.   One can’t keep order in such a boiling, dyspeptic stew of toxins by being a nice guy who adheres to democratic principles and respects the Jeffersonian rights of everyone regardless of literacy, education, etc.   And so these countries were ruled by authoritarians who exercised their despotism in varying degrees according to their predispositions and the conditions over which they had charge.   Nice people?   No.  Necessary people?   Probably.

When these types of leaders are overthrown, the result is not the kind of democracy exercised in the debate clubs of the Ivy League and the discussion desks at CNN; the result is a dystopic hell.   The consequences are horrific for the region, the world, and especially for our ally Israel, which now finds itself, courtesy of the “democratic” impulses of its western friends, on the border of two failed states in which “democracy” translates into hatred of Israel and its very existence.

Yet the European powers charge ahead, seeking the overthrow of the Assad dynasty and pressuring us to join them in creating the conditions for dystopia.   And Mr. Obama goes along with the Europeans and with the members of the War Party in this country, led by Senator John “I’ve Never Seen a War I Didn’t Want Us (Meaning you) to Participate In” McCain and his mini-me from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, who would have us, at a minimum, bombing Syrian airfield and positioning more Patriot missiles in Turkey’s south to enforce a no-fly zone in northern Syria.

At best this is a case of Americans’ and other Westerners’ never learning from their mistakes and their hubris due to their being overly enamored with a concept, democracy, with which they are at best passingly familiar and which they assume requires no preconditions.

At worst, and I used to think that this was too cynical a view, something more sinister is at work here.   Perhaps the bipartisan War Party’s entire aim is to foment chaos throughout the Middle East and beyond.   This would create more opportunities for deploying U.S. troops in pointless conflicts…and rewarding the arms merchants who finance the endless exercises is self-aggrandizement these patheticos call careers.