To survive, let alone succeed, Islamists and Jihadists need the support of the Islamic communities in which they are attempting to operate. Wannabe governments, guerrillas, even terrorists, need shelter, support, and assistance.
They need people!
This is particularly true in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan where the Islamist/Jihadist entities are waging war. It's just here, in the war zones, that the Islamists are blowing it the worst.
In North Waziristan the "foreigners," primarily from Uzbekistan, have been hanging around since the US led invasion. At first they were well received by the locals since they were both well armed and well disciplined. More recently as pressure has increased, the Uzbek guerrillas have been making exactions and imposing severe interpretations of Islamic law on the Tribal residents. Now, the foreigners have been given unmistakable notice that they have outworn their welcome. The locals have started shooting them.
Tough luck, boys. Guess you'll have to be moving on. Go north, young Uzbek. NATO and the Americans, to say nothing of the Afghans, are waiting.
In Helmand province, the local Taliban types have backed off from sternly enforcing their dictates on fashion and musical tastes. They still state what they believe is required of good Muslims in these areas of personal life. But, they no longer slit throats or heave stones. This change in behavior may be because they hope to take part in potential peace talks with the central government. It is equally, if not more, likely that the locals were chafing under the restrictive Taliban worldview and were tilting toward more active support of the Kabul government and its outside supporters.
Live long and perhaps prosper, Talibanista.
In Iraq, the popularity of al-Qaeda in Iraq and akin groups has been hitting the tank in recent months. This has been exhibited in the increasing factionation within the al-Qaeda leaning amphyctony. It has been underscored by the recent audio tape issued by Icon-In-Hiding Osama bin Laden bemoaning the fissioning process.
More to the point, the alienation of the population by the zealots of Islamism through such measures as cutting the fingers off people caught smoking and similar condign punishments for equally important violations of Islamic law as interpreted by theological deep thinkers has assured a mighty uptick in the effectiveness of US efforts to recruit local Concerned Citizens ready and willing to dime out the blackhats. This in turn has brought a decrease in enemy initiated actions.
Increased effectiveness by pro-government forces coupled with decreased enemy initiated actions means fewer people are being killed. This means the governmental simulacrum in Baghdad has a (short in all probability) chance to demonstrate that it is a government in fact, not simply in title.
Back during the long, long confrontation between the US and the West on the one side and the Soviet Union on the other, the greatest support for the American cause came from people of the political left. People who had come very close to the flame of communism and had been badly burned for their effort. These individuals, whether in Western Europe or the US, were the best informed and most resolute opponents of Communism.
We have to take a firm grip on that lesson of recent history.
Muslims, particularly those who have come close to the fire of Islamism and have lived to tell of it, are the most important ally in the current struggle against the Islamists and Jihadists. They know and understand from up close and personal experience just what the real life, real world impact of the Islamist worldview is. We must use this powerful aid.
Often during the First Cold War of 1945-1991 Americans made the mistake of ignoring the experiences of ex-communists, of people from the far Left who backed away toward the center. We acted as if they were forever polluted by their experiences. Contaminated. Political lepers.
Or, as was often the case with Europeans of the Left who did not agree with the totality of American policy, we cast them into the category, "Commie!" We didn't simply ignore them or quarantine them. No. We condemned them.
All too often the world for Americans was artificially divided. Them or US. America! Love it or Hate it!
We cannot make that mistake again. The Muslims, particularly those who have lived with or under Islamist domination, are critical assets. We must welcome them as partners in struggle.
We have to let al-Qaeda, Taliban, and the other Islamists commit the blunder of alienating the people without whose support they have no hope of even surviving.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
The Geek Makes A Confession--And A Demand
Once upon a time the Geek flirted with being an ant-anti-communist. That was the inevitable result of having come of age in the Sixties after years of anti-communist indoctrination in the public school system.
(Perhaps you remember those days too. Duck and cover. My Weekly Reader with primitive political cartoons showing a red octopus holding the globe in his tentacles. Maybe you even collected the bubble gum cards featuring commie atrocities.)
If you are chronologically disadvantaged, you may have read or heard of the dismal days of the Great American Anti-Communist Crusade, better known as the Era of Great Fear or the Age of McCarthyism. Those were the days of blacklists. The days of loyalty oaths. The time of shrill demands to know, "Are you now or have you ever been...?"
By the time the Vietnam Debacle ended and Nixon left the White House covered in Watergate disgrace, the cause of anti-communism seemed dead. American communists and the wide assortment of fellow-travellers were seen as the victims of the worst sort of political assassination. Anti-communists were lumped together with J. Edgar Hoover and the wacky loonie-tunes Billy James Hargis sort as violators of the First Amendment at best and out and out Hitler clones at worst.
Even the most respectable anti-communists such as Paul Nitze, Norman Podhoeritz, and Alexander Solozhenitsyn were branded as mentally disturbed, neo-conservative warmongers, or throwbacks to the Stone Age of the Cold War.
Anti-anti-communism was one feature of a generation's defining mythology. The spirit of anti-anti-communism merged with other streams to form the current American focus on sensitivity, diversity, and the belief that there are no fixed, absolute ethical standards which apply to all people, all cultures, at all times and places.
This combination of over-sensitivity and fear of seeming to be reactionary has become a barrier to success in the new Cold War forced upon us by the Islamists.
Without standards of conduct, it is impossible for us to know what we are for--as well as what we must oppose in others.
Without real and absolute benchmarks, it is all to easy to fall prey to Islamists or their sympathisers accusing us of false crimes, for example, religious persecution. The cry of "Islamophobia" is hurled at anyone who takes a jaundiced look at the goals and methods of the Islamists and their armed component, Jihadism.
As a current example of this abuse see, http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200710/CUL20071031b.html.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has been eager to heave the Islamophobia grenade at any person, organisation, or group in the West which finds some Islamist gambit such as issuing a fatwa of death on the Danish cartoonist who put Mohammad's head on a dog's body objectionable. The OIC has been working the halls and lobbies of the UN long and hard in an attempt to enlist support in its effort to outlaw free speech in the West.
Free speech is a good candidate for an absolute standard. Authoritarian movements and regimes ranging from Nazism to Communism to Islamism are defined in large measure by their need to prohibit free speech. Liberal, democratic nations and peoples are in large part defined by free and open speech (even by their bitter, internal fights over what speech should or should not be protected.)
One of the most objectionable and self-defeating features of the Great American Anti-Communist Crusade was the willingness to curtail free speech in the interests of "protecting" Americans (particularly young ones) against the blandishments of Communism. It is a cliche to assert that the answer to "bad" speech is more speech.
Cliche? Yes. But, like all cliches this one contains a large grain of truth.
There is no Gresham's Law in speech. Bad speech need not automatically drive out good.
It is no wonder that Islamists all the way back to Qtub loath free speech, particularly as practiced in the United States. Freedom of speech leads to any number of other social and political features which are anathema to Islamists as they have been to other authoritarians.
You want some examples? The Geek is happy to oblige. You can add to the list.
The dignity of the individual is one.
Equality is another. (Feel free to add all the ways in which equality can manifest itself.)
Then there are advancement, evolution, and change. (Again the ways in which these can take form are legion.)
This gives some basis for the Geek's contention that freedom of speech is an absolute standard by which we can measure ourselves--and know our enemies.
There are other standards which may be advanced as well. During the Cold War between the US and USSR many were suggested. Political pluralism was one. Another was the freedom of the individual to practice a religion without the permission or hindrance of the state. Still another was the right of private property ownership. Yet another was access to economic opportunity without state interference or the necessity of party authorization. Then there was the right to travel, to move freely within a state, or to emigrate.
Arguably, these are all standards by which a country's or a movement's commitment to the dignity, opportunity, and integrity of the individual might be measured. Some can be defined as absolutes. Others are inherently conditional.
Be that as it may, we Americans--and all of us threatened by Islamism's global goals--must develop and at least tacitly agree on a set of standards. Only by doing this can we advance our cause by knowing what we are for.
Only by doing this, by developing and firmly enunciating a set of absolutes, can we assure that the opposition does not engage in the same successful tactic as did the anti-anti-communists of thirty and more years ago. To succeed against a challenge at least as severe as that posed by the Soviet Union, we must not allow the moral high ground to pulled from under our feet by shrieks of "insensitivity!" or "religious persecution!" or, worst of all, "Islamophobia!"
Only by knowing and declaring what we are for, will we ever know what and who wer're against.
(Perhaps you remember those days too. Duck and cover. My Weekly Reader with primitive political cartoons showing a red octopus holding the globe in his tentacles. Maybe you even collected the bubble gum cards featuring commie atrocities.)
If you are chronologically disadvantaged, you may have read or heard of the dismal days of the Great American Anti-Communist Crusade, better known as the Era of Great Fear or the Age of McCarthyism. Those were the days of blacklists. The days of loyalty oaths. The time of shrill demands to know, "Are you now or have you ever been...?"
By the time the Vietnam Debacle ended and Nixon left the White House covered in Watergate disgrace, the cause of anti-communism seemed dead. American communists and the wide assortment of fellow-travellers were seen as the victims of the worst sort of political assassination. Anti-communists were lumped together with J. Edgar Hoover and the wacky loonie-tunes Billy James Hargis sort as violators of the First Amendment at best and out and out Hitler clones at worst.
Even the most respectable anti-communists such as Paul Nitze, Norman Podhoeritz, and Alexander Solozhenitsyn were branded as mentally disturbed, neo-conservative warmongers, or throwbacks to the Stone Age of the Cold War.
Anti-anti-communism was one feature of a generation's defining mythology. The spirit of anti-anti-communism merged with other streams to form the current American focus on sensitivity, diversity, and the belief that there are no fixed, absolute ethical standards which apply to all people, all cultures, at all times and places.
This combination of over-sensitivity and fear of seeming to be reactionary has become a barrier to success in the new Cold War forced upon us by the Islamists.
Without standards of conduct, it is impossible for us to know what we are for--as well as what we must oppose in others.
Without real and absolute benchmarks, it is all to easy to fall prey to Islamists or their sympathisers accusing us of false crimes, for example, religious persecution. The cry of "Islamophobia" is hurled at anyone who takes a jaundiced look at the goals and methods of the Islamists and their armed component, Jihadism.
As a current example of this abuse see, http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200710/CUL20071031b.html.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has been eager to heave the Islamophobia grenade at any person, organisation, or group in the West which finds some Islamist gambit such as issuing a fatwa of death on the Danish cartoonist who put Mohammad's head on a dog's body objectionable. The OIC has been working the halls and lobbies of the UN long and hard in an attempt to enlist support in its effort to outlaw free speech in the West.
Free speech is a good candidate for an absolute standard. Authoritarian movements and regimes ranging from Nazism to Communism to Islamism are defined in large measure by their need to prohibit free speech. Liberal, democratic nations and peoples are in large part defined by free and open speech (even by their bitter, internal fights over what speech should or should not be protected.)
One of the most objectionable and self-defeating features of the Great American Anti-Communist Crusade was the willingness to curtail free speech in the interests of "protecting" Americans (particularly young ones) against the blandishments of Communism. It is a cliche to assert that the answer to "bad" speech is more speech.
Cliche? Yes. But, like all cliches this one contains a large grain of truth.
There is no Gresham's Law in speech. Bad speech need not automatically drive out good.
It is no wonder that Islamists all the way back to Qtub loath free speech, particularly as practiced in the United States. Freedom of speech leads to any number of other social and political features which are anathema to Islamists as they have been to other authoritarians.
You want some examples? The Geek is happy to oblige. You can add to the list.
The dignity of the individual is one.
Equality is another. (Feel free to add all the ways in which equality can manifest itself.)
Then there are advancement, evolution, and change. (Again the ways in which these can take form are legion.)
This gives some basis for the Geek's contention that freedom of speech is an absolute standard by which we can measure ourselves--and know our enemies.
There are other standards which may be advanced as well. During the Cold War between the US and USSR many were suggested. Political pluralism was one. Another was the freedom of the individual to practice a religion without the permission or hindrance of the state. Still another was the right of private property ownership. Yet another was access to economic opportunity without state interference or the necessity of party authorization. Then there was the right to travel, to move freely within a state, or to emigrate.
Arguably, these are all standards by which a country's or a movement's commitment to the dignity, opportunity, and integrity of the individual might be measured. Some can be defined as absolutes. Others are inherently conditional.
Be that as it may, we Americans--and all of us threatened by Islamism's global goals--must develop and at least tacitly agree on a set of standards. Only by doing this can we advance our cause by knowing what we are for.
Only by doing this, by developing and firmly enunciating a set of absolutes, can we assure that the opposition does not engage in the same successful tactic as did the anti-anti-communists of thirty and more years ago. To succeed against a challenge at least as severe as that posed by the Soviet Union, we must not allow the moral high ground to pulled from under our feet by shrieks of "insensitivity!" or "religious persecution!" or, worst of all, "Islamophobia!"
Only by knowing and declaring what we are for, will we ever know what and who wer're against.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Who's King Abdullah Kidding?
The present head of the House on Sand, King Abdullah, told BBC (through an interpreter, so there's an escape hatch open if things get too hot) that his government(?) informed British intelligence and security organs of the upcoming attack on the London subway system on 7 July 05. His Royalness further averred that the British failed to act on the information.
Yeah. Right.
In the opposite corner is the British Parliament. Last year the House of Commons' Intelligence and Security Committee found no evidence that any specific information existed which could have led to a successful interdiction of the bombings.
Who do you think is more credible?
Parliament, rather like the US Congress in the wake of 9/11, was after scalps more than fixes. If there had been any gripless wallahs in any of the intelligence and security agencies, the Parliamentarians would have wasted no time lifting the offender's hair. The deaths of over fifty British civilians were enough to assure the low likelihood of a whitewash or cover up.
Then there is King Abdullah.
Admittedly, this Grand Panjandrum of the Dunes is seen as the most "liberal," "progressive" of the six Saudi chieftains of modern times. It has been widely reported that he, unlike his predecessors, is working night and day to curb the omnipresent influence of the Wahhabist clergy. It has also been bruited about that this king, again unlike all of those before him, has been really, really trying to bring Saudi Arabia beyond being a medieval patch of sand with oceans of oil below.
Sure. Yeah. Right.
In so far as the jihad promises to come home to roost on the oil, blood, and sand from which it sprang, the Good King is anxious to enlist the self-interested support of the Wahhabists. Stability is the goal as well in the few other "modernising, liberalising, progressive" changes in Saudi economic, political, and social life which Abdullah has sought.
The Geek would advise the King and his consorts to keep four words in mind: actions on the objective.
Actions, my dear kingness, as the cliche runs, speak louder than words.
The following actions seem to be in order. Shut down Saudi support for the oodles of mosques and madrassas in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere which preach the messages of Islamism and Jihadism. Cooperate completely (and as transparently as genuine security needs allow) with the the UK, the US, and others in stopping the flow of money to Islamist/Jihadist groups. Halt the flow of wannabe jihadists from Saudi Arabia.
Those actions would be a necessary beginning. If done, there would be reason to take King Abdullah seriously as a partner in the current confrontation with Islamism. Without actions, Abdullah's words are no more than a hot desert wind.
Yeah. Right.
In the opposite corner is the British Parliament. Last year the House of Commons' Intelligence and Security Committee found no evidence that any specific information existed which could have led to a successful interdiction of the bombings.
Who do you think is more credible?
Parliament, rather like the US Congress in the wake of 9/11, was after scalps more than fixes. If there had been any gripless wallahs in any of the intelligence and security agencies, the Parliamentarians would have wasted no time lifting the offender's hair. The deaths of over fifty British civilians were enough to assure the low likelihood of a whitewash or cover up.
Then there is King Abdullah.
Admittedly, this Grand Panjandrum of the Dunes is seen as the most "liberal," "progressive" of the six Saudi chieftains of modern times. It has been widely reported that he, unlike his predecessors, is working night and day to curb the omnipresent influence of the Wahhabist clergy. It has also been bruited about that this king, again unlike all of those before him, has been really, really trying to bring Saudi Arabia beyond being a medieval patch of sand with oceans of oil below.
Sure. Yeah. Right.
In so far as the jihad promises to come home to roost on the oil, blood, and sand from which it sprang, the Good King is anxious to enlist the self-interested support of the Wahhabists. Stability is the goal as well in the few other "modernising, liberalising, progressive" changes in Saudi economic, political, and social life which Abdullah has sought.
The Geek would advise the King and his consorts to keep four words in mind: actions on the objective.
Actions, my dear kingness, as the cliche runs, speak louder than words.
The following actions seem to be in order. Shut down Saudi support for the oodles of mosques and madrassas in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere which preach the messages of Islamism and Jihadism. Cooperate completely (and as transparently as genuine security needs allow) with the the UK, the US, and others in stopping the flow of money to Islamist/Jihadist groups. Halt the flow of wannabe jihadists from Saudi Arabia.
Those actions would be a necessary beginning. If done, there would be reason to take King Abdullah seriously as a partner in the current confrontation with Islamism. Without actions, Abdullah's words are no more than a hot desert wind.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
The Geek Is Getting Rankled!
Previous posts show that the Geek is no cheerleader for the mullahocracy in Tehran. They have also demonstrated that the Geek is no war lover even though he accepts that war has its place in the spectrum of foreign policy.
Most of all, the sum of the Geek's posts underscore his utter contempt for policy decisions that are rooted (if that word is relevant in this context) in the gonads and viscera. Policies decisions that ignore historical trajectories. Policy choices that emerge from a vile combination of hopes or fears and domestic political calculations.
This brings the Geek to Iran. More particularly it brings the Geek to the subject of the Republicans vs the Mullahs.
At the often ignored center of the current confrontation between the Commander Guy on the one side and the Orator-in-Chief on the other is the International Atomic Energy Agency and its present director, Mohammed ElBaradei. The IAEA is charged with the responsibility of assuring member nations abide by the provisions of the treaties governing the peaceful use of atomic energy and nuclear weapon non-proliferation.
Get a grip on this.
The IAEA exists because the United States called it into existence.
"What!" You say.
That's right. Fifty years ago this year, President Dwight Eisenhower, in what many both at the time and later considered his finest speech, called upon the United Nations to create an agency dedicated to bringing atomic energy's potentials for benefit to all the nations of the world. He pledged not only complete American cooperation but even the provision of nuclear knowledge, technology, and materials for use under the agency's supervision.
Ike needed to use massive political arm twisting here at home to force changes in the extremely restrictive American laws governing nuclear matters. He did it. The laws were changed. The IAEA came into existence.
When asked about the IAEA years later, Ike reportedly looked out the window of his Gettysburg home, mused for a moment and answered with his famous smile, "It's working better than I hoped."
Taken as a whole, the IAEA has worked remarkably well over its fifty year life so far. It seems to be working rather well even with the obvious Iranian intransigence right now. Arguably, it would work even better if the current administration let it do its job.
It is reported that Mohammed ElBaradei sees no evidence of the Iranians being anywhere near the possession of an atomic bomb. In a companion remark, the IAEA head shows an appropriate degree of skepticism, "We have information that there has been maybe some studies about possible weaponization. That's why we have said that we cannot give Iran a pass right now, because there is still a lot of question marks." (Quote from The International Herald Tribune on-line http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/10/28/america/NA-GEN-US-Iran.php.)
The skeptical view is well taken. Iran has been playing games from hell over their self-proclaimed peaceful project to produce electricity. Given their record of obfuscation, tergiversation, and flat out lying, anything less would be foolhardy. (Now comes the big, BUT.)
Skepticism is not what the current administration has been exhibiting in recent months and weeks. Instead, the current administration has been acting as if it had proof-positive that the Iranians were not only seeking to obtain nuclear weapons but were on the very verge of doing so.
Unless one wishes to posit that the chest-thumping, crotch-pulling stridency coming from the mouths of the Commander Guy, the Veep, and assorted presidential wannabes is simply a successful attempt to boost oil company profits by driving the spot-market price of crude to record highs, the only explanation for their behavior is cognitive deficiency.
Kind of a "don't bother me with wimpy little facts, I wanna kick some ass" attitude. This sort of orientation might make both the utterer of threats and many of the audience feel good, but it is not the sort of approach that has shown positive results historically.
Get a grip on this--
Outside pressure consolidates the cohesion and political will of the target government and its citizens, (Think about how you make a snowball.)
Yeah, bucko, that's right. Pick up a handful of loose snow. Press it. Press it long enough and hard enough, the flakes become a solid mass. Press on it long enough and hard enough and what happens?
That's right. The snowball becomes an ice ball.
Repeat after the Geek, "Pressure consolidates long before it fractures."
Did that? Good. Now you have a major, basic fact of foreign policy which has totally eluded the current administration.
Our ill-considered approach has had the following negative effects. It has liberated the mullahocracy from much of the domestic unrest which would have been making its life miserable given the current economic condition of Iran and the demographics of the Iranian population. It has given the mullahocracy reason to be even more intransigent than would otherwise have been the case. It has forced the mullahocracy to invest the totality of national prestige and regime legitimacy in the nuclear issue and closely related matters.
Now, get a grip on this.
Our approach to the Iranians has helped two countries hostile to the US: the Peoples' Republic of China and Russia. Apparently the current administration hasn't gotten the word. Anything that diverts the US into unproductive, expensive, and influence draining side tracks hurts the US and helps these two adversaries.
Make no mistake about it. Regardless of the hopes of some Americans such as the "gobalism-will-solve-all" crowd, Walmart, and other business interests, China shares few, if any, national interests with the United States. Again, regardless of the hopes (or fears) of some Americans, Russia has not shed its fundamentally authoritarian inclination nor its historic feeling of inferiority compared to the West. Russians have been asking that most troublesome of all questions, the question which produced European Fascism, the question which underlies Islamism.
The Question?
"We were once great; now we are so small. Why?"
The policies of the current administration have encouraged the Russians to ask the Question. The policies of the current administration regarding Iran are encouraging both Moscow and Beijing to take actions which are best described as a form of diplomatic proxy war.
The new sanctions announced by the current administration are a justified gambit, particularly if the Europeans (perhaps convinced by a re-awakened "Crazy American Hypothesis") prove willing to join them despite economic losses to European businesses.
If so, then the emotional diatribes and not-so-veiled threats coming from the current administration can be rationalised, if not fully justified. Yet, the time for red meat rhetoric has passed. The time has come for some silence from the White House (and the campaign trail.)
If the Republicans (or at least the neocon ninnie component of that party) cannot remember Dwight Eisenhower who both created the IAEA and warned against the creation of a garrison state in pursing the chimera of complete security, they sure ought to remember Theodore Roosevelt. That was the hairy chested president who counseled speaking softly while holding a big stick.
The Geek is no admirer of Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich), the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He's got to give the senator his due. Levin is right when he said it was time to stop the "hot rhetoric."
ElBaradei was even more on target. "My fear is that if we continue to escalate from both sides that we will end up into a precipice, we will end up into an abyss. As I said, the Middle East is in a total mess, to say the least. And we cannot add fuel to the fire."
Bang on!, Mr ElBaradei.
There's always time enough for war. We can wait--at least for awhile.
Most of all, the sum of the Geek's posts underscore his utter contempt for policy decisions that are rooted (if that word is relevant in this context) in the gonads and viscera. Policies decisions that ignore historical trajectories. Policy choices that emerge from a vile combination of hopes or fears and domestic political calculations.
This brings the Geek to Iran. More particularly it brings the Geek to the subject of the Republicans vs the Mullahs.
At the often ignored center of the current confrontation between the Commander Guy on the one side and the Orator-in-Chief on the other is the International Atomic Energy Agency and its present director, Mohammed ElBaradei. The IAEA is charged with the responsibility of assuring member nations abide by the provisions of the treaties governing the peaceful use of atomic energy and nuclear weapon non-proliferation.
Get a grip on this.
The IAEA exists because the United States called it into existence.
"What!" You say.
That's right. Fifty years ago this year, President Dwight Eisenhower, in what many both at the time and later considered his finest speech, called upon the United Nations to create an agency dedicated to bringing atomic energy's potentials for benefit to all the nations of the world. He pledged not only complete American cooperation but even the provision of nuclear knowledge, technology, and materials for use under the agency's supervision.
Ike needed to use massive political arm twisting here at home to force changes in the extremely restrictive American laws governing nuclear matters. He did it. The laws were changed. The IAEA came into existence.
When asked about the IAEA years later, Ike reportedly looked out the window of his Gettysburg home, mused for a moment and answered with his famous smile, "It's working better than I hoped."
Taken as a whole, the IAEA has worked remarkably well over its fifty year life so far. It seems to be working rather well even with the obvious Iranian intransigence right now. Arguably, it would work even better if the current administration let it do its job.
It is reported that Mohammed ElBaradei sees no evidence of the Iranians being anywhere near the possession of an atomic bomb. In a companion remark, the IAEA head shows an appropriate degree of skepticism, "We have information that there has been maybe some studies about possible weaponization. That's why we have said that we cannot give Iran a pass right now, because there is still a lot of question marks." (Quote from The International Herald Tribune on-line http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/10/28/america/NA-GEN-US-Iran.php.)
The skeptical view is well taken. Iran has been playing games from hell over their self-proclaimed peaceful project to produce electricity. Given their record of obfuscation, tergiversation, and flat out lying, anything less would be foolhardy. (Now comes the big, BUT.)
Skepticism is not what the current administration has been exhibiting in recent months and weeks. Instead, the current administration has been acting as if it had proof-positive that the Iranians were not only seeking to obtain nuclear weapons but were on the very verge of doing so.
Unless one wishes to posit that the chest-thumping, crotch-pulling stridency coming from the mouths of the Commander Guy, the Veep, and assorted presidential wannabes is simply a successful attempt to boost oil company profits by driving the spot-market price of crude to record highs, the only explanation for their behavior is cognitive deficiency.
Kind of a "don't bother me with wimpy little facts, I wanna kick some ass" attitude. This sort of orientation might make both the utterer of threats and many of the audience feel good, but it is not the sort of approach that has shown positive results historically.
Get a grip on this--
Outside pressure consolidates the cohesion and political will of the target government and its citizens, (Think about how you make a snowball.)
Yeah, bucko, that's right. Pick up a handful of loose snow. Press it. Press it long enough and hard enough, the flakes become a solid mass. Press on it long enough and hard enough and what happens?
That's right. The snowball becomes an ice ball.
Repeat after the Geek, "Pressure consolidates long before it fractures."
Did that? Good. Now you have a major, basic fact of foreign policy which has totally eluded the current administration.
Our ill-considered approach has had the following negative effects. It has liberated the mullahocracy from much of the domestic unrest which would have been making its life miserable given the current economic condition of Iran and the demographics of the Iranian population. It has given the mullahocracy reason to be even more intransigent than would otherwise have been the case. It has forced the mullahocracy to invest the totality of national prestige and regime legitimacy in the nuclear issue and closely related matters.
Now, get a grip on this.
Our approach to the Iranians has helped two countries hostile to the US: the Peoples' Republic of China and Russia. Apparently the current administration hasn't gotten the word. Anything that diverts the US into unproductive, expensive, and influence draining side tracks hurts the US and helps these two adversaries.
Make no mistake about it. Regardless of the hopes of some Americans such as the "gobalism-will-solve-all" crowd, Walmart, and other business interests, China shares few, if any, national interests with the United States. Again, regardless of the hopes (or fears) of some Americans, Russia has not shed its fundamentally authoritarian inclination nor its historic feeling of inferiority compared to the West. Russians have been asking that most troublesome of all questions, the question which produced European Fascism, the question which underlies Islamism.
The Question?
"We were once great; now we are so small. Why?"
The policies of the current administration have encouraged the Russians to ask the Question. The policies of the current administration regarding Iran are encouraging both Moscow and Beijing to take actions which are best described as a form of diplomatic proxy war.
The new sanctions announced by the current administration are a justified gambit, particularly if the Europeans (perhaps convinced by a re-awakened "Crazy American Hypothesis") prove willing to join them despite economic losses to European businesses.
If so, then the emotional diatribes and not-so-veiled threats coming from the current administration can be rationalised, if not fully justified. Yet, the time for red meat rhetoric has passed. The time has come for some silence from the White House (and the campaign trail.)
If the Republicans (or at least the neocon ninnie component of that party) cannot remember Dwight Eisenhower who both created the IAEA and warned against the creation of a garrison state in pursing the chimera of complete security, they sure ought to remember Theodore Roosevelt. That was the hairy chested president who counseled speaking softly while holding a big stick.
The Geek is no admirer of Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich), the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He's got to give the senator his due. Levin is right when he said it was time to stop the "hot rhetoric."
ElBaradei was even more on target. "My fear is that if we continue to escalate from both sides that we will end up into a precipice, we will end up into an abyss. As I said, the Middle East is in a total mess, to say the least. And we cannot add fuel to the fire."
Bang on!, Mr ElBaradei.
There's always time enough for war. We can wait--at least for awhile.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Yemen Kicks Sand In Uncle Sam's Face
The current administration clearly can't get a grip on the difference between feces and shoe polish. This unpleasant fact is singularly true regarding what countries are allies in the current fight with Islamists/Jihadists.
Yemen is the current poster child for the current administration's lost-in-space view of what constitutes an ally.
Two days ago, the Commander Guy was reported in the Yemen Times to have sent a message via his Special Assistant for Internal Security and Combating Terrorism, Francis Townsend. The message was purported to congratulate the Yemeni government for "it's success in combating terrorism." See, http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1097&p=front&a=1.
The message also contained promises to continue US aid for Yemeni projects in economic development, education, security and military assistance, and "fighting against terrorism." This hearty expression of praise and aid came in the context of a meeting between Yemeni and American counter-terrorism wallahs.
At the meeting one Mohammed Salah, who is the capo-in-chief of the Central Security Forces, said Yemen stood ready (and, maybe, perhaps, kind of willing and able) to "provide assistance and expertise" in the area of counter-terrorism.
Yeah. Right. And, just what sort of "expertise?" What kind of "assistance?"
Jamal al-Badawi, the man convicted in a Yemeni court for having been the chief planner of the bombing of the USS Cole, had turned himself in to Yemeni authorities a week before this love fest of mutual assistance. He had apparently become tired and bored with life as a fugitive after his second successful jail break.
There is no doubt but al-Badawi is a genuine, bottled-in-bond, triple x, super-refined, Grade A Jihadist. He is a serious blackhat. Always has been. In all probability, he always will be.
The "expert" Yemenis cut him loose only two days after Special Assistant Townsend delivered the Commander Guy's kissy-kissy communication.
The experienced and expert Yemeni government isn't saying why they cut the man loose from the horrors of life in the slam. They aren't really confirming or denying whether al-Badawi is under some sort of house arrest. The most this trusted ally in the counter-terrorism arena will say is that al-Badawi has renounced terrorism and really, really promised to be a very, very nice guy in the future.
Al-Badawi himself isn't talking in public. He is reported to be entertaining guests in his house in Aden. Probably regaling them with tales of his exciting life in the desert living with the Tribal types who kept him safe until working out a deal with the expert counter-terrorists in the Yemeni government. (Of course, he might be working on his next little bomb-in-the-boat caper.)
If the Yemenis aren't saying much, their silence is more than compensated for by the screeches from the campaign trail and the howls from the Justice Department.
There is a five megabuck price on Jamal al-Badawi's head. He's on the Feeb's Ten Most Wanted List. There is a lengthy indictment waiting for him in the US. With this as a backdrop, Rudi Giuliani demanded a halt to all aid to Yemen until al-Badawi is rearrested.
Wow! That's telling 'em, Rudy.
What is the US going to do if the Yemeni regime does not respond appropriately to either the statement of "extreme displeasure" delivered by our Ambassador or even an aid cut off?
You gotta remember that the Yemenis are great believers in hospitality, just like the Afghans back in 2002. You also have to remember that al-Badawi has reportedly sworn loyalty to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Loyalty can be--and usually is in tribally based Islamic societies--a two way street.
Now, get a grip on this.
Yemen, no more than Saudi Arabia, is an ally of the US in the confrontation between Islamism and the West. That was obvious in the aftermath of the attack on the USS Cole. Yemeni officials, those experienced and expert on regional counter-terrorism, were notably uncooperative with the FBI and other American investigative or intelligence agencies. Nothing substantial has changed since then.
"How come?" You ask.
Yemen, not unlike Afghanistan, is not really a nation-state as that is understood in the West, or most of the world. It is a geographic expression, which came into its present incarnation back in 1990 when the Peoples' Democratic Republic of Yemen stopped its festering multi-decade war with North Yemen. Its current boundary with Saudi Arabia was fixed only seven years ago.
Its population is young (median age is slightly less than seventeen). Its land is mostly barren, short on water. Yemen is one of the poorest, if not the poorest country in the Arab world, with a per person GDP of roughly $1,000 last year. Wahhabism is the predominant brand of Islam practiced.
In short, the government lacks stability. The population can and has turned restive (to put it politely) when its all too easily perturbed emotional balance is tipped in the slightest.
Al-Badawi is a popular hero to many of the young Yemeni dudes without a real hope of a genuine future and a past deeply rooted in tribalism, Wahhabism, and violence.
Making sense now, isn't it?
Even if the Yemeni government wanted for reasons of its own to cooperate fully with the US not only with regard to al-Badawi's future but the whole spectrum of counter-terrorism issues, it could not. Not without slitting its own throat.
The Commander Guy should have known all of the above (and probably did) before sending the unrealistically fulsome message to the Yemeni government. Not unlike the ambiguous message delivered to Saddam Hussein by our new Ambassador in 1990, the recipient probably concluded that it had a free hand in dealing with al-Badawi. With (unseemly) haste, the Yemeni leadership honored its agreement with the tribal elders and cut the convicted terrorist loose.
To repeat the key question: Now what are we Americans going to do if the Saana regime doesn't rearrest al-Badawi and deliver him to our justice system?
The last time the US faced this type of problem we resolved it by invading. More than five years later the object of that combination of SWAT raid and regime change is still free, making audio tapes by the bushel, and we are still slogging up hill trying to create a nation-state in Afghanistan.
Is this an option now? The Commander Guy and his neocon ninny brigade better scratch their heads long and hard.
Yemen is the current poster child for the current administration's lost-in-space view of what constitutes an ally.
Two days ago, the Commander Guy was reported in the Yemen Times to have sent a message via his Special Assistant for Internal Security and Combating Terrorism, Francis Townsend. The message was purported to congratulate the Yemeni government for "it's success in combating terrorism." See, http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1097&p=front&a=1.
The message also contained promises to continue US aid for Yemeni projects in economic development, education, security and military assistance, and "fighting against terrorism." This hearty expression of praise and aid came in the context of a meeting between Yemeni and American counter-terrorism wallahs.
At the meeting one Mohammed Salah, who is the capo-in-chief of the Central Security Forces, said Yemen stood ready (and, maybe, perhaps, kind of willing and able) to "provide assistance and expertise" in the area of counter-terrorism.
Yeah. Right. And, just what sort of "expertise?" What kind of "assistance?"
Jamal al-Badawi, the man convicted in a Yemeni court for having been the chief planner of the bombing of the USS Cole, had turned himself in to Yemeni authorities a week before this love fest of mutual assistance. He had apparently become tired and bored with life as a fugitive after his second successful jail break.
There is no doubt but al-Badawi is a genuine, bottled-in-bond, triple x, super-refined, Grade A Jihadist. He is a serious blackhat. Always has been. In all probability, he always will be.
The "expert" Yemenis cut him loose only two days after Special Assistant Townsend delivered the Commander Guy's kissy-kissy communication.
The experienced and expert Yemeni government isn't saying why they cut the man loose from the horrors of life in the slam. They aren't really confirming or denying whether al-Badawi is under some sort of house arrest. The most this trusted ally in the counter-terrorism arena will say is that al-Badawi has renounced terrorism and really, really promised to be a very, very nice guy in the future.
Al-Badawi himself isn't talking in public. He is reported to be entertaining guests in his house in Aden. Probably regaling them with tales of his exciting life in the desert living with the Tribal types who kept him safe until working out a deal with the expert counter-terrorists in the Yemeni government. (Of course, he might be working on his next little bomb-in-the-boat caper.)
If the Yemenis aren't saying much, their silence is more than compensated for by the screeches from the campaign trail and the howls from the Justice Department.
There is a five megabuck price on Jamal al-Badawi's head. He's on the Feeb's Ten Most Wanted List. There is a lengthy indictment waiting for him in the US. With this as a backdrop, Rudi Giuliani demanded a halt to all aid to Yemen until al-Badawi is rearrested.
Wow! That's telling 'em, Rudy.
What is the US going to do if the Yemeni regime does not respond appropriately to either the statement of "extreme displeasure" delivered by our Ambassador or even an aid cut off?
You gotta remember that the Yemenis are great believers in hospitality, just like the Afghans back in 2002. You also have to remember that al-Badawi has reportedly sworn loyalty to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Loyalty can be--and usually is in tribally based Islamic societies--a two way street.
Now, get a grip on this.
Yemen, no more than Saudi Arabia, is an ally of the US in the confrontation between Islamism and the West. That was obvious in the aftermath of the attack on the USS Cole. Yemeni officials, those experienced and expert on regional counter-terrorism, were notably uncooperative with the FBI and other American investigative or intelligence agencies. Nothing substantial has changed since then.
"How come?" You ask.
Yemen, not unlike Afghanistan, is not really a nation-state as that is understood in the West, or most of the world. It is a geographic expression, which came into its present incarnation back in 1990 when the Peoples' Democratic Republic of Yemen stopped its festering multi-decade war with North Yemen. Its current boundary with Saudi Arabia was fixed only seven years ago.
Its population is young (median age is slightly less than seventeen). Its land is mostly barren, short on water. Yemen is one of the poorest, if not the poorest country in the Arab world, with a per person GDP of roughly $1,000 last year. Wahhabism is the predominant brand of Islam practiced.
In short, the government lacks stability. The population can and has turned restive (to put it politely) when its all too easily perturbed emotional balance is tipped in the slightest.
Al-Badawi is a popular hero to many of the young Yemeni dudes without a real hope of a genuine future and a past deeply rooted in tribalism, Wahhabism, and violence.
Making sense now, isn't it?
Even if the Yemeni government wanted for reasons of its own to cooperate fully with the US not only with regard to al-Badawi's future but the whole spectrum of counter-terrorism issues, it could not. Not without slitting its own throat.
The Commander Guy should have known all of the above (and probably did) before sending the unrealistically fulsome message to the Yemeni government. Not unlike the ambiguous message delivered to Saddam Hussein by our new Ambassador in 1990, the recipient probably concluded that it had a free hand in dealing with al-Badawi. With (unseemly) haste, the Yemeni leadership honored its agreement with the tribal elders and cut the convicted terrorist loose.
To repeat the key question: Now what are we Americans going to do if the Saana regime doesn't rearrest al-Badawi and deliver him to our justice system?
The last time the US faced this type of problem we resolved it by invading. More than five years later the object of that combination of SWAT raid and regime change is still free, making audio tapes by the bushel, and we are still slogging up hill trying to create a nation-state in Afghanistan.
Is this an option now? The Commander Guy and his neocon ninny brigade better scratch their heads long and hard.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Thinking The Unthinkable--Speaking the Unspeakable
The Geek has an admission. Norman Podhoeritz scares the pippin, doublet, and hose off of him. The seventy-seven year old granddad of the neocon ninnies of the current administration as well as the hyper-hawks surrounding Rudy Giuliani is in full chest-beating, testosterone fury over Iran.
According to the UK's Telegraph on-line, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/27/wbomb127.xml, Podhoeritz "thinks the unthinkable and speaks the unspeakable." That's sure nice. And, to some extent useful.
Of course the neocon clan elder is far from the only person to do just that. Years ago, Herman Khan, the founder of the Hudson Institute, wrote and spoke at length about nuclear war. He even titled a book, Thinking the Unthinkable. It gave the few folks who read it the shivers--and reasons to think harder and better about the taboo-in-polite-circles topic of nuclear war and the potential reality of mutually assured destruction.
In a very small way, the Geek has done the same in past years, challenging policy makers and executors alike to realise just how easy it is not to win in counterinsurgencies and akin stability operations. Like the (un)jolly fatman of the Hudson Institute, the Geek's goal was to get people to think deeper and better about the unique nature of a particular type of war.
That goal, it appears to the Geek, is not uppermost in Podhoeritz' mind--if it exists at any level there.
At some point decades ago, Mr Podhoeritz had an epiphany concerning his opposition to the Vietnam War which resulted in a lucidly argued mea culpa that still resides on the Geek's bookshelves. From that moment on, the gentleman under consideration became a neo-conservative. One of the most warlike coloration.
Therein lies the tragedy.
Mr Podhoeritz became one of those whom Eric Hoffer described more than fifty years ago with startling and fear-provoking clarity. The True Believer.
True Believers are very dangerous people. History shows that. So do recent events. Osama bin Laden is a True Believer. So were those who flew the passenger filled cruise missiles into the Pentagon and Twin Towers.
True Believers search for any facts, the slightest hint of a factoid even, which seem to support their belief and its expressions. All else is disregarded as heresy at best, counterfactual at worst.
As a result Mr Podhoeritz places an emphasis, an emphasis beyond all rational calculation, upon the necessity to execute massive air attacks using both manned and unmanned platforms upon Iranian targets. While Mr Podhoeritz might be willing to settle for striking the nuclear facilities, the Geek is convinced that his real desire is the complete obliteration of Iran as a functioning polity, economy, and society.
Mr Podhoeritz blithely assumes that the strikes could be delivered quickly, without any warning, and would be effective. He is probably correct in the first two portions of his assumption.
The further consequences of the action apparently are of no interest to him. Yet it is precisely in these that the dangers for us and the rest of the world exist.
As Iraq, Afghanistan, and a host of previous wars show clearly, Clausewitz was right: No plan survives first contact with the enemy.
In his carefree attitude to the "day after" Mr Podhoeritz is one with the neocon ninnies who gave no realistic thought to what would happen after we deposed Saddam in Iraq or Sheik Omar in Afghanistan. In this fantasyland approach to war planning and fighting, Mr Podhoeritz, Vice-President Cheney, former SecDef Rumsfeld, and the deep thinking crew in the Pentagon almost equal the brain dead Adolph Hitler with his totally unnecessary and utterly counterproductive declaration of war on the US in December 1941.
The True Believer world view of Mr Podhoeritz and his ilk as well as their demonstrated influence in the current administration is what has increasingly alienated, not to say scared the hell out of, the European governments who initially took our part in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. They are what has given rise to the increasingly oppositional posture of Vladimir Putin and the mandarinate in China.
By now even the Israeli government and public ought to be getting nervous over the impact of the Podhoeritz type True Believers. In the (hopefully remote) eventuality that the US gives reality to Mr Podhoeritz's unthinkable thoughts and unspeakable words, Israel will be in the impact zone. There is no way that any conceivable US air campaign will so defang or so demoralize the Iranian regime and those of similar mind that there will be no response.
The response is (quite) likely to make 9/11 and its aftermaths look like a flower power gathering out of the Sixties. The full menu of options available to the survivors in Tehran is extensive.
Mr Podhoeritz has written of Islamofacism and the World War IV between the Islamists and the West. The Geek found some merit in some of the man's arguments.
Call it World War IV or the Second Cold War, it doesn't matter. But, a firm grip must be kept on the fundamental reality that Cold Wars are not won by air strikes. They are won by a firm line, backed by the willingness to use minimal appropriate force for narrowly conceived goals over time. They are won not by bluster and bombs but by political will maintained over generations if need be.
Mr Podhoeritz, try thinking about this unthinkable. Cold Wars are won by outlasting the enemy, by outlasting his political will, by showing over time that the world view he espouses is inferior to yours. We won the last cold war this way. We won by allowing him to lose faith in his god.
That may not be emotionally satisfying to a True Believer. It is however intellectually warming to a realpolitiker.
According to the UK's Telegraph on-line, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/27/wbomb127.xml, Podhoeritz "thinks the unthinkable and speaks the unspeakable." That's sure nice. And, to some extent useful.
Of course the neocon clan elder is far from the only person to do just that. Years ago, Herman Khan, the founder of the Hudson Institute, wrote and spoke at length about nuclear war. He even titled a book, Thinking the Unthinkable. It gave the few folks who read it the shivers--and reasons to think harder and better about the taboo-in-polite-circles topic of nuclear war and the potential reality of mutually assured destruction.
In a very small way, the Geek has done the same in past years, challenging policy makers and executors alike to realise just how easy it is not to win in counterinsurgencies and akin stability operations. Like the (un)jolly fatman of the Hudson Institute, the Geek's goal was to get people to think deeper and better about the unique nature of a particular type of war.
That goal, it appears to the Geek, is not uppermost in Podhoeritz' mind--if it exists at any level there.
At some point decades ago, Mr Podhoeritz had an epiphany concerning his opposition to the Vietnam War which resulted in a lucidly argued mea culpa that still resides on the Geek's bookshelves. From that moment on, the gentleman under consideration became a neo-conservative. One of the most warlike coloration.
Therein lies the tragedy.
Mr Podhoeritz became one of those whom Eric Hoffer described more than fifty years ago with startling and fear-provoking clarity. The True Believer.
True Believers are very dangerous people. History shows that. So do recent events. Osama bin Laden is a True Believer. So were those who flew the passenger filled cruise missiles into the Pentagon and Twin Towers.
True Believers search for any facts, the slightest hint of a factoid even, which seem to support their belief and its expressions. All else is disregarded as heresy at best, counterfactual at worst.
As a result Mr Podhoeritz places an emphasis, an emphasis beyond all rational calculation, upon the necessity to execute massive air attacks using both manned and unmanned platforms upon Iranian targets. While Mr Podhoeritz might be willing to settle for striking the nuclear facilities, the Geek is convinced that his real desire is the complete obliteration of Iran as a functioning polity, economy, and society.
Mr Podhoeritz blithely assumes that the strikes could be delivered quickly, without any warning, and would be effective. He is probably correct in the first two portions of his assumption.
The further consequences of the action apparently are of no interest to him. Yet it is precisely in these that the dangers for us and the rest of the world exist.
As Iraq, Afghanistan, and a host of previous wars show clearly, Clausewitz was right: No plan survives first contact with the enemy.
In his carefree attitude to the "day after" Mr Podhoeritz is one with the neocon ninnies who gave no realistic thought to what would happen after we deposed Saddam in Iraq or Sheik Omar in Afghanistan. In this fantasyland approach to war planning and fighting, Mr Podhoeritz, Vice-President Cheney, former SecDef Rumsfeld, and the deep thinking crew in the Pentagon almost equal the brain dead Adolph Hitler with his totally unnecessary and utterly counterproductive declaration of war on the US in December 1941.
The True Believer world view of Mr Podhoeritz and his ilk as well as their demonstrated influence in the current administration is what has increasingly alienated, not to say scared the hell out of, the European governments who initially took our part in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. They are what has given rise to the increasingly oppositional posture of Vladimir Putin and the mandarinate in China.
By now even the Israeli government and public ought to be getting nervous over the impact of the Podhoeritz type True Believers. In the (hopefully remote) eventuality that the US gives reality to Mr Podhoeritz's unthinkable thoughts and unspeakable words, Israel will be in the impact zone. There is no way that any conceivable US air campaign will so defang or so demoralize the Iranian regime and those of similar mind that there will be no response.
The response is (quite) likely to make 9/11 and its aftermaths look like a flower power gathering out of the Sixties. The full menu of options available to the survivors in Tehran is extensive.
Mr Podhoeritz has written of Islamofacism and the World War IV between the Islamists and the West. The Geek found some merit in some of the man's arguments.
Call it World War IV or the Second Cold War, it doesn't matter. But, a firm grip must be kept on the fundamental reality that Cold Wars are not won by air strikes. They are won by a firm line, backed by the willingness to use minimal appropriate force for narrowly conceived goals over time. They are won not by bluster and bombs but by political will maintained over generations if need be.
Mr Podhoeritz, try thinking about this unthinkable. Cold Wars are won by outlasting the enemy, by outlasting his political will, by showing over time that the world view he espouses is inferior to yours. We won the last cold war this way. We won by allowing him to lose faith in his god.
That may not be emotionally satisfying to a True Believer. It is however intellectually warming to a realpolitiker.
Get Real, Putin!
Vladimir Putin and the Geek share one factor. We were both alive during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which peaked a couple days shy of forty-five years ago.
Mr Putin and the Geek differ in one important factor. The Geek is a historian. Putin distorts history--even worse than does our Commander Guy.
President Putin had the sheer unmitigated gall to compare the proposed basing of US anti-missiles in Poland with supporting target acquisition radars in the Czech Republic with the Soviet action of deploying offensive medium and intermediary missiles in Cuba.
It has been a long while since a supposedly responsible world figure has reversed the reality of an historical event that much. Compared to the brazen effrontery of Putin's wretched warping of the past, the Commander Guy's misinterpretations of the Vietnam War are minor errors.
Let's go to the videotape.
Back in 1962 the Soviet Union without any prior warnings, discussion, or threats attempted the secret basing of offensive, nuclear capable missiles in Cuba along with supporting defensive systems including a reinforced brigade of combat troops. Our intelligence wallahs caught them at it.
The crisis grew rapidly. The US went public early on with overhead imagery displayed at the UN. The Soviets blustered, noting that the US had based intermediate range missiles in Turkey right on the Soviet border.
As matters escalated, the Kennedy Administration finally fixed on a naval blockade (euphemistically called a "quarantine") around Cuba. As the first missile laden Soviet freighters approached the blockade, breaths were held on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Not to overstate the case, the world came within a hairbreadth of nuclear war. Never before and never since the last week of October 1962 has the unthinkable come so close to happening.
The crisis resolved quickly. The Soviets backed down. The missiles went back home. The US promised not to invade Cuba and went ahead with the already programmed removal of the Jupiter C missiles from Turkey and elsewhere in Europe. The Kremlin quietly kept its combat brigade in Cuba (where it was suddenly "rediscovered" in a blare of hype during the Reagan Administration.)
OK, keep that synopsis in mind as we look at the US ABM initiative in Central Europe.
Quite awhile back, the current administration announced its plan to base a small (ten fire units) anti-ballistic missile force in Poland with supporting radar in the Czech Republic. The purpose of the new installations was to defend Europe against any intermediate range missile threat coming from Northwest Asia, which meant Iran.
The announcement as well as the lengthy negotiations with Poland, the Czech Republic, and Russia have been in the open and very well publicised. The Russian love affair with the word nyet has been demonstrated all along.
The US has made numerous attempts to assuage Russian anxieties about the installation. In recent weeks the Americans have even taken the necessary step of treating Russia like the Great Power it believes it is regarding the proposed ABM basing. Most recently SecDef Gates has stated that the facilities will not be "activated" until the Iranians demonstrate a credible threat.
A uniformed stooge in the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces blew that offer off.
SecDef Gates has also suggested that, subject to Czech approval, Russian experts can be stationed at the radar site to assure that it is not directed against any Russian trajectories of attack. That was dubbed "interesting" by the Kremlin.
So, you tell the Geek something.
Where is the historical analogy Putin thinks exists between the now in Central Europe and the then in the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Or, is the Russian President pursuing some other objective?
That's quite likely. The Russians are unhappy with the Cold War vintage Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty. Only the US and Russia (and other successor states of the Soviet Union) are bound by it. Other countries, some of which might present a credible threat at some future date including Israel, India, Iran, Pakistan, Peoples Republic of China, Japan, South Korea are not.
Here's a question for you, Mr Putin.
If that is the real motive behind your preposterous line, why not just put it forward? Why not take the lead in demanding a multi-party negotiation on the subject including not just the US and European countries but all others within 1500 nautical miles range of Russian borders?
Or, Vladimir, were you taking lessons from Tehran's Orator-in-Chief during your recent trip there?
Mr Putin and the Geek differ in one important factor. The Geek is a historian. Putin distorts history--even worse than does our Commander Guy.
President Putin had the sheer unmitigated gall to compare the proposed basing of US anti-missiles in Poland with supporting target acquisition radars in the Czech Republic with the Soviet action of deploying offensive medium and intermediary missiles in Cuba.
It has been a long while since a supposedly responsible world figure has reversed the reality of an historical event that much. Compared to the brazen effrontery of Putin's wretched warping of the past, the Commander Guy's misinterpretations of the Vietnam War are minor errors.
Let's go to the videotape.
Back in 1962 the Soviet Union without any prior warnings, discussion, or threats attempted the secret basing of offensive, nuclear capable missiles in Cuba along with supporting defensive systems including a reinforced brigade of combat troops. Our intelligence wallahs caught them at it.
The crisis grew rapidly. The US went public early on with overhead imagery displayed at the UN. The Soviets blustered, noting that the US had based intermediate range missiles in Turkey right on the Soviet border.
As matters escalated, the Kennedy Administration finally fixed on a naval blockade (euphemistically called a "quarantine") around Cuba. As the first missile laden Soviet freighters approached the blockade, breaths were held on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Not to overstate the case, the world came within a hairbreadth of nuclear war. Never before and never since the last week of October 1962 has the unthinkable come so close to happening.
The crisis resolved quickly. The Soviets backed down. The missiles went back home. The US promised not to invade Cuba and went ahead with the already programmed removal of the Jupiter C missiles from Turkey and elsewhere in Europe. The Kremlin quietly kept its combat brigade in Cuba (where it was suddenly "rediscovered" in a blare of hype during the Reagan Administration.)
OK, keep that synopsis in mind as we look at the US ABM initiative in Central Europe.
Quite awhile back, the current administration announced its plan to base a small (ten fire units) anti-ballistic missile force in Poland with supporting radar in the Czech Republic. The purpose of the new installations was to defend Europe against any intermediate range missile threat coming from Northwest Asia, which meant Iran.
The announcement as well as the lengthy negotiations with Poland, the Czech Republic, and Russia have been in the open and very well publicised. The Russian love affair with the word nyet has been demonstrated all along.
The US has made numerous attempts to assuage Russian anxieties about the installation. In recent weeks the Americans have even taken the necessary step of treating Russia like the Great Power it believes it is regarding the proposed ABM basing. Most recently SecDef Gates has stated that the facilities will not be "activated" until the Iranians demonstrate a credible threat.
A uniformed stooge in the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces blew that offer off.
SecDef Gates has also suggested that, subject to Czech approval, Russian experts can be stationed at the radar site to assure that it is not directed against any Russian trajectories of attack. That was dubbed "interesting" by the Kremlin.
So, you tell the Geek something.
Where is the historical analogy Putin thinks exists between the now in Central Europe and the then in the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Or, is the Russian President pursuing some other objective?
That's quite likely. The Russians are unhappy with the Cold War vintage Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty. Only the US and Russia (and other successor states of the Soviet Union) are bound by it. Other countries, some of which might present a credible threat at some future date including Israel, India, Iran, Pakistan, Peoples Republic of China, Japan, South Korea are not.
Here's a question for you, Mr Putin.
If that is the real motive behind your preposterous line, why not just put it forward? Why not take the lead in demanding a multi-party negotiation on the subject including not just the US and European countries but all others within 1500 nautical miles range of Russian borders?
Or, Vladimir, were you taking lessons from Tehran's Orator-in-Chief during your recent trip there?
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