Americans Are Too Nice For Their Own Good

Senator Barrak Obama is a nice young man. He means well. He exudes goodness.

Americans are nice people--despite rumors to the contrary. We mean well. We want to do good.

We the People would generally much rather see our military forces used for disaster relief than for inflicting the disaster of war. We the People want the warlike use of our military to be covered by the flag of an international organisation. Heck, We the People would much rather talk with even our worst enemies than fight them.

It's no surprise that Senator Obama's reiterated declaration that he would talk without preconditions with the presidents of Syria, Venezuela, Cuba or Iran resonates deeply with the American public. The depth and breadth of this general American commitment to a faith in negotiations were brought out in a recent Gallup poll.

The Gallup organisation contacted 1,013 Americans between 19 and 21 May to ask their views on meeting generally with the leaders of countries considered hostile to the US and, more specifically, their views on a meeting with Iran's president.

The response?

Two thirds of those asked thought it was a good idea generally. Six out of every ten thought meeting with the Iranian president would be a good idea.

Among Democrats seventy-nine percent gave thumbs up to the face-to-face concept in general with the approval rating dipping only slightly with respect to Iran (seventy-one percent in favor.) Independents went for the general idea with seventy percent approving. Among this group the thumbs-up for gabbing with Ahmedinejad dropped to fifty-nine percent. Now the Republicans. Here the disapprovers held a very narrow advantage. In both the general and specific cases, the "no" vote won by a margin of fifty-one percent to forty-eight.

Check it out yourself, http://www.gallup.com/poll/107617/Americans-Favor-President-Meeting-US-Enemies.aspx.

Seems like the junior senator from Illinois has a winning issue.

More to the point, it appears that John McCain has a hell of a job persuading the American electorate that his hard nosed, realpolitik approach is better for US interests (to say nothing of the chances for peace in the world) than his opponent's sweetness-and-light view of international life.

That's going to be a very tough sell.

Talking for the sake of talking is undoubtedly preferable to shooting for the sake of shooting. That's a given. However, history demonstrates that talking without preconditions, without the necessary diplomatic grunt work and absent the right mix of inducements and (potential or actual) coercion is unlikely to produce more than unrealistic expectations, headlines and migraines for those who have to pick up the pieces later.

Obama's position is warm and fuzzy. It feels good. It resonates with the American public's long, long standing desire to be left in peace to get on with life unburdened by the potential or actuality of war. Hell, the Cold War was as much fun as having a root canal along with unpleasant surgery involving the anal region. All of us who lived through the half century of Soviet threat know that.

McCain's view of international relations is filled with cold sharpies. His world is a lot less pleasant than the one projected by Obama.

The position of the senator from Arizona is redeemed only by the fact that it is realistic and much more likely to result in enhanced security for the US and other nations. It is more likely to accomplish goals that we all want to see accomplished including an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without an ultimately disastrous American failure.

Throughout much of the world, and most particularly the Mideast and Northwest Asia, you either oppose the bully relentlessly or you pay him tribute or you join him. Strength and resolve are demanded both by diplomatic interlocutors and bystanders.

Beyond that, regardless of the so-called "tattered" image of the US in much of the world, now as during the Cold War, the leaders and citizens of other countries want the US to establish and maintain a firm position.

The operative word is "firm." That does not mean war fighting or war threatening. It does not mean inflexible. It most assuredly does not mean an arrogant, go-it-alone-come-what-may stance. It means a realistic view, consistently advanced without fits and starts, zigs and zags.

Realistic firmness means policy carefully crafted by professionals and executed by pragmatists. That's right, pragmatists, not ideologues or innocents.

Ideologues--the neocon ninnies--are behind the horrible failures of the past six years. This sort of narrow minded zeal must not be allowed to happen again.

Innocents ruled the Clinton Administration. Overall our foreign policy was a triumph of late out of the gate. Yes, we, in conjunction with allies had some successes, most notably in the wreckage of what was once called Yugoslavia. Then there were our failures ranging from limp wristed responses to the initial al-Qaeda provocations to the unseemly cut-and-run from the rubble of Somalia to the desperately misleading quasi-success in Haiti.

Innocents, naifs must be kept from the levers of foreign policy power. Not because there is anything inherently evil about naivete, but because someone later has to pick up the peaces--often with bloody hands.

Whether either of presumptive nominees like it or not, whether any of We the People like it our not, the next administration will be a foreign policy oriented administration. Our problems including the price of oil, the food crisis, the global warming affair, the nature of the global economy and its implications are all foreign policy concerns first and foremost. Over and above those problems is the looming mass of the ongoing conflict between the US and the sponsors or executors of terror and destabilization.

None of these challenges can be meaningfully addressed, let alone overcome by a combination of sweetness, light, kind words and a slogan of "change."

When Democracy Goes Sour

Former paratrooper Hugo Chavez promised his fellow Venezuelans a new and better deal through his program of "Socialism For the 21st Century." Enough folks believed him.

He was elected president. He survived a recall move.

Hugo Chavez was a big believer in democracy. He flew the flag of vox populi, vox dei high and proud.

Until the people said no to Hugo's proposed reform (read evisceration) of the constitution a couple of months back

Subsequently the Chavez regime dropped its false flag of democracy and raised the skull and crossbones of authoritarianism. Close down the television and radio stations that refuse to parrot the party line. Bash the heads of those who disagree with the regime's view of life.

Now Chavez has taken the next logical step. By an executive decree formulated in secret and sprung on the nation. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/world/americas/03venez.html?th&emc=th) The new measure is not the sort which warms the hearts of pro-democracy types anywhere.

It must however make some of Hugo's nearest and dearest friends such as the Castro brothers very happy. It might even bring smiles to Hugo's new buddies, the Tehran mullahocracy.

What is the decree?

It "reorganises" the country's intelligence services. Nothing wrong with that. The US did it as well in the wake of 9/11.

There is such a thing as carrying reorganisation too far. Not that Hugo would admit that he could possibly do such a thing.

You tell me: Are the following features indicative of an over the top approach or not?

The decree requires full cooperation between members of the judiciary and the two new intelligence services, one of which focuses exclusively upon domestic threats to the government. Those judges who do not share fully with the domestic spooks (and accept their guidance) face mandatory imprisonment.

The decree requires all Venezuelans to cooperate fully not only with the secret police but even those "citizens" organisations loyal to Chavez under penalty of imprisonment for up to six years in the case of non cooperative government employees. That's as good a deal as KGB and its predecessors ever got in the old Soviet Union.

Of course the use of "citizens'" groups to assist the secret police in ferreting out and squashing dissent is taken right from the Cuban model of socialism. In Cuba the local neighborhood watch groups called Committees for the Defense of the Revolution have a long, dreary record of assuring that the Fidelistas can keep a tight lid on dissent of any sort.

Socialism For The 21st Century closely resembles the Police States Of The 20th Century.

Democracy anyone?

Initially the new fiat was justified by Interior Minister Ramón Rodríguez Chacín as being necessary to combat "interference by the United States" by assuring that the secret police held a tight “ideological commitment.” Later, faced by a completely unexpected torrent of opposition he retreated slightly, “We are talking about the responsibility all Venezuelans have with the security of the state and the resolution of any crime."

The regime didn't intend any restriction of free expression or repression of political institutions. So averred the head of the secret police.

Right. And gasoline costs under a buck a gallon anywhere in the US.

Not all Venezuelans rolled over and licked the Chavez boot. Take for example the statement by a senior member of the national judiciary.

“We are before a set of measures that are a threat to all of us,” said Blanca Rosa Mármol de León, a justice on Venezuela’s top court, in a rare public judicial dissent. “I have an obligation to say this, as a citizen and a judge. This is a step toward the creation of a society of informers.”

A damn big step!

Chavez slashed back at critics like the justice by alleging that they were supporters of the imperialism of George W. Bush. He added that his new diktat would protect Venezuela against "imperialist attacks" and assure the country's "national security."

How many sins have been committed in the name of "national security" not only overseas but here in the United States?

At least here we have a periodic opportunity to endorse or reject the actions taken on behalf of our national security. At least here--unlike Cuba, Iran or, now, Venezuela we have a strong measure of protection against zealous snoops seeking to limit our right of dissent and opposition to those in power.

(The Geek maintains that position despite the numerous attempts by the current administration and the wallahs in Congress to infringe on our individual and collective rights of debate, dissent and disagreement. Yes, much of the PATRIOT act is objectionable and the FBI as well as other agencies have abused their authority in electronic interceptions and surveillance, but not nearly so egregiously as was the case forty or fifty years ago. We survived those abuses and will survive the more recent ones.)

Those who live under the sway of Hugo Chavez's delusions of adequacy will probably not have the chance to effectively oppose the new decree. Venezuela itself may survive but only after repression is resisted, blood flows and a new (hopefully) more humane order emerges.

Chavez may last as long as Castro, but unlike the Cubans who exchanged a brutal, corrupt dictatorship for a less corrupt but equally repressive and inefficient one, Venezuela has experienced genuine democracy and an open society for most of the past several decades. They are not used to grovelling before the authority of the state.

It's going to take more than a secret police force and a legion of snitches, more than Russian weapons and Iranian banking agreements, more than a high price for oil to keep Chavez in power long.

Hugo should have thought it through before he hauled up the jolly roger of dictatorship. In the end pirates are hung.

Senator Obama Needs To Get A Grip

Senator B.H. Obama, also known as the Nice Young Man From Chicago, stands accused of being "naive" by the Republican all-but-official nominee, Senator John McCain, dubbed by some as "Bush II." Now the Geek well understands that politics is often all about name calling.

Still, McCain's use of the word "naive" as a description of the Nice Young Man From Chicago may not be a simple case of politics as usual. True, the Republican was speaking before an audience with a bad case of tunnel vision, The American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) when he lambasted Obama. See. http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/02/mccain.aipac/.

Central to the McCain air strike was Obama's repeated statement of willingness to hold a face-to-face with Iranian President Ahmedinejad. Without preconditions.

The Arizona senator said first, "We hear talk of a meeting with the Iranian leadership offered up as if it were some sudden inspiration, a bold new idea that somehow nobody has ever thought of before."

McCain added, "Yet it's hard to see what such a summit with [Iranian] President [Mahmoud] Ahmedinejad would actually gain, except an earful of anti-Semitic rants, and a worldwide audience for a man who denies one Holocaust and talks before frenzied crowds about starting another."

A sharply pointed observation. But, it could have been far more pointed.

Get a grip on this.

Over the years very little has come out concerning the early life and initial political career of the Iranian president. Even his own official biography is murky at best concerning the years preceding his emergence as a contender for the presidency. This has changed thanks to a new book entitled, The Bomb and the Koran by Michael Taubman, a French journalist.

The picture of the younger Ahmedinejad is, if anything, less attractive than the image of the past three years. Ahmedinejad was up to the short hairs of his beard in terrorism, Islamist extremism, Iranian Revolutionary Guards combat operations and torture. At the infamous Evan prison, Ahmedinejad was dubbed the "executioner" due to his fondness for dispatching prisoners terminally weakened by the torture administered at the future president's orders.

Ahmedinejad is also a genuine, true believer in the return of the Mahdi in the very near future. More, he believes that he has been selected by the deity to facilitate and hasten that return.

Now for the scary part. Ahmedinejad believes and has asserted more or less privately that a nuclear exchange is the necessary precondition for the quick arrival of the Mahdi.

If Senator Obama truly believes that he can conduct meaningful negotiations with Ahmedinejad, he is not simply "naive" as McCain alleges. No. Obama is terminally out to lunch.

Back during World War II the US president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, held to his belief that Soviet capo Joe Stalin was just another machine boss, not unlike those with whom FDR had successfully dealt in New York City, Chicago, Boston, etc. FDR met with Stalin face to face. Stalin won.

Joe Stalin might have had his quirks, like going off to a movie after signing the death warrant for a few thousand folks. But, he was a conservative rational actor.

The record--past and present--shows Ahmedinejad is neither conservative nor necessarily rational.

Back in 1961 a young American President with far more experience in government and politics than the NYMFC met with Khrushchev in Vienna. JFK had been throughly briefed. He was prepared. He was every bit as articulate as Senator Obama. The one time Ukrainian mine worker ate the Nice Young Man From Boston alive.

Result?

Humiliated, JFK went for more robust policy options in the Western Hemisphere (read Cuba) and Southeast Asia (read Laos and South Vietnam.) In this case the American was neither conservative nor necessarily rational.

Senator Obama needs to get a grip on three things: 1) the nature and character of the Iranian regime, both the front guy and the mullahocracy behind him; 2) history such as that of FDR and JFK both of whom were Democrats and to some extent naive; 3) don't believe your own propaganda--as, unfortunately, the NYMFC appears to, particularly as regards his unique ability to heal divisiveness.

The Geek well understands that the real power in Iran does not rest with Ahmedinejad. It rests with the mullahs, particularly Ahmed Khatamei. The Supreme Guardian of the Revolution and those close to him hold the power.

You don't need a PhD in political science to conclude that talking to Ahmedinejad would have zero benefit for an American president. It might, however, have great and imponderable risks for us and for the world.

Naive is too nice a word.

Which Side Is Pakistan On?

The self-evident answer is: It's own.

In looking at the US-NATO-Afghan National Government efforts against Taliban and al-Qaeda, the answer is not so self-evident. Neither is the answer self-evident when considering the larger question of the confrontation between Islamist/jihadist groups and those in opposition.

At least some members of the government in Afghanistan hold Pakistan, specifically the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) responsible for the continued presence and strength of Taliban and al-Qaeda. Beyond that, Sibghatullah Mijaddedi, the Speaker of the Afghan Senate, argued in a speech in New Delhi that "eighty to ninety per cent" of all terrorist attacks world wide can be traced back to camps located in Pakistan. The report can be found on line at http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/000200806012176.htm.

While the Speaker bemoaned the apparent lack of effort on the part of US or NATO forces in his country to neutralise the recruitment depots and training camps located in Pakistan, he leveled his biggest rhetorical guns on the ISI. "The ISI is exporting terrorists trained in their terror camps."

Zeroing in on the situation in Afghanistan, Mijaddedi added, "We are suffering because of the interference of ISI in our country; everyday we lose our people, young and old, indiscriminately."

The Geek leans toward agreement with the Speaker's contentions. ISI, as the US has known for at least twenty years, is riddled with Islamists (to use the accurate term currently frowned upon by various agencies of the US government.) When the Reagan Administration ordered the turn over of our resistance assistance efforts to the Pakistanis, specifically ISI, a major mistake was made.

No. It was worse than a mistake. It was a blunder.

It was also the source of many of our current problems, not only in the "good war" in Afghanistan but elsewhere in the world.

ISI put the Taliban on the map. ISI personnel funneled US money, US provided weapons and equipment and other goodies to the "students" at assorted ISI sponsored and maintained madrassas. ISI provided both military and political guidance to assure the Taliban success in the multi-party internal war which ensued upon the departure of Soviet forces.

After the US backed Northern Alliance did the heavy lifting and major fighting to remove Taliban, ISI kept up its intimate relationship with the remnants of the shattered government. This meant ISI kept its relationship with Taliban's "guest" and ideological soulmate, al-Qaeda.

Over the next six years and despite the pumping of gigabucks into the coffers of the Pakistani military--most of which went to weapons systems notably unuseful in counterinsurgency or counterterrorism--the protective ISI cloak spread over the numerous camps, "charities" and religious institutions which existed and exist only to provide support, assistance and recruits for the varied types of "fighters" who do the dirty work for Taliban, al-Qaeda and akin bodies.

ISI will continue to perform its role of sponsor, facilitator and protector of these jihadists regardless of the nature of the Pakistani government. ISI, like other clandestine services in other states over many, many decades is a power onto itself. The government has (and probably has desired) only the most tenuous of formal authority over ISI.

There is no reason to expect this to change.

One of the most grave deficiencies in whatever passed for planning prior to the invasion of Afghanistan was the failure to properly and effectively appreciate the role of ISI in assuring the survival of Taliban (and al-Qaeda.) It could or at least should not have come as a surprise when American personnel encountered ISI officers in the company of "fugitive" Taliban leaders.

When decisions at the policy level not only allowed the ISI officers to be flown out of Afghanistan but permitted the Taliban figures to board the aircraft as well, the ultimate success of our campaign was placed at risk. Any justification based on the cruciality of Pakistan as an "ally" in the Great Global War on Terror is simply silly.

Even sillier was the initial unwillingness to either strike directly at the camps in North and South Waziristan or, considering our leverage on the Pakistani government five and six years ago, to insist on their military taking less ineffective action. That wouldn't have been a mission impossible. Recall that we were able to lever Musharraf into placing A.Q. Khan under house arrest. (Yes, the Geek knows Khan has recanted his confession.)

We didn't even bother to do an imitation of the Big, Bad Wolf, huffing and puffing, threatening to blow down the house that ISI built.

Now. Get a grip on a companion (or at least contemporaneous) development.

According to Reuters-India the Darool-Uloom Deoband (DUD) seminary, a very conservative Islamist institution controlling many smaller seminaries has issued a fatwa against terrorism. (http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-33848320080601.)

"Islam rejects all kinds of unjust violence, breach of peace, bloodshed, murder and plunder and does not allow it in any form," or so the DUD rector, Habibur Rehman said.

Yeah. Right.

Regardless of the objective truthfulness of the statement, it and the fatwa are important. India has the third largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan.

Several other facts are equally important. Officially secular India is overwhelmingly Hindu in religious affiliation and the historical record shows that Hindus can become very fervent slayers of Muslims. Of late there has been a very, very irritating uptick in terrorist actions linked to Muslim actors.

Before we break our arms patting the DUD clerics for their courageous drawing a line in the sand against terrorism, take a closer look at the document.

The fatwa reads in part, "It is proved from clear guidelines provided in the Holy Quran that allegation of terrorism against a religion like Islam, which preaches world peace, is nothing but a lie."

That's not exactly news. It is precisely what many Muslims--including apologists for terror--have been saying throughout the world.

A prominent cleric and leader of a major Islamic group added his own gloss to the fatwa while reading it. "At present, there is a propaganda to equate Jehad with terrorism. Jehad is basically for establishment of peace, which is a fundamental right of human beings. Terrorism, meanwhile, is the gravest crime as held by Quran and Islam.”

In attempting to parse meaningfully between "jihad" (very, very good) and "terrorism" (very, very bad) the cleric, Maulana Qari Sayeed Mohammad Usman, president of Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind, added nothing new. His interpretation has been standard around the world for years now.

If none of this is stop-the-presses hot news, why bother with the fatwa? Wasn't the denunciation of terrorism by the DUD president last February enough?

No.

Undoubtedly the clerics of DUD are well aware that Islamist rooted acts of terror are not going to suddenly halt as a result of the fatwa any more than they did in the wake of the denunciation. The issuance of the fatwa gives Indian Muslims generally and the Islamists of DUD in particular political cover.

The next time a bomb goes off and a group with a jihadist name claims responsibility, the good folks at DUD can foist the blame off to "outside agitators."

Outsiders, like, can we say, ISI?

The long running contretemps between India and Pakistan is grounds enough to find the hand of Islamabad behind any destructive loud noise in India. The intelligence and clandestine service of India is well aware of ISI's involvement with Taliban and al-Qaeda as well as other groups active not only in the disputed Kashmir but throughout India.

ISI will get the blame. Quite possibly it will deserve it.

At least in the dead of night, in a dark room with locked door and drawn drapes, the US should do the same.

Perhaps the US should go further. Perhaps our better interests to say nothing of the interests of the Afghans and even the average Pakistani would be served by showing the new civilian government what we know of ISI's machinations.

We can add, "You can do something about it."

"Or we will."

Wow! Is Hezbollah Amped Or What?

The Secretary General of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, did a fine imitation of a rooster in full flush on al-Manar TV in Beruit last week. Of course, the man did have something to crow about--victory.

While the Lebanese Army stood around with its collective thumb up an anatomically improbable location, its commander waited the call---

No. He wasn't waiting for a call to arms. That came. He declined.

Michel Sleiman, the reluctant general became Michel Sleiman, eager president. That was the call he wanted. He got it.

From Hezbollah. Nasrallah characterised Sleiman as "our ally" in his speech and further declared (no doubt accurately) that the Lebanese National Army "will never be used to disarm us."

Between that statement and the fact that the agreement worked out in Doha gives Hezbollah the effective veto in the new government, Nasrallah has the strings of the puppets in his hands. Not a bad few days light work for a militia which no doubt had some kind of fun killing Sunnis and Druze or for negotiators who labored in the upscale surroundings of Qutar with the full support of both Syria and Iran.

From the reaction of George W. Bush (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=aNbQ4atY9pn8&refer=africa) one would get the idea that somehow democracy had triumphed in Lebanon. If the current Decider Guy really believes that, Nasrallah doesn't agree.

In his speech, the Hezbollah jefe maintained that his organisation had defeated the democracy movement in Lebanon and the government it had produced. He extended that undoubtedly accurate observation with another. By the success of the armed (can we say, "terrorist?") action and the Munich Conference in Doha, Nasrallah decreed Hezbollah had shown Washington that it could not move ahead with its "freedom and democracy" strategy anywhere in the Mideast and particularly in Lebanon.

The Geek ain't going to argue with that proposition.

Of course, the Geek has long held that the neocon ninny notion of imposing democracy in the frightfully infertile soils of the Mideast was a non-starter since assorted neos first muttered about the need for doing such nearly twenty years ago. History shows that efforts to impose democracy are exercises in futility compared to which masturbation with steel wool is both productive and enjoyable.

Nasrallah offered an alternative model to the "peace and democracy" strategy. It is one that he is certain will prove to be as successful elsewhere in the Mideast as it has just been in Lebanon.

He urged Hamas and Islamic Jihad to continue using "terror operations" on the Hezbollah model against both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. He also stated flatly that Hezbollah will support armed action against what he termed the "political process" in Iraq.

The phrasing "political process" is vague but implies to the Geek that Nasrallah means supporting actions directed against the current regime in Baghdad as well as the US and Allied forces. This could make for some interesting complications concerning Hezbollah's relations with Iran as both Iran and the current Iraqi government are Shia in affiliation.

Perhaps that is why the General Secretary moved quickly to add that Hezbollah was proud to be under the Vilayet e-Faqih of Iran. Nothing like a strong declaration of loyalty to the Khomeinist version of Islamism/jihadism to pour preemptive oil on the waves.

The affirmation of faith must be taken in conjunction with the challenge Nasrallah heaved to the West generally and both the US and Israel in particular when he stated that Hezbollah would fight any external intervention and that it had showed the way of successful "confrontationism."

The Geek has seen too much both directly as a practitioner and vicariously as a historian to be of an alarmist nature. Nonetheless, he is of the view that Hezbollah is a greater threat over the near- or mid-term than al-Qaeda.

If nothing else, the Hezbollah victory in Lebanon makes the possibility of an Israeli-Syrian rapprochement move from the "slim" category to the "essentially no-chance-in-hell" level. It also may serve to embolden the mullahocracy in Iran at a critical time when the mullahs are running out of viable options to deal with the combination of economic collapse, social unrest and external pressure.

Hezbollah saw its opportunity and took it. Successfully. One can only hope that Tehran (or Qom) doesn't see the Lebanese model as a guide for for Iran.

What's Wrong With the "League of Democracy?"

John McCain has proposed the creation of a global organization he has dubbed the "League of Democracies." In either of the two forms which he has outlined, the concept has raised the hackles of the High Minded for whom the UN is the end all and be all of international organizations.

Credit for the idea has been awarded to Ivo Daalder, an analyst at the Brookings Institution. On this, http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jHeyKtCtWClMxihMhSrz5rSgaERgD90VTGH00. Without any discredit to Daalder, the germ of the concept was first advanced by Admiral Lacoste, a former director of the French foreign intelligence service in his book World War IV. The admiral's book came out some fifteen years ago.

The admiral, like Senator McCain (and the Geek), regarded the United Nations as an inherently less than reliable body. Looking forward Lacoste saw the situation on the Banks of the Hudson growing ever more frustrating and futile as Islamism and its violent helpmate jihadism grew in influence and puissance.

On occasion the Lofty Global Entity can lurch into a semblance of effective operation. Those few moments have usually come as a result of a truly egregious breech of the peace and the abject failure of diplomacy. It has also come about as the result of a full court press by the US and its major allies.

The results can be good--the Korean War, or the First Persian Gulf War. The results can be poor--regime change in Iraq.

In these high profile cases, the UN has provided a political-diplomatic fig leaf to cover the American policy genitalia. In short, if the US is willing and able to grab enough countries by their short hairs and if the cause of action is sufficient to provide diplomatic cover, the Security Council or even the General Assembly will authorize action.

Outside of a handful of particularly repulsive acts by noxious governments which resulted in UN action, the Association of the High Minded on the edge of the Hudson has a very spotty record.

It is this spottiness which propelled Lacoste, Daalder and McCain to propose an alternative body. This body would at least share a common commitment to and experience with democracy.

Critics of the proposal (http://themoderatevoice.com/at-tmv/newsweek-blogitics/20023/john-mccain-and-the-league-of-global-antagonism/) accuse McCain of proposing an elitist outfit of exploitative states which would seek to impose its collective (read "American") will on the benighted heathens outside the gates.

The US doesn't need to create another multilateral body in order to pursue its subjective foreign policy interests. There are plethora of these already--including the UN, as history (including that of very recent nature) shows.

Other critics http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/conor_foley/2008/05/fantasy_league.html. argue that McCain and others who look favorably upon the "League of Democracies" notion are simply unaware of the trajectory of regional multilateral entities. They point to the Commonwealth, the Council of Europe, the African Union and the newly created Union of South American Nations as clear evidence that more than enough democratically based regional outfits exist to accomplish McCain's stated goal of constraining tyrants.

Leaving aside the questionable assumption that the Africa Union represents a congerie of stable countries enjoying open, unfettered democracy or the equally dubious assertion that Hugo Chavez and his ilk are champions of the democratic ideal, this criticism is based on less than firm foundations.

What really seems to bother the supporters of the UN is that any effective "League of Democracies" would be able to function without the let or hindrance of Russia or the Peoples Republic of China. Apparently the very thought of doing something, anything, without the concurrence of these two countries turns knees to knocking and stomachs to quease.

Considering that the PRC is a single party oligarchy and is quite likely to remain such for decades if not generations to come and that Russia is well along the road to the same destination, a simple question is required.

The question?

Why should either single party oligarchy despite the trappings of elections be considered a democracy eligible for membership in the proposed "League?"

A pivotal reality of international life is ignored by the critics both in the US and abroad. They need to get a grip.

Get a grip on this. All states pursue self-defined national interests. Insofar as doing such in conjunction with other nations possessing coinciding national interests, they will do so. If it is necessary to push on alone, a country will do that as well.

Self-defined national interest. Keep a firm grip on that reality.

Why?

Several reasons. It is the rock on which the ship of dreams sailed by the High Minded will always founder. It is the reason that the UN talks, agrees, fails to take effective united action.

Even if the "League of Democracies" included only countries such as the US, the UK, France, Germany, the smaller nations of Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the individual members would be governed by self-defined national interests--including the dictates of domestic politics.

This limits the capacity of the proposed "League" to be much more effective than the UN.

Limits, perhaps. Nullifies? No. The predicate for an organisation of states with a sound, tested and lengthy commitment to the mass of processes collected under the word "democracy" is an equally lengthy, tested and generally accepted dedication to human rights including legal equality, freedom of speech, assembly and conscience, and a jealous protection of the minority from a tyranny of the majority.

Common political and social values, a common understanding of the political compact may not be both necessary and sufficient for effective collective action against a common threat. Not necessary and sufficient, perhaps, but absolutely necessary to provide even the potential for coherent collaborative action.

Any "League" is unlikely to become a pure tool for some future cohort of American neocon ninnies. The "League" probably won't become a bureaucratic institution. It would be an effective way to circumvent the UN.

That's not a bad idea. Given the monolithic and large bloc represented by the Organization of Islamic Countries and the number of microstates with no authentic reason to exist beyond the human tendency to clump together on the basis of shared heritage and language, there is decreasing probability that the UN will be able to deal swiftly and effectively with emerging threats to either international peace or the internal disorder of collapsing states.

The High Minded both in and outside the chattering class may not find reality tasteful, but that doesn't make it any less real.

Morality Moving Front and Center

In a talk the other day entitled "Remarks by National Security Advisor Stephen J. Hadley at the Proliferation Security Initiative Fifth Anniversary Senior Level Meeting " the intellectually undistinguished but long serving White House factotum made one interesting point. It was buried in the usual mass of bureaucratic twaddle. To see the entire thirty minute preparation of pap, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/05/20080528-3.html.

The point that struck the Geek came about twenty-seven minutes into the evolution. It is worth quoting in full. "Second, many terrorists value the perception of theological legitimacy for their actions. By encouraging debate over the morality of WMD terrorism, we can try to affect the strategic calculus of the terrorists and discourage them from resorting to these weapons."

The vapid Mr Hadley you will recall stepped up to his current position when his organizational chart superior, Condolezza Rice exceeded her Peter Principle Point by becoming Secretary of State. Like SecState Rice he has excelled to date by defending the indefensible and seeking after the unattainable in the service of the current administration.

However, presumably by the same technique that would allow an infinitude of monkeys with word processors to eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare, Mr Hadley has proposed an interesting, albeit far from unique idea. We ought to debate the morality of WMD terrorism.

Actually, the National Security Advisor seems to be taking a leaf from the book(s) written by the adversaries of the US in the current Great Global War On Terrorism. The basis for this assertion is found in an excellent piece of reportage by Lawrence Wright in The New Yorker. On line, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/02/080602fa_fact_wright/?yrail.

Wright parses the semi-subterranean debate over terrorism which finds the original ideological fountainhead for the likes of al-Qaeda changing his views on the morality of terrorism or at least the indiscriminate sort practiced by the followers and imitators of Osama bin Ladin and Ayman al-Zawahiri. He has done an exceptional job. The Geek commends his work to your attention.

The Geek prefers to speak of "ethics" as there is no need to invoke the power of the Great Juju with spectres of eternal punishment to reinforce it. However, since the adversaries of the US in the GGWOT are addicted from infancy to visions of hellfire and Mr Hadley correctly notes the theological legitimacy quest of the jihadists and their Islamist cohorts, the Geek will use the word "morality."

The will and intent of the Great Juju is and always has been subject to the interpretation of less than omniscient humans. Humans subject to the whims, passions, fears and exigencies of any and every passing moment.

This is brought out in detail both excruciating and exciting by the Wright article focusing on the key intellectual-theological figure of al-Jihad and its successors, the man born Sayyid Imam al-Sharif. Without going into the details where, as always, the devil resides, al-Sharif went from being a run-of-the-souk radical kid to being an extremist's extremist who subsequently retracted from his blanket Islamist justification for killing all "infidels" and "apostates," much to the vexation and dismay of al-Zawahiri.

Minds as well as values are mutable. Beliefs as well as morality are mutable. Herein lies not only the basis for the perceived decay of al-Qaeda but also the tar pit hidden inside Mr Hadley's call for debate on the morality of WMD based terrorism.

Of course a debate on morality presupposes an agreement on terms.

Lots of luck on that one!

Despite years of trying no consensually accepted, universal definition of "Terrorism" has emerged. The world still seems intellectually mired in the ancient cliche, "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."

Dr al-Zawahiri in his audiotaped responses to roughly one hundred of the nine hundred questions emailed to him would not even concede that al-Qaeda had undertaken illegitimate terrorist actions against Muslim civilians. Instead he erected a stonewall of denial. All who were killed were somehow either apostates or infidels. Anyway, the "crusaders" were the real terrorists.

Even "reformed" extremist, al-Sharif cannot bring himself to agree that the 9/11 attack was either illegitimate or immoral. No. He sees the real terrorism as residing in the US cruise missile strike on the pharmaceutical plant in Sudan incorrectly perceived as a chemical weapons production facility which resulted in the death of the nightwatchman.

As he explains, the plant was built with Muslim money. The dead man was a Muslim. The World Trade Center was built with "infidel" money and all who died were "infidels."

OK. We're off to a great start in a debate over the morality of WMD terrorism.

Then there is the problem of defining a weapon of mass destruction. Sure, the term is conventionally understood to mean nuclear, radiological, biological or chemical employments which result in massive numbers of killed and wounded. Of course, some statutory definitions lower the threshold so that a an individual weapon or a small explosive charge constitute a WMD.

We sure are getting somewhere now. Right.

We can't even agree on what terrorism might be.

We can't agree on just what constitutes an "immoral" weapon when employed by "terrorists."

In the West we have a long history of trying to ban weapons as "immoral." Consider the crossbow.

Compared with the longbow the crossbow as an ineffective piece of equipment. It did have a couple of very real advantages over the longbow.

First, it was easy to use. Unlike the longbow which took years of practice literally from childhood to master, any peasant could be trained in the crossbow quickly and easily. An ambitious ruler or wannabe princeling could recruit a bunch of peasant kids or denizens of the slums and turn them into an efficient unit of knight-killers in a matter of weeks.

Second, the crossbow could be fired easily from concealed locations. It could be cocked and loaded in advance. It was an excellent ambush weapon.

Can we say a "weapon of terror?"

The Catholic Church did. The crossbow was prohibited from use in "Christian" wars but was permitted in combat against the Muslims.

Morality can be a slippery critter, can't it?

Then there is the question of "mass destruction." Just what does it take to inflict "mass destruction" on a target?

Yeah, we usually think of heaps of bodies in charred ruins. Hiroshima, Dresden, Hamburg or the rubble at Ground Zero.

But ask yourself: what about a cyberattack on the electric grid? What about a cyber hit on the financial institutions of the West?

No heaps of bodies. No rubble except in the virtual sense. The destruction would nonetheless be real and massive--and not impossible for a terrorist organization or the state which wishes to masquerade as one.

Finally consider how understandings of morality change under the pressure of events. In 1939 His Majesty's Government prohibited air attacks of German private property--even German state owned forests. Less than four years later the goal of government and air force alike was the killing of the greatest number of German civilians in the least amount of time with the smallest possible friendly losses.

The British called it "worker de-housing."

The Germans called it Luftterror.

They were both right.

Stephen Hadley missed that.