One of President Obama's reported goals in the current Great Asia Tour is forming a solid base of support against China with South Korea, Japan, and Indonesia. As usual The Nice Young Man From Chicago is seeking the fig leaf of collective, multi-lateral action as cover for American policy genitalia.
The intent of the new solid front is that of forcing China to undertake a long overdue currency reevaluation. The effect of this would be increasing the costs to Americans and other importers of Chinese made goods while decreasing the cost of dollar denominated goods such as those occasionally marked Made In USA. The goal is not only laudable, it is necessary, critical even, particularly given the relative economic conditions in the US and China.
There is an easier way. It is called going it alone. The president could deliver an ultimatum to the Trolls of Beijing: Revalue or the US market will be closed to Chinese goods.
Horrors! Say that can't be. After all the Trolls could retaliate. I mean, Geek, they hold billions of our IOUs. If they were to dump all that paper on the market it would be a disaster of Biblical proportions. Real dogs and cats sleeping together type stuff.
Yeah, Bucko, they could huff and puff in that direction. Heck they might even bring back the ban on rare earth shipments. And, without Chinese goods what would Walmart do? How could the Sons of Sam continue to pile away the billions without the Chinese?
The Trolls may be ineptly arrogant in their recent approaches to foreign relations, but that is not to imply that they have lost rationality in the realm of profit and loss. Dumping securities would rebound to their disadvantage, think of the opportunity costs involved. And, as Beijing found out in its short trial balloon stoppage of rare earth exports, the consumer countries instantly started searching for alternatives ranging from recycling junked electronics to reexamining old mines thought to have been played out in their rare earth ores.
The Chinese have become rather addicted to the money flow from American consumers. Much of their current prosperity rests solely on the backs of US shoppers. Halting the cash tide would result in nearly instantaneous industrial dislocation with attendant mass layoffs and inevitably, social and political unrest. If there is anything that is more anathema to the Trolls than internal unrest, it eludes the Geek completely.
The hoary analogy of two scorpions in a bottle coined for the Cold War doctrine of mutually assured destruction applies to the current economic relation between the US and China with one critical difference. The US is the larger scorpion with the more fatal sting. The Trolls know this; they know how much the internal stability of China depends upon constant American purchase of massive amounts of made in China goods. There is no way the Asian and European markets could make up the shortfall which would result from even a short hiccup in trade with the US.
Thus a threat by one Democratic president to take away what a previous Democrat provided--an open door policy benefiting China--is credible. A purely American ultimatum has all the power needed. There is no requirement for a united front other than the ideological preferences of Mr Obama and others of the "progressive" ilk. In any event, other countries would follow an American lead in this area for their own individual national interest imperatives.
The takeaway is simple: Man up! Let the Trolls know just what will happen if they do not have a sudden attack of rationality on the reevaluation matter. And, then, stick to it. The howls will fade. Reason and self-interest will prevail.
Golly, the natives are sure getting restless. All because of the Obama 2010 Asian Tour. The upsetness centers on--hang on for huge surprise--Pakistan!
The Pakistanis generally and former strongman Pervez Musharraf in particular are bent out of shape because the American president has had the temerity to jaunt about India while totally ignoring Pakistan. The Pakistani political heavyweights are also torqued beyond belief with the Obama view that India is a global power and Pakistan is not.
That seems fair to the Geek as Pakistan is simply a minor regional player with annoying propensities and idiosyncratic as well as remarkably parochial concerns. Pakistan is only a regional power because of its unlimited and rather juvenile capacity to make mischief in either or both Afghanistan and Kashmir. It is important to the US only because many, many years ago when Ike was in the Oval, the Left-leaning Indian government hacked off the stiff necked Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to the extent that the president was convinced to "tilt" our policy in favor of Pakistan.
While the mistaken need to behave as if Pakistan really matters might have started more than fifty years ago with a profound fit of pique on the part of one SecState, it has continued to American misfortune ever since. When George W. Bush made a major move to move closer to India five years ago it was seen to be necessary to bribe the Pakistanis with yet more big ticket military items all of which were such as to be useful in a hypothetical war against India.
The US would be best served in both its regional and global interests by openly continuing the trend started by the much maligned W. Bush. The US and India have much to share. Other than the Menace From the FATA, the US and Pakistan have no common norms or values and very few coinciding national interests. The relation with Pakistan will not mature unless and until the Pakistani army can get the focus on India out of its institutional DNA. Which is to say, two days past never.
The Transcendent Zaniness of Muslims Department has a good entry today. The dateline is Mumbai--the city in India, you will recall which was hit hard by Pakistani trained and supported suicide commandos a year back. The American president is spending the night in Mumbai, in one of the hotels targeted by the Mighty Men of the Koran. Not surprisingly, security is of the utmost concern.
Enter Khan the bomb sniffing dog. Khan is a German Shepard military working dog with a great nose. He and his handler flew in from Germany before the president arrived and, presumably, went to work. An alert Muslim saw the dog's name on its tag and posted the story.
Faster than a muezzin can call the faithful to prayer, a protest movement bloomed across Mumbai. The Muslims, it seems, were deeply and desperately offended by naming a dog with a presumptively "Muslim" name. Threats have been made and apologies demanded. Muslim hyperventilating spread hard and fast.
Wait one, Abdul! You guys have a lot of nerve. What chutzpah thinking the dog was named Khan in honor of a Muslim. You all have too much ego.
First of all the term "Khan" is one which applies to certain oriental figures of high rank and great historical note such as Genghis Khan. It may be that Muslim education even in an advanced country such as India fails to note personalities of high profile who are not Muslim. The Geek cannot state but rather suspects that the madrassas are poor institutes of historical study.
Have none of you heard of the classic TV series Star Trek? If you had you would know that one of the best of the bad guys on that long running show was a gentleman named Khan. There is no doubt but the dog was named by his handler who has shown by the name that he is a "Trekkie" of good and long standing.
So, Muslims of Mumbai, get a grip!
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
In Mexico Every Day Is The Day Of The Dead
The Mexican internal war flows along in its self-created river of blood. So far this year more than ten thousand have been killed in the fighting between criminal cartels as well as between the government and the gangsters. Since the war was officially declared by President Calderon, nearly thirty thousand people were converted from living, breathing, hoping, and fearing human beings into sanitation problems. That's right, nearly thirty thousand dead since December 2006.
It's a sucker bet that the body count will exceed 30,000 by the day the fourth anniversary comes along. Over seven thousand a year, nearly twenty new corpses a day. Almost one an hour, each and every hour for four years. Compared to that, the combined American fatality toll in Afghanistan and Iraq amounts to a mere bagatelle.
For all the death and fear precious little has been accomplished. The flow of drugs has not decreased. Nor has the price to the end user increased. And, the purity of the final product has not degraded. As an effort to block the movement of illegal drugs across the Mexican-US border, the Calderon campaign has been a total failure.
At the same time the assorted cartels have expanded their operations from the smuggling of drugs to other profit nodes. The cartels smuggle people. They hijack cargoes of assorted merchandise and smuggle them into the American market. As sidelines the gangs kidnap for ransom, run protection rackets, and burgle everything not nailed down. For fun the gangsters rape, beat, and murder. It's a good life, being a member of a gang--unless the opposition or your own bosses take you out.
During all the down and dirty criminal merriment, the gangs have brought corruption to a new level. For years, generations, the predilection of Mexican cops for bribes has been the stuff of both popular humor and personal tragedy. The question was not, "is this cop corrupt?" but "how much will it cost?" The Calderon government has tried to stamp out or at least limit the corruption of local police, but faced with the "silver or lead" tradition, the efforts have failed.
When the cops either could not be bought or, once bought, did not stay bought, the gangs have had a simple solution. Cops, local or state or federal have died in wholesale lots. On the local level it has not been uncommon the past year for the survivors to turn in their badges with unseemly but prudent haste.
The judicial system is no less corrupt--when it isn't simply being inefficient. The system cannot handle the relatively small number of gangsters who are arrested. The lack of public confidence in the judiciary and police is reflected in the estimate that only a minority of serious crimes are ever reported. Not that making a report matters. Very, very few suspected criminals are ever arrested and even fewer come to trial. Of that unfortunate minor fraction, even fewer are convicted, and still fewer ever see the inside of a slammer.
The motto for a Mexican gangster should be, "What? Me Worry?" That is a realistic attitude.
The gangs have not been indifferent to the attraction of buying politicians. While killing the politico has a long history in Mexico, the notion of purchase in wholesale quantities is of relatively recent origin. But, if there is one thing the gangs have in inexhaustible amounts, it is money. Flush with cash, the gangs have found buying politicians to be a good investment. After all, the best way to stop the Calderon Campaign is through politics. Need one know more?
To be successful, it is best if corruption takes place in the shadows. A politician or a judge or even a local cop is an ineffective agent of gang interests if it is known that he has been bought and paid for. Thus, keeping journalists quiet has become a high priority for the gangs. Since pistoleros don't care who they cap, the killing of journalists is as easy to accomplish as the killing of rival gang members.
As a result of the stop-the-news effort, journalists in Mexico are at a greater risk of becoming corpses than are members of the Mexican army. One of the most, perhaps the most, dangerous places to practice the craft of journalism today is Mexico. Not surprisingly, the papers are loath to practice investigative journalism or even make a big deal out of the daily tripping over bodies which is commonplace in places like Juarez.
The systemic deformation of the institutions of justice, politics, and the press have combined with the daily mayhem to undercut the integrity of the social and political compact which unites citizen and government. The situation of a deteriorating social/political compact has been worsened by both the historical indifference of the Mexican elite to the lives of the hoi polloi and the numbing effects of poverty and hopelessness.
Mexico is not a failed state. Not yet. It may never become a genuine failed state. The capacity of the Mexican peasant and his urban counterpart to endure the unendurable is legendary--and real. Yet every day that the bodies fall, the corruption flows, and the misery grinds on is a day which erodes even the seemingly endless capacity of the Mexican to persevere. Trust in the government like hope for a better tomorrow has become a gravely endangered species.
Should the Mexican hoi polloi come to the realization that more of the same is totally unacceptable, the results will be massive, shocking, and lethal in the extreme. If Mexico fails as a state, the consequent internal war(s) will equal or surpass those of the long, long warfare of the early Twentieth Century. As was the case a century and less ago, the violence will cross the border to the detriment of places like El Paso or Tucson, which were small, quite off the beaten path places back then but are major cities today.
This potential implies strongly that US policies regarding immigration and illegal drugs must be considered in the context of will they help or hinder the reestablishment of stability in Mexico. As the coming of collapse cannot be predicted with precision, it would be prudent for the US decision makers and We the People to consider the package of policies directly impacting on Mexico with the greatest of expedition. Time is not on the side of stability.
It is spectacularly unfortunate that both subjects--illegal drugs and immigration change--are almost as emotionally stimulating as, say, abortion and homosexual marriage, Strong emotions do not make for careful calculations of how best to serve the collective national interest. However, both national interest and the American responsibility for the current state of near failure in Mexico demand that emotions be shunted aside and a serious debate on how best to assist in rectifying the sorry state of affairs south of the border be undertaken with dispatch.
Unless the US government and We the People can get serious about solving our share of the current predominantly Mexican problem, not only will it be conceivable that all the Mexicans currently in the US illegally will be able to apply for political refugee status, but that there will be a lot more coming, waves of people fleeing the violence of collapse.
The Mexican Question is one which is truly bi-partisan. So, get on with it you denizens inside the beltway. It is a tough job at the least, but you were elected to take on the big ones.
It's a sucker bet that the body count will exceed 30,000 by the day the fourth anniversary comes along. Over seven thousand a year, nearly twenty new corpses a day. Almost one an hour, each and every hour for four years. Compared to that, the combined American fatality toll in Afghanistan and Iraq amounts to a mere bagatelle.
For all the death and fear precious little has been accomplished. The flow of drugs has not decreased. Nor has the price to the end user increased. And, the purity of the final product has not degraded. As an effort to block the movement of illegal drugs across the Mexican-US border, the Calderon campaign has been a total failure.
At the same time the assorted cartels have expanded their operations from the smuggling of drugs to other profit nodes. The cartels smuggle people. They hijack cargoes of assorted merchandise and smuggle them into the American market. As sidelines the gangs kidnap for ransom, run protection rackets, and burgle everything not nailed down. For fun the gangsters rape, beat, and murder. It's a good life, being a member of a gang--unless the opposition or your own bosses take you out.
During all the down and dirty criminal merriment, the gangs have brought corruption to a new level. For years, generations, the predilection of Mexican cops for bribes has been the stuff of both popular humor and personal tragedy. The question was not, "is this cop corrupt?" but "how much will it cost?" The Calderon government has tried to stamp out or at least limit the corruption of local police, but faced with the "silver or lead" tradition, the efforts have failed.
When the cops either could not be bought or, once bought, did not stay bought, the gangs have had a simple solution. Cops, local or state or federal have died in wholesale lots. On the local level it has not been uncommon the past year for the survivors to turn in their badges with unseemly but prudent haste.
The judicial system is no less corrupt--when it isn't simply being inefficient. The system cannot handle the relatively small number of gangsters who are arrested. The lack of public confidence in the judiciary and police is reflected in the estimate that only a minority of serious crimes are ever reported. Not that making a report matters. Very, very few suspected criminals are ever arrested and even fewer come to trial. Of that unfortunate minor fraction, even fewer are convicted, and still fewer ever see the inside of a slammer.
The motto for a Mexican gangster should be, "What? Me Worry?" That is a realistic attitude.
The gangs have not been indifferent to the attraction of buying politicians. While killing the politico has a long history in Mexico, the notion of purchase in wholesale quantities is of relatively recent origin. But, if there is one thing the gangs have in inexhaustible amounts, it is money. Flush with cash, the gangs have found buying politicians to be a good investment. After all, the best way to stop the Calderon Campaign is through politics. Need one know more?
To be successful, it is best if corruption takes place in the shadows. A politician or a judge or even a local cop is an ineffective agent of gang interests if it is known that he has been bought and paid for. Thus, keeping journalists quiet has become a high priority for the gangs. Since pistoleros don't care who they cap, the killing of journalists is as easy to accomplish as the killing of rival gang members.
As a result of the stop-the-news effort, journalists in Mexico are at a greater risk of becoming corpses than are members of the Mexican army. One of the most, perhaps the most, dangerous places to practice the craft of journalism today is Mexico. Not surprisingly, the papers are loath to practice investigative journalism or even make a big deal out of the daily tripping over bodies which is commonplace in places like Juarez.
The systemic deformation of the institutions of justice, politics, and the press have combined with the daily mayhem to undercut the integrity of the social and political compact which unites citizen and government. The situation of a deteriorating social/political compact has been worsened by both the historical indifference of the Mexican elite to the lives of the hoi polloi and the numbing effects of poverty and hopelessness.
Mexico is not a failed state. Not yet. It may never become a genuine failed state. The capacity of the Mexican peasant and his urban counterpart to endure the unendurable is legendary--and real. Yet every day that the bodies fall, the corruption flows, and the misery grinds on is a day which erodes even the seemingly endless capacity of the Mexican to persevere. Trust in the government like hope for a better tomorrow has become a gravely endangered species.
Should the Mexican hoi polloi come to the realization that more of the same is totally unacceptable, the results will be massive, shocking, and lethal in the extreme. If Mexico fails as a state, the consequent internal war(s) will equal or surpass those of the long, long warfare of the early Twentieth Century. As was the case a century and less ago, the violence will cross the border to the detriment of places like El Paso or Tucson, which were small, quite off the beaten path places back then but are major cities today.
This potential implies strongly that US policies regarding immigration and illegal drugs must be considered in the context of will they help or hinder the reestablishment of stability in Mexico. As the coming of collapse cannot be predicted with precision, it would be prudent for the US decision makers and We the People to consider the package of policies directly impacting on Mexico with the greatest of expedition. Time is not on the side of stability.
It is spectacularly unfortunate that both subjects--illegal drugs and immigration change--are almost as emotionally stimulating as, say, abortion and homosexual marriage, Strong emotions do not make for careful calculations of how best to serve the collective national interest. However, both national interest and the American responsibility for the current state of near failure in Mexico demand that emotions be shunted aside and a serious debate on how best to assist in rectifying the sorry state of affairs south of the border be undertaken with dispatch.
Unless the US government and We the People can get serious about solving our share of the current predominantly Mexican problem, not only will it be conceivable that all the Mexicans currently in the US illegally will be able to apply for political refugee status, but that there will be a lot more coming, waves of people fleeing the violence of collapse.
The Mexican Question is one which is truly bi-partisan. So, get on with it you denizens inside the beltway. It is a tough job at the least, but you were elected to take on the big ones.
Obama's Confused Reaction To Certain Events Last Tuesday
The president is finally off on his oft postponed and modified trip to Asia. He is going to India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan. In addition to the country visits, he will be making a pitch for currency and trade reform at the G20 meeting in Seoul. Up until now, the trip was all about international security, international trade, that old reliable, Muslim outreach and its dark side, the struggle with certain unnamed "extremest elements."
Now, having partially digested the unpalatable results of the midterm election as well as the most recent and, as expected, lackluster report on employment, the Nice Young Man From Chicago has decided quite suddenly that the real goal of the trip will be job creation. He is proposing to schlep a bunch of corporate heavies along with him in order to "open markets" in Asia and thus, create jobs in the US. (Oh, and dragging the movers and shakers of whatever passes for American industry today will also prove that the Most Progressive President Ever has gotten over his hatred of free enterprise.)
One has to wonder just who Mr Obama believes he is fooling with this rather transparent gambit. India is not particularly closed to American goods and services. And, thanks in large part to federal government policies is a major recipient of jobs once occupied by Americans. Beyond that, Indonesia has already been well and truly penetrated by Chinese manufacturers and merchants such that the place has become the frontline in conflict between traditionalist Muslims and goody loving Indonesians. The pie is only so large given the relative poverty of most of the Indonesian population and the Chinese got there with a very big fork years ago.
South Korea is not a destination for American made consumer products--if there are any more being made here even though it has a very healthy appetite for industrial durables with the Made In America label. That segment is large but unlikely to grow markedly in the short run no matter how much the smooth talking Guy In The Oval may wish otherwise. Since the US already does well there even in the face of Japanese and, to a lesser extent, Chinese competition, South Korean industrial demand is not going to force the hiring of too many new workers in the US.
Even if the Japanese could be convinced to drop some of their barriers against American imports, the nature of the deflation predicated economy there is not one conducive to an enhanced demand for US products. A little increase in the import of agricultural produce will not translate into decreased unemployment here.
There is little doubt but the G-20 meeting is important to the American economic future. Questions of currency valuation and trade asymmetries directly and substantially impact American employment. Here the elections last Tuesday may play a role. But, not a role which will add luster or influence to the Obama stance. The undercutting of the president's perceived functional legitimacy provided by the election will in no way serve to convince the Chinese (for example) that a revaluation of their currency is necessary. Indeed, support in the G-20 for the dethronement of the dollar may gain strength given the perceived weakness of the American president as well as the US economy. Of course, dethronement might not be all bad for the US in the longer haul much as the prospect of weaker dollars equally increased imported oil costs may be disturbing short term.
The real deal for the trip has not changed regardless of presidential protestations to the contrary. India is a crucial country for American interests short-, mid-, and long-term. Stripped to the essentials, India is a viable strategic partner in the ongoing Afghan Affray. It is even more important as an ally in overall regional dynamics, a counterweight to Pakistan, China, and even Iran.
Given the number of coinciding national interests as well as a wide array of common political and economic norms, the fit of India with the US is tolerably good. As a consequence, a positive engagement with India on topics ranging from the real and pressing such as regional stability to the distant and tenuous such as climate change is in our mutual interests.
Then there is the problem of Pakistan or, more accurately, the Kashmir Question. As Pakistan sees all foreign affairs through the prism of conflict with India, so also does India. Obama will refuse to take a position on Kashmir, which means he will not push the Indian government on its Cold Start doctrine. The existence of Cold Start provides Pakistan with the justification necessary to reject committing sufficient forces in the anti-Taliban campaign in the FATA.
At some point the president and his "team" will have to confront Cold Start. Kashmir will have to be factored in to our diplomatic equation if the relation with India is to mature and meet its potential. In its way, Kashmir is as intractable a problem as that presented by Palestine. Not only are there the rival claims of India and Pakistan. Not only is there the history of recurrent and ultimately indecisive warfare. There is also a large and growing independence movement within the Kashmir population on both sides of the Line of Control.
Given the almost infantile intransigence of the Pakistani government, which has shown the diplomatic ineptitude typical of the Palestinians, it is the existence of an independence movement which provides a window of opportunity. The Indian government might not like the notion of "surrendering" its portion of the disputed land to an independent state but is realistic enough to see this move as a rational alternative which would liberate it from not only Cold Start but the other risky and expensive features of perpetual readiness for potentially nuclear war with Pakistan.
Mr Obama would not be out of line to bring up the potential resident in an independent Kashmir--which could not exist without the cooperation of India. Contrasting the maturity of India which has been so strikingly evident over the past decade with the unconstructive and primitive role played by Islamabad in Kashmir and elsewhere in the same period would go some way to orienting the Indians in the right direction.
(Such a demarche, even in a most preliminary way would get back to Islamabad without a doubt. That would be good. It would put the Pakistanis on notice that their never ending extortion game had come to an end. The government would have to choose sides finally and permanently: Violent political Islam or civilized state.)
Having been the beneficiaries of a "tilt" in American foreign policy for so many of the past fifty or sixty years, the Pakistanis are well equipped to understand just what would be meant by a tilt in favor of India. A reversal in the direction of American favors would portend far more than the mere ending of the dollar gusher. Nor could Islamabad comfort itself with believing it could replace US patronage with Chinese on a one to one basis. The Chinese calculate far more shrewdly than do the Americans, so they will seek advantage only on the cheap.
Indonesia presents problems of a different sort. The optics from the Obama administration will be at an automatic sharp contrast with the notion that the trip is all about jobs. The president is scheduled to make a major speech at a mosque. The speech no doubt will be very well attended. It is debatable that one more genuflection before the Muslim alter will play well back in the US, particularly as there is no credible way it can be associated with creating either jobs at home or peace in the world.
It is often proclaimed that Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world. True. Also it is repeatedly said that Indonesia is a beacon of tolerance and peace, a true tribute to Islam's pacifistic and open minded nature. Not true.
Thanks in large part to Wahhibist outreached fueled by Saudi petrodollars, there are large pockets of believers who have accepted the notion of violent political Islam. While true international terror attacks have been absent since the Bali bombing, the use of violence and its twin, terror, domestically has grown. The Mighty Warriors of Allah have singled out Christians and denominations of Islam falling outside the austere purview of Wahhibism as targets. In Aceh, Shariah has been adopted to the extent that there exists a dual track judicial system. Most recently there have been Islamist attacks on Chinese owned malls and stores.
Violent political Islam is alive, well, and growing in Indonesia. The government and its supporting elite know this and are dreading the inevitable confrontation. The long history of internal conflict which was widely believed to have ended is showing its demise to have been premature. The president is going to have to address this ground truth at least in private meetings and would be well advised not to go out on too long a branch publicly, not to praise Indonesian peace and tolerance too effusively. The words might come back to bite before too long.
It is most unfortunate that Mr Obama repackaged his Asian tour as one of jobs promotion. While the lack of jobs may have been the single most important cause of the "shellacking" received by Obama's party, it was not the only one by a long shot. Also important was the president's long standing tradition of not being completely honest with We the People. It seems pathetic at the least that one of his first responses to defeat was to lie.
Now, having partially digested the unpalatable results of the midterm election as well as the most recent and, as expected, lackluster report on employment, the Nice Young Man From Chicago has decided quite suddenly that the real goal of the trip will be job creation. He is proposing to schlep a bunch of corporate heavies along with him in order to "open markets" in Asia and thus, create jobs in the US. (Oh, and dragging the movers and shakers of whatever passes for American industry today will also prove that the Most Progressive President Ever has gotten over his hatred of free enterprise.)
One has to wonder just who Mr Obama believes he is fooling with this rather transparent gambit. India is not particularly closed to American goods and services. And, thanks in large part to federal government policies is a major recipient of jobs once occupied by Americans. Beyond that, Indonesia has already been well and truly penetrated by Chinese manufacturers and merchants such that the place has become the frontline in conflict between traditionalist Muslims and goody loving Indonesians. The pie is only so large given the relative poverty of most of the Indonesian population and the Chinese got there with a very big fork years ago.
South Korea is not a destination for American made consumer products--if there are any more being made here even though it has a very healthy appetite for industrial durables with the Made In America label. That segment is large but unlikely to grow markedly in the short run no matter how much the smooth talking Guy In The Oval may wish otherwise. Since the US already does well there even in the face of Japanese and, to a lesser extent, Chinese competition, South Korean industrial demand is not going to force the hiring of too many new workers in the US.
Even if the Japanese could be convinced to drop some of their barriers against American imports, the nature of the deflation predicated economy there is not one conducive to an enhanced demand for US products. A little increase in the import of agricultural produce will not translate into decreased unemployment here.
There is little doubt but the G-20 meeting is important to the American economic future. Questions of currency valuation and trade asymmetries directly and substantially impact American employment. Here the elections last Tuesday may play a role. But, not a role which will add luster or influence to the Obama stance. The undercutting of the president's perceived functional legitimacy provided by the election will in no way serve to convince the Chinese (for example) that a revaluation of their currency is necessary. Indeed, support in the G-20 for the dethronement of the dollar may gain strength given the perceived weakness of the American president as well as the US economy. Of course, dethronement might not be all bad for the US in the longer haul much as the prospect of weaker dollars equally increased imported oil costs may be disturbing short term.
The real deal for the trip has not changed regardless of presidential protestations to the contrary. India is a crucial country for American interests short-, mid-, and long-term. Stripped to the essentials, India is a viable strategic partner in the ongoing Afghan Affray. It is even more important as an ally in overall regional dynamics, a counterweight to Pakistan, China, and even Iran.
Given the number of coinciding national interests as well as a wide array of common political and economic norms, the fit of India with the US is tolerably good. As a consequence, a positive engagement with India on topics ranging from the real and pressing such as regional stability to the distant and tenuous such as climate change is in our mutual interests.
Then there is the problem of Pakistan or, more accurately, the Kashmir Question. As Pakistan sees all foreign affairs through the prism of conflict with India, so also does India. Obama will refuse to take a position on Kashmir, which means he will not push the Indian government on its Cold Start doctrine. The existence of Cold Start provides Pakistan with the justification necessary to reject committing sufficient forces in the anti-Taliban campaign in the FATA.
At some point the president and his "team" will have to confront Cold Start. Kashmir will have to be factored in to our diplomatic equation if the relation with India is to mature and meet its potential. In its way, Kashmir is as intractable a problem as that presented by Palestine. Not only are there the rival claims of India and Pakistan. Not only is there the history of recurrent and ultimately indecisive warfare. There is also a large and growing independence movement within the Kashmir population on both sides of the Line of Control.
Given the almost infantile intransigence of the Pakistani government, which has shown the diplomatic ineptitude typical of the Palestinians, it is the existence of an independence movement which provides a window of opportunity. The Indian government might not like the notion of "surrendering" its portion of the disputed land to an independent state but is realistic enough to see this move as a rational alternative which would liberate it from not only Cold Start but the other risky and expensive features of perpetual readiness for potentially nuclear war with Pakistan.
Mr Obama would not be out of line to bring up the potential resident in an independent Kashmir--which could not exist without the cooperation of India. Contrasting the maturity of India which has been so strikingly evident over the past decade with the unconstructive and primitive role played by Islamabad in Kashmir and elsewhere in the same period would go some way to orienting the Indians in the right direction.
(Such a demarche, even in a most preliminary way would get back to Islamabad without a doubt. That would be good. It would put the Pakistanis on notice that their never ending extortion game had come to an end. The government would have to choose sides finally and permanently: Violent political Islam or civilized state.)
Having been the beneficiaries of a "tilt" in American foreign policy for so many of the past fifty or sixty years, the Pakistanis are well equipped to understand just what would be meant by a tilt in favor of India. A reversal in the direction of American favors would portend far more than the mere ending of the dollar gusher. Nor could Islamabad comfort itself with believing it could replace US patronage with Chinese on a one to one basis. The Chinese calculate far more shrewdly than do the Americans, so they will seek advantage only on the cheap.
Indonesia presents problems of a different sort. The optics from the Obama administration will be at an automatic sharp contrast with the notion that the trip is all about jobs. The president is scheduled to make a major speech at a mosque. The speech no doubt will be very well attended. It is debatable that one more genuflection before the Muslim alter will play well back in the US, particularly as there is no credible way it can be associated with creating either jobs at home or peace in the world.
It is often proclaimed that Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world. True. Also it is repeatedly said that Indonesia is a beacon of tolerance and peace, a true tribute to Islam's pacifistic and open minded nature. Not true.
Thanks in large part to Wahhibist outreached fueled by Saudi petrodollars, there are large pockets of believers who have accepted the notion of violent political Islam. While true international terror attacks have been absent since the Bali bombing, the use of violence and its twin, terror, domestically has grown. The Mighty Warriors of Allah have singled out Christians and denominations of Islam falling outside the austere purview of Wahhibism as targets. In Aceh, Shariah has been adopted to the extent that there exists a dual track judicial system. Most recently there have been Islamist attacks on Chinese owned malls and stores.
Violent political Islam is alive, well, and growing in Indonesia. The government and its supporting elite know this and are dreading the inevitable confrontation. The long history of internal conflict which was widely believed to have ended is showing its demise to have been premature. The president is going to have to address this ground truth at least in private meetings and would be well advised not to go out on too long a branch publicly, not to praise Indonesian peace and tolerance too effusively. The words might come back to bite before too long.
It is most unfortunate that Mr Obama repackaged his Asian tour as one of jobs promotion. While the lack of jobs may have been the single most important cause of the "shellacking" received by Obama's party, it was not the only one by a long shot. Also important was the president's long standing tradition of not being completely honest with We the People. It seems pathetic at the least that one of his first responses to defeat was to lie.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Human Rights And Propaganda
Tomorrow is a Day of Long Knives for the US at the UN Human Rights Council. The Obama administration, in an overly deep genuflection before the alter of international institutions, turned in a twenty-nine page document constituting the Universal Periodic Review of human rights in the US. In turn, a consortium of human rights advocacy groups headed by Human Rights Watch whipped out a four hundred page indictment of the US as a very grave violator of human rights.
On Friday, the speakers list in the Human Rights corral is oversubscribed by countries such as Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and China. Each is licking its metaphorical lips as it gets ready to get in its licks against Uncle Sam and the legions of human rights abusers currently running the slaughter house of liberty and justice known as the USA. For its part, the Obama administration has sent a thirty person delegation which it has been said, "will welcome all useful comments" but will actually serve as the designated flak catcher.
We the People are justifiably proud of our record in human rights. Not only have we been zealous, some would say too zealous, in pursuit of guaranteeing human, civil, and political rights to all resident within our borders, we are quite willing to acknowledge that perfection has not yet been reached. We should be equally proud of our political traditions--including one honored very much only in the breech by those countries so eager to tear a strip off our collective hind end. That particular tradition is freedom of expression which leads to white hot debate over contentious issues of rights such as a woman's right to control her own reproductive destiny or of two people of the same sex to enjoy a status equal in all respects to heterosexual marriage or just what constitutes pornography. Or what our immigration policy should be. The list goes on and on.
The citizens and residents of very, very few countries have the basic right to live in a social and political environment of free for all expression. The citizens and residents of very, very few countries understand that the consequences of the almost-anything-goes approach practiced in the US does, must, lead to social and political dynamics which are difficult to understand from the outside. As the media treatment in so many European media outlets made clear in their coverage of the recently concluded midterm elections, our methods of politics and expression seem not only disordered but dangerously chaotic when viewed from more staid, that is, more repressed venues.
It is the wide chasm separating the American approach to defining and solving collective problems from the methods employed in other states which makes the upcoming slice-and-dice session in Geneva more than a routine exercise in anti-Americanism. The countries already signed up on the Let's-Bash-The-US list for tomorrow are intent on inflicting a propaganda defeat on the US. The governments of Cuba, Iran, China, and the others understand that simple, simplistic attacks on the US are easy to understand throughout the world while the realities of American political and social discourse and practice are totally opaque to all but the most sophisticated and widely experienced (and not even all of those).
An example: Iran intends to excoriate the US, or more accurately, some American states, for having executed less than fifty people in the past year. The Iranians will portray the US not only as barbaric for its judicial killing fields but as a hypocrite for its criticism of other countries. There is no doubt but the Iranian delegation will not mention that Iran is second only to China in the number of executions or that Iran, unlike China but like other Muslim majority states, allows death by stoning for some crimes, most notably adultery.
Cuba intends to take the US to task for its immigration policies--using the Obama administration's characterization of the current system as "broken" as well as the four hundred page indictment referenced above as proof beyond rebuttal that the US is xenophobic, racist, and given to violating the presumed human rights of illegal immigrants beyond count. This from a country which has used force to prevent its citizens from leaving the Island Paradise Of Workers And Peasants.
Other states will aver that the pervasive racism of We the People condemns all people of color to perpetual poverty, systemic discrimination, and a fast track passage to prison. These states will take sections of the human rights consortium's four hundred page diatribe as well as words from the Obama administration review to substantiate the attack. No one will mention that the US has made massive strides toward eliminating the effects of past prejudice--often to the pronounced disadvantage of white males. Nor will it be mentioned that these strides were taken by We the People organically without any guidance from the "international community."
It goes almost without mention that none of those casting stones at Uncle Sam live in fragile glass houses. In the weird world of the UN Human Rights Council, those who sin most get to cast the first stone.
The problem, the danger, comes not from the fact that We the People cannot withstand baseless and evil criticism for nonexistent sins, but rather from the high likelihood that the malicious, malignant charges will be read and believed, heard and heeded in areas of the world where the interests of the US are both in play and at stake. The charges mouthed in Geneva will be repeated and magnified in most, if not all, the Arab-Muslim world. The same will happen in the three amigos of the Bolivarian Revolution. And, no surprise here, in China and Russia.
Whether from simple naivete or over subscription to an ideology celebrating the moral supremacy of international institutions, the Obama administration made a grave mistake by agreeing not only to join the Human Rights Council but to engage in the Universal Periodic Review process. No rational person well oriented in time and place could assume that any useful outcome would ensue. This hypothetical rational person could only conclude that the US handed a public diplomacy victory to hostile states.
In a completely unnecessary move, the Obama administration has compromised the status of the US in areas of the world where the key component of the war with advocates of violent political Islam is underway. The key component is, of course, the conflict of perceptions and images in the minds of the millions who have not yet firmly chosen a side.
In a basic way, the struggle for survival and supremacy between the US and other civilized states and the practitioners of violent political Islam focuses on the minds of the uncommitted majority. That's right, it is counterinsurgency writ large. It is in the short and long-term interest of the US to mobilize support from the uncommitted majority of Muslims so as, at the least, to deny their support to the perpetrators of jihad. It is not that the US wants or should want the majority of the world's Muslims to embrace our set of world views but, it is necessary that the same minds be convinced to add their voices to the struggle against the advocates of violent political Islam.
Consider in this context what a great victory it would be for the civilized states if a crowd of angry Muslims took to the street in one or another Muslim majority state to demand their government suppress quickly and resolutely Muslims who killed or terrorized Christian fellow citizens. The day that happens somewhere--Egypt, Iraq, Indonesia--the West could begin to breathe easily. Muslims would be publicly and vocally denouncing Muslims who crossed the line separating acceptable religion from unacceptable political action.
To achieve this end, it is not necessary (nor possible) to convince Muslims that we are the last, best hope of humankind. It is essential that we do not aid those hostile to us in branding the US as a violator of human rights, as a foul den of abusive inequity. The Day of Long Knives tomorrow does nothing to aid in achieving this essential.
The president and his "team" deserve a severe down check for having made such a major strategic blunder as the execution of a Universal Periodic Review. It was not an exercise in transparency or an illustration of our willingness to subject ourselves to the scrutiny of the world. It was a gesture of self-mutilation. A giving of an easy win to our mortal enemies.
On Friday, the speakers list in the Human Rights corral is oversubscribed by countries such as Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and China. Each is licking its metaphorical lips as it gets ready to get in its licks against Uncle Sam and the legions of human rights abusers currently running the slaughter house of liberty and justice known as the USA. For its part, the Obama administration has sent a thirty person delegation which it has been said, "will welcome all useful comments" but will actually serve as the designated flak catcher.
We the People are justifiably proud of our record in human rights. Not only have we been zealous, some would say too zealous, in pursuit of guaranteeing human, civil, and political rights to all resident within our borders, we are quite willing to acknowledge that perfection has not yet been reached. We should be equally proud of our political traditions--including one honored very much only in the breech by those countries so eager to tear a strip off our collective hind end. That particular tradition is freedom of expression which leads to white hot debate over contentious issues of rights such as a woman's right to control her own reproductive destiny or of two people of the same sex to enjoy a status equal in all respects to heterosexual marriage or just what constitutes pornography. Or what our immigration policy should be. The list goes on and on.
The citizens and residents of very, very few countries have the basic right to live in a social and political environment of free for all expression. The citizens and residents of very, very few countries understand that the consequences of the almost-anything-goes approach practiced in the US does, must, lead to social and political dynamics which are difficult to understand from the outside. As the media treatment in so many European media outlets made clear in their coverage of the recently concluded midterm elections, our methods of politics and expression seem not only disordered but dangerously chaotic when viewed from more staid, that is, more repressed venues.
It is the wide chasm separating the American approach to defining and solving collective problems from the methods employed in other states which makes the upcoming slice-and-dice session in Geneva more than a routine exercise in anti-Americanism. The countries already signed up on the Let's-Bash-The-US list for tomorrow are intent on inflicting a propaganda defeat on the US. The governments of Cuba, Iran, China, and the others understand that simple, simplistic attacks on the US are easy to understand throughout the world while the realities of American political and social discourse and practice are totally opaque to all but the most sophisticated and widely experienced (and not even all of those).
An example: Iran intends to excoriate the US, or more accurately, some American states, for having executed less than fifty people in the past year. The Iranians will portray the US not only as barbaric for its judicial killing fields but as a hypocrite for its criticism of other countries. There is no doubt but the Iranian delegation will not mention that Iran is second only to China in the number of executions or that Iran, unlike China but like other Muslim majority states, allows death by stoning for some crimes, most notably adultery.
Cuba intends to take the US to task for its immigration policies--using the Obama administration's characterization of the current system as "broken" as well as the four hundred page indictment referenced above as proof beyond rebuttal that the US is xenophobic, racist, and given to violating the presumed human rights of illegal immigrants beyond count. This from a country which has used force to prevent its citizens from leaving the Island Paradise Of Workers And Peasants.
Other states will aver that the pervasive racism of We the People condemns all people of color to perpetual poverty, systemic discrimination, and a fast track passage to prison. These states will take sections of the human rights consortium's four hundred page diatribe as well as words from the Obama administration review to substantiate the attack. No one will mention that the US has made massive strides toward eliminating the effects of past prejudice--often to the pronounced disadvantage of white males. Nor will it be mentioned that these strides were taken by We the People organically without any guidance from the "international community."
It goes almost without mention that none of those casting stones at Uncle Sam live in fragile glass houses. In the weird world of the UN Human Rights Council, those who sin most get to cast the first stone.
The problem, the danger, comes not from the fact that We the People cannot withstand baseless and evil criticism for nonexistent sins, but rather from the high likelihood that the malicious, malignant charges will be read and believed, heard and heeded in areas of the world where the interests of the US are both in play and at stake. The charges mouthed in Geneva will be repeated and magnified in most, if not all, the Arab-Muslim world. The same will happen in the three amigos of the Bolivarian Revolution. And, no surprise here, in China and Russia.
Whether from simple naivete or over subscription to an ideology celebrating the moral supremacy of international institutions, the Obama administration made a grave mistake by agreeing not only to join the Human Rights Council but to engage in the Universal Periodic Review process. No rational person well oriented in time and place could assume that any useful outcome would ensue. This hypothetical rational person could only conclude that the US handed a public diplomacy victory to hostile states.
In a completely unnecessary move, the Obama administration has compromised the status of the US in areas of the world where the key component of the war with advocates of violent political Islam is underway. The key component is, of course, the conflict of perceptions and images in the minds of the millions who have not yet firmly chosen a side.
In a basic way, the struggle for survival and supremacy between the US and other civilized states and the practitioners of violent political Islam focuses on the minds of the uncommitted majority. That's right, it is counterinsurgency writ large. It is in the short and long-term interest of the US to mobilize support from the uncommitted majority of Muslims so as, at the least, to deny their support to the perpetrators of jihad. It is not that the US wants or should want the majority of the world's Muslims to embrace our set of world views but, it is necessary that the same minds be convinced to add their voices to the struggle against the advocates of violent political Islam.
Consider in this context what a great victory it would be for the civilized states if a crowd of angry Muslims took to the street in one or another Muslim majority state to demand their government suppress quickly and resolutely Muslims who killed or terrorized Christian fellow citizens. The day that happens somewhere--Egypt, Iraq, Indonesia--the West could begin to breathe easily. Muslims would be publicly and vocally denouncing Muslims who crossed the line separating acceptable religion from unacceptable political action.
To achieve this end, it is not necessary (nor possible) to convince Muslims that we are the last, best hope of humankind. It is essential that we do not aid those hostile to us in branding the US as a violator of human rights, as a foul den of abusive inequity. The Day of Long Knives tomorrow does nothing to aid in achieving this essential.
The president and his "team" deserve a severe down check for having made such a major strategic blunder as the execution of a Universal Periodic Review. It was not an exercise in transparency or an illustration of our willingness to subject ourselves to the scrutiny of the world. It was a gesture of self-mutilation. A giving of an easy win to our mortal enemies.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
When Will Obama Admit, "It Is The Religion, Stupid!"
With the savagely lethal attack on the Chaldean Catholic church in Baghdad, the war being waged against Christians in Muslim majority states from Nigeria to Indonesia has exploded out of the media shadows where it has been concealed for several years now. The statement issued by the Muslim entity behind the attack specifically called the worshipers and their church a "foul den of idolaters." A pathetic lie was proffered in justification of the slaughter when the Mighty Warriors Of Allah alleged the Christians used the church as a place from which to wage war against Muslims.
The accusation was not only pathetic in its poverty, it was a lie of a magnitude which would have made even Joe Stalin or Dr Goebbels blush.
The totally expectable and quite pro forma denunciation issued by Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani in no way mitigates the ground truth that the attack was simply the latest in a long series of outrages committed against the once vibrant Christian community in Iraq. The extent of the butchery and resultant fear suffered by Christians merely because of their faith is shown in one cold number: There are only 500,000 left from a total of nearly 1,500,000 when the Americans invaded seven years ago. The rest, at least those who were not killed, left for distant and hopefully safer places.
Nor is the situation in Iraq unique. In Egypt, the Coptic Christians, a faith community which dates back to the very beginnings of Christianity, has been under daily attack. Copts have been killed. They have been kidnapped. Assaulted. Raped. Their churches have been vandalized. Burned. Blown up. As in Iraq, there have been numerous reports of police and other security forces standing by, hands in their pockets, quite indifferent to the brutalization of their fellow citizens.
The brutality of Muslims against Christians has continued these past few years throughout the Muslim majority world. Palestinian Christians have become an endangered species. So have those in Syria. Life is not better for people of the Cross in Jordan or across North Africa, just a tad less lethal.
In Pakistan violence against Christians--again often with security forces inactively present--is rampant. The assaults, even the killings, barely merit notice in the public press. Those who attack are rarely arrested, let alone prosecuted.
At the antipodes of the Muslim world, Nigeria and Indonesia, pogroms directed at Christians are commonplace. In both countries as well as many in between these two pillars, churches are pillaged, burned, destroyed. The authorities always seem baffled, at least to the extent that arrests are as infrequent as hot weather at the South Pole.
Throughout the lands dominated by Muslims, the ancient choice of convert or die echoes on the lips of the mob and the clerics behind them. In a twist on this old theme, one of the gunmen in the Baghdad church told one of his priestly victims that he could convert but he was going to die nonetheless.
While it is self-evident that not each and every Muslim among the reputed one and a half billion is directly involved. Still, those who do not personally hold the gun, wield the knife, hurl the bomb, or pound Christian flesh do not rally publicly and loudly against those of their brethren who do the dirty work. In this case of Muslim excess as in so many others, silence equals agreement, equals support, equals empowerment.
Where is the presumed Muslim majority? Why is this purported enormous percentage of Muslims not demanding that their governments take swift and decisive action against those who slaughter and terrorize in the name of the Prophet?
Is the deafening silence of the Muslim majority due to basic sympathy with the objectives of the perpetrators of violence? This is not out of the realm of probability. The history of Muslim dominated Spain is replete with examples of persecution onto death directed against both Christians and Jews. Nor is the history of the Ottoman Empire devoid of similar examples.
Pogroms, persecutions, mass murders, all on the basis of faith. And, it must be pointed out, regardless of the fact that the victims were protected peoples of the Book, members of Abrahamic faiths who paid their protection taxes, wore distinguishing clothing, and were otherwise living according to the humiliating requirements of Muslim law as provided in the Koran and Shariah.
History has powerful inertia. As a result, the examination of the past, the real past and not the artifacts of apologists and other makers of myth, gives an excellent indication of present and future behavior by members of the same culture, society, or religion. In the case of the contemporary persecution of Christians as in the DNA predicated hatred of Jews, the past is prologue. That is the ground truth.
Then there is the problem of those in the US and the larger West who steadfastly and quite without a basis in reality refuse to connect the dot marked "Islam" with those unpleasant blotches of blood red marking acts of terror and murder. The event at the Baghdad church due to the blunt honesty of the killers demands that we in the West without exception recognize the identity of those who seek to prevail, those who seek to cleanse not just Iraq but the world generally of people who do not share their unique dedication to the strictures and imperatives of Islam.
The bloody gauntlet has once more been slapped in our collective face. Turning the other cheek may be an admirable goal expressed by those of the Christian faith but there is no requirement in that faith or any other to submit to terrorists and murderers. There is no requirement that we refuse to both know and name the truth.
Quite the opposite. There is a positive obligation that we not give in to the fear of offending those who tacitly wish us harm. We have no choice on this world, in this life, other than calling out the killers for what and who they are--Muslims who take their faith too seriously, who invest too much of their human identity in it, who cover and conceal a base quest for power in the garb of belief.
Truth in blogging statement. The Geek is not a member of any denomination of any faith tradition.
We must make no mistake about the dynamic expressed by the Prophet's Butchers. They will not stop and we will know no peace until those who desire to shed innocent blood in the greater glory of Allah are themselves stopped. Period.
The accusation was not only pathetic in its poverty, it was a lie of a magnitude which would have made even Joe Stalin or Dr Goebbels blush.
The totally expectable and quite pro forma denunciation issued by Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani in no way mitigates the ground truth that the attack was simply the latest in a long series of outrages committed against the once vibrant Christian community in Iraq. The extent of the butchery and resultant fear suffered by Christians merely because of their faith is shown in one cold number: There are only 500,000 left from a total of nearly 1,500,000 when the Americans invaded seven years ago. The rest, at least those who were not killed, left for distant and hopefully safer places.
Nor is the situation in Iraq unique. In Egypt, the Coptic Christians, a faith community which dates back to the very beginnings of Christianity, has been under daily attack. Copts have been killed. They have been kidnapped. Assaulted. Raped. Their churches have been vandalized. Burned. Blown up. As in Iraq, there have been numerous reports of police and other security forces standing by, hands in their pockets, quite indifferent to the brutalization of their fellow citizens.
The brutality of Muslims against Christians has continued these past few years throughout the Muslim majority world. Palestinian Christians have become an endangered species. So have those in Syria. Life is not better for people of the Cross in Jordan or across North Africa, just a tad less lethal.
In Pakistan violence against Christians--again often with security forces inactively present--is rampant. The assaults, even the killings, barely merit notice in the public press. Those who attack are rarely arrested, let alone prosecuted.
At the antipodes of the Muslim world, Nigeria and Indonesia, pogroms directed at Christians are commonplace. In both countries as well as many in between these two pillars, churches are pillaged, burned, destroyed. The authorities always seem baffled, at least to the extent that arrests are as infrequent as hot weather at the South Pole.
Throughout the lands dominated by Muslims, the ancient choice of convert or die echoes on the lips of the mob and the clerics behind them. In a twist on this old theme, one of the gunmen in the Baghdad church told one of his priestly victims that he could convert but he was going to die nonetheless.
While it is self-evident that not each and every Muslim among the reputed one and a half billion is directly involved. Still, those who do not personally hold the gun, wield the knife, hurl the bomb, or pound Christian flesh do not rally publicly and loudly against those of their brethren who do the dirty work. In this case of Muslim excess as in so many others, silence equals agreement, equals support, equals empowerment.
Where is the presumed Muslim majority? Why is this purported enormous percentage of Muslims not demanding that their governments take swift and decisive action against those who slaughter and terrorize in the name of the Prophet?
Is the deafening silence of the Muslim majority due to basic sympathy with the objectives of the perpetrators of violence? This is not out of the realm of probability. The history of Muslim dominated Spain is replete with examples of persecution onto death directed against both Christians and Jews. Nor is the history of the Ottoman Empire devoid of similar examples.
Pogroms, persecutions, mass murders, all on the basis of faith. And, it must be pointed out, regardless of the fact that the victims were protected peoples of the Book, members of Abrahamic faiths who paid their protection taxes, wore distinguishing clothing, and were otherwise living according to the humiliating requirements of Muslim law as provided in the Koran and Shariah.
History has powerful inertia. As a result, the examination of the past, the real past and not the artifacts of apologists and other makers of myth, gives an excellent indication of present and future behavior by members of the same culture, society, or religion. In the case of the contemporary persecution of Christians as in the DNA predicated hatred of Jews, the past is prologue. That is the ground truth.
Then there is the problem of those in the US and the larger West who steadfastly and quite without a basis in reality refuse to connect the dot marked "Islam" with those unpleasant blotches of blood red marking acts of terror and murder. The event at the Baghdad church due to the blunt honesty of the killers demands that we in the West without exception recognize the identity of those who seek to prevail, those who seek to cleanse not just Iraq but the world generally of people who do not share their unique dedication to the strictures and imperatives of Islam.
The bloody gauntlet has once more been slapped in our collective face. Turning the other cheek may be an admirable goal expressed by those of the Christian faith but there is no requirement in that faith or any other to submit to terrorists and murderers. There is no requirement that we refuse to both know and name the truth.
Quite the opposite. There is a positive obligation that we not give in to the fear of offending those who tacitly wish us harm. We have no choice on this world, in this life, other than calling out the killers for what and who they are--Muslims who take their faith too seriously, who invest too much of their human identity in it, who cover and conceal a base quest for power in the garb of belief.
Truth in blogging statement. The Geek is not a member of any denomination of any faith tradition.
We must make no mistake about the dynamic expressed by the Prophet's Butchers. They will not stop and we will know no peace until those who desire to shed innocent blood in the greater glory of Allah are themselves stopped. Period.
Monday, November 1, 2010
The Elephant In The House (And Senate)
The Constitution may give pride of place in the conduct of foreign relations and military affairs to the president, but Congress is anything but a nullity when the messy details of policy implementation are involved. The predicted Republican ascendancy will change the way in which foreign and military policies are executed and will have many, perhaps indirect, effects on their formulation as well.
The prospects for change are already bothering many in the European elite, which group seems to be convinced that the results of Tuesday's vote will be a form of Cheney on steroids. There is a notion over there to the effect that the new, Tea Party powered Republicans will constitute a triumph of the paleologues with all that implies in the area of looking for countries to invade and individuals to kidnap preparatory to waterboarding.
While these overblown flights of nightmarish fancy will not come to pass for reasons too self-evident to deserve comment, the shifts in emphasis and goals will be real--and not necessarily negative. They will, however, be discomfiting not only to European elites but to President Obama as well.
The Republicans, with very few exceptions, are far from sold on the basic tenets of anthropogenic climate change. They are even less given to believing in the necessity of heroic measures such as "cap-and-trade" or other economy distorting mandated reductions in carbon output. This reality means that the upcoming Great Festival Of Alarm in Cancun is likely to be less productive of the sort of results favored by Al Gore and company than was last year's Festival of Urgent Anxiety in Copenhagen.
The inevitable consequence will be a eagerness on the part of countries great and small to blame the US for the lack of results to say nothing of any unusual weather event anywhere in the world in the months and years to come. China in particular will seek (with high probability of success) to enhance its position with both the advocates of putting the US economy in a straitjacket and the legion of states which want a handout from Uncle Sam to offset the horrid impact of global warming upon their citizens.
Absent comprehensive legislation, the Obama administration will seek to use administrative measures and regulation to reach the same outcome. The resultant brouhaha will be both unedifying and without use in the diplomatic conflicts sure to come on the heels of "failure" in Cancun.
The enlarged Republican minority in the Senate will prove to be resistant to the apparent appeal of the new START signed by Obama and Medvedev. While the new agreement does not spell the end of American national security as has been alleged by some on the farther shore of rationality, it can be portrayed with some legitimacy as favoring the Russians over the US. Well founded questions regarding the ability of the US to modernize its nuclear arsenal exist. There are questions as well regarding any wink-and-nod deals between the American team and its Russian counterpart regarding the further development and deployment of American anti-ballistic missile systems. These two areas alone give a good basis for those Republicans who oppose the treaty.
The consequence of delay not to mention a failure to ratify the agreement will be a Russian finger on the (in)famous "reset" button. The dynamic duo in the Kremlin, particularly Vladimir The Horseman, have set Russia firmly on course to reestablish its existence as a Great Power. It is to be expected that the two would take full advantage of a seeming rebuff by the Senate as a cause for greater assertiveness on the global stage. This would not make the conduct of US foreign policy any easier.
Republicans have long shown a particular distaste for foreign aid. Provided this distaste can be shown without damaging the interests of Israel, many from the Tribe of the Elephant would take cheerful advantage of the current budget constrained environment to cut foreign assistance, or, more probably, tie such assistance very tightly to specific US interests and oversight. The current minority whip has already promised to take aid to Israel out of the State Department budget and put it into that of Defense. Need one know more?
The Geek takes a jaundiced view of foreign aid generally as history has shown few successes and many failures. The capacity of well intended but poorly advised or supervised aid to wreak unintended harm on the recipient state is well established. So is the record of corruption, graft, and akin shenanigans. Still, there is a place and need for foreign aid provided it is tied to definable US interests, properly monitored, and its success or failure accurately measured.
Even in the most constrained environment, the cost of foreign aid is minor but the results can be maximal. In addition, the provision of humanitarian relief aid is a mitzvah, an obligation imposed by a decent regard for the ethical basis of life. Realism and idealism alike require foreign aid; a tight fisted Republican hand on the money valve might go a good way to assuring the money is spent wisely and well.
The Republicans may not be so easy going on the Iranian Question as Mr Obama has been. Come to think of it, that is a foregone conclusion. Even though there is powerful evidence for the proposition that Iran's nuclear program has so many internal, inherent problems that its still a couple of years at the least from achieving a break out capacity, there are more than a few Republicans who not so secretly share the John McCain idea seen during the 2008 campaign, "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran."
Should the more or less upcoming next round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 turn out to be one more go around of the same old, same old, there will be great sentiment among the Elephants to be far more robust--particularly in pressuring companies located in allied states to cease all truck with the mullahs. That would be useful as the sanctions are far from complete in their application. The Republicans would also be less hesitant than Mr Obama in the matter of supporting the "Greens" in Iran. This also has the potential to be useful in seeking modification of Iranian behavior but is no magic bullet.
Republicans will complicate Mr Obama's announced intent of starting the draw down in American combat forces in Afghanistan in mid-2011. There is a high likelihood that the president (or some of those near the Oval) have realized the deadline was a very poor idea and the Republican opposition in the next Congress would provide welcome political cover for the reality of war. Advantage can be taken from a strong Republican posture on the withdrawal issue as it would undercut any belief on the part of either Taliban or the Men In The Shadows Of Islamabad that all that need be done to achieve ultimate victory is keeping on keeping on until the Americans start leaving in less than a year.
If Anwar al-Awlaki and other Americans who have shifted allegiances from the US to the cause of violent political Islam are as smart as so many think them to be or as knowledgeable of US politics as claimed, they will call off the terror campaign as it targets the US. The Republican presence in Congress is more likely to promote a very robust response to any outrage traceable to Yemen.
The corrupt and indecisive cabal purportedly the government of Yemen had best realize this as well. Unless the Yemenis can show themselves not only rhetorically ready but physically capable of squashing Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, they will be facing a level of US involvement far transcending fifty or so Special Forces members and a drone or two.
The government of Pakistan should also wake up and smell not the coffee but the Tea. Many of the Republican "young guns" are not cut from the same cloth as previous generations of Republicans. They will be far more suspicious of Pakistan as a "valued ally" in the "joint" war on Taliban and similar groups. If the new Chairs of the relevant committees are true to their protestations, the money valve may go to "off" very fast regardless of Mr Obama's promises.
On the matter of the Defense budget, the Republicans will lose their juice rapidly if they seek to exempt the Pentagon from necessary austerity. The new leadership would be well advised to back Secretary Gates in his efforts to hold down military expenses, particularly in the big ticket area of procurement. Lots of gee whiz new gadgets will have to be left to wither on the vine if the war fighting capabilities of the US forces is to be maintained along with the commitment to lower the deficit and not raise taxes.
The Republicans would also be well advised not to to on an orgy of investigations into foreign and national security policy. This sort of activity may be emotionally satisfying given the closed nature of the administration and may generate some politically useful headlines, but will not help in the cause of forcing the administration to drop its more obnoxious addictions to ideologically driven love affairs with hostile governments or ineffective and anti-American international bodies. Searching for concealed dead bodies as events of the Nineties showed do not result in necessary changes in policy direction.
Equally unproductive, equally damaging to US national and strategic interests would be some sort of retreat into neo-neo isolationism. Some of the Tea Party movement supported Republican candidates seem to have flirted with this sort of retrenching. They are wrong as a cat barking. The world will not let the US retire to the sidelines without invoking costs of a damaging nature to We the People and our descendants.
In short, while foreign and military affairs have played no measurable role in the campaign, the reality is simply that for Congress as for President the next two years will be years of foreign policy and national security challenge. And, it does no good to restore jobs, to bring the economy back from the brink of deflation if the loudest noises heard are not cheers of thanksgiving but the explosion of Muslim detonated bombs--or the orders of the Trolls of Beijing.
The prospects for change are already bothering many in the European elite, which group seems to be convinced that the results of Tuesday's vote will be a form of Cheney on steroids. There is a notion over there to the effect that the new, Tea Party powered Republicans will constitute a triumph of the paleologues with all that implies in the area of looking for countries to invade and individuals to kidnap preparatory to waterboarding.
While these overblown flights of nightmarish fancy will not come to pass for reasons too self-evident to deserve comment, the shifts in emphasis and goals will be real--and not necessarily negative. They will, however, be discomfiting not only to European elites but to President Obama as well.
The Republicans, with very few exceptions, are far from sold on the basic tenets of anthropogenic climate change. They are even less given to believing in the necessity of heroic measures such as "cap-and-trade" or other economy distorting mandated reductions in carbon output. This reality means that the upcoming Great Festival Of Alarm in Cancun is likely to be less productive of the sort of results favored by Al Gore and company than was last year's Festival of Urgent Anxiety in Copenhagen.
The inevitable consequence will be a eagerness on the part of countries great and small to blame the US for the lack of results to say nothing of any unusual weather event anywhere in the world in the months and years to come. China in particular will seek (with high probability of success) to enhance its position with both the advocates of putting the US economy in a straitjacket and the legion of states which want a handout from Uncle Sam to offset the horrid impact of global warming upon their citizens.
Absent comprehensive legislation, the Obama administration will seek to use administrative measures and regulation to reach the same outcome. The resultant brouhaha will be both unedifying and without use in the diplomatic conflicts sure to come on the heels of "failure" in Cancun.
The enlarged Republican minority in the Senate will prove to be resistant to the apparent appeal of the new START signed by Obama and Medvedev. While the new agreement does not spell the end of American national security as has been alleged by some on the farther shore of rationality, it can be portrayed with some legitimacy as favoring the Russians over the US. Well founded questions regarding the ability of the US to modernize its nuclear arsenal exist. There are questions as well regarding any wink-and-nod deals between the American team and its Russian counterpart regarding the further development and deployment of American anti-ballistic missile systems. These two areas alone give a good basis for those Republicans who oppose the treaty.
The consequence of delay not to mention a failure to ratify the agreement will be a Russian finger on the (in)famous "reset" button. The dynamic duo in the Kremlin, particularly Vladimir The Horseman, have set Russia firmly on course to reestablish its existence as a Great Power. It is to be expected that the two would take full advantage of a seeming rebuff by the Senate as a cause for greater assertiveness on the global stage. This would not make the conduct of US foreign policy any easier.
Republicans have long shown a particular distaste for foreign aid. Provided this distaste can be shown without damaging the interests of Israel, many from the Tribe of the Elephant would take cheerful advantage of the current budget constrained environment to cut foreign assistance, or, more probably, tie such assistance very tightly to specific US interests and oversight. The current minority whip has already promised to take aid to Israel out of the State Department budget and put it into that of Defense. Need one know more?
The Geek takes a jaundiced view of foreign aid generally as history has shown few successes and many failures. The capacity of well intended but poorly advised or supervised aid to wreak unintended harm on the recipient state is well established. So is the record of corruption, graft, and akin shenanigans. Still, there is a place and need for foreign aid provided it is tied to definable US interests, properly monitored, and its success or failure accurately measured.
Even in the most constrained environment, the cost of foreign aid is minor but the results can be maximal. In addition, the provision of humanitarian relief aid is a mitzvah, an obligation imposed by a decent regard for the ethical basis of life. Realism and idealism alike require foreign aid; a tight fisted Republican hand on the money valve might go a good way to assuring the money is spent wisely and well.
The Republicans may not be so easy going on the Iranian Question as Mr Obama has been. Come to think of it, that is a foregone conclusion. Even though there is powerful evidence for the proposition that Iran's nuclear program has so many internal, inherent problems that its still a couple of years at the least from achieving a break out capacity, there are more than a few Republicans who not so secretly share the John McCain idea seen during the 2008 campaign, "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran."
Should the more or less upcoming next round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 turn out to be one more go around of the same old, same old, there will be great sentiment among the Elephants to be far more robust--particularly in pressuring companies located in allied states to cease all truck with the mullahs. That would be useful as the sanctions are far from complete in their application. The Republicans would also be less hesitant than Mr Obama in the matter of supporting the "Greens" in Iran. This also has the potential to be useful in seeking modification of Iranian behavior but is no magic bullet.
Republicans will complicate Mr Obama's announced intent of starting the draw down in American combat forces in Afghanistan in mid-2011. There is a high likelihood that the president (or some of those near the Oval) have realized the deadline was a very poor idea and the Republican opposition in the next Congress would provide welcome political cover for the reality of war. Advantage can be taken from a strong Republican posture on the withdrawal issue as it would undercut any belief on the part of either Taliban or the Men In The Shadows Of Islamabad that all that need be done to achieve ultimate victory is keeping on keeping on until the Americans start leaving in less than a year.
If Anwar al-Awlaki and other Americans who have shifted allegiances from the US to the cause of violent political Islam are as smart as so many think them to be or as knowledgeable of US politics as claimed, they will call off the terror campaign as it targets the US. The Republican presence in Congress is more likely to promote a very robust response to any outrage traceable to Yemen.
The corrupt and indecisive cabal purportedly the government of Yemen had best realize this as well. Unless the Yemenis can show themselves not only rhetorically ready but physically capable of squashing Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, they will be facing a level of US involvement far transcending fifty or so Special Forces members and a drone or two.
The government of Pakistan should also wake up and smell not the coffee but the Tea. Many of the Republican "young guns" are not cut from the same cloth as previous generations of Republicans. They will be far more suspicious of Pakistan as a "valued ally" in the "joint" war on Taliban and similar groups. If the new Chairs of the relevant committees are true to their protestations, the money valve may go to "off" very fast regardless of Mr Obama's promises.
On the matter of the Defense budget, the Republicans will lose their juice rapidly if they seek to exempt the Pentagon from necessary austerity. The new leadership would be well advised to back Secretary Gates in his efforts to hold down military expenses, particularly in the big ticket area of procurement. Lots of gee whiz new gadgets will have to be left to wither on the vine if the war fighting capabilities of the US forces is to be maintained along with the commitment to lower the deficit and not raise taxes.
The Republicans would also be well advised not to to on an orgy of investigations into foreign and national security policy. This sort of activity may be emotionally satisfying given the closed nature of the administration and may generate some politically useful headlines, but will not help in the cause of forcing the administration to drop its more obnoxious addictions to ideologically driven love affairs with hostile governments or ineffective and anti-American international bodies. Searching for concealed dead bodies as events of the Nineties showed do not result in necessary changes in policy direction.
Equally unproductive, equally damaging to US national and strategic interests would be some sort of retreat into neo-neo isolationism. Some of the Tea Party movement supported Republican candidates seem to have flirted with this sort of retrenching. They are wrong as a cat barking. The world will not let the US retire to the sidelines without invoking costs of a damaging nature to We the People and our descendants.
In short, while foreign and military affairs have played no measurable role in the campaign, the reality is simply that for Congress as for President the next two years will be years of foreign policy and national security challenge. And, it does no good to restore jobs, to bring the economy back from the brink of deflation if the loudest noises heard are not cheers of thanksgiving but the explosion of Muslim detonated bombs--or the orders of the Trolls of Beijing.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
From Europe, One Good Idea And One (Very) Bad Idea
The British and French governments are demonstrating that they have a capacity for thinking on matters diplomatic and military which is infinitely superior to that monstrous international amphyctony known as the European Union. The EU has grown from a rather decent, modest concept of enhanced economic unity to a bloated mastodon with delusions of adequacy while the British and French governments under more or less conservative leadership have shown a realistic appraisal of how diplomatic and military clothing must be cut to fit the economic cloth.
In a way quite unforeseeable only a few years ago, London and Paris are edging to a degree of military cooperation without precedent. This merging of capacities not only magnifies the military strengths of both but addresses points of relative weakness to the advantage of both countries. It is a foregone conclusion that this development will serve to amp up the diplomatic influence of both as well.
A few days hence French President Nicholas Sarkozy will hold a summit with British PM David Cameron. The high point of the meeting will be the announcement of a military alliance between the two countries which will see among other features the reconfiguration of the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to accommodate RAF aircraft. This will be a temporary(?) fix bridging the gap between the budget constricted requirement to retire the British fleet of Harrier jump jets and the commissioning of the next generation British carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, and the arrival from the US of the Joint Strike Fighter.
There will be other mergers of capacity in the structure of the new alliance. But, far more important than the details is the existence of the agreement. This bilateral approach marks a departure from the very tired thinking which has dominated Europe since the end of the Cold War and the rise of the EU. It provides a viable alternative to both the highly undesirable combined EU military force and the increasingly irrelevant and politically divided NATO.
The alliance is a natural in several basic ways. France and the UK are the only nuclear powers in Europe. Both are permanent members of the UN Security Council. Each has a sizable expeditionary force capacity and a recent history of distant operations including the ongoing one in Afghanistan where France has 4,000 troops deployed at present--not as many as the UK but more than simply symbolic. The alliance would provide a firm platform for future distant operations provided, of course, the interests of both countries are directly involved.
An indirect benefit for both comes from economies which may result from the alliance. This would assure that each state would have resources for necessary unilateral operations. France has a wide variety of post-colonial commitments in Africa as does the UK. But these commitments are of an individual not a joint nature, so it is critical that each have an autonomous capacity. The same obtains with respect to the few residues of colonial majesty still sticking to the British lion's mane such as the Falkland Islands where it is unreasonable to expect France or any other state to offer direct assistance.
The recent defense and security review conducted by the Cameron government makes it clear that the UK must operate as a partner with some alliance in most conceivable military activities. Whether with NATO or in a bilateral context with the US or, now, France, the UK has no realistic choice other than alliance based operations. Still it is essential that the UK retain a sufficient independent capability to deter, say, Argentinian ambitions regarding the Falklands.
A closer merging of intelligence capacities will accompany the enhanced military alliance. Both countries have good to excellent intelligence apparatuses and a further level of cooperation will enhance these as well. When looking at the threats today and into the near future, the name of the game is intelligence. Closer and more comprehensive sharing of assets and product will give both countries yet another leg up in the contest with advocates of violent political Islam.
All the way around, the developing alliance is a fine idea. Even the US will benefit, at least incidentally, from its existence. A thumbs-up to both London and Paris--even if it means Napoleon is spinning in his tomb.
Now for the really bad idea.
The European Union emboldened by the final ratification of the Lisbon Treaty has created a new diplomatic monster which will simultaneously undercut the ability of the individual member states to execute effective independent foreign policy and confuse the diplomatic landscape for everybody else. The grotesquely named European External Action Service (EEAS) is an equally grotesque bureaucratic blight on the great garden of diplomacy.
The EEAS is headed by a Briton, the Baroness (life peerage due to Tony Blair) Ashton. The Baroness is a person without any discernible qualification for her job to which she was appointed by Gordon Brown. As the woman has no foreign policy experience, not even a professorship in diplomacy, one can only conclude she got the job as a reward for her years of toiling in assorted Labor Party supported quangos. As a one time quangocrat Ms Ashton not only has no hands on acquaintance with the trenches of diplomacy, she has no direct contact with politics per se. She is, in short, a veteran of the remote and lofty world of unelected, unaccountable policy making boards whose let-them-eat-cake attitude toward the inhabitants of the real world is legendary.
The Baroness has a true barony at her disposal. The EEAS disposes of some 7,000 eurocrats who will labor not only in the Brussels headquarters but in some 137 embassies around the world. Nor is the Baroness Ashton's fiefdom impoverished. Its budget comes in at approximately twelve billion dollars. That is pretty top drawer--as is the Baroness's own reward, nearly three quarters of a million dollars not including perks and bennies.
The personnel deployments are a bit confusing. There will be forty-six diplomats in the tiny but luscious island of Barbados. The Turkish contingent amounts to 132 which outstrips the 124 assigned to the US. Morocco will get ninety-two nudging the less scenic and far more dangerous Afghanistan's eighty-five. Twenty-nine eurocrats will fetch up in Tajikistan while thirty-one will wade ashore in Yemen. The numbers roll on and on with little if any relation to either the interests in play or any other real world consideration until the least favored country of Togo gets a mere three, not even enough for a game of whist.
The assorted poohbahs and panjandrums will be housed in appropriately expensive quarters and will ride about in splendid armor plated limos.
As the citizens of the Barony of Ashton ride about so also will they sow diplomatic confusion. The standard has already been set by the EEAS man in Washington, Joao Vale de Almeida, who let it be known that he spoke for all the EU member states. He modestly told the assembled press that, where the EU had a unified position, "I am the one leading the show."
Well, this implies that either the EU will have a common position on everything, in which case the member states could save a lot of money by shutting down their embassies for all except routine functions such as visas, or there will not be many common stances, so even the EEAS heavyweight is superfluous. In either alternative, the existence of the EEAS "ambassador" will raise the question of who is in charge here?
In the best of times, diplomacy is often conducted in turbid waters. The addition of a foreign policy equivalent of a fifth wheel in no way clarifies the murk.
The Lisbon Treaty removed the requirement that all EU foreign policy decisions be unanimous. This means that the EEAS may work against the policy interests of one or more member states. For example, if a majority of EU members vote to cozy up to Tehran, the EEAS will do just that not only in Iran but in other capitals where the eurocratic version of ambassadors will press their host to also hug the ayatollahs tighter.
Stances to the contrary dictated by national interests would not matter. Thanks to the splendors of democracy, the majority would rule, even if, as in the case of Iran, major players such as the UK, France, and Germany are in the dissenting minority.
The consideration of conflict between a majority position and those of individual members is not academic. It has already been seen in the context of Hamas and the Gaza Strip as well as with regard to Israel. It deserves noting in this regard that the Baroness has bloviated at some length about her "clout" in Gaza due to her record of securing financial assistance for the terroristic thugs who run the place.
Looking ahead, the EEAS poses a long term threat to the diplomatic establishments of all its member states. Due to the very high salary schedules, a budding diplomat faced by a choice between his own country's foreign service and the EU's apparatus will be tempted sorely to go with the money. This means over time each member will be bled of its most ambitious, most able, and most promising diplomats. This may bode well for the dreams of the collectivists of Europe, but it has no good impact for the several states.
That was probably one of the intentions of those Eurocrats who designed and built the EEAS. To these worthies the notion of nation is anathema. So, they no doubt have hoped that starving each member of talent will be the best way of bringing the hated nation-state to the desired status of extinction.
Now, bucko, that is a really bad idea.
In a way quite unforeseeable only a few years ago, London and Paris are edging to a degree of military cooperation without precedent. This merging of capacities not only magnifies the military strengths of both but addresses points of relative weakness to the advantage of both countries. It is a foregone conclusion that this development will serve to amp up the diplomatic influence of both as well.
A few days hence French President Nicholas Sarkozy will hold a summit with British PM David Cameron. The high point of the meeting will be the announcement of a military alliance between the two countries which will see among other features the reconfiguration of the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to accommodate RAF aircraft. This will be a temporary(?) fix bridging the gap between the budget constricted requirement to retire the British fleet of Harrier jump jets and the commissioning of the next generation British carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, and the arrival from the US of the Joint Strike Fighter.
There will be other mergers of capacity in the structure of the new alliance. But, far more important than the details is the existence of the agreement. This bilateral approach marks a departure from the very tired thinking which has dominated Europe since the end of the Cold War and the rise of the EU. It provides a viable alternative to both the highly undesirable combined EU military force and the increasingly irrelevant and politically divided NATO.
The alliance is a natural in several basic ways. France and the UK are the only nuclear powers in Europe. Both are permanent members of the UN Security Council. Each has a sizable expeditionary force capacity and a recent history of distant operations including the ongoing one in Afghanistan where France has 4,000 troops deployed at present--not as many as the UK but more than simply symbolic. The alliance would provide a firm platform for future distant operations provided, of course, the interests of both countries are directly involved.
An indirect benefit for both comes from economies which may result from the alliance. This would assure that each state would have resources for necessary unilateral operations. France has a wide variety of post-colonial commitments in Africa as does the UK. But these commitments are of an individual not a joint nature, so it is critical that each have an autonomous capacity. The same obtains with respect to the few residues of colonial majesty still sticking to the British lion's mane such as the Falkland Islands where it is unreasonable to expect France or any other state to offer direct assistance.
The recent defense and security review conducted by the Cameron government makes it clear that the UK must operate as a partner with some alliance in most conceivable military activities. Whether with NATO or in a bilateral context with the US or, now, France, the UK has no realistic choice other than alliance based operations. Still it is essential that the UK retain a sufficient independent capability to deter, say, Argentinian ambitions regarding the Falklands.
A closer merging of intelligence capacities will accompany the enhanced military alliance. Both countries have good to excellent intelligence apparatuses and a further level of cooperation will enhance these as well. When looking at the threats today and into the near future, the name of the game is intelligence. Closer and more comprehensive sharing of assets and product will give both countries yet another leg up in the contest with advocates of violent political Islam.
All the way around, the developing alliance is a fine idea. Even the US will benefit, at least incidentally, from its existence. A thumbs-up to both London and Paris--even if it means Napoleon is spinning in his tomb.
Now for the really bad idea.
The European Union emboldened by the final ratification of the Lisbon Treaty has created a new diplomatic monster which will simultaneously undercut the ability of the individual member states to execute effective independent foreign policy and confuse the diplomatic landscape for everybody else. The grotesquely named European External Action Service (EEAS) is an equally grotesque bureaucratic blight on the great garden of diplomacy.
The EEAS is headed by a Briton, the Baroness (life peerage due to Tony Blair) Ashton. The Baroness is a person without any discernible qualification for her job to which she was appointed by Gordon Brown. As the woman has no foreign policy experience, not even a professorship in diplomacy, one can only conclude she got the job as a reward for her years of toiling in assorted Labor Party supported quangos. As a one time quangocrat Ms Ashton not only has no hands on acquaintance with the trenches of diplomacy, she has no direct contact with politics per se. She is, in short, a veteran of the remote and lofty world of unelected, unaccountable policy making boards whose let-them-eat-cake attitude toward the inhabitants of the real world is legendary.
The Baroness has a true barony at her disposal. The EEAS disposes of some 7,000 eurocrats who will labor not only in the Brussels headquarters but in some 137 embassies around the world. Nor is the Baroness Ashton's fiefdom impoverished. Its budget comes in at approximately twelve billion dollars. That is pretty top drawer--as is the Baroness's own reward, nearly three quarters of a million dollars not including perks and bennies.
The personnel deployments are a bit confusing. There will be forty-six diplomats in the tiny but luscious island of Barbados. The Turkish contingent amounts to 132 which outstrips the 124 assigned to the US. Morocco will get ninety-two nudging the less scenic and far more dangerous Afghanistan's eighty-five. Twenty-nine eurocrats will fetch up in Tajikistan while thirty-one will wade ashore in Yemen. The numbers roll on and on with little if any relation to either the interests in play or any other real world consideration until the least favored country of Togo gets a mere three, not even enough for a game of whist.
The assorted poohbahs and panjandrums will be housed in appropriately expensive quarters and will ride about in splendid armor plated limos.
As the citizens of the Barony of Ashton ride about so also will they sow diplomatic confusion. The standard has already been set by the EEAS man in Washington, Joao Vale de Almeida, who let it be known that he spoke for all the EU member states. He modestly told the assembled press that, where the EU had a unified position, "I am the one leading the show."
Well, this implies that either the EU will have a common position on everything, in which case the member states could save a lot of money by shutting down their embassies for all except routine functions such as visas, or there will not be many common stances, so even the EEAS heavyweight is superfluous. In either alternative, the existence of the EEAS "ambassador" will raise the question of who is in charge here?
In the best of times, diplomacy is often conducted in turbid waters. The addition of a foreign policy equivalent of a fifth wheel in no way clarifies the murk.
The Lisbon Treaty removed the requirement that all EU foreign policy decisions be unanimous. This means that the EEAS may work against the policy interests of one or more member states. For example, if a majority of EU members vote to cozy up to Tehran, the EEAS will do just that not only in Iran but in other capitals where the eurocratic version of ambassadors will press their host to also hug the ayatollahs tighter.
Stances to the contrary dictated by national interests would not matter. Thanks to the splendors of democracy, the majority would rule, even if, as in the case of Iran, major players such as the UK, France, and Germany are in the dissenting minority.
The consideration of conflict between a majority position and those of individual members is not academic. It has already been seen in the context of Hamas and the Gaza Strip as well as with regard to Israel. It deserves noting in this regard that the Baroness has bloviated at some length about her "clout" in Gaza due to her record of securing financial assistance for the terroristic thugs who run the place.
Looking ahead, the EEAS poses a long term threat to the diplomatic establishments of all its member states. Due to the very high salary schedules, a budding diplomat faced by a choice between his own country's foreign service and the EU's apparatus will be tempted sorely to go with the money. This means over time each member will be bled of its most ambitious, most able, and most promising diplomats. This may bode well for the dreams of the collectivists of Europe, but it has no good impact for the several states.
That was probably one of the intentions of those Eurocrats who designed and built the EEAS. To these worthies the notion of nation is anathema. So, they no doubt have hoped that starving each member of talent will be the best way of bringing the hated nation-state to the desired status of extinction.
Now, bucko, that is a really bad idea.
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