MTCR References

Following are some references to the Missile Technology Control Regime, which I helped create.  Most deal with India's membership.

http://www.mea.gov.in/rajya-sabha.htm?dtl/27303/QUESTION+NO2815+STATUS+OF+INDIAS+MEMBERSHIP+TO+MTCR

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/modi-to-push-china-for-nsg-entry-investments/article8960438.ece

I concur in the following Bulletin criticism of controls on drones.  When I was at State, the Pentagon was always trying to expand the MTCR controls to cover any thing or any country they didn't like.  One of the worst incidents in my career came when the Pentagon vetoed the sale of a ground-based satellite tracking system that Brazil planned to use to download information on the environment in the Amazon.  The Pentagon said the ground stations could be used to track test launches of nuclear-capable missiles that Brazil might develop.  Brazil had no such missiles, and the ground stations would not have been very useful for this purpose.  It was like banning the sales of automobiles because they could be used to run over and kill people.  The Penatagon decision was ultimately reversed, but only after the Brazilians were very mad about the denial.

http://thebulletin.org/too-late-missile-nonproliferation/how-emphasis-drones-harms-missile-controls

http://www.narendramodi.in/india-joins-missile-technology-control-regime-496223

http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/mtcr-membership-to-help-india-export-satellites-and-launch-116072101166_1.html

Attitudes Toward Military Service

I find the op-ed unconvincing in the NYT today by someone who avoided the Vietnam War draft and now repents for doing so.  He fails to address the hatred and vitreol directed against returning Vietnam veterans, and the moral sef-righteousness displayed by those who did not go.  He does not address the way that the war was portrayed as inhumane slaughter, and returning vets as baby-killing perverts.  Even at the relatively conservative University of Alabama, which I returned to, the only vets who got positive feedback from other students were those who confessed to committing atrocities.  Veterans who did not commit atrocities were very conflicted by feeling that after sending them to Vietnam, where they thought they gave honorable service, their country now denouced them as war criminals.  Serving in Vietnam was only part of the “sacrifice”; returning to a hateful US was another part.  While the op-ed writer wishes he had “served” he still feels morally superior to his war-criminal cohorts who did in fact serve.  

Relatively few Vietnam veterans have had much political success.  Three who did, all started out with silver spoons in their mouths.  John McCain’s father and grandfather were senior admirals.  John Kerry’s mother was a Forbes heiress.  Al Gore’s father was a senator.  They did not come back to the same obliquy as other vets.  Both McCain and Kerry went into some Navy VIP program for returning VIP veterans.  McCain in particular was treated as a returning hero, unlike the vast bulk ofther returnees, including some who were also combat heros.  They all ran for President, but they were all rejected by their country.  Veterans don’t always make good Presidents; General Ulysses Grant was one the worst in history.  The same could have been true for one of these three.  Al Gore actually won more votes than George W. Bush in the 2000 election, but the Supreme Court awarded the presidency to Bush.  Bush, of course, avoided going to Vietnam by using his family influence to get into the Alabama National Guard, where he spent the war skipping even his National Guard duties, drinking heavily, and becoming an alcoholic.  Of course, Bill Clinton, like Donald Trump, avoided the draft, and Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama were never subject to the draft, and did not volunteer to serve.  

America now appears to have come full circle, and venerates military service almost religiously.  If you look closely, however, you find that the best people don’t volunteer to serve.  How many graduates of Harvard or Stanford are serving in the military?  How many children of the top 20% of the population, much less of the 1% or 0.1%?  No, nice people don’t serve in the military.  And the press is always quick to note if someone in the news for some horriible crime has served.  They protray the US Marine Corps as the breeding ground for mass murderers.  

There was a period, right after 9/11, when nice people went into the militarr, because it looked like America was really under threat.  But the political and military leadership botched the wars so badly that military service became a bad thing again.  A lot of the praise for the military today is because people want some other fool to go fight so that they don’t have to.  It’s selfish, not loving.  If we reinstated the draft there would be a sea change in attitudes toward military service.  

This is not to take away the honor of the sacrifice made by soldiers, particularly those killed or wounded in action, like Captain Khan.  But it is to say that a lot of the furor about dishonor to the gold star parents is politically motivated, not genuine sympathy for those involved.  It’s more like, “Thank goodness that’s not me, but shame on anybody who says that out loud.”  

Hillary Follows Obama's Failures

Obama has been a pretty good President.  So why are the people calling for change, Trump and Sanders, doing so well?  Obama saved the US from falling into a depression when he took over from Bush during the 2008 financial crisis.  He and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke did this by bailing out the big banks and other big institutions -- AIG Insurance, General Motors. etc.  The banks and the government have made a big point of the fact that the big institutions paid the bailout money back.  The government did much less to help the little guy, not just the people who bought houses with “liar loans,” but people who lost 401(k) money in the stock market on the eve of their retirement, who were transferred and had had to sell their houses while house values were depressed, etc.  In addition, it looks like there was a massive transfer of wealth during this period from regular people to the super rich.  It’s not clear to me exactly what happened, but for example, smart invstors in the stock market made much greater returns than regular people with conservative investments.  House prices have risen, but not like the stock market, or other riskier investments like private equity, hedge funds, or high yield bonds.  Interest rates on bank accounts and ordinary bonds ave been close to zero for about a decade.  

Ordnary Americans, including me, don’t knew exactly what happened, but they know something bad happened to them.  While their lives in general are not terrible, they are relatively worse off vis-a-viz the one percent, and may be actually worse off than they personally were a few years earlier.  They know something went wrong under the Obama administration.  In a sense, Obama saved their lives, but made their lives worse.  So, do you thank Obama for saving your life, or blame him for giving your money to the extremely rich who bought him with their contributions, lobbying and backroom political power.   Plus, Obama did not send any Wall Street crook to jail. The super rich Jews bought the Clintons, and it looks like they have bought the Obamas, too.  Oddly, Hillary is running as the cadidate of the Jewish insiders ike Michael Bloomberg, while the insider Jews oppose Bernie, an ethnic Jew who is an outsider to whatever the Jews are who control Wall Street, Washington, and part of Silicon Valley (e.g., Facebook).  It’s interesting that two Jews, Al Franken and Sarah Silverman, were instrumental in putting down the Bernie supporters at the Democratic convention.  The insider Jews apparently hate Bernie, but love Hillary, a Methodist.  

As a transplanted Southerner, I should like Hillary for being first lady of Arkansas, a southern state, but I don’t think Hillary ever abandoned her Illinois, liberal roots.  Bill Clinton could get along with good ole Southern boys, as well as New York Jews, but Hillary made her mark, such as it was, in Arkansas by siding with the blacks against the good ole boys.  Her black conections helped the Clintons in Arkansas, and remain one of her stongest political pillars.  But Hillary doesn’t appeal to white men.  She has a love-hate relationship with her white man, Bill, who has dragged her throught the mud, but has also put her on the Presidential stage.  

Stepping in as Obama’s surrogate successor will not be entirely easy, because Obama, while being a basically good President, left many expectations unfulfilled.  He has not proved himself worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize, in part because of some things that Hillary did as Secretary of State, like invading Libya.  He reduced American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the wars go on.  Fewer Americns are dying, but Obama has the blood of hundreds of thousands of Arabs on his hands.  His call early in his presidency for Muslims to rise up and overthrow their dictatorial leaders, like Mubarek, Qaddafi and Assad, resulted in bloody chaos in the Middle East, particularly in Syria,  It has now destabilized our NATO ally, Turkey.  So far, I credit Obama for not assassinating Assad or Erdogan with a cruise missile as he did Osama bin Laden, which he could do.  

Obama promised to close Guantanamo, but he has failed to do so.  The Republican Congress has done everything it can to block him, but nevertheless he failed.  It’s another case where he failed to live up to the promise of the Nobel Peace Prize.  America remains a member of the club of nations that tortures political prisoners.  We may have stopped waterboarding them, but the prison itself is a form of cruel and unusal punishment.  

Obama did expand healthcare with Obama Care, but he failed the progressives in his party by not establishing a single payer system.  Obama basically sold out to the super rich medical establishment to preserve the private insurance system, that makes them rich.  Oddly to me, while there are a lot of Jewish doctors, the rich people running heathcare tend to be gentiles.  The part of the medical establishment that benefits the least from the current system are those doctors who do the most good, those who practice general or family medicine.  Even they find it difficult to work in the present environment because of the huge bureacracy made up of private insurance, Medicare and Medicade.  As a result doctors who really want to help people end up joining hospitals or big medical practice groups to let somebody else do the paperwork while they save lives.  The administrators love this because they can add on their percentage to every bill.  While many patients get good care, it’s a system that favors the adminsitrators over the doctors and the doctors over the patients.  The people at the bottom of the healthcare pyramid in the US are the patients.  Obama left this system in place.  

Friedman Wrong on Web People vs Wall People

I  don’t buy Tom Friedman's description  in today’s NYT of the dichotomy between web people (global Democrats) and wall people (nationalist Republicans).  The web people just live behind smaller, higher walls, e.g., in Silicon Valley (walled by high real estate prices) or Manhattan (an expensive island).  Or in Friedman’s case, in five-star hotels around the world, a favorite haunt of peripatetic billionaires.  Missionaries and aid workers do live in a world without walls, but that’s the exception.  Web people work hard so that they can have their own walls.  

MTCR Activity re India

Here are some references to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).  Most of them deal with India, which is anxious to join:

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/india-set-to-become-member-of-missile-technology-control-regime-2876346/

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-to-become-full-member-of-mtcr-today/article8778729.ece

http://thediplomat.com/2016/06/india-finally-joins-missile-technology-control-regime/

http://www.firstpost.com/india/unravelling-mtcr-what-lies-ahead-for-india-in-the-elite-club-2867766.html

http://www.narendramodi.in/us-backs-india-s-bid-to-nsg-and-mtcr-membership-india-usa-press-statements-484149

http://www.news18.com/news/india/indias-mtcr-entry-may-be-cause-of-worry-for-china-say-strategists-1264872.html

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/russia-formally-welcomes-indias-mtcr-membership/articleshow/53127140.cms

http://scroll.in/latest/811694/american-drone-manufacturer-to-set-up-office-in-delhi-by-year-end

Dissent Channel State Department Memo on Syria

The New York Times has the text of the dissent channel memo regarding Syria, although it is displayed in somewhat unusual format.  Here is a link to the text:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/06/17/world/middleeast/document-state-dept-syria.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

The Washington Post also has a story about the memo.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-memo-us-diplomats-urge-more-aggressive-stance-on-syria/2016/06/16/ff30596a-3431-11e6-8758-d58e76e11b12_story.html

I do not agree with the dissenters.  I don't think Assad will leave unless he is physically pushed out, either by the US, the rebels, or his subordinates.  If he is pushed out, there is no guarantee that whoever replaces him will be any better.  I think it is unlikely that moderate rebels will replace him, although ISIL's defeat in Fallujah is encouraging. Our failures in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya do not bode well for success in Syria.  The fact that it is a civil war characterized by sectarian hatred makes the conflict even more intractable.  I understand the outrage and concern about the humanitarian disaster that the war has created, leading to the mass migration of refugees to Europe, but I don't think that more military action in Syria will improve that.  We might be able to set aside some refugee areas within Syria that are no fire zones, and that could be supported by aid agencies, but that's about it.  We can't settle this conflict unless most of the parties want us to.  

The text of the memo from the NYT follows

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED

                                          - 2 -

moderate rebel groups’ role in defeating Da’esh, and help bring an end to the

broader instability the conflict generates.



3. (SBU) Initiating targeted military strikes in response to egregious regime

violations of the CoH would raise the cost for the regime and bolster the prospects

for a real ceasefire -- without cities being bombed and humanitarian convoys

blocked -- and lead to a more serious diplomatic process, led by the United States. 

A reinvigorated CoH would help the political process to mature as we press for the

formation of a transitional government body with full executive powers that can

start to rebuild Syria and Syrian society, with significant assistance from the

international community.  With the repeated diplomatic setbacks of the past five

years, together with the Russian and Iranian governments’ cynical and

destabilizing deployment of significant military power to bolster the Asad regime,

we believe that the foundations are not currently in place for an enduring

ceasefire and consequential negotiations. 



4. (SBU) With over 400,000 people dead, hundreds of thousands still at risk from

regime sieges, and 12 million people from a population of 23 million displaced

from their homes, we believe the moral rationale for taking steps to end the deaths

and suffering in Syria, after five years of brutal war, is evident and unquestionable. 

The regime’s actions directly result in broader instability and undermine the

international system responsible for protection of civilians, prevention of mass

atrocities, and accountability for grave violations.  The strategic imperatives for

taking steps to end the bloodshed are numerous and equally compelling.



5. (SBU) First, with the regime deploying tactics that overwhelmingly target

civilians (barrel bombs and air strikes in cities) to achieve battlefield objectives

and undermine support for the moderate opposition, impeding or ending such

atrocities will not only save lives but further our political objectives. While the

regime maintains the advantage, an undeterred Asad will resist compromises

sought by almost all opposition factions and regional actors. Shifting the tide of the

conflict against the regime will increase the chances for peace by sending a clear

signal to the regime and its backers that there will not be a military solution to the

conflict.   



6. (SBU) Secondly, a more assertive U.S. role to protect and preserve opposition-

held communities, by defending them from Asad’s air force and artillery, presents

the best chance for defeating Da’esh in Syria.  The prospects for rolling back

Da’esh’s hold on territory are bleak without the Sunni Arabs, who the regime
continues to bomb and starve.  A de facto alliance with the regime against Da’esh



                          SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED
                          SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED

                                          - 3 -

would not guarantee success: Asad’s military is undermanned and exhausted.

Kurdish YPG fighters cannot -- and should not -- be expected to project power and

hold terrain deep into non-Kurdish areas.  And, crucially, Syria’s Sunni population

continues to view the Asad regime as the primary enemy in the conflict.  If we are

to remain committed to countering Da’esh in the Levant without committing

ground forces, the best option is to protect and empower the moderate Syrian

opposition.  Tolerating the Asad regime’s continued gross human rights violations

against the Syrian people undermines, both morally and materially, the unity of the

anti-Da’esh coalition, particularly among Sunni Arab partners.  Failure to stem

Asad’s flagrant abuses will only bolster the ideological appeal of groups such as

Da’esh, even as they endure tactical setbacks on the battlefield.  As brutal as

Da’esh is, it is the Asad regime that is responsible for the vast majority of the

hundreds of thousands of victims in this conflict.    



7. (SBU) Third, putting additional constraints on the regime’s ability to bomb and

shell both fighting forces and unambiguously civilian targets would have a direct,

mitigating impact on the refugee and IDP crisis.  This crisis has deeply affected

Syria’s neighbors for years and is now impacting our European partners in far-

reaching ways that may ultimately jeopardize their very character as open, unified,

and democratic societies.  Even in the United States, the crisis in Syria has lent

credence to prejudiced ideologies that we thought had been discredited years ago. 

Furthermore, the calm that would ensue after the regime’s warplanes are grounded

would lessen the importance of armed actors, strengthen civil society throughout

the country, and open the space for increased dialogue among communities. 



8. (SBU) Perhaps most critically, a more muscular military posture under U.S.

leadership would underpin and propel a new and reinvigorated diplomatic

initiative.  Despite the dedication and best efforts of those involved, current CoH

and related diplomatic processes are disjointed and largely tactical in nature. 

Instead, a singularly focused and disciplined diplomatic effort -- modeled on the

process established for the Iran negotiations strategy led by the Secretary and

former Under Secretary Sherman and with full White House backing -- should be

adopted to (i) ensure regime compliance with the CoH (or a similar ceasefire

mechanism) and prevent civilian casualties, and (ii) advance talks involving

internal and external actors, to include the Iranians and the Saudis, to produce a

transitional government.  



9. (SBU) U.S. military power would serve to promote regime compliance with the

CoH, and in so doing save lives and alter battlefield dynamics.  The May 17 ISSG

declaration states, “Where the co-chairs believe that a party to the cessation of



                          SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED
                          SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED

                                          - 4 -

hostilities has engaged in a pattern of persistent non-compliance, the Task Force

could refer such behavior to the ISSG Ministers or those designated by the

Ministers to determine appropriate action, including the exclusion of such

parties from the arrangements of the cessation and the protection it affords

them.”  Making clear our willingness to impose consequences on the Asad regime

would increase U.S. negotiating leverage with regard to all parties, rally partners

around U.S. leadership, and raise the costs for others to continue obstructing a

sustainable end to the conflict.  We are not advocating for a slippery slope that

ends in a military confrontation with Russia; rather, we are calling for the credible

threat of targeted U.S. military responses to regime violations to preserve the CoH

and the political track, which we worked so hard to build.  



10. (SBU) We recognize that military action is not a panacea, and that the Asad

regime might prove resilient even in the face of U.S. strikes.  We further recognize

that the risk of further deterioration in U.S.-Russian relations is significant and that

military steps to stop the Asad regime’s relentless bombardment of the Syrian

people may yield a number of second-order effects.  Nonetheless, it is also clear

that the status quo in Syria will continue to present increasingly dire, if not

disastrous, humanitarian, diplomatic, and terrorism-related challenges.  For

five years, the scale of these consequences has overwhelmed our efforts to deal

with this conflict; the United States cannot contain the conflict with the current

policy.  In this regard, we firmly believe it is time the United States, guided by

our strategic interests and moral convictions, lead a global effort to put an end

to this conflict once and for all. 























                          SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED

Obama, Modi and MTCR

Indian Prime Minister Modi has made membership in the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), which I helped create, an issue in his meeting with Obama.  While the MTCR has gotten some Indian press play, it has not been an issue in the US press.  According to the Indian press, Obama supports Indian membership in both the MTCR and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).  Inida is not an ideal candidate for either group, since it maintains a nuclear weapons program.  I do not approve of the Bush II administration's decision to give India's nuclear weapons program a pass, rather than require India to adhere to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), as I said in commenting that Trump's proposal to allow Japan and South Korea to have nuclear weapons was not as bad as Bush's allowing India to have nuclear weapons.

Bush's decision and Obama's support for India are understandable in the global power context.  India, which used to be a Russian satellite, is now a rival to China.  We want to strengthen India as a counter to China's power, which is more threatening to the US.  Nevertheless, I am not convinced that this is the best way to do it.  India's argument is that it is a late-blooming nuclear power, and therefore should be treated like the older nuclear powers, the US, UK, Russia, etc., which have separate provisions in the NPT allowing them to keep their weapons.  I think this undermines the whole non-proliferation regime.  If we do this for India, once North Korea has a full fledged nuclear program, why shouldn't it be granted NPT nuclear status, just as India has?

This article from the Indian Express is a pretty good summary of where things stand.

http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/narendra-modi-us-visit-mtcr-nsg-obama-us-congress-2844186/

Here are some other recent articles about the MTCR:

https://in.rbth.com/economics/cooperation/2016/06/09/india-joins-mtcr-space-missile-cooperation-with-russia-easier_601593

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/when-celebrating-progress-on-nsg-and-mtcr-thank-manmohan-singh-and-the-indo-us-nuclear-deal/articleshow/52667827.cms

http://www.siasat.com/news/ficci-welcomes-indias-entry-mtcr-regime-hopes-membership-nsg-969566/

http://www.thenews.com.pk/print/126768-Senator-blasts-Indian-membership-of-MTCR

http://www.digit.in/science-and-technology/india-usa-and-the-lucrative-defence-technology-at-hand-30586.html

http://www.prameyanews7.com/en/jun2016/national/25548/Beijing-isolated-but-NSG-race-set-for-photo-finish.htm

Bob Kerrey - War Criminal with a Medal of Honor

I believe that Roger Cohen intended his New York Times column on Bob Kerrey to be somewhat complementary of Kerrey as a man trying to make amends for his involvement in a wartime atrocity.  However, the impression it made on me was of his hatred for military veterans in general, and Vietnam veterans in particular.  In Cohen’s column Kerrey comes across as one of the most evil, depraved men on the face of the earth.  Nowhere does he mention that Kerrey was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.  The implication is that America awarded the medal to a vile monster, making America a vile, monstrous country.  Cohen’s hatred of America drips like venom from his column. 

I presume that while visiting Vietnam recently, Cohen and Kerrey had a deep, dark heart-to-heart discussion about the incident in which Kerrey’s Seal unit killed a number of women and children.  Cohen does not mention that one reason this happened was because the Vietcong hid among women and children to protect themselves.  The VC have no remorse for pushing women and children into the line of fire by hiding in their villages and homes.  Cohen sees the Vietcong freedom fighters as wonderful exemplars of the nobility of mankind. 

What particularly incensed me was Cohen’s last paragraph comparing Mohammad Ali’s resistance to the Vietnam War to Kerrey’s participation in it.  Cohen’s view is that Ali was the better of the two.  Ali beat people up for a living, often hurting his opponents, but he did it for lots of money.  Kerrey fought for his country; he made much less money as a Seal than Ali did as a boxer, but Cohen sees hurting people for money as a good thing, while killing people for your country is monstrously evil.  For Cohen, Ali made the world a better place, but it would have been better of Kerrey had never been born. 

As a Vietnam veteran I am so outraged, I can hardly write this.  But Cohen is where the the rest of the world is.  People who fought in Vietnam because they were drafted (as Ali almost was) or because they thought they were patriotic, were fools.  Their country will forever hate and revile them, with Cohen in the forefront of the haters.  

Cruz Is A Loser

If Ted Cruz is the best candidate the Republican Party can come up with, it is a failure as a political party.  Cruz represents a narrow base of very conservative, very religious, uneducated or intellectually uninterested voters.  In an interview with Steve Inskeep of NPR, Cruz said that scientific evidence does not support global warming.  He would not directly answer the question of whether evolution is scientific fact.  A PBS summary said that he would mandate a balanced budget. Paul Krugman reported that Cruz wants to return to the gold standard, adding, “there’s no sign in current asset prices that investors see a significant chance of the catastrophe that would follow a return to gold.”  Cruz would repeal ObamaCare.  He would move toward a flat tax and abolish the IRS. 

Cruz must be a smart man.  He graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law.  He clerked for the Supreme Court.  How can he cling to ideas that are so out of touch with reality.  Apparently he uses his brilliant intellect to defend indefensible positions.  His arguments ring hollow to many, but his devotees accept them.  This is true of many Republicans.  Wisconsin looks like an intelligent state, but it has elected Scott Walker as governor and Paul Ryan as a congressman, despite the fact that they adhere to many of the non-fact-based ideas that Cruz espouses.  As Speaker, Paul Ryan is considered somewhat of a moderate, although his ideas are well out on the political fringe compared to Republican ideas for the last hundred years. 

While Cruz is terrible, my poster child for what’s wrong with the Republican Party is Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader.  I see his policies in the Senate as unabashed hatred of the United States.  If the government won’t do what he wants it to do, he will tie it up and choke it to death, by cutting of funding, blocking appointments, blocking legislation, etc.  He throws sand into the gears of government so that it cannot operate.  But the United States cannot exist without some government.  One of the main results of his intransigence has been the prolonged slow growth of the economy.  If we could have funded some infrastructure projects, we could have created jobs much faster than we did.  As it is, we are approaching full employment, but American infrastructure is deteriorating badly.  Mitch McConnell doesn’t care if your bridge falls down, your passenger train goes off the tracks, or your flight runs into another one on the ground because of inability to monitor taxiways.  He would fund some things, like the military, particularly military hardware, but not if it means funding things like education or pollution control. 

The Republican Party had a chance to bring itself into the 21^st century this election, but chose not to.  As it did four years ago, it had public debates that included a number of total losers with no qualifications to be President.  If they don’t like Donald Trump, they have no one to blame but themselves.  The idea that in order to stop Trump they have crowned Cruz as the man who represents the very best of the Republican Party is moronic.  Everybody knows that his fellow Senators hate him.  Like McConnell he is ready to destroy the government if he doesn’t get his way.  If American schools insist on teaching evolution, he may abolish public schools.  Every child will be on his own to learn wherever he can. 

Compared to Cruz, Mitt Romney looks like a liberal philosopher and a master politician.  How can there be no competent CEOs (that leaves out Carly Fiorina) who are willing to be President?  This is essentially how Donald Trump puts himself forward.  Republicans have been less inclined to talk about his management skills than his personality, which they hate.  The country could use a good manager; if they don’t like Trump, find one.  It’s not Cruz or Kasich. 

One problem is that the President’s salary is a pittance compared to what CEOs make.  But thay also have no interest in governing, like Mitch McConnell.  They are motivated solely by avarice and greed, and violate either the letter or spirit of every law they can to enrich themselves without going to jail.  If America were destroyed by a nuclear war, J.P. Morgan’s Jamie Dimon would be on a plane leaving the country before the bombs hit, and would set up shop in London or Hong Kong, making money off of the war and never shedding a tear for the millions of Americans who died.  He and his follow CEOs represent the nadir of humanity, the darkest depths to which mankind has sunk in the 21^st century.  There are no Republican leaders to be found there. 

In the old days, the military often was a source of national leaders, but after Vietnam, the military has fallen into such disrepute that it cannot attract high caliber people to its ranks.  No one who graduated from Harvard or Stanford would think of making a career in the military.  The military has some good people, but they are not of the first quality. 

Trump on Nuclear Proliferation

Everybody is making fun of Donald Trump for suggesting that perhaps Japan and South Korea should be allowed to develop their own nuclear weapons to defend themselves from North Korea.  Most of this criticism is just more ignorance.  Obama is not ignorant, but he has to campaign for Hillary, and so he just allows himself to look stupid in order to defend her. 

George W. Bush has already done something much worse than what Trump has proposed.  In 2005 the US signed an agreement with India that allowed India to develop its own nuclear weapons, despite a history of decades of international pressure on India not to do so.  The US agreed to accept Indian nuclear weapons despite its proximity to Pakistan and China, both of which it has fought wars with in recent history.  Pakistan is as unstable and dangerous a nuclear neighbor as North Korea, and Pakistan has many more nuclear weapons.  Japan is certainly more reliable as an ally than India, and South Korea probably is, too.  In addition, the US undoubtedly knows that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, which it openly accepts.  Of course Israel denies it has them, but this denial is universally regarded as a lie, or at best a thinly veiled fiction.  The US accepts Israel’s nuclear weapons because of the enormous political influence of Jews in America, particularly the AIPAC lobby.  Japan certainly has a more reliable, responsible, stable government than Israel.  I don’t think any leader of Japan has publicly humiliated the President of the United States as Netanyahu did to Obama. 

Under the US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement negotiated by Bush, which could be a model for the arrangements proposed by Trump, India agreed to separate its civil and military nuclear facilities and to place its civil facilities under IAEA safeguards.  The US had to pass a new law in 2008 to allow nuclear cooperation with a state that had nuclear weapons and was not one of the five existing nuclear states recognized when the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed in 1968.  Ambassador Nicholas Burns, who negotiated the India agreement, should speak out in favor of Trump’s proposal.  According to Wikipedia, opponents of the India deal argued that “it gave India too much leeway in determining which facilities were to be safeguarded and that it effectively rewarded India for continuously refusing to accede to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.”   One of the arguments for the deal is that it will enable India to build up its nuclear arsenal so that it will be better able to fight a nuclear war with China.  This argument would clearly apply to any other nation that is threatened by a nuclear neighbor, including Japan and South Korea. 

Both Japan and South Korea are signatories of the NPT and have been much more responsible states in the nuclear field than India.  Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that negotiations with Japan and South Korea on this issue would be much more favorable to the US, the non-proliferation regime, and international peace and stability than the US-India agreement negotiated by Bush.  Trump is more responsible on the nuclear non-proliferation issue than Bush was. 

I do not favor giving Japan and South Korea nuclear arms.  I think the current arrangement is better for world peace and stability.  The commentariat’s condemnation of Trump’s idea without mentioning Bush’s negotiation of the India deal and the US Congress’ approval of it illustrates their same lack of understanding of the nuclear arms race that they accuse Trump of.  Trump’s idea is not ridiculous; it builds on the work of previous Republican administrations.  

Trump on Abortion

Trump’s statements on abortion have helped me see the irrationality of those who want to make abortion illegal.  First, abortion is a bad thing.  It’s not something that anyone should do, and certainly should not do lightly.  In most cases, I don’t think is something that a woman wants to do; it’s something that she feels forced to do by some situation.  If she is a young woman just starting her own life, a baby may end her chances of improving herself by finishing school, or working hard at her first job.  An older woman may feel that she is not able to cope with a baby at this later stage of her life.  A woman may be married to a man who abuses her and does not want a child to grow up in that atmosphere.  There are any number of reasons. 

In any case, it is the woman who decides to end the pregnancy.  A doctor does not just pull women off the street randomly and force abortions on the ones who are pregnant.  Trump correctly stated that the woman is at least partly responsible for the abortion.  She is morally guilty, if not legally guilty. Chris Matthews failed to discuss the moral issue with Trump because he is so messed up by his Catholic church’s teaching on the issue, as Trump pointed out.  Chris Matthews has basically cursed his church, his God, in his heart by breaking with it on the abortion issue.  He is morally damaged goods, which is part of the reason his interview was so bad. 

But the fact that the woman is morally guilty does not mean that she is legally guilty.  This to some extent explains Trump’s “clarification” that the law should continue to stand as it does.  He’s saying that although the woman may be morally guilty, I don’t want her to be legally guilty, which is the current position of the law.  Two pieces on the New York Times op-ed page defend the position that if you find abortion to be morally wrong, then you should find the woman complicit in the abortion.  One reason to exempt women is probably the one pro-lifers use, that they love the woman who is under great stress.  It is also likely that it is just a carryover from the old days when abortion was illegal.  The charlatans who performed the illegal abortions often killed or injured the women who came to them, and thus they were properly punished for the injury they did and if nothing else, for practicing medicine without a license.  When licensed doctors were penalized it might be because they were caught up in laws mainly meant to punished unlicensed practitioners. 

The two op-eds are Gail Collins’ “Trump, Truth and Abortion” and Katha Politt’s “Abortion andPunishment.”  Both point out the illogic of the pro-life stance that only the doctor and not the woman should be punished for a illegal abortion.  Of course, if the abortion is not illegal, then nobody should be punished, neither the doctor nor the woman.  

Apple Is Evil

I have been a fan of Apple products, but I am put off by Apple’s decision to side with the terrorists in San Bernardino.  I don’t believe that American citizens have an absolute right to privacy.  If this were the case, the Fourth Amendment would not allow any searches and seizures; instead it allows them upon proof of probable cause.  It is odd that people who claim an absolute right to privacy in their smart phones post all kinds of personal information publicly on the internet.  Facebook is a screaming argument that Apple’s arguments against breaking encryption are baseless.  Apple’s performance in the San Bernardino case make it complicit in murder, an accessory after the fact, or some such bit player, but nevertheless an evil participant. 

Apple has lost its moral compass.  It has been questionable whether Apple can survive without Steve Jobs.  It will probably survive for a number of years as a cellphone and PC maker, but it has lost its inspiration, its leadership, its guiding light, its genius, its soul. 

We find Apple’s Tim Cook, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin on the side of terrorism and death.  They have no love for America, which provided them the possibility to create the corporations that they run.  They got what they wanted, and the rest of America can die screaming in agony for all they care.  Silicon Valley has no heart; it’s all about the money, power, and privilege.  Google has learned to be evil.  Surprisingly, Microsoft’s Bill Gates has been relatively circumspect on the issue.  I don’t know about the faceless drones who have replaced him. 

Hillary and Libya

The thrust of this Foreign Policy article is that Hillary and Obama at some point decided to use the Libyan intervention to bring about “regime change” and get rid of Qaddafi.  The article argues that the Libyan mission began as a humanitarian attempt to save the people of Benghazi from Qaddafi’s attacks, but without publicly saying so to the public, it became an effort to remove Qaddafi.  Whatever the administration’s stated purpose, its decision led to the assassination of Qaddafi in an ugly, disorderly way. 

Obama has admitted in his Atlantic magazine interview with Jeffrey Goldberg that the Libyan operation was not handled well.  Goldberg writes:

But Obama says today of the intervention, “It didn’t work.” The U.S., he believes, planned the Libya operation carefully—and yet the country is still a disaster….

“So we actually executed this plan as well as I could have expected: We got a UN mandate, we built a coalition, it cost us $1 billion—which, when it comes to military operations, is very cheap. We averted large-scale civilian casualties, we prevented what almost surely would have been a prolonged and bloody civil conflict. And despite all that, Libya is a mess.”

From these accounts, it appears that Hillary’s mistake in Libya was not her reaction to the rebel attack on the US Embassy and CIA facility in Benghazi, but rather her failed strategic leadership in the whole Libyan fiasco.  Somebody, ideally Hillary, should have said at the very beginning, “This is not going to work.”  There were no government institutions to take over after Qaddafi, and the Libyan people were riven by tribal loyalties.  To maintain himself in power, Qaddafi had tried to keep any challenging group from consolidating power, and he had succeeded. 

Perhaps events undercut the Foreign Policy article’s thesis that at some point the administration made a conscious decision to change the mission to protect population into a mission to remove Qaddafi.  Perhaps if there had been such a definite decision, the dangers of that new course of action to kill Qaddafi would have been weighed more carefully.  Was the failure of the Libyan intervention due to a poor decision or to the failure to make a decision, just to go with the flow after the operation started?  In any case, Hillary bears significant blame. 

Encryption and the Fourth Amendment

Apple should be willing to help the US government access information on the iPhones of terrorists and other criminals.  I do not think that anyone living under a democratic government has an absolute right to inviolable privacy.  If someone’s home is subject to a search warrant issued by a proper judicial process, his other possessions should also be subject to search when properly approved.  Apple refuses toallow any search and seizure, even when there is probable cause as determined by a court of law.  While the Fourth Amendment is explicitly a protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, the implication is that the government should be allowed to carry out searches and seizures when there is probable cause. 

I think that some of the technical objections to  requiring breakable encryption on private phones could be overcome by requiring that decrypting the information could be done only by physically connecting to the phone.  This could mean that some sophisticated decryption device would have to be connected to an iPhone through a lightning cable, for example.  There might be some difficulty enforcing this physical requirement, but smart people should be able to do it.  It would mean that your phone could not be hacked from China or Russia, or even by American law enforcement while you are walking down the street with it.  Presumably experts could set up the connection protocol so that the phone would sense whether the decryption device was directly connected to the phone, and not connected through the Internet or iTunes. 

As things currently stand, I think that Apple should help the FBI access the data on the terrorists’ iPhone.  Software updates could come later, as well as hardware updates on new versions of smart phones. 

My view includes the requirement that encryption software such as texting apps also should be breakable in some way.  Other countries and the military will be able to create unbreakable communication software, but we could make it illegal to use in the US.  This is not unlike a restriction on assault weapons.  I don’t think that everyone needs to have an AR-15, although that is not currently the law in the US.  Even though arms dealers can physically sell AR-15s to anyone, I think there should be restrictions on their right to do so.  Similarly, the military and diplomatic services should have encryption that is unbreakable, but private individuals do not need it.  The ability to do search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution is more important than individual privacy.  National security justifies the use of unbreakable encryption; personal privacy does not.    

New York Times Omits Bernard Henri Levy's Role in Libya

The NYT's excellent articles (Part I and Part 2) about Hillary Clinton's role in the Libya disaster after getting rid of Qaddafi, omit the role of French philosopher Bernard Henri Levy in creating the mess, examined in this France 24 article.  The NYT articles talk about how the Europeans, particularly the French and British promised to take the lead in Libya, and even to go ahead there without the US, but it does not look at the role played by Levy in getting the French government to play such a leading role.

Levy clearly saw this intervention as benefiting Israel, but whether he convinced Israel or whether Israel convinced him is not clear to me.  The fact that an Arab Muslim country has fallen into civil war or anarchy probably benefits Israel, although the fact that Libya has increasingly become a base for ISIS operations probably does not.

Westward Expansion as Safety Net

Everybody makes big deal of diversity in US.  It is an accident of history.  Unlike Europe, which has been settled for millennia, America was virtually empty when it was discovered by Columbus in 1492.  The Indians were hunter-gatherers who had created only a few cities or towns in North America, mostly in the Southwest, although they had created grander ones in Central and South America.  In North America there was relatively little resistance to the westward expansion of Europeans across the continent.  There was never much threat from Indians against European-built cities after the first hundred years or so.  As the Indians were driven westward, the war against them moved westward to protect the settlers as they moved in. 

The westward expansion essentially created free land for those who were will to claim it and fight for it.  This became the social and economic safety net for Europeans who could not make it on the more civilized east coast.  If you couldn’t make it in Boston or Charleston, you could set out for Indiana or Alabama, and eventually Kansas, Texas, or California.  Life was hard, but it was possible to get out of the oppressive slums in the east coast cities where immigrants first arrived.  Today, if you are stuck in a slum, there is no wild West to go to.  Three is no more free land, although people like Cliven Bundy claim that there should be.  As a result, it is harder for people trapped in slums to get out. 

Another mass migration that took place later was the movement of blacks from the deep South, where they had lived since slavery, to the industrial north, where low skilled jobs with good pay were available, particularly in the car industry in Detroit.  These jobs became the security safety net for struggling poor people in the South. 

When the Great Depression hit, however, the geographic safety net had largely disappeared.  There was no golden region of the country to which people could flee for a better life.  It was only then, under FDR, that the government moved in to provide its own safety net in the form of the CCC, WPA, TVA, Social Security and other government programs.  These programs became necessary because by 1930, the formerly empty United States had filled up with people. 

Prior to this there had been few restraints on immigration, because people saw it as positive to make use of empty land by farming, ranching, mining or manufacturing.  During this open immigration period, most of the immigrants came from Europe, mainly from western and northern Europe.  Thus it was not surprising when prejudice grew up against immigrants from Ireland and Italy by settlers of English and northern European extraction, for example.  The descendants brought some of their old-country hostilities with them.  Irish-English animosities were alive and well in Boston and Belfast well into the 1990s. 

The idea that the United States has always been a land welcoming any immigrants from anywhere is largely fiction.  Blacks arrived as slaves.  The Chinese were discriminated against for years, as were southern Europeans.  Even immigrants like the Germans and Poles, largely went west to more open places like Michigan and Minnesota, finding the already crowded east coast somewhat hostile to them.  

Apple Opposes FBI for Commercial Reasons

The Guardian reported that the FBI responded to Apple’s refusal to help it break into the San Bernardino terrorist’s phone by accusing Apple of using the case for financial and commercial benefit.  The article said:

The FBI accused Apple of prioritizing its public relations strategy over a terrorism investigation on Friday in a significant escalation of this week’s war between the tech company and the law enforcement agency.

Inside the FBI's encryption battle with Apple

Read more

The accusation, made in a court filing demanding Apple comply with an order to unlock an iPhone belonging to the San Bernardino terrorists, represents a nadir in the relationship between two opponents that previously extended each other public respect.

“Apple’s current refusal to comply with the Court’s Order, despite the technical feasibility of doing so, instead appears to be based on its concern for its business model and public brand marketing strategy,” Justice Department attorneys wrote in the Friday filing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/20/business/justice-department-calls-apples-refusal-to-unlock-iphone-a-marketing-strategy.html?emc=edit_na_20160219&nlid=56573240&ref=cta

Kashkari on Bank Break Up

I am pleased with Kashkari's remarks reported in the WSJ, reinforcing my earlier remarks that the big banks need to be broken up.

Bank Problems

I am concerned about declining confidence in the US banking sector.  Recently CNBC and Bloomberg have been discussing problems at the German bank Deutsche Bank.  More disturbing for Americans, declining stock prices for big American banks indicate a lack of confidence in the whole industry. Dodd-Frank was supposed to protect us from bank failures, but today Sen. Elizabeth Warren grilled Fed Chair Janet Yellen at length about problems with “living wills” for banks that fail. 

I am concerned that American banks are still too big to fail, and that Dodd-Frank has failed to keep them from engaging in risky activities that could create a global financial catastrophe.  Dodd-Frank and the Volker rule have failed to fill the gap created by President Clinton’s elimination of Glass-Steagall. 

I would like to see Glass-Steagall re-enacted.  At a minimum we need to make big banks smaller and rein in their riskier trading activities.  I am alarmed to see the stock market illustrate Wall Street’s lack of confidence in its own big banks like JP Morgan-Chase and Goldman Sachs. 

Related to this is, I believe, is the issue of income inequality.  There has been talk of lack of liquidity surrounding the current unsettled bank environment.  One problem with consolidating all the nation’s wealth in a few hands is that the few hundred families who control that wealth may all decide at once to do the same thing, e.g., sell bonds.  If they all act at once, there will be no one to buy bonds, for example.  Prices would plunge, and we would be back in another financial crisis.  To some extent this is what happened in the 1929 market crash, when like today, much wealth was held by a few extremely wealthy people.  The aggregation of wealth means that markets become smaller, controlled by a few people. and more susceptible to volatility.  As markets become dominated by a few players, the country becomes less capitalistic and more oligopolistic.  This is what happened to Russia under Yeltsin.  I hate to see America following the Russian model. 

Keep the Draft

As one of the last people subject to the draft during the Vietnam War. I am writing to support the continued existence of the Selective Service System in case we need a military draft sometime in the future.  I actually volunteered after being classified 1-A and passing the physical, rather than wait a month or two to be drafted. 

I am very disappointed that military service has become such a contemptible, dishonorable profession in the United States.  I came home from Vietnam to scorn for being a veteran.  Today, people praise veterans, but in my opinion, it is usually because the people heaping the praise are not willing to serve themselves.  They think, “If I tell this fool what a great job he is doing, then I won’t have to do it.”  When it comes to something more expensive than praise, like giving veterans jobs or health benefits, the country is less fulsome. 

The military likes having an all-volunteer force, but I think we need people who would not ordinarily serve in the military.  We need people from Harvard and Stanford who look at the world differently from the ordinary pool of recruits, who are mostly poor and less well educated.  Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan hated the military so much when she was dean of the Harvard Law School that she prohibited military recruiting there.  The military needs a diversity of personalities, perspectives and talents, just like any other large organization.  This lack of intellectual diversity has hampered the military ever since Vietnam, when despite the draft, rich, smart, well-educated people generally did not serve.  That may be one reason we lost the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  We sent our trailer-park trash to fight and we got trashy results. 

I realize that the proposal by Congressmen Coffman and Polis to abolish the draft is motivated by the recent call to include women in the draft.  I have no objection to including women in the draft, but I do oppose the recent decision to include women in all fighting units of the military, including the Army infantry and the Marines.  I think the problems with rape and other sex offenses in our universities illustrate the problems of putting young men and women with raging hormones together in situations where there are frequent romantic temptations.  I was in the artillery, where living conditions are better than in the infantry, but everyone slept together in one bunker, used the same latrine, etc.  Living conditions are probably manageable in rear echelon environments, where women could certainly serve, but I think forcing men and women to live together in combat situations is just asking for trouble in terms of sexual contact.  In any case, there are certainly military jobs for which America could draft women. 

I believe that the draft would strengthen the military by bringing in new blood, although the military leadership probably is not enthusiastic about the challenges to it that would emerge from a better quality of recruits.