Cobb

Death From Nowhere

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows."

It would be foolishly speculative to assign a particular motive to the mass murder perpetrated yesterday to Army Major Nidal M. Hasan. But that hasn't stopped people from their agendas of spin. Such is the way of disaster. People do what they are expected to do, only more vocally. Those who defend Islam against all Americans foreign and domestic, those who do obeisance to the noble sacrifice of the divine calling of soldiering.. all play their roles with amplification appropriate to the size of the tragedy.

But only The Shadow knows.

And of course in this case it is ironically true that it is a psychiatric specialist whose job it is to plumb the hearts of men who knows why he went on a murderous rampage, with two handguns. And now, just like the flashlight on the cover of the dime novel, we're all trying to focus on the killer.

As I have in my middle age been reduced to a shadow of my youthful ambition, I sit transfixed by the messages of the dead. Not just these 12 dad, but the millions of dead in the Fifty Years War of the Twentieth Century AD. Niall Ferguson is my ghoulish tour guide who explains the ruins of the ghosts of wars and financial disasters past. I walk with my head in his books amongst the living, sometimes ashamed that I pay so much attention to the dead. The dead who never knew what hit them. That's most of our fates. We'll stay on the stair climber even as we fight off shortness of breath, chest pains and tingly sensations in our arms because we think we can outsmart death. We look straight ahead on the elevators ignoring one another and counting our bank balances in our heads because we think we can retire in security. We clean our rifles and tie our bootlaces and polish our buttons because we think that with our gear and training we can take death to the enemy before he takes it to us.

Death is not impressed and will not be constrained by human explanations.

The answer Hasan will give is going to be simple. And the only way you'll be able to see how simple it is is if you understand how much death mankind is able to deal out without thinking. It doesn't take much thought or effort to kill 12 people. But most of us don't think long on such calculations. But to go spontaneously barking mad when you have military training doesn't take much doing. In this regard, Stalin was right about killing millions. And if you consider what a lifetime of soldiering could produce, by any standard, an Army Major who only orchestrates the killing of 12, is a miserable failure. But similar to shark attacks and lightning strikes, Hasan did the ordinary thing at the extraordinarily unexpected time and thus becomes famous, but never more dangerous than capricious nature. He'll babble out an excuse, or a reason, or a mute defiance or a jeremiad of conspiracy and then we'll all have our say of 'See I told you so'. Responsibility will be placed in a theory or a policy or a dogma and we'll all be satisfied that Hasan fits a profile - that nothing out of the ordinary happened here. And we'll all be right. Because in a world of millions of commentators, excuse me let me amend that.. in a world of millions of second-hand and third person meta commentators, 12 deaths is a light snack of melioration. Next year Hasan at Hood will be a question on Jeopardy.

But to explain 10,000 dead is something few are called to do, and so I am focused on the greater deed.

It might come to pass that Hasan at Hood becomes some rallying cry to a pogrom we will reflect upon in retrospect as future historians catalog the slings and arrows in this peaceful interregnum between the last and the next time men organized for Big Death. He will be among, perhaps, the thousand points of darkness that eventually sink our boats of hope. I think I heard last week that John Allen Muhammad was finally sentenced to die by lethal injection. He only killed 10, and he had an accomplice.

So we will have 'justice' of words and spin and other nonsense by this time next week. And then Hasan will die, perhaps sometime after 2012. That's the way of peace and we are living in peacetime. It cannot be denied for Hasan is living amongst us. But I suspect that it incrementally raises the stakes and hastens the next time around when death comes from everywhere.

TPMB on China

I didn't get a chance quite often enough to speak with my Indian pals about their country's rivalry with China. I once drank the Chinese koolaid but only for a year. The more I got to know about the place and the people, the less sanguine I became about its prospects for the world domination Americans often put in China's future. Thomas Barnett adds to the unconventional thinking on my side of the equation:

Japan's rise and decline should serve as a grim warning to China right now.

Japan got old, but China will get older faster. Japan kept its environment relatively clean, China is trashing its own. Japan built its manufacturing power on excellent goods, China is fly-by-night by comparison (reading a book on that now).

In sum, China has so many huge hidden deficits incurred during its rise, that I think it will suffer future stagnation that makes Japan's seem tame, especially since China's political system is so brittle and unimaginative.

My standard answer about China is that they will have a devastating civil war long before they threaten anybody else. I don't believe their sort of capitalism scales. But if it does, it will be very much like what I percieve Czech capitalism to be, thinking of second world goods, like Russian automobiles and other irretrievably unfashionable staples of modern urban sustenance. Since when did China innovate, and to whom would they sell innovative goods? It certainly wouldn't be for domestic consumption. I cannot imagine that sort of hunger being fed domestically. No China does a good job harvesting their own cotton and sending it to West African textile mills to be woven, then someplace else to be stiched into T-shirts. All for pennies, but they can only sell for dollars in American markets like SnorgTees and that's what makes for the innovation. Labor in that supply chain doesn't wear throwaway goods like that, if they know what's good for them.

You've got to ask yourself a simple question. How is it that Samsung, the South Korean electronics company has come to dominate in the American flat screen TV market, where nothing out of China has? Samsung started here in 1996. I remember very vividly because I hung out at their pavillion at the Atlanta Olympic Games. For all of China's buying of American securities, they are only reducing risk and playing currency games. That's not the kind of imagination that makes for world leadership.

The Proper Nobel Speech

I've heard that it has become rather commonplace for talking heads to wish themselves into the role of ventriloquist at BHObama's Nobel acceptance dinner. How can I resist?

"I am the Commander in Chief of US forces, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and Reserves, and country of which I am President is at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have not produced the peace that my directives to these extraordinary armed forces are seeking, but I have a roadmap and a goal. My goal, like the goal of most people is for peace. But there are some whose goal is domination of the sort we in the civilized world cannot and will not abide. I am on the battlefield for the sake of what we have built in the Western World for many hundreds of years, and I am taking the lessons of every great leader so tasked in human history. Those lessons tell me that the proper war, forught to the proper extent and to the proper conclusion is the only thing that leads to peace. War is a test of will and of might, and men of wisdom and courage must engage their full energies to every battle. But there is no peace until the enemy relents, there is only quiet. 

it is quiet in America. No suicide bombers blow up our buses. No gas attacks have shut down our subways, no rockets fly, no snipers hunt heads on American streets. In America there are no indoctrination camps, no torture houses, no mosques that serve as weapons caches. Instead, Americans are thinking about the upcoming World Series, and buying airplane tickets for Thanksgiving holidays. Our family plans look out many months without the slightest concern for the type of violence that goes on elsewhere in the world. And most are still pretty excited that I'm in charge. They have elected me based on our shared hope that we will end this war and that peace will be a reality. But we should not confuse quiet with peace. While we are at war, quiet gives us time to think about how exactly we should conduct that war, and that is what has been occupying my mind. So long as American blood is being spilled in battle overseas, the business of war is never far from my mind. And so I'm staying busy.

[Details about progress in the war, that really nobody has any idea about because Barry doesn't like to talk about it, and Hilary.. well, what has she done? ]

And so that is the path to victory and that victory will produce the peace worthy of the honor prematurely bestowed on me. But today, that peace has not come. So this award belongs to the heavy hearts who hope. Not to those political operators who would like to count this as part of my legacy as some chit to be traded. No this award, if it can be given to one who is busy working for victory in the greatest hopes for peace which has not yet been produced, belongs to those who stand behind their Commander, the families of the US Armed Forces.

(pause for effect)

It is their hope, along with the great hopes of all Americans and people who understand and respect what America stands for as the leader of the free world, that deserves honor today. Their's is the spirit we must honor, for that indomitable spirit lies far deeper in the human soul than whatever passion compels them on any election day, or even the considered deliberations of an august committee. I am merely their choice for this moment in history, but their hopes for liberty are enduring. So let me return the favor of honor in this moment - for my passion compels me to honor the American people. I respect and admire their penchant for peace, and if I may preside well in service with the wisdom and courage to do what must be done to claim a lasting victory, then I will have been true to the best in America. So help me God.

Yeah I know it will never happen, but he's my president and he ought to know that there's somebody out here who wishes he could get it right.

Tell That To the Carthaginians

The problem with Afghanistan is the same as the problem with Iraq. That is that there are only a few influential Americans who are willing to live there. Which is why we live in an improper empire.

Neither GWBush and much less so BHObama are suited to be Emperor of America. Nor are they nearly as corrupt as those who sold Rome down the river before the era of Ceasar. But all warring states face similar problems when their armies are far afield and the reality of war is something that can be manipulated on the homefront. 

In my current reading of Roman history, I have found no phrase so compelling as "Jugurtha in chains". The story is basically that of a young general by the name of Gaius Marius who, following the command of his superior captured the arch-enemy of Rome, this cat named Jugurtha. Now Jugurtha was famous for having basically hung out with Roman armies and learning their tactics, then turning against Rome, not unlike a certain Osama bin Laden. And like Osama, Jugurtha got powerful and famous by saying such things as urbem venalem et mature perituram, si emptorem invenerit, which rougly translated means you Americans all smell like Bernie Madoff to me.

But Jugurtha doesn't get to send podcasts to the ancient equivalent of Al Jazeera for long, because he has the crap beaten out of his armies by Gaius Marius. Marius returns to Rome with Jugurtha in chains and after this perp walk, gets a ticker tape parade. Now imagine for a moment that Gaius Marius changed his name to David Petraeus. Do you think he could get elected President? Well I'd say the odds are stupendously high that he would. And so Marius ended up 'elected' president of Rome seven times in a row. Which brings us to the subject at hand. Does violence ever solve anything?

Hell yes.

There's another story whose origins I can't recall about a young student who said that in class to a notorious history professor. The professor doesn't beg to differ, he cites historical fact until the student begs for mercy. But then sometimes he's gentle and merely says 'Tell that to the Cathaginians'. Students of Roman history would know that a bald headed master orator name Cato used to say at the end of his every speech in the Roman Senate: "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam." Which again roughly translated means 'Beat Notre Dame'. Now if you know anything about USC football, you know that basically this happens every time. And so during the multiple Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage, when the Romans were down, Cato reminded them time and time again that this must be a fight to the finish. 

You don't have to be much of a scholar to know that the great library at Alexandria was burned to the ground and much of the knowledge of antiquity lost. There are all kinds of things we might have known about the ancients that remain mysteries except the Carthaginians were wiped of the face of the planet, and their little dogs too. And so there is that historical fact that tends to nag the thoughtful who support the sentimental tactic of non-violence. Sometimes you can't just talk your way to safety.

Which still leaves us with the question of empire and other interesting matters. So let me weave one more story in. Last week, I sat incredulous in a debate about whether or not we could win in Afghanistan against the Taliban or in South Central Los Angeles against the Crips. My interlocutors seemed absolutely convinced that both were unwinnable. As in physically impossible. Huh? What?  Destroy one crackhouse they said, and another one just pops up in its place. We can't possibly win in Afghanistan, nobody has ever done so.  Given them the benefit of the doubt, what I percieve them to be suggesting is that we American really don't want to take over Afghanistan or South Central. We really could, but it's not worth it essentially for the same reasons. Such places are not useful. There are no spoils worth taking, no loot worth looting. There is nothing you can give your soldiers except pride, and armies don't travel on their egos. There's nothing to bring back to the homefront - no oil, no gold, no land, only.. Jugurtha in chains.

That being the case we have to admit that violence is good for something. It may or may not take a village to raise a child, but it takes an army to bring the enemy to heel. Faced with the dilemma of how much the scalp of bin Laden is worth, we have a president mincing words and trying to determine if our  war is properly located in Afghanistan or in Pakistan. And, after all, is the Taliban worth destroying? Moreover is Pakistan or Afghanistan worth destroying? 

It is a question that will not be answered in the next four years unless we have an incredible streak of luck, because what America hasn't done in any respect for the past 8 years is destroy. We've pecked and punished and occasionally pulverized this or that town, but we haven't waged much more than a politically defined series of coordinated skirmishes. The very idea that America is dithering over the size of a 'surge' should tell you everything you need to know. If you are a student of history which I'm trying to be, I think you would find that the old USA is fighting fair, and that is the exception rather than the rule of warfare. What I mean explicitly is that we are not out to conquer and destroy. Iraq has seen perhaps 3 entire weeks of shock and awe, then six years of counterinsurgency & system administration.

The distance between quagmire and indecision is a short one. But the distance between victory and defeat is very broad. GWBush gave Americans a very clear definition of victory, and he repeated and refined it so many times and so many ways that it is almost impossible for BHObama to define it otherwise. Bush didn't produce that victory but we understood the terms. Now we have no terms that are broadly understood except a vague longing for the sort of 'victory' that people imply cannot be won by violence. And yet America remains at war. Why? And how do we win? When?

BHObama talks as if his coming to power is all the world needs to know that America can be peaceable. That makes perfect sense if you are not facing American armies every day, for example if you live in Oslo. A change in attitude is all you need if you're not involved in the violence. But does anyone believe that such a change in attitude will bring Jihadists to heel, especially if we are out to bring their leader home in chains? The Jihadis have nothing to bargain with except their honor and their lives. There is nothing they possess in their nations that we want, not land, not loot worth fighting a war of conquest. All we want the head of their leader and the guts of their organizations. Have we been negotiating all this time? No. We've been using short loads of violence.

If I were in the army, I'd hate my fire being set to lukewarm in the face of enemy bullets and bombs. If I were in the White House, I'd hate my policy remaining on lukewarm in the face of the potential successor who actually does the capturing of bin Laden. Violence does solve problems and it's going to be hard as hell to suggest otherwise whether our armies come back dead without bin Laden, or alive with him.

A Stupid Question To Liberals

How do you get your information about conservatives and conservative ideas?

The best answer I could imagine would be 'Little Green Footballs', because it would be the kind of answer that would justify a liberal, even reactionary liberal stance. That is to say 'stance' because liberal thinking would be something altogether different. 

The problem I see with the sort of liberal I have been is that they think they are being intelligent, not just liberal. But in the global scheme of things, there have been fewer pointedly awesome frameworks than the post I just read this morning over at Belmont. The funny thing was that I used to make fun of 'idiots' who saw secular humanism as the enemy. I thought they were just being paranoid and stupid. In fact, they were merely inarticulate and therefore dismissable. 

What prompts is this non-discussion which gets all the spice in its flavor from the ghost of racism. But what I was really trying to get to was a matter of book knowledge. Given that, I can erect a new barrier to time wastage.

I got my book knowledge of Progressive thought from the post-Nationalist black left whose Talented Tenth airs I was born into. The gods of that pantheon include the redoubtable Cornel West, and a host of critical theorists including bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Haki Madhubuti (whom is often despised for being 'homophobic' - hmm maybe he's wised up) and a host of others I guess I've forgotten. I suppose I should add some other classic heads like Andrew Hacker, Howard Zinn, Gore Vidal, Mike Davis and Theodore Cross into that mix. But it was also the air I was breathing. You see it's easy to catch the symptoms of that religion of socialism/communism without catching a full blown case. And that's where I think most liberals are standing, in their b-boy stance, arms folded, head cocked and supremely arrogant. It is a stance I can no longer take at all seriously, given that I am taking the time to read fatter books and I am no longer impressed by politics.

In response to my stupid question, aside from my juvenile exploits, I should be responsive to the same kind of question. The answer is that I'm not looking for the sorts of things that liberals might read to make them good liberals. For example, I listened to Fareed Zakaria's 92nd Street Y lecture. (And yes, I used to dig on the 92nd St Y when I was a boho in Brooklyn. ) But I was not impressed. Not because I think Zakaria is stupid, but because he works for a magazine, and magazine writers who write non-fiction only know what people tell them. So it came as no surprise last week when Zakaria showed his shallow stripes by acting as if he were smarter than the commander of our forces in Afghanistan with regards to the reasonableness of his request to the President. I didn't spend much time picking out loudmouths who made it their business to second-guess General McChrystal, but I did see that there were more than a few who were interested in picking any number than his surge number. But if one is pre-disposed to the b-boy stance, the likes of Zakaria or Juan Cole for that matter (I imagine) are sufficient to put political weight on the left side of any military equation. My point is that I want to shy away from such sources despite that perhaps even more thoughtful liberals can use their intellectual products.  

I'm looking at the kinds of knowledge that appeal to peasants in full-literacy economy rather in the same way I would look at the shiny packages in a Wal-Mart that appeal to shoppers in a full-employment economy. It's all starting to look like product. And in a contest of products, you don't pay attention to consumers, you pay attention to producers, nay the natural resources upon which they build their wares. So I'm looking more towards the underlying philosophies in conflict in this big old literate world. And I'm paying specific attention to the amount of energy they can captivate through their instruments. 

I'm also paying attention in an introspective self-centered regard, as to which sorts of philosophies and ideologies appeal to people smarter than me. I mean there's a real feudal sense going on here. For example, one might ask why Werner von Braun came to the US (or was that after the war?) How about Einstein? Where do people of intellect and conscience go when they have the entire world to choose. Would a man who could become rich under both Sharia and the US Constitution choose Sharia? Why? Why not? I'm looking for the less subtle clues, which is why David P. Goldman remains such a fascinating figure to me. 

Anyway, there is a set of good reasons to avoid American political debate as it has evolved out here in the blogosphere - and the reason is, if you ask me, is that the debate has evolved from the reading of newspapers. And I think that newspapers have been a shallow product to be replaced by equally shallow bloggers. Except that there are great writers on blogs who illuminate the way towards deeper ideas. 

So if you think I'm a liberal or a conservative, I'm not. It's not about stance. It's not about be. It's about do, and the do has to do with looking towards global regimes of truth. I use the term without any deference towards the relativistic connotations. They only apply to the reactionaries.

A Chinese Future?

It is something of an axiom of faith around upper middle class barbecues that if your kids learn to speak Mandarin, then they are part of the wave of the future of human progress. And yet this defies the fact that China's Cultural Revolution killed 40 million people. That China was the country that mandated a one child per family policy. How could this be a model for the future. It seems to me that a people who would suffer through that are only predestined to be productive workers because they have only just graduated from slavery.

What leads us to believe that a Chinese class of wealthy individuals would remain true to that ethic of insufferably hard work of the many millions below them? 

For the record, I believe that China will have a Civil War before they make war anywhere else.

Countdown

The President has set up, in my opinion, a condition for himself that will make or break him in history. That is a theme of nuclear disarmament. But it will only make him if he disarms Iran. As people who follow the industry will tell you, the US and Russia have been cooperating on conversion of weapons to fuel for power generations for many years.

So we all know Iran is trying to build a bomb. The biggest question of the Obama presidency is whether or not he will stop them. It doesn't matter how. It matters that he effectively destroys their capacity by whatever means necessary.

That Depends Upon What Your Definition of Nation Is

Barack Obama, him say:

"Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow," Obama said, detailing how the facility near Qom had been under construction for years without being disclosed, as required, to the International Atomic Energy Agency. "International law is not an empty promise."

Yes it is. And it especially is with Presidents like you around. See international law is an empty promise because what really makes the world go around is foreign policy ambition. And international law is a figleaf of convenience for those ambitions. Grownups know this. Those behind Obama apparently do not, or do not care - they being so hypnotized by his articulations they cannot conceive how others cannot be equally persuaded.

Obama's foreign policy ambition is to defund America's exceptionalism until it fits in the same size 9 shoe as every other second rate Western socialist democracy, with their 21 member panels and boards of experts, like the Council of Zion from the Matrix Revolutions. Yeah well guess what. Iran wants to be much more powerful than the 9/11 bombers. They want a size 13 hobnail jackboot to cram up Israel's hindquarters, and the Great Articulator is inviting them to tea. Well, not now.

Now he is pretending that he didn't know, no wait, he did know that they were building a second nuclear facility all the time but pretended not to know, and he planned to what, embarras them in front of their friends like a vengeful schoolgirl?  Badmouth them in the international high school cafeteria so that all the cliques of nations will laugh and point? Shame them into emptying their pockets? 

Not giving me much confidence this Obama one. Acts like he was raised by a single mom and never punched a bully in the eye.

Iran aint GM.

Who Gives Obama & Americans the Military Facts?

I just came across The McCaffrey Letter and I'm wondering the extent to which the American appetite for geopolitical realism depends upon their ability to motivate the media to attack the President. I realize such matters are currently under my radar, but are they below the general American radar as well? Are Americans even interested in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan any longer? The current President certainly has done nothing to present a vision that approaches the conceptual continuity of that of the prior holder of his office. It just has me scratching my head a bit.

Does anybody really know what time it is?

Obama's Foreign Policy Is Useless

Increasingly, Barack Obama sounds like one of those stentorian orators of the era of the League of Nations and disarmament.

Iran is building, hey guess what, a second nuclear enrichment plant. And experts are beginning to see the light that it's very likely that they can build a nuclear weapon within the next six months. Ours is the president who extended the unconditional hand of high level diplomacy and got smacked in the face. So what's he going to do? Condemn the actions with the strongest rhetoric possible, I'm sure.

Hitler, Finally

I never thought I would reach a point in my life where I would try to imagine myself as Hitler. But I am getting inside his head and thinking about what it means to have absolute power. I drove six hours on the road yesterday and listened to The Hitler Book. So I came to appreciate an interesting set of ideas.

The first was that if I knew that I would be supreme leader and likely to send thousands of men to their death that I would want to toughen myself up. And so I would have my enemies delivered to me after their arrest and I would learn to execute them myself. I would do this enough times so that the habit of killing men seemed ordinary. I would do so in private however, and I would not kill women and children.

The second idea was that I would be faced with the nature of my being as a supreme leader, and I was inspired to imagine myself addressing my top military leader with the following words.

You are a man, and as my instrument you may very well be a great man. But I am beyond humanity and this is what you cannot forget. Obey me, be my instrument and you can remain a man. Disobey me and you will be a ghost. You have only to please me in this world and this world will be yours. Displease me and you will lose the world. All you have is the honor of serving me. I will only accept one defiance from you and that will be when you come to tell me that to obey me is to disobey your god, and so I will send you promptly to him.

Apparently, Hitler could not avoid the fact that he believed what he was doing was for the great benefit of Germany. The winner of an election cannot be dissuaded from that belief until he is deposed.

Hitler himself is not so interesting as is the ways in which he represents the ambitions of the 20th century. I wonder how different he is from any other such leader, and how different the German people are from us. Yeah, now I do actually wonder.

Like most other folks who have studied Hitler's Germany, I scratch my head wondering how London, Washington, Paris and Moscow could have been so blind.

Steyn Says It Summarily

Mark Steyn on Obama's indifference:

The mullahs stole this election on a grander scale than ever before primarily for reasons of internal security and regional strategy. But Obama’s speech told them that, in the “post-American world,” they could do so with impunity. Blaming his “agents” for the protests is merely a bonus: Offered the world’s biggest carrot, Khamenei took it and used it as a stick.

He won’t be the last to read Obama this way.

Iran On Fire

The odd thing about reducing one's political input and output is that there is no narrative in which to participate. I am not bothering to inform my opinion on a lot of issues. I simply know the situation is bad. So for the moment I have nothing to say about our president that I haven't said before - it seems pointless to advance the narrative.

This picture does not speak a thousand words, which is why I chose it. It simply and clearly shows, like the many other hundreds, that there is political violence in the streets of Iran. I think it's going to get worse.

As an American, what I think now is what I've always thought, which is that until such time as people live under governments which operate more like ours in structure and concept, then they will suffer the inevitable tragedies of tyranny.

We watch and wait.

Fareed Zakaria: First Look. Meh.

I'm somewhat disappointed so far in my reading of Fareed Zakaria's latest book, the Post American World. It's leaving me with a bit of that feel I got from Maury Pauch. I know this is supposed to be invigorating and I get the appeal, but I'm really not learning anything here.

Zakaria is chock full of facts. In fact, the more I listen to him, the more I feel like I'm reading a journalist and not an historian or a foreign policy expert. And that's the difficulty. His narrative doesn't hold together in either an inspiring, challenging or theoretically coherent manner. Mind you, he's not as bad as Friedman, but it's rather the same. 

My problem is that Zakaria's frames of reference go back and forth somewhat arbitrarily, and the ideas and events he chooses to highlight to support his points (though he actually makes few) are flattened to equal significance. They come together like talking points for a level of discourse that falls greatly shy of authority. In other words, he'd be a great blogger. 

The 'sphere however, or at least the slice under my admittedly limited surveillance, doesn't say much about him or his work. So even I don't have a good deal of comfort in knowing that what I sense is objective. Nevertheless his contribution is substantial, for a journalist. The difficulty is that it has to come out as it does which is in my estimation rather scattershot, but I think that is the unavoidable consequence of his attempt to handle such a huge sweep. And so I think Zakaria is likely to become one of those futurists that Niall Ferguson says needs to study what historians need to know about their own biases. He's likely to be one of those unfortunate souls reality force to eat his words

In one of his opening chapters, for example, Zakaria speaks of the nation state as a relatively new construct and that the US' position as one accentuates, in its decline, the fundamental understanding that non-state actors, ethnicities and religions will play a greater role in the future. He doesn't seem to bother to suggest that nation-states will fight back and ultimately until such time that all these other entities grow standing armies and central banks, all of their political desires will be little more than noise. But then within a dozen pages he counts as a weakness the very insularity of Americans. 

Americans rarely benchmark to global standards because they are sure their way must be the best and most advanced. The result is that they are increasingly suspicious of this emerging global era. There is a growing gap between America's worldly business elite and cosmopolitan class on the one hand and the majority of the American people on the other. Without real efforts to bridge it, this divide could destroy America's competitive edge and its political future.

and finally,

We are the only country in the world to issue report cards on every other country's behavior. Washington DC has become a bubble, smug and out of touch with the world outside. 

And nobody else is smug, insular and unconcerned with - oh say Western Civilization, which is the point of this thesis, or so it seems to me. But making the world safe for an intellectual elite - those people who actually understand that global climate changes are mostly driven by the new 800 coal fired plants to be in the hungry BRIC world - is nobody's priority. So that puts Zakaria in the unfortunate position of what I think the rock group System of a Down calls 'self-righteous suicide'.  Zakaria notes that there is no New World Order, but he doesn't seem (as of yet) appear prepared to throw any moral or civil harnesses around the ambitions of emerging nations. The G7 is stupid and arrogant for putting together a Kyoto Protocol that doesn't take into primary consideration the energy needs for the economic boom in the BRICs. Yeah, so what are the BRICs for preparing to unleash pollution hell on the world just to do what we already did? 

Which brings me to my own interesting observation. As citizens we understand that we must defend and protect civil rights and behave with civility in order to be civilized. Note how the following sentence makes no sense. As globalens we understand that we must defend and protect global rights and behave with globality in order to be globalized. Exactly. It makes no sense. But this does. As humans we understand that we must defend and protect human rights and behave with humanity in order to be humanized. 

Now it's awfully cosmopolitan to visit China and marvel at the astonishing creation of the Great Wall, and surely a journey to the great city of Benares has its spiritual rewards. But neither of those places generated that thing we understand to be human rights or humanism. And it seems to me that if we are to give license to there being anything better about this post American global future, all of that depends upon those emerging powers to take responsibility for humanism - to build upon what Britain and the United States have built as superpowers. This is not a standard that I percieve Zakaria to be much interested, fascinated as he is by decoupling of the Sierra Madre treasures of the third world. Yes they do have to show us their steenking badges. Let's see if he gets that. 

The long arm of history does not necessarily bend towards justice, but it should. I worry that Zakaria's emerging world wants little more than payback and that fact bothers him little. 

DBA - Doing Business in Africa

We get letters. One comes from a thoughtful reader who has some particularly interesting data to share. I've only begun to uncover some of the mysteries disclosed but I've been fascinated by the subject as I'm sure many of you have.

An inside-the-boardroom survey of attitudes toward corporate investment in Africa among leading U.S. corporations. The information was gathered between January and November 2008 in a series of closed door interviews with senior officers of 30 American Fortune 100 corporations by senior associates of Baird's CMC.

I think that right about now, I'm confident enough in what I know from my industry to stand as an expert in just about any corner of the globe. What I don't know is what it's like being the capitalist and risking my moola in strange places, especially these days. But with our zombie situation it's likely that the only new money being made is going to be made in emerging markets. What's encouraging is the mantra of 'Trade not Aid' that I've heard from Africans.

I happen to know a couple brothers who have done well for themselves and their companies working in South African telecoms, and I have met a Chinese gent who owned some interest in the textile business in Nigeria.

Thompson Ayodele writes on the subject just this morning:

As debates on whether to halt or increase foreign aid continues, Daniel
Hannan, British MEP, comments on the presentation made by Thompson Ayodele
on the same issue earlier this month at the European Union Parliament in
Strasbourg, France.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/daniel_hannan/blog/2009/05/19/stop_giving_us_aid_say_africans

As Thompson puts it: "The British Treasury is empty. So you are going to
be borrowing money in order to give it away. And the countries that get it
will be poorer as a result". Yup: but at least we'll have shown everyone
how nice we are.

I'm not sure that the West has run out of new ideas about how to improve the quality of life of human beings, but we're pretty much gone so far as to start thinking about what we should do for animals, plants and the atmosphere. So from my point of view, what remains to be done is to catch up the rest of the world with what we know and have done. It will provide the same energy for them as it has done for us. The African future is bright.

UPDATE - I found the video I was looking for:

Ostfront

Every once in a while, it makes sense to recognize the scope of the world we live in. Dan Carlin takes us back.

Small Wars & Systems Administration

Barnett makes the case that Robert Gates is the man he should be:

Case in point: All of this bureaucratic reorganizing at the Pentagon coincided with our Navy's slow-motion (but ultimately elegant) rescuing of a ship from Somali pirates. Eventually, we sent in a destroyer with enough firepower to lay waste to everything of value in Somalia, and yet the endgame consisted of SEAL snipers dispatching of three teenagers who arguably never had a chance for any better outcome in life.

At the end of the day, then, our government needs to ask itself if the new defense budget moves America closer to or further away from the world as we find it evolving. As somebody who's argued for many years about "downshifting" the Pentagon's strategic perspective — and resources — from large conflicts to small ("system administration," as I like to call it), Gates turns out to be the seminal figure I hoped he would become. Assuming his continued success, he arguably goes down as President Obama's most influential first-term cabinet pick.

Why? This Gates-led rebalancing constitutes only the second such momentous shift in American history. Prior to World War I, our military was configured primarily for small wars — namely, the Indian wars of our westward expansion. Since World War II, American forces have been used overwhelmingly in small-war situations, even as our budgetary bias toward the big-war force remained unchallengeable. Until now, that is.

The Systems Admininstration force is the right kind of force for America. It means a General Honore in every corner of the world in armed conflict and post-disaster chaos where the US has an opportunity and an interest in stability.  

Another Roar from the Mouse

In the news today:

The Democratic People´s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has today informed IAEA inspectors in the Yongbyon facility that it is immediately ceasing all cooperation with the IAEA. It has requested the removal of all containment and surveillance equipment, following which, IAEA inspectors will no longer be provided access to the facility. The inspectors have also been asked to leave the DPRK at the earliest possible time.

The DPRK also informed the IAEA that it has decided to reactivate all facilities and go ahead with the reprocessing of spent fuel.

So I guess I was just lucky in my guess here, neh? Hey, let's just imagine that Kim Jong-Il is not paying attention to Obama's smiling and bowing and quiet diplomacy with Iran. Like I said. Today's mouse is tomorrow's menace.

Security and Stability in The Horn of Africa

Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea. What happens next? Now that at two American crews have been attacked by pirates off the Horn of Africa, it has become the focus of attention. What is the proper role of America in establishing stability and security in that area of the world? What should we expect to happen? Who are the players, and what, if any, difference does Obama make?

At Cobb we've had special focus on that area surrounding the work and positions of Jendayi Frazer. I think that if Obama continues the general thrust of the Bush Administration via Frazer, that we're on the right track, but that he must step up his commitment to crackdown on piracy. There's a lot to discuss. Let's get it under way.

• Jendayi Frazer & The War In Somalia
• Ayro & AQ in Somlia

Norks!

My official position of Barack Obama is this: "We'll survive his foolishness." Which is rather what I think his blather is on nuclear weapons this weekend. I mean really. He talks about the idea that we should be nuclear free, but it's not going to happen in his lifetime. It sounds exactly like something middle schoolers would say.

Anyway. I've heard one little bitty argument against the anti-Nork sentiment which runs something to the effect that they're too weak to matter. They can't build a nuke and they can't build an ICBM. These are the same people who are highly offended by my use of the word 'retarded'. The sort that love to remind us how special children are special. Whatever. The fact is that the Norks are trying to poke us in the eye. So what if it's a plastic fork and not a carbon steel stiletto? It's their aim that matters.

I tire of having better information than my rhetorical opponents. I'll add salient points in the comment section as Belmont and Spook86 make them.

Obama's Second Half

Obama has the chair. This is the strategy. Where is his head? How does he keep the peace? Anybody have a clue?

Obama Speaks on Iraq

Obama's speech to Marines at Camp Lejune was on the radio the other morning, and I heard what sounded like the majority of it on my commute. It is perhaps the most I've listened to him since Saddleback, which is basically more than five minutes. Somehow, this time he didn't annoy me into shutting him up.

Listening to Obama reminds me a lot of how extraordinary Bill Clinton is as a politician. Bill Clinton spews very intelligent and logical rhetoric. Obama sounds mushy by comparison. Clinton's words work on surface emotions with quick political effect whereas Obama appears to want to go for emotional tectonic plates. He's tranquil but always letting you know how deep he is, which is why I find him so disturbingly effaced when he reverses course and buries his political liabilities. It's something I'll have to get accustomed to just in order to hear him out. Since I care a lot and spent quite a bit of time learning about Iraq I did hear him out.

On Iraq, Obama wasn't exactly saying nothing and talking loud but the things he said sound all pointed back towards Americans who simply disagreed with Bush on everything rather than to Iraqis. He clearly comes across with a paternalistic attitude towards the poor bastards who suffered through all the killing of war which he linked to every war in sad resignation. In Obama's version, the entire Iraq war is shaped into a tragic kind of sacrifice that nobody really wanted - a purposeless accident of human failure in general but from which honor emerges nonetheless. And so there was no mention of any goal of war except the toppling of a dictator for which he gives America back-handed credit. The honor is in the suffering and the sacrificing, not in the courage or the vision. And so he offered relief for the suffering and sacrifice of the American troops in the form of higher pay and benefits, but he offered no courage or vision.

For the Iraqis, his message is clear. It can best be summarized thusly, you're on your own, you're not so special any more our efforts in regional diplomacy are our new priorities, you've used our guys long enough. No new military, just new diplomats. And by the way we're talking to everyone because our idea of progress is like that. He offered some vapid statements about 'cradle of civilization' and 'two great rivers' like some eighth grade book report which were stunning in their departure from any specifics about who from his team was actually doing what in Iraq. It was a statement of exhaustion of a kind of shaking the cobwebs out of the head of a downed boxer, saying what am I doing here in round 10? OK, round 12 I'm out of here. It is exactly the expression of an impossible and undefinable victory - a logical, pragmatic best-laid plan of escape.

Obama offered weary troops visions of engraved markers on bridges and town squares with yellow ribbons, a new GI bill and a salutory welcome home to cheers and applause. He made examples of young heroes cut down in brave defense of their fellows and called them by their first names. It would have been interesting to see his face as he did so.

This is Obama's forte, delivery of the promises of long andticipated succor and relief. So long as his teats are full of the milk of domestic revenue and diplomatic sweet-talk, they will bounce enticingly. How long? 

Obama sidled up to a hard line against a nuclear Iran. 

This reflects a fundamental truth: We can no longer deal with regional challenges in isolation. We need a smarter, more sustainable and comprehensive approach. That is why we are renewing our diplomacy while relieving the burden on our military.

That is why we are refocusing on Al Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan, developing a strategy to use all elements of American power to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, and actively seeking a lasting peace between Israel and the Arab world.

Yesterday it was Dan Carlin who suggested the difference between Republicans and Democrats in foreign policy worked something like this. The Republicans send out a swaggering steely eyed gunslinger who says out loud in broad daylight, if you don't do what we want I'm going to kick your ass. It's like showdown at the OK Corral, eyeball to eyeball with everybody watching. The Democrats send out a wealthy, fickle ingenue who waltzes the opponent out of public view into a back alley and whispers in their ear if you don't do what we want I'm going to kick your ass. It's a transparent game of Mutt and Jeff spanning administrations. Under such conditions, countries should best desire to be left alone, except that our gunslingers and ingenues are irresistible. The problem is that one is left with the idea that Obama comes to the realization of a nuclear Iran a bit late. Four years of sweet talk to Iran, badmouthing Israel and seducing the Saudis and Syrians could be a genuine naivete the effect of which stretches American patience to the breaking point. A canny Obama could set up the perception that anyone who refuses his offers will never get a better deal from Americans. The problem is that he's not explicit enough to do anything but signal that dialog is in order.

Not that the economic homefront is giving him time to do all that.

Obama continues to indicate to me that he can throw money and kind words at every problem. It's the kind of responsibility he believes in. And so we're off to Afghanistan.

Global Felonies

From Christopher Hitchens

Essentially, there are four such criteria. One is genocide, which, according to the signatories of the Genocide Convention (the United States is one), necessitates immediate action either to prevent or to punish the perpetrators. Another is aggression against the sovereignty of neighboring states, including occupation of their territory. A third is hospitality for, or encouragement of, international terrorist groups, and a fourth is violations of the Nonproliferation Treaty or of U.N. resolutions governing weapons of mass destruction.

(c.f. Least Favored Nation)

Fascinating Reading in Bolton

I've finally got to the juicy stuff in John Bolton's 'Surrender is Not an Option'. It is mind-bogglingly extraordinary how Byzantine the UN is, and when you come to understand how it operates you will shake your head in disbelief. 

All I'm going to say is this. Most of us have no idea how corrupt it has been, nor any idea what gets into the sausage of UN resolutions. But I assure you that I have come to understand that much of what gets through is antithetical to the way Americans like to conduct business. I hesitate to say 'lowest common denominator' but it often applies. The entire process is so convoluted and tendential that it defies gravity. I am given to believe that the UN is something more than a post-modern hall of mirrors but not much more. 

Bolton reveals the fact that better than 25% of UN procurement process for PKO (peacekeeping operations) was wasted. But the inspectors who investigated the fraud were not invited to say why the higher ups in the secretariat were not going to act on it or make that fact public. 

Bolton reveals that those same investigators found charges of sexual abuse against civilians by UN bluehats. Say what? You've never heard that? Of course not. It would be too embarassing and so the UN never said anything in public about it. Until now. Which is why Bolton is hated.

Obama's Foreign Verbiage Trap

VDH has just described what I think are the dimensions of a trap that Obama thinks he is too clever to avoid. But he's not, and he's going to learn it the hard way.

Basically, he's going to say something soft and nice and special to some country, some group that he thinks that bad old America has done wrong. Then the leader of that country is going to put him on the spot and call him on it. Loudly. Then Obama's going to s-s-stutter and realize he's the President of the United States and he's going to blink - because there's going to be some American in his office explaining to him with hot breath what's up with his rhetoric. Obama will have to choose. And it's going to cost him.

Why? Because unlike Bill Clinton, Obama still has a soul left.

When abroad it is not wise to criticize your own country and praise the antithetical world view of another—especially if yours is a democratic republic and the alternative is a theocratic monarchy that has a less than liberal record on human rights, treatment of women and homosexuals, and tolerance for religious plurality.

But here’s what Obama said:

“… All too often the United States starts by dictating…in the past on some of these issues…and we don’t always know all the factors that are involved. So let’s listen…Well, here’s what I think is important. Look at the proposal that was put forth by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia…I might not agree with every aspect of the proposal, but it took great courage…to put forward something that is as significant as that. I think that there are ideas across the region of how we might pursue peace.”

The end, if unintended, result is that the Saudi King comes across as courageous, while the U.S. President and State Department (e.g., “the United States”) are portrayed as dictatorial-like (“dictating”) in the region.

I knew this was coming, and I shouldn't be surprised that it has come so soon, so obviously and with such craven panache. But when when a few American heads get cut off, Obama will polish up his Texas accent and King Abdullah will be crushed by the mighty wheels of the Obama bus. We'll see how much soul Barry has left, and how much he'll be able to trade on his middle name.

Obligatory Seriousness on Obama's Iran Non-Policy

It stinks. 

At the current rate, Obama is on track to be responsible for allowing a nuclear Iran. If he can't muster anything more seriously than these trite verbs:

Q Will the United States ever live with a nuclear Iran? And if not, how far are you going in the direction of preventing it?

THE PRESIDENT: You know, I said during the campaign that it is very important for us to make sure that we are using all the tools of U.S. power, including diplomacy, in our relationship with Iran.

Now, the Iranian people are a great people, and Persian civilization is a great civilization. Iran has acted in ways that's not conducive to peace and prosperity in the region: their threats against Israel; their pursuit of a nuclear weapon which could potentially set off an arms race in the region that would make everybody less safe; their support of terrorist organizations in the past -- none of these things have been helpful.

But I do think that it is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but where there are potential avenues for progress. And we will over the next several months be laying out our general framework and approach. And as I said during my inauguration speech, if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us. 

Then I don't think that anybody needs to take him seriously except his domestic peacenik contingency. Hooray. 

"Persian civilization is a great civilization"? How about "Farsi is a really cool language"?. Obama is being nice for no good reason, so let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that there's somebody inside the Iranian government (fwiw) who takes it as a sign that he will be forgiving of dissidents from the nuclear program. But it seems to me that the chances of stopping it with this ratio of carrot to stick is dubious. I'll be listening for some words about the updated findings by the IISS.

Or is Obama just as credulous and the most raving paranoiac Republicans always said he was?

Pipes & Heinsohn: World Conflict Since 1950

Conflicts since 1950 with over 10,000 Fatalities*

1     40,000,000     Red China, 1949-76 (outright killing, manmade famine, Gulag)
2     10,000,000     Soviet Bloc: late Stalinism, 1950-53; post-Stalinism, to 1987 (mostly Gulag)
3     4,000,000     Ethiopia, 1962-92: Communists, artificial hunger, genocides
4     3,800,000     Zaire (Congo-Kinshasa): 1967-68; 1977-78; 1992-95; 1998-present
5     2,800,000     Korean war, 1950-53
6     1,900,000     Sudan, 1955-72; 1983-2006 (civil wars, genocides)
7     1,870,000     Cambodia: Khmer Rouge 1975-79; civil war 1978-91
8     1,800,000     Vietnam War, 1954-75
9     1,800,000     Afghanistan: Soviet and internecine killings, Taliban 1980-2001
10     1,250,000     West Pakistan massacres in East Pakistan (Bangladesh 1971)
11     1,100,000     Nigeria, 1966-79 (Biafra); 1993-present
12     1,100,000     Mozambique, 1964-70 (30,000) + after retreat of Portugal 1976-92
13     1,000,000     Iran-Iraq-War, 1980-88
14     900,000     Rwanda genocide, 1994
15     875,000     Algeria: against France 1954-62 (675,000); between Islamists and the government 1991-2006 (200,000)
16     850,000     Uganda, 1971-79; 1981-85; 1994-present
17     650,000     Indonesia: Marxists 1965-66 (450,000); East Timor, Papua, Aceh etc, 1969-present (200,000)
18     580,000     Angola: war against Portugal 1961-72 (80,000); after Portugal's retreat (1972-2002)
19     500,000     Brazil against its Indians, up to 1999
20     430,000     Vietnam, after the war ended in 1975 (own people; boat refugees)
21     400,000     Indochina: against France, 1945-54
22     400,000     Burundi, 1959-present (Tutsi/Hutu)
23     400,000     Somalia, 1991-present
24     400,000     North Korea up to 2006 (own people)
25     300,000     Kurds in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, 1980s-1990s
26     300,000     Iraq, 1970-2003 (Saddam against minorities)
27     240,000     Colombia, 1946-58; 1964-present
28     200,000     Yugoslavia, Tito regime, 1944-80
29     200,000     Guatemala, 1960-96
30     190,000     Laos, 1975-90
31     175,000     Serbia against Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, 1991-1999
32     150,000     Romania, 1949-99 (own people)
33     150,000     Liberia, 1989-97
34     140,000     Russia against Chechnya, 1994-present
35     150,000     Lebanon civil war, 1975-90
36     140,000     Kuwait War, 1990-91
37     130,000     Philippines: 1946-54 (10,000); 1972-present (120,000)
38     130,000     Burma/Myanmar, 1948-present
39     100,000     North Yemen, 1962-70
40     100,000     Sierra Leone, 1991-present
41     100,000     Albania, 1945-91 (own people)
42     80,000     Iran, 1978-79 (revolution)
43     75,000     Iraq, 2003-present (domestic)
44     75,000     El Salvador, 1975-92
45     70,000     Eritrea against Ethiopia, 1998-2000
46     68,000     Sri Lanka, 1997-present
47     60,000     Zimbabwe, 1966-79; 1980-present
48     60,000     Nicaragua, 1972-91 (Marxists/natives etc,)
49     51,000     Arab-Israeli conflict 1950-present
50     50,000     North Vietnam, 1954-75 (own people)
51     50,000     Tajikistan, 1992-96 (secularists against Islamists)
52     50,000     Equatorial Guinea, 1969-79
53     50,000     Peru, 1980-2000
54     50,000     Guinea, 1958-84
55     40,000     Chad, 1982-90
56     30,000     Bulgaria, 1948-89 (own people)
57     30,000     Rhodesia, 1972-79
58     30,000     Argentina, 1976-83 (own people)
59     27,000     Hungary, 1948-89 (own people)
60     26,000     Kashmir independence, 1989-present
61     25,000     Jordan government vs. Palestinians, 1970-71 (Black September)
62     22,000     Poland, 1948-89 (own people)
63     20,000     Syria, 1982 (against Islamists in Hama)
64     20,000     Chinese-Vietnamese war, 1979
65     19,000     Morocco: war against France, 1953-56 (3,000) and in Western Sahara, 1975-present (16,000)
66     18,000     Congo Republic, 1997-99
67     10,000     South Yemen, 1986 (civil war)

*All figures rounded. Sources: Brzezinski, Z., Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the Twenty-first Century, 1993; Courtois, S., Le Livre Noir du Communism, 1997; Heinsohn, G., Lexikon der Völkermorde, 1999, 2nd ed.; Heinsohn, G., Söhne und Weltmacht, 2006, 8th ed.; Rummel. R., Death by Government, 1994; Small, M. and Singer, J.D., Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars 1816-1980, 1982; White, M., "Death Tolls for the Major Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century," 2003

Deceptions of the Press

There's a new sheriff in town (God Save the King), and the good news is that he's smart and pragmatic and he talks a very good game. He has the opportunity to 'talk down' the American people to a safe landing. Right now we're on a steep dive towards economic calamity. In that regard, Obama says (rightly?) (but will he) that we don't have time for ideology. I'm perfectly happy for Obama to be Mr. Fixit, and I support him 100% in that capacity.

But there's something else going on and I'm not watching it closely because I expect it broadly. Yesterday I heard it clearly. The press is becoming expert in doublespeak. And I think that right now is the time to watch the sort of dodging and redefinition as all of the nothing going on in American actions is represented as 'change', and all of the subtle editorialized innuendo of 'factual reporting' makes mountains of the molehills on the margins of American policy - loudly ticking off the dozen differences which characterized the narrow spaces between the moderating Democrat and Republican candidates for the 44th Presidency.

We already know that we have a do-nothing Congress, and we already know that plans for TARP have flip-flopped about a half-dozen times with only a few disbursements and much economic hemorraging unstemmed. We also already know that opportunities to make bold pronouncements on world affairs, like the conflict in Gaza have gone without comment by the new President. But in the interest of national unity, the Lippmanesque press will fudge and spin to make the slow turning of the wheels of government action appear to be 180 degree spins in the proper direction.

For example, on NPR yesterday, various commentators pretended that we won't be able to tell if the Surge was a success until after the American troops have fully withdrawn. Since the Obama Administration says Iraqi elections are upcoming, it makes perfect sense for them to not have a strict timetable for withdrawal. So there is an evasive and duplicitous redefinition of 'the situation on the ground in Iraq' going on as we speak, such that Obama can say 'righteously' what Bush said 'deceptively'. So long as one can accept the boldfaced lie about what is actually going on, by following only that which the new administration talks about, the complete situation on the ground becomes a matter of press opinion. And they have decided not to cover it, or more specifically to report that which was factually known to the Bush Administration as a matter of current speculation. It was an absolutely stunning display on KQED radio yesterday morning with Michael Krasny and his guests, Orwellian in every respect.

Those differences significant or insignificant as they may have been between McCain and Obama will now be the focus of a press dedicated to show that 'change' indeed has come and that America will be OK under the bold new leadership of this young President. An attitude adjustment will be performed for 'our' benefit, and yet the facts will only change slowly. We will be prompted to feel good about what is no good and we will be shown mind-numbing complexity in matters observed seriously by the Obama Administration 'for the first time'.

I can't stand it. Because that's not the worst.

If Fernandez is to be trusted, and I do trust him, there are currently reports that scores of Fatah members have been killed and tortured over the past few weeks in Gaza by Hamas. Try to find that story as the UN sends John Holmes over in assessment.

You’ve all heard about the massacre of almost 200 people in the Congo, on Christmas Day, 2008 right? And you know every detail of the Lebanese Army’s assault on the Lebanese army’s assault on Nar el-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, correct? Richard Landes had a discussion with an Oxford PhD student about how some deaths are more equal than others.

I recently had an email exchange with a PhD student at Oxford who saw my posting about the study of war casualties in which I pointed out that .06 percent of those killed in wars since 1950 died in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and .3 percent of the Muslims killed in conflicts since then were killed by Israelis. He was struck by how his colleagues could talk of nothing but Israelis killing Gazans, despite the extraordinary violence to be found the world over, much of it really intentional.

So let me remind you all now that I refuse to take any news of Obama's role in Mideast peace seriously. It is a slow burning ember which is the hypnotic focus of people with little perspective. The situation is simple - there are fools with no real government trying to destroy an entire modern democratic state and these fools are committed to suicide as a strategy. We're supposed to care.

And yet when these fools commit torture and murder, it is not permitted to call them terrorists. This is your American press. We shall inevitably see a truly smart man in our President use that duplicitous press as his bitch. Excuse me while I doubt it.

Chlorine for Gaza

Everything I've seen about the claims about Israel making life tough for the Palestinians in Gaza so far leave a lot of questions unanswered. The overriding question is whether or not those people crying out desparately to say that Israel is gung ho for Palestinian blood truly acknowledge that economic sanctions should hurt, or do they just say so in pretense. 

Let's imagine that these bleeding hearts do actually believe that economic sanctions are a reasonable non-violent approach to dealing with Hamas. Has Israel gone overboard into cruelty? Well the closest and loudest claim I'm hearing suggest that Israel is messing with Gaza's water supply. That sounds pretty cruel. So we go for a bit of research shall we?

One consistent thing I've found however is that the 52 wells out of some 140 I think were lacking chlorine due to a blockade of an Israeli checkpoint. This story is one of those which some are using as a justification for Hamas' unilateral ending of the cease-fire. This story was widely distributed around the end of February of 2008. 2/27. I haven't been able to get any follow up. Hmm. 

At Human Rights Watch, my favorite humanitarian site, there are no signs of the story at all.

The BBC ran two stories in 6 years including the 2/27/08 story with no followup.

In fact the more you search, (Yahoo or Google) the more all of this seems to circulate around an isolated event that happened 11 months ago. 

The NYT carries a story as well, a day or two later. 

This is the most accurate sounding story I could find on the matter.

The Coastal Municipality Water Utility made the announcement in radio and newspaper advertisements, telling residents that the blockade has left Gaza without enough equipment and supplies needed to maintain the water system. Officials said there have been no deliveries of chlorine, needed to purify the water, since Jan. 21. More than one-third of Gaza's water supply is now untreated, said Maher Najjar, deputy director of the utility.

Najjar said 52 of 140 wells used to supply water to Gaza residents were out of chlorine. "I expect by the week's end all the wells will run dry of chlorine," he said.

The authority said there is a "major concern over a health disaster due to possible contamination of the drinking water" and appealed to the international community for help.

The Israeli military said the Palestinians did not make a request for chlorine until Wednesday, and it was urgently trying to arrange a new shipment into Gaza.

Most residents already don't have regular water supplies because of a shortage of fuel used to pump water. Many people already use filters or bottled water because the quality of tap water is generally poor.

Israel imposed sanctions on Gaza after the Islamic militant Hamas seized power last June. Israel has tightened its blockade in recent weeks in response to repeated rocket attacks on southern Israel by Gaza militants.

It doesn't take much to notice that this clampdown occured 8 months prior and looked to be something that could be resolved in less than a week. Notice as well if you look here, that the border crossings are jointly controlled by Hamas, Fatah, Egyptian and EU soldiers. (Still looking for that map - there are about eight, many of which are under joint control as per a prior diplomatic agreement).

But let's look closer at the question. It seems that Oxfam International is part owner of the water facility in question. All year they issued one statement about the matter and timed it for a diplomatic summit (June 25, 2008) rather than back in February of that year.

Oxfam’s partner, the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU), who operates the Beit Lahia Sewage Works fears that the works could burst swamping up to 10,000 in sewage and contaminate the water supplies of 300,000, creating a public health crisis. The CMWU has been waiting for over three months for $500,000 worth of equipment. There are only 10 days of chlorine supplies left and people may soon have to start to drink contaminated water.

Hobbs added: “Withholding aid as a political weapon is bringing untold suffering to an entire population. This shames the international community. Water equipment has been waiting at Gaza’s border for more than three months. These sanctions must cease immediately.”

This combination of reporting and spinning is more evidence of a rhetorical crisis rather than the implicaications that Israel is being purposefully negligent with their obligations to the basic needs of the Palestinians in Gaza.

But this matter of obligations does bring up interesting questions I alluded to earlier with regard to those responsibilities that Hamas takes on vs those which Israel takes on for the benefit of Palestinians in Gaza. That aside, on a scale of 1 to 5, five being chronic and severe oppression, I'd say this is a 2, and more of an isolated incident rather than a sadistic tactic. And lest anyone forget, this blockade was established immediately after Hamas fired rockets on Israel from Jabilya. I know you probably did forget because over here we were babbling on about Sean Bell and photoshopping Obama.

On the broader point of economic constraints, I have every reason to believe that these are what we generally call, non-lethal diplomacy. IE economic sanctions. So I am inclined to look at this rather like Hitchens does. 

It is only when one begins to grasp all the foregoing that one understands exactly how disgusting and squalid is the behavior of the Hamas gang. It knows very well that sanctions are injuring every Palestinian citizen, but—just like Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq—it declines to cease the indiscriminate violence and the racist and religious demagogy that led to the sanctions in the first place. Palestine is a common home for several religious and national groups, but Hamas dogmatically insists that the whole territory is instead an exclusively Muslim part of a future Islamic empire. At a time when democratic and reformist trends are observable in the region, from Lebanon to the Gulf, Hamas' leadership is physically and economically a part of the clientele of two of the area's worst dictatorships. (Should you ever be in need of a free laugh, look up those Western "intellectuals" who believe that a vote for an Islamist party and an Islamic state is a way to vote against corruption! They have not lately studied Iran and Saudi Arabia.) Gaza could have been a prefiguration of a future self-determined Palestinian state. Instead, it has been hijacked by the Muslim Brotherhood and made into a place of repression for its inhabitants and aggression for its neighbors. Once again, the Party of God has the whip hand. To read Benny Morris is to be quite able—and quite free—to doubt that there should ever have been an Israeli state to begin with. But to see Hamas at work is to resolve that whatever replaces or follows Zionism, it must not be the wasteland of Islamic theocracy.

I don't mean to suggest finally that Israel isn't making it hard on Hamas, but this whole water thing is overblown. So. Should we move on to fishing boats or is anybody here going to raise their hand and say, yes economic sanctions should be applied? 

Hamas Reaps the Whirlwind

It has been two years since Israeli Cpl Gilad Schalit was kidnapped by militant Palestinians. He's still a bargaining chip that Hamas holds. You would think that they would have learned by now - but they haven't. The rockets red glare has been so frequent that there is even a Kassam weather chart.

Israel is fighting back and the proper response to all this violence is a sad head shake. But unless we are to believe that there is something fundamentally different about war and mankind, we have to acknowledge that sooner or later the Palestinians are not going to have a state. All of their attempts have done nothing but gather angry peasants into bands of suicidal militarists pseudo-governments. Its as if African Americans reconstituted the Black Panthers every three years and called it a 'peace process'. Thankfully, we among the formally dispossed people of the world have learned to live in a true sustained and disciplined peace with our neighbors.

You can expect the usual suspects to fight the Palestinian's propaganda war for them over here in the States. My position hasn't changed. Here's what I wrote three years ago.

...They are not going to change direction. They are the investors in and inventors of the suicide bomb attack on civilians. They have had years to consider their strategies and tactics and now they have deftly and soundly defeated their political opponents. It says quite a bit that those Palestinians most invested in moderation are corrupted beyond repair, and those most single-mindedly focused on disciplined change and reform are hell-bent on the destruction of their neighbors. There is no change to be had. The will of the people has been made manifest, what lies ahead is the inevitable.

The inevitable will be an even more ragtag ethnic Palestinian minority subsumed into a single dominant Israel. The dreams of Palestinian nationalism are about to come crashing down and their inevitable dependence will be made crystal clear. All we need do now is sit back and watch the tortured dreams of the manic and the single-minded madness work its magic. There can be and there will be no Palestinian nation so long as the fundamental expression of its political will is to blame its problems on Israel. And our Secretary of State should withdraw every penny of aid until the new Palestinian government demonstrates its ability and willingness to disband the Hamas Militia. Of course Hamas will not disarm, and its soldiers will not confine themselves to quarters. This is a 'nation' whose fundamental contribution to the region is destructive suicide. We should expect nothing less.

Hamas decided to build more rockets and attempt to terrorize Israelis into submission and curry more favor as every bleeding heart's sick puppy. What a terrible legacy they have brought to people of Gaza.

The Clash of Civilizations

I think it might be useful to directly engage the premise of the Clash of Civilizations and put some of that in context here.

First let me begin by stating my general position. As a first premise which must be stated I am perfectly comfortable with the inevitable intertwining of black and American destiny. I am, quite frankly, near the point at which I am hard pressed to understand any useful distinction except for historical purposes. We are all Americans. As Americans we remain in the exceptional position as the leader of the free world as we know it - the victors of WW2 and possessed of an economy, military and culture which dominates on the world stage.

We are engaged in an ideological war with a particular set of Muslims, formally the Jihadis, who are engaged in terrorist tactics aimed at undermining the confidence of citizens all over the world in American power. In that war, we have come to understand that the major figures of Jihadi leadership have employed twisted variants of Islam to justify their cause and encourage support from other Muslims.

At a metaphysical level, I am convinced that there is no reason, within the aegis of worldly affairs, for the great religions of the world to be in zero-sum conflict. This is a bold claim based on what I will call an evolutionary biological basis. If there are two methods for gaining knowledge, one from reason and one from revelation, then the evidence of that success lies in the content of the human mind. We must be endowed with the ability to perceive and judge that knowledge equally as humans by dint of the fact that we are biologically equivalent. If any man can receive Islam it is because any man can receive Christianity because any man can receive knowledge. At some level the source is irrelevant although respecting that source may have different behavioral manifestations. It is my hope that these behavioral manifestations, manners of worship if you will, do not take precedence over the value of the lesson to be learned, but I am aware of how the Jihadi perverts this.

To the Jihadi, it is the act of defending their knowledge that overwhelms the message of that knowledge. It may even be a perversion of that knowledge itself, a destructive feedback loop. The virtuous are those who destroy the infidel, and that is the sole virtue. Of course I am being succinct.

We are faced with the necessity of religious reconciliation during a time of war, and we are faced with the fact of a sophistication which is unevenly manifest around the globe whose strength in openness makes it vulnerable to the sort of attack which does not share its premises of open society.

I am interested, from the perspective of an emergent class of Americans, in probing the depths of Western Civilization. In some ways this is a massive undertaking, but I do have the advantage of having the spare time, which is a function of the relative freedom I have been able to achieve. It's nothing new, but it is new to me and my cohort. But I am particularly interested in preserving the progress and the context of the progress made in my particular endeavor, that of information technology. Yet I recognize that the world can live without it entirely. While it becomes a habit and even an enabling necessity, it like many other sophistications of the West, is under threat.

There can be no doubt that the Jihadi and any rebel has some validity to their cause. Nobody wishes to suffer and it is surely the fear of suffering that causes men to fight. But it could also be greed. It could be honor. Whatever the cause, we are all called to evaluate what it is that we have that is worth fighting for and our committment to its defense must be renewed.

So I open it up here (rather than continuing pontificative analysis). Are we in a real clash of civilizations? Is there a latent animosity between Christians and Muslims which might come to a head? Are our very conceptions of ourselves on the planet in conflict in such a way that may inevitably bring a global holy war? Has the West gone too far? Are we too sophisticated for the rest of the world and will they inevitably be the barbarians to destroy what we have built? Are we headed towards The Planet of the Apes?

The Return of Shinseki

Eric Shinseki is in the news. Obama is appointing him to head the VA. We haven't spent much time talking at Cobb about the particular angle that Shinseki did or did not play in the planning and execution of the Iraq War. All I can divine is that Shinseki said we needed a much bigger troop footprint in Iraq than Rumsfeld, and that Wolfowitz notoriously called Shinseki wildly mistaken. Wolfowitz subsequently backed off, saying he didn't know what he was talking about. I seem to recall that Shinseki marched off in a huff but has kept his mouth shut since then.

It can be suggested that Shinseki's entire objection to the Iraq War effort was vindicated by the successful redeployments known as the Surge. But what else are people likely to say?

Obama + Clinton + Gates = Bush - Doubt

It has been rather quiet, or perhaps I simply haven't paid much attention to the noise from the genuine Left and pacifists who are quickly realizing that they've been geopolitically bamboozled by the charms of Obama. Either way, so what? America's gotta do what America's gotta do.

For some time now, I have been keeping the spin of Thomas PM Barnett close to my ear, and in many ways the reformulation of the geopolitical face will have little bearing on the structure of the skeleton beneath. That is an American military skeleton whose bones have been broken, reset and reinforced by the Bush Administration, and it will be these bones that the Obama team will flesh out, walking with the same strides while appearing less strident.

In my archives vis a vis Obama and Barnett, I have several observations which appear with remarkably little dissent:

Obama The Neocon
Obama never once says that military force should be used only as a last resort. Rather, he insists that "no president should ever hesitate to use force -- unilaterally if necessary," not only "to protect ourselves . . . when we are attacked," but also to protect "our vital interests" when they are "imminently threatened." That's known as preemptive military action. It won't reassure those around the world who worry about letting an American president decide what a "vital interest" is and when it is "imminently threatened."

Nor will they be comforted to hear that "when we use force in situations other than self-defense, we should make every effort to garner the clear support and participation of others." Make every effort?

Conspicuously absent from Obama's discussion of the use of force are four words: United Nations Security Council.

The School of Schooling Obama
Now there was a time when I sidled up to Obama geopolitically and on the strength of Barnett's enthusiasm as someone who would straighten up and fly right if and when he got into the Oval Office. There has been little in his behavior to suggest otherwise since then. The fact is that the Right is invested in disbelieving him, and with Wright, they have their little race card. But I have always been interested to see how Obama and McCain debate foreign policy. Despite the fact that Samantha Power is out on her can for dubious reasons, Barnett remains convinced that Obama still has the team best equipped for dealing with the world as it is.

Petraeus Tail Wags the Obama Dog?
Barnett again reinforces his view that Obama would be a lot less likely to confront or countermand David Petraeus. This is a tough bit to swallow, and I wish I knew the entire scope of Barnett's Obama narrative, because the fact of the matter is that I like Petraeus more than I like McCain.

So here is where what I was saying about America under Bush continues to be the case with America under Obama:(emp new)

I dont' think we can much separate the goals of the Bush administrations favor with neoconservatism to the strategy and tactics applied by our forces in Iraq. Our forces are not pacifying Iraq by force, we are not arresting and detaining the male population and destroying the nation's ability to resist us. That's policy. Everybody admits that the Army has had to learn a new way to fight. Operation Iraqi Freedom is not merely a function of our military doing what it ordinarily does. Otherwise Somalia might be a different place today. So I don't buy the idea that American muscle in Sudan or any place else in the world would automatically be presenting us with humanitarian success.

In fact it was GW Bush's bold decision to use the US military in a long-term engagement in occupation and counter-insurgency that brings Americans to any hope of doing the world good. In previous administrations, American boots on the ground was not an option. Not in Desert Storm, not in Bosnia, not in Central America and not since Beirut and Vietnam. It has always been CIA Operations that has been used to try and achieve such geopolitical goals. CIA + Freedom Fighters. That's a mixed bag which is more spiders than candy.

The jury on neoconservative, proactive use of the US Military as an interventionist force is still out. It is why the Surge is so important. It's why Second Fallujah is so important. It's why Petraeus is so important. Victory in Iraq will embolden America to believe that its armed forces can topple dictatorships and lead towards democratic self-rule. Failure will mean war as usual.

David Brooks today echoes this through the 'sphere: (emp mine)

Some theoreticians may still talk about Platonic concepts like realism and neoconservatism, but the actual foreign policy doctrine of the future will be hammered out in a bottom-up process as the U.S. and its allies use their varied tools to build government capacity in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, the Philippines and beyond. Grand strategists may imagine a new global architecture built at high-level summits, but the real global architecture of the future will emerge organically from these day-to-day nation-building operations.

During the campaign, Barack Obama embraced Gates’s language. During his press conference on Monday, he used all the right code words, speaking of integrating and rebalancing the nation’s foreign policy capacities. He nominated Hillary Clinton and James Jones, who have been champions of this approach, and retained Gates. Their cooperation on an integrated strategy might prevent some of the perennial feuding between the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom and the National Security Council.

Yes, Obama's challenge is to get 'er done. But his face and Hilary's face are just faces. If we geopolitical neocons are correct, then Obama's army is going to be Rumsfeld's army and the lessons of Petraeus will continue to be the guiding light on the way forward. If Obama is to take up the cudgels against the Least Favored Nations, then he must do so with the new Army that Rumsfeld has built and Petraeus has shaped.

Now if we can only get Clinton to take this suggestion seriously...

Obama Gonna What? - Least Favored Nation: 2009 Edition

I'm going to submit five countries onto the international shitlist in advance of Hilary Clinton. I pretty much know what she's likely to say but still, just in case she doesn't. The following are the nations who should be clutching their 'nads in fear of American aggression.

Sudan
Sudan has gotten away with murder. And mass rape. And genocide. And tyranny, and a bunch of other uncomfortable things for way too long. It has been on the back burner and in the public consciousness for many years. There's basically no reason whatsoever that Americans should, now that about half of us are not under the illusion that we are an evil empire any longer, restrain ourselves from acting like an evil empire where Sudan is concerned. All we need is the right movie with starring George Clooney, and we can make this happen.

Pakistan
Like Christopher Hitchens said today, India is our friend. India is our incredibly good friend and I want somebody in the Clinton -- oops, slipped there. Obama Administration to take the easy kudos for saying so and making a lot of noise about it. Those freakin' retarded muslims in the northern partition have been double dealing for a very long time, and now that Musharraf is out and Bhutto is dead, we can all pretend that there are no real friends in Pakistan and start acting buck wild.

North Korea
Because.

Somalia
Somalia has got it coming. We have been swatting the flies off of their distended bellies for decades and what thanks do we get besides a really cool movie with Tom Sizemore? God I love Tom Sizemore. Nothing. That's what we get, humiliation and a lot of psuedo-intellectual back talk. But the problem is that Susan Rice and Jendayi Frazer have been doing the right thing diplomatically to no avail. Now we've got pirates. That's right, good old fashioned cutthroats on the high seas. They need to be drowned, quick fast and in a hurry. The longer they stay out there, the more other loser countries are going to think they can get away with this same kind of nonsense.  Put 'em down.

By the way, where's Temple3?

Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is trying to become the most disgustingly putrid economy in history. The inflation rate right now is somewhere around... well, put it this way. The price for everything doubles there every day. Economists are having to think of new ways of describing how awful the situation has become. So maybe we should just outsource their entire economy. Here's a new way for the US to become a non-violent aggressor. I mean while we're out there just buying every goddamned failed American bank, insurer and auto company, we might as well throw in a country or two. The only way in the world Robert Mugabe is going to be arrested is if he is a black man in America, so, make Zimbabwe American.

So that rounds out my semi-serious geopolitical strategy for BHO and HRC. When they touch base on those points, I will back them up. Otherwise, they're full of shit and should be ignored. As for Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran, well GWB already owns those. Barack is just the relief pitcher. He might get the save, but he doesn't get the win. And if he loses, it's all his fault.

Rice and Frazer for Africa

I caught some interesting verbiage in a Ghanaian editorial while updating my Somalia notebook.

Within the past 15 years, United States, for the first time, has implemented comprehensive Africa-wide policies that affect more people positively on the continent: President Bill Clinton left “Africa Growth and Opportunity Act” as United States’ legacy during his presidency and Pres. George W. Bush can make claim on America’s contribution towards Africa’s struggle with malaria and HIV-AIDS as his legacy. Thus, a question to ask, relevant to the discussion in this commentary, has to do with whether “President” Barack Obama would be willing, politically, to match or better what his previous two predecessors offered Africa.

The last time I was engaged with the issues of South East Africa, I was getting some BDS flack about how the US was only interested in destroying home rule in a 'clash of the civilizations' attack on Islamic courts. But Somalia's home rule has run amok and that apparent collapse of order has prompted the greatest increase in piracy we've seen in quite some time.

First world countries have tasked some serious ships to avert all that and protect trade.

Update from Filkins

Good stuff from one of the best guys on the ground.

A Few Debate Notes

The thing that strikes me most about Obama's debate performance Tuesday is how much his intentions for Afghanistan sound exactly like George W. Bush. But then when you hear the rest of his rhetoric about capturing or killing Osama Bin Ladin, you realize how little he cares for winning against the jihadi movement, and how little he has actually studied this problem.

Everything he says about pursuing Bin Ladin smacks of the old 'cut off the head and the snake will die' strategy. It's beyond wrong, it's foolish, especially given how he's just posing like a hawk on Pakistan. He is decidedly clumsy on matters of war, peace and diplomacy. The very nerve of him to call Musharraf a dictator on national TV is demonstration enough for me that his foreign policy would be a disaster.

It's about this time that I wish that Obama were debating Romney. Because even though Romney takes you right up to the limit of his knowledge, which is sometimes inadequate, at least he gets to the point quickly. Romney would have turned Obama into lawn clippings.

--
I listened to the debate after much hesitation. I really didn't want to. As soon as I heard Brokaw's voice and the two minute rule, I immediately thought that it's nothing more than a game show. Finally I relented.

Obama said nothing new in anything he presented. All of his responses sounded exactly like things I've heard him say before, and he never seemed to have time to give quick, direct responses to Brokaw's questions. Plus, he violated time limits. Still at least he didn't bore me to tears like Biden did, and he kept his cheeky colloquialisms to a minimum unlike Palin.

For the things that matter most to me, McCain was a clear winner, but not decidedly so. He simply didn't have the rhetorical skills to put Obama away, who was punching like Mike Tyson against Buster Douglas. If Obama is supposed to have these legendary oratorical skills, I didn't hear them, He sounded like an average politician to me. Then again, I've been listening to him say empty stuff to cheers for months now, I didn't expect any big words tonight.

Obama unabashedly puts himself in the position of saying that the past 8 years has killed the American dream. It was a strikingly stupid remark. Anyway I've decided to do a full annotation of the debate. Stay tuned.

What Happened in Iraq Yesterday?

I don't know and neither do you.

What I've heard is that recently the Iraqi Parliament is coming around to implementing more of the items off the 'political surge' and that GWBush has negotiated a reasonable timetable with the Iraqi government for troop withdrawals. Other than that, not much.

It's time to circle around. Apparently Dexter Filkins has confirmed what Michael Yon has been saying.

Iran: It's The Missiles, Stupid

Finally some UN weenies have come to their senses. This story is buried because it hurts BHO and his great white father newspapers friends in the liberal media are not going to let any bad news take any more air out of their little fantasy. Iran is redesigning its Korean missiles to carry nuclear payloads.

The U.N. nuclear agency has come to the same conclusion that many experts reached months ago: Iran is redesigning one of its missiles to accommodate a nuclear payload.

Officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) shared that assessment with representatives of 35 member nations on Tuesday. Analytical details were not provided, but the senior U.S. representative, Gregory Schulte, said the report shows that Iran has a weapons program.

In response, Tehran's senior emissary to the IAEA claimed that the information was "fabricated."

So has BHO updated his unconditional open hand to Crazy A? Where's that agenda of hope these days? Anybody care to guess?

On The Bush Doctrine

You won't find me talking much about 'The Bush Doctrine' around here at Cobb. In fact, the most clear and positive thing I've ever said about Bush, which I think should be his proper legacy has everything to do with his use of the Army and nothing to do with pre-emption.

What I have been saying consistently is that GWBush uses the US Armed Forces in a public, overt, coordinated way with full authorization of the US Congress, along with a compliant United Nations in coalition with multiple nations around the world. He is, in the best possible way, just like Dirty Harry. He is pointing the gun, there is no question he is pointing the gun. There is no question that he is the man behind the gun and there is no question about whether or not he is willing to use it. The only question is whether or not you want to defy him.

He is, also in the best possible way unlike Ronald Reagan who used subterfuge and deception and covert operations by the CIA against the specific laws enacted by Congress, sneaky, underhanded, half-assed and plausibly deniable. Against two bit ankle-biting countries. By GWBush standards, Ronald Reagan was a coward and a bully. That's the Bush Doctrine to me. Go in fighting in front of everybody. Call out your enemy, the Axis of Evil, and tell them to git on or get spit on.

Now. I want you to follow this link. It's going to give you names from Google about those people who advised and generated Bush's foreign policy thinking. Some if not most of them are PNACians. I've been a PNACian from the moment I heard about and understood their charter. What makes me ill is that those people who charge McCain of being a clone of GWBush in foreign policy neither recognize the role of the PNAC nor how it influenced Bush, much less how it compares with McCain's own worldview. They pretend that Sarah Palin should riff off exactly what the Bush critics' view of a Bush Doctrine without even being able to name the PNAC names themselves.

Even with the PNAC's existence as an influential moment in history, I find the Palin Dogpile unwilling and likely unable to articulate the evolution in the thinking of the parties involved. I recognized the limits. Which reminds me, I've got to go get Feith's book.

BTW, I think rational people shouldn't be surprised at the depth at which these operatives ply their trade. They've sunk their fangs into Wolfowitz and Bolton.

Obama's February Surprise

This story doesn't surprise me. I should have made a bigger deal when Bush announced the withdrawal last week. Obama wants Iraq to hold American troops until after the election. What a shock.

WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.

According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview.

A Stupid Question About Oil

One of the advantages of being smart is that you get to ask stupid questions without appearing stupid. Of course that doesn't stop rude people from suggesting that you are. So here's my stupid question of the day.

Aren't there those among opponents to the war in Iraq, especially those who feel deceived by the Bush administration claims of WMD, who want our oil? I cannot tell how many times I've seen the accusation here at Cobb and elsewhere that this war of occupation is all about oil. If the US truly needs oil then isn't there some expectation that along with bringing the troops home, that the US also bring home some oil?

Is there, anywhere in America people who look at the price of gasoline and say, Dammit I want my Iraqi oil? I mean seeing as it's not about 'freedom', or is it that we just punched the wrong country in the nose?

Pakistan: A Bipartisan New Front?

"These are the days of concrete and steel.
Everything is possible but nothing is real."
-- Corey Glover

One of the implications of the jabs at McCain that Obama lobbed in his 'caves' soundbite a week ago was that he would be willing to cross from Afghanistan into Pakistan. As I mentioned last Friday on NPR, this happens over Musharraf's dead body. Musharraf is now about as lame as GWBush. Actually lamer because his life may be in jeopardy - you know how it gets in Pakistan. News is trickling through that Bush is letting loose some dogs in cross-border skirmishes right now. So I would guess that there is some consensus in Washington that it's open season, or at least the beginning of open season in Pakistan.

I would keep an eye out for improvement in the American - Indian relationship, especially on military cooperation. Musharraf has been undermined by double crossers in the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI. And they most certainly have tossed a fair bit of disinformation our way. Though I haven't revisited in detail the ways to look at the three legs of the Pakistani political stalemate, it's clear that as uncle Pervez steps down, the central government is getting weaker. Whether that means jihadis in country are getting stronger is anybody's guess, but surely America at this interesting opportunity doesn't appear to be beholden to any Pakistani leader in particular. Now is a good time for some covert and special ops.

BTW. France's Sarkozy is making moves towards the puny and weak Syria.

I read all this as a kind of shoulder shrug of the great powers. Clearly our Democrats have no respect for the ideas of strong allied nations and overt forces of liberation against presidentially identified evildoers. And Bush hasn't been able to convince anyone for several years, even though it's working in Iraq. This augers for a lot more military advisors, Contra forces, deniable special forces ops and the like - which is just what I think is happening in northern Pakistan as we speak.

If McCain gets elected, he is likely to continue with the shift of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, especially if Petraeus makes the case for a reasonable drawdown. The political prize of nabbing bin Laden, no matter how anti-Westphalian the means, has got to be too big a temptation to resist for the price of Vietnam & Nicaragua-style deniable ops. I cannot imagine that Obama would resist it given his calculations of individual solidier's lives over strategic military objectives. Who can doubt McCain wouldn't also slide a few of those troops over the nebulous border regions?

If the bad war is Iraq and Iran and the good war is in Afghanistan, and the deniable war is on Pakistani soil, is there no one to stop McCain or Obama? Yes, there is no one. After all, to whom in Pakistan is America accountable?

On Foreign Policy - What McCain Might Be Thinking

My man Benzon pointed this review of Phillip Bobbitt by Niall Ferguson several months ago. I just read it. Now is the time to connect the dots between what McCain might be thinking and what Bobbitt has said. While I still think in terms of Barnett, I know he has updated the Pentagon's New Map which is several years old now. Barnett wants to be a change agent in an Obama administration but I can't square his tolerance of Putin.

It is becoming clearer to me that McCain has stood up clearly against GTMO for symbolic but also good reasons. I still blame Congress for not being proactive in making a reasonably modified legality work for Bush, whose intent has been right. Well, here's the paras:

So how should you fight terror? Like the British soldier-philosopher Rupert Smith, Bobbitt argues that the Bush administration blundered in Iraq by waging the wrong kind of war. As a victory over a suspected rogue nation-state, Operation Iraqi Freedom was a triumph. But the “war amongst the people” that then had to be waged to convert Iraq into an ally in the war on terror was a fiasco. Bush had wanted an old-style victory-with-parades. In these new wars there can be no such resolution (hence Bobbitt’s earlier coinage, “the long war,” which a more sober Bush briefly adopted).

To make matters worse, the Bush administration has seemed to glory in its contempt for the rule of law, even as it has posed as the exporter of freedom. A member of the Democratic Party (and nephew of Lyndon Johnson), Bobbitt is damning about the deficiencies of the Patriot Act, the “prison colony” at Guantánamo Bay, the use of torture and the willful evasion of existing law that has accompanied it. Yet many of his fellow Democrats (not to mention many libertarians on the right) will be stopped short by what Bobbitt says next.

Bush’s instinct was not wrong. In this war, we do need pre-emptive detention of suspected terrorists; we do need a significant increase of surveillance, particularly of electronic communications; we do need, in some circumstances, to use coercive techniques (short of torture) to elicit information from terrorists. The administration’s fatal mistake was its failure to understand that these things could be achieved by appropriate modifications of the law. By doing what indeed was needed, but doing it outside the law, the administration undermined the legitimacy of American policy at home as well as abroad. Bobbitt is emphatic: all branches of government must act in conformity with the Constitution and the law.

With lawyerly precision, Bobbitt explores the classic conundrum of the “ticking bomb”: a detainee very likely has knowledge of a concealed explosive device that, if detonated, will kill thousands. In such a case, because the ends really do justify the means, the right thing may indeed be to torture him. But doing so, Bobbitt argues, can never be legal. The torturer would have to stand trial for his action, though with the strong presumption that he would be acquitted if he had succeeded in averting a disaster. Under less extreme circumstances, Bobbitt suggests, it should be possible for government agents to use coercive methods short of torture (sleep deprivation, truth drugs), but only with the prior approval of a jury.

In that last paragraph, Bobbitt uses what I am now calling the 'Man on Fire' scenario after the Denzel Washington movie - that we may have our own type of 'legal suicide' agents who would be sacrificed to our legal system in order that they may pay the price of freedom to safeguard consent. I think it goes one step further than my 'Monsters on a Leash' which is essentially the Bush doctrine of not ruling out anything, but trust us, we're Americans. I think anyone who genuinely had issues with GTMO and waterboarding as elements of the Bush Administration that went too far, must be put at ease by McCain's hardlines.

With regard to what I had been saying about International ID and The Last ID and Posner's CT Circuit which seemed to perplex too many of my readers, I'll simply say this: Everything that Alberto Gonzales got in trouble over with regards to updating the definition of enemy combattants under the Geneva Convention - which ultimately resulted in civil rights being given to Hamdan who is not a citizen is what I'm talking about. We ought to seriously reconsider who is whom. Again, if we are not exporting liberty, then we have no Constitutional authority to treat foreigners as protected by the US Constitution. If we are we need several very well defined shades of grey, issuing from our Congress and State Department. Now. McCain's elimination of torture and torture-like practices does not fundamentally alter the standing of domestic terrorists and enemies in the long war. We need to stop treating jihadi enemies of the West and of the state as mere criminals and their entry into the US as criminal tresspass. They're spies, at least. Bobbitt understands something profound, I think, about this grey area.

Anyway, I want to know that McCain has considered Bobbitt. We are evolving neoconservative geopolitics here.

Bomblets Again

Somebody must have told Dani Sevilla about my problems with cluster bombs. You see, Sevilla represents Survivor Corps and they are testifying to the fact that Russia has used them against civilians in Georgia. I was contacted by Dani again today. I don't really know much about Survivor Corps, but I don't care. When it comes to cluster bombs, well, it kind of ruins my objectivity.

Back in the day when I was a freshly minted yuppie, I got all sorts of unexpected phonecalls to my new office in Southern California. Merrill Lynch wanted to offer me investment advice. The United Negro College Fund wanted my contribution. Amnesty International called me personally. They informed me first about what was up in Namibia, and then they told me about how the bad guys put shiny objects on cluster munitions in Afghanistan so that they would be attractive to children. Up until that moment I only had abstract ways of describing evil, a second later I was nearly puking up my lunch.

Many years later I had hoped to become the sort of man I couldn't be before - that could face harsh realities, and maybe I am. Maybe I'm not. But I'm certainly not so hard-eyed and pragmatic that I can take this kind of information without blinking. It still gets me in the gut. I cannot be politically correct in any direction when it comes to cluster bombs, and it doesn't matter what the reason. I'm scared to death of drowning and I'm one of those who still could make excuses for waterboarding. But a weapon that's designed to literally cost you an arm and a leg, I cannot under any circumstances put up with it. It just has that kind of emotional impact on me.

So there's two things to do. Number one go check out Survivor Corps' website and deal with that reality. Number two, forgive me for not giving any rationale or doing any homework like my usual skeptical self. Like I said, I just can't deal with the bomblets. I don't see why we should put up with anybody who does. Damn you Putin.

Burma, Sudan & Zimbabwe

Listen to John McCain all the way until he gets to Burma, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Unless you listen this long, you don't get it. OK, wait until he talks about excluding Russia from the G8 and including India and Brazil. The man is on it. Watch the whole thing. Well, up until the political ads.

Georgia: Scrap Metal, Fruits & Nuts

Call it confirmation bias or whatever. I have been looking for a way to not get too excited about this whole Georgian thing. Spengler gives me ammo:

Forget the Kosovo Albanians, the South Ossetians, the Abkhazians, Saakashvili and the Dalai Lama. These are relics of an older world that might deserve their own theme park, but not their own state. Precisely what are 3.8 million freedom-loving Georgians supposed to contribute to American strategic interests with its US$2 billion a year of exports consisting (according to the Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook) of "scrap metal, wine, mineral water, ores, vehicles, fruits and nuts"? Georgia's hope was to lever its geographical position on the Russia border by making itself useful to the American military.

From a purely moral perspective, there is something to be said about Putin's aggression. But something kept itching me about Beslan. Wasn't it those pesky Ossetians that started that whole mess back in the day? I found myself in the dubious position of not wanting to be Putin, but wanting to give them the smackdown. And now Georgia plays a fledgling democracy hand, but clearly the EU wanted nothing to do with them. Further, we know we really wouldn't have gone ballistic for Georgia. So we didn't need them in NATO either. For chrissake they can't even field a two man volleyball team without Brazil.

So I am rather content to just think about as much of Georgia as I had previously, which is not much at all.

Putin Blowback?

Although I was sorely tempted, I resisted the opportunity to hear out Georgian president S. on Glenn Beck's show last night. I've got my mind made up already and with few exceptions I don't need any emotional pleas. I'm convinced that Putin / Medvedev are getting away with murder, and that this move, as far as the American Left and Right are concerned is moving rather like last summer's Israeli/Hezbollah conflict.

The odd thing is that the American peaceniks are basically silent in their criticism of Putin and instead are blaming Bush for setting up a 'world' where this kind of aggression is acceptable. Rather than dignify that logic, I'd like for those who read here to say such things in their own words in the proper context, instead of sideways like this:

Also we don't have the moral authority to say a damn thing to anyone anymore after invading Iraq on false pretenses, and have been mumbling about doing the same to Iran. Period, end of story.

Because if 'we' don't have the moral authority to say a damn thing, what exact kind of moral authority do we get for being first to commit ships and planes towards humanitarian assistance to Georgia, as we have? It's not as if the Left is even backing up their own candidate's denunciation on this, but expect to get some political traction out of saying stuff like:

The current administration is scratching its head and stumbling and fumbling for a coherent response. Bubba McCain is rootin and tootin with a full chaw of wikipedia powering his foreign policy and national security pronouncements.

It doesn't take more than a few ounces of brain to see that Russia has failed to create a commonwealth in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and has been rattling sabers for several months. But it is interesting that Putin has suggested that we Americans have it backwards, that they Russia are the good guys and the Georgians are the bad guys. The only reason I give a moment's pause on that is because of the horror of Beslan four years ago.

I'm still not fooled by Putin's fake cease fire, any more than anyone should be fooled by the fact that there's a lot of 'trust but verify' in the American humanitarian response. Not to mention the fact that it's already public knowledge that columns of Russian armor has changed directions. We can be sure that the NRO is all over this and we know more than we say about troop movements in Georgia every hour.

The world is getting more interesting day by day, but spare me arguments that this is Bush's doing.

Allegory

This is a great video that presents an excellent argument against nuclear proliferation. If you have the patience and something of a strong stomach, it is worth watching all the way through.

The way I see things, technology is enabling, and idiot-proof technology empowers idiots. This video game, World of Warcraft is just that sort of technology. It is democratized, like many technologies become, and it leverages a class of individuals who are incapable of building the game, but quite capable of mastering the game. But it is not the question of whether people are smart or not, rather it is whether or not they have character which is based on the defense of democratic principles. Here you have Athene, who is rather obviously powerful in the virtual world of Warcraft who makes a very competitive living by keeping people alive that he doesn't respect. He is in a position of power and games the system by appearing to be generous, but he is clearly ruthless and megalomaniacal.

I expect that the experience of seeing the man behind the curtain, as it were, in all sorts of global pursuits will swing the pendulum back towards nationalism. Unless and until there are classic liberal values behind powerful government regimes, this kind of shock is inevitable. I say that with the assumption, of course, that my audience shares the values and ethics which find the person of Athene thoroughly disagreeable.   

Korean Beef

According to a quick glance, South Korea does about 78 billion dollars of business with the US annually. However they stopped the importing of American beef five years ago out of fears of mad cow disease. That strikes me as strange. We've never had a problem. Some may say that mad cow is inevitable in all beef supplies, but that doesn't seem a cogent argument against ours. It's about 20 billion worth of business that we've been doing without and in April the Bush Administration signed a deal to restart the flow. That's a lot of beef.

Well it turns out that South Koreans don't trust American beef, no matter what kind of deals our governments have put together. And so thousands filled the streets recently to throw down against riot cops in the streets of Seoul. The Democrats are opposed to the trade agreement between Korea's Lee Myung-bak and GWBush, but it's unclear why. Lee has something like a 25% approval rating in his home country, and there is probably no easier way to excuse any behavior in the US than saying it's the opposite of what GWBush would do. So the South Korean government is caving in by playing on what appears to be a popular idea that cows younger than 30 months old are less susceptible to BSE. Don't ask me about how prion-based infections work, half the websites I looked for on BSE are down (except for PETA's of course).

Bottom line politically is that it comes down to a matter of trust. The number of people who are going to be able to make any actual determination on the quality of American beef is not going to change significantly. The Koreans in the street are going to take it on faith, just as they are taking it on faith that American beef is unsafe. There's an interesting unravelling going on here.

My interest in this is based on my own kind of information theory with regard to the ability of people to establish and maintain policy that is both transparent and well-abstracted. I will follow up in that regard again in speaking about how politics makes people emotionally deranged and affects their willingness to distinguish Natural Truth from Political Truth.

You see there's a bioengineered solution to the problem just at hand. But what Venter understands is that engineered genomics is predictable whereas random DNA fiddling is not. That is precisely the difference between bioengineering and agriculture.