News digest / Catching up on news (09.27.2014)

Here are some more stories over the past 3 weeks that I haven't had time to give their due comment. Enjoy!

"Mr President, will you tell us the truth? 8 questions we must ask Obama about secret war," By Trevor Timm, September 27, 2014. Guardian. URL:http://gu.com/p/42vj3 -- TOO BAD NEITHER PARTY WILL ASK OBAMA THESE QUESTIONS!

"Carl Bildt: Putin Must Face Mothers Of Fallen Russian Soldiers In Ukraine Conflict," By Nathan Gardels, September 26, 2014, WorldPost. URL:http://huff.to/Yiy65q -- TURNS OUT RUSSIAN MOTHERS ARE THE SCARIEST FOE PUTIN HAS FACED THUS FAR

"How ISIS Is Using Us to Get What It Wants," By Alistaire Crooke, September 25, 2014, Huffington Post. URL: http://huff.to/1rwy45W -- AS BILL MAHER SAID, ISIS IS SELLING FEAR AND WE'RE BUYING 

"Kansas Is So Broke That It Has To Auction Off Sex Toys," By Samantha Lachman, September 25, 2014, Huffington Post. URL: http://huff.to/YefAey -- THANK GOD THIS MAD TEA PARTY EXPERIMENT HAS BEEN CONTAINED TO SPARSELY POPULATED, RURAL KANSAS!

"The fight against the Islamic State must include Iran," By Fareed Zakaria, September 25, 2014, Washington Post. URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-the-fight-against-the-islamic-state-must-include-iran/2014/09/25/e6757500-44e0-11e4-9a15-137aa0153527_story.html  -- BUT WAIT, SEAN HANNITY TOLD ME THAT IRAN, HAMMAS AND ISIS ARE ALL ONE IN THE SAME, SO WHAT GIVES??...

"Walmart police shooting: 911 call to Ohio dispatcher – video," September 26, 2014, Guardian. URL: http://gu.com/p/42vtd  -- GET READY TO SEE MORE OF THESE MISTAKEN SHOOTINGS AS OPEN CARRY AND CONCEALED CARRY BECOME MORE COMMON

"Europe's New Frozen Conflict," By Judy Dempsey, September 22, 2014, Carnegie Europe. URL: http://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/?fa=56686  -- WHAT PUTIN IS DOING IN UKRAINE IS NOTHING NEW FOR RUSSIA, SADLY

"US nuclear arsenal in Europe is likely to stay," By Ralph Vartbedian and W.J. Hennigan, September 21, 2014, McClatchy. URL:http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/09/21/240563/us-nuclear-arsenal-in-europe-is.html#storylink=cpy  -

"Crimean Tatar Mejlis given 24 hours to leave," By Halya Coynash, September 19, 2014, Human Rights in Ukraine. URL: http://khpg.org/index.php?id=1410985865 -- THIS IS HOW 'ANTI-FASCISTS' BEHAVE ?!

"Russia cries foul over Scottish independence vote," By Luke Harding, September 19, 2014, Guardian. URL: http://gu.com/p/4xyn5  -- LOL!  I'M SURE THE UK IS WORRIED

"To Foil Russia's Food Ban, Imported Ingredients Go Incognito," By Corey Flintoff, September 19, 2014, NPR. URL: http://n.pr/1qiH5cZ  -- CORRUPT RUSSIAN CUSTOMS OFFICIALS AND MOBSTERS TELL EU, 'THANKS FOR THE NEW RACKET, THE SMUGGLING BUSINESS IS GREAT!'

"Amid Scotland's refendum poll shows quarter of Americans back secession from US," September 19, 2014, Guardian. URL: http://gu.com/p/4xyqb  -- TRANSLATION: 24 PERCENT OF AMERICANS PROUDLY DECLARE THEY ARE IDIOTS

"Want to deplete your tax base? Give 'job creators' what they want," By Richard Florida, September 18, 2014, Los Angeles Times. URL:http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/09/18/240229/want-to-deplete-your-tax-base.html  

"BBC journalists attacked and equipment smashed in Russia," By Tara Conlan, September 18, 2014, Guardian. URL: http://gu.com/p/4xktz

"Killing Comes Naturally To Chimps, Scientists Say," By Scott Neuman, September 18, 2014, NPR. URL: http://n.pr/1wsJEyT  -- INDEED, WOMEN ARE THE PEACEMAKERS... EXCEPT WHEN THEY ARE SO ANNOYING THEY MAKE YOU WANNA GO RAY RICE ON THEM (KIDDING)

"US Declares War on Russia – Titanium," By Yves Smith, September 18, 2014, Naked Capitalism. URL: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/09/us-declares-war-on-russia-titanium.html

"Tax cuts can do more harm than good," By David Cay Johnston, September 18, 2014, Al Jazeera. URL: http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/9/tax-cuts-economicsreaganbush.html

"The Myth That Sold the Financial Bailout," By Dean Baker, September 18, 2014, Truth Out. URL: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/26275-the-myth-that-sold-the-financial-bailout

"Black Lung Disease Rates Skyrocket To Highest Levels Since 1970s," By Dave Jamieson, September 15, 2014,  Huffington Post. URL:http://huff.to/XqpqcK  -- BACK TO THE GOOD OLD DAYS!

"The Surprising Reason Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals," By Macrina Cooper-White, September 11, 2014, Huffington Post. URL:http://huff.to/1CVPU6G

"Best evidence Russians are in Ukraine? How good separatist fighters are," By Matthew Schofield, September 9, 2014, McClatchy. URL:http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/09/09/239299/best-evidence-russians-are-in.html

"U.S. should not be a silent partner to Israeli settlement expansion," By Jeremy Ben-Ami, September 8, 2014, Los Angeles Times. URL:http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-benami-israel-settlements-usa-20140909-story.html  -- WRITTEN BY A SELF-HATING JEW, NO DOUBT

Frum: 'Emotional' war on ISIS is a 'policy of aid-Iran-but-don’t-admit-it'

There's plenty of criticism of Obama in conservative Republican Frum's opinion piece, but this graph sums it up best for me [emphasis mine]:

Debates over foreign policy have a bad tendency to vaporize into abstract discussions of first principles: intervention or non-intervention? Responsibility to protect or mind our own business? Iraq and Syria today present a case that makes nonsense of abstractions. Intervene? The United States and its allies should intervene when intervention will advance U.S. and allied interests, consistent with U.S. and allied values. But where do we find the U.S. and allied interest in a war between al-Qaeda’s even nastier younger brother, on one side, and the mullahs of Iran on the other? If Iran were saying, “Please help us, and we’ll reorient our policy in a friendlier direction,” that would be one thing. They are not saying that. They are not doing that. They are doing the opposite.

And then here's Frum's body slam to finish:

It’s not crass, not narrow, not unethical for the president of the United States to test any proposed foreign policy—and most especially the use of armed force—against the criterion: “How will this benefit my nation?” That test is not a narrow one. The protection of allies is an important U.S. interest. The honoring of international commitments is an important U.S. interest. And it could even be argued that humanitarian action can be justified when it will save many lives, at low cost in American blood and treasure, without creating even worse consequences inadvertently. This new campaign against ISIS does not even pretend to meet that test. It’s a reaction: an emotional reaction, without purpose, without strategy, and without any plausible—or even articulated—definition of success.

'Nuf said. But it's spoken too late.

Don't Go Back to Iraq, Mr. President

By David Frum

September 10, 2014 | The Atlantic

URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/obama-speech-iraq-syria-isis-war/379979/

Beinart: Cheney openly disparages 'Bush Doctrine'

Here's recent revisionist history, revised by the guy who recently made history, Dick Cheney! Peter Beinart explains [emphasis mine]:

It’s worth recognizing how directly Cheney is repudiating Bush’s vision. Bush’s core point—repeated by a thousand supportive pundits—was that when Middle Eastern dictators don’t allow democratic dissent, jihadist terrorism becomes the prime avenue for resistance. Egypt today is a textbook example. The Muslim Brotherhood won a free vote. In power, it ruled in illiberal ways. But Egypt was still due for additional elections in which people could do just what Bush had urged them to: express their grievances democratically. Instead, the military seized on popular discontent to overthrow the government, massively repress freedom of speech, and engineer a sham election. And just as Bush predicted, Egypt’s Islamists are responding by moving toward violence and jihadist militancy.

But it’s Cheney’s view, not Bush’s, that is ascendant on today’s right.  It’s now common to hear hawkish pundits declare that Brotherhood parties should be barred from running anywhere in the Middle East, which represents a full embrace of the authoritarian-stability argument that Bush devoted his second inaugural to arguing against.

Because Obama’s rhetoric about freedom and democracy is less soaring than Bush’s, the media often calls him a realist.  But as Obama’s Egypt policy shows, he’s actually proved far more willing to risk relationships with dictatorial American clients than most of his conservative critics would like.

Obama’s foreign policy is only “realist” in comparison to the vision Bush laid out in 2005—a vision now being trashed widely in his own party.  If there remains any significant faction in today’s Republican Party willing to risk America’s relationships with friendly Arab tyrants in the name of democracy, it is headquartered in Dallas, where a former president seems content to express himself merely through art.

Real historians will be studying Dick Cheney for decades. They'll eventually decide, I predict, that he was a malicious influence in the White House who parroted his President's foreign policy line when he couldn't get his way, while seeking to undermine it in practice. Now Cheney is repudiating Dubya out in the open. 

I for one agree that democratization is the only future for the Middle East, but that means Saudi Arabia, firstly, and then Egypt, Iran, Israel and Turkey. The rest will follow suit. But democracy can't be established at the point of a U.S. gun -- especially when it must be preceded by national liberation. Recent experience has asserted, once again, that national liberation is primarily the job of those who would be liberated. (And we're talking about countries that were drawn up by outside Western powers; the people inside those borders might not agree with those lines).  The U.S. can assist only at the fringes.

Dick Cheney Just Buried the Bush Doctrine

By Peter Beinart

June 27, 2014 | The Atlantic

URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/dick-cheney-just-buried-the-bush-doctrine/373621/

War Nerd: ISIS conquering empty desert; and bless the Kurds

You gotta love Gary for writing stuff that only he would write, such as this:

Actually, topography has everything to do with what’s gone well or badly for I.S.I.S. in this latest push. If you know the ethnic makeup of the turf they’ve taken, their “shocking gains” don’t seem so shocking, or impressive. After all, we’re talking about a mobile force–mounted on the beloved Toyota Hilux pickup truck, favorite vehicle of every male in the Middle East—advancing over totally flat, dry ground in pursuit of a totally demoralized opponent. In that situation, any force could take a lot of country very quickly. It’s just a matter of putting your foot on the accelerator, moving unopposed on the long stretches of flat desert, then dismounting at the next crossroads town for a small, quick firefight against a few defenders who didn’t get the memo to flee. Once they’re dead, you floor it again until the next little desert town.

So this isn’t the second coming of Erwin Rommel by any means. Everything has conspired to push the Sunni advance, from the lousy opponent they’re up against to the terrain, which is a light mechanized commander’s dream.

Gary has a long-time soft spot for the Kurds, the strongest fighting force in Iraq and a soon-to-be state (one of three) formed from the crucible of Old Iraq:

Something wonderful came out of the horrors of 20th century Iraq, among the Kurds of the Northern hills. They became the only non-sectarian population in Iraq, and perhaps the only such group between Lebanon and India.

[...] Of all the hill tribes, the Sunni Kurds are doing best in this chaos. It’s allowed them to take Kirkuk, which they always needed and wanted, and it also just so happens to put the one and only “supergiant” oilfield in the North (5 billion gallons) totally inside Kurdish territory.

I’m happy as Hell for the Kurds. I love them anyway, and miss Suli a lot—but more than that, it’s simple justice that they get a break for once. The Kurds have paid their dues. Saddam’s murderers in uniform killed nearly 200,000 Kurds, and the man from Tikrit was supposedly very disappointed he hadn’t been able to wipe them out completely.

At the moment, I.S.I.S isn’t even trying to pick a fight with the Pesh Merga—a fight they would lose very quickly if it ever did happen. But then Sunni jihadis have always liked softer targets, the softer the better.

Upshot: Gary's little article should serve to calm some of those Nervous Nellies in Congress, the White House and the U.S. foreign policy establishment about "ISIS overrunning Iraq."  Yeah, they might overrun fellow Sunni areas of Iraq, but that's about it.  The Kurds and Iran (Shiites) will step in and stop them cold elsewhere... but wait, that's what a lot of U.S. fear is really about: letting Iran get even more influence in Iraq, and solving this ISIS problem without our help, making them look strong and us, well, the opposite of strong.  

Beyond that, I still think the real enemy is the Saudis, who prop up all these jihadists all over the world with money, crazy clerics, weapons and asylum. Yet the House of Saud plays nice with Texas oil billionaires and Israel, so we Americans for some reason can't love 'em enough!....

UPDATE (22.07.2014): Here's a continuation at Pando of Gary's coverage of the lame ISIS "invasion" of Iraq: "I.S.I.S. and the Western media: Groping each other in public like a Kardashian Thanksgiving." 

The War Nerd: Like it or not, what’s happening in Iraq right now is part of a rational process

By Gary Brecher

June 23, 2014 | Pando Daily

URL: http://pando.com/2014/06/23/the-war-nerd-like-it-or-not-whats-happening-in-iraq-right-now-is-part-of-a-rational-process/

Zakaria: It was Maliki who lost Iraq (with Dubya's help)

You can check out  Fareed Zakaria repeating his points from the Washington Post on CNN:

This week I heard Rush Limbaugh ranting that Obama "owned" what's happening in Iraq. He kept repeating that word, "owns," like it was a GOP talking point. 

What does that mean though?  It comes from the CEO-managerial culture where the top guy accepts ultimate responsibility for whatever happens on his watch.  Except, of course, the analogy falls short here, because CEOs don't take the blame for stuff that happens in other companies, or indeed, in other countries where the company doesn't even operate. 

So now the GOP wants to recycle the same old "solutions" that didn't work in Iraq before: a small U.S. ground force; training the Iraqi army; more airstrikes; and even regime change (!) of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.  Forget it.

Who lost Iraq? The Iraqis did, with an assist from George W. Bush

By Fareed Zakaria

June 12, 2014 | Washington Post

It is becoming increasingly likely that Iraq has reached a turning point. The forces hostile to the government have grown stronger, better equipped and more organized. And having now secured arms, ammunition and hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from their takeover of Mosul — Iraq’s second-largest city — they will build on these strengths. Inevitably, in Washington, the question has surfaced: Who lost Iraq?

Whenever the United States has asked this question — as it did with China in the 1950s or Vietnam in the 1970s — the most important point to remember is: The local rulers did. The Chinese nationalists and the South Vietnamese government were corrupt, inefficient and weak, unable to be inclusive and unwilling to fight with the dedication of their opponents. The same story is true of Iraq, only much more so. The first answer to the question is: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki lost Iraq.

The prime minister and his ruling party have behaved like thugs, excluding the Sunnis from power, using the army, police forces and militias to terrorize their opponents. The insurgency the Maliki government faces today was utterly predictable because, in fact, it happened before. From 2003 onward, Iraq faced a Sunni insurgency that was finally tamped down by Gen. David Petraeus, who said explicitly at the time that the core element of his strategy was political, bringing Sunni tribes and militias into the fold. The surge’s success, he often noted, bought time for a real power-sharing deal in Iraq that would bring the Sunnis into the structure of the government.

A senior official closely involved with Iraq in the Bush administration told me, “Not only did Maliki not try to do broad power-sharing, he reneged on all the deals that had been made, stopped paying the Sunni tribes and militias, and started persecuting key Sunni officials.” Among those targeted were the vice president of Iraq and its finance minister.

But how did Maliki come to be prime minister of Iraq?  He was the product of a series of momentous decisions made by the Bush administration. Having invaded Iraq with a small force — what the expert Tom Ricks called “the worst war plan in American history” — the administration needed to find local allies. It quickly decided to destroy Iraq’s Sunni ruling establishment and empower the hard-line Shiite religious parties that had opposed Saddam Hussein. This meant that a structure of Sunni power that had been in the area for centuries collapsed. These moves — to disband the army, dismantle the bureaucracy and purge Sunnis in general — might have been more consequential than the invasion itself.

The turmoil in the Middle East is often called a sectarian war. But really it is better described as “the Sunni revolt.” Across the region, from Iraq to Syria, one sees armed Sunni gangs that have decided to take on the non-Sunni forces that, in their view, oppress them. The Bush administration often justified its actions by pointing out that the Shiites are the majority in Iraq and so they had to rule. But the truth is that the borders of these lands are porous, and while the Shiites are numerous in Iraq — Maliki’s party actually won a plurality, not a majority — they are a tiny minority in the Middle East as a whole. It is outside support — from places as varied as Saudi Arabia and Turkey — that sustains the Sunni revolt.

If the Bush administration deserves a fair share of blame for “losing Iraq,” what about the Obama administration and its decision to withdraw American forces from the country by the end of 2011? I would have preferred to see a small American force in Iraq to try to prevent the country’s collapse. But let’s remember why this force is not there. Maliki refused to provide the guarantees that every other country in the world that hosts U.S. forces offers. Some commentators have blamed the Obama administration for negotiating badly or halfheartedly and perhaps this is true. But here’s what a senior Iraqi politician told me in the days when the U.S. withdrawal was being discussed: “It will not happen. Maliki cannot allow American troops to stay on. Iran has made very clear to Maliki that its No. 1 demand is that there be no American troops remaining in Iraq. And Maliki owes them.” He reminded me that Maliki spent 24 years in exile, most of them in Tehran and Damascus, and his party was funded by Iran for most of its existence. And in fact, Maliki’s government has followed policies that have been pro-Iranian and pro-Syrian.

Washington is debating whether airstrikes or training forces would be more effective, but its real problem is much larger and is a decade in the making. In Iraq, it is defending the indefensible.

On Iraq, Syria, Iran and U.S. engagement

For all my Fox News viewers, here is a quick primer on what really matters in Iraq (and Syria) now:

Isis has given Iran and the US a rare opportunity for detente, by Ali Ansari

Where is the accountability on Iraq?, by Katrina Vanden Heuvel.

Howard Dean Blasts Media For Featuring Discredited Iraq War Boosters As Experts, by Marina Fang.

Piecing together the shattering Middle East, by David Ignatius.

Obama got it right on Iraq, by Eugene Robinson.

What's the upshot to all this?

First, actions have consequences. Some of those actions date back 100 years. The Middle East never had a system of nation-states with clear borders like Europe, that is until the Western powers drew them up. The invasion and regime change by the U.S. in Iraq has only served to question/break up those borders within Iraq. Iraq is now informally three or four states in one.

And actions to remove the dictator in Iraq had international consequences: it created a power vacuum that favored Iran. This did not start yesterday, or even since Obama became president.

Second, there is no military solution to this, in isolation of regional power politics. The Uncle T's of the world will say this is because Middle Easterners are not "reasonable rational people."  In fact, they are a diverse group of ethnicities, tribes and confessions that were lumped together under borders of somebody else's choosing. Now those borders are under question in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere.  

This means that the U.S. must engage with Iran, the Shi'ite heavyweight in the region, that has had significant influence in Iraq since Dubya's invasion in 2003.  This is not to mention Saudi Arabia and Turkey.  (Israel is a non-factor).  

Conservatives will talk about the "success" of the surge, blah-blah-blah, but clearly the surge was not sustainable, and it did not take into account events in Syria.  

The hallmark of the surge was more U.S. boots on the ground.  Are Republicans seriously advocating for that?  No.  They should clearly state what they are for, instead of simply criticizing our commander-in-chief.

Bergen: Iraq is Dubya's legacy, not Obama's

It's not just "blaming Bush" in order to let Obama off the hook; it's acknowledging the reality that U.S. actions have consequences -- and sometimes those consequences are irreversible.

Having learned nothing, neoconservatives like McCain are saying the U.S. should send troops back into Iraq.  "We had it won in Iraq," McCain just told MSNBC. Had it won! 

Not only is Iran actively involved in Iraq, as before, but now al Qaeda in Syria. Yet McCain says a U.S. residual force would not be under any threat -- "ground combat troops would not be on the ground"!  So what the heck would U.S. troops do there to make a difference?!

McCain's answer, basically, is to do regime change yet again -- "[Maliki] has to be changed; it is an unacceptable situation" -- and bring back the Iraq surge "brain trust" (including old neocons like Robert and Frederick Kagan) to think up a genius solution.  That is, one of our most experienced Senators in foreign policy and military strategy has nothing to suggest except "rinse and repeat" in Iraq, minus the ground troops for which McCain's beloved "surge" were the hallmark.

Pardon my French, but this is a brainless and dickless stance that can never be enacted; it's meant only to make Obama look bad. But kudos, I guess, to Sen. McCain for giving us even this many specifics, since most Republicans won't.

Bush's toxic legacy in Iraq

By Peter Bergen

June 13, 2014 | CNN

ISIS, the brutal insurgent/terrorist group formerly known as al Qaeda in Iraq, has seized much of western and northern Iraq and even threatens towns not far from Baghdad.

From where did ISIS spring? One of George W. Bush's most toxic legacies is the introduction of al Qaeda into Iraq, which is the ISIS mother ship.

If this wasn't so tragic it would be supremely ironic, because before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, top Bush officials were insisting that there was an al Qaeda-Iraq axis of evil. Their claims that Saddam Hussein's men were training members of al Qaeda how to make weapons of mass destruction seemed to be one of the most compelling rationales for the impending war.

After the fall of Hussein's regime, no documents were unearthed in Iraq proving the Hussein-al Qaeda axis despite the fact that, like other totalitarian regimes, Hussein's government kept massive and meticulous records.

The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency had by 2006 translated 34 million pages of documents from Hussein's Iraq and found there was nothing to substantiate a "partnership" between Hussein and al Qaeda.

Two years later the Pentagon's own internal think tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses, concluded after examining 600,000 Hussein-era documents and several thousand hours of his regime's audio- and videotapes that there was no "smoking gun (i.e. direct connection between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda.)"

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded in 2008, as every other investigation had before, that there was no "cooperative relationship" between Hussein and al Qaeda. The committee also found that "most of the contacts cited between Iraq and al Qaeda before the war by the intelligence community and policy makers have been determined not to have occurred."

Instead of interrupting a budding relationship between Hussein and al Qaeda, the Iraq War precipitated the arrival of al Qaeda into Iraq. Although the Bush administration tended to gloss over the fact, al Qaeda only formally established itself in Iraq a year and a half after the U.S. invasion.

On October 17, 2004, its brutal leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi issued an online statement pledging allegiance to Osama bin Laden. Zarqawi's pledge was fulsome: "By God, O sheikh of the Mujahideen, if you bid us plunge into the ocean, we would follow you. If you ordered it so, we would obey."

Zarqawi's special demonic genius was to launch Iraq down the road to civil war. In early 2004, the U.S. military intercepted a letter from Zarqawi to bin Laden in which he proposed provoking a civil war between Sunnis and Shia.

Zarqawi's strategy was to hit the Shia so they would in turn strike the Sunnis, so precipitating a vicious circle of violence in which al Qaeda would be cast as the protector of the Sunnis against the wrath of the Shia. It was a strategy that worked all too well, provoking first sectarian conflict in Iraq and later civil war.

Al Qaeda in Iraq, or AQI, regularly attacked Shia religious processions, shrines and clerics. The tipping point in the slide toward full-blown civil war was al Qaeda's February 2006 attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra, which is arguably the most important Shia shrine in the world.

Three years into the Iraq War, AQI seemed all but unstoppable. A classified Marine intelligence assessment dated August 17, 2006, found that AQI had become the de facto government of the western Iraqi province of Anbar, which is strategically important because it borders Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia and makes up about a third of the landmass of Iraq.

In addition, AQI controlled a good chunk of the exurban belts around Baghdad, the "Triangle of Death" to the south of the capital and many of the towns north of it, up the Tigris River to the Syrian border.

Thus AQI controlled territory larger than New England and maintained an iron grip on much of the Sunni population.

In other words, the Bush administration had presided over the rise of precisely what it had said was one of the key goals of the Iraq War to destroy: a safe haven for al Qaeda in the heart of the Arab world.

By 2007, al Qaeda's untrammeled violence and imposition of Taliban ideology on the Sunni population provoked a countrywide Sunni backlash against AQI that took the form of Sunni "Awakening" militias. Many of those militias were put on Uncle Sam's payroll in a program known as the "Sons of Iraq".

The combination of the Sunni militias' on-the-ground intelligence about their onetime AQI allies and American firepower proved devastating to al Qaeda's Iraqi franchise. And so, between 2006 and 2008, AQI shrank from an insurgent organization that controlled territory larger than the size of New England to a rump terrorist group.

But AQI did not disappear. It simply bided its time. The Syrian civil war provided a staging point over the past three years for its resurrection and transformation into the "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria," or ISIS. And now ISIS has marched back into western and northern Iraq. Only this time there is no U.S. military to stop it.

U.S. intel. director: Earth is (still) a scary place

We're all gonna dieeeeeeeeeeeeee!  Aaaaaaaah!

Aw Lawdy, please save us CIA and NSA, save us!  

Let me quote Michael Cohen at length [emphasis mine] in his critique of the annual world threat assessment that the National Intelligence Director is obliged to give the Senate:

There is the habitually frightening adjective war front, "an assertive Russia, a competitive China; a dangerous, unpredictable North Korea, a challenging Iran." The sober-minded might look at these countries and conclude that a more accurate set of descriptors would be "an enfeebled and corrupt Russia, an economically slowing and environmentally challenged China, a contained and sort of predictable North Korea and an isolated and diplomatically-engaged Iran". But that would be a pretty lame threat assessment, wouldn't it?

Then there are the really scary sounding threats that aren't actually threats to Americans. Things like, "lingering ethnic divisions in the Balkans, perpetual conflict and extremism in Africa; violent political struggles in … the Ukraine, Burma, Thailand and Bangladesh." [...]  [B]ut the idea that any of these are serious "crises" or "threats" to America and its citizens is ludicrous.

This is what makes Clapper's argument – and indeed the entire process of writing a "worldwide threat assessment" so fundamentally unserious and distorting. America doesn't face a single truly serious security threat. We are a remarkably safe and secure nation, protected by two oceans, an enormous and highly effective military and dozens upon dozens of like-minded allies and friends around the world. Truly we have nothing to fear – except perhaps global climate change, which oddly merits a one-paragraph mention (pdf) in this year's threat assessment.

To listen to Clapper and others in the intelligence community one might never know that inter-state war has largely disappeared and that wars in general are in the midst of a multi-decade decline. 

And let's not forget that Clapper is the same guy who lied to Congress about not spying on U.S. citizens!:

The irony of all this is that Clapper has been under fire for months now because he allegedly lied to Congress over the extent to which the National Security Agency was collecting phone and e-mail records of individual Americans.

Yet, the yarn he spun on Capitol Hill last week was far worse than that: deceiving Americans about the nature of the world today and the threats facing the country. But in a political environment in which threat mongering and exaggeration is the norm rather than the exception, Clapper not only gets a pass – hardly anyone even noticed.

I've had enough of these obvious lies from "serious" spies protecting their administrative turf and bloated billion-dollar budgets.  There is no way that the U.S. is in more danger now than during the Cold War.  We have no enemies who can attack us, save Russia with its ICBMs. Terrorism is a mosquito on the list of actual threats to American citizens.

The James Clappers of the U.S. military-intelligence community might bamboozle and intimidate our Congressmen and journalists with their doomsday speeches, but not me.  What about you?

James Clapper might as well be called director of US fearmongering

By Michael Cohen

February 6, 2014 | Guardian

URL: http://gu.com/p/3mgk3

Is it good the Saudis are mad at Obama?

I meant to post this earlier. But it's not too late because we're still seeing op-eds such as this one on Fox: "Saudis lament, 'we have been stabbed in the back by Obama'".

Just like Christianity is pretty diverse, so is Islam. Most people know there are Shiites (such as in Iran, Lebanon and Syria) and Sunnis (most everywhere else). There are further branches of each of those sects. Perhaps it's a crude analogy, but let's call Wahhabism, a branch of Sunni Islam, the Southern Baptist Church of Islam. 

And Saudi Arabia is the home and sponsor of Wahhabism. It sends billions of petro-dollars around the globe to preach this ultra-conservative brand of Islam in Islamic countries that is entirely compatible with Ismalist and terrorist ideology. And it is engaged in a religious conflict with Iran, the #1 sponsor of Shiite Muslims. As Zakaria points out, Saudi Arabia has a sizable Shiite majority located in oil-rich areas that it wants to keep down.  

Risibly, Saudi Arabia, an absolutist monarchy, calls itself the #1 Arab ally of the United States, which is supposedly engaged in a global war on Islamic terrorism.

See the disconnect?  

So kudos to Fareed Zakaria for calling a spade a spade. And if the Saudis are indeed upset with President Obama, then... maybe he's onto something.

The Saudis Are Mad? Tough!

By Fareed Zakaria

November 11, 2013 | TIME

URL: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2156259,00.html#ixzz2ojBAuFe4

If Israel wants security, it must give up the bomb

I'm not naive. Iran at least wants to retain the option to produce a nuclear weapon, even if they agree to put their nuclear program on hold. And why wouldn't they? Pakistan and North Korea get special treatment thanks to their nuclear weapons. Economically poor Russia got to join the G-8 (before known as the G-7) because of its nukes. And let's not forget that Iran's biggest rival Israel maintains the only nuke arsenal in the Mideast. Strangely, Israel's nuclear capability is an official "open secret" not only in Israel but in the EU and U.S.

Author of Israel's Occupation Neve Gordon points out that way back in 1974, Iran proposed making the Middle East a nuclear-free zone. But that didn't suit Israel or the U.S., so the idea went nowhere. 

Fast forward 40 years and it would seem stupid of Iran not to pursue nuclear weapons, not only to maintain some military parity with rival Israel, but to forestall any U.S.-backed invasion, a la Iraq.  

Neve argues it's not too late to ask Israel to disarm if Iran will do the same. Surely this would elicit catcalls from conservatives and AIPAC types, but think about it: what's so crazy about the idea of mutual disarmament?    

And there are precedents: South Africa gave up its nuclear weapons in the early 1990s post-apartheid; and newly independent Ukraine gave up its massive Soviet nuclear stockpile in 1991.

Israel must give up its worst-kept secret: the bomb

By Neve Gordon

December 13, 2013 | Al Jazeera

URL: http://aje.me/1kFvZx1

Smith: We can't handle the truth (overseas)

I like the cut of Patrick Smith's jib. This is the second time this year he's caught the scouts' eye, this time on America's Iran policy and the "liberal" U.S. media that supports it:

The adage among properly cynical diplomats used to be that they were sent abroad to lie for their country. During the Cold War, as Washington’s sponsored atrocities grew evident, the thought took a turn: Diplomats were sent abroad to lie to their country.

Consider it a template and apply it to our press folk.

Correspondents used to be sent abroad to keep the country informed (in theory, at least). Now correspondents go forth to send home a simulacrum of truth, a semblance, while keeping their country misinformed.

So why is all this lying necessary? It's our fault. We don't want to know. We don't want to know what's being done in our name, ostensibly in "the interests of peace," or the interests of the world. Wrote Smith succinctly:

We cannot bear to see things as they are because things as they are constitute a refutation of our dearest mythologies, but we must see things as they are if we are to make sense of ourselves in the 21st century.

This is what I was getting at when I said the U.S. needs a moral foreign policy. Our leaders' actions abroad don't support our moral myths at home -- life, liberty, equality, tolerance, etc. -- and what with the Internet and pesky mushrooming terrorists popping up all the time reminding us what we're really up to, it's becoming increasingly hard for us average Americans to ignore the disconnect between over here and over there. Still our politicians and media do their loyal best to iron out the wrinkles in our brains.

Chomsky’s right: The New York Times’ latest big lie

By Patrick L. Smith

November 15, 2013 | Salon

URL: http://www.salon.com/2013/11/16/chomskys_right_the_new_york_times_latest_big_lie/

Buchanan: Boehner, stand up to Obama on Syria

It's been a while since I've posted anything by my main isolationist paleo-conservative, Mr. Pat Buchanan. But with the proverbial excrement about to hit the ventilator over Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons, it's about time.  I can't find much to disagree with below.

I could give a shilling about the U.S. or Obama saving face.  The dangerous idea that we must "lead" and intervene everywhere, even where our vital interests are not at stake, or else risking losing our influence, is the road to empire, overreach and collapse.  

Will Boehner Stop Our Rogue President?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

August 30, 2013 | Human Events

The next 72 hours will be decisive in the career of the speaker of the House. The alternatives he faces are these:

John Boehner can, after “consultation,” give his blessing to Barack Obama’s decision to launch a war on Syria, a nation that has neither attacked nor threatened us.

Or Boehner can instruct Obama that, under our Constitution, in the absence of an attack on the United States, Congress alone has the authority to decide whether the United States goes to war.

As speaker, he can call the House back on Monday to debate, and decide, whether to authorize the war Obama is about to start. In the absence of a Congressional vote for war, Boehner should remind the president that U.S. cruise missile strikes on Syria, killing soldiers and civilians alike, would be the unconstitutional and impeachable acts of a rogue president.

Moreover, an attack on Syria would be an act of stupidity.

Why this rush to war? Why the hysteria? Why the panic?

Syria and Assad will still be there two weeks from now or a month from now, and we will know far more then about what happened last week.

Understandably, Obama wants to get the egg off his face from having foolishly drawn his “red line” against chemical weapons, and then watching Syria, allegedly, defy His Majesty. But saving Obama’s face does not justify plunging his country into another Mideast war.

Does Obama realize what a fool history will make of him if he is stampeded into a new war by propaganda that turns out to be yet another stew of ideological zealotry and mendacity?

As of today, we do not know exactly what gas was used around Damascus, how it was delivered, who authorized it and whether President Bashar Assad ever issued such an order.

Yet, one Wall Street Journal columnist is already calling on Obama to assassinate Assad along with his family.

Do we really want back into that game? When John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy explored the assassination option with Fidel Castro, blowback came awfully swift in Dallas.

Again, what is the urgency of war now if we are certain we are right? What do we lose by waiting for more solid evidence, and then presenting our case to the Security Council?

Kennedy did that in the Cuban missile crisis. U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson made the case. And the world saw we were right.

If, in the face of incontrovertible proof, Russia and China veto sanctions, the world will see that. Then let John Kerry make his case to Congress and convince that body to authorize war, if he can.

But if Obama cannot convince Congress, we cannot — and ought not — go to war. The last thing America needs is an unnecessary, unconstitutional war in that God-forsaken region that both Congress and the country oppose.

Indeed, the reports about this gas attack on Syrian civilians have already begun to give off the distinct aroma of a false-flag operation.

Assad has offered U.N. inspectors secure access to where gas was allegedly used. It is the rebels who seem not to want too deep or long an investigation.

Our leaders should ask themselves. If we are stampeded into this war, whose interests are served? For it is certainly not Assad’s and certainly not America’s.

We are told Obama intends to hit Syria with cruise missiles for just a few days to punish Assad and deter any future use of gas, not to topple his regime. After a few hundred missiles and a thousand dead Syrians, presumably, we call it off.

Excuse me, but as Casey Stengel said, “Can’t anybody here play this game?”

Nations that start wars and attack countries, as Gen. Tojo and Adm. Yamamoto can testify, do not get to decide how wide the war gets, how long it goes on or how it ends.

If the United States attacks Damascus and Syria’s command and control, under the rules of war Syria would be within its rights to strike Washington, the Pentagon and U.S. bases all across the Middle East.

Does Obama really want to start a war, the extent and end of which he cannot see, that is likely to escalate, as its promoters intend and have long plotted, into a U.S. war on Iran? Has the election in Iran of a new president anxious to do a deal with America on Iran’s nuclear program caused this panic in the War Party?

If we think the markets reacted badly to a potential U.S. strike on Syria, just wait for that big one to start. Iran has a population the size of Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq combined, and sits astride the Straits of Hormuz through which the free world’s oil flows.

And who will be our foremost fighting ally in Syria should we attack Assad’s army? The Al-Nusra Front, an arm of al-Qaida and likely successor to power, should Assad fall.

Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

Elite 'liberal' media slants toward war in Syria

Lately, I've been posting op-eds and editorials from the "liberal" Washington Post about Syria because it shows how strong is the consensus of Left-Right elite opinion in America that the U.S. Government must be actively involved and "leading" in every conflict zone in the world, but especially in the Middle East.  

The good news is, 70 percent of Americans oppose the U.S. sending weapons to Syria's "good" rebels.  Only 20 percent favor it.  

Whereas elite U.S. opinion makers believe that President Obama should "lead" on Syria, which is elite-speak for "ignore public opinion." 

Some opinion elites might argue that 80 percent of Americans doesn't really understand what's at stake in Syria.  But the onus is on them -- and President Obama, if he wants to get the U.S. military involved -- to explain to us what's at stake.  Myself I have been following developments there and I cannot say what vital U.S. interests are at stake in Syria.  Sure, Iran, Hezbollah and Russia are supporting Assad, but if Assad prevails, then they will have only paid dearly in materiel and diplomatic face to preserve the status quo ante.  As noted CNN/Time's Fareed Zakaria, one of the few "big thinkers" on foreign policy in the mainstream media:

Contrary to much of the media commentary, the fact that Iran and Hezbollah are sending militias, arms, and money into Syria is not a sign of strength. It is a sign that they are worried that the Syrian regime might fall and are desperately seeking to shore it up. Keeping them engaged and pouring resources into Syria weakens them substantially.

Unlike Iran and Hezbollah, Russia might yet enjoy the additional moral satisfaction of having publicly stood up to America and gotten its way, but so what? Let Russia choose its battles; we'll choose ours.  

Even if we believe some of our interests are at stake in Syria, we now understand too well the potential for sectarian war, U.S. escalation, and eventual terrorist blowback in our faces.  So far, the costs of intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan have far outweighed any benefits.  And two years after Gadhafi's death and NATO intervention, Libya is a tribal-sectarian basketcase.  Why should Syria be any different?    

Some pundits are still trying their best to convince us.  For example, WaPo's Jim Hoagland actually warned us, quoting an unnamed French diplomat, "that a loss of U.S. credibility in Syria will encourage Iran to intensify its quest for nuclear weapons."  Really?  If we don't get involved in Syria then Iran will develop nuclear weapons?  Gimme a break!

This argument is the last refuge of neoconservative scoundrels.  Think what he's saying: the U.S. must lead in every instance or forfeit its right to lead in necessary instances.  This is the road to empire, overreach and collapse.

Hoagland's main cheapshot argument is that Obama is worried about his presidential legacy: Obama wants to be known for getting us out of two wars, not starting a third one in Syria.  But even if it's true, what's so wrong with that?  

It's too bad Hoagland and the Washington Post's editorial board don't read the Washington Post's news section:

The difference this time is that the mobilization [of foreign fighters] has been stunningly rapid — what took six years to build in Iraq at the height of the U.S. occupation may have accumulated inside Syria in less than half that.

For Syria's neighbors, the conflict in Syria has become a Sunni-Shia regional war by proxy.  And the U.S. is injecting itself into this sectarian divide, taking the Sunnis' side... that incidentally includes al-Qaeda.

Next, let's take the "liberal" New York Times' Thomas Friedman, America's biggest "big thinker" on foreign policy, (God help us).  In his latest op-ed, Friedman gives two options for U.S. actions in Syria.  Conspicuously, not arming the rebels is not one of those options.  This is how elite opinion-makers do their black magic: they give a sense of inevitability to U.S. military action. 

Friedman actually describes the "idealist approach" to Syria (option #2) as putting U.S. boots on the ground and doing another Iraq debacle, er, occupation.  This is what "idealists" want in Tom Friedman's mind!  Who are these people?!

Next, for the record let's note that the "liberal" Chicago Tribune also supports America's arming Syria's "good" rebels.  But the Tribune holds onto the very slim hope that those arms will force a stalemate and Syria's President Assad to the negotiating table.  (I should note that the Tribune's owner, McClatchy Newspapers, has been doing excellent reporting on Syria.)

Likewise the "liberal" Boston Globe also agrees with President Obama's decision to arm Syria's rebels, although it urges mommy-like "caution" and "care" in doing so: "Now you be careful playing with those guns, rebels!  Don't shoot at anybody who doesn't shoot at your first.  And remember, we're not giving these weapons to you because we hate Shiites; and don't give them to terrorists!"  Pathetic.     

Some of you may say I'm getting too worked up about a few U.S. weapons to Syria.  Maybe so.  Maybe this is a classic Obama maneuver: appearing to do something while actually doing nothing.  According to the New York Times, "Mr. Obama expressed no confidence it would change the outcome, but privately expressed hope it might buy time to bring about a negotiated settlement."

However, once he involves the U.S. and puts his and our nation's credibility on the line, President Obama will be under immense international pressure and pressure from Congress to turn the tide against Assad's forces.  Then he (we) could be "dragged into an escalating level of support: from light arms to anti-tank weapons to a no-fly zone and so on" ... and so forth, up to putting U.S. boots on the ground -- the "idealist" outcome for the Friedmanites, but the nightmare scenario for Americans.

For admirable lessons on U.S. military restraint vis-a-vis Syria (and Iran), you have to look past the major U.S. newspapers and read stuff like...Daniel Larison at The American Conservative.  

I know, I know, these are strange times....