I wonder how much pressure the Obama administration brought on the Ecuadorian government to cut off Juilian Assange’s access to the Internet in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. I don’t particularly like Assange or the fact that the Russians are meddling in the American election, but it also indicates that the US Government is putting its finger on the scales of the election. Of course, Obama campaigns for Hillary, but in theory he does that as a leader of the Democratic party, not as President of the United States. Obama’s use of the US foreign policy apparatus to support Hillary reinforces the view that the government is corrupt and that the electoral system is corrupt.
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Thursday, September 15, 2016
Should the US or China Stop North Korea?
I was pleased to see a New York Times op-ed by Joel Wit on North Korea. Sometimes he is the PBS News Hour expert, but
this time, PBS turned to some other other experts. I worked with Joel Wit off and on for several
years. In my previous
blog about the North Korean nuclear test, I complained that the US
government would not fund its obligations under the Korean Peninsula
Development Organization (KEDO). As I
result, as the embassy science officer in Rome I had to ask the Italy and the
EU if they would provide the funds that the US Congress would not. If the US did not fund its obligations, it
gave North Korea a perfect excuse to withdraw from KEDO and resume its nuclear
weapons program. Joel was back in
Washington, and was at the other end of these instruction cables to ask the
Europeans for money.
It was not Joel’s fault that the US Congress would not
appropriate the money for KEDO. He was
left scrambling to find the money. I
think I heard him say at least once that the US had never defaulted on its
obligations. Apparently he and his
associates found the money after I retired, since KEDO continued on for years, but
even if they did, it was an indication of bad faith on America’s part.
In his op-ed, Joel says that the US cannot count on China to
rein in North Korea’s nuclear program; only the US can. To do this the US will have to escalate
sanctions and keep the door open for negotiations. He thinks that there may be something that
North Korea wants enough to resume talks.
I am not optimistic.
Looking at the past history, North Korea swings back and forth so much
it’s hard to tell if they are serious about any negotiations. They have actually entered into agreements
that actually restricted their activities like any normal country that was
giving up a military nuclear program.
But then they suddenly change their mind and withdraw. Nevertheless, it’s better to try to rein in
the program than just let them do anything they want.
After KEDO, six-party talks produced various attempts at
agreements to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, but they all failed
in the end. Off and on the North Koreans
agree to certain restrictions on their programs, which they ultimately
renounced.
The
Arms Control Association website provides a timeline. North Korea first undertook to restrain its
nuclear program in 1985, when it signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but
it did not implement the safeguards agreement required by the NPT. In 1992 it finally signed a safeguards agreement
under the NPT with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Agreement on KEDO is reached in 1994, under
which the US, South Korea and Japan promise two commercial light water reactors
in return for North Korea’s dismantling of its plutonium production
reactors. In 1996 talks the US suggested
that North Korea joining the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), which I
played a role in creating. (North Korea
did not join.) In 1998 Japan suspended
its participation in KEDO. In 1999 KEDO
signed a contract to build the two power reactors. In August 2002 KEDO poured the first concrete
for the power reactor construction.
During an American visit in October 2002, North Korea admitted that had
a clandestine nuclear enrichment program in violation of its agreements. In November 2002 KEDO announced that it was
suspending its delivery of heavy fuel oil under the agreement. The US provided funding in 2003 to wind down
the organization, which announced that it was suspending reactor construction. In 2006 the KEDO board announced the formal termination
of its power reactor construction project.
KEDO was succeeded by
another agreement based on a 2005 joint statement at six-party talks including
North Korea, the US, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia. In November 2007 a US team travelled to North
Korea to begin disablement of Yongbyon nuclear facilities under an October
agreement reached in the six-arty talks.
During 2008 Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill meets with
North Koreas on compliance with the agreement.
By December 2008 the US has delivered 550,000 tons of heavy fuel oil
under the agreement. In April 2009,
North Korea says it will no longer be bound by the six-party talks agreement
and ejects IAEA and US monitors. In May
North Korea conducted its second underground nuclear test.
In December 2011 Kim Jong Il dies and is replaced by Kim
Jong Un. In December 2012, North Korea
successfully launches a satellite. In
February 2013, North Korea conducts another underground nuclear test. In January 2016, North Korea announces a
fourth nuclear test. It conducted its
fifth nuclear test on September 9, 2016.
Sunday, September 11, 2016
North Korea and the MTCR
North Korea’s test of a nuclear device has prompted
discussion of its missile program. When
I was at the State Department, I spent years working on the creation of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). I am disappointed that I have not seen it mentioned
in connection with North Korea’s development of missiles. Before the North Korean test, the “Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists” published several articles dealing with missile
proliferation and the MTCR: “Missile
proliferation: Treat the disease,” and “Too late for
missile proliferation?” as well as several other articles that were part of
a debate about how to deal with missile proliferation.
The MTCR is basically an export control agreement for
nations capable of supplying missile hardware and technology. By joining the MTCR they agree not to supply
items or knowledge to proliferating countries that could be used to build
nuclear capable missiles. It is not an arms
control agreement that prohibits the proliferation of missile technology. It is more like the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)
than the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
As proliferating countries become more capable of producing
missiles on their own, the export restrictions of the MTCR have less
effect. The MTCR probably did slow down
North Korea’s development of missiles, but now it is less effective. However, building missiles is “rocket science,”
and there are some very difficult technologies involved. Therefore, the MTCR may still play a role in
limiting or slowing down the ability of North Korea to build more powerful and
more accurate missiles, but at this point, slowing down is about the best it
could do. Press articles seem to agree
that North Korea could build strategic nuclear missiles that could reach the US
by 2020, e.g. a
New York Times article says, “Military experts say that by 2020, Pyongyang
will most likely have the skills to make a reliable intercontinental ballistic
missile topped by a nuclear warhead.” However,
the MTCR might still help restrict the accuracy and the size of the warhead for
such a missile by 2020. It might mean
that North Korea could be able to hit somewhere in the greater Washington
metropolitan area with a bomb the size of the one the US used on Hiroshima,
rather than one that could reliably hit Pennsylvania Avenue and destroy both
the White House and the Capitol, as well as most of the city. Neither of these outcomes is acceptable, but
the greater the chances that a missile might misfire, go off course or fail to
detonate, the better.
Of course it would be better to have in place a strong
treaty that prohibits missile proliferation like the NPT does for bombs, but
that is unlikely. One reason the MTCR is
so weak is that it is all that even the friendliest countries, like the UK,
France, or Japan, would agree to.
Furthermore the NPT has not been successful in limiting nuclear proliferation
by the most threatening countries, such as North Korea. As in most areas of life, laws constrain
decent people, but criminals commit crimes despite the laws against it.
One advantage of the NPT is that it has its own police
force, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has performed its
job well in a number of cases, discovering and reporting prohibited activities
by member parties. However, the IAEA has
no authority in countries that are not parties to the NPT, which includes most
of the worrisome countries, such as North Korea. There are countries that have joined the NPT,
but then have gotten off the track, perhaps after a change of government. This happened in Iran. The IAEA has worked successfully in Iran and
is a key component of the US-Iran deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program.
Saturday, September 10, 2016
North Korean Nuclear Test
North Korea’s nuclear test reminds me of my last days in the
Foreign Service around 1996-97. I was
the American Embassy’s science officer in Rome, working on nuclear
non-proliferation issues, as well as a number of other matters, such as the
environment.
At that time, Italy held the rotating presidency of the
European Union, so that I dealt with the Italian government both on bilateral
issues and on issues for the whole European Union. The first agreement intended to rein in North
Korean nuclear proliferation was in effect, the Korean
Peninsula Energy Development Organization, under which the US, Japan and
South Korea were to provide North Korea with certain things in return for North
Korean nuclear restraint. In the short
term we were to provide North Korea with fuel oil to keep its conventional
electric power plants running, and in the future with nuclear electric power
plants that did not use or produce materials that could be used in a bomb.
I don’t remember all the details, but the US was obligated
to pay several million dollars for the fuel oil to be supplied to North
Korea. The US Congress refused to
appropriate those funds, which meant that we could not meet our obligation
under the KEDO agreement. It became my
job to go to the Italians and the EU and ask them to provide funding for the
fuel oil that the US Congress would provide.
I found this very unpleasant, although the Italians were
very polite and listened patiently. I
thought that the US should meet its obligations under the agreement, and not
provide North Korea with an excuse, US noncompliance, to renounce the agreement
and resume its nuclear bomb program. This
was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I retired from the
Foreign Service and returned to the US.
In addition to the KEDO fiasco, a number of other things had
gone badly for the issues for which I was responsible. Almost the day after I arrived, the State
Department was sued by four environmental groups for failing to force Italy to
implement UN resolutions regarding the use of driftnets to catch swordfish in
the Mediterranean. As I recall the groups
were the legal arms of Greenpeace, the Humane Society, the Sierra Club, and one
or two other groups. The State
Department lost the case, and in effect a Federal judge assumed control of
US policy regarding Italian use of driftnets.
What would happen if some policy issue arose was that the judge would
consult the environmental groups, and they would consult with a Greenpeace activist,
who was really the only person on the spot.
He would visit fishing boats, inspect their nets and their catch and
report back to his colleagues in the US, who would report back to the judge,
who in turn would approve (or not) whatever policy proposal was on the
table. This meant that in effect my
office worked for the Greenpeace representative on this issue. One of my last acts was to accompany the
Ambassador to meet with the Italian Agriculture Minister on this issue because
Sicilian fishermen had hired Mafia hit men to kill fisheries enforcement personnel
if they harassed the fishermen.
Supporters of the fishermen were also blocking streets in downtown
Rome. The main message I had for
Ambassador was that he could not agree definitively to any proposal from the
Minister, because it would have to be approved by the Federal judge back in the
US. The Ambassador was not happy about
that.
In addition, the Space Shuttle had flown an Italian tethered
satellite, the TSS-1R, which was to be extended on the tether about 20 km
from the Shuttle and reeled back in. The
tether broke and the satellite drifted off into space. The crew of the Columbia’s STS-75 mission came
to Italy to meet with the Italians about the mission. Unfortunately, because of the loss of the
satellite, the visit became something of an apology tour, which I was
responsible for organizing.
Another somewhat unfortunate, space-related incident
occurred at a cocktail party given to celebrate the launch by the US of an
Italian telecommunications satellite. At
the party, I met a man who worked for the telecommunications company whose
satellite was being launched. He said
something like, “You Americans must really hate me, since you won’t let my
daughter go to Disney World.” I was
taken aback. He said his daughter had
applied for a visa to go to Disney World, but the Embassy had refused to give
her one because her father worked for the telecommunications company. Apparently the company had some tenuous
connection with Cuba, and the Helms-Burton Act prohibited us from issuing visas
to employees or their families. I went
to see the Consul General, who is in charge of visas, the next day. She told me that what he said was correct and
there was nothing she could do about it.
At some point, I had read Herman Wouk’s Winds of War books. In them,
the heroine, a Jewish mother, wants to leave Italy to go to Israel. She is told that she can go, but her child
cannot; they will not give the child a visa.
It seemed too similar. It was Rome;
it was a child’s visa. Why should the US
punish children for the sins of their parents?
Even the Bible Old Testament says, “In those days they shall say no
more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on
edge.”
There were probably some other things that led to my
retirement, but a diplomat is to some extent a salesman for his country. As an Army Vietnam veteran, the son of a
veteran of World War II and Korea, the grandson of a veteran of the
Spanish-American War and World War I, and the great-grandson of a veteran of
the Civil War, I loved my country, but I felt that it was not living up to its
reputation and was not upholding its honor.
I was old enough and had served long enough to retire; so, I did. I didn’t have to explain any more why it
looked like North Korea was honoring the KEDO agreement and the US was
not, giving them a perfect excuse to resume their nuclear program. I did not have to explain how we
lost Italy’s satellite. I did not have
to explain why the US punished children for the sins of their fathers.
Good diplomats do a lot of things that they may not like
doing. I often lied to protect
intelligence or to protect negotiating positions. If I had not been eligible for retirement, I
probably would not have fallen on my sword and resigned. I wish I had left under better circumstances,
but I have many good memories of my career.
It seemed, however, that no matter how high you rose, you always could
end up responsible for policies that you disagreed with. Even the Secretary of State has to do what
the President wants. Ask Hillary about
Syria or Libya.
Friday, September 09, 2016
Think Tank Corruption
I was disturbed by the long article that ran on the front page of the NYT on August 8 regarding the transfromation of the Brookings Institution from a think tank to a lobbying organziation. It seemed like the icing on the cake of corruption in Washington. In the old days, when a congressman, senator, or high ranking career government bureaucrat resigned, they often went into academia or to a think tank like Brookings. But starting a generation or longer ago, they started going into lobbying, usually using their influence in the very areas that they deal with while they were in government. The revolving door has been spinning faster and faster, and now Brookings has joined in. Washington has sold its integrity for money. Men and women who should be concerned about the fate of their country now sell themselves to the highest bidder, and Brookings has put on its hot pants and joined the other hookers on the street corner. If what it is doing is not be illegal, ir is certainly unethical. It has sullied its reputation.
I was initailly concerned that Jews had taken over Brookings and had brought low class ethincs with them. The photographs on the inside pages of the story were of Martin Indyk, Henry Kravis, and Marek Goodman, all Jews. The article focussed on what Brookings was doing to promote the business of Lennar Homes. The main Lennar contact in the article is Kofi Bonner, who is Ghanan, not Jewish.
The other think tank mentioned at length in the article is the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The article raises questions about its connections with and possible lobbying for General Atomic and Huntington Ingalls. General Atomic builds drones, and Huntington Ingalls builds ships for the Navy. I didn’t see any Jewish connection there. It just seemed like more of the old-boy, revolving door network of former regulators or purchasers now on the other side, helping sell to their old colleagues.
Monday, August 15, 2016
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
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
Wednesday, August 03, 2016
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.”
Monday, August 01, 2016
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.
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
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.
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
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
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
Saturday, June 18, 2016
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®ion=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
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®ion=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
- 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
Friday, June 10, 2016
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
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.
Wednesday, April 06, 2016
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
21st 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 21st 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.
Monday, April 04, 2016
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.
Saturday, April 02, 2016
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.
Thursday, March 31, 2016
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.
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
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.
Thursday, March 10, 2016
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.
Tuesday, March 01, 2016
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.
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.
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