;)
Monday
Aug262013
The Commentariat -- Aug. 27, 2013
** Karen DeYoung & Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "President Obama is weighing a military strike against Syria that would be of limited scope and duration, designed to serve as punishment for Syria's use of chemical weapons and as a deterrent, while keeping the United States out of deeper involvement in that country's civil war, according to senior administration officials. The timing of such an attack, which would probably last no more than two days and involve sea-launched cruise missiles -- or, possibly, long-range bombers -- ... is dependent on three factors: completion of an intelligence report assessing Syrian government culpability in last week's alleged chemical attack; ongoing consultation with allies and Congress; and determination of a justification under international law." ...
... Major Garrett & David Martin of CBS News: "President Barack Obama called his national security team together Saturday to talk about the next move in Syria. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper led off the three-hour White House meeting with detailed analysis of the evidence about the chemical weapons attack, the disposition of victims and what the administration now believes is a near air-tight circumstantial case that the Syrian regime was behind it. Obama ordered a declassified report be prepared for public release before any military strike commences. That report, top advisers tell CBS News, is due to be released in a day or two." ...
... Mark Thompson of Time: "Taking out Syria's chemical-weapons stockpile isn't easy – and is fraught with perils, including creating plumes of deadly vapors that could kill civilians downwind of such attacks. That's why Pentagon officials suggest that any U.S. and allied military strike against Syria will tilt toward military, and command and control, targets -- including artillery and missile units that could be used to launch chemical weapons -- instead of the bunkers believed to contain them." ...
... New York Times Editors: "A political agreement is still the best solution to this deadly conflict, and every effort must be made to find one. President Obama has resisted demands that he intervene militarily and in force. Though Mr. Assad's use of chemical weapons surely requires a response of some kind, the arguments against deep American involvement remain as compelling as ever." ...
Andrew Bacevich: assuming the Assad government is responsible for chemical attacks on Syrians, "President Obama should answer several questions. He should share those answers with the American people, before not after pulling the trigger." Bacevich poses the questions. ...
... Charles Pierce: "The message you are sending with your missiles gets just a trifle muddled. Make no mistake. If we strike, we will be making actual war in Syria. Ordinary Syrians will not see our missiles as 'bomb-o-grams,' telling them with every deadly explosion that we're really on their side.... That is what we do now. We make war in a place without going to war in a place, and nobody is fooled except ourselves."
Scott Shane of the New York Times: "In a detailed legal attack on the National Security Agency's collection of Americans' phone call data, the American Civil Liberties Union argued in court papers filed Monday that the sweeping data gathering violates the Constitution and should be halted.... The Justice Department is expected to ask the judge in the case, William H. Pauley III of the Southern District of New York, to dismiss it." ...
... John Shiffman of Reuters: "Eight Democratic senators and congressmen have asked Attorney General Eric Holder to answer questions about a Reuters report that the National Security Agency supplies the Drug Enforcement Administration with intelligence information used to make non-terrorism cases against American citizens. The August report revealed that a secretive DEA unit passes the NSA information to agents in the field, including those from the Internal Revenue Service, the FBI and Homeland Security, with instructions to never disclose the original source, even in court. In most cases, the NSA tips involve drugs, money laundering and organized crime, not terrorism." The original report, dated August 5 & linked here contemporaneously, is here. ...
AP: "NSA leaker Edward Snowden spent two days in the Russian Consulate in Hong Kong directly before flying to Moscow on what turned out to be an abortive attempt to reach asylum in Latin America, the respected newspaper Kommersant reported Monday, citing unidentified sources in Snowden's circle and the Russian government. If true, this would suggest greater Russian involvement in Snowden's efforts to escape American justice than President Vladimir Putin's government has acknowledged. The newspaper also reported that Cuba was instrumental in blocking Snowden's further travels.... The newspaper ... said that Cuba informed Russia that the Aeroflot flight from Moscow would not be allowed to land in Havana if Snowden were on board, citing pressure from the United States."
Annie Lowrey of the New York Times: "Behind the roiling conversation over whether President Obama might make Janet L. Yellen the first female leader of the Federal Reserve is an uncomfortable reality for the White House: the administration has named no more women to high-level executive branch posts than the Clinton administration did almost two decades ago.... Over all, Mr. Obama has named 13 women to cabinet-level posts, matching the historic high achieved by the Clinton administration. Mr. Obama has also put a record number of women in judicial slots, including two on the Supreme Court. Women make up about 42 percent of confirmed judges appointed by Mr. Obama, compared with 22 percent appointed by George W. Bush and 29 percent by Bill Clinton."
Annie Lowrey: "Unless Congress raises the debt ceiling, the Treasury Department said on Monday that it expected to lose the ability to pay all of the government's bills in mid-October. That means a recalcitrant Congress will face two major budget deadlines only two weeks apart, since the stopgap 'continuing resolution' that finances the federal government runs out at the end of September."
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) said Monday that he will attempt to replace, by the end of the year, the portion of the Voting Rights Act that was struck down by the Supreme Court. Sensenbrenner's comments came Monday at an event hosted by the Republican National Committee, commemorating the March on Washington.... Taking the stage after Sensenbrenner, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said, 'I think Jim just made some news.'" ...
... Actually, no, Reince. Sensenbrenner has been saying this publicly at least since July 19, when he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, urging the panel to update the Voting Rights Act. Mike Lillis of the Hill: "Sensenbrenner, who headed the Judiciary panel during the 2006 VRA reauthorization, minced no words Wednesday in his criticism of the court. He said [Chief Justice] Roberts and the conservative majority 'essentially disregarded years and years of congressional work' and 'substituted [their] own judgment.'" We know you've participated in the national effort to restrict voting rights, Reince, but not everybody has jumped on your nasty little voter suppression bandwagon. ...
... CW: Huh. I just might be wrong about that. Andrew Cohen of the Atlantic notes Sensenbrenner's objection to the Justice Department's suit against Texas's voter suppression law: "it sounds like Representative Sensenbrenner is searching for an excuse for why Republicans in Congress won't any time soon fix what the Supreme Court broke in June." Read Cohen's whole piece on U.S. v. Texas. ...
Dahlia Lithwick of Slate on Justices Scalia & Ginsburg's dissatisfaction with the dysfunctions of the Supreme Court. Best bit: "Scalia ... says he would defer to legislative bodies on most things (if gays want to pass a law, they should just do it!) but then rather consistently finds reasons to second-guess Congress whenever it actually does legislate. In other words, he is always apt to defer to the bill that didn't happen, but ready to strike down a bill (like the Affordable Care Act, or the VRA) that did." ...
... ** Worse Than Lochner. Ian Millhiser of Think Progress on Ginsburg's remark that the Roberts Court is "one of the most activist courts in history." Millhiser compares this court to the anti-worker "Lochner Court" of the early 1900s: "The Lochner Court strangled basic protections for workers in their crib, but the Roberts Court takes fully matured protections for workers and carves them up a piece at a time.... the Roberts Court is unusually willing to take from ordinary Americans rights they have enjoyed for a very long time. The Supreme Court has a long history of standing athwart history yelling stop. This Supreme Court, however, wants to shift history into reverse."
Beth Reinhard of the Atlantic: "When Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his 'I Have a Dream' speech 50 years ago this week, just five African-Americans held seats in Congress. There are 44 today. But those numbers mask a hard reality: Even with an African-American in the White House, blacks arguably have less clout in Congress than they did in 1963."
National Constitution Center: "Senator Patrick Leahy wants to clear the air in the debate between states and the federal government over the legal use of marijuana, in what could be a significant hearing on the issue in September.... The hearing is set for 10 a.m. on September 10 and it is about 'Conflicts between State and Federal Marijuana Laws.' The hearing is for the full Judiciary Committee."
New York Times Editors: New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's suit against Donald Trump & his fake "Trump University" "offers compelling evidence of a bait-and-switch scheme." ...
... Everything Is Barack Obama's Fault. Zeke Miller of Time: "Trump, who for years raised questions about the birth status of President Barack Obama -- even after the president released his birth certificate — characteristically suggested that Obama had ordered the prosecution when he met Schneiderman in New York last week as part of his bus tour on college affordability."
Thanks to contributor Julie L. for this link:
Eric Lach of TPM: "The conservative video maker James O'Keefe has turned his cameras on the former federal prosecutor whose office brought charges against him and his accomplices in the phone-tampering of a Democratic U.S. senator. In a video released by O'Keefe's Project Veritas on Monday, former U.S. Attorney James Letten can be seen shouting at O'Keefe and his colleagues. Letten can also be seen filming O'Keefe with his own smart phone. 'You went to my house, you terrorized my wife, you're violating federal law, you're trespassing, you're a nasty little cowardly spud,' Letten says in the video. 'All of you, you're hobbits. You are less than I can ever tell you. You are scum. Do you understand?'" CW: Exactly right:
Rene Stutzman of the Orlando Sentinel: "George Zimmerman ... plans to ask the state of Florida to cover $200,000 to $300,000 of his legal expenses.... Because Zimmerman was acquitted, state law requires Florida to pay all his legal costs, minus the biggest one: the fee that goes to his lawyers. That includes the cost of expert witnesses, travel, depositions, photocopies, even that animated 3-D video that defense attorneys showed jurors during closing argument that depicts Trayvon punching Zimmerman."
News Ledes
NBC News: "The U.S. could hit Syria with three days of missile strikes, perhaps beginning Thursday, in an attack meant more to send a message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad than to topple him or cripple his military, senior U.S. officials told NBC News on Tuesday. The State Department fed the growing drumbeat around the world for a military response to Syria's suspected use of chemical weapons against rebels Aug. 21 near Damascus, saying that while the U.S. intelligence community would release a formal assessment within the week, it was already 'crystal clear' that Assad's government was responsible." ...
... Washington Post: "Vice President Biden said Tuesday that there is 'no doubt' that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons in an attack on innocent civilians in Syria." ...
... New York Times: "President Obama is considering military action against Syria that is intended to 'deter and degrade' President Bashar al-Assad's government's ability to launch chemical weapons, but is not aimed at ousting Mr. Assad from power or forcing him to the negotiating table, administration officials said Tuesday." ...
... New York Times: "United Nations weapons inspectors in Syria postponed a second visit to the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack on the outskirts of the capital, Damascus, on Tuesday after failing to secure assurances of their safety, the United Nations and Syrian officials said." ...
... Reuters: "The U.S. military is ready to act immediately should President Barack Obama order action against Syria over a chemical weapons attack, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in a television interview with the BBC on Tuesday." ...
... Washington Post: "British forces are drawing up contingency plans for a 'proportionate' response to an alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria, the prime minister's office said on Tuesday, raising the possibility that Britain could join a possible U.S.-led military strike." ...
... The Hill: "The White House reached out to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) Monday as part of an effort to build congressional support ahead of what appears to be an imminent military strike against Syria. Press secretary Jay Carney said administration officials, including those from the White House and State Department, were actively 'consulting with Congress' as it weighs a response to the "repugnant" use of chemical weapons in Syria."
The Sacramento Bee publishes the videotaped testimony of President Gerald Ford in the Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme trial re: her attempt on his life. The Bee story on the history of the tape is interesting, too:
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Reader Comments (13)
This whole Syrian chemical weapons attack is giving me glimpses of WMD talk a decade ago. The whole situation is a complete clusterfuck but the way this episode is playing out smells really fishy. I'm not gonna put it past Assad to gas his own people, he's clearly a psychopath. But Al-Qaeda has been jihading for far too long amongst the 'friendly' rebels to legitimately support them any longer. The US claims only the Assad government has chemical weapons, yet it's well-known that the Syrian rebels have been receiving arms from Libya for over a year now through shady underground networks. Did we already forget the news reports of rebels finding and controlling Gaddhafi's chemical weapons reserves? Are we trusting Al-Qaeda affiliates with moral restraint in not sending some of those goodies to their Islamic brothers in arms? Especially when they know full well that their use is one of the only things capable of bringing us directly into the fight, and thus siding with Al-Qaeda affiliates who dream of our destruction.
According to the Washington Post article linked today, military intervention hinges on three factors: "completion of an intelligence report assessing Syrian government culpability in last week’s alleged chemical attack; ongoing consultation with allies and Congress; and determination of a justification under international law."
The UN team hasn't made any decisions on the origin of the attack, yet the Obama/Kerry team have already declared Assad guilty and inundated the mainstream press with such charges. Everybody picked it up, declaring guilt before the trial. Allies (France, Britain, Turkey) are already giving us the green light ensuring that they'll provide diplomatic "cover" as they sit by and watch us pay the tab. Congress matters little. If we could legitimize our Iraq intervention as "legal" than DOJ justification is a sure bet.
Our bellicose indictments of the Assad regime are getting me a little paranoid, but after Bush's legacy how can we not be afraid when we empower the war-mongers and excite the military machine.
I'll never forget sitting on my couch watching live CNN images of "Operation Shock and Awe" as firecrackers lit up the sky of Baghdad. Look where that got us....
@safari: Read this report, to which I linked in Saturday's News Ledes, & I don't think you'll question the assertion that somebody carried out a chemical weapons attack in Syria. I really don't think Doctors without Borders is a tool of any government. They do not make any assertion as to who was responsible for 3,600 patients "displaying neurotoxic symptoms in less that three hours."
Is it possible that a group other than the Assad regime is responsible for the attack? Absolutely. I would assume the U.S. already knows to a great degree of certainty who is responsible, & I hope the U.N. investigators can reach some kind of independent definitive conclusion.
Marie
So we'll bomb Syria as soon as we can come up with a "determination of a justification under international law."
Where's John Yoo when you need him?
@ Noodge. Good Point. Of course every administration has lawyers who can come up with rationales for anything. It's what lawyers do.
Andrew Bacevich (linked above) asks some important questions about the impending strike. As George Packer of the New Yorker implies, we're damned if we do & damned if we don't.
Marie
Noodge,
John (it ain't torture until they're dead) Yoo, author of the infamous Bybee Memo is currently a respected law professor and "scholar" at the AEI. I don't know where this idea has come from that Ivy League grads are all flaming liberals. Yoo, Bush, John Roberts, Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Bill O'Reilly, Ted Cruz, all were schooled at either Harvard or Yale (or both).
I certainly hope we don't start carpet bombing Syria but the noises coming from the administration seem to be laying the groundwork for some kind of action. Let's hope it's an effort to bring an international coalition together to do something other than Iraq II.
My guess is that if Syria were not in an oil rich part of the world no one would give two shits about it. The west wasn't too interested in what was happening in Cambodia when Pol Pot was piling up the bodies. But it didn't seem to be in anyone's interest to get involved in another southeast Asian cluster fuck. However, had they been a major exporter of oil or gas instead of rice, it might have been another thing.
Here's hoping a Syria solution does not involve boots on the ground or Shock and Awe from the sky. Not holding my breath on the latter however.
Sorry if I was unclear in my first ramblings, I don't question that chemical arms were in fact used, the evidence appears overwhelming in that regard. But it is indeed the source of their use that I question. It looks like Team Obama is deciding to go Maverick as usual with American diplomacy (like most predecessors) and disregard the UN chemical weapons team by producing our OWN report to "prove" it was Assad's doing. I'm eager to see the definitive evidence provided by our government and it had better be beyond any reasonable doubt before we go launching bombs into yet another Middle Eastern country.
But there's the kicker. Beyond any reasonable doubt is nearly impossible in these circumstance. It'll be Assad's words vs. ours, unless our undercover agents in Syria (spying again? The horrors!) were on the scene and scrupulously documented the evidence.
Essentially I wholly agree with the Packer article you linked. It's a lose/lose situation. But if we're going to do anything major, I'd prefer to ramp up the underground game, use imbedded agents to hit strategic sites with enough grey area in between that we can claim it came from somewhere else. Nothing's gained by direct unilateral action here except the serious ire of many a foe.
Obama accepted his nobel peace prize, right?
@AK
For me, one of this generation's most appalling incidences of indifference and shoulder shrugging is the devastation that has engulfed the region surrounding the Democratic Republic of Congo. Right after Rwanda's genocide, since 1998, an estimated 5 million people have died, essentially a WWIII that hardly anyone knows about. But this time it's small arms, machetes, rape and disease. No chemical weapons here. Keep movin' on, nuthin' to see here.
In this case, however, the natural resources don't include oil, but rather minerals, mountains of minerals, especially "conflict minerals" that help power the disposable gadgets of the West. In this case, constant instability and turmoil favor those who want to pillage the country of its natural resources as the government is beholden to investors for any revenue possible as a formal economy is hardly existent.
Profiteers of war...humanity in its rawest form.
Well, despite my regular moratorium on reading any of the usual D. Brooks claptrap, I just had to see what he had up his bespoke sleeve as he addressed the "Ideas Behind the March".
My initial thought was that Brooks would somehow turn the march into a victory for conservatives and right-wing morals.
And guess what? He did! Surprise, surprise.
Today's sermon, class, reminds us that the NAACP, MLK, the marchers, all of them, had the wrong idea. It was god and his teachings in the bible that turned around the civil rights movement.
Not sure what biblical passages he's referring to but, oh well, never mind. It's sure as shootin' that conservative religious principles won the day for those silly nee-groes who were going about it all wrong prior to gettin' right with god.
He also doesn't lose a chance for more patented false comparisoning. While lecturing us all on how everything can go sideways when you start protesting, ie, people getting high and mighty (I think he means uppity), becoming "smug" and "cruel". (Oh those awful nee-groes!)
But never fear. The civil rights movement was saved because it was actually a conservative religious movement and its congregants practiced the same type of self-discipline that Brooks is always hawking as the great divide between diligent, moral conservatives and slacker, casual sexytime hippies and their amoral allies on the left.
While rambling on in this vein he chooses, as examples, the protests staged by Teabaggers and the Occupy movement, as if they are exactly alike in their demeanor and the tactics used to reach their goals. Nothing could be further from the truth. Occupy, a true grass roots organization, has staged sit-ins and largely peaceful protests against the Wall Street behemoths (supported by Brooks) that have wrecked the economy and continue to pick our pockets. Teabaggers are a Koch funded, drooling rabble of haters, bigots, and ignorant wingnuts whose "protests" are peppered with gun toting loudmouths.
But never mind, in Brooks' worldview, because the 'baggers are so unrestrained, irrational, and anarchic, the movement on the left must be equally abominable. They both do it!
So there you have it. The civil rights movement was a conservative campaign that succeeded in changing hearts and minds because of biblical teachings and good ol' fashioned right-wing discipline.
In no way am I overlooking the fact that King was a preacher, but his sense of moral righteousness, and that of the movement, was rooted more in the civic arena than in the church. And, I might add, plenty of those old time religion conservatives were among the first to turn the firehoses on the marchers.
But don't tell that to Brooks, you dirty hippies, you.
CW: Thanks for the link to the Packer piece. He encapsulates my thinking on this pretty succinctly. It does feel like August, 1914* around here.
Akhilleus: I think your guess is pretty spot on. Syria itself may not have oil reserves, but they're pretty darned close to them, and the last thing our government (or at least the people who tell our government what to do) wants to see is the entire region fall under the auspices of Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, or other such groups. The Saudis, in particular, as well as the Emirates and the boards of directors of the major oil companies are scared to death of this happening. This is not, nor has it ever been, about doing the right thing. This is about protecting our access to oil.
So President Obama has been walking the tightrope on all things Middle Eastern, because it's his job to see to it that, if the Brotherhood/Hezbollah win out, we might still enjoy that access. So we make noise about cutting off our aid to the Egyptian generals while at the same time our Saudi allies increase their aid to ten times what we had been sending. We make a show of condemning the brutal Assad, while at the same time doing nothing substantive to enable those who would bring him down.
This is what happens when you believe it's your obligation to involve yourself in everyone else's business the world over, or that the conduct of your business gives you the right to do so; you end up either supporting fundamentalist theocracies or fascists. The only thing you guarantee is that pretty much everyone is going to hate you, and I can't blame them.
* August 1914 is one of Solzhenitsyn's finest works and well worth reading in its final version, published as the Red Wheel, Knot I. The historical footnotes are long and dry, but it's positively Shakespearean in the way it illuminates the events of the time. And like Shakespeare, its lessons are timeless.
It's a tragedy that Solzhenitsyn's publishers have decided that there is no market for the last two books of the cycle (March 1917 and April 1917) in the English-speaking world (at least not enough to pay for the translation), so if we want to read the last two books in the series we have to learn Russian.
For me, George Packer's conversation with himself provides the most on point, helpful piece on an intervention in Syria. Syria is a completely enmeshed puzzle whose pieces are seldom what they seem. It seems impossible to find a way through the sticky, deadly glue to find clarity. Whether you analyze a course of action from a political, legal or humanitarian basis, I believe the action is doomed - but, as Packer points out, so is inaction.
A few month ago, I read a terrific piece by Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic on Jordan's King Abdullah II. I felt it described the competing mindsets of the Middle East. King Abdullah talks about Assad, who he knows well. Abdullah's modernist view ( not completely modern, lets not get carried away) is in contrast to Assad's crass royal entitlement.
What really stuck with me was the King's description of a meeting he held with tribal leaders. Its a couple paragraphs, but I think it perfectly describes the enormous struggle between centuries of tradition and modernity.
"Then the business of the afternoon was conducted. The 30 or so men (and one woman, a daughter of one of the tribal leaders) sat on couches against the walls. Tea was served. The king made a short plea for economic reform and for expanding political participation, and then the floor was opened. Leader after leader—many of whom were extremely old, many of whom merely had the appearance of being old—made small-bore requests and complaints. One of the men proposed an idea for the king’s consideration: “In the old days, we had night watchmen in the towns. They would be given sticks. The government should bring this back. It would be for security, and it would create more jobs for the young men.”
I was seated directly across the room from the king, and I caught his attention for a moment; he gave me a brief, wide-eyed look. He was interested in high-tech innovation, and in girls’ education, and in trimming the overstuffed government payroll. A jobs plan focused on men with sticks was not his idea of effective economic reform."
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/04/monarch-in-the-middle/309270/
Safari,
The Congo, Rwanda, the Sudan, civil wars in Somalia, so many of these conflicts barely register in the west except as opportunities, when possible, for making money. Even in broad daylight, companies like Halliburton suck the life blood (literally as well as figuratively) out of countries to up their bottom line. They're even perfectly happy with gouging the US military if it will get their board members that fourth vacation house on the Riviera. For many corporations, war is not just good business, it's their primary business.
These corporations exist outside the realm of nationalism which, despite its gravitational pull may, as William Gibson describes in his Sprawl novels, may be superseded by corporate culture and a type of vulture capitalism currently primed for world dominance by people like Larry Summers.
I posted part of a quote from General Smedley Butler. Here's the full quote: “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.” -Smedley Butler
Somehow people think this is all recent. Check the dates above. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Okay. So here’s what I think: Most citizens don’t give a rat’s aft about which nation is spying on what nation. Period. What they seem to care about—I could be wrong—is who’s peeking in their bedroom windows. And the answer, real or imagined, seems to be NSA. And that concern is not going to go away with a lot of horseshit about national security.