What a great old term--punitive expedition. Kind of makes you think of Queen Victoria's pith helmeted boys heading up some African river or Northwest Frontier canyon to teach some uppity indige types a lesson in proper manners. Or, perhaps the US cavalry riding on out to slap some pesky redskins back onto the reservation.
Of course punitive expeditions, even if not under that quaintly accurate name, are still alive and well today. They have to be. Reality demands that,
What does a nation do when the sanctions don't work? When diplomacy fails? When patience runs out? When the nuisance refuses to abate itself?
Americans shy away from punitive expeditions under any name. Even if the neocon ninnies were not calling the play during the post-9/11 months We the People wouldn't have felt at all comfortable with simply going into Afghanistan on the ground and in the air with the goal of killing as many al-Qaeda leaders and adherents as possible, and, along the way, doing the same to the maximum number of Taliban.
We could have administered what used to be called "condign punishment" to both the al-Qaeda mass murderers and their Taliban protectors. The outrage of 9/11 assured both political will and popular support for a punitive expedition--even one which would have perforce resulted in significant civilian casualties.
Absent the neocons and their strange delusion that fully functioning, pluralistic democracy and free enterprise can be installed via "shock and awe," American sensibilities would have demanded that we do more than simply vanquish the sinner. Our unique view of the world would have required that we raise the prostrate sinner to his feet, dust him off, offer him new clothes and abjure him to go and sin no more.
We the People would have required nation building as the ultimate goal no matter how unrealistic that might be. And, no matter how inappropriate a role for our military it might be.
Thus the neocon ninnies were aided and abetted in their flights of fancy by the moral sensitivities of the American public with the result that we are still in Afghanistan more than six years later. Still in Afghanistan and currently facing defeat. High price to pay for ignoring the plausibility and realism of a purely punitive expedition.
If the crime is great enough as it was on 9/11, a country may prosecute a punitive operation with support by both its domestic population and that of the political elites abroad. If the crime is small--a misdemeanor by international standards--then a country pursues punitive action at great peril to its global reputation and standing.
Israel discovered the reality that the crime must merit the punishment during its ill-considered expedition into Lebanon in summer 2006. The crime was the kidnapping of two IDF members by Hezbollah. Aggravating circumstances were provided by occasional rockets incoming from southern Lebanon.
The Israeli punitive expedition which included massive air strikes on infrastructure targets (what nuclear strategists called "counter-value targeting") meshed with both air and ground operations purportedly directed against Hezbollah arms dumps and personnel but actually rather indiscriminately applied to anyone and everyone in southern Lebanon. With the noteworthy exception of the United States, the global response to the disproportionate Israeli action was condemnation.
The crime did not merit the punishment.
Ultimately Israel suffered the greatest military and diplomatic defeat in its history. Hezbollah emerged as the clear winner by any measure which might be applied. Also winning in the contest were the mullahocracy in Tehran and the hardest hardliners within the Palestinian community and the Arab population generally.
(It should be mentioned that the US was listed, not among the "winners" but along with Israel in the "loser" category.)
We have to get a grip on the concept of punitive expeditions now more than ever since high on the list of foreign policy challenges faceing us is the matter of nuclear proliferation. Not only is Iran on the "path" (to quote Dr ElBaradei) but North Korea is apparently getting back in the plutonium production business.
While the New Hermit Kingdom of the North may further impoverish its citizens by extracting more plutonium from the several thousand fuel rods taken from its (perhaps only temporarily) decommissioned reactor, it can add several more kilos to its store of Pu239. In the mind of Kim jong Il or the minds of North Korea's very hardline military commanders, the risks are far outweighed by the potential benefits.
Six or eight Nagasaki size and type bombs when coupled with North Korea's 1.2 million man army represents a very large diplomatic blackmail potential. Cowing South Korea into compliance with the North's policy dictates might move from the thinkable to the doable.
If anything, a North Korean nuclear threat represents far more of a clear and present danger to US strategic interests than does the potential (within as few as six to twelve months) Iranian Mahidi bomb.
Given the low likelihood of sanctions and diplomatic palaver stimulating a sudden, genuine desire on the part of the Hermit Kingdom of the North to surrender its plutonium to some other, more responsible custodian, what should the US do next? (The Geek recommends that as a question to be posed at the foreign policy debate between Senators McCain and Obama.)
One option is a air delivered punitive expedition. Leaving aside the very real question, "Will it work?" the nature of the crime needs to be explored.
Has Pyongyang's intransigence reached a level such that either world or US domestic opinion would accept a series of strikes which, if successful, carry the risk of liberating a large amount of radioactivity to the environment?
(While considering that question, keep in mind that the jet stream blows from west to east. Then look at a world map.)
Rogue states and trans-national terrorist groups are not going to evaporate simply because we would find that convenient. As a result, the punitive expedition (however one might like to cosmetically cover the harsh term) must and will remain an option for the US and other states. This means we must have a serious conversation about both "crime" and "punishment."
This means in turn that the often criticised Bush Doctrine must be revisited as it was not so much inherently incorrect or unjustified as it was poorly thought through and presented. We must have not only the right of self-defense but also a properly grounded right to abate threats and punish those who threaten.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Join The Navy!
Since the Monster Debate on Foreign Policy may be postponed so that the candidates may posture appealingly next to the Wall Street Emergency Rescue and CEO Reduced Compensation Act of 2008, there is a little time for one or both contenders to reconsider his stance on US policy in the Mideast. In the (remote) hope that reevaluation might take place, the Geek has a modest proposal or two.
The United States is and always has been a maritime power. Maritime powers have an enormous advantage over continental powers such as Germany or Russia. Control and use of the sea allows for timely force projection without overseas bases.
This means that a maritime power can practice balance of power politics. The British played that game with great effect during the 19th Century. The US dabbled with the idea off and on during some of the 20th. The time has come for us to play the game with cold calculation.
What has been the historic US interest in the Mideast and Persian Gulf?
No. Not the oil. Or at least not the oil in and of itself.
Our interest since the middle of World War II has been assuring that no single nation controls all or most of the region's oil. For nearly sixty years the US employed economic, military assistance, diplomacy and covert actions to achieve the policy goal.
The Rapid Deployment Force was conceptualised in the wake of the Iranian Revolution as a way of continuing to assure the oil region did not fall under a single country's hegemony. That same reason underscored the (in)famous "tilt to Iraq" during the Iraq-Iran War.
The policy requirement of preventing a regional hegemon from emerging prompted the massive deployment of US and other forces to Saudi Arabia in the run up to the Kuwait War.
Had the foreign forces left the Arabian Peninsula in the wake of ejecting Iraq from Kuwait, a major motive for Osama bin Ladin's 1996 "Declaration of War" against the US would have been undercut. Unfortunately that didn't happen. Although the massive American presence in Saudi Arabia was removed, the relocation of our bases to the UAE was a classic case of "too little, too late."
A strong argument may be made that the No Fly Zone in southern Iraq could have been adequately enforced by aircraft from naval carriers operating over the horizon in international waters. There was no crying military need for a large US presence anywhere in the Peninsula. Even the highly unlikely possibility of a resurgent and aggressive Saddam would have been detected in time for sea based, invisible force to be brought to bear.
With that as background, it's time to get a grip on the options now available.
The first option is to get out of Iraq. The US might take the Iraqi government and its delusions of adequacy seriously. The Iraqi politically articulate elite doesn't want our forces in its country now that the noise level has been reduced to an acceptable level.
Fine. It is no longer possible for the US to "not lose" militarily in Iraq. It is most assuredly not our responsibility to make certain that the Iraqis can do a passable job of running their own country.
We have accomplished our minimum necessary policy goal. We have not lost. The black turbans could not and did not defeat us either militarily or by enervation of our political will to continue the fight. Now it is up to the autocthones. The Iraqis in all their varied sectarian and linguistic stripes have to decide how the show is going to be run.
As long as we follow a balance of power approach, our basic policy of assuring open access to the only thing in the region that matters--oil--is preserved. We can do that best by remembering that we are a maritime power.
A second requirement of a new, balance of power oriented policy is to constructively engage Iran. The Iranian regime(s) have shown a willingness to do this, most recently in 2003. It wouldn't have been easy to arrange an all-inclusive bargain then and it will be immensely more difficult now, but that is no reason not to go ahead with the effort.
This approach does not imply an Obama-esque "negotiations without preconditions." Rather it relies on old style diplomacy with the only wrinkle that the US will have to eat some crow to jump start the process. For those who argue that we can't deal with Tehran while the mullahocracy supports Hezbollah, aids black turbans in Iraq, and slips assistance to Taliban, the Geek replies that history is the guide.
Remember that the US talked openly and repeatedly with the Soviet Union--to include a Summit Meeting in 1967--even though the Soviets were sending weapons by the shipload to North Vietnam and these weapons did in fact kill and wound Americans. (The Geek has a personal involvement in the latter part of this reality and carries fragments of Russian origin metal in his body to this day.)
Sure, an effort at constructive engagement might not pay off now after years of sanctions and saber waving, but the risks are far smaller and much more easily controlled than those attendant upon the military option. And, the benefits are far greater.
Beyond that, should force be necessary, the US possesses the over-the-horizon platforms to assure the rubble formerly called Tehran to bounce past the tropopause. Still, tough talk, tough bargaining is to be preferred over tough action.
Then there is Israel.
The seemingly eternal problem of Israel.
The time is long past for the US to treat Israel with the same respect, dignity and self-interested basis as it treats all other countries.
Yes, the US should be every bit as concerned with the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of Israel as it that of France, Germany, Canada or Georgia.
Yes, the US should have all the normal diplomatic and commercial relations with Israel that it does with other countries.
All the normal features of relations the US has with other democratic, more or less pluralistic regimes should and must exist with respect to Israel.
But no more than that.
No more excessive military aid. No more excessive diplomatic and political support. No more foreign aid. (Israel is by all normal criteria a developed nation and needs foreign aid no more than does Canada or Sweden.)
For our own national interest we must give the Government of Israel (GOI) a choice regarding the West Bank and Gaza. Choice one: negotiate a two state solution immediately and in good faith with our support. Choice two: continue as an oppressive colonial power in the West Bank and Gaza without our support.
Again, the US has the over-the-horizon capacity to assure Israel's territorial integrity and national sovereignty. By giving the GOI the stark choice outlined above, we are not withdrawing from effective overwatch and protection.
Will this, any of the foregoing realpolitik approaches be embraced by either of the two major candidates?
No.
John McCain has openly embraced the neocon perspective and his campaign advisers include people such as Max Boot who have learned nothing from the greatest US foreign policy debacle in history and are eager to have the Israeli tail wag the dog of US policy. Senator Obama is a neophyte in foreign policy which makes him captive of the same Democratic movers and shakers who have followed the Israel uber alles view for more than forty years.
Also, the Geek is well aware of the Israel Lobby which, like the China Lobby of sixty and more years ago, has shown itself both willing and able to inflict massive damage on the interests of the United States in order to further the interests of another country.
Lord, help us.
The United States is and always has been a maritime power. Maritime powers have an enormous advantage over continental powers such as Germany or Russia. Control and use of the sea allows for timely force projection without overseas bases.
This means that a maritime power can practice balance of power politics. The British played that game with great effect during the 19th Century. The US dabbled with the idea off and on during some of the 20th. The time has come for us to play the game with cold calculation.
What has been the historic US interest in the Mideast and Persian Gulf?
No. Not the oil. Or at least not the oil in and of itself.
Our interest since the middle of World War II has been assuring that no single nation controls all or most of the region's oil. For nearly sixty years the US employed economic, military assistance, diplomacy and covert actions to achieve the policy goal.
The Rapid Deployment Force was conceptualised in the wake of the Iranian Revolution as a way of continuing to assure the oil region did not fall under a single country's hegemony. That same reason underscored the (in)famous "tilt to Iraq" during the Iraq-Iran War.
The policy requirement of preventing a regional hegemon from emerging prompted the massive deployment of US and other forces to Saudi Arabia in the run up to the Kuwait War.
Had the foreign forces left the Arabian Peninsula in the wake of ejecting Iraq from Kuwait, a major motive for Osama bin Ladin's 1996 "Declaration of War" against the US would have been undercut. Unfortunately that didn't happen. Although the massive American presence in Saudi Arabia was removed, the relocation of our bases to the UAE was a classic case of "too little, too late."
A strong argument may be made that the No Fly Zone in southern Iraq could have been adequately enforced by aircraft from naval carriers operating over the horizon in international waters. There was no crying military need for a large US presence anywhere in the Peninsula. Even the highly unlikely possibility of a resurgent and aggressive Saddam would have been detected in time for sea based, invisible force to be brought to bear.
With that as background, it's time to get a grip on the options now available.
The first option is to get out of Iraq. The US might take the Iraqi government and its delusions of adequacy seriously. The Iraqi politically articulate elite doesn't want our forces in its country now that the noise level has been reduced to an acceptable level.
Fine. It is no longer possible for the US to "not lose" militarily in Iraq. It is most assuredly not our responsibility to make certain that the Iraqis can do a passable job of running their own country.
We have accomplished our minimum necessary policy goal. We have not lost. The black turbans could not and did not defeat us either militarily or by enervation of our political will to continue the fight. Now it is up to the autocthones. The Iraqis in all their varied sectarian and linguistic stripes have to decide how the show is going to be run.
As long as we follow a balance of power approach, our basic policy of assuring open access to the only thing in the region that matters--oil--is preserved. We can do that best by remembering that we are a maritime power.
A second requirement of a new, balance of power oriented policy is to constructively engage Iran. The Iranian regime(s) have shown a willingness to do this, most recently in 2003. It wouldn't have been easy to arrange an all-inclusive bargain then and it will be immensely more difficult now, but that is no reason not to go ahead with the effort.
This approach does not imply an Obama-esque "negotiations without preconditions." Rather it relies on old style diplomacy with the only wrinkle that the US will have to eat some crow to jump start the process. For those who argue that we can't deal with Tehran while the mullahocracy supports Hezbollah, aids black turbans in Iraq, and slips assistance to Taliban, the Geek replies that history is the guide.
Remember that the US talked openly and repeatedly with the Soviet Union--to include a Summit Meeting in 1967--even though the Soviets were sending weapons by the shipload to North Vietnam and these weapons did in fact kill and wound Americans. (The Geek has a personal involvement in the latter part of this reality and carries fragments of Russian origin metal in his body to this day.)
Sure, an effort at constructive engagement might not pay off now after years of sanctions and saber waving, but the risks are far smaller and much more easily controlled than those attendant upon the military option. And, the benefits are far greater.
Beyond that, should force be necessary, the US possesses the over-the-horizon platforms to assure the rubble formerly called Tehran to bounce past the tropopause. Still, tough talk, tough bargaining is to be preferred over tough action.
Then there is Israel.
The seemingly eternal problem of Israel.
The time is long past for the US to treat Israel with the same respect, dignity and self-interested basis as it treats all other countries.
Yes, the US should be every bit as concerned with the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of Israel as it that of France, Germany, Canada or Georgia.
Yes, the US should have all the normal diplomatic and commercial relations with Israel that it does with other countries.
All the normal features of relations the US has with other democratic, more or less pluralistic regimes should and must exist with respect to Israel.
But no more than that.
No more excessive military aid. No more excessive diplomatic and political support. No more foreign aid. (Israel is by all normal criteria a developed nation and needs foreign aid no more than does Canada or Sweden.)
For our own national interest we must give the Government of Israel (GOI) a choice regarding the West Bank and Gaza. Choice one: negotiate a two state solution immediately and in good faith with our support. Choice two: continue as an oppressive colonial power in the West Bank and Gaza without our support.
Again, the US has the over-the-horizon capacity to assure Israel's territorial integrity and national sovereignty. By giving the GOI the stark choice outlined above, we are not withdrawing from effective overwatch and protection.
Will this, any of the foregoing realpolitik approaches be embraced by either of the two major candidates?
No.
John McCain has openly embraced the neocon perspective and his campaign advisers include people such as Max Boot who have learned nothing from the greatest US foreign policy debacle in history and are eager to have the Israeli tail wag the dog of US policy. Senator Obama is a neophyte in foreign policy which makes him captive of the same Democratic movers and shakers who have followed the Israel uber alles view for more than forty years.
Also, the Geek is well aware of the Israel Lobby which, like the China Lobby of sixty and more years ago, has shown itself both willing and able to inflict massive damage on the interests of the United States in order to further the interests of another country.
Lord, help us.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Compared With Israel Chicken Little Was Optimistic
Israel is a sovereign state. The Government of Israel (GOI) pursues the self-defined strategic and national interests of the state. No surprises. That's all business as usual.
GOI as well as its advocates and apologists in the United States do all in their collective power to convince the government and people of the US to support without qualification the strategic and national interests of Israel--regardless of American national interests. No surprises. That's all business as usual.
GOI in a manner identical to countries such as the United Kingdom has employed any and all means necessary to gain American support and assistance. GOI, again in a manner identical with that used by, say, the UK during World War I and the opening years of World War II, has employed deceptive intelligence, exaggerated threats and repeated warnings of dire consequences to influence the American public and its government. Influence the government to take actions which it would otherwise not take as being against long term American national and strategic interests.
The difficulty for us comes when our politicians and our public opinion molders accept without question GOI policy positions. It comes when our political leaders and opinion molders act upon the bogus intelligence, the exaggerated threats and the mournful predictions of catastrophe.
The process of co-opting the US through the use of bogus intelligence started before there was a state of Israel. During World War II James Jesus Angleton then at the London Controlling Section of the OSS established contacts with the intelligence office of Haganah.
After the war Angleton combined his functions as head of CIA's counterintelligence shop with that of privately running liaison with the Mossad. During the 1950s Angleton was fed--and accepted uncritically--a combination of chickenfeed and falsity from his Israeli interlocutors. The Mossad derived disinformation emphasized the rapid growth of Soviet aerospace technology and nuclear capacities.
Not until the U2 overflights was the Mossad exposed as a papermill and the usefulness of the liaison called into question. The doubts about Israeli military and political intelligence continued even though on occasion, such as the "Secret Speech" exposing Stalin's excesses, the Israeli catch proved bang-on accurate.
The purpose of the "intelligence" sharing was twofold. Show how useful GOI and its components were to the US and thus drop markers for later collection. Establish a basis of reliability so that Israeli warnings of immediate threat would be believed by Washington.
While the Israeli military intelligence product has proven both accurate and of limited utility, the political and strategic products were far less so. In the run-up to the Six Day War all hands from CIA, the Pentagon, State and even the Executive Office Building didn't know whether to laugh or cry over the grossly exaggerated threat intel streaming out of the Mossad.
Israel played the we-are-doomed-we-are-going-to-die tune so long and hard and with such little real world basis that contempt dripped (privately) throughout the US national security community. (Recall that CIA, the Pentagon and State predicted up to a year before the outbreak of war that the Israeli military would need not more than seven days to obliterate the enemy forces.)
LBJ and his administration had no options given the political context of 1967. They had to applaud the war, ignore the unjustifiable attack on the USNS Liberty, and overlook the intransigence of GOI regarding the occupied territories. Similar constraints operated on LBJ when it came to the matter of GOI's nuclear weapons program.
We had known (or suspected) that Israel was hot after the bomb since Ike putted on the West Lawn. Various attempts to "inspect" the Israeli facilities were turned aside by GOI. By the time LBJ was pulling the ears of his beagles and getting our feet stuck in the muck of Vietnam, the denizen of the Oval Office made it clear that he didn't want to know about any yarmulke wearing atom bombs.
The Israeli bomb coupled with exaggerations of threat combined to convince the Nixon Administration to provide real-time intelligence (which allowed redeployment of IDF and IAF assets to blunt the nearly successful Syrian attack) and airlifted resupply (which provoked the first OPEC oil embargo.) It should be noted that the Egyptian Army had no intention of going deep into the Sinai let alone chug on to Israel proper.
With this historical background it should have come as no surprise that GOI provided false and misleading "intelligence" regarding Saddam and the Iraqi WMD. This set of Israeli fabrications came as biblical manna to the neocon ninnies who litter the landscape of the current US administration. Had George W. Bush possessed the mental horsepower necessary to parse between responsible realpolitikers such as James Baker and Robert Gates and the posse of neocons led by Dick (Nobody Has A Need To Know Anything) Cheney and Donald (Shock And Awe 'Em Into Democracy and Shopping Malls) Rumsfeld, the output of the Mossad papermill would have been pulped without a second thought.
Of course the neocon ninnies lapped it up and the rest, as they say, is history.
Now history threatens to repeat itself.
Even eight and more years ago GOI and Company wanted the US to abate the Iranian nuisance. Indeed, in the months preceding the invasion of Iraq there was great fear within GOI that we would lose sight of the Iranian peril while pursuing the lesser menace of Saddam's Iraq.
Five years into what is arguably the greatest foreign policy debacle in US history, GOI and Company is leaning hard on the button marked "War." The neocons of the Bush regime are doing the same.
As posted yesterday, the potential "Mahdi bomb" represents no clear and present danger to the US. It constitutes, at worst, an irritation that the US can learn to live with given that deterrence works and the American nuclear umbrella has historically sheltered many allied or other states important to the US national and strategic interests.
True, the Mahdi bomb is much more of a threat to GOI and the Israeli public. But, Israel has a substantial nuclear arsenal of more than two hundred devices. These include not only the old standby of pure fission but, almost certainly, boosted fission weapons and quite probably genuine two stage fission-fusion gadgets as well.
In short, Israel has the capacity to green glass the totality of Iran. The mullahs know this. They also know that the US nuclear threat stands behind Israel. And, as previously mentioned, it matters not if the Twelfth Imam returns and you are a loose assembly of radioactive fly ash in the stratosphere.
So why can't We the People emulate the "What? Me Worry?" attitude of yesterday's Mad Magazine? Why can't we say to the mullahocracy, "Go ahead, make your bomb and pray for peace?"
Because we are deep in an election campaign.
On the one hand is the Nice Young Man From Chicago, Senator Obama. He is an empty suit and a teleprompter mouth who hails from a machine politics background. His party has its own neocon ninnies. His party has a long and rich history of conflating Israeli national interests with American. With respect to US-Israel relations his definition of "change" is more than likely to be "more of the same."
Then there is John McCain. He used to be a realpolitiker. Under the whip of the campaign he is morphing into a neocon. (See, http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/2008092220080922bootdanzig.html.)
The history of the past few years shows what that means.
Lord help us.
GOI as well as its advocates and apologists in the United States do all in their collective power to convince the government and people of the US to support without qualification the strategic and national interests of Israel--regardless of American national interests. No surprises. That's all business as usual.
GOI in a manner identical to countries such as the United Kingdom has employed any and all means necessary to gain American support and assistance. GOI, again in a manner identical with that used by, say, the UK during World War I and the opening years of World War II, has employed deceptive intelligence, exaggerated threats and repeated warnings of dire consequences to influence the American public and its government. Influence the government to take actions which it would otherwise not take as being against long term American national and strategic interests.
The difficulty for us comes when our politicians and our public opinion molders accept without question GOI policy positions. It comes when our political leaders and opinion molders act upon the bogus intelligence, the exaggerated threats and the mournful predictions of catastrophe.
The process of co-opting the US through the use of bogus intelligence started before there was a state of Israel. During World War II James Jesus Angleton then at the London Controlling Section of the OSS established contacts with the intelligence office of Haganah.
After the war Angleton combined his functions as head of CIA's counterintelligence shop with that of privately running liaison with the Mossad. During the 1950s Angleton was fed--and accepted uncritically--a combination of chickenfeed and falsity from his Israeli interlocutors. The Mossad derived disinformation emphasized the rapid growth of Soviet aerospace technology and nuclear capacities.
Not until the U2 overflights was the Mossad exposed as a papermill and the usefulness of the liaison called into question. The doubts about Israeli military and political intelligence continued even though on occasion, such as the "Secret Speech" exposing Stalin's excesses, the Israeli catch proved bang-on accurate.
The purpose of the "intelligence" sharing was twofold. Show how useful GOI and its components were to the US and thus drop markers for later collection. Establish a basis of reliability so that Israeli warnings of immediate threat would be believed by Washington.
While the Israeli military intelligence product has proven both accurate and of limited utility, the political and strategic products were far less so. In the run-up to the Six Day War all hands from CIA, the Pentagon, State and even the Executive Office Building didn't know whether to laugh or cry over the grossly exaggerated threat intel streaming out of the Mossad.
Israel played the we-are-doomed-we-are-going-to-die tune so long and hard and with such little real world basis that contempt dripped (privately) throughout the US national security community. (Recall that CIA, the Pentagon and State predicted up to a year before the outbreak of war that the Israeli military would need not more than seven days to obliterate the enemy forces.)
LBJ and his administration had no options given the political context of 1967. They had to applaud the war, ignore the unjustifiable attack on the USNS Liberty, and overlook the intransigence of GOI regarding the occupied territories. Similar constraints operated on LBJ when it came to the matter of GOI's nuclear weapons program.
We had known (or suspected) that Israel was hot after the bomb since Ike putted on the West Lawn. Various attempts to "inspect" the Israeli facilities were turned aside by GOI. By the time LBJ was pulling the ears of his beagles and getting our feet stuck in the muck of Vietnam, the denizen of the Oval Office made it clear that he didn't want to know about any yarmulke wearing atom bombs.
The Israeli bomb coupled with exaggerations of threat combined to convince the Nixon Administration to provide real-time intelligence (which allowed redeployment of IDF and IAF assets to blunt the nearly successful Syrian attack) and airlifted resupply (which provoked the first OPEC oil embargo.) It should be noted that the Egyptian Army had no intention of going deep into the Sinai let alone chug on to Israel proper.
With this historical background it should have come as no surprise that GOI provided false and misleading "intelligence" regarding Saddam and the Iraqi WMD. This set of Israeli fabrications came as biblical manna to the neocon ninnies who litter the landscape of the current US administration. Had George W. Bush possessed the mental horsepower necessary to parse between responsible realpolitikers such as James Baker and Robert Gates and the posse of neocons led by Dick (Nobody Has A Need To Know Anything) Cheney and Donald (Shock And Awe 'Em Into Democracy and Shopping Malls) Rumsfeld, the output of the Mossad papermill would have been pulped without a second thought.
Of course the neocon ninnies lapped it up and the rest, as they say, is history.
Now history threatens to repeat itself.
Even eight and more years ago GOI and Company wanted the US to abate the Iranian nuisance. Indeed, in the months preceding the invasion of Iraq there was great fear within GOI that we would lose sight of the Iranian peril while pursuing the lesser menace of Saddam's Iraq.
Five years into what is arguably the greatest foreign policy debacle in US history, GOI and Company is leaning hard on the button marked "War." The neocons of the Bush regime are doing the same.
As posted yesterday, the potential "Mahdi bomb" represents no clear and present danger to the US. It constitutes, at worst, an irritation that the US can learn to live with given that deterrence works and the American nuclear umbrella has historically sheltered many allied or other states important to the US national and strategic interests.
True, the Mahdi bomb is much more of a threat to GOI and the Israeli public. But, Israel has a substantial nuclear arsenal of more than two hundred devices. These include not only the old standby of pure fission but, almost certainly, boosted fission weapons and quite probably genuine two stage fission-fusion gadgets as well.
In short, Israel has the capacity to green glass the totality of Iran. The mullahs know this. They also know that the US nuclear threat stands behind Israel. And, as previously mentioned, it matters not if the Twelfth Imam returns and you are a loose assembly of radioactive fly ash in the stratosphere.
So why can't We the People emulate the "What? Me Worry?" attitude of yesterday's Mad Magazine? Why can't we say to the mullahocracy, "Go ahead, make your bomb and pray for peace?"
Because we are deep in an election campaign.
On the one hand is the Nice Young Man From Chicago, Senator Obama. He is an empty suit and a teleprompter mouth who hails from a machine politics background. His party has its own neocon ninnies. His party has a long and rich history of conflating Israeli national interests with American. With respect to US-Israel relations his definition of "change" is more than likely to be "more of the same."
Then there is John McCain. He used to be a realpolitiker. Under the whip of the campaign he is morphing into a neocon. (See, http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/2008092220080922bootdanzig.html.)
The history of the past few years shows what that means.
Lord help us.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Living With The (Mahdi's) Bomb
Ever since the overthrow of the Shah thirty-eight years ago Iran has been an omnipresent and ever obnoxious presence on the global stage. From taking diplomatic personnel hostage to supporting transnational terrorist groups all the way to its current hemi-demi-semi covert nuclear weapons program the mullahocracy in Tehran has been the worst sort of blot on the international landscape.
The essential question for the US is not that of rating the irritation quotient of Iran. The fundamental consideration for the US is not that of determining how much of a menace Iran might be to Israel.
No. The critical consideration for the US is whether or not a nuclear weapons equipped Iran represents a danger to the strategic interests and national security of the United States. Period.
It's safe to stipulate that Iran is hot after a nuclear capability. All the signs point in that direction. Certainly, as the Geek has noted previously, Iran has two major reasons to acquire the Big Bomb: having been the recipient of chemical attacks during the Iraq-Iran War and desiring to emerge as the unchallenged regional hegemonic power.
From the perspective of other (think Sunni) Persian Gulf countries a nuclear Iran might be an existential nightmare. Israel may see a nuclear Iran as an existential threat.
What about the American perspective?
To be realistic about it, the possibility of a nuclear armed Iran in our near future should cause not much more than a shoulder shrug and a (slightly) heightened vigilance.
"What's that!" You exclaim. "They're a bunch of Muslim loonie toons who think the Mahdi will come riding out of the clouds to end the bloody final clash of nations."
Yeah, and so what? The Geek remembers as a small child being assured by press, parents and politicians alike that the "godless commonists" had such disregard for human life that they'd nuke the world in an instant to bring about the defeat of America.
The Geek also remembers hearing, shortly after the Chicoms lit off their first nudet that deterrence would never work with them. After all, it was solemnly pontificated by seemingly responsible adults, "life is cheap in the Orient" and "what does a few million people mean to Mao? I mean, look how many of them there are!"
History proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that deterrence worked with the Soviets, be they godless or otherwise, as well as the Chinese, regardless of how many of them there might be.
We--and the Russians--viewed the Israeli development of nuclear weapons with equanimity. This was true even after the Israelis developed and deployed a nuclear capable missile with sufficient range to engage the southwestern section of the old Soviet Union.
Why were the Kremlin and Washington so unruffled by the Israeli bomb? Simple. Both governments (this was more important to the Soviets than to us) were certain that deterrence works.
While it is possible to hyperventilate over the Pakistani bomb by averring that it might fall into the hands of terrorists, we can live with the bomb in Pakistan as we can with that in India. Deterrence works. (It might even make for more cooperative neighbors, but the jury is still out on this.)
"Wait one, Geek!" You interrupt. "That's the point! Those mullahs are likely to hand over the bomb to their running buddies, like Hezbollah."
Well, partner, the Geek admits you have a point. It's conceivable. But, low in probability. The Iranians have to know that nudets leave isotope fingerprints and those show the identity of the maker of the fissionable material. The mullahs also have to know that with Iran's long standing reputation as Juvenile Delinquent of the World, suspicion would fix on Tehran beaucoup schnell after any nudet anywhere.
In short, should there be a 9/11 on nuclear steroids, it would not be enjoyable to live anywhere in Iran.
The coming of the Mahdi is of little consequence if you have become some radioactive ash in the jet stream. The men running Iran understand this.
Since it appears overwhelmingly likely that constructive engagement Russian style or sanctions American style will prove as ineffective in the future as they have in the past, the US is left with two choices regarding the Iranian bomb. Choice one: military action. Choice two: live with it.
Given the current American economic, political and military context which is too self-evident to deserve recapitulation, the military option carries more risks than it does benefits.
That narrows the choice.
We have learned to live with the bomb in Russian hands. In Chinese. Even in Pakistani. An Iranian add-on should cause no appreciable loss of American sleep.
Of course, the Mahdi bomb will cause sleepless nights in Israel. There lies the problem, the challenge for American policy makers. The Government of Israel (GOI) would like very much for us to carry their water for them this time as they did with respect to Iraq and Syria.
The (intentionally) skewed views of the GOI and its advocates in the US were in large part responsible for the bogus WMD argument propelling the Great Adventure in Regime Change in Iraq. Similarly, these views and intelligence were responsible in large measure for the self-inflicted policy wound of turning Syria hostile to the US.
It can happen again with Iran if once more the Israeli tail wags the dog of American foreign policy decision making.
It is an election year after all.
The essential question for the US is not that of rating the irritation quotient of Iran. The fundamental consideration for the US is not that of determining how much of a menace Iran might be to Israel.
No. The critical consideration for the US is whether or not a nuclear weapons equipped Iran represents a danger to the strategic interests and national security of the United States. Period.
It's safe to stipulate that Iran is hot after a nuclear capability. All the signs point in that direction. Certainly, as the Geek has noted previously, Iran has two major reasons to acquire the Big Bomb: having been the recipient of chemical attacks during the Iraq-Iran War and desiring to emerge as the unchallenged regional hegemonic power.
From the perspective of other (think Sunni) Persian Gulf countries a nuclear Iran might be an existential nightmare. Israel may see a nuclear Iran as an existential threat.
What about the American perspective?
To be realistic about it, the possibility of a nuclear armed Iran in our near future should cause not much more than a shoulder shrug and a (slightly) heightened vigilance.
"What's that!" You exclaim. "They're a bunch of Muslim loonie toons who think the Mahdi will come riding out of the clouds to end the bloody final clash of nations."
Yeah, and so what? The Geek remembers as a small child being assured by press, parents and politicians alike that the "godless commonists" had such disregard for human life that they'd nuke the world in an instant to bring about the defeat of America.
The Geek also remembers hearing, shortly after the Chicoms lit off their first nudet that deterrence would never work with them. After all, it was solemnly pontificated by seemingly responsible adults, "life is cheap in the Orient" and "what does a few million people mean to Mao? I mean, look how many of them there are!"
History proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that deterrence worked with the Soviets, be they godless or otherwise, as well as the Chinese, regardless of how many of them there might be.
We--and the Russians--viewed the Israeli development of nuclear weapons with equanimity. This was true even after the Israelis developed and deployed a nuclear capable missile with sufficient range to engage the southwestern section of the old Soviet Union.
Why were the Kremlin and Washington so unruffled by the Israeli bomb? Simple. Both governments (this was more important to the Soviets than to us) were certain that deterrence works.
While it is possible to hyperventilate over the Pakistani bomb by averring that it might fall into the hands of terrorists, we can live with the bomb in Pakistan as we can with that in India. Deterrence works. (It might even make for more cooperative neighbors, but the jury is still out on this.)
"Wait one, Geek!" You interrupt. "That's the point! Those mullahs are likely to hand over the bomb to their running buddies, like Hezbollah."
Well, partner, the Geek admits you have a point. It's conceivable. But, low in probability. The Iranians have to know that nudets leave isotope fingerprints and those show the identity of the maker of the fissionable material. The mullahs also have to know that with Iran's long standing reputation as Juvenile Delinquent of the World, suspicion would fix on Tehran beaucoup schnell after any nudet anywhere.
In short, should there be a 9/11 on nuclear steroids, it would not be enjoyable to live anywhere in Iran.
The coming of the Mahdi is of little consequence if you have become some radioactive ash in the jet stream. The men running Iran understand this.
Since it appears overwhelmingly likely that constructive engagement Russian style or sanctions American style will prove as ineffective in the future as they have in the past, the US is left with two choices regarding the Iranian bomb. Choice one: military action. Choice two: live with it.
Given the current American economic, political and military context which is too self-evident to deserve recapitulation, the military option carries more risks than it does benefits.
That narrows the choice.
We have learned to live with the bomb in Russian hands. In Chinese. Even in Pakistani. An Iranian add-on should cause no appreciable loss of American sleep.
Of course, the Mahdi bomb will cause sleepless nights in Israel. There lies the problem, the challenge for American policy makers. The Government of Israel (GOI) would like very much for us to carry their water for them this time as they did with respect to Iraq and Syria.
The (intentionally) skewed views of the GOI and its advocates in the US were in large part responsible for the bogus WMD argument propelling the Great Adventure in Regime Change in Iraq. Similarly, these views and intelligence were responsible in large measure for the self-inflicted policy wound of turning Syria hostile to the US.
It can happen again with Iran if once more the Israeli tail wags the dog of American foreign policy decision making.
It is an election year after all.
The Past Is The Future--In Russia
Since August seventh when Russia went on a rampage in Georgia (proving a good, really big guy can beat a small, not-so-good one), the hawks in the current US administration headed by Dick (let's-kick-the Russkies-again) Cheney have been in the ascendant. With the same single-minded, to-hell-with-reality! determination which was previously exhibited with regard to our Great Adventure in Regime Change in Iraq, the bring-on-the-apocalypse-now! crowd has been successfully restoring the Cold War, at least in miniature.
The handful of realpolitikers such as SecDef Robert (PhD in Russian studies) Gates have been on the defensive as they seek to retain necessary channels of communication open. Caught in the middle is SecState Condy (PhD in Soviet studies) Rice.
Time to go to the videotape of history. This is important--no, central--to understanding the source of contemporary Russian behavior and the challenges for American policy makers.
Why? You ask.
Because history may be a simple case of the dead past for Americans but it is a living hand at the back of every educated Russian (and even those who are not so educated.)
In Russia as in so many other countries the past is never really past, never actually dead, buried and of interest only to narrow specialists in history. Events of nearly a thousand years ago (think Mongol conquest and occupation) as well as of the past century (think German invasion in 1941 or the international respect accorded Russia during the Cold War) are alive and well in the minds of Russians.
In simple but not oversimplified terms, the collective mind of Russia is colored by both a sense of inferiority compared to the West and paranoia regarding Russian susceptibility to invasion from both West and East. This combination is assured to make Russian leaders feel both threatened and insecure, as getting no respect from the political elites of other major powers.
One result of this insecurity over the centuries has been a Russian fixation on gaining a protective territorial belt surrounding and buffering the Russian heartland against the ambitions of foreign powers be they European, Asian or in recent decades, American. Originally this protective belt, this buffer area on which future battles would be waged, consisted of those territories coterminous with Russia. The territories of the "Near Abroad" in Russian terminology such as the Ukraine, Georgia, the Central Asian Republics, the Baltic states.
As the Big Three (Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt) met at Yalta in the closing days of World War II in Europe, the Russian jefe made it clear that the Kremlin's definition of a necessary protective belt had expanded. Churchill, being a fine example of the 19th Century British statesman, understood the concept "sphere of influence" and accepted that wherever Red Army tanks sat at war's end would be the Russian sphere of influence.
While Roosevelt may not have accepted the concept of a Russian sphere of influence with equanimity, he both understood the idea and recognised the limits of American military power in April 1945 with half a war yet to be won. He bowed to the power of realism and accepted the facts on the ground (much to the dismay and future political advantage of numerous Republicans.)
A sphere of influence in which Russian interests receive the utmost of regard is one which warms the innermost chambers of the insecure Russian heart. The sphere assures that security is enhanced. The sphere provides a basis for international respect.
For the long decades of the Cold War the sphere formally known as the Warsaw Pact together with the Near Abroad gave the Kremlin material and psychic comfort. The Soviet semi-empire provided a balm for both inferiority feelings and barely suppressed fears of imminent attack.
The empire also made for caution. The Russians had something to lose. The primary goal of all Russian diplomatic and military effort during the Soviet period generally and the Cold War years in particular was conservative. The conduct of the denizens of the Kremlin was as cautious as their rhetoric was bellicose and radical.
The Kremlin kept the tightest of holds on the national Communist parties throughout the world lest they forget their purpose in life--protecting Russia. The assorted Communist parties did not have the purpose of spreading worldwide workers' revolutions. They did not have the goal of establishing global communism. Both of those ideas died along with Trotsky.
The purpose, the goal of Communism throughout the world, was profoundly conservative--protect and guard Russia. Period.
On the rare occasion when the Kremlin was incautious, adventurist as in seeking to base nuclear capable missiles in Cuba, it backed down quickly in the face of a resolute response. Even after the debacle in Vietnam caused the crisis of American confidence, the Kremlin moved with the utmost of caution as in Africa. The Russians tested the waters. When there was no American response they went ahead. But, even so they remained circumspect, using proxy forces from Cuba and other clients rather than their own.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the concomitant loss of both the WarPact and Near Abroad buffer, the Russian insecurity reemerged. For a decade or so the insecurity and conviction of inferiority were submerged in public perception by the extreme economic and social turbulence brought about by the Communist collapse.
The US provided, as correctly noted by Secretary Rice in her speech last week at the German Marshall Society, both material and political aid during the years of privation and upheaval. But, it must be noted that this assistance was provided with a hefty dose of condescension, paternalism and well-intended hectoring.
Members of the Russian political elite remember all too well the attitudes which accompanied the aid more than the aid itself. The feelings of inferiority and insecurity were stoked.
As the Russian economic and social house came more and more to order and a measure of prosperity under the regime of Vladimir Putin, the need to address the feelings of inferiority and insecurity grew. It was up to the US to both take cognizance of these feelings and effectively meet the underlying needs.
We didn't.
We repeatedly refused to acknowledge that the Russians saw Russia as a Great Power. We brushed aside their concerns in Kosovo. We blew off their ill-founded objections regarding the deployment of a small ABM capability in the Czech Republic and Poland. We bashed the Kremlin for opposing our Iraq adventure. In short, we treated the Russians in a way which communicated to the Kremlin that we saw Russia as a lesser power regardless of how we talked.
Objectively our role in the run-up to the Georgian border war was unconstructive. We gave too much public support to the current Georgian government as though it constituted the greatest monument to democracy since the Federalist Papers. We pushed too hard for Georgian (and Ukrainian) membership in NATO, ignoring that the one time Cold War alliance would thereby gain a presence in the Near Abroad.
From the Kremlin's perspective, colored by Russian history as it must be, our actions were both disrespectful and hostile. Far from mitigating Russian inferiority and insecurity, we enhanced them. There can be no surprise that the Russians pulled the several-months-in-preparation plan for war in South Ossetia out of the drawer and implemented it.
That action is every bit as unsurprising as the earlier Russian dusting off of long obsolete bombers and sending them on patrol over US naval forces and near US territory just like in the old days of the Cold War.
We have to get a grip on a simple fact. We need the Russians. We need their cooperation on a wide range of international interests. We need their cooperation on nuclear non-proliferation. We need their cooperation in counter terrorism.
This means we have to take the Russians on their own, historically determined terms. We have to treat them like the Great Power they believe themselves to be. We have to honestly consult with the Kremlin, not have meetings where we talk past each other. We need, horrors on the right, to bow to their interests from time to time.
Or we can go the Dick Cheney way. We can ignore them. Refuse to have high level meetings. Restore some of the more obnoxious features of the Cold War.
None of that will alter Russian behavior. They can take isolation. It makes for inventiveness of diplomacy and political operations.
Let's see, muses the Geek thinking himself in the Kremlin, we are a major oil exporting country. What is the name of that bunch, you know the one our new best friend in the Western Hemisphere, Venezuela belongs to? Oh, yeah, Organization of Patroleum Exporting Countries. Maybe I should give those boys a ring.
The handful of realpolitikers such as SecDef Robert (PhD in Russian studies) Gates have been on the defensive as they seek to retain necessary channels of communication open. Caught in the middle is SecState Condy (PhD in Soviet studies) Rice.
Time to go to the videotape of history. This is important--no, central--to understanding the source of contemporary Russian behavior and the challenges for American policy makers.
Why? You ask.
Because history may be a simple case of the dead past for Americans but it is a living hand at the back of every educated Russian (and even those who are not so educated.)
In Russia as in so many other countries the past is never really past, never actually dead, buried and of interest only to narrow specialists in history. Events of nearly a thousand years ago (think Mongol conquest and occupation) as well as of the past century (think German invasion in 1941 or the international respect accorded Russia during the Cold War) are alive and well in the minds of Russians.
In simple but not oversimplified terms, the collective mind of Russia is colored by both a sense of inferiority compared to the West and paranoia regarding Russian susceptibility to invasion from both West and East. This combination is assured to make Russian leaders feel both threatened and insecure, as getting no respect from the political elites of other major powers.
One result of this insecurity over the centuries has been a Russian fixation on gaining a protective territorial belt surrounding and buffering the Russian heartland against the ambitions of foreign powers be they European, Asian or in recent decades, American. Originally this protective belt, this buffer area on which future battles would be waged, consisted of those territories coterminous with Russia. The territories of the "Near Abroad" in Russian terminology such as the Ukraine, Georgia, the Central Asian Republics, the Baltic states.
As the Big Three (Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt) met at Yalta in the closing days of World War II in Europe, the Russian jefe made it clear that the Kremlin's definition of a necessary protective belt had expanded. Churchill, being a fine example of the 19th Century British statesman, understood the concept "sphere of influence" and accepted that wherever Red Army tanks sat at war's end would be the Russian sphere of influence.
While Roosevelt may not have accepted the concept of a Russian sphere of influence with equanimity, he both understood the idea and recognised the limits of American military power in April 1945 with half a war yet to be won. He bowed to the power of realism and accepted the facts on the ground (much to the dismay and future political advantage of numerous Republicans.)
A sphere of influence in which Russian interests receive the utmost of regard is one which warms the innermost chambers of the insecure Russian heart. The sphere assures that security is enhanced. The sphere provides a basis for international respect.
For the long decades of the Cold War the sphere formally known as the Warsaw Pact together with the Near Abroad gave the Kremlin material and psychic comfort. The Soviet semi-empire provided a balm for both inferiority feelings and barely suppressed fears of imminent attack.
The empire also made for caution. The Russians had something to lose. The primary goal of all Russian diplomatic and military effort during the Soviet period generally and the Cold War years in particular was conservative. The conduct of the denizens of the Kremlin was as cautious as their rhetoric was bellicose and radical.
The Kremlin kept the tightest of holds on the national Communist parties throughout the world lest they forget their purpose in life--protecting Russia. The assorted Communist parties did not have the purpose of spreading worldwide workers' revolutions. They did not have the goal of establishing global communism. Both of those ideas died along with Trotsky.
The purpose, the goal of Communism throughout the world, was profoundly conservative--protect and guard Russia. Period.
On the rare occasion when the Kremlin was incautious, adventurist as in seeking to base nuclear capable missiles in Cuba, it backed down quickly in the face of a resolute response. Even after the debacle in Vietnam caused the crisis of American confidence, the Kremlin moved with the utmost of caution as in Africa. The Russians tested the waters. When there was no American response they went ahead. But, even so they remained circumspect, using proxy forces from Cuba and other clients rather than their own.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the concomitant loss of both the WarPact and Near Abroad buffer, the Russian insecurity reemerged. For a decade or so the insecurity and conviction of inferiority were submerged in public perception by the extreme economic and social turbulence brought about by the Communist collapse.
The US provided, as correctly noted by Secretary Rice in her speech last week at the German Marshall Society, both material and political aid during the years of privation and upheaval. But, it must be noted that this assistance was provided with a hefty dose of condescension, paternalism and well-intended hectoring.
Members of the Russian political elite remember all too well the attitudes which accompanied the aid more than the aid itself. The feelings of inferiority and insecurity were stoked.
As the Russian economic and social house came more and more to order and a measure of prosperity under the regime of Vladimir Putin, the need to address the feelings of inferiority and insecurity grew. It was up to the US to both take cognizance of these feelings and effectively meet the underlying needs.
We didn't.
We repeatedly refused to acknowledge that the Russians saw Russia as a Great Power. We brushed aside their concerns in Kosovo. We blew off their ill-founded objections regarding the deployment of a small ABM capability in the Czech Republic and Poland. We bashed the Kremlin for opposing our Iraq adventure. In short, we treated the Russians in a way which communicated to the Kremlin that we saw Russia as a lesser power regardless of how we talked.
Objectively our role in the run-up to the Georgian border war was unconstructive. We gave too much public support to the current Georgian government as though it constituted the greatest monument to democracy since the Federalist Papers. We pushed too hard for Georgian (and Ukrainian) membership in NATO, ignoring that the one time Cold War alliance would thereby gain a presence in the Near Abroad.
From the Kremlin's perspective, colored by Russian history as it must be, our actions were both disrespectful and hostile. Far from mitigating Russian inferiority and insecurity, we enhanced them. There can be no surprise that the Russians pulled the several-months-in-preparation plan for war in South Ossetia out of the drawer and implemented it.
That action is every bit as unsurprising as the earlier Russian dusting off of long obsolete bombers and sending them on patrol over US naval forces and near US territory just like in the old days of the Cold War.
We have to get a grip on a simple fact. We need the Russians. We need their cooperation on a wide range of international interests. We need their cooperation on nuclear non-proliferation. We need their cooperation in counter terrorism.
This means we have to take the Russians on their own, historically determined terms. We have to treat them like the Great Power they believe themselves to be. We have to honestly consult with the Kremlin, not have meetings where we talk past each other. We need, horrors on the right, to bow to their interests from time to time.
Or we can go the Dick Cheney way. We can ignore them. Refuse to have high level meetings. Restore some of the more obnoxious features of the Cold War.
None of that will alter Russian behavior. They can take isolation. It makes for inventiveness of diplomacy and political operations.
Let's see, muses the Geek thinking himself in the Kremlin, we are a major oil exporting country. What is the name of that bunch, you know the one our new best friend in the Western Hemisphere, Venezuela belongs to? Oh, yeah, Organization of Patroleum Exporting Countries. Maybe I should give those boys a ring.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Rethinking War and Security
The governments of Iraq, Afghanistan and Russia have given the US an excellent opportunity and an even better impetus to rethink just what our national security interests are as well as just what and who threatens them. Undoubtedly Maliki, Karzai and Putin did not intend to provoke any wholesale reorientation of US policy, but that is the nature of unintended consequences.
In a widely reported statement, al-Maliki has made it clear that all US forces, not simply combat troops, must be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. There should be no problem with beating that date. The approach followed by the US in the past year reached the cross-over point some months ago. We can no longer militarily lose in Iraq. That means we have met the minimal policy goal.
The US can no longer lose the war. True "not-losing" is not the same as "winning." That was true in Korea as well. The US achieved the third option of war: not losing. That was good enough.
It is good enough in Iraq as well. We should be grateful that it took only four thousand plus lives and gigabucks almost beyond counting to achieve the minimum in an unnecessary and unjustifiable war.
Now it is up to the Iraqis to "win" or "lose" the process of re-inventing Iraq following years of bloodshed and destruction and decades of totalitarian rule. It's their country. Their future.
There is now no real need for the US to maintain a military presence in Iraq. Or, to err on the side of prudent caution, there is no foreseeable need to maintain forces, either combat or support in that country past mid-2010. All indicators hint a point of diminishing returns bordering on the counterproductive arriving within two years. It's necessary to go with the flow and not seek to swim against it.
In Afghanistan the US has not reached the cross-over point. We not only can lose that war--we are doing so at the present.
"Wait one!" you object. "What about the battlefield exchange rate? Whaddabout the number of Afghans who are micturated off by Taliban suicide bombings on soft civilian targets? Whaddabout the troops in the pipeline? We're going to have a lot more boots on the ground."
All true, the Geek cheerfully admits. The exchange rate is favorable, very favorable. And, every time a Taliban/al-Qaeda martyrdom seeker blows up a passel of women, children and old men, the irritation level rises in the affected village. No doubt, there are numerous reports, some of which might be true, that more US and NATO personnel are on route to Afghan Land.
It may not matter.
There are several reasons why all the factors mentioned may not matter in the slightest. One is quite evident: Pakistan is energetically disassembling. Another is equally obvious: The vast rugged Pashtun speaking area of the FATA is controlled by the hostiles. The third reason has been commented upon for months: The black turbans have an unlimited cash cow in the opium trade.
Now, a fourth reason has raised its ugly head. Karzai's minority government is bowing to the Islamists. Quite unsurprisingly Karzai's regime seeks to keep itself, if not in power, at least alive when the shooting is over. This reality is evident in the hysterical behavior of Karzai and others with their allegations to the effect that US airstrikes killed (take your pick) seventy-six civilians or ninety civilians, most of them children and women caught at prayers in a building near where a handful of enemy combatants were napping or shooting or something.
Having been nearly greased a couple of times by zoomies who were a little be "incontinent" in their delivery of external stores, the Geek is aware that collateral damage can occur with airstrikes, but the claims by Karzai and company are over the edge. Undoubtedly, some civilians were killed. That's what happens when the shooters lager up in the midst of civilians. At worst it is an expectable "tough shit" sort of event.
Karzai's reaction indicates strongly that his regime has decided that the weather has turned against the outsiders and in favor of the Taliban and their associates. You may not have to be an Afghan to be attuned to the nuances of political currents in that long, deeply fractionated area--but it helps. And, when the Afghans start acting as though the political currents have shifted, you darn well better pay attention.
The real job in Afghanistan when the shooting started nearly seven years ago was the killing of al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders and as many shooters as possible. The neocon ninnies following the dictates of a rigid ideology perverted that task into a labor which could never be completed. At least never completed in this world--creating a secular multi-party democracy with free market leanings.
By this mission "creep" we created today's political currents, currents that run against us. The task and challenge now is to get out. No, not a cut and run. Rather a return to the original genuine national security goal. Kill as many al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders and shooters as possible in as short a time as possible and get the hell out of the mountains.
True it will be harder, a lot harder, today than it would have been seven years ago. Nonetheless, it has to be done if the US is going to accomplish the minimum policy goal of not losing. There is utterly no need to "win" in the sense of leaving behind us a democratic, free market, secular nation state called Afghanistan.
"Saving" Afghanistan is up to the people who live there as it always has been. Our national interest, our national security, requires only that we pile up al-Qaeda and Taliban bodies in sufficient number to inhibit any future Afghan or Pakistani government from providing aid and comfort to those who seek to harm us.
Short and sour, that is the reality of the situation. Yes, the Geek realises that those who are agenda driven, those who are High Minded, those who believe in Just War Doctrine uber alles as well as European elitists will howl, scream and wring their hands.
So what? They are not responsible for our national security. We are. Our government is. The time is long past for USG to get off the stick and do so.
Now there is Russia. Russia is back and it's bad. Fifteen years ago, in the sunny days following the collapse of the Soviet Union when the "end of history" was declared and celebrated by the Geek's co-workers in academia, he had occasion to speak to an audience at the National War College. In answer to a question the Geek predicted that the Soviet Union would be back.
No, it wouldn't be Marxist-Leninist and it wouldn't be called the Soviet Union. Rather it would be a form of corporate state fueled by nationalism, powered by oil and other natural resource money and it would be eager to flex its capacity as a Great Power.
When asked how long this process would take, the Geek opined, "not more than fifteen years."
History shows that the Russians can't be kept down for long. The combination of resources and long standing, deeply rooted sense of cultural inferiority would assure a Russian resurgence. The current administration did everything possible to make sure that when Russia reemerged from temporary eclipse, it would come out fighting.
So it has.
We cannot pretend that Russia has many national interests which coincide with ours. We cannot pretend or hope that Russia will adjust itself gracefully to second class power status and allow the US (or the PRC) to run the world for its convenience.
The next administration is going to have some tough choices. We the People are going to face some difficult times. Far from being over as the academics of a decade back thought, history is alive and demanding. We have to recognise what our national interests are, what constitutes true national security and how our instruments of national power both hard and soft can be applied most effectively.
There is a guiding principle. A principle that the High Minded, the Globalists, the Seekers After Profound Change won't like.
The nation-state works.
In a widely reported statement, al-Maliki has made it clear that all US forces, not simply combat troops, must be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. There should be no problem with beating that date. The approach followed by the US in the past year reached the cross-over point some months ago. We can no longer militarily lose in Iraq. That means we have met the minimal policy goal.
The US can no longer lose the war. True "not-losing" is not the same as "winning." That was true in Korea as well. The US achieved the third option of war: not losing. That was good enough.
It is good enough in Iraq as well. We should be grateful that it took only four thousand plus lives and gigabucks almost beyond counting to achieve the minimum in an unnecessary and unjustifiable war.
Now it is up to the Iraqis to "win" or "lose" the process of re-inventing Iraq following years of bloodshed and destruction and decades of totalitarian rule. It's their country. Their future.
There is now no real need for the US to maintain a military presence in Iraq. Or, to err on the side of prudent caution, there is no foreseeable need to maintain forces, either combat or support in that country past mid-2010. All indicators hint a point of diminishing returns bordering on the counterproductive arriving within two years. It's necessary to go with the flow and not seek to swim against it.
In Afghanistan the US has not reached the cross-over point. We not only can lose that war--we are doing so at the present.
"Wait one!" you object. "What about the battlefield exchange rate? Whaddabout the number of Afghans who are micturated off by Taliban suicide bombings on soft civilian targets? Whaddabout the troops in the pipeline? We're going to have a lot more boots on the ground."
All true, the Geek cheerfully admits. The exchange rate is favorable, very favorable. And, every time a Taliban/al-Qaeda martyrdom seeker blows up a passel of women, children and old men, the irritation level rises in the affected village. No doubt, there are numerous reports, some of which might be true, that more US and NATO personnel are on route to Afghan Land.
It may not matter.
There are several reasons why all the factors mentioned may not matter in the slightest. One is quite evident: Pakistan is energetically disassembling. Another is equally obvious: The vast rugged Pashtun speaking area of the FATA is controlled by the hostiles. The third reason has been commented upon for months: The black turbans have an unlimited cash cow in the opium trade.
Now, a fourth reason has raised its ugly head. Karzai's minority government is bowing to the Islamists. Quite unsurprisingly Karzai's regime seeks to keep itself, if not in power, at least alive when the shooting is over. This reality is evident in the hysterical behavior of Karzai and others with their allegations to the effect that US airstrikes killed (take your pick) seventy-six civilians or ninety civilians, most of them children and women caught at prayers in a building near where a handful of enemy combatants were napping or shooting or something.
Having been nearly greased a couple of times by zoomies who were a little be "incontinent" in their delivery of external stores, the Geek is aware that collateral damage can occur with airstrikes, but the claims by Karzai and company are over the edge. Undoubtedly, some civilians were killed. That's what happens when the shooters lager up in the midst of civilians. At worst it is an expectable "tough shit" sort of event.
Karzai's reaction indicates strongly that his regime has decided that the weather has turned against the outsiders and in favor of the Taliban and their associates. You may not have to be an Afghan to be attuned to the nuances of political currents in that long, deeply fractionated area--but it helps. And, when the Afghans start acting as though the political currents have shifted, you darn well better pay attention.
The real job in Afghanistan when the shooting started nearly seven years ago was the killing of al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders and as many shooters as possible. The neocon ninnies following the dictates of a rigid ideology perverted that task into a labor which could never be completed. At least never completed in this world--creating a secular multi-party democracy with free market leanings.
By this mission "creep" we created today's political currents, currents that run against us. The task and challenge now is to get out. No, not a cut and run. Rather a return to the original genuine national security goal. Kill as many al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders and shooters as possible in as short a time as possible and get the hell out of the mountains.
True it will be harder, a lot harder, today than it would have been seven years ago. Nonetheless, it has to be done if the US is going to accomplish the minimum policy goal of not losing. There is utterly no need to "win" in the sense of leaving behind us a democratic, free market, secular nation state called Afghanistan.
"Saving" Afghanistan is up to the people who live there as it always has been. Our national interest, our national security, requires only that we pile up al-Qaeda and Taliban bodies in sufficient number to inhibit any future Afghan or Pakistani government from providing aid and comfort to those who seek to harm us.
Short and sour, that is the reality of the situation. Yes, the Geek realises that those who are agenda driven, those who are High Minded, those who believe in Just War Doctrine uber alles as well as European elitists will howl, scream and wring their hands.
So what? They are not responsible for our national security. We are. Our government is. The time is long past for USG to get off the stick and do so.
Now there is Russia. Russia is back and it's bad. Fifteen years ago, in the sunny days following the collapse of the Soviet Union when the "end of history" was declared and celebrated by the Geek's co-workers in academia, he had occasion to speak to an audience at the National War College. In answer to a question the Geek predicted that the Soviet Union would be back.
No, it wouldn't be Marxist-Leninist and it wouldn't be called the Soviet Union. Rather it would be a form of corporate state fueled by nationalism, powered by oil and other natural resource money and it would be eager to flex its capacity as a Great Power.
When asked how long this process would take, the Geek opined, "not more than fifteen years."
History shows that the Russians can't be kept down for long. The combination of resources and long standing, deeply rooted sense of cultural inferiority would assure a Russian resurgence. The current administration did everything possible to make sure that when Russia reemerged from temporary eclipse, it would come out fighting.
So it has.
We cannot pretend that Russia has many national interests which coincide with ours. We cannot pretend or hope that Russia will adjust itself gracefully to second class power status and allow the US (or the PRC) to run the world for its convenience.
The next administration is going to have some tough choices. We the People are going to face some difficult times. Far from being over as the academics of a decade back thought, history is alive and demanding. We have to recognise what our national interests are, what constitutes true national security and how our instruments of national power both hard and soft can be applied most effectively.
There is a guiding principle. A principle that the High Minded, the Globalists, the Seekers After Profound Change won't like.
The nation-state works.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Feeling Delusional? Think Foreign Aid!
For sixty some years now Administrations and Congresses of both parties have been very generous with the money of American taxpayers. Under a plethora of rubrics and for reasons of utility ranging from the dubious to the nonexistent, gigabucks have been doled out to recipients worthy and otherwise with results running from the counterproductive up to excellent.
It is against this background that Senator Obama has entered his only significant piece of legislation, Senate Bill 2433 aka The Global Poverty Act of 2007. He was joined in this effort by fifteen other senators, all but two being Democrats. Having already passed the House in a whoop and a holler, the GPA was reported out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Senator Joe Biden with a favorable recommendation.
The Committee did not hear witnesses or take written testimony. It spent a minimum amount of time considering the Bill and made only slight changes in i ts wording. Considering the potential impact of this towering monument to hazy words and ambiguous but goodhearted intention, the Committee exercised little care and expended less thought than seems justifiable.
The Bill is worthy of close and careful scrutiny. Its sentences need, no, demand the most scrupulous parsing. The Geek strongly recommends you do so, if you have not already made intimate acquaintance with a piece of legislation which may have dramatic impact in the years to come. It is definitely policy for the future potentially without regard for its affect on each passing today.
Take a look at S2433 on either of the following. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s110-2433 or http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-s2433/text.
The Global Poverty Act builds on the long tradition of American (mis)adventures in foreign aid. Don't get the Geek wrong. He is not one who is convinced that all foreign aid is necessarily and intrinsically bad. He is not prepared to argue from the basis of history that all foreign aid has failed to serve American national interests including national security.
He is, however, ready to argue that much, even most, foreign aid has been provided regardless of its potential to enhance American interests. He is prepared to argue that much, if not most, foreign aid has been awarded for reasons other than legitimate American interests.
To put the matter short and not particularly sweetly: Most American foreign aid has been chucked down assorted ratholes for reasons of domestic politics or international bribery.
Sixty plus years ago the program commonly known as the Marshall Plan set the standard for the correct balance of national self-interest and altruism in foreign aid. This standard has rarely been matched in all the decades and billions of dollars since.
The Marshall Plan worked because of the unique circumstances which obtained in the months and years immediately following the end of World War II in Europe. It worked because the US kept its distance as the European countries decided how to allocate and spend the money. It worked because European economic recovery was critical to European political and social stability. It worked because the Soviet Union (as must have been suspected by the Foggy Bottom authors of the European Recovery Act) said nyet to participation by itself or those countries sitting under the treads of Red Army tanks.
The upside of the Marshall Plan's success was the recovery and stability of Europe as well as its affect on the growing political movement in Europe for economic and political unification. The downside of the Plan's success was its impact upon American political decision makers.
We were victimised by our own success. We were erroneously convinced that economic assistance was a sovereign remedy for latent political instability and would thus serve to increase American security automatically.
Through the Fifties and Sixties economic aid became a strategic weapon of choice for gaining influence on the governing elites of recently independent states throughout Africa and Asia. At the same time it was joined with the growing torrent of military assistance programs to assist stabilizing regimes in longer established countries.
As various US Administrations increasingly confused the appearance of short term order with a reality of long term stability in authoritarian regimes throughout the world, our aid programs degenerated into a vast array of poorly thought through, very expensive "rent-a-friend" efforts.
Since foreign aid money had to be spent somewhere (usually in the United States) Congress wallahs became increasingly enamored of it as another source of pork for the companies back home. Whether tanks and helicopters under the military assistance programs or corn and soybeans under the rubric of Food For Peace, the foreign aid budget became a very attractive barrel of pork fat.
In the years following the Camp David Accords, foreign aid transmogrified into a bribery program. Israel was heavily bribed not to go to war (too often.) Egypt was bribed according to a set percentage of the Israeli bribe to pretend that it was a peaceloving secular state that simply loved to cooperate with the "Zionist Entity."
While any number of glosses can be put upon the foreign aid debacles to date--and have, the end result is that a great deal of money has bought very little American national interest and even less American national security.
The Geek is not in favor of poverty. He has worked and lived in pits of poverty in several continents. He has been grindingly poor himself. He has seen and experienced the negative affects of poverty upon the human flesh and spirit.
The Geek would like to see an end to poverty wherever it might occur. In the US. Around the world.
He maintains, however, that the post-modernist fogginess of The Global Poverty Act is not the way to do it. Further, he maintains that The Global Poverty Act will not enhance either American national interests or American national security.
If Senators Obama, Biden and the rest be genuinely convinced that eradication of poverty globally is a desirable, even necessary goal, then they can donate their personal fortunes to any one of a number of non-governmental organisations dedicated to that end. The same approach is open to any person whose sensibilities are wounded by the thought of billions of humans trying to survive on a measly one USD per day.
They are even at liberty to donate money to the assorted United Nations components who wage war on poverty and its ills. That is, if they can bring themselves to overlook the spectacular UN corruption during the Oil For Food program in Iraq. A scandal which may have extended all the way to the Secretary General of the UN.
The money of US government, which is to say the money of the American taxpayers, should be husbanded more carefully and expended only in a tightly focused manner. Demanding, as S2433 does, that the next administration develop a plan for eradicating poverty around the world is not a prudent, tightly focused application of American resources to American national interests.
The challenge for the next administration is not one of global wealth redistribution for such is, according to the record of numerous national histories, doomed to fail. No. The challenge for the next administration is quite different.
The next administration would be best advised, in the best interests of the US to immediately zero out the foreign aid budget. To zero it out ignoring the howls and wails of all those whose personal moral sensibilities or corporate financial concerns have been injured.
Zero out the bribes. Zero out the indirect subsidies for American agribusiness and defense contractors alike. Zero out the plush funding of the "administrative overhead" components of recipient non-governmental organisations.
Sure the noise level will be astonishing. The foreign aid gravy train has been rolling along unchecked and unchallenged for decades now. There are mobs with a vested interest in keeping the status quo going in perpetuity.
The reality is simple. Our national interest and our national security demand a rethinking of foreign aid. It is (or can and should be) a vital component of our instruments of national power. Foreign aid must be guided as it was with the Marshall Plan by a somber appreciation of our genuine national and security interests and a clear eyed understanding of how best to match our resources with the genuine requirements.
Will this process happen? The Geek is a historian. That means he is a cynic. No, the next administration will not have the intellectual and moral courage to zero the beast out and go back to the drafting board.
The odds are that we will continue to try to rent friends and pay bribes, and recycle taxpayer dollars to NGOs and corporate suites. The odds are we will be signing on to some sort of UN overseen Global War on Poverty.
Odds are the name of the Marshall Plan will be taken in vain again and again as we lurch along the same old road to failure.
It is against this background that Senator Obama has entered his only significant piece of legislation, Senate Bill 2433 aka The Global Poverty Act of 2007. He was joined in this effort by fifteen other senators, all but two being Democrats. Having already passed the House in a whoop and a holler, the GPA was reported out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Senator Joe Biden with a favorable recommendation.
The Committee did not hear witnesses or take written testimony. It spent a minimum amount of time considering the Bill and made only slight changes in i ts wording. Considering the potential impact of this towering monument to hazy words and ambiguous but goodhearted intention, the Committee exercised little care and expended less thought than seems justifiable.
The Bill is worthy of close and careful scrutiny. Its sentences need, no, demand the most scrupulous parsing. The Geek strongly recommends you do so, if you have not already made intimate acquaintance with a piece of legislation which may have dramatic impact in the years to come. It is definitely policy for the future potentially without regard for its affect on each passing today.
Take a look at S2433 on either of the following. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s110-2433 or http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-s2433/text.
The Global Poverty Act builds on the long tradition of American (mis)adventures in foreign aid. Don't get the Geek wrong. He is not one who is convinced that all foreign aid is necessarily and intrinsically bad. He is not prepared to argue from the basis of history that all foreign aid has failed to serve American national interests including national security.
He is, however, ready to argue that much, even most, foreign aid has been provided regardless of its potential to enhance American interests. He is prepared to argue that much, if not most, foreign aid has been awarded for reasons other than legitimate American interests.
To put the matter short and not particularly sweetly: Most American foreign aid has been chucked down assorted ratholes for reasons of domestic politics or international bribery.
Sixty plus years ago the program commonly known as the Marshall Plan set the standard for the correct balance of national self-interest and altruism in foreign aid. This standard has rarely been matched in all the decades and billions of dollars since.
The Marshall Plan worked because of the unique circumstances which obtained in the months and years immediately following the end of World War II in Europe. It worked because the US kept its distance as the European countries decided how to allocate and spend the money. It worked because European economic recovery was critical to European political and social stability. It worked because the Soviet Union (as must have been suspected by the Foggy Bottom authors of the European Recovery Act) said nyet to participation by itself or those countries sitting under the treads of Red Army tanks.
The upside of the Marshall Plan's success was the recovery and stability of Europe as well as its affect on the growing political movement in Europe for economic and political unification. The downside of the Plan's success was its impact upon American political decision makers.
We were victimised by our own success. We were erroneously convinced that economic assistance was a sovereign remedy for latent political instability and would thus serve to increase American security automatically.
Through the Fifties and Sixties economic aid became a strategic weapon of choice for gaining influence on the governing elites of recently independent states throughout Africa and Asia. At the same time it was joined with the growing torrent of military assistance programs to assist stabilizing regimes in longer established countries.
As various US Administrations increasingly confused the appearance of short term order with a reality of long term stability in authoritarian regimes throughout the world, our aid programs degenerated into a vast array of poorly thought through, very expensive "rent-a-friend" efforts.
Since foreign aid money had to be spent somewhere (usually in the United States) Congress wallahs became increasingly enamored of it as another source of pork for the companies back home. Whether tanks and helicopters under the military assistance programs or corn and soybeans under the rubric of Food For Peace, the foreign aid budget became a very attractive barrel of pork fat.
In the years following the Camp David Accords, foreign aid transmogrified into a bribery program. Israel was heavily bribed not to go to war (too often.) Egypt was bribed according to a set percentage of the Israeli bribe to pretend that it was a peaceloving secular state that simply loved to cooperate with the "Zionist Entity."
While any number of glosses can be put upon the foreign aid debacles to date--and have, the end result is that a great deal of money has bought very little American national interest and even less American national security.
The Geek is not in favor of poverty. He has worked and lived in pits of poverty in several continents. He has been grindingly poor himself. He has seen and experienced the negative affects of poverty upon the human flesh and spirit.
The Geek would like to see an end to poverty wherever it might occur. In the US. Around the world.
He maintains, however, that the post-modernist fogginess of The Global Poverty Act is not the way to do it. Further, he maintains that The Global Poverty Act will not enhance either American national interests or American national security.
If Senators Obama, Biden and the rest be genuinely convinced that eradication of poverty globally is a desirable, even necessary goal, then they can donate their personal fortunes to any one of a number of non-governmental organisations dedicated to that end. The same approach is open to any person whose sensibilities are wounded by the thought of billions of humans trying to survive on a measly one USD per day.
They are even at liberty to donate money to the assorted United Nations components who wage war on poverty and its ills. That is, if they can bring themselves to overlook the spectacular UN corruption during the Oil For Food program in Iraq. A scandal which may have extended all the way to the Secretary General of the UN.
The money of US government, which is to say the money of the American taxpayers, should be husbanded more carefully and expended only in a tightly focused manner. Demanding, as S2433 does, that the next administration develop a plan for eradicating poverty around the world is not a prudent, tightly focused application of American resources to American national interests.
The challenge for the next administration is not one of global wealth redistribution for such is, according to the record of numerous national histories, doomed to fail. No. The challenge for the next administration is quite different.
The next administration would be best advised, in the best interests of the US to immediately zero out the foreign aid budget. To zero it out ignoring the howls and wails of all those whose personal moral sensibilities or corporate financial concerns have been injured.
Zero out the bribes. Zero out the indirect subsidies for American agribusiness and defense contractors alike. Zero out the plush funding of the "administrative overhead" components of recipient non-governmental organisations.
Sure the noise level will be astonishing. The foreign aid gravy train has been rolling along unchecked and unchallenged for decades now. There are mobs with a vested interest in keeping the status quo going in perpetuity.
The reality is simple. Our national interest and our national security demand a rethinking of foreign aid. It is (or can and should be) a vital component of our instruments of national power. Foreign aid must be guided as it was with the Marshall Plan by a somber appreciation of our genuine national and security interests and a clear eyed understanding of how best to match our resources with the genuine requirements.
Will this process happen? The Geek is a historian. That means he is a cynic. No, the next administration will not have the intellectual and moral courage to zero the beast out and go back to the drafting board.
The odds are that we will continue to try to rent friends and pay bribes, and recycle taxpayer dollars to NGOs and corporate suites. The odds are we will be signing on to some sort of UN overseen Global War on Poverty.
Odds are the name of the Marshall Plan will be taken in vain again and again as we lurch along the same old road to failure.
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