To survive, let alone succeed, Islamists and Jihadists need the support of the Islamic communities in which they are attempting to operate. Wannabe governments, guerrillas, even terrorists, need shelter, support, and assistance.
They need people!
This is particularly true in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan where the Islamist/Jihadist entities are waging war. It's just here, in the war zones, that the Islamists are blowing it the worst.
In North Waziristan the "foreigners," primarily from Uzbekistan, have been hanging around since the US led invasion. At first they were well received by the locals since they were both well armed and well disciplined. More recently as pressure has increased, the Uzbek guerrillas have been making exactions and imposing severe interpretations of Islamic law on the Tribal residents. Now, the foreigners have been given unmistakable notice that they have outworn their welcome. The locals have started shooting them.
Tough luck, boys. Guess you'll have to be moving on. Go north, young Uzbek. NATO and the Americans, to say nothing of the Afghans, are waiting.
In Helmand province, the local Taliban types have backed off from sternly enforcing their dictates on fashion and musical tastes. They still state what they believe is required of good Muslims in these areas of personal life. But, they no longer slit throats or heave stones. This change in behavior may be because they hope to take part in potential peace talks with the central government. It is equally, if not more, likely that the locals were chafing under the restrictive Taliban worldview and were tilting toward more active support of the Kabul government and its outside supporters.
Live long and perhaps prosper, Talibanista.
In Iraq, the popularity of al-Qaeda in Iraq and akin groups has been hitting the tank in recent months. This has been exhibited in the increasing factionation within the al-Qaeda leaning amphyctony. It has been underscored by the recent audio tape issued by Icon-In-Hiding Osama bin Laden bemoaning the fissioning process.
More to the point, the alienation of the population by the zealots of Islamism through such measures as cutting the fingers off people caught smoking and similar condign punishments for equally important violations of Islamic law as interpreted by theological deep thinkers has assured a mighty uptick in the effectiveness of US efforts to recruit local Concerned Citizens ready and willing to dime out the blackhats. This in turn has brought a decrease in enemy initiated actions.
Increased effectiveness by pro-government forces coupled with decreased enemy initiated actions means fewer people are being killed. This means the governmental simulacrum in Baghdad has a (short in all probability) chance to demonstrate that it is a government in fact, not simply in title.
Back during the long, long confrontation between the US and the West on the one side and the Soviet Union on the other, the greatest support for the American cause came from people of the political left. People who had come very close to the flame of communism and had been badly burned for their effort. These individuals, whether in Western Europe or the US, were the best informed and most resolute opponents of Communism.
We have to take a firm grip on that lesson of recent history.
Muslims, particularly those who have come close to the fire of Islamism and have lived to tell of it, are the most important ally in the current struggle against the Islamists and Jihadists. They know and understand from up close and personal experience just what the real life, real world impact of the Islamist worldview is. We must use this powerful aid.
Often during the First Cold War of 1945-1991 Americans made the mistake of ignoring the experiences of ex-communists, of people from the far Left who backed away toward the center. We acted as if they were forever polluted by their experiences. Contaminated. Political lepers.
Or, as was often the case with Europeans of the Left who did not agree with the totality of American policy, we cast them into the category, "Commie!" We didn't simply ignore them or quarantine them. No. We condemned them.
All too often the world for Americans was artificially divided. Them or US. America! Love it or Hate it!
We cannot make that mistake again. The Muslims, particularly those who have lived with or under Islamist domination, are critical assets. We must welcome them as partners in struggle.
We have to let al-Qaeda, Taliban, and the other Islamists commit the blunder of alienating the people without whose support they have no hope of even surviving.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
The Geek Makes A Confession--And A Demand
Once upon a time the Geek flirted with being an ant-anti-communist. That was the inevitable result of having come of age in the Sixties after years of anti-communist indoctrination in the public school system.
(Perhaps you remember those days too. Duck and cover. My Weekly Reader with primitive political cartoons showing a red octopus holding the globe in his tentacles. Maybe you even collected the bubble gum cards featuring commie atrocities.)
If you are chronologically disadvantaged, you may have read or heard of the dismal days of the Great American Anti-Communist Crusade, better known as the Era of Great Fear or the Age of McCarthyism. Those were the days of blacklists. The days of loyalty oaths. The time of shrill demands to know, "Are you now or have you ever been...?"
By the time the Vietnam Debacle ended and Nixon left the White House covered in Watergate disgrace, the cause of anti-communism seemed dead. American communists and the wide assortment of fellow-travellers were seen as the victims of the worst sort of political assassination. Anti-communists were lumped together with J. Edgar Hoover and the wacky loonie-tunes Billy James Hargis sort as violators of the First Amendment at best and out and out Hitler clones at worst.
Even the most respectable anti-communists such as Paul Nitze, Norman Podhoeritz, and Alexander Solozhenitsyn were branded as mentally disturbed, neo-conservative warmongers, or throwbacks to the Stone Age of the Cold War.
Anti-anti-communism was one feature of a generation's defining mythology. The spirit of anti-anti-communism merged with other streams to form the current American focus on sensitivity, diversity, and the belief that there are no fixed, absolute ethical standards which apply to all people, all cultures, at all times and places.
This combination of over-sensitivity and fear of seeming to be reactionary has become a barrier to success in the new Cold War forced upon us by the Islamists.
Without standards of conduct, it is impossible for us to know what we are for--as well as what we must oppose in others.
Without real and absolute benchmarks, it is all to easy to fall prey to Islamists or their sympathisers accusing us of false crimes, for example, religious persecution. The cry of "Islamophobia" is hurled at anyone who takes a jaundiced look at the goals and methods of the Islamists and their armed component, Jihadism.
As a current example of this abuse see, http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200710/CUL20071031b.html.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has been eager to heave the Islamophobia grenade at any person, organisation, or group in the West which finds some Islamist gambit such as issuing a fatwa of death on the Danish cartoonist who put Mohammad's head on a dog's body objectionable. The OIC has been working the halls and lobbies of the UN long and hard in an attempt to enlist support in its effort to outlaw free speech in the West.
Free speech is a good candidate for an absolute standard. Authoritarian movements and regimes ranging from Nazism to Communism to Islamism are defined in large measure by their need to prohibit free speech. Liberal, democratic nations and peoples are in large part defined by free and open speech (even by their bitter, internal fights over what speech should or should not be protected.)
One of the most objectionable and self-defeating features of the Great American Anti-Communist Crusade was the willingness to curtail free speech in the interests of "protecting" Americans (particularly young ones) against the blandishments of Communism. It is a cliche to assert that the answer to "bad" speech is more speech.
Cliche? Yes. But, like all cliches this one contains a large grain of truth.
There is no Gresham's Law in speech. Bad speech need not automatically drive out good.
It is no wonder that Islamists all the way back to Qtub loath free speech, particularly as practiced in the United States. Freedom of speech leads to any number of other social and political features which are anathema to Islamists as they have been to other authoritarians.
You want some examples? The Geek is happy to oblige. You can add to the list.
The dignity of the individual is one.
Equality is another. (Feel free to add all the ways in which equality can manifest itself.)
Then there are advancement, evolution, and change. (Again the ways in which these can take form are legion.)
This gives some basis for the Geek's contention that freedom of speech is an absolute standard by which we can measure ourselves--and know our enemies.
There are other standards which may be advanced as well. During the Cold War between the US and USSR many were suggested. Political pluralism was one. Another was the freedom of the individual to practice a religion without the permission or hindrance of the state. Still another was the right of private property ownership. Yet another was access to economic opportunity without state interference or the necessity of party authorization. Then there was the right to travel, to move freely within a state, or to emigrate.
Arguably, these are all standards by which a country's or a movement's commitment to the dignity, opportunity, and integrity of the individual might be measured. Some can be defined as absolutes. Others are inherently conditional.
Be that as it may, we Americans--and all of us threatened by Islamism's global goals--must develop and at least tacitly agree on a set of standards. Only by doing this can we advance our cause by knowing what we are for.
Only by doing this, by developing and firmly enunciating a set of absolutes, can we assure that the opposition does not engage in the same successful tactic as did the anti-anti-communists of thirty and more years ago. To succeed against a challenge at least as severe as that posed by the Soviet Union, we must not allow the moral high ground to pulled from under our feet by shrieks of "insensitivity!" or "religious persecution!" or, worst of all, "Islamophobia!"
Only by knowing and declaring what we are for, will we ever know what and who wer're against.
(Perhaps you remember those days too. Duck and cover. My Weekly Reader with primitive political cartoons showing a red octopus holding the globe in his tentacles. Maybe you even collected the bubble gum cards featuring commie atrocities.)
If you are chronologically disadvantaged, you may have read or heard of the dismal days of the Great American Anti-Communist Crusade, better known as the Era of Great Fear or the Age of McCarthyism. Those were the days of blacklists. The days of loyalty oaths. The time of shrill demands to know, "Are you now or have you ever been...?"
By the time the Vietnam Debacle ended and Nixon left the White House covered in Watergate disgrace, the cause of anti-communism seemed dead. American communists and the wide assortment of fellow-travellers were seen as the victims of the worst sort of political assassination. Anti-communists were lumped together with J. Edgar Hoover and the wacky loonie-tunes Billy James Hargis sort as violators of the First Amendment at best and out and out Hitler clones at worst.
Even the most respectable anti-communists such as Paul Nitze, Norman Podhoeritz, and Alexander Solozhenitsyn were branded as mentally disturbed, neo-conservative warmongers, or throwbacks to the Stone Age of the Cold War.
Anti-anti-communism was one feature of a generation's defining mythology. The spirit of anti-anti-communism merged with other streams to form the current American focus on sensitivity, diversity, and the belief that there are no fixed, absolute ethical standards which apply to all people, all cultures, at all times and places.
This combination of over-sensitivity and fear of seeming to be reactionary has become a barrier to success in the new Cold War forced upon us by the Islamists.
Without standards of conduct, it is impossible for us to know what we are for--as well as what we must oppose in others.
Without real and absolute benchmarks, it is all to easy to fall prey to Islamists or their sympathisers accusing us of false crimes, for example, religious persecution. The cry of "Islamophobia" is hurled at anyone who takes a jaundiced look at the goals and methods of the Islamists and their armed component, Jihadism.
As a current example of this abuse see, http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200710/CUL20071031b.html.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has been eager to heave the Islamophobia grenade at any person, organisation, or group in the West which finds some Islamist gambit such as issuing a fatwa of death on the Danish cartoonist who put Mohammad's head on a dog's body objectionable. The OIC has been working the halls and lobbies of the UN long and hard in an attempt to enlist support in its effort to outlaw free speech in the West.
Free speech is a good candidate for an absolute standard. Authoritarian movements and regimes ranging from Nazism to Communism to Islamism are defined in large measure by their need to prohibit free speech. Liberal, democratic nations and peoples are in large part defined by free and open speech (even by their bitter, internal fights over what speech should or should not be protected.)
One of the most objectionable and self-defeating features of the Great American Anti-Communist Crusade was the willingness to curtail free speech in the interests of "protecting" Americans (particularly young ones) against the blandishments of Communism. It is a cliche to assert that the answer to "bad" speech is more speech.
Cliche? Yes. But, like all cliches this one contains a large grain of truth.
There is no Gresham's Law in speech. Bad speech need not automatically drive out good.
It is no wonder that Islamists all the way back to Qtub loath free speech, particularly as practiced in the United States. Freedom of speech leads to any number of other social and political features which are anathema to Islamists as they have been to other authoritarians.
You want some examples? The Geek is happy to oblige. You can add to the list.
The dignity of the individual is one.
Equality is another. (Feel free to add all the ways in which equality can manifest itself.)
Then there are advancement, evolution, and change. (Again the ways in which these can take form are legion.)
This gives some basis for the Geek's contention that freedom of speech is an absolute standard by which we can measure ourselves--and know our enemies.
There are other standards which may be advanced as well. During the Cold War between the US and USSR many were suggested. Political pluralism was one. Another was the freedom of the individual to practice a religion without the permission or hindrance of the state. Still another was the right of private property ownership. Yet another was access to economic opportunity without state interference or the necessity of party authorization. Then there was the right to travel, to move freely within a state, or to emigrate.
Arguably, these are all standards by which a country's or a movement's commitment to the dignity, opportunity, and integrity of the individual might be measured. Some can be defined as absolutes. Others are inherently conditional.
Be that as it may, we Americans--and all of us threatened by Islamism's global goals--must develop and at least tacitly agree on a set of standards. Only by doing this can we advance our cause by knowing what we are for.
Only by doing this, by developing and firmly enunciating a set of absolutes, can we assure that the opposition does not engage in the same successful tactic as did the anti-anti-communists of thirty and more years ago. To succeed against a challenge at least as severe as that posed by the Soviet Union, we must not allow the moral high ground to pulled from under our feet by shrieks of "insensitivity!" or "religious persecution!" or, worst of all, "Islamophobia!"
Only by knowing and declaring what we are for, will we ever know what and who wer're against.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Who's King Abdullah Kidding?
The present head of the House on Sand, King Abdullah, told BBC (through an interpreter, so there's an escape hatch open if things get too hot) that his government(?) informed British intelligence and security organs of the upcoming attack on the London subway system on 7 July 05. His Royalness further averred that the British failed to act on the information.
Yeah. Right.
In the opposite corner is the British Parliament. Last year the House of Commons' Intelligence and Security Committee found no evidence that any specific information existed which could have led to a successful interdiction of the bombings.
Who do you think is more credible?
Parliament, rather like the US Congress in the wake of 9/11, was after scalps more than fixes. If there had been any gripless wallahs in any of the intelligence and security agencies, the Parliamentarians would have wasted no time lifting the offender's hair. The deaths of over fifty British civilians were enough to assure the low likelihood of a whitewash or cover up.
Then there is King Abdullah.
Admittedly, this Grand Panjandrum of the Dunes is seen as the most "liberal," "progressive" of the six Saudi chieftains of modern times. It has been widely reported that he, unlike his predecessors, is working night and day to curb the omnipresent influence of the Wahhabist clergy. It has also been bruited about that this king, again unlike all of those before him, has been really, really trying to bring Saudi Arabia beyond being a medieval patch of sand with oceans of oil below.
Sure. Yeah. Right.
In so far as the jihad promises to come home to roost on the oil, blood, and sand from which it sprang, the Good King is anxious to enlist the self-interested support of the Wahhabists. Stability is the goal as well in the few other "modernising, liberalising, progressive" changes in Saudi economic, political, and social life which Abdullah has sought.
The Geek would advise the King and his consorts to keep four words in mind: actions on the objective.
Actions, my dear kingness, as the cliche runs, speak louder than words.
The following actions seem to be in order. Shut down Saudi support for the oodles of mosques and madrassas in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere which preach the messages of Islamism and Jihadism. Cooperate completely (and as transparently as genuine security needs allow) with the the UK, the US, and others in stopping the flow of money to Islamist/Jihadist groups. Halt the flow of wannabe jihadists from Saudi Arabia.
Those actions would be a necessary beginning. If done, there would be reason to take King Abdullah seriously as a partner in the current confrontation with Islamism. Without actions, Abdullah's words are no more than a hot desert wind.
Yeah. Right.
In the opposite corner is the British Parliament. Last year the House of Commons' Intelligence and Security Committee found no evidence that any specific information existed which could have led to a successful interdiction of the bombings.
Who do you think is more credible?
Parliament, rather like the US Congress in the wake of 9/11, was after scalps more than fixes. If there had been any gripless wallahs in any of the intelligence and security agencies, the Parliamentarians would have wasted no time lifting the offender's hair. The deaths of over fifty British civilians were enough to assure the low likelihood of a whitewash or cover up.
Then there is King Abdullah.
Admittedly, this Grand Panjandrum of the Dunes is seen as the most "liberal," "progressive" of the six Saudi chieftains of modern times. It has been widely reported that he, unlike his predecessors, is working night and day to curb the omnipresent influence of the Wahhabist clergy. It has also been bruited about that this king, again unlike all of those before him, has been really, really trying to bring Saudi Arabia beyond being a medieval patch of sand with oceans of oil below.
Sure. Yeah. Right.
In so far as the jihad promises to come home to roost on the oil, blood, and sand from which it sprang, the Good King is anxious to enlist the self-interested support of the Wahhabists. Stability is the goal as well in the few other "modernising, liberalising, progressive" changes in Saudi economic, political, and social life which Abdullah has sought.
The Geek would advise the King and his consorts to keep four words in mind: actions on the objective.
Actions, my dear kingness, as the cliche runs, speak louder than words.
The following actions seem to be in order. Shut down Saudi support for the oodles of mosques and madrassas in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere which preach the messages of Islamism and Jihadism. Cooperate completely (and as transparently as genuine security needs allow) with the the UK, the US, and others in stopping the flow of money to Islamist/Jihadist groups. Halt the flow of wannabe jihadists from Saudi Arabia.
Those actions would be a necessary beginning. If done, there would be reason to take King Abdullah seriously as a partner in the current confrontation with Islamism. Without actions, Abdullah's words are no more than a hot desert wind.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
The Geek Is Getting Rankled!
Previous posts show that the Geek is no cheerleader for the mullahocracy in Tehran. They have also demonstrated that the Geek is no war lover even though he accepts that war has its place in the spectrum of foreign policy.
Most of all, the sum of the Geek's posts underscore his utter contempt for policy decisions that are rooted (if that word is relevant in this context) in the gonads and viscera. Policies decisions that ignore historical trajectories. Policy choices that emerge from a vile combination of hopes or fears and domestic political calculations.
This brings the Geek to Iran. More particularly it brings the Geek to the subject of the Republicans vs the Mullahs.
At the often ignored center of the current confrontation between the Commander Guy on the one side and the Orator-in-Chief on the other is the International Atomic Energy Agency and its present director, Mohammed ElBaradei. The IAEA is charged with the responsibility of assuring member nations abide by the provisions of the treaties governing the peaceful use of atomic energy and nuclear weapon non-proliferation.
Get a grip on this.
The IAEA exists because the United States called it into existence.
"What!" You say.
That's right. Fifty years ago this year, President Dwight Eisenhower, in what many both at the time and later considered his finest speech, called upon the United Nations to create an agency dedicated to bringing atomic energy's potentials for benefit to all the nations of the world. He pledged not only complete American cooperation but even the provision of nuclear knowledge, technology, and materials for use under the agency's supervision.
Ike needed to use massive political arm twisting here at home to force changes in the extremely restrictive American laws governing nuclear matters. He did it. The laws were changed. The IAEA came into existence.
When asked about the IAEA years later, Ike reportedly looked out the window of his Gettysburg home, mused for a moment and answered with his famous smile, "It's working better than I hoped."
Taken as a whole, the IAEA has worked remarkably well over its fifty year life so far. It seems to be working rather well even with the obvious Iranian intransigence right now. Arguably, it would work even better if the current administration let it do its job.
It is reported that Mohammed ElBaradei sees no evidence of the Iranians being anywhere near the possession of an atomic bomb. In a companion remark, the IAEA head shows an appropriate degree of skepticism, "We have information that there has been maybe some studies about possible weaponization. That's why we have said that we cannot give Iran a pass right now, because there is still a lot of question marks." (Quote from The International Herald Tribune on-line http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/10/28/america/NA-GEN-US-Iran.php.)
The skeptical view is well taken. Iran has been playing games from hell over their self-proclaimed peaceful project to produce electricity. Given their record of obfuscation, tergiversation, and flat out lying, anything less would be foolhardy. (Now comes the big, BUT.)
Skepticism is not what the current administration has been exhibiting in recent months and weeks. Instead, the current administration has been acting as if it had proof-positive that the Iranians were not only seeking to obtain nuclear weapons but were on the very verge of doing so.
Unless one wishes to posit that the chest-thumping, crotch-pulling stridency coming from the mouths of the Commander Guy, the Veep, and assorted presidential wannabes is simply a successful attempt to boost oil company profits by driving the spot-market price of crude to record highs, the only explanation for their behavior is cognitive deficiency.
Kind of a "don't bother me with wimpy little facts, I wanna kick some ass" attitude. This sort of orientation might make both the utterer of threats and many of the audience feel good, but it is not the sort of approach that has shown positive results historically.
Get a grip on this--
Outside pressure consolidates the cohesion and political will of the target government and its citizens, (Think about how you make a snowball.)
Yeah, bucko, that's right. Pick up a handful of loose snow. Press it. Press it long enough and hard enough, the flakes become a solid mass. Press on it long enough and hard enough and what happens?
That's right. The snowball becomes an ice ball.
Repeat after the Geek, "Pressure consolidates long before it fractures."
Did that? Good. Now you have a major, basic fact of foreign policy which has totally eluded the current administration.
Our ill-considered approach has had the following negative effects. It has liberated the mullahocracy from much of the domestic unrest which would have been making its life miserable given the current economic condition of Iran and the demographics of the Iranian population. It has given the mullahocracy reason to be even more intransigent than would otherwise have been the case. It has forced the mullahocracy to invest the totality of national prestige and regime legitimacy in the nuclear issue and closely related matters.
Now, get a grip on this.
Our approach to the Iranians has helped two countries hostile to the US: the Peoples' Republic of China and Russia. Apparently the current administration hasn't gotten the word. Anything that diverts the US into unproductive, expensive, and influence draining side tracks hurts the US and helps these two adversaries.
Make no mistake about it. Regardless of the hopes of some Americans such as the "gobalism-will-solve-all" crowd, Walmart, and other business interests, China shares few, if any, national interests with the United States. Again, regardless of the hopes (or fears) of some Americans, Russia has not shed its fundamentally authoritarian inclination nor its historic feeling of inferiority compared to the West. Russians have been asking that most troublesome of all questions, the question which produced European Fascism, the question which underlies Islamism.
The Question?
"We were once great; now we are so small. Why?"
The policies of the current administration have encouraged the Russians to ask the Question. The policies of the current administration regarding Iran are encouraging both Moscow and Beijing to take actions which are best described as a form of diplomatic proxy war.
The new sanctions announced by the current administration are a justified gambit, particularly if the Europeans (perhaps convinced by a re-awakened "Crazy American Hypothesis") prove willing to join them despite economic losses to European businesses.
If so, then the emotional diatribes and not-so-veiled threats coming from the current administration can be rationalised, if not fully justified. Yet, the time for red meat rhetoric has passed. The time has come for some silence from the White House (and the campaign trail.)
If the Republicans (or at least the neocon ninnie component of that party) cannot remember Dwight Eisenhower who both created the IAEA and warned against the creation of a garrison state in pursing the chimera of complete security, they sure ought to remember Theodore Roosevelt. That was the hairy chested president who counseled speaking softly while holding a big stick.
The Geek is no admirer of Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich), the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He's got to give the senator his due. Levin is right when he said it was time to stop the "hot rhetoric."
ElBaradei was even more on target. "My fear is that if we continue to escalate from both sides that we will end up into a precipice, we will end up into an abyss. As I said, the Middle East is in a total mess, to say the least. And we cannot add fuel to the fire."
Bang on!, Mr ElBaradei.
There's always time enough for war. We can wait--at least for awhile.
Most of all, the sum of the Geek's posts underscore his utter contempt for policy decisions that are rooted (if that word is relevant in this context) in the gonads and viscera. Policies decisions that ignore historical trajectories. Policy choices that emerge from a vile combination of hopes or fears and domestic political calculations.
This brings the Geek to Iran. More particularly it brings the Geek to the subject of the Republicans vs the Mullahs.
At the often ignored center of the current confrontation between the Commander Guy on the one side and the Orator-in-Chief on the other is the International Atomic Energy Agency and its present director, Mohammed ElBaradei. The IAEA is charged with the responsibility of assuring member nations abide by the provisions of the treaties governing the peaceful use of atomic energy and nuclear weapon non-proliferation.
Get a grip on this.
The IAEA exists because the United States called it into existence.
"What!" You say.
That's right. Fifty years ago this year, President Dwight Eisenhower, in what many both at the time and later considered his finest speech, called upon the United Nations to create an agency dedicated to bringing atomic energy's potentials for benefit to all the nations of the world. He pledged not only complete American cooperation but even the provision of nuclear knowledge, technology, and materials for use under the agency's supervision.
Ike needed to use massive political arm twisting here at home to force changes in the extremely restrictive American laws governing nuclear matters. He did it. The laws were changed. The IAEA came into existence.
When asked about the IAEA years later, Ike reportedly looked out the window of his Gettysburg home, mused for a moment and answered with his famous smile, "It's working better than I hoped."
Taken as a whole, the IAEA has worked remarkably well over its fifty year life so far. It seems to be working rather well even with the obvious Iranian intransigence right now. Arguably, it would work even better if the current administration let it do its job.
It is reported that Mohammed ElBaradei sees no evidence of the Iranians being anywhere near the possession of an atomic bomb. In a companion remark, the IAEA head shows an appropriate degree of skepticism, "We have information that there has been maybe some studies about possible weaponization. That's why we have said that we cannot give Iran a pass right now, because there is still a lot of question marks." (Quote from The International Herald Tribune on-line http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/10/28/america/NA-GEN-US-Iran.php.)
The skeptical view is well taken. Iran has been playing games from hell over their self-proclaimed peaceful project to produce electricity. Given their record of obfuscation, tergiversation, and flat out lying, anything less would be foolhardy. (Now comes the big, BUT.)
Skepticism is not what the current administration has been exhibiting in recent months and weeks. Instead, the current administration has been acting as if it had proof-positive that the Iranians were not only seeking to obtain nuclear weapons but were on the very verge of doing so.
Unless one wishes to posit that the chest-thumping, crotch-pulling stridency coming from the mouths of the Commander Guy, the Veep, and assorted presidential wannabes is simply a successful attempt to boost oil company profits by driving the spot-market price of crude to record highs, the only explanation for their behavior is cognitive deficiency.
Kind of a "don't bother me with wimpy little facts, I wanna kick some ass" attitude. This sort of orientation might make both the utterer of threats and many of the audience feel good, but it is not the sort of approach that has shown positive results historically.
Get a grip on this--
Outside pressure consolidates the cohesion and political will of the target government and its citizens, (Think about how you make a snowball.)
Yeah, bucko, that's right. Pick up a handful of loose snow. Press it. Press it long enough and hard enough, the flakes become a solid mass. Press on it long enough and hard enough and what happens?
That's right. The snowball becomes an ice ball.
Repeat after the Geek, "Pressure consolidates long before it fractures."
Did that? Good. Now you have a major, basic fact of foreign policy which has totally eluded the current administration.
Our ill-considered approach has had the following negative effects. It has liberated the mullahocracy from much of the domestic unrest which would have been making its life miserable given the current economic condition of Iran and the demographics of the Iranian population. It has given the mullahocracy reason to be even more intransigent than would otherwise have been the case. It has forced the mullahocracy to invest the totality of national prestige and regime legitimacy in the nuclear issue and closely related matters.
Now, get a grip on this.
Our approach to the Iranians has helped two countries hostile to the US: the Peoples' Republic of China and Russia. Apparently the current administration hasn't gotten the word. Anything that diverts the US into unproductive, expensive, and influence draining side tracks hurts the US and helps these two adversaries.
Make no mistake about it. Regardless of the hopes of some Americans such as the "gobalism-will-solve-all" crowd, Walmart, and other business interests, China shares few, if any, national interests with the United States. Again, regardless of the hopes (or fears) of some Americans, Russia has not shed its fundamentally authoritarian inclination nor its historic feeling of inferiority compared to the West. Russians have been asking that most troublesome of all questions, the question which produced European Fascism, the question which underlies Islamism.
The Question?
"We were once great; now we are so small. Why?"
The policies of the current administration have encouraged the Russians to ask the Question. The policies of the current administration regarding Iran are encouraging both Moscow and Beijing to take actions which are best described as a form of diplomatic proxy war.
The new sanctions announced by the current administration are a justified gambit, particularly if the Europeans (perhaps convinced by a re-awakened "Crazy American Hypothesis") prove willing to join them despite economic losses to European businesses.
If so, then the emotional diatribes and not-so-veiled threats coming from the current administration can be rationalised, if not fully justified. Yet, the time for red meat rhetoric has passed. The time has come for some silence from the White House (and the campaign trail.)
If the Republicans (or at least the neocon ninnie component of that party) cannot remember Dwight Eisenhower who both created the IAEA and warned against the creation of a garrison state in pursing the chimera of complete security, they sure ought to remember Theodore Roosevelt. That was the hairy chested president who counseled speaking softly while holding a big stick.
The Geek is no admirer of Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich), the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He's got to give the senator his due. Levin is right when he said it was time to stop the "hot rhetoric."
ElBaradei was even more on target. "My fear is that if we continue to escalate from both sides that we will end up into a precipice, we will end up into an abyss. As I said, the Middle East is in a total mess, to say the least. And we cannot add fuel to the fire."
Bang on!, Mr ElBaradei.
There's always time enough for war. We can wait--at least for awhile.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Yemen Kicks Sand In Uncle Sam's Face
The current administration clearly can't get a grip on the difference between feces and shoe polish. This unpleasant fact is singularly true regarding what countries are allies in the current fight with Islamists/Jihadists.
Yemen is the current poster child for the current administration's lost-in-space view of what constitutes an ally.
Two days ago, the Commander Guy was reported in the Yemen Times to have sent a message via his Special Assistant for Internal Security and Combating Terrorism, Francis Townsend. The message was purported to congratulate the Yemeni government for "it's success in combating terrorism." See, http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1097&p=front&a=1.
The message also contained promises to continue US aid for Yemeni projects in economic development, education, security and military assistance, and "fighting against terrorism." This hearty expression of praise and aid came in the context of a meeting between Yemeni and American counter-terrorism wallahs.
At the meeting one Mohammed Salah, who is the capo-in-chief of the Central Security Forces, said Yemen stood ready (and, maybe, perhaps, kind of willing and able) to "provide assistance and expertise" in the area of counter-terrorism.
Yeah. Right. And, just what sort of "expertise?" What kind of "assistance?"
Jamal al-Badawi, the man convicted in a Yemeni court for having been the chief planner of the bombing of the USS Cole, had turned himself in to Yemeni authorities a week before this love fest of mutual assistance. He had apparently become tired and bored with life as a fugitive after his second successful jail break.
There is no doubt but al-Badawi is a genuine, bottled-in-bond, triple x, super-refined, Grade A Jihadist. He is a serious blackhat. Always has been. In all probability, he always will be.
The "expert" Yemenis cut him loose only two days after Special Assistant Townsend delivered the Commander Guy's kissy-kissy communication.
The experienced and expert Yemeni government isn't saying why they cut the man loose from the horrors of life in the slam. They aren't really confirming or denying whether al-Badawi is under some sort of house arrest. The most this trusted ally in the counter-terrorism arena will say is that al-Badawi has renounced terrorism and really, really promised to be a very, very nice guy in the future.
Al-Badawi himself isn't talking in public. He is reported to be entertaining guests in his house in Aden. Probably regaling them with tales of his exciting life in the desert living with the Tribal types who kept him safe until working out a deal with the expert counter-terrorists in the Yemeni government. (Of course, he might be working on his next little bomb-in-the-boat caper.)
If the Yemenis aren't saying much, their silence is more than compensated for by the screeches from the campaign trail and the howls from the Justice Department.
There is a five megabuck price on Jamal al-Badawi's head. He's on the Feeb's Ten Most Wanted List. There is a lengthy indictment waiting for him in the US. With this as a backdrop, Rudi Giuliani demanded a halt to all aid to Yemen until al-Badawi is rearrested.
Wow! That's telling 'em, Rudy.
What is the US going to do if the Yemeni regime does not respond appropriately to either the statement of "extreme displeasure" delivered by our Ambassador or even an aid cut off?
You gotta remember that the Yemenis are great believers in hospitality, just like the Afghans back in 2002. You also have to remember that al-Badawi has reportedly sworn loyalty to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Loyalty can be--and usually is in tribally based Islamic societies--a two way street.
Now, get a grip on this.
Yemen, no more than Saudi Arabia, is an ally of the US in the confrontation between Islamism and the West. That was obvious in the aftermath of the attack on the USS Cole. Yemeni officials, those experienced and expert on regional counter-terrorism, were notably uncooperative with the FBI and other American investigative or intelligence agencies. Nothing substantial has changed since then.
"How come?" You ask.
Yemen, not unlike Afghanistan, is not really a nation-state as that is understood in the West, or most of the world. It is a geographic expression, which came into its present incarnation back in 1990 when the Peoples' Democratic Republic of Yemen stopped its festering multi-decade war with North Yemen. Its current boundary with Saudi Arabia was fixed only seven years ago.
Its population is young (median age is slightly less than seventeen). Its land is mostly barren, short on water. Yemen is one of the poorest, if not the poorest country in the Arab world, with a per person GDP of roughly $1,000 last year. Wahhabism is the predominant brand of Islam practiced.
In short, the government lacks stability. The population can and has turned restive (to put it politely) when its all too easily perturbed emotional balance is tipped in the slightest.
Al-Badawi is a popular hero to many of the young Yemeni dudes without a real hope of a genuine future and a past deeply rooted in tribalism, Wahhabism, and violence.
Making sense now, isn't it?
Even if the Yemeni government wanted for reasons of its own to cooperate fully with the US not only with regard to al-Badawi's future but the whole spectrum of counter-terrorism issues, it could not. Not without slitting its own throat.
The Commander Guy should have known all of the above (and probably did) before sending the unrealistically fulsome message to the Yemeni government. Not unlike the ambiguous message delivered to Saddam Hussein by our new Ambassador in 1990, the recipient probably concluded that it had a free hand in dealing with al-Badawi. With (unseemly) haste, the Yemeni leadership honored its agreement with the tribal elders and cut the convicted terrorist loose.
To repeat the key question: Now what are we Americans going to do if the Saana regime doesn't rearrest al-Badawi and deliver him to our justice system?
The last time the US faced this type of problem we resolved it by invading. More than five years later the object of that combination of SWAT raid and regime change is still free, making audio tapes by the bushel, and we are still slogging up hill trying to create a nation-state in Afghanistan.
Is this an option now? The Commander Guy and his neocon ninny brigade better scratch their heads long and hard.
Yemen is the current poster child for the current administration's lost-in-space view of what constitutes an ally.
Two days ago, the Commander Guy was reported in the Yemen Times to have sent a message via his Special Assistant for Internal Security and Combating Terrorism, Francis Townsend. The message was purported to congratulate the Yemeni government for "it's success in combating terrorism." See, http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1097&p=front&a=1.
The message also contained promises to continue US aid for Yemeni projects in economic development, education, security and military assistance, and "fighting against terrorism." This hearty expression of praise and aid came in the context of a meeting between Yemeni and American counter-terrorism wallahs.
At the meeting one Mohammed Salah, who is the capo-in-chief of the Central Security Forces, said Yemen stood ready (and, maybe, perhaps, kind of willing and able) to "provide assistance and expertise" in the area of counter-terrorism.
Yeah. Right. And, just what sort of "expertise?" What kind of "assistance?"
Jamal al-Badawi, the man convicted in a Yemeni court for having been the chief planner of the bombing of the USS Cole, had turned himself in to Yemeni authorities a week before this love fest of mutual assistance. He had apparently become tired and bored with life as a fugitive after his second successful jail break.
There is no doubt but al-Badawi is a genuine, bottled-in-bond, triple x, super-refined, Grade A Jihadist. He is a serious blackhat. Always has been. In all probability, he always will be.
The "expert" Yemenis cut him loose only two days after Special Assistant Townsend delivered the Commander Guy's kissy-kissy communication.
The experienced and expert Yemeni government isn't saying why they cut the man loose from the horrors of life in the slam. They aren't really confirming or denying whether al-Badawi is under some sort of house arrest. The most this trusted ally in the counter-terrorism arena will say is that al-Badawi has renounced terrorism and really, really promised to be a very, very nice guy in the future.
Al-Badawi himself isn't talking in public. He is reported to be entertaining guests in his house in Aden. Probably regaling them with tales of his exciting life in the desert living with the Tribal types who kept him safe until working out a deal with the expert counter-terrorists in the Yemeni government. (Of course, he might be working on his next little bomb-in-the-boat caper.)
If the Yemenis aren't saying much, their silence is more than compensated for by the screeches from the campaign trail and the howls from the Justice Department.
There is a five megabuck price on Jamal al-Badawi's head. He's on the Feeb's Ten Most Wanted List. There is a lengthy indictment waiting for him in the US. With this as a backdrop, Rudi Giuliani demanded a halt to all aid to Yemen until al-Badawi is rearrested.
Wow! That's telling 'em, Rudy.
What is the US going to do if the Yemeni regime does not respond appropriately to either the statement of "extreme displeasure" delivered by our Ambassador or even an aid cut off?
You gotta remember that the Yemenis are great believers in hospitality, just like the Afghans back in 2002. You also have to remember that al-Badawi has reportedly sworn loyalty to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Loyalty can be--and usually is in tribally based Islamic societies--a two way street.
Now, get a grip on this.
Yemen, no more than Saudi Arabia, is an ally of the US in the confrontation between Islamism and the West. That was obvious in the aftermath of the attack on the USS Cole. Yemeni officials, those experienced and expert on regional counter-terrorism, were notably uncooperative with the FBI and other American investigative or intelligence agencies. Nothing substantial has changed since then.
"How come?" You ask.
Yemen, not unlike Afghanistan, is not really a nation-state as that is understood in the West, or most of the world. It is a geographic expression, which came into its present incarnation back in 1990 when the Peoples' Democratic Republic of Yemen stopped its festering multi-decade war with North Yemen. Its current boundary with Saudi Arabia was fixed only seven years ago.
Its population is young (median age is slightly less than seventeen). Its land is mostly barren, short on water. Yemen is one of the poorest, if not the poorest country in the Arab world, with a per person GDP of roughly $1,000 last year. Wahhabism is the predominant brand of Islam practiced.
In short, the government lacks stability. The population can and has turned restive (to put it politely) when its all too easily perturbed emotional balance is tipped in the slightest.
Al-Badawi is a popular hero to many of the young Yemeni dudes without a real hope of a genuine future and a past deeply rooted in tribalism, Wahhabism, and violence.
Making sense now, isn't it?
Even if the Yemeni government wanted for reasons of its own to cooperate fully with the US not only with regard to al-Badawi's future but the whole spectrum of counter-terrorism issues, it could not. Not without slitting its own throat.
The Commander Guy should have known all of the above (and probably did) before sending the unrealistically fulsome message to the Yemeni government. Not unlike the ambiguous message delivered to Saddam Hussein by our new Ambassador in 1990, the recipient probably concluded that it had a free hand in dealing with al-Badawi. With (unseemly) haste, the Yemeni leadership honored its agreement with the tribal elders and cut the convicted terrorist loose.
To repeat the key question: Now what are we Americans going to do if the Saana regime doesn't rearrest al-Badawi and deliver him to our justice system?
The last time the US faced this type of problem we resolved it by invading. More than five years later the object of that combination of SWAT raid and regime change is still free, making audio tapes by the bushel, and we are still slogging up hill trying to create a nation-state in Afghanistan.
Is this an option now? The Commander Guy and his neocon ninny brigade better scratch their heads long and hard.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Thinking The Unthinkable--Speaking the Unspeakable
The Geek has an admission. Norman Podhoeritz scares the pippin, doublet, and hose off of him. The seventy-seven year old granddad of the neocon ninnies of the current administration as well as the hyper-hawks surrounding Rudy Giuliani is in full chest-beating, testosterone fury over Iran.
According to the UK's Telegraph on-line, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/27/wbomb127.xml, Podhoeritz "thinks the unthinkable and speaks the unspeakable." That's sure nice. And, to some extent useful.
Of course the neocon clan elder is far from the only person to do just that. Years ago, Herman Khan, the founder of the Hudson Institute, wrote and spoke at length about nuclear war. He even titled a book, Thinking the Unthinkable. It gave the few folks who read it the shivers--and reasons to think harder and better about the taboo-in-polite-circles topic of nuclear war and the potential reality of mutually assured destruction.
In a very small way, the Geek has done the same in past years, challenging policy makers and executors alike to realise just how easy it is not to win in counterinsurgencies and akin stability operations. Like the (un)jolly fatman of the Hudson Institute, the Geek's goal was to get people to think deeper and better about the unique nature of a particular type of war.
That goal, it appears to the Geek, is not uppermost in Podhoeritz' mind--if it exists at any level there.
At some point decades ago, Mr Podhoeritz had an epiphany concerning his opposition to the Vietnam War which resulted in a lucidly argued mea culpa that still resides on the Geek's bookshelves. From that moment on, the gentleman under consideration became a neo-conservative. One of the most warlike coloration.
Therein lies the tragedy.
Mr Podhoeritz became one of those whom Eric Hoffer described more than fifty years ago with startling and fear-provoking clarity. The True Believer.
True Believers are very dangerous people. History shows that. So do recent events. Osama bin Laden is a True Believer. So were those who flew the passenger filled cruise missiles into the Pentagon and Twin Towers.
True Believers search for any facts, the slightest hint of a factoid even, which seem to support their belief and its expressions. All else is disregarded as heresy at best, counterfactual at worst.
As a result Mr Podhoeritz places an emphasis, an emphasis beyond all rational calculation, upon the necessity to execute massive air attacks using both manned and unmanned platforms upon Iranian targets. While Mr Podhoeritz might be willing to settle for striking the nuclear facilities, the Geek is convinced that his real desire is the complete obliteration of Iran as a functioning polity, economy, and society.
Mr Podhoeritz blithely assumes that the strikes could be delivered quickly, without any warning, and would be effective. He is probably correct in the first two portions of his assumption.
The further consequences of the action apparently are of no interest to him. Yet it is precisely in these that the dangers for us and the rest of the world exist.
As Iraq, Afghanistan, and a host of previous wars show clearly, Clausewitz was right: No plan survives first contact with the enemy.
In his carefree attitude to the "day after" Mr Podhoeritz is one with the neocon ninnies who gave no realistic thought to what would happen after we deposed Saddam in Iraq or Sheik Omar in Afghanistan. In this fantasyland approach to war planning and fighting, Mr Podhoeritz, Vice-President Cheney, former SecDef Rumsfeld, and the deep thinking crew in the Pentagon almost equal the brain dead Adolph Hitler with his totally unnecessary and utterly counterproductive declaration of war on the US in December 1941.
The True Believer world view of Mr Podhoeritz and his ilk as well as their demonstrated influence in the current administration is what has increasingly alienated, not to say scared the hell out of, the European governments who initially took our part in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. They are what has given rise to the increasingly oppositional posture of Vladimir Putin and the mandarinate in China.
By now even the Israeli government and public ought to be getting nervous over the impact of the Podhoeritz type True Believers. In the (hopefully remote) eventuality that the US gives reality to Mr Podhoeritz's unthinkable thoughts and unspeakable words, Israel will be in the impact zone. There is no way that any conceivable US air campaign will so defang or so demoralize the Iranian regime and those of similar mind that there will be no response.
The response is (quite) likely to make 9/11 and its aftermaths look like a flower power gathering out of the Sixties. The full menu of options available to the survivors in Tehran is extensive.
Mr Podhoeritz has written of Islamofacism and the World War IV between the Islamists and the West. The Geek found some merit in some of the man's arguments.
Call it World War IV or the Second Cold War, it doesn't matter. But, a firm grip must be kept on the fundamental reality that Cold Wars are not won by air strikes. They are won by a firm line, backed by the willingness to use minimal appropriate force for narrowly conceived goals over time. They are won not by bluster and bombs but by political will maintained over generations if need be.
Mr Podhoeritz, try thinking about this unthinkable. Cold Wars are won by outlasting the enemy, by outlasting his political will, by showing over time that the world view he espouses is inferior to yours. We won the last cold war this way. We won by allowing him to lose faith in his god.
That may not be emotionally satisfying to a True Believer. It is however intellectually warming to a realpolitiker.
According to the UK's Telegraph on-line, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/27/wbomb127.xml, Podhoeritz "thinks the unthinkable and speaks the unspeakable." That's sure nice. And, to some extent useful.
Of course the neocon clan elder is far from the only person to do just that. Years ago, Herman Khan, the founder of the Hudson Institute, wrote and spoke at length about nuclear war. He even titled a book, Thinking the Unthinkable. It gave the few folks who read it the shivers--and reasons to think harder and better about the taboo-in-polite-circles topic of nuclear war and the potential reality of mutually assured destruction.
In a very small way, the Geek has done the same in past years, challenging policy makers and executors alike to realise just how easy it is not to win in counterinsurgencies and akin stability operations. Like the (un)jolly fatman of the Hudson Institute, the Geek's goal was to get people to think deeper and better about the unique nature of a particular type of war.
That goal, it appears to the Geek, is not uppermost in Podhoeritz' mind--if it exists at any level there.
At some point decades ago, Mr Podhoeritz had an epiphany concerning his opposition to the Vietnam War which resulted in a lucidly argued mea culpa that still resides on the Geek's bookshelves. From that moment on, the gentleman under consideration became a neo-conservative. One of the most warlike coloration.
Therein lies the tragedy.
Mr Podhoeritz became one of those whom Eric Hoffer described more than fifty years ago with startling and fear-provoking clarity. The True Believer.
True Believers are very dangerous people. History shows that. So do recent events. Osama bin Laden is a True Believer. So were those who flew the passenger filled cruise missiles into the Pentagon and Twin Towers.
True Believers search for any facts, the slightest hint of a factoid even, which seem to support their belief and its expressions. All else is disregarded as heresy at best, counterfactual at worst.
As a result Mr Podhoeritz places an emphasis, an emphasis beyond all rational calculation, upon the necessity to execute massive air attacks using both manned and unmanned platforms upon Iranian targets. While Mr Podhoeritz might be willing to settle for striking the nuclear facilities, the Geek is convinced that his real desire is the complete obliteration of Iran as a functioning polity, economy, and society.
Mr Podhoeritz blithely assumes that the strikes could be delivered quickly, without any warning, and would be effective. He is probably correct in the first two portions of his assumption.
The further consequences of the action apparently are of no interest to him. Yet it is precisely in these that the dangers for us and the rest of the world exist.
As Iraq, Afghanistan, and a host of previous wars show clearly, Clausewitz was right: No plan survives first contact with the enemy.
In his carefree attitude to the "day after" Mr Podhoeritz is one with the neocon ninnies who gave no realistic thought to what would happen after we deposed Saddam in Iraq or Sheik Omar in Afghanistan. In this fantasyland approach to war planning and fighting, Mr Podhoeritz, Vice-President Cheney, former SecDef Rumsfeld, and the deep thinking crew in the Pentagon almost equal the brain dead Adolph Hitler with his totally unnecessary and utterly counterproductive declaration of war on the US in December 1941.
The True Believer world view of Mr Podhoeritz and his ilk as well as their demonstrated influence in the current administration is what has increasingly alienated, not to say scared the hell out of, the European governments who initially took our part in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. They are what has given rise to the increasingly oppositional posture of Vladimir Putin and the mandarinate in China.
By now even the Israeli government and public ought to be getting nervous over the impact of the Podhoeritz type True Believers. In the (hopefully remote) eventuality that the US gives reality to Mr Podhoeritz's unthinkable thoughts and unspeakable words, Israel will be in the impact zone. There is no way that any conceivable US air campaign will so defang or so demoralize the Iranian regime and those of similar mind that there will be no response.
The response is (quite) likely to make 9/11 and its aftermaths look like a flower power gathering out of the Sixties. The full menu of options available to the survivors in Tehran is extensive.
Mr Podhoeritz has written of Islamofacism and the World War IV between the Islamists and the West. The Geek found some merit in some of the man's arguments.
Call it World War IV or the Second Cold War, it doesn't matter. But, a firm grip must be kept on the fundamental reality that Cold Wars are not won by air strikes. They are won by a firm line, backed by the willingness to use minimal appropriate force for narrowly conceived goals over time. They are won not by bluster and bombs but by political will maintained over generations if need be.
Mr Podhoeritz, try thinking about this unthinkable. Cold Wars are won by outlasting the enemy, by outlasting his political will, by showing over time that the world view he espouses is inferior to yours. We won the last cold war this way. We won by allowing him to lose faith in his god.
That may not be emotionally satisfying to a True Believer. It is however intellectually warming to a realpolitiker.
Get Real, Putin!
Vladimir Putin and the Geek share one factor. We were both alive during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which peaked a couple days shy of forty-five years ago.
Mr Putin and the Geek differ in one important factor. The Geek is a historian. Putin distorts history--even worse than does our Commander Guy.
President Putin had the sheer unmitigated gall to compare the proposed basing of US anti-missiles in Poland with supporting target acquisition radars in the Czech Republic with the Soviet action of deploying offensive medium and intermediary missiles in Cuba.
It has been a long while since a supposedly responsible world figure has reversed the reality of an historical event that much. Compared to the brazen effrontery of Putin's wretched warping of the past, the Commander Guy's misinterpretations of the Vietnam War are minor errors.
Let's go to the videotape.
Back in 1962 the Soviet Union without any prior warnings, discussion, or threats attempted the secret basing of offensive, nuclear capable missiles in Cuba along with supporting defensive systems including a reinforced brigade of combat troops. Our intelligence wallahs caught them at it.
The crisis grew rapidly. The US went public early on with overhead imagery displayed at the UN. The Soviets blustered, noting that the US had based intermediate range missiles in Turkey right on the Soviet border.
As matters escalated, the Kennedy Administration finally fixed on a naval blockade (euphemistically called a "quarantine") around Cuba. As the first missile laden Soviet freighters approached the blockade, breaths were held on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Not to overstate the case, the world came within a hairbreadth of nuclear war. Never before and never since the last week of October 1962 has the unthinkable come so close to happening.
The crisis resolved quickly. The Soviets backed down. The missiles went back home. The US promised not to invade Cuba and went ahead with the already programmed removal of the Jupiter C missiles from Turkey and elsewhere in Europe. The Kremlin quietly kept its combat brigade in Cuba (where it was suddenly "rediscovered" in a blare of hype during the Reagan Administration.)
OK, keep that synopsis in mind as we look at the US ABM initiative in Central Europe.
Quite awhile back, the current administration announced its plan to base a small (ten fire units) anti-ballistic missile force in Poland with supporting radar in the Czech Republic. The purpose of the new installations was to defend Europe against any intermediate range missile threat coming from Northwest Asia, which meant Iran.
The announcement as well as the lengthy negotiations with Poland, the Czech Republic, and Russia have been in the open and very well publicised. The Russian love affair with the word nyet has been demonstrated all along.
The US has made numerous attempts to assuage Russian anxieties about the installation. In recent weeks the Americans have even taken the necessary step of treating Russia like the Great Power it believes it is regarding the proposed ABM basing. Most recently SecDef Gates has stated that the facilities will not be "activated" until the Iranians demonstrate a credible threat.
A uniformed stooge in the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces blew that offer off.
SecDef Gates has also suggested that, subject to Czech approval, Russian experts can be stationed at the radar site to assure that it is not directed against any Russian trajectories of attack. That was dubbed "interesting" by the Kremlin.
So, you tell the Geek something.
Where is the historical analogy Putin thinks exists between the now in Central Europe and the then in the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Or, is the Russian President pursuing some other objective?
That's quite likely. The Russians are unhappy with the Cold War vintage Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty. Only the US and Russia (and other successor states of the Soviet Union) are bound by it. Other countries, some of which might present a credible threat at some future date including Israel, India, Iran, Pakistan, Peoples Republic of China, Japan, South Korea are not.
Here's a question for you, Mr Putin.
If that is the real motive behind your preposterous line, why not just put it forward? Why not take the lead in demanding a multi-party negotiation on the subject including not just the US and European countries but all others within 1500 nautical miles range of Russian borders?
Or, Vladimir, were you taking lessons from Tehran's Orator-in-Chief during your recent trip there?
Mr Putin and the Geek differ in one important factor. The Geek is a historian. Putin distorts history--even worse than does our Commander Guy.
President Putin had the sheer unmitigated gall to compare the proposed basing of US anti-missiles in Poland with supporting target acquisition radars in the Czech Republic with the Soviet action of deploying offensive medium and intermediary missiles in Cuba.
It has been a long while since a supposedly responsible world figure has reversed the reality of an historical event that much. Compared to the brazen effrontery of Putin's wretched warping of the past, the Commander Guy's misinterpretations of the Vietnam War are minor errors.
Let's go to the videotape.
Back in 1962 the Soviet Union without any prior warnings, discussion, or threats attempted the secret basing of offensive, nuclear capable missiles in Cuba along with supporting defensive systems including a reinforced brigade of combat troops. Our intelligence wallahs caught them at it.
The crisis grew rapidly. The US went public early on with overhead imagery displayed at the UN. The Soviets blustered, noting that the US had based intermediate range missiles in Turkey right on the Soviet border.
As matters escalated, the Kennedy Administration finally fixed on a naval blockade (euphemistically called a "quarantine") around Cuba. As the first missile laden Soviet freighters approached the blockade, breaths were held on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Not to overstate the case, the world came within a hairbreadth of nuclear war. Never before and never since the last week of October 1962 has the unthinkable come so close to happening.
The crisis resolved quickly. The Soviets backed down. The missiles went back home. The US promised not to invade Cuba and went ahead with the already programmed removal of the Jupiter C missiles from Turkey and elsewhere in Europe. The Kremlin quietly kept its combat brigade in Cuba (where it was suddenly "rediscovered" in a blare of hype during the Reagan Administration.)
OK, keep that synopsis in mind as we look at the US ABM initiative in Central Europe.
Quite awhile back, the current administration announced its plan to base a small (ten fire units) anti-ballistic missile force in Poland with supporting radar in the Czech Republic. The purpose of the new installations was to defend Europe against any intermediate range missile threat coming from Northwest Asia, which meant Iran.
The announcement as well as the lengthy negotiations with Poland, the Czech Republic, and Russia have been in the open and very well publicised. The Russian love affair with the word nyet has been demonstrated all along.
The US has made numerous attempts to assuage Russian anxieties about the installation. In recent weeks the Americans have even taken the necessary step of treating Russia like the Great Power it believes it is regarding the proposed ABM basing. Most recently SecDef Gates has stated that the facilities will not be "activated" until the Iranians demonstrate a credible threat.
A uniformed stooge in the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces blew that offer off.
SecDef Gates has also suggested that, subject to Czech approval, Russian experts can be stationed at the radar site to assure that it is not directed against any Russian trajectories of attack. That was dubbed "interesting" by the Kremlin.
So, you tell the Geek something.
Where is the historical analogy Putin thinks exists between the now in Central Europe and the then in the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Or, is the Russian President pursuing some other objective?
That's quite likely. The Russians are unhappy with the Cold War vintage Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty. Only the US and Russia (and other successor states of the Soviet Union) are bound by it. Other countries, some of which might present a credible threat at some future date including Israel, India, Iran, Pakistan, Peoples Republic of China, Japan, South Korea are not.
Here's a question for you, Mr Putin.
If that is the real motive behind your preposterous line, why not just put it forward? Why not take the lead in demanding a multi-party negotiation on the subject including not just the US and European countries but all others within 1500 nautical miles range of Russian borders?
Or, Vladimir, were you taking lessons from Tehran's Orator-in-Chief during your recent trip there?
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Watch Out For The Gang Of Three
Yesterday India, China, and Russia made a joint announcement. The foreign ministers of all three countries jointly called for a "more just and rational" world order.
Let us all applaud the idea. It does sound so nice. Kind of like the Commander Guy's statement way back when--way back before Adventures in Regime Change and The Global War On Terrorism--that the US would lead with "humility."
Yeah. Right.
The three foreign ministers hurriedly added that the declaration was not "aimed at any country."
Yeah. Right. Sure it's not.
But, you gotta love the platitudes in which the not-so-veiled attack on American "hegemony" was couched. India's Pranab Mukherjee, China's Yang Jiechi, and Sergei Lavrov of Russia "emphasized that they would continue to promote democratization of international relations and evolution of a more just and rational international order."
The joint statement went on to assert that ties between the three nations would be, "beneficial to the process of global multi-polarity."
That doesn't sound nearly so peace, love and flower-power, does it?
Now, let's cut to the chase.
Russia wants the US as a plausible external threat. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is immediate and future oriented. The other is historical and also future oriented.
"Give it over, Geek!" You demand.
OK. The immediate reason first. Russia is after influence over its "near abroad." Casting the US and, by implication, NATO, in the role of villain helps this with the Caspian Sea states including Iran.
The historical reason extends from today back through the Commissars to the Czars. Russia needs the justification of external threat to assure acceptance of an authoritarian regime. Vladimir Putin has shown great skill in acquiring centralised power. His future ambitions in Russian politics is obscure as to details but quite obviously ambitious in form.
(Think Power Behind The Throne if not on the throne.)
The Geek won't use soft words about the Peoples' Republic of China. The PRC is hostile to the US. It has near term goals such as re-acquiring Taiwan which run counter to American policy. It is afraid (with reason) that the US might extend anti-missile technology to Taiwan, perhaps by way of Japan or South Korea.
Longer range, PRC has at least regional hegemonic ambitions. To achieve this, the authority and influence of the US must be reduced. American freedom of action must be limited.
"But," you protest, "the Chinese have worked with us in North Korea."
Sure they have. It was in their national interest to do so. Just as it was in Russia's, Japan's, and South Korea's.
Ask yourself, just who would want a nuclear equipped rogue regime next door?
India has been anti-American almost since Day One. Much of the reason stems from US support for Pakistan. The validity and utility of this tilt to Pakistan is open to debate as is Indian motivation for our tilt.
Still, the fundamental orientation of key segments of the Indian politically articulate population is anti-US. That won't change just because India has been enjoying profound economic success recently in large measure because of sales of Indian products to US markets.
Some Americans might believe that a multi-polar world is almost as good as a unified global government. History shows the contrary. Whenever there has been a multi-polar environment, as in the 1930's, the arrangement has been both inherently unstable and risky.
A bi-polar world such as that which existed during most of the Nineteenth Century and the Cold War period after 1945 may seem risky but is inherently stable. That was particularly true during the Cold War. The potential of nuclear destruction limited the ambitions of both sides. It induced caution (particularly after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 when fingers on both the hither and further sides of the Iron Curtain came ever-so-close to the Big Button.)
India's ForMin stated to the press that his country would never participate with the US in a ballistic missile defense system as if that was a guarantee of India's peaceful intentions and inherent security. It may be symbolic of the first although the Pakistanis might be forgiven for not believing so. It is not a symbol of the second.
Arguably, the doctrine of mutually assured destruction worked during the Cold War. We're all still here. This historical reality might not hold true in the multi-polar world, particularly considering that nuclear arms have already spread beyond the first (and second) nuclear club.
Missile defense is as George H.W. Bush used to say, "prudent." A limited system helps deter and defend against either a small scale attack by a country with few delivery systems. It also protects against the straggle strike launched by the recipient of a first strike.
China and India have neighbors with a nuclear capacity. These two countries have had their clashes in the past. Recent past and distant past. These two massively overpopulated countries might find themselves at daggers drawn again--in the not too distant future.
What about the uni-polar alternative?
There is only limited historical experience with a truly unipolar world. The handful of years between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the present time. The experience has been, at best, mixed.
Suffice it to say that had the current administration acted consistently in tune with the word uttered by the Commander Guy, "humility," the Gang of Three might not be so motivated to cut us down to size. The trouble with history is that there is no way to rewind the tape and try again.
The next administration will have a major decision right out of the box. Are the best interests of the US well served by the emergence of a multi-polar world with all of its inherent instabilities and attendant risks? If not, then, how can the best days of a uni-polar world order be retrieved from the trash heap into which the neocon ninnies of the current administration heaved them?
Let us all applaud the idea. It does sound so nice. Kind of like the Commander Guy's statement way back when--way back before Adventures in Regime Change and The Global War On Terrorism--that the US would lead with "humility."
Yeah. Right.
The three foreign ministers hurriedly added that the declaration was not "aimed at any country."
Yeah. Right. Sure it's not.
But, you gotta love the platitudes in which the not-so-veiled attack on American "hegemony" was couched. India's Pranab Mukherjee, China's Yang Jiechi, and Sergei Lavrov of Russia "emphasized that they would continue to promote democratization of international relations and evolution of a more just and rational international order."
The joint statement went on to assert that ties between the three nations would be, "beneficial to the process of global multi-polarity."
That doesn't sound nearly so peace, love and flower-power, does it?
Now, let's cut to the chase.
Russia wants the US as a plausible external threat. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is immediate and future oriented. The other is historical and also future oriented.
"Give it over, Geek!" You demand.
OK. The immediate reason first. Russia is after influence over its "near abroad." Casting the US and, by implication, NATO, in the role of villain helps this with the Caspian Sea states including Iran.
The historical reason extends from today back through the Commissars to the Czars. Russia needs the justification of external threat to assure acceptance of an authoritarian regime. Vladimir Putin has shown great skill in acquiring centralised power. His future ambitions in Russian politics is obscure as to details but quite obviously ambitious in form.
(Think Power Behind The Throne if not on the throne.)
The Geek won't use soft words about the Peoples' Republic of China. The PRC is hostile to the US. It has near term goals such as re-acquiring Taiwan which run counter to American policy. It is afraid (with reason) that the US might extend anti-missile technology to Taiwan, perhaps by way of Japan or South Korea.
Longer range, PRC has at least regional hegemonic ambitions. To achieve this, the authority and influence of the US must be reduced. American freedom of action must be limited.
"But," you protest, "the Chinese have worked with us in North Korea."
Sure they have. It was in their national interest to do so. Just as it was in Russia's, Japan's, and South Korea's.
Ask yourself, just who would want a nuclear equipped rogue regime next door?
India has been anti-American almost since Day One. Much of the reason stems from US support for Pakistan. The validity and utility of this tilt to Pakistan is open to debate as is Indian motivation for our tilt.
Still, the fundamental orientation of key segments of the Indian politically articulate population is anti-US. That won't change just because India has been enjoying profound economic success recently in large measure because of sales of Indian products to US markets.
Some Americans might believe that a multi-polar world is almost as good as a unified global government. History shows the contrary. Whenever there has been a multi-polar environment, as in the 1930's, the arrangement has been both inherently unstable and risky.
A bi-polar world such as that which existed during most of the Nineteenth Century and the Cold War period after 1945 may seem risky but is inherently stable. That was particularly true during the Cold War. The potential of nuclear destruction limited the ambitions of both sides. It induced caution (particularly after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 when fingers on both the hither and further sides of the Iron Curtain came ever-so-close to the Big Button.)
India's ForMin stated to the press that his country would never participate with the US in a ballistic missile defense system as if that was a guarantee of India's peaceful intentions and inherent security. It may be symbolic of the first although the Pakistanis might be forgiven for not believing so. It is not a symbol of the second.
Arguably, the doctrine of mutually assured destruction worked during the Cold War. We're all still here. This historical reality might not hold true in the multi-polar world, particularly considering that nuclear arms have already spread beyond the first (and second) nuclear club.
Missile defense is as George H.W. Bush used to say, "prudent." A limited system helps deter and defend against either a small scale attack by a country with few delivery systems. It also protects against the straggle strike launched by the recipient of a first strike.
China and India have neighbors with a nuclear capacity. These two countries have had their clashes in the past. Recent past and distant past. These two massively overpopulated countries might find themselves at daggers drawn again--in the not too distant future.
What about the uni-polar alternative?
There is only limited historical experience with a truly unipolar world. The handful of years between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the present time. The experience has been, at best, mixed.
Suffice it to say that had the current administration acted consistently in tune with the word uttered by the Commander Guy, "humility," the Gang of Three might not be so motivated to cut us down to size. The trouble with history is that there is no way to rewind the tape and try again.
The next administration will have a major decision right out of the box. Are the best interests of the US well served by the emergence of a multi-polar world with all of its inherent instabilities and attendant risks? If not, then, how can the best days of a uni-polar world order be retrieved from the trash heap into which the neocon ninnies of the current administration heaved them?
Administration Makes A Smart Move--At Last.
The imposition of new economic sanctions against the Iranian Ministry of Defense as well as the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Aerospace Industries Organisation is a well-timed, intelligent, and major foreign policy move. In and of itself, the new sanction package shows the analysis of University of Michigan professor Juan Cole misses the point.
Professor Cole writes in today's Salon.com that the current administration's foreign policy is in chaos. See, http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/10/24/kurds/index.html?source=newsletter. The professor contends that US policy in the Mideast and Northwest Asia has become a morass of ad hoc gimmicks since the start of our Adventures in Regime Change.
The Geek takes a different perspective. The Geek maintains that six years ago with both the declaration of Global War On Terrorism and the invasions first of Afghanistan and then Iraq, US policy lacked both realistic purpose and achievable goals. Forced in recent months to accept the dictates of reality by events in the two regions, US policy has been changing from its initial formless mass into something that begins to approximate a purpose and goal.
The inchoate Global War On Terrorism is being replaced (at long last!) by a focus on achieving a measure of stability in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan while reducing the potential potentency and appeal of Islamism/Jihadism. There seems to have been a small, but critical, shift in the worldview within the current administration.
"What's that?" You ask.
While defensive efforts conducted by FBI, CIA ,and other organs focus on detecting and interdicting terrorist operations aimed at the US at home and US personnel or facilities overseas, offensive American operations have been more narrowly focused on the challenges of bringing stability to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan and defanging Islamist supporting states such as Iran and Syria.
That's not much. But it is a beginning. An important beginning.
Iran is and will continue to be a major troublemaker. The mullahocracy likes ever so much to play the role of, "Let's you and him fight!" The technical term for this sort of foreign policy gambit is proxy war.
The idea is to cause endless difficulty for your actual adversary at little or no risk to yourself. The old Soviet Union played the game. They played it long and almost well in southern and eastern Africa during the Seventies.
The US has played the proxy war game too. We played it long and reasonably well during the Reagan Administration in Afghanistan. Our game fell apart only when we handed operational responsibility over to the Pakistani regime of General al-Huq. The Paks had their own proxies in mind. (Can we say, "Taliban?")
The Iranians and Syrians have been playing proxy war for decades now. These national actors prefer to use stateless groups as their pawns. But, whether a lesser state or a non-state agent, proxy war has numerous benefits for the sponsor and very few risks.
Using the Revolutionary Guard Corps foreign operating division, the al-Quds Force, as agent, the mullahocracy has been able to provide support, training, intelligence, and other services to The Party of God in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, among others. Closer to home and more recent in time, the same Iranian agency has provided the same services to anti-US, anti-regime groups in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It is true that the Iranian footprint has often been light on the ground, but one does not need to be an Australian aboriginal tracker to see it.
(To those ideologues who are in a state of denial about the Iranian proxy war efforts, the Geek would like to point out that the whole purpose of proxy war is to lessen risk through plausible deniability. Just because American covert and clandestine efforts are often as well concealed as a hippopotamus in a phone booth is no reason to think that all countries are equally as inept at keeping secrets.)
While maintaining proxy operations the mullahs in Tehran have been trying to cast the largest possible shadow on the world stage. By so doing they not only divert internal attention from internal problems, they also gain influence with both Islamist entities and potentially threatened states. It is important to remember that the mullahocracy has the goal of a global caliphate--a global Shiite caliphate.
The current torrent of over-the-edge rhetoric flowing from both Tehran and Washington over Iranian nuclear ambitions is a very good way of enlarging the Iranian shadow. It is also riskier than low level proxy war.
In large measure due to Russian protection (extended for reasons to be further laid forth in a future post) as well as Chinese (see previous parenthetical expression) the mullahs have been able to follow their game plan without real pain and with real (internal political) benefit. At the same time the mullahocracy has enjoyed a collateral benefit.
The Geek hears you muttering, "Don't keep me waiting."
As a spin-off of the Iranian intransigence over matters nuclear, the neocon ninnies of the current administration have been eager to introduce unnecessary complications into American foreign policy generally. Among these are two of particular noteworthiness.
The present US-Russian standoff over the basing of a limited anti-missile system in Eastern Europe is one.
The other is the Turkey-PKK affair. As mentioned in a post yesterday, the US has been smiling on one arm of the Kurdish insurgency--the one directed against Iran--while frowning mightily on the other--the one directed against Turkey. As a result, the US has not been able or, (to err on the side of probable accuracy) willing to effectively assist in the reduction of the PKK threat with the result that Ankara is ready, willing, and able to mount destabilizing incursions into Iraq.
The prime beneficiary of these collaterals is, unsurprisingly, Iran.
The Iranian shadow must be reduced. It must be reduced so that the US can afford to pull back from the unnecessary complications. It must be reduced so that modulated diplomatic discourse might prove effective in gaining the desired end of preventing Tehran from acquiring atomic weapons in either the near- or mid-term.
It is equally necessary that Tehran feel real, even exquisite, pain to slow or stop its proxy war operations. The UN imposed sanctions have hurt. But, not enough.
The new sanctions, if imposed on foreign companies or financial institutions or governments who do business with the targeted entities as well as in the US, will add pain, perhaps intolerable amounts.
Think of it as the foreign policy equivalent of what police call a "compliance hold." The goal is to coerce compliance with dictated behavior by imposing increasing amounts of physical discomfort.
These sanctions may not prove to be sufficiently intense to force a modification on the mullah's actions and policies. They may be sufficiently unpleasant in application to force a limited change for a limited time. They may not work at all.
Those are questions that can only be answered in the next few weeks and months. The sanctions are nonetheless a strong indication that the US has today what it did not have six years ago--an actual policy that is more realistic than not as well as one more likely to achieve positive results than not.
If nothing else, these long overdue new sanctions delay the date of our next Adventure in Regime Change. For that, the Geek is grateful. So should all of us be.
Professor Cole writes in today's Salon.com that the current administration's foreign policy is in chaos. See, http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/10/24/kurds/index.html?source=newsletter. The professor contends that US policy in the Mideast and Northwest Asia has become a morass of ad hoc gimmicks since the start of our Adventures in Regime Change.
The Geek takes a different perspective. The Geek maintains that six years ago with both the declaration of Global War On Terrorism and the invasions first of Afghanistan and then Iraq, US policy lacked both realistic purpose and achievable goals. Forced in recent months to accept the dictates of reality by events in the two regions, US policy has been changing from its initial formless mass into something that begins to approximate a purpose and goal.
The inchoate Global War On Terrorism is being replaced (at long last!) by a focus on achieving a measure of stability in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan while reducing the potential potentency and appeal of Islamism/Jihadism. There seems to have been a small, but critical, shift in the worldview within the current administration.
"What's that?" You ask.
While defensive efforts conducted by FBI, CIA ,and other organs focus on detecting and interdicting terrorist operations aimed at the US at home and US personnel or facilities overseas, offensive American operations have been more narrowly focused on the challenges of bringing stability to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan and defanging Islamist supporting states such as Iran and Syria.
That's not much. But it is a beginning. An important beginning.
Iran is and will continue to be a major troublemaker. The mullahocracy likes ever so much to play the role of, "Let's you and him fight!" The technical term for this sort of foreign policy gambit is proxy war.
The idea is to cause endless difficulty for your actual adversary at little or no risk to yourself. The old Soviet Union played the game. They played it long and almost well in southern and eastern Africa during the Seventies.
The US has played the proxy war game too. We played it long and reasonably well during the Reagan Administration in Afghanistan. Our game fell apart only when we handed operational responsibility over to the Pakistani regime of General al-Huq. The Paks had their own proxies in mind. (Can we say, "Taliban?")
The Iranians and Syrians have been playing proxy war for decades now. These national actors prefer to use stateless groups as their pawns. But, whether a lesser state or a non-state agent, proxy war has numerous benefits for the sponsor and very few risks.
Using the Revolutionary Guard Corps foreign operating division, the al-Quds Force, as agent, the mullahocracy has been able to provide support, training, intelligence, and other services to The Party of God in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, among others. Closer to home and more recent in time, the same Iranian agency has provided the same services to anti-US, anti-regime groups in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It is true that the Iranian footprint has often been light on the ground, but one does not need to be an Australian aboriginal tracker to see it.
(To those ideologues who are in a state of denial about the Iranian proxy war efforts, the Geek would like to point out that the whole purpose of proxy war is to lessen risk through plausible deniability. Just because American covert and clandestine efforts are often as well concealed as a hippopotamus in a phone booth is no reason to think that all countries are equally as inept at keeping secrets.)
While maintaining proxy operations the mullahs in Tehran have been trying to cast the largest possible shadow on the world stage. By so doing they not only divert internal attention from internal problems, they also gain influence with both Islamist entities and potentially threatened states. It is important to remember that the mullahocracy has the goal of a global caliphate--a global Shiite caliphate.
The current torrent of over-the-edge rhetoric flowing from both Tehran and Washington over Iranian nuclear ambitions is a very good way of enlarging the Iranian shadow. It is also riskier than low level proxy war.
In large measure due to Russian protection (extended for reasons to be further laid forth in a future post) as well as Chinese (see previous parenthetical expression) the mullahs have been able to follow their game plan without real pain and with real (internal political) benefit. At the same time the mullahocracy has enjoyed a collateral benefit.
The Geek hears you muttering, "Don't keep me waiting."
As a spin-off of the Iranian intransigence over matters nuclear, the neocon ninnies of the current administration have been eager to introduce unnecessary complications into American foreign policy generally. Among these are two of particular noteworthiness.
The present US-Russian standoff over the basing of a limited anti-missile system in Eastern Europe is one.
The other is the Turkey-PKK affair. As mentioned in a post yesterday, the US has been smiling on one arm of the Kurdish insurgency--the one directed against Iran--while frowning mightily on the other--the one directed against Turkey. As a result, the US has not been able or, (to err on the side of probable accuracy) willing to effectively assist in the reduction of the PKK threat with the result that Ankara is ready, willing, and able to mount destabilizing incursions into Iraq.
The prime beneficiary of these collaterals is, unsurprisingly, Iran.
The Iranian shadow must be reduced. It must be reduced so that the US can afford to pull back from the unnecessary complications. It must be reduced so that modulated diplomatic discourse might prove effective in gaining the desired end of preventing Tehran from acquiring atomic weapons in either the near- or mid-term.
It is equally necessary that Tehran feel real, even exquisite, pain to slow or stop its proxy war operations. The UN imposed sanctions have hurt. But, not enough.
The new sanctions, if imposed on foreign companies or financial institutions or governments who do business with the targeted entities as well as in the US, will add pain, perhaps intolerable amounts.
Think of it as the foreign policy equivalent of what police call a "compliance hold." The goal is to coerce compliance with dictated behavior by imposing increasing amounts of physical discomfort.
These sanctions may not prove to be sufficiently intense to force a modification on the mullah's actions and policies. They may be sufficiently unpleasant in application to force a limited change for a limited time. They may not work at all.
Those are questions that can only be answered in the next few weeks and months. The sanctions are nonetheless a strong indication that the US has today what it did not have six years ago--an actual policy that is more realistic than not as well as one more likely to achieve positive results than not.
If nothing else, these long overdue new sanctions delay the date of our next Adventure in Regime Change. For that, the Geek is grateful. So should all of us be.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Ghost Of Fidel Haunts Current Administration
The Geek has to wonder if the Commander Guy and the neocon ninnies around him have noticed that Cuba--and the Castro boys--have been slogging on despite our ever present disapproval. He also has to scratch his head over the warning issued today by the CG sternly telling Fidel that the US will not continence his turning power over to little brother Raul.
Hasn't anyone mentioned to the encapsulated Decider that effective transfer of power has already occurred? Isn't that what the National Intelligence Czar is supposed to do? Isn't that one of the reasons the US has an enormous intelligence community?
Or, is the Commander and Decider pursuing some arcane political advantage with the aging expatriate Cuban community in Florida? In the alternative, have some of the nagging neocons with their visions of democracy and free enterprise in action yet undimmed by the dust of Iraq once again gained control of the current administration's decision-making loop?
At the moment, the latter seems probable given the invocation of the march of democracy through Latin America.
Ahh, yes! Democracy in action. Gotta love it.
Democracy brought Hugo Chavez to the presidency of Venezuela. It (aided by Chavez' closing of opposition radio and television stations and a host of questionable election practices) gave birth to the changes in the Venezuelan constitution giving authoritarian powers to the neo-Castroite.
Democracy in action has brought about neo-Castroite regimes in Ecuador and Bolivia.
What does the current administration think? Is it convinced that blowing the same ancient warnings and implied threats will bring about democracy in action in Cuba? Is it somehow convinced that by doing this the results of democracy in action in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia will be rolled back?
The evil synergy of ideology and perceived domestic political gain has powered some of the worst foreign policy errors in US history including the "Who-Lost-China?" debacle which shackled US policy in Asia for decades to say nothing of the forty-eight years of stupidity regarding Cuba.
If the US really wants to constructively engage Cuba, and the three neo-Castroite regimes in South America, it has to change its diplomatic and rhetorical course. Continuation of elderly, long proven to be ineffective postures is not only ideologically blind and intellectually bankrupt, it is counterproductive to the max.
There is nothing hard to understand about that.
Is there?
American national interest in Latin America and the Caribbean basin is furthered by open, authentic dialogue which is free from ideological cant. It requires that the deep thinkers at the policy level have ears as well as mouths.
The governments and peoples of Latin America do not constitute a monolith. Each nation has a different history, varied needs, separate priorities, and, never forget this, a unique, subjectively defined national interest.
Nothing hard to understand about that.
Is there?
Cuba and the Cubans have been living with the consequences both good and bad of the success of the 26th of July Movement for two generations now. There have been no, repeat, no genuine, large scale indications of dissatisfaction. If the Castro boys were the icky-poo repressors of Cuba, coups would have been attempted, insurgent movements would have populated the hills.
This hasn't happened. Even though the US stood ready, willing, and somewhat able to foster and assist wannabe over throwers of the Evil Island Empire as events of the early 1960s demonstrated.
Yes, the internal security establishment in Cuba is pervasive and effective. But, not that effective.
History has shown that no government can be totally effective at total repression over time. For a few years, yes. For a couple or three decades, probably. Day after day for a half century? Not likely.
This implies strongly that the Castro regime has what we Americans like to call the "consent of the governed." That means that most, if not all, Cubans see their regime as possessing either or both existential and functional legitimacy. To Cubans, or at least a critical mass of them, the current regime of the Castro brothers is their government, indigenous, organic, not imposed from without. Further, to the Cuban people, or at least a critical mass, the current regime delivers a satisfactory enough overall quality of life.
Ironically, the existential legitimacy of the Castro regime has been enhanced over time by the unyielding opposition of the United States. Administration after administration has failed to understand that pressure consolidates the political will and cohesion of the target population long before it shatters it.
The Commander Guy's stern speech would assure the overwhelming election of Raul Castro if elections were to take place tomorrow.
(Hint to the Cubans: Why not try it? Why not put the current administration to the ultimate test? Have an election. Go ahead, elect Raul, if that's who you want. Ask Jimmy Carter to monitor the election. That would put the current administration in the put-up or shut-up whipsaw.)
In the spirit of even-handedness, the Geek has a hint for the current administration. (Well, to err on the side of accuracy, two of them.)
Hint number one: Elections are a nice idea perhaps. But, democracy is not a panacea. It never has been. Elections bring good results. They are equally likely to bring bad ones. Elections can be and often are shams. They have no inherent white magic. So, current administration, quit pandering to a myth. Ask yourselves, what are we going to do if Raul or someone else like him wins an election in Cuba?
Hint number two: (Pay attention now, this is a several step hint.) Great Powers--like the United States--have long term national interests which are best served by a world order which is stable, predictable, and manageable over time.
Long term interests, history shows, are not, repeat, not served by hectoring another country. Neither are they served by attempting to export our systems and the myths that support them by coercive methods.
History also shows (in Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, the Philippines among others) that the long term stability so needed by a Great Power is not served by supporting or fostering tin plated dictators who promise short duration order.
Finally, history shows beyond even the irrational doubts of neocon ninnies that the greatest of Great Powers can have meaningful impact upon another country's social and political institutions only by working with the organic, indigenous trajectories which have developed within that country. The changes within a society or polity have both direction and inertia.
The inertia of human myths, beliefs, institutions is greater than any in the physical world. Get a grip on that.
The trajectories of the Cuban people cannot and will not be changed by stern words out of Washington. Fidel knows that. As a result, he rejected the words even before they were officially uttered.
Unfortunately for us the Commander Guy isn't is smart as the aging, ailing Cuban.
Hasn't anyone mentioned to the encapsulated Decider that effective transfer of power has already occurred? Isn't that what the National Intelligence Czar is supposed to do? Isn't that one of the reasons the US has an enormous intelligence community?
Or, is the Commander and Decider pursuing some arcane political advantage with the aging expatriate Cuban community in Florida? In the alternative, have some of the nagging neocons with their visions of democracy and free enterprise in action yet undimmed by the dust of Iraq once again gained control of the current administration's decision-making loop?
At the moment, the latter seems probable given the invocation of the march of democracy through Latin America.
Ahh, yes! Democracy in action. Gotta love it.
Democracy brought Hugo Chavez to the presidency of Venezuela. It (aided by Chavez' closing of opposition radio and television stations and a host of questionable election practices) gave birth to the changes in the Venezuelan constitution giving authoritarian powers to the neo-Castroite.
Democracy in action has brought about neo-Castroite regimes in Ecuador and Bolivia.
What does the current administration think? Is it convinced that blowing the same ancient warnings and implied threats will bring about democracy in action in Cuba? Is it somehow convinced that by doing this the results of democracy in action in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia will be rolled back?
The evil synergy of ideology and perceived domestic political gain has powered some of the worst foreign policy errors in US history including the "Who-Lost-China?" debacle which shackled US policy in Asia for decades to say nothing of the forty-eight years of stupidity regarding Cuba.
If the US really wants to constructively engage Cuba, and the three neo-Castroite regimes in South America, it has to change its diplomatic and rhetorical course. Continuation of elderly, long proven to be ineffective postures is not only ideologically blind and intellectually bankrupt, it is counterproductive to the max.
There is nothing hard to understand about that.
Is there?
American national interest in Latin America and the Caribbean basin is furthered by open, authentic dialogue which is free from ideological cant. It requires that the deep thinkers at the policy level have ears as well as mouths.
The governments and peoples of Latin America do not constitute a monolith. Each nation has a different history, varied needs, separate priorities, and, never forget this, a unique, subjectively defined national interest.
Nothing hard to understand about that.
Is there?
Cuba and the Cubans have been living with the consequences both good and bad of the success of the 26th of July Movement for two generations now. There have been no, repeat, no genuine, large scale indications of dissatisfaction. If the Castro boys were the icky-poo repressors of Cuba, coups would have been attempted, insurgent movements would have populated the hills.
This hasn't happened. Even though the US stood ready, willing, and somewhat able to foster and assist wannabe over throwers of the Evil Island Empire as events of the early 1960s demonstrated.
Yes, the internal security establishment in Cuba is pervasive and effective. But, not that effective.
History has shown that no government can be totally effective at total repression over time. For a few years, yes. For a couple or three decades, probably. Day after day for a half century? Not likely.
This implies strongly that the Castro regime has what we Americans like to call the "consent of the governed." That means that most, if not all, Cubans see their regime as possessing either or both existential and functional legitimacy. To Cubans, or at least a critical mass of them, the current regime of the Castro brothers is their government, indigenous, organic, not imposed from without. Further, to the Cuban people, or at least a critical mass, the current regime delivers a satisfactory enough overall quality of life.
Ironically, the existential legitimacy of the Castro regime has been enhanced over time by the unyielding opposition of the United States. Administration after administration has failed to understand that pressure consolidates the political will and cohesion of the target population long before it shatters it.
The Commander Guy's stern speech would assure the overwhelming election of Raul Castro if elections were to take place tomorrow.
(Hint to the Cubans: Why not try it? Why not put the current administration to the ultimate test? Have an election. Go ahead, elect Raul, if that's who you want. Ask Jimmy Carter to monitor the election. That would put the current administration in the put-up or shut-up whipsaw.)
In the spirit of even-handedness, the Geek has a hint for the current administration. (Well, to err on the side of accuracy, two of them.)
Hint number one: Elections are a nice idea perhaps. But, democracy is not a panacea. It never has been. Elections bring good results. They are equally likely to bring bad ones. Elections can be and often are shams. They have no inherent white magic. So, current administration, quit pandering to a myth. Ask yourselves, what are we going to do if Raul or someone else like him wins an election in Cuba?
Hint number two: (Pay attention now, this is a several step hint.) Great Powers--like the United States--have long term national interests which are best served by a world order which is stable, predictable, and manageable over time.
Long term interests, history shows, are not, repeat, not served by hectoring another country. Neither are they served by attempting to export our systems and the myths that support them by coercive methods.
History also shows (in Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, the Philippines among others) that the long term stability so needed by a Great Power is not served by supporting or fostering tin plated dictators who promise short duration order.
Finally, history shows beyond even the irrational doubts of neocon ninnies that the greatest of Great Powers can have meaningful impact upon another country's social and political institutions only by working with the organic, indigenous trajectories which have developed within that country. The changes within a society or polity have both direction and inertia.
The inertia of human myths, beliefs, institutions is greater than any in the physical world. Get a grip on that.
The trajectories of the Cuban people cannot and will not be changed by stern words out of Washington. Fidel knows that. As a result, he rejected the words even before they were officially uttered.
Unfortunately for us the Commander Guy isn't is smart as the aging, ailing Cuban.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
There Are "Bad" Kurds--And Good Ones
That's where the problem lies for the United States. Worse, it's another one for which we are partially responsible.
We all know who the "bad" Kurds are. They're called the Kurdistan Workers Party, usually called the PKK. They've gotten all the news play in the past few days. They are "bad" because they attack Turkish targets as they have been doing for almost twenty-five years now.
But, who or what are the "good" Kurds?
They call themselves the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK). They are "good" because they have been attacking targets in Iran as they have been doing for nearly twenty-five years now. They have gotten no significant news coverage.
The PKK have been declared to be a "terrorist" group. The PJAK has not received this distinction.
The PKK has received no US assistance, not even conversational. The PJAK has not only been talked with by American personnel, there is strong reason to believe they have been the beneficiaries of more than mere polite palaver.
You don't need to have a PhD in Kurdish Studies to see the reason for the difference in treatment. Do you?
From Washington's perspective, Turkey is a good guy (most of the time.) Also from the banks of the Potomac, Iran is a bad guy (all of the time.)
There is, however, one small problem.
"What's that?" You ask.
PKK and PJAK are not separate organisations. They share the goal of an independent Kurdistan carved out of Iran, Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. More, they share leadership. They share logistics support.
They are not even Siamese twins. PKK and PJAK are different names for the same entity.
Washington knows it. Turkey knows it. The Iraqi regime knows it.
All of the above (and the mullahocracy in Tehran as well) know that (ahem) PJAK has and does receive the distant blessings of Washington. Not just the current administration but its predecessors running back a quarter century. (Don't say a word about it. The whole thing has been covert. You know, deep, deep black.)
Of course, that's how weapons supplied to the Iraqis ended up in the hands of dead PKK guerrillas inside Turkey. The strictures of plausible deniability demand that the US never speak on that matter but rather let the whole affair die with time and benign neglect.
Now, it doesn't take a particularly deep thinker to realise that it is impossible to bless one arm of a group while damning the other. Whatever benefits the one limb will aid the other.
Thus, the current problem further bedeviling the current administration's Iraq policies.
The Kurds aren't going to just stop the show because it would make our life in Iraq a little less unbearable. They've gotten up a reasonably good head of steam in recent months.
The PJAK wing has killed or captured a surprising number of Iranian Revolutionary Guard members. Their pin prick raids have stimulated not only Iranian artillery fire in reply but political difficulties in the northwestern areas of Iran.
During the same time, PKK has raised the noise level in the Turkish countryside to an unacceptable extent. The Turkish Army is good for go.
The Iraqi regime is caught in the middle. There isn't much Baghdad can do, at least in the near-term. Closing the offices of the PKK in Iraq and proclaiming the outfit to be "terrorist" is scarcely a death blow. Neither is the promise that the Iraqi government will do something about the PKK one of these days.
That leaves the US.
In principle the US could collaborate more closely and effectively with the Turkish armed forces and government. We could provide more hard, actionable intelligence in a more timely fashion. We could provide surveillance and reconnaissance equipment to support Turkish interdiction efforts. We could, at least hypothetically, spare a brigade or two to move against PKK facilities in the mountains on the Turkish border.
We could do any or all of these if it were not for the fact that hurting the "bad" Kurds also hurts the "good" Kurds. We could do any or all of these things if it were not for the fact that providing comfort for Turkey does the same for Iran.
Ahh! What a delightful policy bind!
A realpolitiker might focus on the more immediate horn of the dilemma. That would be Iraq. The realpolitiker would agree to work with the Turks in abating the PKK nuisance without regard to the collateral damage inflicted on the PJAK. Help the necessary ally without worrying about the attendant assistance given to the adversary, Iran.
The current administration has not been noted for its grip on the requirements of realpolitik. Given the recent rhetorical blasts leveled by the Decider Guy and the Veep at Tehran, as well as the counterblasts from the mullahocracy, discomfiting the Iranians may well out weigh placating the Turks.
Short-term, the Turks (with US support, and Iraqi understanding) should be able to lower the capacity of PKK to mount attacks. They've done that much before.
Longer term, military operations are not the solution. The Kurds are not going to lose political will in the foreseeable future.
The longer term answer will have to reside in some sort of semi-autonomous Kurdistan.
The Kurds face a harsh reality.
They have to come to terms with geography, just as the Turks, Iraqis, Iranians, and Syrians have to accept the dictates of ethnic and historic identity.
The Kurds may have material resources (read oil) but without the collaboration of their neighbors, it might as well stay in the ground. Kurdistan of whatsoever size is landlocked.
Another reality on the ground is water. The Turks have spent much time, effort, and oodles of Lira on their hydro projects on the upper rivers. No matter what works out finally with respect to Kurdistan, Ankara is not going to include the dams in the deal. Neither would the downstream nations, Iraq and Iran, allow the Kurds to take over control of the faucet. It's bad enough that the Turks have it now.
There will be a fair amount of killing in the future. There will have to be a lot of tough talking between countries as well as with the Kurds--even those of the bifurcate semi-Marxist guerrillas.
How much killing as well as how and when the talking will start is in some measure up the US. Ironically the situation parallels that in Palestine. (Or the West Bank and Gaza, if you prefer.)
We all know how well American efforts at brokerage have worked there.
We all know who the "bad" Kurds are. They're called the Kurdistan Workers Party, usually called the PKK. They've gotten all the news play in the past few days. They are "bad" because they attack Turkish targets as they have been doing for almost twenty-five years now.
But, who or what are the "good" Kurds?
They call themselves the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK). They are "good" because they have been attacking targets in Iran as they have been doing for nearly twenty-five years now. They have gotten no significant news coverage.
The PKK have been declared to be a "terrorist" group. The PJAK has not received this distinction.
The PKK has received no US assistance, not even conversational. The PJAK has not only been talked with by American personnel, there is strong reason to believe they have been the beneficiaries of more than mere polite palaver.
You don't need to have a PhD in Kurdish Studies to see the reason for the difference in treatment. Do you?
From Washington's perspective, Turkey is a good guy (most of the time.) Also from the banks of the Potomac, Iran is a bad guy (all of the time.)
There is, however, one small problem.
"What's that?" You ask.
PKK and PJAK are not separate organisations. They share the goal of an independent Kurdistan carved out of Iran, Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. More, they share leadership. They share logistics support.
They are not even Siamese twins. PKK and PJAK are different names for the same entity.
Washington knows it. Turkey knows it. The Iraqi regime knows it.
All of the above (and the mullahocracy in Tehran as well) know that (ahem) PJAK has and does receive the distant blessings of Washington. Not just the current administration but its predecessors running back a quarter century. (Don't say a word about it. The whole thing has been covert. You know, deep, deep black.)
Of course, that's how weapons supplied to the Iraqis ended up in the hands of dead PKK guerrillas inside Turkey. The strictures of plausible deniability demand that the US never speak on that matter but rather let the whole affair die with time and benign neglect.
Now, it doesn't take a particularly deep thinker to realise that it is impossible to bless one arm of a group while damning the other. Whatever benefits the one limb will aid the other.
Thus, the current problem further bedeviling the current administration's Iraq policies.
The Kurds aren't going to just stop the show because it would make our life in Iraq a little less unbearable. They've gotten up a reasonably good head of steam in recent months.
The PJAK wing has killed or captured a surprising number of Iranian Revolutionary Guard members. Their pin prick raids have stimulated not only Iranian artillery fire in reply but political difficulties in the northwestern areas of Iran.
During the same time, PKK has raised the noise level in the Turkish countryside to an unacceptable extent. The Turkish Army is good for go.
The Iraqi regime is caught in the middle. There isn't much Baghdad can do, at least in the near-term. Closing the offices of the PKK in Iraq and proclaiming the outfit to be "terrorist" is scarcely a death blow. Neither is the promise that the Iraqi government will do something about the PKK one of these days.
That leaves the US.
In principle the US could collaborate more closely and effectively with the Turkish armed forces and government. We could provide more hard, actionable intelligence in a more timely fashion. We could provide surveillance and reconnaissance equipment to support Turkish interdiction efforts. We could, at least hypothetically, spare a brigade or two to move against PKK facilities in the mountains on the Turkish border.
We could do any or all of these if it were not for the fact that hurting the "bad" Kurds also hurts the "good" Kurds. We could do any or all of these things if it were not for the fact that providing comfort for Turkey does the same for Iran.
Ahh! What a delightful policy bind!
A realpolitiker might focus on the more immediate horn of the dilemma. That would be Iraq. The realpolitiker would agree to work with the Turks in abating the PKK nuisance without regard to the collateral damage inflicted on the PJAK. Help the necessary ally without worrying about the attendant assistance given to the adversary, Iran.
The current administration has not been noted for its grip on the requirements of realpolitik. Given the recent rhetorical blasts leveled by the Decider Guy and the Veep at Tehran, as well as the counterblasts from the mullahocracy, discomfiting the Iranians may well out weigh placating the Turks.
Short-term, the Turks (with US support, and Iraqi understanding) should be able to lower the capacity of PKK to mount attacks. They've done that much before.
Longer term, military operations are not the solution. The Kurds are not going to lose political will in the foreseeable future.
The longer term answer will have to reside in some sort of semi-autonomous Kurdistan.
The Kurds face a harsh reality.
They have to come to terms with geography, just as the Turks, Iraqis, Iranians, and Syrians have to accept the dictates of ethnic and historic identity.
The Kurds may have material resources (read oil) but without the collaboration of their neighbors, it might as well stay in the ground. Kurdistan of whatsoever size is landlocked.
Another reality on the ground is water. The Turks have spent much time, effort, and oodles of Lira on their hydro projects on the upper rivers. No matter what works out finally with respect to Kurdistan, Ankara is not going to include the dams in the deal. Neither would the downstream nations, Iraq and Iran, allow the Kurds to take over control of the faucet. It's bad enough that the Turks have it now.
There will be a fair amount of killing in the future. There will have to be a lot of tough talking between countries as well as with the Kurds--even those of the bifurcate semi-Marxist guerrillas.
How much killing as well as how and when the talking will start is in some measure up the US. Ironically the situation parallels that in Palestine. (Or the West Bank and Gaza, if you prefer.)
We all know how well American efforts at brokerage have worked there.
The Higher The Rank, The Smaller The Mind---
--Or so it so often seems to the Geek.
SecDef Gates may have taken a firm grip on reality, but many of the highest ranking officers under him are charter members of the out-to-lunch bunch, uniformed division. The Secretary accepts the unpleasant feature of the world today and into the near-term. The major use of American combat forces will be as it has been for more than a decade now--stability operations.
As the Geek well remembers from his encounters over this subject years ago, the men with stars on their shoulders all-too-often will not march on the sound of reality. They prefer to hang on to the hopes of a conventional conflict.
The most recent outbreak of uniformed nostalgia for the good ole days of War As We Would Like To Know It eluded the mainstream media but was caught by by Wired News. Take a look, http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/10/some-observers-.html. Further details can be found on http://insidedefense.com/. This latter source can also shed light on internal inconsistencies within the massive military establishment concerning what kind of threat(s) our forces should be preparing to counter.
There is no surprise that the Air Force is particularly unhappy with the idea of stability operations including counterinsurgency, peacekeeping, and counter-terrorism. The majority of senior zoomies such as Lance Smith are jet jocks. The kind of guy who lives to strap on umpteen thousand pounds of thrust between his legs and pull back on the stick.
Experience shows that the fast-movers which are the heart and soul of the Air Force are massively irrelevant and even counterproductive in stability operations except in unusual and narrowly circumscribed applications. That doesn't help come appropriation time.
It doesn't help come promotion time either.
While it is easy to understand why the boys in light blue don't want to be thought of (or think of themselves as) a collection of airborne bus and truck drivers providing dreary logistic support to the actual warfighters, it is a little harder to understand why the upper echelon of the Army is unhappy as well.
Army Chief of Staff George Casey like his predecessor Peter Schoomaker have made mighty groans concerning the possibility that the ground-pounders are "off-balance" and less able to engage in conventional war. Joined by Marine Commandant James Conway, the two have viewed with alarm the tilting of American ground forces toward the requirements of stability operations.
The latest voice in the chorus is that of Admiral Michael Mullen, the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Gotta admit that is an impressive constellation of stars, right?
It is that. Impressive amount of tin on the shoulders and braid on the hats. Taken in totality, the pounds of tin and braid mean these men are fine bureaucratic politicians.
Possession of stars, however, does not mean that the individual is an experienced fighter of real wars. Neither does it imply that the man under the stars and braid has a grip on the nature of present and future wars.
The initial blundering in the planning and execution of our adventures in regime change in both Afghanistan and Iraq show two realities quite clearly.
Our senior military commanders were either intellectually bankrupt or moral cowards when they agreed to execute the lamebrained notion of "shock and awe" sponsored by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and his neocon ninny brigade. Then, the events on the ground until quite recently demonstrated that our forces were far too heavily tilted toward conventional war with a symmetrical opponent.
American officers of stratospheric rank have never cottoned to guerrilla war. They certainly didn't like the counterinsurgency portions of the Vietnam War. Even way back when, in the late Nineteenth Century, unconventional approaches to defeating the Indians such as practiced by General Crookes were cast aside (as was Crookes) by the senior commanders in favor of less effective, more lethal conventional means.
Generals Smith, Casey et al, and Admiral Mullen are captives to a set of paradigms. Deadly paradigms because they are ill-suited for the world as it is and will be for some while yet.
The buried paradigm is that of war as a pursuit for professionals sharing common world views and values. It is the paradigm of a sand table exercise enlarged to cover thousands of square kilometers. It is the paradigm of Clausewitz with movement and concentration of forces ending in "bloody and decisive combat."
The surface paradigm is that of the post-World War II experience, culminating in the concept of the Air-Land Battle, which has been enshrined in doctrine for two decades and more. It is the paradigm that assured quick and bloodless victory over the hopelessly overmatched opponent in the Gulf War of 1991 and the conventional portion of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Air-Land Battle represents War As We Would Like It To Be to these generals and many like them. It is the kind of war, with its emphasis on breaking things and killing people, at which we are best prepared and equipped to wage.
The paradigms guiding the thinking of these generals (as well as lurking under Rumsfeld's concept of shock and awe) promise quick and decisive victory. Victory fast enough and cheap enough in American lives to assure the end of the war before the political will of We the People is exhausted.
Here is the subtext message upon which to get a grip.
The generals listed as well as Admiral Mullen and many others are desperately afraid of stability operations. They are more afraid of counterinsurgency than they are of death itself.
Why?
Simple. These men are scared of us. They are made fearful, not by any actual or potential enemy, but of We the People.
They are afraid that We the People and our "representatives" will lose the political will to continue the stability operation, the counterinsurgency, the peacekeeping mission, the counter-terrorist campaign when "victory" proves elusive and expensive in time and lives.
When that happens, they will be left holding the same bag as their predecessors following the self-inflicted Vietnam defeat. They will be left with the hollow forces, the empty appropriations, the testimony before hostile committees, the blighted careers.
Where does the fault lie?
It is easy to say it lies with backward looking, intellectually deficient military politicians more worried about careers, promotions, appropriations and glory than about the effective use of the military in support of national interest. That is the easy, attractive way to point the finger.
Or, we can take the harder route. We can look in a mirror.
The present and future reality is that Secretary of Defense Gates is right. Stability operations are and will be the order of the day. This unpleasant fact of life requires both the changes in military doctrine and orientation so recently undertaken.
But, it requires more.
Of our senior military officials, particularly the bureaucratic politicos in uniform, it requires honesty. It requires that they shift the paradigms that have served as pole stars for their entire careers. That is tough--damn tough. But, no tougher than slogging along looking for the ambush or the roadside mine.
Senior military commanders have to both adjust to the new reality of war and insist that We the People do the same.
The ultimate (perhaps unachievable) requirement is that We the People and our "representatives" acknowledge that there are no quick, decisive, and cheap victories in the offing. Wars today and tomorrow are going to be long, indecisive, and quite probably not completely satisfying in their outcome. That is the nature of all stability operations, most particularly counterinsurgency.
Presence on the ground, persistence over time, and patience are the prime requisites. This means the political will of We the People is the foundation for achieving the minimal acceptable outcome of any stability operation.
The minimal acceptable outcome?
Not losing. As the Korean War demonstrated, not losing is both the minimal acceptable and often the only possible outcome of a war.
We are and will be again in situations far more akin to the Korean War than World War II. We best get a grip on that.
Our future administrations had best get a grip on it as well. Getting into war is a lot easier than getting out of it without declaring defeat. Vietnam showed us that. Iraq is showing it again right now as is Afghanistan.
A hint to future administrations from the past: Don't march off to war unless and until you not only have a clear understanding of what is at stake, what is the desired better state of peace, and, most importantly, what is the definition of "not losing?"
SecDef Gates may have taken a firm grip on reality, but many of the highest ranking officers under him are charter members of the out-to-lunch bunch, uniformed division. The Secretary accepts the unpleasant feature of the world today and into the near-term. The major use of American combat forces will be as it has been for more than a decade now--stability operations.
As the Geek well remembers from his encounters over this subject years ago, the men with stars on their shoulders all-too-often will not march on the sound of reality. They prefer to hang on to the hopes of a conventional conflict.
The most recent outbreak of uniformed nostalgia for the good ole days of War As We Would Like To Know It eluded the mainstream media but was caught by by Wired News. Take a look, http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/10/some-observers-.html. Further details can be found on http://insidedefense.com/. This latter source can also shed light on internal inconsistencies within the massive military establishment concerning what kind of threat(s) our forces should be preparing to counter.
There is no surprise that the Air Force is particularly unhappy with the idea of stability operations including counterinsurgency, peacekeeping, and counter-terrorism. The majority of senior zoomies such as Lance Smith are jet jocks. The kind of guy who lives to strap on umpteen thousand pounds of thrust between his legs and pull back on the stick.
Experience shows that the fast-movers which are the heart and soul of the Air Force are massively irrelevant and even counterproductive in stability operations except in unusual and narrowly circumscribed applications. That doesn't help come appropriation time.
It doesn't help come promotion time either.
While it is easy to understand why the boys in light blue don't want to be thought of (or think of themselves as) a collection of airborne bus and truck drivers providing dreary logistic support to the actual warfighters, it is a little harder to understand why the upper echelon of the Army is unhappy as well.
Army Chief of Staff George Casey like his predecessor Peter Schoomaker have made mighty groans concerning the possibility that the ground-pounders are "off-balance" and less able to engage in conventional war. Joined by Marine Commandant James Conway, the two have viewed with alarm the tilting of American ground forces toward the requirements of stability operations.
The latest voice in the chorus is that of Admiral Michael Mullen, the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Gotta admit that is an impressive constellation of stars, right?
It is that. Impressive amount of tin on the shoulders and braid on the hats. Taken in totality, the pounds of tin and braid mean these men are fine bureaucratic politicians.
Possession of stars, however, does not mean that the individual is an experienced fighter of real wars. Neither does it imply that the man under the stars and braid has a grip on the nature of present and future wars.
The initial blundering in the planning and execution of our adventures in regime change in both Afghanistan and Iraq show two realities quite clearly.
Our senior military commanders were either intellectually bankrupt or moral cowards when they agreed to execute the lamebrained notion of "shock and awe" sponsored by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and his neocon ninny brigade. Then, the events on the ground until quite recently demonstrated that our forces were far too heavily tilted toward conventional war with a symmetrical opponent.
American officers of stratospheric rank have never cottoned to guerrilla war. They certainly didn't like the counterinsurgency portions of the Vietnam War. Even way back when, in the late Nineteenth Century, unconventional approaches to defeating the Indians such as practiced by General Crookes were cast aside (as was Crookes) by the senior commanders in favor of less effective, more lethal conventional means.
Generals Smith, Casey et al, and Admiral Mullen are captives to a set of paradigms. Deadly paradigms because they are ill-suited for the world as it is and will be for some while yet.
The buried paradigm is that of war as a pursuit for professionals sharing common world views and values. It is the paradigm of a sand table exercise enlarged to cover thousands of square kilometers. It is the paradigm of Clausewitz with movement and concentration of forces ending in "bloody and decisive combat."
The surface paradigm is that of the post-World War II experience, culminating in the concept of the Air-Land Battle, which has been enshrined in doctrine for two decades and more. It is the paradigm that assured quick and bloodless victory over the hopelessly overmatched opponent in the Gulf War of 1991 and the conventional portion of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Air-Land Battle represents War As We Would Like It To Be to these generals and many like them. It is the kind of war, with its emphasis on breaking things and killing people, at which we are best prepared and equipped to wage.
The paradigms guiding the thinking of these generals (as well as lurking under Rumsfeld's concept of shock and awe) promise quick and decisive victory. Victory fast enough and cheap enough in American lives to assure the end of the war before the political will of We the People is exhausted.
Here is the subtext message upon which to get a grip.
The generals listed as well as Admiral Mullen and many others are desperately afraid of stability operations. They are more afraid of counterinsurgency than they are of death itself.
Why?
Simple. These men are scared of us. They are made fearful, not by any actual or potential enemy, but of We the People.
They are afraid that We the People and our "representatives" will lose the political will to continue the stability operation, the counterinsurgency, the peacekeeping mission, the counter-terrorist campaign when "victory" proves elusive and expensive in time and lives.
When that happens, they will be left holding the same bag as their predecessors following the self-inflicted Vietnam defeat. They will be left with the hollow forces, the empty appropriations, the testimony before hostile committees, the blighted careers.
Where does the fault lie?
It is easy to say it lies with backward looking, intellectually deficient military politicians more worried about careers, promotions, appropriations and glory than about the effective use of the military in support of national interest. That is the easy, attractive way to point the finger.
Or, we can take the harder route. We can look in a mirror.
The present and future reality is that Secretary of Defense Gates is right. Stability operations are and will be the order of the day. This unpleasant fact of life requires both the changes in military doctrine and orientation so recently undertaken.
But, it requires more.
Of our senior military officials, particularly the bureaucratic politicos in uniform, it requires honesty. It requires that they shift the paradigms that have served as pole stars for their entire careers. That is tough--damn tough. But, no tougher than slogging along looking for the ambush or the roadside mine.
Senior military commanders have to both adjust to the new reality of war and insist that We the People do the same.
The ultimate (perhaps unachievable) requirement is that We the People and our "representatives" acknowledge that there are no quick, decisive, and cheap victories in the offing. Wars today and tomorrow are going to be long, indecisive, and quite probably not completely satisfying in their outcome. That is the nature of all stability operations, most particularly counterinsurgency.
Presence on the ground, persistence over time, and patience are the prime requisites. This means the political will of We the People is the foundation for achieving the minimal acceptable outcome of any stability operation.
The minimal acceptable outcome?
Not losing. As the Korean War demonstrated, not losing is both the minimal acceptable and often the only possible outcome of a war.
We are and will be again in situations far more akin to the Korean War than World War II. We best get a grip on that.
Our future administrations had best get a grip on it as well. Getting into war is a lot easier than getting out of it without declaring defeat. Vietnam showed us that. Iraq is showing it again right now as is Afghanistan.
A hint to future administrations from the past: Don't march off to war unless and until you not only have a clear understanding of what is at stake, what is the desired better state of peace, and, most importantly, what is the definition of "not losing?"
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Turkey, Iraq, PKK, Iran, Cheney and Twelve Captains
Turkey is ready, raring and probably able to go into Iraqi Kurdistan in one more attempt to abate the nuisance called the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK).
Not surprisingly, this development has heaved Baghdad into a full blown state of panic.
Equally unsurprisingly, the Turkish move is deplored by the current administration.
Ever since the fall of the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago, the Kurds have been a thorn in the paw of every would be Lion of the Upper Tigris and Euphrates. Ataturk pretended the Kurds didn't really exist. The British, as part of the sporadic Empire Policing Scheme, tried to bomb them into submission.
Later the Shah, Saddam, Assam, and the mullahocracy periodically mounted punitive expeditions against them. The body count varied from minimal to massive, but in the end the Kurds were still there--and still unacceptably uppity from the perspective of Tehran, Baghdad, or Damascus.
In comparison, the Turks were remarkably easy going in the face of PKK provocation. While Ankara's estimate of thirty thousand Turks killed in the past twenty or so years by PKK attacks may err on the side of exaggeration, PKK has inflicted unacceptable damage to the Turkish society, polity, and economy.
Since the American sponsored "regime change" in Iraq and the virtual independence of the Kurdish Autonomous Region (KAR) in that country, PKK has been on the attack with a vengeance. Months ago (with an arguable amount of justification) the Turkish government pointed a finger at the United States as having a (major) share of the responsibility for the rapidly deteriorating situation in southeastern Turkey along the Iraqi border.
The current administration did not make an effective reply. The (covert, so don't say a word about it) introduction of a handful of Special Forces teams into Turkey to work with the local forces in detecting and interdicting PKK squads along with the promise of an investigation to find how weapons transferred by the US to Iraqi security units ended up in the (dead) hands of PKK guerrillas were the main features of the totally ineffectual American response.
The PKK attacks escalated. Finally, they went one bomb over the line. The Turkish Army howled. Given the current internal politics of Turkey with the recent, hotly contested election of a perhaps Islamist leaning president, the protests of the army could not be ignored.
Neither could the implied humiliation of the Turkish government by the brazen PKK strikes. When coupled with the pathetically misguided and mistimed effort on the part of Sten Hoyer, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democrats in the House, which was in itself a perceived insult, the vote in the Turkish parliament to authorize raids of undefined size into northern Iraq was drearily predictable.
US military officials on the ground in Iraq as well as in Washington are correct when they aver any Turkish incursion will destabilize the most peaceful portion of Iraq. The band in Baghdad which claims it is the government of Iraq is right when members state (off the record, of course) that the writ of Baghdad does not run to the Kurdish Autonomous Region.
Time to get a grip.
There is not much the US can do about the situation in the KAR. There is not much we can do to stop the PKK using the rugged border territory as a sanctuary. There is not much we can do to enhance stability there or in the rest of Iraq if any Turkish incursion stimulates an uptick in the anti-Occupier, anti-government violence.
There isn't much the US can do to dissuade the Turks from mounting attacks into the KAR. Right now, we need them a lot more than they need us. We are not alone in the lack of influence upon Ankara--particularly if PKK makes another high visibility, high body count hit. In that case, even the EU with its potential for denying Turkey membership in the Union may find that threat insufficient to deter.
Why the impotence?
The short answer is one word long. Iraq.
The long answer isn't all that lengthier. There are not enough boots on the ground in Iraq to deal with the KAR along with all the rest of Iraq.
Grunting and groaning at great economic and greater political cost, the US could, in principle, put enough additional manpower on the ground to provide the necessary combat muscle to stop PKK and assure stability in the KAR. That would take time. Six months would be wildly optimistic. Eight months slightly less so.
The PKK won't wait that long. Neither will the American election cycle.
Imagine for a moment what the effect of adding fifty thousand US personnel to the Iraq TOE would be on the American electorate. Can we say, Republicans go the way of the dinosaur?
The continued effects of the current administration's blundering miscalculations regarding the aftermath of ejecting Saddam Hussein continue to come home to roost. Right now, a bunch of very determined guerrillas and their equally determined opponent have the US caught in the painful vise of reality.
The current administration, which so loudly proclaimed the doctrine of preventative war, unilateralism, and the existence of the US as the world's only Great Power, is utterly dependent upon the good will of a very reluctant ally and the forbearance of a guerrilla entity, which has no history of forbearance. Ironic. heh?
Amazingly, this lesson in impotence has been lost upon Vice President Dick Cheney. Yesterday, he announced to a (small) friendly audience at a think tank in Virginia that the US would not allow Iran to gain a nuclear weapons capability. (It should be noted that he added, presumably sotto voce, other nations in the world agreed with us.)
Get a grip, Veep!
You and the Commander Guy with his World War III comment are in a race with the Iranians for Most Lost In Space Award for overblown rhetoric.
When a mere brigadier in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps boasts of sending "eleven thousand missiles" in the first minute of the war against us, and "grinding (US) noses in the dirt," that is the excusable overstatement of a dude ready to wet his pants.
Better is expected from the President and Vice-President of the United States. Presumably, they have access to both information and expert advice. Presumably, they talk to the realpolitiker, SecDef Gates, even though he is off right now on a damage limitation mission.
If nothing else, they might read the Washington Post.
The other day, midway between the Commander Guy's warning of World War III waiting for the globe in the deserts and ambitions of Iran and the Veep's virtual ultimatum, a letter appeared in the WaPo with a thin, unpleasant, and unheard voice of worst-case realism.
Signed by twelve company grade officers with combat experience in Iraq, the letter maintained correctly that the US had not employed sufficient manpower on the ground to assure an absence of defeat in the country. The letter went on to indicate that there were three options.
The first option was to grind on as we have been with the hope that the apparent progress seen to date would continue. (And, that US combat fatalities would continue to drop.)
The second option was to get out now. Cut our losses. Accept the consequences of our failure. Repent and swear never to do something so half-arsed and foolishly planned again.
The third option was simply to activate the draft. That action would provide a sufficiently large manpower pool to support the necessary greater force presence on the ground in Iraq.
The officers preferred the second option. (The Geek as has been argued in previous posts prefers the first with modifications.)
The invocation of the most feared five letter word in the military vocabulary is the most important part of the letter from twelve captains. It points in a very unpleasant direction.
The direction?
The limits of American military power and what would need to be done to expand those limits. As President Dwight Eisenhower (a man who knew more than most presidents about the requirements of waging war) warned more than a half century ago, (to paraphrase slightly)there is no such thing as absolute security without the odious paraphernalia of the garrison state.
The Geek would add in light of threats which now exist and were undreamed of in Ike's day, "And not even then."
Still, the message is clear. If the US wishes to transmogrify the war of words with Iran into a shooting war, it will need not only to re-institute the draft. It will need to put many of the nasty aspects of total war into effect.
Gas rationing. Price controls. Raw material priority assignments. New "homeland security" procedures. A partial list to be sure, but you get the drift.
Oh. There is one more thing.
The tax cuts for the upper couple of percent of the American public would have to be repealed. Maybe, even the microscopic tax cuts bestowed on all of us unwealthy will have to be revoked as well.
Tax hikes! You gotta be kidding!
No. The Geek never kids. Welcome to the real war, Mac.
Just that the neocon ninnes of the current administration have never fought a real war. They have simply talked about it.
Not surprisingly, this development has heaved Baghdad into a full blown state of panic.
Equally unsurprisingly, the Turkish move is deplored by the current administration.
Ever since the fall of the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago, the Kurds have been a thorn in the paw of every would be Lion of the Upper Tigris and Euphrates. Ataturk pretended the Kurds didn't really exist. The British, as part of the sporadic Empire Policing Scheme, tried to bomb them into submission.
Later the Shah, Saddam, Assam, and the mullahocracy periodically mounted punitive expeditions against them. The body count varied from minimal to massive, but in the end the Kurds were still there--and still unacceptably uppity from the perspective of Tehran, Baghdad, or Damascus.
In comparison, the Turks were remarkably easy going in the face of PKK provocation. While Ankara's estimate of thirty thousand Turks killed in the past twenty or so years by PKK attacks may err on the side of exaggeration, PKK has inflicted unacceptable damage to the Turkish society, polity, and economy.
Since the American sponsored "regime change" in Iraq and the virtual independence of the Kurdish Autonomous Region (KAR) in that country, PKK has been on the attack with a vengeance. Months ago (with an arguable amount of justification) the Turkish government pointed a finger at the United States as having a (major) share of the responsibility for the rapidly deteriorating situation in southeastern Turkey along the Iraqi border.
The current administration did not make an effective reply. The (covert, so don't say a word about it) introduction of a handful of Special Forces teams into Turkey to work with the local forces in detecting and interdicting PKK squads along with the promise of an investigation to find how weapons transferred by the US to Iraqi security units ended up in the (dead) hands of PKK guerrillas were the main features of the totally ineffectual American response.
The PKK attacks escalated. Finally, they went one bomb over the line. The Turkish Army howled. Given the current internal politics of Turkey with the recent, hotly contested election of a perhaps Islamist leaning president, the protests of the army could not be ignored.
Neither could the implied humiliation of the Turkish government by the brazen PKK strikes. When coupled with the pathetically misguided and mistimed effort on the part of Sten Hoyer, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democrats in the House, which was in itself a perceived insult, the vote in the Turkish parliament to authorize raids of undefined size into northern Iraq was drearily predictable.
US military officials on the ground in Iraq as well as in Washington are correct when they aver any Turkish incursion will destabilize the most peaceful portion of Iraq. The band in Baghdad which claims it is the government of Iraq is right when members state (off the record, of course) that the writ of Baghdad does not run to the Kurdish Autonomous Region.
Time to get a grip.
There is not much the US can do about the situation in the KAR. There is not much we can do to stop the PKK using the rugged border territory as a sanctuary. There is not much we can do to enhance stability there or in the rest of Iraq if any Turkish incursion stimulates an uptick in the anti-Occupier, anti-government violence.
There isn't much the US can do to dissuade the Turks from mounting attacks into the KAR. Right now, we need them a lot more than they need us. We are not alone in the lack of influence upon Ankara--particularly if PKK makes another high visibility, high body count hit. In that case, even the EU with its potential for denying Turkey membership in the Union may find that threat insufficient to deter.
Why the impotence?
The short answer is one word long. Iraq.
The long answer isn't all that lengthier. There are not enough boots on the ground in Iraq to deal with the KAR along with all the rest of Iraq.
Grunting and groaning at great economic and greater political cost, the US could, in principle, put enough additional manpower on the ground to provide the necessary combat muscle to stop PKK and assure stability in the KAR. That would take time. Six months would be wildly optimistic. Eight months slightly less so.
The PKK won't wait that long. Neither will the American election cycle.
Imagine for a moment what the effect of adding fifty thousand US personnel to the Iraq TOE would be on the American electorate. Can we say, Republicans go the way of the dinosaur?
The continued effects of the current administration's blundering miscalculations regarding the aftermath of ejecting Saddam Hussein continue to come home to roost. Right now, a bunch of very determined guerrillas and their equally determined opponent have the US caught in the painful vise of reality.
The current administration, which so loudly proclaimed the doctrine of preventative war, unilateralism, and the existence of the US as the world's only Great Power, is utterly dependent upon the good will of a very reluctant ally and the forbearance of a guerrilla entity, which has no history of forbearance. Ironic. heh?
Amazingly, this lesson in impotence has been lost upon Vice President Dick Cheney. Yesterday, he announced to a (small) friendly audience at a think tank in Virginia that the US would not allow Iran to gain a nuclear weapons capability. (It should be noted that he added, presumably sotto voce, other nations in the world agreed with us.)
Get a grip, Veep!
You and the Commander Guy with his World War III comment are in a race with the Iranians for Most Lost In Space Award for overblown rhetoric.
When a mere brigadier in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps boasts of sending "eleven thousand missiles" in the first minute of the war against us, and "grinding (US) noses in the dirt," that is the excusable overstatement of a dude ready to wet his pants.
Better is expected from the President and Vice-President of the United States. Presumably, they have access to both information and expert advice. Presumably, they talk to the realpolitiker, SecDef Gates, even though he is off right now on a damage limitation mission.
If nothing else, they might read the Washington Post.
The other day, midway between the Commander Guy's warning of World War III waiting for the globe in the deserts and ambitions of Iran and the Veep's virtual ultimatum, a letter appeared in the WaPo with a thin, unpleasant, and unheard voice of worst-case realism.
Signed by twelve company grade officers with combat experience in Iraq, the letter maintained correctly that the US had not employed sufficient manpower on the ground to assure an absence of defeat in the country. The letter went on to indicate that there were three options.
The first option was to grind on as we have been with the hope that the apparent progress seen to date would continue. (And, that US combat fatalities would continue to drop.)
The second option was to get out now. Cut our losses. Accept the consequences of our failure. Repent and swear never to do something so half-arsed and foolishly planned again.
The third option was simply to activate the draft. That action would provide a sufficiently large manpower pool to support the necessary greater force presence on the ground in Iraq.
The officers preferred the second option. (The Geek as has been argued in previous posts prefers the first with modifications.)
The invocation of the most feared five letter word in the military vocabulary is the most important part of the letter from twelve captains. It points in a very unpleasant direction.
The direction?
The limits of American military power and what would need to be done to expand those limits. As President Dwight Eisenhower (a man who knew more than most presidents about the requirements of waging war) warned more than a half century ago, (to paraphrase slightly)there is no such thing as absolute security without the odious paraphernalia of the garrison state.
The Geek would add in light of threats which now exist and were undreamed of in Ike's day, "And not even then."
Still, the message is clear. If the US wishes to transmogrify the war of words with Iran into a shooting war, it will need not only to re-institute the draft. It will need to put many of the nasty aspects of total war into effect.
Gas rationing. Price controls. Raw material priority assignments. New "homeland security" procedures. A partial list to be sure, but you get the drift.
Oh. There is one more thing.
The tax cuts for the upper couple of percent of the American public would have to be repealed. Maybe, even the microscopic tax cuts bestowed on all of us unwealthy will have to be revoked as well.
Tax hikes! You gotta be kidding!
No. The Geek never kids. Welcome to the real war, Mac.
Just that the neocon ninnes of the current administration have never fought a real war. They have simply talked about it.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Current Administration Screws The Pooch--Again!
The President of the United States barely more than an hour ago showed that he is utterly without a grip regarding the war forced upon the United States and its actual allies. Simultaneously, he demonstrated that he remains firmly in the grip of big bidness (as they say in the Lone Star State.)
According to AFP http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jKQEeNk7Rr6Kn-3dxc6klGNQSpig, the Commander Guy certified that "Saudi Arabia is cooperating with efforts to combat international terrorism and that the proposed assistance will help facilitate that effort." This certification is required by law in order that American (military) "assistance" can be provided to the Kingdom Built on Sand.
Saudi Arabia may be a crucial source of oil to the US and the world generally. Its bases may be important or at least useful to force projection efforts in the Gulf region. The dealing in oil and weapons may be a fat profit cow for assorted American businesses.
But, to call Saudi Arabia an ally in the so-called Global War on Terrorism is factually incorrect. Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Stuart Levey, said barely more than a month ago that the Kingdom is delict in stopping or aiding in the stopping of financial assistance to terrorism. That's not the least of it.
Despite the issuance of a fatwa by the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia prohibiting subjects of the Kingdom from leaving the country in order to pursue jihad, Wahhabism, the predominent sect of Saudi Arabia, remains the basis of Islamism. Bluntly put, this means that without a significant shift in the basic doctrine of Wahhabism, there is little chance of defeating Islamism and its armed expression Jihadism.
The Saudi government sponsors madrassas and mosques as well as websites that spread the anti-Western views and beliefs of Wahhabism. This is akin to the actions of the Communist International during the period prior to World War II. Wahhabist doctrine lays the foundations for both the Islamist view of the global caliphate under sharia and violent jihad as the necessary means of accomplishing this goal.
Unless and until the Saudi regime at the very least ceases funding, sponsoring, and extending its network of mosques and madrassas in the United States and throughout the world, there is no chance of its acting as an "ally" in the Global War on Terrorism or, to err on the side of accuracy, the Second Cold War against Islamism/Jihadism. If the Kingdom were to be a genuine ally in the current struggle it would not only stop the madrassa-mosque attack but would also cooperate fully and wholeheartedly in strangling the flow of money to the Islamist/Jihadist groups.
The probability of the Saudi regime doing this of its own volition is low.
The reason?
Easy. History. More particularly the historical tie between Wahhibism and the House of Saud. As detailed in an earlier post, the Saudi regime and the Wahhabist sect are joined at the hip and head. One cannot survive without the other.
Or, to err on the side of accuracy, the House of Saud cannot survive for long without the staunch support of the Wahhibists. The converse may not be true.
There is little doubt that many within the Wahhabist structure believe that their brand of Islam can not only survive but would prosper if the House of Saud crumbled back into the waste of dunes from which it emerged.
There are a number of indicators to back this belief. The Geek is sure that the Saudi government is not so astigmatic as to not have noticed them. As a result the Riyadh regime is limited in what it can do without unacceptable risk to itself.
The intelligence and diplomatic structures of the US are aware of this unpleasant reality. The information must have been passed up the chain of command. All the way to the Commander Guy.
Assuming a modest degree of human intelligence, the current administration should have concluded that the realities on the ground in Saudi Arabia put limits on what we could expect in terms of cooperation against Islamists/Jihadists. Those limits are real.
Those limits do not require that we overly extend ourselves to stroke the Kingdom. They do not, for example, require that we sell gigabucks worth of state-of-the-art military equipment to the Saudis. Whatever threat may be presented to the other Gulf states by Iran either today or in the next few years does not necessitate selling massive amounts of weaponry, support systems, and associated command, control, communications, and intelligence equipment to a government which may collapse before the goodies have been uncrated.
Without a real requirement for the weaponry, there is no need for the certification offered by the Commander Guy today. The matter could be allowed to drift, benignly neglected, in the stratosphere of diplomatic exchanges.
Certification is not time sensitive. Time can and should be allowed to pass. Time needs to pass in order that the Saudi government might have the opportunity to think its way through its current dilemma. Time is needed for the Saudi leaders to (perhaps and hopefully) bring more of the Wahhabist elite to realise that shifting doctrinal emphasis is in everyone's better interests.
The Saudi regime could use the time to convince the Wahhabists that without the Kingdom's money as megaphone, the doctrine of Wahhabism would still be nothing more than the visions of a wasteland preacher. They might remind the clerics that the US and the West have limits. Limits that are crossed only at peril as the admittedly lurching and shortlived, but massive oil conservation efforts following the "oil shocks" of the Seventies demonstrated. Perhaps the regime could use some time to educate the clerics about the realities of international trade, finance and economics generally as well as the central role played by the US in all of these.
Time (and some backroom American efforts) could work effective changes on Wahhabist doctrine in a few small, but critical ways. Thanks to the Decider's haste to certify there is now no time available. Bottom lines rank higher in the estimate of the neocon ninnies than time lines.
By rushing to sign an unnecessary and fact-shattering certification, the Decider has preempted the better interests of the US and its actual allies to favor the bottom line concerns of assorted corporations and stroke the ego of a King and his surrounding posse of princes whose personal and national interests show only the slightest signs of coinciding with ours.
While this blunder in no way ranks with the invasion of Iraq, it is bad enough. It is unnecessary, gratuitous. Worse, its long term effects may be as bad--or worse--than the dash to Baghdad. That will be for future historians to decide.
According to AFP http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jKQEeNk7Rr6Kn-3dxc6klGNQSpig, the Commander Guy certified that "Saudi Arabia is cooperating with efforts to combat international terrorism and that the proposed assistance will help facilitate that effort." This certification is required by law in order that American (military) "assistance" can be provided to the Kingdom Built on Sand.
Saudi Arabia may be a crucial source of oil to the US and the world generally. Its bases may be important or at least useful to force projection efforts in the Gulf region. The dealing in oil and weapons may be a fat profit cow for assorted American businesses.
But, to call Saudi Arabia an ally in the so-called Global War on Terrorism is factually incorrect. Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Stuart Levey, said barely more than a month ago that the Kingdom is delict in stopping or aiding in the stopping of financial assistance to terrorism. That's not the least of it.
Despite the issuance of a fatwa by the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia prohibiting subjects of the Kingdom from leaving the country in order to pursue jihad, Wahhabism, the predominent sect of Saudi Arabia, remains the basis of Islamism. Bluntly put, this means that without a significant shift in the basic doctrine of Wahhabism, there is little chance of defeating Islamism and its armed expression Jihadism.
The Saudi government sponsors madrassas and mosques as well as websites that spread the anti-Western views and beliefs of Wahhabism. This is akin to the actions of the Communist International during the period prior to World War II. Wahhabist doctrine lays the foundations for both the Islamist view of the global caliphate under sharia and violent jihad as the necessary means of accomplishing this goal.
Unless and until the Saudi regime at the very least ceases funding, sponsoring, and extending its network of mosques and madrassas in the United States and throughout the world, there is no chance of its acting as an "ally" in the Global War on Terrorism or, to err on the side of accuracy, the Second Cold War against Islamism/Jihadism. If the Kingdom were to be a genuine ally in the current struggle it would not only stop the madrassa-mosque attack but would also cooperate fully and wholeheartedly in strangling the flow of money to the Islamist/Jihadist groups.
The probability of the Saudi regime doing this of its own volition is low.
The reason?
Easy. History. More particularly the historical tie between Wahhibism and the House of Saud. As detailed in an earlier post, the Saudi regime and the Wahhabist sect are joined at the hip and head. One cannot survive without the other.
Or, to err on the side of accuracy, the House of Saud cannot survive for long without the staunch support of the Wahhibists. The converse may not be true.
There is little doubt that many within the Wahhabist structure believe that their brand of Islam can not only survive but would prosper if the House of Saud crumbled back into the waste of dunes from which it emerged.
There are a number of indicators to back this belief. The Geek is sure that the Saudi government is not so astigmatic as to not have noticed them. As a result the Riyadh regime is limited in what it can do without unacceptable risk to itself.
The intelligence and diplomatic structures of the US are aware of this unpleasant reality. The information must have been passed up the chain of command. All the way to the Commander Guy.
Assuming a modest degree of human intelligence, the current administration should have concluded that the realities on the ground in Saudi Arabia put limits on what we could expect in terms of cooperation against Islamists/Jihadists. Those limits are real.
Those limits do not require that we overly extend ourselves to stroke the Kingdom. They do not, for example, require that we sell gigabucks worth of state-of-the-art military equipment to the Saudis. Whatever threat may be presented to the other Gulf states by Iran either today or in the next few years does not necessitate selling massive amounts of weaponry, support systems, and associated command, control, communications, and intelligence equipment to a government which may collapse before the goodies have been uncrated.
Without a real requirement for the weaponry, there is no need for the certification offered by the Commander Guy today. The matter could be allowed to drift, benignly neglected, in the stratosphere of diplomatic exchanges.
Certification is not time sensitive. Time can and should be allowed to pass. Time needs to pass in order that the Saudi government might have the opportunity to think its way through its current dilemma. Time is needed for the Saudi leaders to (perhaps and hopefully) bring more of the Wahhabist elite to realise that shifting doctrinal emphasis is in everyone's better interests.
The Saudi regime could use the time to convince the Wahhabists that without the Kingdom's money as megaphone, the doctrine of Wahhabism would still be nothing more than the visions of a wasteland preacher. They might remind the clerics that the US and the West have limits. Limits that are crossed only at peril as the admittedly lurching and shortlived, but massive oil conservation efforts following the "oil shocks" of the Seventies demonstrated. Perhaps the regime could use some time to educate the clerics about the realities of international trade, finance and economics generally as well as the central role played by the US in all of these.
Time (and some backroom American efforts) could work effective changes on Wahhabist doctrine in a few small, but critical ways. Thanks to the Decider's haste to certify there is now no time available. Bottom lines rank higher in the estimate of the neocon ninnies than time lines.
By rushing to sign an unnecessary and fact-shattering certification, the Decider has preempted the better interests of the US and its actual allies to favor the bottom line concerns of assorted corporations and stroke the ego of a King and his surrounding posse of princes whose personal and national interests show only the slightest signs of coinciding with ours.
While this blunder in no way ranks with the invasion of Iraq, it is bad enough. It is unnecessary, gratuitous. Worse, its long term effects may be as bad--or worse--than the dash to Baghdad. That will be for future historians to decide.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
The Geek Takes On A Challenge
A few days ago, a reader left a comment directly challenging the Geek to consider the matter of anthropogenic climate change (aka global warming). The commentator added a pair of escape hatches for the Geek. One was that the Geek might not consider the subject to fall in the foreign policy domain. The other was that the Geek might view Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore "too big" a target to take on.
Like any combat infantryman, the Geek prefers large, highly visible targets. The reason for that is self-evident. So, escape hatch number two is closed.
As for the first way out, the Geek has to reject that as well since the weather is global as would be any significant human impact upon it. The Geek has to admit it: He's trapped. Bushwhacked.
Now for some obligatory disclaimers. The Geek is not a science wonk. Neither is he a politician. Nor a journalist. Thus, he is obviously unqualified to put his oar in the global warming swamp.
However, the Geek is a historian. That might be at least as good a qualification as having been Vice President of the United States.
It is important that we get a historical grip on the realities of climate change. At the least we have to recognise that right now, today, is not the first time the human race has experienced an alteration in the base annual temperature of, if not the entire globe, the Northern Hemisphere.
Take a brief look at a couple of well-documented historical examples.
During the Roman occupation of Britain, vineyards were planted with success throughout the southern portion of what is now England. For this to have happened, the average annual temperature would have had to be greater than it is even today. Unless one wants to posit that the hard marching legions exhaled truly awesome amounts of carbon dioxide, the cause had to rest with some component of nature other than human activity.
Later, the climate cycled again. There was the famed "Little Ice Age" of the Middle Ages. This was followed by a period when Greenland merited the name. As archaeological explorations have confirmed, Leif Erickson was not a progenitor of real estate promoter hyperbole when he named the place "green." For several generations, the Norse outposts on the southern portions of the enormous island flourished.
Then the climate cycled again. Green was defeated by white. The white of snow and ice. Cut off from resupply or trade with Norway or even the badly misnamed Iceland, the settlements withered and died.
Paleobotantical research in the northwestern United States indicates that the climate of the Cascade mountain region was formerly much warmer than it is currently. Species of vegetation which now grow only at low altitudes used to be present near the summits of peaks now crowned by rock or very sparse, cold adapted growth.
In a similar way, there is evidence that the southwestern US enjoyed a wetter and slightly warmer climate a few hundred years ago (roughly contemporaneous with the green in Greenland.) Then, the conditions changed in a short period of time becoming dryer and slightly cooler. The dryer part of the statement is the more important as it indicates a shift in the moisture carrying winds from the Pacific Ocean which would track with a larger scale cooling trend.
Clearly, there is historical evidence for the contention that the atmosphere, weather, the earth itself, constitutes a dynamic system that shifts and changes without respect for either the desires or the actions of humans. None of this is meant to imply that humans cannot or have not had at least a marginal impact on the weather. It is meant to show that the current fixation on anthropogenic climate change is overstated.
We have been going through a period of history marked by exceptionally rapid technological, economic, social, and cultural change. The past thirty or forty years in particular have been a time of extreme turbulence in all these areas. To say that it has been disquieting is to engage in understatement.
To many in the United States (and the West generally) many, if not all, of the anchor points of life have been torn loose. The downsides of science and technology, particularly the latter, have been exposed. Economic growth has been shown to not be the unmixed blessing it was supposed to be in former years. The increase in the human cargo of the planet has been demonstrated to be less than desirable, not to say an out-and-out curse.
Old beliefs, old ideologies, time hallowed values have been challenged and in some cases dethroned. In what can one rest faith has been asked by quite a few quite often.
In this context, it becomes easy to see how early, imprecise, and to some extent speculative data regarding global warming could be picked up and run with not only by media outlets in never ending pursuit of a flashy, splashy story, but by individuals in search of an agenda. An agenda not perhaps seeking power, but one where control might be asserted.
Control. That's the key word.
Control carries with it the chance of reintroducing certainty in an inherently uncertain world. Control brings with it the chance of gaining political status, authority, power.
Everyone seeks to establish as much control in and over their lives and the lives of those around them as possible and allowable. Institutions are simply individuals writ large. Scientific, journalistic, political institutions are certainly not immune to the drive for control and the goodies it brings in its wake.
Viewing with alarm is a fine way to gain control. Nothing is more alarming (with the possible exceptions of nuclear war, bioterror attacks, economic catastrophe) then the idea that the weather is changing around us. Changing for the worse.
Viewing with alarm is the journalists' stock in trade. From the if-it-bleeds-it-leads philosophy of television news to the portentous analyses of the print media, the worse life now and in the future can be portrayed--the better.
Viewing with alarm competes in the politicians' lexicon with pointing with pride. Given the choice, most pols will stick with producing fear. Grave warnings or shrill cries of peril are the best ways of securing and maintaining control.
Scientists, perhaps beset with some unsettling residual sense of guilt over the promises which past science has either failed to deliver or which have been undercut by real world demands, have not been slow to realise that viewing with alarm results in larger grants and greater respect in political circles. Contrary to a pervasive belief, scientists are human. They scramble for money, status, and power just as fast as businessmen or politicians. Scientists are as fast to run for the protective cover of group-think as journalists or academics.
Scientists are as willing to put aside objectivity when it conflicts with prejudice, predilection, or political correctness as are members of any other occupation. When the group mind changes or the winds of social-political emphasis shift, scientists are willing and eager to follow suit.
This gives rise to "junk science," which has been seen time and time again in the past century or so. It ranges from the ill-founded basis of eugenics in the early Twentieth Century to the equally dismal misuse of statistics and biology to support the anti-smoking campaigns of recent years.
The same dynamic can be seen with respect to anthropogenic climate change. A cursory look at the literature shows the oft-proclaimed scientific consensus on the matter is far less real than alleged.
Journalism plays a critical role in the exploitation and magnification of less-than-totally-credible scientific research and the tentative conclusions that careful scientists achieve. The great amplifier cranks up repeated and increasingly shrill cries of impending doom. We all know the result. We've all experienced it. Time after time.
The synergy between politicians and journalists further magnifies the findings of "science" until the cry of "something must be done!" resounds everywhere. And, dissenters are banished from the public square.
Anthropogenic climate change is the perfect issue for politicians (and others) with an agenda which includes internationalism, anti-corporate beliefs, and some sort of abstract love of the environment. It is also a made-to-order base for leaders of lesser developed countries and international organisations seeking another reason to insist upon wealth transfer at the expense of more developed nation-states.
A consensus on anthropogenic climate change has been formed. It is not comprised of scientists ranging from biologists to climatologists to atmospheric physicists. It is instead a consensus of internationalists, greens, politicians, the chattering class members who extol political correctness over mundane reality, and those who wish Marxism really, really worked in practice.
The foregoing helps explain why the Geek is not surprised by the action of the Norwegian Storting in awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and the UN Panel on Climate Change. (Although the Geek doubts that many of those voting on the prize even read so much of the dense pack climate change report as the Executive Summary.)
It also helps explain why the UN has established yet another international commission, this time to address the humanitarian needs of Third World countries brought about by climate change. Is there an issue more suited for any latent (or not so latent) ambitions for power in the UN Secretariat than anthropogenic climate change?
For now, the Geek is an agnostic on the actual effects of human activity on the climate. As a historian specializing in the arcana of the power seeking process of governments, he has to cast a jaundiced eye on the credibility of the viewing-with-alarm posture adopted by so many so recently. At the same time the Geek has the sneaking suspicion that so much that we humans do is not in our best long term interest.
(That's it for now. Winter is coming. The Geek has to go cut firewood. As he cuts, he will be thinking that he could use some of Al Gore's global warming in the next few months.)
Like any combat infantryman, the Geek prefers large, highly visible targets. The reason for that is self-evident. So, escape hatch number two is closed.
As for the first way out, the Geek has to reject that as well since the weather is global as would be any significant human impact upon it. The Geek has to admit it: He's trapped. Bushwhacked.
Now for some obligatory disclaimers. The Geek is not a science wonk. Neither is he a politician. Nor a journalist. Thus, he is obviously unqualified to put his oar in the global warming swamp.
However, the Geek is a historian. That might be at least as good a qualification as having been Vice President of the United States.
It is important that we get a historical grip on the realities of climate change. At the least we have to recognise that right now, today, is not the first time the human race has experienced an alteration in the base annual temperature of, if not the entire globe, the Northern Hemisphere.
Take a brief look at a couple of well-documented historical examples.
During the Roman occupation of Britain, vineyards were planted with success throughout the southern portion of what is now England. For this to have happened, the average annual temperature would have had to be greater than it is even today. Unless one wants to posit that the hard marching legions exhaled truly awesome amounts of carbon dioxide, the cause had to rest with some component of nature other than human activity.
Later, the climate cycled again. There was the famed "Little Ice Age" of the Middle Ages. This was followed by a period when Greenland merited the name. As archaeological explorations have confirmed, Leif Erickson was not a progenitor of real estate promoter hyperbole when he named the place "green." For several generations, the Norse outposts on the southern portions of the enormous island flourished.
Then the climate cycled again. Green was defeated by white. The white of snow and ice. Cut off from resupply or trade with Norway or even the badly misnamed Iceland, the settlements withered and died.
Paleobotantical research in the northwestern United States indicates that the climate of the Cascade mountain region was formerly much warmer than it is currently. Species of vegetation which now grow only at low altitudes used to be present near the summits of peaks now crowned by rock or very sparse, cold adapted growth.
In a similar way, there is evidence that the southwestern US enjoyed a wetter and slightly warmer climate a few hundred years ago (roughly contemporaneous with the green in Greenland.) Then, the conditions changed in a short period of time becoming dryer and slightly cooler. The dryer part of the statement is the more important as it indicates a shift in the moisture carrying winds from the Pacific Ocean which would track with a larger scale cooling trend.
Clearly, there is historical evidence for the contention that the atmosphere, weather, the earth itself, constitutes a dynamic system that shifts and changes without respect for either the desires or the actions of humans. None of this is meant to imply that humans cannot or have not had at least a marginal impact on the weather. It is meant to show that the current fixation on anthropogenic climate change is overstated.
We have been going through a period of history marked by exceptionally rapid technological, economic, social, and cultural change. The past thirty or forty years in particular have been a time of extreme turbulence in all these areas. To say that it has been disquieting is to engage in understatement.
To many in the United States (and the West generally) many, if not all, of the anchor points of life have been torn loose. The downsides of science and technology, particularly the latter, have been exposed. Economic growth has been shown to not be the unmixed blessing it was supposed to be in former years. The increase in the human cargo of the planet has been demonstrated to be less than desirable, not to say an out-and-out curse.
Old beliefs, old ideologies, time hallowed values have been challenged and in some cases dethroned. In what can one rest faith has been asked by quite a few quite often.
In this context, it becomes easy to see how early, imprecise, and to some extent speculative data regarding global warming could be picked up and run with not only by media outlets in never ending pursuit of a flashy, splashy story, but by individuals in search of an agenda. An agenda not perhaps seeking power, but one where control might be asserted.
Control. That's the key word.
Control carries with it the chance of reintroducing certainty in an inherently uncertain world. Control brings with it the chance of gaining political status, authority, power.
Everyone seeks to establish as much control in and over their lives and the lives of those around them as possible and allowable. Institutions are simply individuals writ large. Scientific, journalistic, political institutions are certainly not immune to the drive for control and the goodies it brings in its wake.
Viewing with alarm is a fine way to gain control. Nothing is more alarming (with the possible exceptions of nuclear war, bioterror attacks, economic catastrophe) then the idea that the weather is changing around us. Changing for the worse.
Viewing with alarm is the journalists' stock in trade. From the if-it-bleeds-it-leads philosophy of television news to the portentous analyses of the print media, the worse life now and in the future can be portrayed--the better.
Viewing with alarm competes in the politicians' lexicon with pointing with pride. Given the choice, most pols will stick with producing fear. Grave warnings or shrill cries of peril are the best ways of securing and maintaining control.
Scientists, perhaps beset with some unsettling residual sense of guilt over the promises which past science has either failed to deliver or which have been undercut by real world demands, have not been slow to realise that viewing with alarm results in larger grants and greater respect in political circles. Contrary to a pervasive belief, scientists are human. They scramble for money, status, and power just as fast as businessmen or politicians. Scientists are as fast to run for the protective cover of group-think as journalists or academics.
Scientists are as willing to put aside objectivity when it conflicts with prejudice, predilection, or political correctness as are members of any other occupation. When the group mind changes or the winds of social-political emphasis shift, scientists are willing and eager to follow suit.
This gives rise to "junk science," which has been seen time and time again in the past century or so. It ranges from the ill-founded basis of eugenics in the early Twentieth Century to the equally dismal misuse of statistics and biology to support the anti-smoking campaigns of recent years.
The same dynamic can be seen with respect to anthropogenic climate change. A cursory look at the literature shows the oft-proclaimed scientific consensus on the matter is far less real than alleged.
Journalism plays a critical role in the exploitation and magnification of less-than-totally-credible scientific research and the tentative conclusions that careful scientists achieve. The great amplifier cranks up repeated and increasingly shrill cries of impending doom. We all know the result. We've all experienced it. Time after time.
The synergy between politicians and journalists further magnifies the findings of "science" until the cry of "something must be done!" resounds everywhere. And, dissenters are banished from the public square.
Anthropogenic climate change is the perfect issue for politicians (and others) with an agenda which includes internationalism, anti-corporate beliefs, and some sort of abstract love of the environment. It is also a made-to-order base for leaders of lesser developed countries and international organisations seeking another reason to insist upon wealth transfer at the expense of more developed nation-states.
A consensus on anthropogenic climate change has been formed. It is not comprised of scientists ranging from biologists to climatologists to atmospheric physicists. It is instead a consensus of internationalists, greens, politicians, the chattering class members who extol political correctness over mundane reality, and those who wish Marxism really, really worked in practice.
The foregoing helps explain why the Geek is not surprised by the action of the Norwegian Storting in awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and the UN Panel on Climate Change. (Although the Geek doubts that many of those voting on the prize even read so much of the dense pack climate change report as the Executive Summary.)
It also helps explain why the UN has established yet another international commission, this time to address the humanitarian needs of Third World countries brought about by climate change. Is there an issue more suited for any latent (or not so latent) ambitions for power in the UN Secretariat than anthropogenic climate change?
For now, the Geek is an agnostic on the actual effects of human activity on the climate. As a historian specializing in the arcana of the power seeking process of governments, he has to cast a jaundiced eye on the credibility of the viewing-with-alarm posture adopted by so many so recently. At the same time the Geek has the sneaking suspicion that so much that we humans do is not in our best long term interest.
(That's it for now. Winter is coming. The Geek has to go cut firewood. As he cuts, he will be thinking that he could use some of Al Gore's global warming in the next few months.)
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