tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38352061672248537412024-03-18T20:26:11.293-07:00Whiskey Tango Foxtrot OscarBlogito Ergo Sum : I Blog Therefore I Am. Gracing the Internet Since April 21, 2007Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.comBlogger1631125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-3855441893240338062015-04-15T14:47:00.000-07:002015-04-15T14:47:16.331-07:00A new Dawn. <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Re: http://dawnsbrain.com/ten-facebook-pages-you-need-to-stop-sharing-from/<br />
<br />
I
think I’m in love with you Dawn. It takes guts to post something like
this because you just know that you are essentially ringing a dinner
bell for all the Trolls to answer. <br />
<br />
I do not know why some on the comments section have utterly lost their scam/BS
detectors, but let me help them out. When a person has a “buy my crap”
button prominently displayed on their Facebook page that BS detector
should be at least in the yellow if not deep in the red section of the
meter. The good doctor is shilling a product, he has skin in the game
people. Onward and downward to GMO.<br />
<br />
If you really have a problem with GMO food you are going to have to
totally abandon your present life style and take up the hunter-gather
life style. This may be a problem for most, as the opportunities to go
truly paleo are not what they used to be. Everything you eat is GMO,
everything. It’s called agriculture and we as a species have been doing
it for about seven thousand years. We have altered the DNA of every food
crop out there by via selective breeding. GMO is just a faster way to
do this.<br />
<br />
I’m not going to bother with the debate of how Monsanto might be evil
in doing this, just the type of evil Monsanto may or may not be up to.
It makes no sense for Monsanto to poison its customers, dead people
don’t buy stuff. Monsanto wants return customers. It’s also really bad
form for the government to allow its citizen to be picked off by the
score so a multinational can profit off the carnage. It is thus in the
interest of both Monsanto and the government to ensure that GMO foods
are pure and safe. Labeling? Please, honest labeling would have every
food item you purchase labeled as Genetically Modified because, to
repeat, everything on your table is Genetically Modified whether it
comes from Big Ag or from the Mom and Pop Organic Farm. To eat, or more
likely starve, naturally you would have to pick up your trusty spear or
bow and arrow and start hunting game. How you explain this to the ranger
when the game is out of season is beyond me.<br />
<br />
Shifting gears, it is interesting how some here run past “go”, fail
to collect their two hundred dollars, and settle into some nice, toxic ad homonym attacks with a side order of misogyny. Why is the default
either “paid shill” or just straight out calumny? There is so much butt
hurt here and so little time to respond to it. Dawn has done her work
and laid out here case and it is a good one, a prima facie case as I
would have it. There is a claim, links to support the claims, and two
examples of what the general flavor of the sites are via the comments.
I have a working idea what these sites are like. She did her work, she
had to wade through the sites, it’s not her fault that people there are
banging on about chem trails, fluoride, and other tin-foil-hat type
subjects. These sites have Admins and if those comments did not reflect
the tenor of the discussion on the board or violated the rules of
engagement, those comments would not be there for her to find. It sucks
when your favorite site gets slammed for a post that has over one
thousand likes, but you got to live with that cone of shame.<br />
<br />
If there is anything in these “alternates” it will be found,
isolated, distilled, and yes patented so Big Pharma can make tons of
money. But to make those mountains of money Big Pharma has to jump
through numerous hoops of fire, a whole regime of testing, to make sure
that their product is both safe and effective. Meanwhile, Dr. Natural
is under no such limitations, he does not even have to sell you what he
claims to be offering. Your Tea Tree Oil could just be reclaimed and
filtered McDonald’s deep fryer oil for all you know, and have the extra
added “benefit” of heavy metals to boot. No, seriously, herbs shipped in
from China have been tested for and found to have lead and other
injurious heavy metals in them. But hey, heavy metals are natural , so
it’s all good I guess; why not buy something that is not what is says it
is, and get the added boost of a persistent toxin?<br />
<br />
Every site mentioned has some form of the “Big Lie” they take a grain
of truth or conjecture and then coat it with fear, loathing,
irrationality and bunkum. There are issues with our food supply that do
need to be dealt with. There are also issues with our drug delivery
system that need to be address. Big Pharma does have its issues and
embarrassments. However that is no reason to trail off into conspiracy
theories and unproven treatments. Look at the theme , each
one of these sites is offering medical advice that is a toxic brew of
quackery, fear mongering and snake oil salesmanship. Your
“alternative” is to wrap yourself in tin foil and to literally buy into
suspect “cures” and “treatments” that violate the first rule of medicine
“Do no harm.”<br />
<br />
The exception is the one New Age spiritual site. But even there it is
only a hop, skip and a short jump back into the woo-woo. Sooner or
later there will be an article on how you must buy these small rocks
that will be your BFF and realign you Karmic Chakras because some nice
Guru being chauffeured around in a Bentley mumbled some words over them.
Expanding consciousness , having Spirit Angle guides, and reading
Auras sounds mostly harmless but it lacks the rigor of any serious
philosophy or faith.<br />
<br />
Dawn has provided a service here, she has gone neck deep in to the
woo-woo, on deep Safari, and brought back a report on the natives. Now
any time I see these sites being used to buttress an argument I know two
things: one the argument is hopelessly specious, and two I am not
dealing with a person who resides in the fact based community.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-10707316314979495122014-10-16T14:42:00.000-07:002015-04-15T14:51:08.563-07:00Gamergatge<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="comment-text">
I’ve been following #gamergate, tracking it on Salon,
Pandagon, We Hunted The Mammoth, and others. I’ve watch Sharkeerian’s
videos on gaming tropes. It’s been an education and an obsession. The
take away is that #gamergate is a hate group. Thankfully I did not
actually have to wade through the 8chan logs to find this out myself,
other more intrepid explorers had done the heavy lifting for me. And
what a fever swamp of racism and misogyny #gamergate turns out to be.
Just reading the few eye bleeding examples is more than enough to
convince any sane person this is a bad lot of apples. And it just goes
on and on and on. This is no group of fine outstanding patriots standing
for Truth Justice And The American Way, this is the very beating heart
of Troll Town.<br />
<br />
But leave it to the Moron Media to get this wrong seven ways to
Sunday. “On one side, but on the other.” Go back to covering Ebola if
you are going to be that clueless. The leg work is already been done,
the favored narrative is patently false. Why are you failing to do your
primary job which is to inform? You’re not even doing your secondary job
of entertainment. If you were not so afraid of the label “Liberal
Media” the story would write itself.<br />
<br />
Intel’s retreat into a fetal position does not surprise me either.
They are a fab joint, they make stuff, just like Ford makes stuff, Black
and Decker makes Stuff, and Kitchen Aid makes stuff. Intel is a brand,
and they don’t want any controversy surrounding their brand, God forbid
they loose market share to AMD, Qualcomm, TSMC or Samsung. The folks at
Intel have no clue about games nor the game community. Intel’s support
of Independent game development was a marketing decision for a halo
effect. Once #gamergate created it’s false flag operation, Intel tucked
tailed, ran, and hid under a rock, where it remains. Large corporate
entities do not do controversies, even when those controversies are
ginned up from false flag operations, run by a tiny clique of net savvy
operators who know how to amplify their numbers, and have the time to
keep plugging away at the project.<br />
<br />
Switching gears, isn’t it interesting how 2nd Amendment extremism in
Utah managed to trump the 1st Amendment’s right to free speech? Almost
like as if that was the intent of the “bring your weapon to college,
what could go wrong?” meme. A credible series of threats was received
and their was no way campus police could prevent any person not only
from waltzing onto the campus with a gun but right into the auditorium.
That person could not be disarmed at any point. No group of persons
could be disarmed at any point. Thus was the mission of the University
perverted. An institution devoted to the free exchange of ideas was
denied the views of one woman by a small group of malcontents. Thus did a
small authoritarian cohort impose a putsch on the University and negate
the foundations of Democracy. Remember that when someone tells you that
the 2nd Amendment protects ‘”freedom”. Those Utah students became less
free to share and debate ideas because the safety of the speaker could
not be guaranteed. A well armed minority got to impose its will on the
rest of the student body, a minority that probably was from the outside
of the school and the state.<br />
<br />
I do wonder how this plays out. Having formed under a nucleus,
#gamergate has mutated into something else, a hate group. But this is a
netcentric hate group, which operates, for now, under new rules. It is a
school of piranhas, leaderless, but still a very lethal collection of
razor sharp teeth. Those who become the center of attention of the
school become all too away of its viciousness. This is after all a bunch
of white males at the bottom of a pecking order who thought they had
found empowerment in a special corner of a constructed world where they
were “safe” and “understood.” They were gamers, part of a male geek
tribe, proud outcasts flying their freak flag. Then along comes some
icky girls into their He-man Woman Haters Tree House Club, and tells
them “um, no, you’re not oppressed, you’re actually a bunch of a-holes.”
It would be like telling a PETA activist that the cure for cancer lies
in the pelts of freshly clubbed baby seals. It just does not compute, it
engenders a visceral reaction. This is not to excuse the behavior of
#gamergate but to offer context.<br />
<br />
I worry for the safety of these women. I worry because I already see
the Reactionary Right trying to get its talons into #gamergate group and
provide leadership. I also worry because I do not see law enforcement
taking this one with the seriousness it deserves. What is the point of
having a NSA state if a group like #gamergate can not be brought down
and brought down hard? Don’t tell me you don’t have the tools, you have
the tools. If these guys went after the CEO of Intel instead of a
Vlogger for Feminist Frequency it would be a 03:00 wake up call with
flash-bangs, a Swat Team in full battle rattle, and free ride downtown.
It would at least rate a visit with some not so friendly FBI agents
asking some very pointed questions. How much more damage is going to be
allowed because this is “just” games, and “just” women? How many broken
bodies and how many broken lives do we have to sacrifice to break
another glass ceiling?</div>
<div class="avatar">
<br /></div>
<b></b></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-65803596207386358732014-10-02T15:07:00.001-07:002014-10-02T15:42:42.013-07:00Secret Service SNAFU<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white;"> </span></div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Today Julia Pierson, the Director of the United States Secret
Service, offered her resignation, and I accepted it. I salute her 30
years of distinguished service to the Secret Service and the Nation.</i></span></span></span></h4>
<span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="background-color: white;"><u>Today, I have also asked the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security
Alejandro Mayorkas</u>, aided by this Department’s General Counsel, to
assume control and direction of the ongoing inquiry by the Secret
Service of the fence jumping incident at the White House on September
19. Deputy Secretary Mayorkas should complete that review and submit
findings to me by November 1, 2014.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="background-color: white;"><i>Finally, I have also determined that scrutiny by a distinguished
panel of independent experts of the September 19 incident and related
issues concerning the Secret Service is warranted. The Panelists will be
named shortly. By December 15, 2014, this panel will submit to me its
own assessment and recommendations concerning security of the White
House compound. I will also invite the panel to submit to me
recommendations for potential new directors of the Secret Service, to
include recommendations of individuals who come from outside the Secret
Service. I will also request that the panel advise me about whether it
believes, given the series of recent events, there should be a review of
broader issues concerning the Secret Service. The security of the White
House compound should be the panel’s primary and immediate priority.</i></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: yellow;"><i><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">It is worth repeating that the Secret Service is one of the finest
official protection services in the world, consisting of men and women
who are highly trained and skilled professionals prepared to put their
own lives on the line in a second’s notice for the people they protect.
Last week, the Secret Service was responsible for the protection of the
President as well as 140 visiting heads of state or government as they
convened at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.
Likewise, in August the Secret Service handled the protection of 60
world leaders as they convened in Washington, D.C. for the African
Summit. As usual, the Secret Service executed these highly complex and
demanding assignments without incident. There is no other protection
service in the world that could have done this.</span><span></span></span></span>
</i></span></div>
<br />
I have no desire to join in the Wingnut chorus or the blame game on the current state of the Secret Servic, still this
is the second critical agency under the President’s purview to show a
incomprehensible amount of rot. First there was the V.A. It failed after
several tries to improve the quality of treatment for our wounded
warriors, instead opting to cook the books. Now the Secret Service is
shown to have an astounding amount of incompetence, slackness and a
totally rotten upper management.<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"></span><br />
<br />
There was an obvious problem with the Secret Service way back in the
beginning of Obama’s term with the White House Gate Crashers. Obama was
supposed to be furious, but what happened after he, most likely, offered
a few choice words that can not be repeated lest the Dignitas of the
office be soiled? All the things that are happening now should have
happened back then. And if something like this did happen back then, it
failed to solve the issues with the Service.<br />
<br />
I’m hearing that the decay of the Service took off when it was moved
from Treasury to the ever sprawling DHS. Make sense to me, DHS was built
to fail because Bush The Dumber did not want DHS in the first place. It
doesn’t help that the Service has become a lap dog of the office is
supposed to protect. Fundamental rules of security are being breached to
smooth political operatives and staffers in the White House. When doors
that should remain locked are left unlocked to make life easier for the
WH staff that is a huge problem. “Sorry dude, dudette you got to go
around, this door remains secure.” “Who are you, and what are you doing
in this elevator? Get out.” “No, Mr. McDonough, we can not do that, will
not do that, it’s too risky, it violates too many protocols, policies
and procedures.”<br />
<br />
And some of this is on the president or at least his staff. When
those agents got in trouble in Columbia over a hooker bill, I repeat
over a hooker bill, a big flashing light along with a loud klaxon should
have been going off in the Office Of The White House. Congress should
have been all over that mess demanding reform. The agents in question
got tossed under the bus, but nothing like the overview that is
happening now. No, a guy had to jump the White House fence.<br />
<br />
Hello, the White House Fence does not do it’s primary job of keeping
people the hell off the grounds? Then the guy blasts through the
grounds with no real issue and not one K-9 being released because, um,
somebody might get hurt? So there is no real training followed or
procedure to make sure the dog does not get confused in the scrum and
become the toothy equivalent of friendly fire — fantastic. What do we
have next? With a good head of steam built up our man bulls through a
female agent. Let that sink in, an agent, as in one agent. A whole
section of the White House has just one agent on duty with no back up to
speak of. We know she had no back-up because the bad guy was able to
“overpower” her. Once she was out of the picture our man got to do a
little more dashing about before he gets nabbed by, wait for it, wait
for it, an agent who had already clocked out for the day. Now tell me
that the security at the White House is not seven shades of ugly.<br />
<br />
Now if the White House detail suffers from chronic under staffing,
low moral, laughable, out of date technology, and senior management that
can not figure out that joint is being shot at, what is the rest of the
department like? Oh, it’s officers are regularly getting sloppy,
totally smashed, drunk; that’s nice. And when they are getting drunk in
some places they are causing international incidents because they tried
to fleece their rented bed mates. This is an institution gone soft as
butter left out in the August sun. This is a part of government that has
rotted through and through. And I can guess why.<br />
<br />
The Service has gotten complacent, it’s in a very dangerous place
because there is no institutional memory of the last successful
penetration of its protective shield. That would be Ronald Regan. Regan
literally took a bullet for that lapse, as did James Brady, a D.C.
police man and a Secret Service agent. Turned out that the Secret
Service screwed the pooch then too, most likely because previous
incident was back in the time of Gerald Ford and the institutional
memory of that event was a getting a little hazy. And in a continuing
theme, just like the Security Service of the State Department, there are
issues of under-staffing and underfunding of the agency. This is a one
two punch to effectiveness of the Agency, loss of institutional memory
causing a degradation of standards, plus lack of resources causing a
further degradation.<br />
<br />
As for a suggested fixes, I haven’t heard a coherent response from
the TEA Party / Republican Bobbsey Twins , other than “If Obama gets
whacked, it’s his own dang fault.” Well, that’s good to know, any
solutions to offer? Privatize? Thanks for the stock answer and the
attendant boilerplate, here are some nice parting gifts. Democrats?
Hello? Please come out of your Fetal position, pull that thumb out of
you mouth, and respond. I guess not. Mr. President, what do you have? A
panel; any sense of urgency here Hamlet? Some guy with a knife just had
an excellent misadventure in your home. Oh, you offered up the Director
of the Secret Service as sacrifice to the angry Political Gods of the
Potomac via the Worthy, Ancient Mysteries, and Ceremonies of the Bus
Toss. Now that the most Holy, Sacred, and Magnanimous Bus has been
appeased by bathing its wheels in the political blood of this most
decorous and satisfying offering, what else do you have Mr President?
Nothing, just a game of administrative musical chairs and some fist banging and a bit of rah-rah for the lower orders for now, maybe more later? Lovely.<br />
<br />
If the Federal Government can not protect its Chief Executive, and
Head Of State there is a problem with more than just the Agency that has
the job. This is a systemic failure. Neither the Congress nor the
Executive is doing its job. Congress is not doing oversight, not being
proactive and not even being reactive in a way that ensures follow
through. The Executive is not doing its job, especially the White House
Staff, it should not be asking for waivers of security procedures just
for convenience sake. On the flip side the Agency has to have the spine
to say no, to enforce policy and procedures. And this is not the first
time we have seen this kind of process go down. Congress is failing
because it is in the control of people who despise the whole idea of
governance and of governing. The executive does seem rudderless, and
Obama aloof, unwilling to get into the gears and get his hands dirty. He
also seems to have a really bad feel for personalities. He keeps
choosing Senior Management people who face pant spectacularly, Kathleen
Sebelius, Eric Shinseki, Janet Napolitano come to mind. I also wonder
where the Press was in all of this. The gate crashers and hooker
incident were in the same time space, why did the press not dig a little
deeper? Why are we only finding out now about the four day delay to
investigate the shooting incident, and that it was the cleaning staff
who found the evidence? We are getting one hell of a pile on now, but why
did it take so long?<br />
<br />
The rot goes a lot deeper than just the Secret Service and no one
seems to want to get the damn termites under control. We keep having
these chunks of our government fall upon our heads but pay no mind.
Voter participation in off year elections is distressingly low. Pay to
Play is the standard operating procedure, and in many states outright
voter suppression is the order of the day. We just let the corruption go
on a pace, letting knaves and outright crooks do the work of
governance. But hey, Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi, am I right?
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-37636339214570964382014-02-24T13:54:00.004-08:002014-02-25T02:37:20.963-08:00Russia and The Ukraine <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Russia is not done in the Ukraine, not by a long shot. This is where
the land of Rus was founded. This is where the Russians picked up their
Orthodox faith. The memories of the splendors of Kievan Rus are still a
point of pride to Russians today. When some of our Anglo-Saxon
fore-bearers were still wallowing in filth, and London was a nondescript
hell-hole of 10,000 souls Kiev was one of the jewels of the medieval
world. It all came to naught with the Mongol onslaught, but the memory
still shines to this day.<br />
<br />
The loss of the “near abroad” in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet
empire, the loss of Central Asia, much of the Caucuses and the Ukraine
were a bitter blow to the Russians pride. The loss of Ukraine, the
“little brother” of the Russians was especially hurtful. With the
recovery of Russia via Petrodollars and other natural resources
exploitation Russia, and especially Putin, wants to recover what is
rightfully theirs, at least in the minds of Russia and Putin.<br />
<br />
A little history here. With the fall of Kievan Rus the Ukraine
became a borderland. From the west Catholic Poland, or to be
historically accurate, the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania, gained
primacy. From the east came the Cossacks, Orthodox Christians who could
fight the Mongols on their own terms. And from the north, came the
ethnic Russians, attempting to escape the yoke of Muscovy and serfdom.
With the Russians came the Russian Empire, which was not about let a all
those valuable surfs get happy feet and shirk their responsibilities to
the Tzar. The Russians found a way to strong-arm the Ukrainian Cossack
leaders in to joining the great Orthodox brotherhood. After a few
nasty revolts, the Russians got back to the business of putting the yoke
back on the surfs until Alexander II. Alex was not keen on serfdom, had
no real use for it, found it an embarrassment, and got rid of it. But
he kept the Ukraine. Meanwhile, Poland, remember them?, former overlords
of the Ukraine, got absorbed by Russia, well at least the part
of Poland / Ukraine that concerns our history. And then came the Soviets. Uncle
Joe and the Soviets took this ethnic mix of Poles, Jews, Lithuanians,
random Mongols and Turks still floating about, etc. and made an unholy mess of it.<br />
<br />
The unfathomably brutal rule of Stalin, the mass killings, the
gulags, the ethnic cleansing, the shear horror and insanity of it all,
impacted all of the peoples of the Soviet Empire, but except for maybe
the Chechens, the Ukrainians got the worst of it. The epic disaster that
was collectivization fell on the Ukrainians the hardest. It was so bad
that there is a very special word for it, Holodomor (Голодомор)
Hunger-extermination, and it ranks right up there with the butchering of
the Armenians by the Turks and the Extermination of the Jews by the
Nazis as one of the great crimes against humanity.<br />
<br />
Then came WWII , the collaboration with the Nazis by some, and the eventual reconquest of
Ukraine; which was just as ugly as modern warfare and ideology could
make it. Lets just say Uncle Joe was not happy when so many Ukrainians
bolted from the Soviet Union and then took up arms against the Worker’s
Paradise. There was a ferocious guerrilla war in the Ukraine that went
past the end of the Nazi occupation, well past VE and VJ day and only
sputtered out in the late forties.<br />
<br />
The upshot of WWII is Poland got moved west and all the pesky
non-Poles got kicked out, the Ukraine got moved west and all the Pesky
Poles got kicked in to Poland, the Russians stayed put and the the ethnic
Germans got tossed all the way to either to the gulags or East Germany.<br />
<br />
Uncle Joe finally died, there was a brief flurry of reform and general madcap
misadventure under Khrushchev until he got tossed out for being a little
bit too unruly. The Soviet Union then got down to the serious business of
slowly rotting away under Brezhnev and his cronies. This gets us to the
present rule of Putin and the Oligarchs, with an independent but with
deeply divided Ukraine now front and center.<br />
<br />
To really understand what is going on in the Ukraine, it helps to go
not only into the deep past but into more recent history of the
Stalinist era and the horrors of the “Great Patriotic War” which for the
Ukrainians is a very dark and bloody chapter indeed. The ethnic
Ukrainians have many unresolved grievances with the Russians especially
for the crimes inflicted upon them by Stalin.<br />
<br />
So into this mess both the EU and Russia have now embroiled. Russia
is deeply invested in the area for reasons of pride, history and the
ethnic Russians now residing in the area. The EU is also tied to the area
if only by the affinity of the western part of the Ukraine to Western
Europe. It was not that long ago, 1939 to be exact, that parts of the
Ukraine were Poland. And it is to a place that was once part of Poland I
will look to now.<br />
<br />
Before the present rioting made a mess of things you could stroll
Lviv and still marvel at ( and be heartbroken for) the ancient city Lwów.
When you think of it Lviv is the Ukraine in a nutshell. Lwów, in 1939,
was Polish, but it was so much more. It was the beating heart the Pale
of settlement for one. Yiddish was lingua franca here. The high and low
culture of the Jewish Despora, grown in the hothouse of Lwów was a
marvel not only of Eastern Europe but the whole of Europe. It was a
culture grown in rich soil and allowed to flourish, mostly unmolested,
for centuries. But when it became Lviv, that part, with so much else, was
gone. The cosmopolitan, East European infrastructure built by the Poles
and Russians was still there, but the Jews and that glorious
culture, with so much else, had been wiped out. By design. Lviv remains,
as a part of the the whole, a confused sliver of Ukrainian history. It is
a city founded by the Poles, inhabited by Jews, Ukrainians, and
Russians, gifted–by fiat at the end of a bloody war –to the
Ukraine. It is a very mixed bag. It is anchored in the west but it also
looks to the east, a part of the east, a part of the west, and part of
neither. It is a place deeply steeped in history, but uncertain of its
future. It is a place that has known the worst kind of tragedy and if we
are not careful this beautiful city along with the nation of Ukraine could know tragedy again.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-46756994014517906032013-09-04T01:58:00.001-07:002013-09-04T01:58:22.022-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/23955379">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/23955379</a><br />
<br />
"Ariel Castro, who kept women captive at his home in Cleveland, Ohio, has died after being found hanging in his cell."<br />
<br />
Gross incompetence or worse from Ohio.<br />
<br />
" A spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction,
JoEllen Smith, said: 'He was housed in protective custody which means he
was in a cell by himself and rounds are required every 30 minutes at
staggered intervals.' "<br />
<br />
So somehow in a half hour, the man was able to set up a noose and then hang himself before the next guard came round. No suicide watch, no special cell, no removal of items that could be used to for self-execution. This for a man who was just sentenced to 1,000 years in prison. Someone let this man off himself. Someone was grossly negligent.<br />
<br />
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-81915803477740277512013-08-30T11:33:00.000-07:002013-08-30T11:33:40.046-07:00Congress "debates" Syria.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
As stated before I dread the “debate” that will occur in Congress on
the subject of Syria. Instead of doing its Constitutional mandated job,
i.e. engaging the Executive’s policy and giving all due consideration to
that policy. Instead of offering cogent criticism, or providing
principled opposition based on serious and well reasoned, if heart-felt,
values; instead of that we will get is a clown car. <br />
It will be the old Blue Team / Red Team divide.<br />
<br />
The Blue team will rally round the flag boys (and girls) shouting the
battle cry of freedom. They will defend their President against all
comers-- no matter what their doubts may be. They will trot out the party
line like good little Bolsheviks, undeterred by any pesky facts that
might intervene. They will be nauseating in their sycophancy, their
fawning obsequiousness. “Our guy do or die,” will be their battle cry.<br />
<br />
And what of the Red Team? They will, of course, be worse. It will be
one long, pointless primal scream for the Red Team. One long temper
tantrum about the president having the gall to be a Democrat, and worse
yet, black. Every trope of the last six years will be trotted out, every
last despicable dog whistle will be blown–at full volume. The usual
bloviators of the right will make the usual talking points with all the
usual thinly disguised racial venom.<br />
<br />
There might be a few defections in the ranks, Senator McNasty, er
McCain, will support the president; mainly because he never met a
military action or war he did not like. Bernie Sanders will also play to
type as a squishy Peace, Love and Granola Hippie Surrender Monkey.
Rand Paul will go to great lengths to prove his Libertarian bona fides.
But no real substantive debate will occur the hallowed halls of
Congress. Most of the Senators will play to type and to party
affiliation.<br />
<br />
In the House, the whole thing will degrade into the mother of all
food fights. I would not be the least bit surprised if the TEA Party
crazies will demand cuts to social welfare spending as a condition of
supporting the bombing. Check that, the TEA Party crazies will demand
those cuts before they even consider discussing the matter in the first
place. The debate in the House will be about as edifying as a Steel Cage
Match on Pay Per View.<br />
<br />
But in the end Obama will get his rubber stamp, no serious discussion
will happen. Congress is quite happy to be a spectator, to toss peanuts
at the Executive from the peanut gallery. Instead of advice and
consent, Congress will go back to its real job; that of carving out more
goodies for the 1% and their special interests.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-33984048019607826762013-08-29T16:57:00.001-07:002013-08-29T16:59:33.879-07:00War Power Rangers.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #555555; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 0.9em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Forget War Powers for a minute and take a look at what is the Constitutional responsibility of the Congress. The President maybe The Commander In Chief but only Congress has the right and the responsibility to declare war. That prerogative has been handed over lock, stock, and barrel to the Executive. It has been gladly abandoned so individual Congresscritters can fence sit on the issue of war and peace. Thus, if the conflict goes south in hurry they wash their hands of it,but if all goes well they can hop on the victory train as it pulls from the station.</div>
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Please note how irresponsible Congress has become by looking at our policy in Libya. Congress was almost not consulted at all, and then had nothing germain to say even when it was grudgingly consulted. Even after the policy in Libya was demonstrating serious holes and a general lack of cohesion, the only thing the opposition could do was put on a side-show about: Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi!</div>
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Not a serious critique was murmured, no after-action musings, no rethink of the Libyan adventure and definitely no re-examining of the interventionist logic that was the ultimate cause of the disaster. No, the deaths of brave men was used as a partisan football in the most craven way imaginable.</div>
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Instead of serious criticism of the policy there was a pointless food fight about who said what when and what, if anything, said was true. The opposition could only see the screw up in Libya from a narrow, distorted and ultimately useless partisan lens focused on transitory electoral politics. And when people who were not part of the hermetically sealed Fox News world ignored the high dungeon of the Elephants, the Republicans blew a gasket and continued to beat that dead horse until it was an unrecognizable pile of goo. So instead of doing their job as the opposition, e.i. offering not only a worthwhile critique of the Administration, but also offering a viable alternative, the Right flew off the rails, into the deep weeds, and then proceeded into the deep, dark jungle of fevered McCarthyite fantasy.</div>
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Thus I am of two minds here. Congress, in its role as the representative of people, should not only be asked “mother may I” it should be deeply involved in shaping the policy in Syria. It should be debating not when we should bomb, but if we should bomb at all. It should not be some superannuated rubber stamp to the executive. But with the lot of thumb-sucking mental midgets infesting the halls of Congress, especially in the House, we will not get the debate we need. We will instead get a political food fight with Team Red and Team Blue waving their flags, and the proceedings quickly degrading into a rugby scrum.</div>
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With Congress showing all the decorum and responsibility of a bunch of hyperactive five year olds fed large doses of Jolt Cola, even if Obama wanted the Legislature to perform its Constitutional mandate, and by that turn reverse the default of every president who ever drew breath, he could not in good conscious surrender to Congress his extra-Constitutional prerogatives. But, of course, Obama is unwilling to surrender on jot of his prerogatives, extra-Constitutional or not. He probably resents having to cede anything to Congress, as the “decision is his alone.”</div>
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Thus I look forward to the asinine grand-standing of Rand Paul and other base fools who have been able to get even more base fools to vote for them. I'm quite certain that Rand will be in full Tarzan yell when he approaches the dais to excoriate Obama for being a Black Democratic President. It will be great theater, totally besides the point, but a great chance for all the Paulites to drool over the son of their great prophet. It will be a wonderful dress rehearsal for Rand’s future role of sacrificial lamb to Hillary. I’m sure others will have their turn in the clown car that will be the debate over the bombing. Maybe Bernie Sanders will save the day with a modicum of gravitas, but that will be about it. Team Red and Team Blue will take their respective positions and the no-hold-barred-steel-cage match will commence. And you wonder why we can't have nice things.</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-31601108511580541132013-08-28T14:14:00.001-07:002013-08-28T14:18:41.436-07:00The March On Washington And Our National Pastime Of Historical Amnesia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I’m beginning to dread anniversaries. I’m particularly dreading 50 year anniversaries. They seem to be an excuse for hazy remembrance, unjustified back slapping and putting on extra-strength rose colored glasses. The pabulum being pushed out about the March On Washington in all is sanitized and homogenized glory is particularly irksome. <br />
<br />
I do not know how much more of this nonsense I can tolerate. The worst part of this exercise it the continued mummification of one of the truly great figures of the late 20th Century, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. Yes, he now, like Lincoln, belongs to the ages, however the enshrinement of the man has done a great disservice not only to the man but to the nation.<br />
<br />
Look, when the usual gang of idiots on the right side of the political spectrum can cough up the a-hisorical fur ball that Dr. King was a Republican and not be called out on that whopper of a lie, the record must be set straight.<br />
<br />
Reverend King was no cuddly teddy bare, he was no sainted martyr preaching peace, love and granola. He was a major thorn in the side of racist, complacent and self-satisfied America. He was a radical who used the tool of non-violent civil disobedience to effect change. <br />
<br />
And because of this he was slandered, attacked, and abused; not only by the troglodytes of Dixie but by “reasonable” people in good standing. King was denounced by the good, righteous and practical. He got grilled to no end about being a good for nothing Commie or being at least a Pinko sympathizer. He got spied upon by the Kennedys via J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. He got major flack from the other Negro leaders of the time for going too far, too fast.<br />
<br />
If you actually listen to or read that great speech King made half a century ago you can still hear a clarion call, not for mere brotherly love and tolerance, but for radical change. It was call not merely for integration but for transformation, for a more perfect union based on economic, cultural and political justice. It was heady stuff and well outside of the mainstream of status quo America then or now. The Right had a cow, the muddled middle was aghast, and those squishy liberals of the day could barely offer even the most tepid support to the program. <br />
<br />
For all of his life Dr. King faced the strong headwinds of what was then called the Establishment. He was at best ignored, or told he was pushing too hard too fast. At worst he was vilified, his life put in real peril. And then there was the attempted blackmail by J Edgar, a black a day in the history of democratic governance as any. The powers that be wanted King gone, they wanted his movement dead and gone. Eventually they got their wish thanks to a racist nobody and scum of the earth whose name will not grace these pages. <br />
<br />
So when you read some happy-clappy bit of drivel about The March On Washington, on how much “progress” we have made since then, go back and read the real history, not the mawkish, Disneyfied pseudohistory that has been spoon-fed to you by the usual suspects. Read about the real man and the real philosophy of that man. Read about the challenges he faced and the ever-present danger that was part and parcel not only of his life but every civil rights activist. And yes, read about the all too human foibles and failures of the man; how the high moral tone did not match the sexual appetite. Get the whole narrative, warts and all, because it is only in understanding the temper of the times and the challenges faced does one understand why the March On Washington deserves its iconic status.<br />
<br />
It is only then too that we, as a nation, can reclaim our history, the true history, from the sanitized and homogenized fable that has been handed down to us. Real risks were run gentile reader, real danger lurked, real-- neigh ferocious-- opposition, internal as well as external, was faced down and overcome. People where beaten down, some out-right killed in protests similar to this pivotal moment. D.C., lest anyone forget, was very much part of the deep south as Mississippi or Georgia. The message being put out was scandalous, it was dangerous, it challenged the entirety of the status quo, not just Jim Crow. It was not just about little black boys playing with little white girls.The vision of racial, social, and economic justice was the the reason for the final coda of King’s speech. When final justice was achieved, only then could the people, all the people, finally sing “free at last” because only then would they be finally free of all oppression. Only then would they achieve full and meaningful liberation.<br />
<br />
If there is anything you take away from this date in history is should be not how far we have gone but the work that still needs doing. Jim Crow, legalized segregation, is dead but his bastard son Jimmy Crow, is thriving: in gerrymandered congressional districts, voter ID laws, safety net cuts, birtherism and in a thousand other bits of toxic sludge sloshing around the political landscape. Jimmy Crow is ever-present even on the airwaves, actually especially on the airwaves maned by Fox News and the other usual suspects of the WingNut right. The back-patting we are indulging in on this anniversary is way too premature. Time to remember the real call to action. Time to get busy again.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-32241794844834640692013-08-26T13:48:00.000-07:002013-08-26T13:53:38.044-07:00The Road To Damascus, We Are Not In Kosovo Anymore.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
“Obama’s national-security aides are studying the 1999 air war in Kosovo as a possible blueprint for action in Syria.”<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2013/08/barack_obama_s_logic_for_bombing_syria_the_united_states_will_seek_to_put.html">http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2013/08/barack_obama_s_logic_for_bombing_syria_the_united_states_will_seek_to_put.html</a><br />
<br />
Yet:<br />
“[T]he No. 1 objective of a U.S. air campaign against Syria would be the seemingly limited one of deterring or preventing Assad’s regime from using chemical weapons again. However, Obama’s top generals and intelligence officers would likely tell him that they can’t do much to fulfill this mission.”<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2013/08/barack_obama_s_logic_for_bombing_syria_the_united_states_will_seek_to_put.2.html">http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2013/08/barack_obama_s_logic_for_bombing_syria_the_united_states_will_seek_to_put.2.html</a><br />
<br />
So even on the narrow confines of military tactics the Administrations notions don’t hold much water. But the policy fail goes much deeper than this. Shall we gentle reader? I’m afraid we must.<br />
<br />
Syria is not Kosovo. Look at a map one of these nations is in the Near East, the other is in the Balkans. But geography and history aside there is much more to this. Take Russia for one. The Russia of today is not the enfeebled Russia of the late 1990’s when the nation was being run by the lovable lush that was Boris Yeltsin. That Russia had just face-planted in the badlands of Chechnya, loosing the First Chechen war in 1996. Russia could not even hold on to it’s own territory back then, no way it was going to be able support its Slav brothers in Serbia.<br />
<br />
Plus Russia’s strategic interest in the Former Yugoslavia was not nearly as critical as its interest today in Syria. First, the Russians do have a history of folding in the Balkans when the odds are stacked up against them. Secondly, because Russia did loose face in Kosovo then they have a lot more invested in Syria now. The happy talk about Russia backing down in Syria, where it has its only presence in the Near East (plus the always desired warm water port) is suspect at best and dangerously delusional at worst. Russia has both National Pride and National Interest riding on this. And if you payed attention to the Second Chechen War it will pursue both with a bloody mindedness that will take your breath away.<br />
<br />
But Syria also has very different neighbors and allies than Serbia did. By the time the bombs flew in Kosovo, Serbia had exactly zero allies who would stand by her. Syria, on the other hand has its neighbor to the north Iran, plus the Iranian allies in Lebanon as an assist. Besides that twosome there is China and if you haven’t noticed China is on a bit of a tear as a world player these days. And China has its own foreign policy goals. Mainly those goals are to frustrate US attempts a hegemony whenever and wherever the Chinese can. With the US overextended and unfocused the Chinese have a rather easy time of accomplishing that goal.<br />
<br />
Then there is the small problem of what happens next. A post Milosevic Yugoslavia was not a real security threat to Europe. The nation of the South Slavs had already imploded into just Serbia and Montenegro, not exactly anyone’s definition of a international powerhouse. Besides time had passed the Balkans by. The Balkans had become an international backwater again with Europe safe, secure, peaceful and not really caring who was doing what to whom in the area. The great power game of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was long dead, the result of two disastrous world wars. Via NATO the nations of Europe could intervene in the Balkans without any zero sum considerations. So, not at all like Syria.<br />
<br />
Syria sits in one of the most dangerous corners of the world. What happens there matters. And unlike the Balkans, this is the playground not only of great powers but local powers too. Plus in the Near East, they take their religion seriously. Thus not only are great power calculations part of the equation but there is the matter of a thirteen hundred year old food fight between Sunnis and Shias. Thus the Gulf States do have a dog in this fight as do the Iranians. Without a strong center, without Assad holding, however tenuously the reigns of power, the chance you could create a playground for Radical Salafalist Jihadi Terrorists of all types is excellent. No way Israel is going to tolerate having such a state of affairs on its doorstep dear reader.<br />
<br />
The pressure to just do something in Syria is getting immense. And with that meme growing day by day, the notion that the US must intervene, really bad thinking is happening. The view that Kosovo is applicable to the situation in Syria is ahistorical. It is laughably bad. It is to compare not apples to oranges but to compare grandmothers to blue whales. <br />
<br />
If we intervene, if we use air power to put God back in his heaven and make all right with the world again, it will end in tears. No good will come of this. We have already been exposed as hypocrites all the way back in the glory days of Saddam Hussein. Not only did we look away while our man in Baghdad gassed the Kurds, we (and our allies) sold him the goods to make the poison gas in the first place. Who are we trying to kid with this new-found moral superiority? All of a sudden we have issues with a regime we sent so many poor wretches to be tortured by? We are worse than Lady McBeth in this regard. What’s the moral here, it’s ok to gun down peaceful protesters from helicopters in Egypt by the hundreds but not to gas people in Syria? You can be a bastard, but not too much of a bastard, is that the message? Our interventionist foreign policy has zoomed right past incoherence and strait past farce. It will end in tragedy if we don’t get real smart real soon.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-87357802991194319802013-08-25T14:00:00.002-07:002013-08-26T12:30:57.987-07:00 Just Do Something!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Our Hamlet in the White House in a jam. Only a year ago he banged his fist on the Bully Pulpit telling the bad boy of the Levant, Bashar Assad, that he’d better behave and not cross that red line if he knew what was good for him. Great theater gentle reader, with one tiny niggle, Obama was going to be called out on that little bit chest beating. Having called the tune, the president is now being asked to pay the bill. Barry has looked over the eye-watering cost of his blather and does not like the shape and size of the numbers. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But he asked for this. He ran for the job and is being reminded what the full job entails. The pressure to just Do Something, anything to make those bad images on the TV and web just go away is reaching critical mass. A funny thing about things reaching critical mass, they almost run away from you in really bad ways, in melt downs of policy or worse, explosions of war.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The awful thing about Syria is that all our options there are plain awful. We could do what we are doing, which is nothing. The hope here is that Assad is able to crush all comers and reassert “stability” in Syria. That would be a rather nasty blood bath as the Baathist regime clears account with all the people who “betrayed” the “rightful rule” of the Assads. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But poor Barack Obama, the other option is allowing the resistance to sweep all before it. And that gentle reader is another horror. It would result in the establishment of a fragmented failed state in the region. If you liked the Taliban crashing about in the bad lands of the Hindu Kush you’re just going to love the radical Salafi state that Syria will be in the Levant. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The last option, the one that no one in DC wants, would be a full on occupation in Syria by NATO. That would be a commitment with no end point and counter productive results. In other words it would be Iraq on steroids. Still, that is just the results we might get. The minute our efforts get “kinetic” that is once the bombs and bullets start flying we are staring at a second Libya at best and a worse than Iraq endgame as the the bookends of our efforts. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Yet the bobble heads of the Conventional Wisdom insist we, that is the US must Do Something. They will trot out cruise missile attacks or other “limited” options, forgetful of how much death and destruction just one Tomahawk can dish out. Or if they are really clueless, the bobble heads will yammer about a No Fly Zone. Well, that’s a great idea for your armchair general, but the reality is a hell of lot messier. No Fly means a total degradation of Syrian Air Power. It means blowing up a lot of stuff, missile defense systems, radar facilities, air fields, command and control facilities, and, by the way, innocent civilians. No Fly Zone are neither easy nor neat and clean. A lot of uninvolved, innocent civilians are going to get hurt, maimed and killed so we can all feel better about ourselves.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Gentle reader we did have a window of opportunity here, and we let blow past us. Instead of the foolishness of our efforts in Libya we should have instead focused on the main arena. The minute Assad started using his Air Force and Artillery against his own people we should have rounded up our NATO allies and intervened. We knew the capabilities of the Assad regime. We knew the history. We understood the larger history of despots, that they never, ever go gently into that good night. If you really believe in force as a solution, you go with the full Powell Doctrine. You go in fast, you go in hard, and you go in meaning business. No half measures need apply. You crush Assad like the cockroach that he is. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But that means if you are Obama et al you fully explain the rational, and the need. You don’t just give a pretty speech and then bask in the applause. You gird the nation to do what must be done. You do this because the National Interest of the US and its reputation is on the line. If you make a case for intervention based on humanitarian reasons you better be consistent. You link Libya and Syria together because it really is one and the same thing. You can not play favorites, or try to split hairs. The logic is inescapable. You will be called out if you try to fudge. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Yet Obama will fudge, and dawdle, and temporize. What else can he do? There are no good options, there are no half measures, there is no way to “calibrate” this mess. The big lie is that we can have some kind of limited response. There is no limit to this, one act will lead to another and we will blunder into a death by a thousands cuts the minute we reach for a military option. Syria is a black hole of chaos, get too close and the nation gets sucked into the vortex. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">We never had a dog in this fight. We do not have one now. We can only add to the tragedy. Will our reputation be damaged by doing nothing now? Yes it will. But it we will suffer worse if we rush in like fools were angles dare not tread. </span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-68941148833135941732013-08-24T13:13:00.004-07:002013-08-26T12:31:29.619-07:00Oh Goody, More Pointless Saber-Rattling <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/08/20138245153989906.html">http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/08/20138245153989906.html</a><br />
<br />
<br />
US boosts naval presence amid Syria tensions.<br />
<br />
Fourth vessel ordered to the Mediterranean as pressure rises on White House for action after reported gas attack.<br />
<br />
SNIP<br />
<br />
The US is now stacking up Arleigh Burke Destroyers like cordwood in the Med. Al Jazeera now reports four of the vessels doing donuts in the area. One, the USS Mahan, got held over in sort of a big grey stop-loss. I'm sure the Sailors and their families are just thrilled that the ship won't be coming home as planned.<br />
<br />
So with each ship possibly configured to launch up to up to 90 cruise missiles (your milage may vary) there is not an inconsiderable amount of flying death aimed at the Assad regime. But with Syria having a rather healthy air force it is not as impressive as one may think. Those ships are rather slow and easy targets for any jet pilot worth his wings.<br />
<br />
I'm scratching my head over this move, who, if anyone, is this supposed to impress? I doubt that Bashar Assad will take too much notice or be too concerned. Now if those ships are the support for an Aircraft Carrier or two, (perhaps even three) then we have taken the saber out of the scabbard and are swinging it around briskly.<br />
<br />
With the investigation of the possible gassing going the way of the last investigation, slow, convoluted, and constrained, I'm wondering what the whole point of all this diplomatic heavy breathing may be. The Russians have a Naval Base in Syria and if they put their minds to it, they too can have some big grey bruisers trolling the waters of the Med as well. We could create quite the impressive and obscenely expensive regatta off the shores of Tyre if that is the aim. And there is the added bonus for the crews that they can do this in the dog days of summer in one of the hottest places on earth.<br />
<br />
I sincerely hope Obama gets a notion in his head, a plan, instead of this Ad Hoc nonsense. So far he has been the perfect brain-dead follower of the oxymoronic DC Conventional Wisdom. The man needs to get out of his contemplative comfort zone. He made an foolish, if politically savvy, statement of the "Red Line" because that is the default set in D.C. Now that he actually has to back up his words with action he has found a serious disconnect between theory and reality. It's easy enough to act tough, to act determined, to stand tall. It a whole different thing to follow through, to perform. All sorts of real world complexities rear their ugly head when theory becomes "kinetic" i.e. when the bombs and bullets start flying.<br />
<br />
I'll believe Obama is serious about his military options when I see not just a few Arleigh Burkes bobbing in the waters, but a full on Carrier Groups-- plus ramp ups in Turkey and Italy of NATO airbases. But first Obama has got to snap out of his present funk. He is in Deer-in-the-headlights mode right now, unable to follow through on the fine words he spoke only a year ago. Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut about red lines? Just a thought.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-34679098265763610092013-08-23T12:48:00.000-07:002013-08-26T12:32:43.620-07:00The Kicking In Of A Rotten Door. The Road To Damascus Part Eight: Paul Get Gassed<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The Arab Spring was fun while it lasted but now that it impinges on the prerogatives of the Global Elites it just has to go; by any means necessary. Ah the salad days when clueless politicians were all goo-goo eyed and dreamy about democracy finally coming to the Near East. Fun times no? The oppressed multitudes of the Arab lands were going to throw off their chains and we we would all walk off in to the sunset, arm in arm, munching on a hotdog and washing it down with a coke. But then, suddenly, we remembered the Demos part of Democracy, that is the inconvenient truth of the actual people who live in the area. <br />
<br />
From our elites down we all forgot the history of these people. We had amnesia about the one hundred years of Colonial and NeoColonial rule. We forgot how many of these alleged nations were made out of whole cloth by the victors of WWI and had no legitimacy to speak of. We forgot how warped and twisted the polity of these lands became due to the long, hard, freeze of the cold war. We forgot that the only viable counter to the despots was not Liberal Democratic movements but hard-edged, reactionary, anti-modern Islamic fundamentalists of the Salafi sort. We might have killed the functionality of Al Qaeda but we did not kill the ideology of the movement. <br />
<br />
The history of the region has come to bite us hard in Syria. Syria is exactly one of those lands whose existence is due to muddle-headed Colonialist jury rigging. It is the results of France wanting a play toy in the Region. Nothing good could have come of a mostly Islamic people being ruled over by Roman Catholic Europeans. The French came, they conquered, they departed-- leaving a hot mess.<br />
<br />
The Post Colonial history of Syria is the unification of disparate people by force major. Before the weird mix of the Assad regime came to fore, that of Alawi sectarians ruling via a Arab Nationalist and Socialist Baathist structure, Syria was in Chaos. The Syrians changed their government about as often as they changed their underwear. But give the murdering bastard and founder of the Assad Clan his due, he put an end to all that.<br />
<br />
But death comes to us all and his son and the successor did not have the chops of dear old dad. Well, he did not until now. But at first he seemed shocked to find that his oppressed masses were not all that into him. When the protesters took to streets he was rattled and willing to at least talk about reform. But the masses did not want reform, they wanted Bashar Assad, actually they just wanted his head--preferable on a pike.<br />
<br />
Bashar took exception to this and began the long, slow counter revolution that is bulldozing its way across the land. It started badly with the Government losing lots of ground to the rebels and damn-near losing the whole thing. But the indiscriminate use of air power and a helping hand from the Iranians turned the civil war around.<br />
<br />
Of course the Hamlet of the White House was shocked, shocked I tell you, that Assad would resort to such behavior. He drew a line in the sand telling Bashar to be a good boy and not use any kind of WMD or he would be in real trouble. But before Obama could pull the belt from his pants RealPolitik reared its ugly head. Seems those oh so wonderful freedom fighters had a few scurvy dog pirates among them. Oh bother, there seemed to be a passel of Radical Salafi Jihadi tearing around doing some rather obnoxious things in Syria. And look over there, our buddies, our pals, the Saudis are funding this lot in furthering the old Sunni-Shia feud that had gone on since the year 680 of the Common Era. (61 AH for the fans of the Islamic Calendar.) And look over there, it’s the Chinese and the Russians supporting Assad in the UN in furtherance of their interests. And what’s that? The Gulf States have joined the Saudis in support of undermining Iran? And Iran along with “liberated” Iraq have come to aid of the Assad to prevent the Sunni encroachment? Where are the guys with the white hats again? Sorry, it’s Black Hats all around. Right. Great. What to do with that line in the sand again?<br />
<br />
Well if you’re Obama you fudge. Red line, I don’t see any red line. Did the Syrians really cross it? Uh, let’s, er, Investigate. Yes, that’s the ticket, we’ll have the UN investigate! The Russians and Chinese won’t object-- oh, they did? How does that great power game go again? <br />
<br />
If the results of Obama’s flopping and twitching were not so serious this would be hilarious. But because real people are dying in horrible, painful ways it is no longer funny; if it is still a farce. I thought I never have to surrender a talking point to the Right, but the facts require me to do so. Obama is clueless on foreign policy, he lacks the chops. The man could not find the long term national interests of the United States if you painted it fluorescent orange and lit the whole mess with a hundred thousand watt black light.<br />
<br />
The only cold comfort I have is that Obama shares this lack of vision with every other denizen of the fever swamps of the Potomac. Our government, as Dan Carlin keeps pointing out, is utterly corrupt. It serves only the limited interest of the upper .1% of the land. It serves crony capitalism, the corporate elite, the financial elite, and no one else. This is a subset that only cares about preserving and expanding its outsized power and damn the consequences. All around the world it is the same rotten, corrupt and amoral gang. It is the same bunch of egomaniacs and borderline sociopaths running the show.<br />
<br />
Assad will most likely get away with this war crime. Obama will let him because he values short term stability over long term justice. More to the point Obama’s Wall Street backers, who own him lock-stock-and-barrel value that stability and are willing to hurt, maim and kill to get it. All for the greater glory of a 20% return on investment. <br />
<br />
But the kindling is only getting larger dear reader. The fire may be put out this time, but the fuel remains, and grows. If you follow history dear reader you know this song. You know the lyrics by heart. It is the death song of a civilization. It is the long slow dirge that ends in instruments being smashed and the stage set on fire. The next time we will pass Spring and go straight into the dog days of Summer. We will curse that day and the base fools that are our political and economic elites who allowed it to occur.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-41318767081805709182013-07-30T13:21:00.005-07:002013-07-30T13:21:40.743-07:00Weiner Roast.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There is an epic political train wreck happening in Gotham. The junk that knows no shame, Anthony Weiner, got outted by a woman name Sydney Leathers; no, seriously, that’s her name, Sydney Leathers. <br /><br />So yet another young twenty year old woman got to see the former Congressman standing proud. And she got to cash in--big time. She has been seen in conversation with Porn Producers Vivid Entertainment for the inevitable “educational video” that the fine folks at Vivd will put out. There is a dark bit of humor here but also more than a bit of horror. Something is seriously wrong with this man.<br /><br />Something is also seriously wrong with Huma Abedin. Being the very simple creature know as a male human there is no way I can plumb the depths of the heart of a woman. Still, I do wonder how much more humiliation this woman can take. Is this were love takes a woman, or is there something much more darker going on here?<br /><br />One thing for sure, this is not a great advertisement for therapy, marriage or psychological, or any other kind. After untold hours of weeping, gnashing of teeth, bearing of souls and psyches the man still can’t keep his junk in the trunk. <br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/30/nyregion/weiners-behavior-prompts-a-question-why-did-he-do-it.html">Something wicked this way comes in the form of Anthony Weiner.</a> Something very weird and very self destructive. Something that Ms. Abedin has either willingly or unwilling signed off for. This is no longer just about politics in the great city of Gotham; this is much, much darker, the stuff of tragedy.<br /><br />Can we all agree that Mr. Weiner is something of a skeevy creep? Can we agree that the man has poured gasoline on himself and then lit a match. You can smell the charcoal all the way to New Jersey; he’s not merely cooked, he’s ashes. So what is this politically connected and rising Clintonite star, Ms. Abedin, to do? The Tammy Wynette impersonation is not working. There are several quantum leaps, all downward, from the Big Dog, Bill Clinton, to the big bulge, Anthony Weiner. <br /><br />This is more than political. This is more than a societal Rorschach Test. These are real married people with a real child and a relationship that has crashed on the reefs; mainly due to the man’s antics. But the thing is, Huma is now taking the hits too. The Hillary template was barely acceptable twenty years ago, excusable for the man and the stakes at that time. That was then, this is now, and women are expected to lean in, to be there own person, not an appendage of their spouses.<br /><br />Unlike many others I do not see this as raw political calculation. I do see this as a woman trying to save her relationship with a deeply flawed man. But the man is caroming around the Interwebs, looking for love in all the wrong places. What he is chasing is the chase itself. There is a very weird obsession in going after what he can’t have and does not really want. It’s the very distance he craves, plus the validation these far too young for him women give. <br /><br />This is a very disturbing dynamic. It gets positively icky, no other word suffices, when the general public gets dragged into this. If Mr. Weiner were just another high-profile lawyer in the Big Apple no one would care. Maybe he would be the subject of gossip in the exclusive bars and other hang outs of the elite legal set of Manhattan, but we, the unwashed masses of the nation could be blissfully unaware of these goings on. However the former Congressman decided to inflict himself on our conscious. He ran for Mayor in one of the media capitols of not only the US but the world. He ran knowing that Ms. Leathers, and more like her would pop up. He also roped his wife into this little bit of self-flagellation. Why the hell did she agree to this? <br /><br />Again, I can not see into this woman’s heart. Only she, and she alone really knows if having this Albatross, the former congressman, hung around her neck is worth it. <a href="http://politicalwire.com/archives/2013/07/30/weiner_dodges_question_on_whether_hes_still_sexting.html">I can only point out that bird is smelling rather rancid.</a> Is this love? Is this mere miscalculated ambition? Does this woman have a taste for roasted crow? Who knows? But the good ship Anthony is about to go under the waves and she is lashed to the mast. Maybe she wanted to be there? Ms. Aduma, Dr. Freud on line one, National Enquire on line two.<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-54423368892371710202013-07-25T01:12:00.001-07:002013-08-26T12:30:29.915-07:00The Kicking In Of A Rotten Door: The Road To Damascus. Part Five<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There is no fool quite like a damn fool and President Obama has proved himself to be one of that number. While the News Cycle was distracted with the Royal Baby our transactional super hero did a little deal with Congress. “(Reuters) - President Barack Obama will move forward with a plan for the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/23/us-usa-syria-arms-idUSBRE96L0W520130723">United States to arm the struggling Syrian rebels</a> after some congressional concerns were eased, officials said on Monday.” Please note that We The People were not so blessed and our concerns were not even consulted, never mind addressed.<br />
<br />
My concern is that Obama, and the rest of the elites who are running the nation into the ground, have seem to have learned nothing from the last sixty years; you do not involve your government in another nations’ civil war --ever.<br />
<br />
I am flabbergasted that this man of Harvard and Columbia, one of the brightest and most articulate men of his generation could be so willfully ignorant. Was he and his advisers asleep in history class when the professor went over the failed attempt to intervene in the Bolshevik-White Army struggle in Russia? Did they somehow miss the sorry history of our misadventure in Vietnam? Were they not paying attention to how badly an ill-advised interventionist policy can go wrong? Did Iraq ring a bell? Maybe they managed to forget the barley contained catastrophe in Libya they created less than two years ago?<br />
<br />
There is no way intervening in Syria will end up well. First off, the US is charging in far too late. The Nation of Syria is imploding before our eyes. It is a bloody mess. There are no good guys for us to support; just a bunch of more or less evil bastards to pick and choose from. <br />
<br />
We are not going to find the good and glorious “secular” leader to right the wrongs in Syria. There is no such animal. And even if there was such a man coming out of the Baathist elite that defected from Assad, our government is far too incompetent to find that particular light hidden under a bushel. This is because the interest of the United States and the interest of Syria are exactly one hundred and eighty degrees apart. But none the less, we are going to charge in were angles dare not tread; right into conflict that we have no exit strategy from. <br />
<br />
And it’s not like we are not working at cross purposes to other nations and other interests in the area. Our crashing about will definitely be opposed by both China and Russia. Neither of these great powers are going to stand by whilst we pull the rug out from Bashar al-Assad. Plus regional power Iran is not going to sit on its hands and allow their Alawi brethren to get beaten from pillar to post by the United States. Iran is already sending in Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon to shore up the Baathist regime. <br />
<br />
But if our new opponents are a rather scabrous bunch, that is nothing compared to our alleged allies. Remember the nation that gave us fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers? They are our “buddies” once more; part of the grand alliance. Yes I am writing about Saudi Arabia and the fun-loving Salafi Jihadis they bring to the table. For them and other Gulf States this is just a continuation of a 1,400 year grudge match between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam. And we, all of us in these United States, just signed up to become a participant in this dust up.<br />
<br />
It isn’t a question of helping out “Moderate Muslims” in the area, whatever that means. Really, what is the definition of a Moderate Muslim anyway, and why are we, as a non-Muslim nation supposedly wedded to the notion of a secular state the ones making that determination in the first place? <br />
<br />
But even if we could come up with a consensus of what a more secular but still Islamic polity might be, there is zero chance that our nation could achieve it. Strange thing about Civil Wars, they tend to come up with radical results. It seems that these types of conflicts tend to squash all forms of moderation. For some reason cool, dispassionate, and logical discourse seems to be in short supply when people are engaged in inter-communal warfare.<br />
<br />
It’s has only been a few years since we finally extricated ourselves from one of the worst Foreign Policy disasters the United States has ever suffered, Iraq. In our ten plus years blundering around in Mesopotamia we managed to ruin the lives of thousands of our military members, send trillions of dollars down a rat-hole, and destabilize an area already far too dangerous as it was. Millions of Iraq lives have been utterly ruined and not a few of those lives were snuffed out far too soon. <br />
<br />
Yet we continue to carom about the Near East like a car piloted by a blind man. We made a total hash out our Libyan policy, introducing chaos a plenty into the surrounding states. If you want to see how not to do regime change in the post-colonial developing world your first stop has to be Libya. Not that the Libyan results have engendered any kind of humility or caution in the White House; yet again we are intervening in a place that is not in our National Interest to do so. <br />
<br />
Granted Obama did make some noises about a line in the sand. There was the full Tarzan yell of Team Obama about use of chemical weapons. But that was pure theater, it utterly lacked seriousness. If we had even the slightest humanitarian concern about the butcher’s bill Assad was ringing up there would have been boots on the ground long ago. <br />
<br />
No, this is a much more tawdry affair. This is about balance of power calculations. This is about our utter failure to do anything constructive in the Levant. This is about our elites default of “intervene first, ask questions later.”<br />
<br />
Thus because of our elites utter failure of imagination, because of the group-think that infests our electeds, the Syrian people will suffer. The land will shake and bleed. A murderous status quo with no end in site will continue. Iran, China and Russia will prop up the Assad regime. The U.S., the Saudis, the Turks and the Gulf States will work at cross purposes supporting various Islamic proxies. And wither Israel? You know that the Jewish state is going to get sucked into the mix. What better time to plant a shiv in one of your opponents than when they are distracted with other matters?<br />
<br />
This is the maelstrom that Obama is about to enter. This is the utter foolishness that makes an oxymoron out of the term “Conventional Wisdom.” It is the Beltway group-think that passes for grand strategic thinking. It is Bismarck on acid. It is Clausewitz on Bath Salts. It seems the only difference between Obama and McCain turns out to be it takes Obama six years to do a damn fool thing that McCain would do in six seconds.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-56755800488936627382013-05-17T11:23:00.000-07:002013-05-18T01:08:35.483-07:00Musings on the weed.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Started as a way to screw over migrant Mexican workers in the
Southwest during the Great Depression, the banning of Marijuana has
always been bad policy. There has always been a core of undiluted
malevolence to the policy.<br />
<br />
Flash forward to the sixties when smoking weed became part of the
long dark night of the culture wars. The enforcement of the ban took on
yet another aspect, that of hippie bashing. And then in the Regan
Eighties that particular meme was placed on steroids by the wide-eyed,
sainted wife of Don Reynaldo, Nancy Just Say No.<br />
<br />
We have been very stupid about this for a very long time. Our whole
drug policy reeks of moral panic and out of control Puritanism. We have
allowed this panic to feed an utterly ruinous policy that shreds our
forth amendment rights and feeds a demonic Prison-Industrial Complex.
Nothing good has come our second period of Prohibition.<br />
<br />
We need a radical rethink of the whole policy on drugs and the ban on
Marijuana is a great place to start. I’m going to blow past most of the
arguments for and against to go to what I consider the big guns.<br />
<br />
The first big gun is that I don’t know of a substance that brings
more enjoyment with so few downsides. Marijuana is ridiculously safe.
First there is no LD50 worth mentioning; there is no way to overdose on
weed. Maybe there are some who are allergic to MJ, who would suffer a
reaction, but I have not heard a word of it. No one has died in gutter
from the stuff. Trust me when I say we all would have heard, and seen,
the results, of a fatal Marijuana overdose. The government and the Just
Say No crowd would be showing us the images and trumpeting the news like
the Second Coming. This is not Heroin, cocaine, barbiturates, alcohol,
etc. which can and do kill if you take too much.<br />
<br />
Going a bit deeper, there is no real proof of any real long term harm
with Marijuana. Yes, there are “studies” that “show” some sort of
possible harm but every last one has a matching study that says, in
essence, “not so fast.” To put not so fine a point most of the studies
pointing to harm are crap. There methodology is flawed, the sourcing is
highly suspect, the results are contaminated at best or utterly
worthless at worst. Besides, like it or not, we have been doing a very
long-term epidemiological study since the 1960′s.<br />
<br />
Yes, my dear and fellow baby-boomers in one way or another you and I
have participated either as a test subject or as a control. If we
really wanted to put an end to the debate the government could do a two
to four year study and really look at the morbidity. The CDC could go
through the data with a fine tooth comb and find out even the most
trivial of causalities. “Hey, what did you know? It seems that long term and
heavy use of marijuana causes excessive nose hair growth; go figure.”
But we already know one thing; nothing really serious has occurred. No
spike in cancer. No spike in respiratory disease (kind of a surprise to
yours truly). No real proof of addiction. No real proof of habituation
that causes any real harm. No sudden uptick in the number of people
sporting two heads. Nothing. Bupkis. All the anti-drug forces have is
anactodal evidence; e.i. garbage that can not stand the light of
double-blind studies.<br />
<br />
I’m not saying that weed is totally harmless, no drug is. Every drug
out there has some sort of adverse reaction or side effect. Every drug
out there has what the medical profession calls contraindications,
reasons you do not take a drug. What I am saying is that compared to
almost all the drugs out there, medicinal and recreational, weed is
remarkably benign. It maybe be even safer than Aspirin. Hard to prove
that surmise because we have spent so much time and effort demonizing
hemp. MJ is illegal, so it’s really hard to get data points on use.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately we, the unwashed public, will never get that mother of
all epidemiological studies finally putting the debate to rest. The
opponents of reform are way too clever for that. Deep inside they know
their talking points are pure bull-puckey. Besides, there is the
political a political gold mine to be reaped in hippie-punching. There
are Red Team flag waving considerations that take precedent to sensible
policy. It is way too much fun and way too profitable to demagog drug
policy. Logic and science just get in the way; there are elections to be
won by waving the bloody red shirt. Thus, even if we did get that
epidemiological study it would be of no matter. Idiot Progressives would
still playing a no-win game.<br />
<br />
The argument Progressives should make is that there is gold in them
thar hills. Allowing MJ to be sold legally will raise money for strapped
federal, state, and local coffers. Being the evil bastard that I am, I
would make it federal law linking the sale of tobacco to the sale of MJ.
States would have to chain the age of tobacco use to the age of MJ use.
Any prohibition placed on MJ would have to also apply to tobacco. Loss
of a license to sell MJ would incur a loss of license to sell tobacco
because it is same license — a license to sell tobacco and MJ. Yes, I do
enjoy putting a finger in the eye of Red State yahoos.<br />
<br />
I doubt we can re-purpose even part of 42 billion dollars thrown down
the rat-hole of our present drug policy. That, unfortunately, is a
battle for another day. It is going to be a hell of a fight just to
legalize pot. If Progressives are smart they will use a little political
Jujitsu and stress how by decriminalizing MJ, which is the most used
illegal drug and a “gateway drug,” we can concentrate on the “more
serious drugs” and prevent there use by slamming the gateway of MJ shut.
While this argument will hold no water for Deep Red partisans, it will
help with the mushy middle. When the Reds start screaming about the
how the moral hazard legalized pot will present to our innocent youth, the
Progressive counter must be “all the more reason to legalize it and then
regulate it.” Progressive can then make a strong push for stricter
enforcement of relevant laws on selling booze and cigarettes (plus MJ)
to minors. I particularly like this notion because, as pointed out
before, I just love sticking a finger in the eye of Red State
hypocrites.<br />
<br />
For me the three points for legalization are:<br />
<br />
Marijuana is benign, no real harm has been shown after near fifty years of use by a large section of the population.<br />
<br />
Legalization of Marijuana will help in the battle against more dangerous drugs by:<br />
1. Closing a gateway. Less people may be tempted by “harder” drugs
because the gateway drug of MJ is slammed shut by legalization. Why go
to a suspect dealer when you go to a 7/11 for your weed?<br />
2. Resources can be re-targeted to interdiction of harder drugs once MJ is legalized gaining more bang for the buck.<br />
<br />
And finally the truly big enchilada; there is a ton of tax and other
monies to be made by legalization. Granted, once legalized the farmers
are going to get screwed, MJ is going to become a commodity and its
value per pound will plummet, but everyone else will make out like
bandits. There is gold in them thar green hills and all sorts of taxes
that can be had for cash strapped governments, local, state, and
federal.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-13753771771079978802013-05-13T11:41:00.000-07:002013-05-13T11:41:22.112-07:00Libya; It's the Policy Stupid!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I'm reading about the smoking gun de jure of the long, unending Republican Primal Scream that is "Benghazi!!!!" Shall we get impolitic? We shall. We must. <br />
<br />
First let's pull the chains holding the two 800 pound gorillas of our
foreign policy: Afghanistan and Iraq. Almost all of our military power
was diverted there. So when Ghaddafi decided he wanted to wipe out vast
swaths of his own population, and then broadcasted the message, our
options were very limited. While I can not get into the head space of
the our man Muammar he must have looked about and seen how bogged down the
preeminent military power in the world was and thought he could get away
with mass slaughter.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately for the man, his broadcasting of his intentions was a
challenge that had to be answered. If he had pulled an Assad, and
provided even a soupcon of plausible deniability, he probably could of
gone on his murderous way.<br />
<br />
Thus was the “humanitarian” intervention into Libya born. But there
was still the problem of boots on the ground; the problem being being we
had none to spare. From the beginning there was no after action plan
for Libya. There was no provision for the day after Ghaddafi.<br />
<br />
Adding fuel to this tinderbox is how NATO then went about its
business. It armed every insurgent force with a grudge against Ghaddafi
without fear or favor. Not a really good idea as these divergent groups
only shared a hatred of the regime and nothing else. Once the object of
their hate was gone, their divergent ideologies and divergent goals
insured that chaos would reign in post Ghaddafi Libya. <br />
With the collapse of the regime all manner of Pandora’s boxes were
opened. Large cashes of arms which were under the control of the
Libyan government became available to brigands and non-state actors. The flood
of arms is destabilizing a wide swath of the Maghreb and Saharan Africa.
Mali came withing a whisker of becoming a radical Salafi state. Only
the quick action of France prevented that outcome.<br />
<br />
The intervention in Libya was always a high risk affair; a high wire
act with no net. Not providing boots on the ground for the post-Gaddafi
Libya had high probability of ending in tears. Granted, I have no earthly clue how Obama could have sold a proper
intervention. I have no clue how those troops, even if provisioned,
could have cleanly intervened. Hundreds of thousands of foreign troops
tear-assing around Libya is not my idea of a good time had by all. But
an even less fun time is what we have now, hundreds of thousands of
armed men in diverse and disperse militias and criminal gangs
tear-assing around not only in Libya, but further afield.<br />
<br />
Could Obama done nothing at all? Not really. I do not see how Obama
could have allowed Gaddafi to butcher whole swaths of the Libyan
population. I know that the Republicans would have gone into high
dungeon if he had opted to do nothing. I also know that the default of
our policy, to do something, would have been hard to overcome. It would
not be politic for Obama to come out and say “because of the commitments
we already have in Iraq and Afghanistan and because of the degradation
of our military caused by those commitments our nation can not intervene
in Libya. We have no real capability for the necessary follow-on
actions post-Gaddafi and neither do our NATO allies.” It would have been
the truth, but as Jack Jack Nicholson’s character in “A Few Good Men”
would observe “you can’t handle the truth!”<br />
<br />
Thus we cobbled together a plan that involved massive air power with
questionable ground assets. It got the job done, and it got it done ugly.
And that ugliness came back to bite us. Libya is being torn apart by
centrifugal forces. The nation is riven by faction and regionalism. As
in much of the post-colonial world the borders of the Libya do not
reflect the facts on the ground. The only reason unity held was because a
truly evil bastard was willing to enforce it with force major.<br />
<br />
But in the making of the Libyan omelet by our man Muammar, a lot of
damage was done. The oppression and violence of the regime has left a
nation and people deeply injured. By using force to overthrow the regime
we almost guaranteed that the violence would continue. We also have an
excellent chance of having an even more evil bastard rise up from the
ashes of Libya and take charge.<br />
<br />
Benghazi is the end game and end result of our policy of empire on
the cheep. It is the result of trying to be world’s police man. We keep
reaching for the hammer of military action seeing every foreign policy
question as a nail for that hammer. It is a really foolish way to go
about our business. Military options require a willingness to go in
large and in charge. It means you have to be willing for the use of
appropriate ground forces. You can only fully control a patch of ground
with ground-pounders — full stop. If you are not willing to commit
troops, don’t get involved, it really is that simple.<br />
<br />
It is not like we have not allowed really bad things to happen in
places far, far away. We did nothing for Rwanda. We never intervened in
Burma. We actually supported the murderous Central American death squads
during the reign of the Sainted Ronny Ray-Gun. We waited for damn-near
forever when Yugoslavia fell into the ninth level of hell, only
intervening when Kosovo started tipping over as well. We let North Korea
slowly sink into the abyss of starvation and privation with only a
murmur. We happy snatch up Chinese goods made with near and actual slave
labor. Our morality is highly suspect. Would we have really cared for
the Libyans if their land was not swimming in oil?<br />
<br />
But none of this is going to be discussed. No, we are going to enjoy a
nice, long, and ultimately pointless bit of political theater. We are
not even going to bother to gather up some after-action lessons learned.
We won’t even bother to beef up diplomatic security. The sequester is
actually going to cut the already inadequate funding for that item.<br />
<br />
So let’s rally round the flag boys and girls. Blue Team and Red Team
assume your usual positions. Republicans will kick off and Democrats
will receive. Ready? Steady. GO!!<br />
<br />
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-27418665078405803972013-04-30T12:22:00.000-07:002013-05-01T01:56:03.921-07:00Musings on Rubio and Immigration<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The position of the Republicans viz Immigration is not a happy one. It is quite like the position a Thanksgiving Turkey is put in : do you want to be deep fried or baked? The wiser heads of the Republican Party can see the demographic freight train coming. They can see the hurt coming. They can look at the situation of the California Republican Party and see how the national party could become just as irrelevant.<br />
<br />
Obama won because he crushed the Republicans in specific demographics. The biggest part of that butt-kicking came with Hispanics. They are a growing slice of the nation and they are going over to the Democratic Party in droves. <br />
<br />
So what to do, what to do? And that is the dilemma the National Republicans face. The TEA Party folk are dead set against any kind of amnesty. They are still fans of "self deportation' and other really brilliant ideas like "securing the border." The big ideas being that if the nation will just build a bigger wall and act even more despicably to undocumented workers everything will come up roses.<br />
<br />
The flaws to that ideology are at least two. There is no wall long, deep, and wide enough to keep undocumenteds out. You can only make the idea of building a wall plausible to people in U.S. because their geographic skills are so atrocious. Build the dang wall? Look at a map genius; thousands of miles of border with multiple areas where the landscape is impossible to guard and then thousands more miles of coastline with similar issues. Building a wall is nothing more than passing a Coyote Full Employment Act.<br />
<br />
The other flaw with the ideology is that undocumenteds have already self-deported, thank you very much, and are not in the mind to do it again. They came here for better opportunities. They came here for jobs. They put down roots; they are not leaving. No matter how mean and vicious we become, we are not going to match the conditions these people left. If you have actually seen the Third World up close and personal, if you have had a even a small taste of what a developing nation looks, smells, and taste like, you know that no cruelty we can dream up will exceed what these people left.<br />
<br />
But those inconvenient truths are even less palatable for Republicans than the 800 pound gorilla residing on the couch of national politics. Plainly put, the Republicans brand has no appeal for Hispanics. Thus a man like De Mint has a point. Why let these people become citizens, citizens that vote, citizens that vote Democratic? The awful truth for TEA Party Republicans is that they die a quick and ugly death if DREAMers and others get the right to vote. The TEA Party will be as dead as a stuffed Dodo.<br />
<br />
But for the National Party the optics are different. The longer the TEA Party rules the roost on immigration, the longer the trek in the wilderness for the National Republicans becomes. Again, the example of California looms, dark and ominous, for the National Republicans. All during the 1990's the California Republican Party went on an immigrant bashing tear. And that is why in the early 21st century the CA Republican Party can not find a non-white vote for love or (tons of) money. Republicans can rock the white vote from now to rapture (and they still do, comfortably) but still loose because whites are now just another minority and because the Republican Brand is so toxic to the other minorities in CA.<br />
<br />
In a way I don't envy Rubio's position. His personal and political argument is that the Republican have to accept quite a bit of pain now to avoid a whole world of hurt later. It's a hell of a high-wire act. Plus there is the added bonus that even if he succeeds, he is not going to have much to show for it in the form of Hispanic votes. Immigration is not the only thing that turns off Hispanic voters from the Republicans. <br />
<br />
Personally I see Republicans acting to type. Obama Derangement Syndrome will kick in and De Mint will get his scalp to hang on the wall. I see some rather large chickens coming home to roost. I see chickens the size of Airbus A350s heading in. A whole generation and then some have been fed a toxic witch's brew of bigotry, resentment, fear, and hatred. They have lashed out in ways large and small. They have made the politics of resentment the national sport, the norm. And while doing this they have left a ton of people hugely pissed off. You don't work off that kind of karmic political debt with one bill. Deep down all Republicans know this. They know a reckoning is coming and they don't like it one little bit. But much like a cornered rat, the default will be to lash out as much as possible, to do as much damage as possible, to hold on to as much power as long as possible, and damn the consequences. <br />
<br />
In the end I think the Republicans will refuse to give Obama a win, any kind of win, even if such a win is in the long term interest of the Republican Party. It is not even just about Obama. The Republican Party still believes in the Rove-ite dream of a one Party state, a nation solely ruled by the precepts and programs of the Republican Party. They don't accept any Democratic president as legitimate. They don't accept the Democratic Party as legitimate. In such a zero sum ideology, where your loss is my gain, any "win" for Democrats is unacceptable. I fear 10-12 million people are going to have to wait for the Elephants to finally, irrevocably be swallowed up by the coming demographic tsunami before any real reform comes their way. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-8484638288073100432013-04-05T12:54:00.001-07:002013-04-05T12:54:01.107-07:00A Damn Fool Thing In The Korean Peninsula <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The ghost of Otto Van Bismarck has been whispering in my ear. He hovers over me, murmuring warnings about the situation in Korea. Bismarck quietly reminds me of how the recent crisis in the land of the morning calm resembles the damn fool thing in the Balkans that ignited the World War One.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I keep looking at Korea through this lens and I do not like the view. The first thing I notice is that a series of alliances makes the Korean Peninsula a very dangerous place indeed. The U.S., Japan, and South Korea are wound very tightly in a defensive coalition backed by mutual interest and the nuclear stockpile of the U.S. The North Koreans are supported by China. Russia is the odd nation out. It is a neighbor of Korea and used to be a confederate but with the collapse of Communism in Russia relations between the DPRK and the Russians are much less simpatico. Still, the Russian can and do act as a break to the Washington/ Tokyo / Seoul nexus.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">If the alliance structure was not worrisome enough, the leadership issues are even more troublesome. Watching Kim The Third, Kim Jong Un, and listening his rhetoric is a nerve-wracking experience. Only three years ago, he was at best a shadow prince, a barely real presence in the obscure and secretive nether-land of Pyongyang. Today, the boy-king waddles though the halls of power, his porcine face adorning every possible nook and cranny of the public space. Not even thirty years old, he controls one of the largest armies in the world.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Jong Un is the not only worry. The South has just elected their own deeply disturbing leader. Park Geun-hye has followed dear old dad’s foot steps into political power. In this case it is more like foot stomps as dear old dad was Park Chung-hee, a brutal military dictator that was finally put to bed by assassination. Showing a little more filial piety than is warranted, even for an Asian female, Ms. Park has followed dad’s predilection for authoritarianism. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I should talk about Tokyo’s leader here, but that is a fool’s game. Japan has been playing musical chairs with its leadership with the present seat warmer being Yoshihiko Noda. The man may just mark his first year as leader on April 21, 2013; or not. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">This leaves us with “The Leader Of The Free World” the oh so dreamy Barack Obama. Our man Barry has just swapped his own Iron Lady, Hillary Clinton for a Boston Brahman, John Kerry. The new SoS has long experience in the trenches of foreign policy having been the lead Senator on the Foreign Affairs committee. What Kerry does not have is much room to maneuver as Obama is a top-down kind of guy.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Unfortunately for my peace of mind Mr. Obama has often demonstrated a very transactional frame of mind. Barack’s “let’s make a deal” default is exactly the kind of values-free mentality that can lead to real trouble. I also wonder if Obama has the mental landscape to adequately deal with the serious weirdness coming out of Pyongyang. How does “No Drama Obama” deal with the Drama Prince of the DPRK? </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Obama has a poor track record in this regard. While the Republicans in Congress are a little less obstreperous and cannot back their brinkmanship with nuclear weapons, they have been richly rewarded for their bad behavior. If Obama cannot deliver a smack down on Mitch McConnell, what chance does he have with Kim?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Circling back to Mr. Kim, I do wonder if the 29 year old has the seasoning and gravitas to truly lead. Other than the accomplishment of becoming morbidly obese in a land ware millions a starving, what else is there? He was not groomed for office like dear old dad, Kim Jong-il. Only three years on the job, and very young at that, </span><span class="s2">Kim Jong-un is a wild card in a deck stacked with jokers. </span></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1">Yet the crisis escalates. Missiles are being moved. Embassies are being threatened and the DPRK gets ever more hysterical in its propaganda. Meanwhile, the US is quietly stacking up military hardware in the region like a real world version of “Risk.” B-52s and B-2s have popped up and with the Air Force in town can the Navy be far behind? Just like just before August, 1914 the military is on the move. And just like in 1914 the leaders are acting cavalier about those movements. It’s a case of “nothing to see here, move along.” </span></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1">The message of “Keep Calm” is the most unsettling part of the present crisis. To quote Don Rumsfeld there are far too many unknown unknowns for real comfort. Things can go real wrong real fast in Korea. I can see a real disconnect between the overly transactional Obama and the untested Kim causing a major snafu. I don’t trust either of these men to do the right thing. I especially don’t trust Obama. Obama is far too much a inhabitant of the brain-dead DC bubble conventional wisdom. There is no bigger oxymoron than the DC “Conventional Wisdom.” The same kind of unexamined group-think (mis)guided the European Powers into the destruction of WWI and then WWII, thereby ending European hegemony. </span></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">I shudder to think what kind of disaster the present unexamined consensus may bring. I’m seeing </span><span class="s1">Kim Jong Un as a wild card of history. Those wild cards; Napoleon, Julius Caesar, Mohammed, Gavrilo Princip, Genghis Khan always leave a swath of devastation behind them. I do not like what I see in Korea gentle reader, part two of the Korean War is not a sequel worth the price of admission. </span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-81602810962503486012013-03-31T13:32:00.000-07:002013-03-31T13:32:21.036-07:00What Adria Richards Wrought <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Once more I’m late to the party, really late. An eon ago, March 18, 2013, Ms. Adria Richards decided she needed to call out the inappropriate behavior of some attendees at the PyCon event. There offense, being misogynist jerks via the old rubric of bad jokes. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Now I have no desire to do a masters class in what constitutes comedy. I will only point out that the “jokes” in question were both inappropriate and lame. Nerd humor quite often lacks polish. The commentary by the offending party added nothing to the discussion and was offensive, especially at an event who’s purpose was to be inclusive.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Ms. Richards decided that action was require and used the tech weapon of choice, the Tweet. Little did she know her Tweet would become the digital equivalent of a mob call. The murder of crows flocked all about and both Adria and the offending coders got axed from their jobs.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I am constantly surprised by the lack of common sense in the world in general and in tech specifically. Adria had every right to call out these men and PyCon had every right to discipline the offenders. What was not correct was the over reaction of the coders company. Yes they were poorly socialized jerks, but if you fired every poorly socialized jerk in tech, there would be no tech. And the sacking of Ms Richard was beyond idiotic.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But for true idiocy and crass stupidity you really cannot top the inevitable victim blaming and hostility hurled at Adria. What an epic shit storm that has become. How much do the manly men hate Adria? Let me count the ways. Bravely hiding behind the cloak that the internet and social media provide, they have launched every racist, sexist, and Anti Semitic trope at her imaginable. Fortunately <a href="http://manboobz.com/2013/03/22/mens-rights-activists-greet-adria-richards-firing-with-cheers-gendered-slurs/">David Futrelle</a> has waded in to this toxic cesspit so I don’t have to. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But even on her own blog there are people who are missing the point. I guess some people still can not get over their male privilege or bother to get a clue. At the time of her tweet Ms. Richards was only trying to put a stop to unwarranted behavior. She deployed what to her was the best solution that she thought would create the least drama. She had no idea that others would escalate this beyond expectations or reason. There was no way to predict the knock-on effects of this would bound beyond excess, and straight into the nuclear option. She sure did not expect the backlash she would get for decisions she had no part of.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Calling out her interlocutors was appropriate, they needed to be named and shamed. They were at a public event and behaved wretchedly. They made the wrong assumption that they could act that way because they were mere faces in the crowd. That was wrong, you are responsible for your actions at all times and in all places: full stop. Don’t want to get your ass fired for making rude comments? Don’t make rude comments. Don’t “know” what rude might be? Well no, you do know, you can read this and that means you were not raised in cave by wolves. But if you really are confused maybe you should just not talk about anything that is not germain to the subject at hand? Thus if you are at a tech conference, and the subject is programing, off color jokes about “dongles” should be avoided. As a matter of fact unless that dongle you are talking about is anything other than a true computer peripheral no one really needs to hear about it. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">While Tech has been part of the Heman Woman Haters Club for a rather long time, it need not continue to be so and will not be so sooner or later. Those icky girls are here to stay and are only going to become more numerous. The Darwinian imperative is now in force : Move, Adapt, or Fail. For those committed to a career in tech your options are really only two: Adapt or Fail. You can upvote the tribal consensus until your blue in the face, change is coming, change is here, this is no longer your dad’s male dominated tech. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">This is going to take some time to work out, but follow the bouncing ball; women are going to increase their role in the professional fields--all of them. Women are not staying in shitty paying pink collar ghetto of the secretarial pool, they want the real money. As their numbers increase some “traditions” and assumptions are going to fall by the wayside. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So quit your whining about how mean Ms. Richards was. Your male privilege card is about to expire. Your “right” to have a work place that is hostile to women (and others) is going the way of the Dodo. Don’t fret, you still have plenty of opportunities to be a petulant, bigoted, misogynist jerk thanks to Reddit. You have plenty of opportunities to slut-shame, harass, belittle, taunt, and other wise act like the inner spoiled five year old that you are. You can even thoughtlessly, wantonly, cruelly put someones safety and life at risk by broadcasting their address on the web. Don’t worry little one, your ability to act like an asshole will only be moderately curtailed.</span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-83243151131813235982013-03-28T12:05:00.001-07:002013-03-28T12:05:42.624-07:00 Iraq: A country whose Future was Stolen (Jamail)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Today, not to put too fine a point on it, Iraq is a failed state,
teetering on the brink of another sectarian bloodbath, and beset by
chronic political deadlock and economic disaster. Its social fabric has
been all but shredded by nearly a decade of brutal occupation by the
U.S. military and now by the rule of an Iraqi government rife with
sectarian infighting.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.juancole.com/2013/03/country-stolen-jamail.html"> www.juancole.com/2013/03/country-stolen-jamail.html</a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-44780142388344044382013-03-27T01:43:00.002-07:002013-03-27T01:44:40.326-07:00Irony Alert<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The irrepressible "Anonymous" has struck again. This time s/he wanted to offer some cheap auto insurance on a post of mine called "The Things You Learn From SPAM." Now that is really Meta, no?<br />
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Bloody Vikings! </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-74477231558300243812013-03-22T12:09:00.000-07:002013-03-22T12:21:58.907-07:00Mission Not Accomplished<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A little more than a decade ago our nation blundered into one of the biggest foreign policy disasters in its history. In a place where <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Carrhae">Marcus Licinius Crassus</a> and Flavius <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Samarra">Claudius Julianus Augustus</a> (Julian The Apostate) came to grief the United States of America found out that the waters of Babylon are still just as treacherous as they were in ancient times. <br />
<br />
While the Iraqis did not manage to turn George W. Bush into a wall decoration like they did to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Edessa">Publius Licinius Valerianus Augustus (Valerian)</a> they did make The Shrub a by-word for gross incompetence. <br />
<br />
But it take a village to make a village idiot. George W. Bush had a lot of help in making the mess in Mesopotamia. The nifty Neocon idea of overthrowing Saddam Hussein and installing “freeeeedom!” had its roots all the way back in the reign of Bubba. It was the Big Dog that made it official U.S. Policy that Saddam be show the door.<br />
<br />
President William Jefferson Clinton never did put a “sell by” date on the idea of regime change in Iraq, making the notion more of a wish than a serious consideration. In the wink and nod game that was Oil For Food, Saddam’s family made out like the bandits they were, and the Iraq people got stuck with the bill. The regime did not change, Saddam was still there-- larger than life and twice as ugly.<br />
<br />
Still, in the U.S., the damage was already done. The official policy of the U.S. was regime change. The policy laid on the table like a loaded gun in a Chekov play; and wouldn’t you know there was just the political actor more than willing to use that gun.<br />
<br />
That man was not Incurious George, the upwardly failing Scion of George H. Bush, but Richard V. Cheney, the other dry drunk in the Administration. A man whose sole purpose in life seems to be to prove the cliche that “Truth is stranger than fiction,” Cheney’s fingerprints can be found all over the Iraq invasion. <br />
<br />
Cheney was a NeoCon in good standing and has a huge chip on his shoulder going all the way back to the Nixon Administration. Being a big fan of the Imperial Presidency Cheney was itching to restore the overarching power of the executive and had found his sock puppet in that endeavor; Bush the Younger.<br />
<br />
Cheney proceeded to set up WHIG, the White House Iraq Iraq Group, a cabal/conspiracy to find a casus belli for war with Iraq. By cherry picking raw intelligence Cheney was able first convince Bush and then the nation that the Mushroom Cloud was coming to a neighborhood near you if Saddam was not put to bed and pronto.<br />
<br />
Thanks to Osama bin Laden and his unhappy campers toasting marshmallows in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, Cheney and Bush had the set up they needed, the 9/11/01 Terrorist Attack on the U.S. In a rush of hyper-patriotism, anger, and desire for revenge the U.S. Public was sold a bill of goods: the Iraq War.<br />
<br />
If one can be dispassionate about such things, one can admire the evil genius of Cheney and Bush. Cheney created the policy and Bush sold it. Give The Shrub his due, the man played hardball politics like no other man in office of President since LBJ. He placed the feckless Democratic opposition in a no-win political vice and kept tightening it. Even bright, dedicated Senators who should have know better, yes Hillary Clinton I am talking to you, voted for the war. The dereliction of duty by the Legislative branch was both nauseating and utterly predictable. Bush was riding sky-high polls and the 4th branch of government, the check that was supposed to be the Media, was AWOL or worse a 5th columnist collaborator in the rush for war.<br />
<br />
A few words on the press. The abject failure of the press to do its job, to apply even a soupçon of skepticism to the Bush Administration’s talking points was appalling. They also saw those sky-high Bush approval ratings and had no stomach to do their job, to act as a seawall to the jingoistic tsunami that Bush was creating. Instead, for ratings, they decided to join the flag waving and the general blood-lust of the moment. Thus was paper-thin evidence like the aluminum tubes , Yellow-cake uranium from Africa, and mobile Anthrax Labs given a pass. Stories that would not pass muster in a Bond film, that is in fiction, were treated as infallible doctrine handed down by the deity and the host of angles.<br />
<br />
But a strange thing happened on the way to be showered with flowers and kissed by a grateful Iraqi people; the whole thing went to hell in hand basket. The unwarranted and reckless rush to war turned sour. Shock and Awe did not turn the natives into pliant supplicants to our Imperial will. The coalition of the Willing was found wanting. There were not enough troops on the ground for a proper occupation, and it only got worse from there.<br />
<br />
The outright waste and theft allowed by Paul Brener’s house of horrors, otherwise known as the Coalition Provisional Authority, was a case study in how not to rebuild a nation. Lead by a hodgepodge group of NeoCon goof-balls and Libertarian Wing-nuts, the CPA was Grover Nordquist’s wet-dream of government drowned in a bathtub. It was glorious, right up to point when the IEDs started exploding. To this day Iraqis still fear the things that go boom in the night, and the afternoon, and the morning. To this day the Iraqi still suffer from a lack of government, living in a twilight Mad Max land where the gun and the bomb are law. <br />
<br />
The government is still a shambolic mess. The Kurds have gone their way, the Sunni Triangle is still a hot mess, and the Shias are divided amongst themselves. In the middle of the maelstrom is the U.S., still not really gone. The more obvious symbols of U.S. Hegemony gone horrible wrong are gone, the hundreds of thousands of U.S. military are gone, but don’t be fooled, 17,000 diplomats are still hunkered down in the world’s biggest embassy. There also are some 5,000 mercenaries, oops sorry “Security Contractors”, running around, hell for leather, in the land of the two rivers adding to fun and frolics.<br />
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So forget all that nonsense about how Obama has ended the war. The withdrawal was negotiated by Bush, with a end date certain. Obama tried to weasel out of that by changing the SOFA, but in a rare display of independence the Iraqi government said “no.” Obama continues to run that Embassy of 17,000 personal, and to hire those, cough, cough, “Contractors.” We are no longer waist deep in the gore of Iraq, but we are still at least ankle deep if not shin deep. Happy tenth anniversary, mission still not accomplished. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-69720213564639738782013-03-01T11:16:00.000-08:002013-03-01T11:16:23.209-08:00Commentary: More guns but fewer gun owners in America .<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Mary Sanchez | The Kansas City Star</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/01/184074/commentary-more-guns-but-fewer.html">http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/01/184074/commentary-more-guns-but-fewer.html</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 16px;">A declining proportion of the American public is getting involved in gun culture — that is, the gun industry’s customer base is not growing — and yet business is booming. This should lead us to an alarming conclusion. The marketing of more lethal forms of weaponry and ammunition is how the gun industry has decided to shore up profits. The fierce resistance to bans on assault weapons and large ammo clips, as well as to background checks and any other hurdle put in the way of those who want to arm themselves, is not about defending the Second Amendment. It is about defending a business model — a sick, cynical business model.</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/01/184074/commentary-more-guns-but-fewer.html" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 16px;">http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/01/184074/commentary-more-guns-but-fewer.html</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/01/184074/commentary-more-guns-but-fewer.html" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 16px;">http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/01/184074/commentary-more-guns-but-fewer.html</a><br />Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/01/184074/commentary-more-guns-but-fewer.html#storylink=cpy</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-18446640209752741032013-03-01T02:07:00.001-08:002013-03-01T02:11:34.610-08:00Some People’s Obsessions<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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“Oh bother,” as Winnie The Pooh used to say. It seems that some people in the Right Blogosphere have gotten their knickers in a twist. The subject, the FLOTUS, First Lady Michelle Obama. The offense, daring to show up at the Oscars.<br />
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Sweet Baby Jesus On A Pogo Stick! Can one week go by without some right-wing twerp denigrating the FLOTUS. I ask you, for the love of Mike, give it a rest. This is the most traditional, most straight down the middle FLOTUS we have had since Mimi Eisenhower. <br />
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No, seriously, take a look at her four years in the position. What was her first agenda item? Military Families. Now separate the two words and drill down a bit. Who is exactly against our men and women in uniform? Other than the last dregs of the Radical Left mouldering away in some Ivory Tower padded cell because, tenure, no one says a discoursing word about the troops these days. And who is exactly against families? No, again, seriously, who? The arguments we have about family is what the definition of family is. Liberals like to propose a more flexible and more inclusive model while conservative are just fine with old-school patriarchy mixed with large helping of misogyny. But every one is for families of one sort or another. So being for Military Families is about as mom and apple pie as you can get.<br />
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The next agenda item of Ms Obama, healthy diet. Again, seriously, how more mom can you get than “eat your veggies, they’re good for you?” Yet the yammering yahoos that infest Conservative Talk Radio went berserk and insisted that to be a true, full-blooded, American it was your civic duty to shove triple cheeseburgers down your gullet like there was no tomorrow. Weeks of precious airtime was devoted to unleashing this five-year-old temper tantrum.<br />
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Linked with vegetables was Ms. Obama’s next big crusade, getting kids active. Um, exactly when did it become a Communist plot when your mom told you to get out of the house and play? I kinda missed that. But once more the Oxycontin Blimp went into full alert. It was now you patriotic duty to consume those bi-pass burgers whilst encrusting your comfy chair. Real Americans proved their worth by being inert blobs shoveling junk food into there craw for God and Country.<br />
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The reelection of the Obamas has seemed to only increase the amount of spittle flying in from stage right. You know, its a shame that all that fluid can’t be redirected to Kansas and other drought struck states. Be that as it may, Conservative have not been able to get pass the anger stage of the Kübler-Ross model. Hell, many have still not got passed denial.<br />
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Michelle Obama has been an incredibly competent FLOTUS. She has been a 21st Century First Lady living in the land of Stepford Wife Washington. It has been a very long time since we have had such a down-to-earth, no-nonsense, comfortable-in-her-own-skin, powerful woman backing up her man. She is the very acme of a striving Middle Class Woman who made it on her own grit and determination. That she did this as a woman of color is damn near epic.<br />
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But instead of being celebrated for what she is, she is abused in print, video and on the airwaves by privileged white male hacks with not a tenth of the grace and style she possess.<br />
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Ms. Obama is her own woman; a woman for the 21st Century. Comparisons have been made to Jackie Kennedy, but no, Michelle is not Jackie. Jackie never really escaped her finishing-school, debutant, gilded cage. Jackie alway had an air of brittleness and privilege that she never shook off. Jackie had style but it was always an unreachable, regal, Haute Couture, style. Jackie always made sure you knew that she was not one of the mere mortals. Michelle, on the other hand, could not be more grounded if she were wrapped in copper coil and ran to earth. She shops for some of her outfits at Target for heaven’s sake.<br />
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This whole Oscar Hubbub is beyond pointless. It is just some very mean and stupid people saying mean and stupid things because they are bullies and jerks. While Obama’s presidency still sits on the knife-edge between mediocrity and good, sorry kids greatness is not in his reach, I would put Michelle up there with some of the best First Ladies. She is a major assets to her husband, and she really has yet to strike a wrong note. She has played it safe with a very traditional First Lady policy program, with no sudden or awkward moves. Yet she has done this in her own inimitable style, and with no small amount of flair. The obsession that the bullies on the right have with her only shows how small and petty they have become.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835206167224853741.post-67791070785098289062013-03-01T00:29:00.001-08:002013-03-01T00:30:32.322-08:00Droning On<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="s1">Something miraculous happened last week, the Moron Media and the rest of the Dim-bulb Elite suddenly noticed we have a Drone problem. Amazing, it took almost four year for our “betters” to suddenly notice that the Executive has seized powers that make the whole notion of Limited Government a farce.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Let’s not mince words, our drone policy is an abomination. With these automated killers in the air, our President has taken on the power to eliminated, with extreme prejudice, any man, woman and child who takes a dislike to. Obama has wrapped himself in the cloak of the Red Queen from Alice In Wonderland.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">And boy has our Red Queen been busy. Over two hundred Drone strikes have occurred in the last four years. This is a significant increase over the Bush Years where the dry drunk president only managed to get around authorizing just over fifty. Obama has taken the Bush policy on drones and put it on steroids.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Not once has Obama been called to task on this. Not once has he been challenged. Not once has he justified these killing in anything other than boilerplate. Even after blowing up an American citizen, no challenge has been uttered. Anwar al-Aulaqi’s name has not been mentioned to the general public, not even as a Final Jeopardy question. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">But now our fearless Congresscritters an Media Mavens are on the job and solutions will be offered. What kind of solution? The usual solutions: White Wash and Rubber Stamps. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">The bright idea of our elites is to set up a FISA Court for drone killings. How will that work? It will work exactly as FISA Court did; not at all. As pointed out by other commentators, the FISA Court has not exactly been a high bar to prevent Governmental snooping. It has not been the stout protector of our Forth Amendment rights. Of the 20,000 requests for warrants only six have been denied. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">If we had truly serious Representatives, they would be demanding a full trial in absentia of any Terrorist bad guy the President wanted to blow up. A full trail would be fully public, with a full and robust defense. No conviction would mean the neither killer drones nor Seal Team Six deploying.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">But Congress is anything but serious these days, it’s a food fight put on by mental midgets. Democrats refuse to curb their guy because, well, he’s their guy. Because he is Obama, and he is a Democrat we, as a nation can trust him not to abuse the power he claimed for himself and the office. Republicans are not crying foul either because they want the opportunity to go all Dick Cheney when they finally grab the White House.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"> Having given up on the duty to declare war sometime after Pearl Harbor, Congrescritters are now gladly handing over the judiciary power to the Executive as well. For the most part they are quite happy to have the President be judge, jury and executioner without all that pesky rule of law stuff getting in the way. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">It’s not really surprising, Congress has steadily withered as an coequal branch of government. Why bother with all that hard effort of upholding the Constitution when you can fob the responsibility off to the executive? That leaves much more time to dial for dollars, raising the funds for ever more expensive reelection bids. It also is a grand way to evade the responsibility of a foreign policy, or any other policy that explodes in unforeseen ways. It’s the “look ma, no hands” mode of governing. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Still this utterly irresponsible Congress is only a reflection of an utterly irresponsible electorate. Mention Drones to most voters and they might vaguely recall the Droids in “The Phantom Menace.” They might give a passing thumbs up to the whole business as them drones are killing all them evil mooslim terrorist doing evil terrorist things in evil terrorist lands. “Kill ‘em all and let God sort them out” done on auto-pilot is the notion.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">We won’t get better policy results until the general public, or at least the voting public start to understand why our Constitutional guarantees are more than one more side-show in the great game of Blue vs Red. Letting the president blow up whoever he wants to is a very bad idea, even if he does it in foreign lands. No man should be able to exercise that kind of power, not Bush, not Cheney, not Obama, no one. Fanboi politics is no way to run a nation.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07881103048419383597noreply@blogger.com0