Chaos in the Middle East

I am disgusted by US policy in the Middle East.  It appears to be the US policy to overthrow every government and replace it with chaos.  We have created an enormous, fertile breeding ground for terrorism.  Afghanistan pre-9/11 was a relatively safe, orderly country compared to Syria today, and thanks to the US policy of destroying governments that might have helped contain the chaos in Syria things are getting worse. 

The most recent target of US destabilization is Turkey.  Whether rightly or wrongly, Turkey perceives the Kurds, particularly under the leadership of the PKK, as terrorists who want to form a greater Kurdistan that would take away part of Turkey, or ideally for the Kurds, overthrow the Turkish government.  The US is supporting the Kurds despite the protests of the Turkish government.  Because of Turkey’s fear of the PKK, the US came up with the idea of bringing Kurds from Iraq to fight in Kobani, because Turkey doesn’t care of the Kurds create a Kurdistan in Iraq; that is not their problem.  The US currently seems much more favorably disposed toward creating a Kurdistan from Iraq than it did when Biden first proposed it years ago. 

But Turkey is only the most recent target of US destabilization attempts.  We have already destabilized Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt (especially the Sinai), Libya, and Yemen.  While Tunisia looks better, having just completed fair elections, it is a big source of recruits for ISIS.  Regarding Iraq and Afghanistan, Iraq is already going down the tubes, and Afghanistan looks set to follow after we leave.  Several recent articles have compared the Iraq and Afghan wars to Vietnam, especially to the battle of Khe Sanh, positing the idea that American soldiers won every battle, but the political leadership lost the war. 

It’s still not clear which way the battle for Kobani will go, but today there are reports of the defeat of the American proxies, the Free Syrian Army around Idlib in Syria, with the bad guys, reportedly al-Nusra, capturing anti-tank weapons, after ISIS captured some of the supplies we dropped for the Kurds in Kobani.  The American news reports of this on TV tonight were particularly bad.  ABC’s Martha Radditz, who is usually good on military issues, looked like she didn’t know what she was reporting on.  Tom Friedman’s recent column in the NYT raised the pertinent issue that because of the threats to news reporters in these hot spots, we don’t have good information about what is going on.  We are often depending on propaganda posted on Twitter or Facebook, or on reports from ordinary people like refugees, who may not be reliable sources.  Hopefully our intelligence agencies with all the billions we spend on them have some humint, sigint and photint that the news people don’t have.  And hopefully they will leak some sanitized information to the news media that is not entirely spin supporting the administration’s policies.  But it’s hard to verify. 

I think that we are making things worse in the Middle East.  If we had let nature take its course in getting rid of Saddam, Mubarak, Kaddafi, Assad, etc., we might have more stability there and less terrorism.  I worry that the instability is a plus for Israel.  Certainly al-Sisi’s takeover in Egypt has been good for Israel.  If the Israelis believe this, then influential American Jews may be pushing America to pursue policies that are good for Israel, but not necessarily good for America.  

Is Jerusalem in Israel?

I have just learned of the Supreme Court case Zivotofsky v Kerry (see http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/11/argument-preview-court-edges-close-to-the-mideast-cauldron/), which asks the State Department to list the country of birth as Israel for Americans born in Jerusalem.  Currently the State Department lists the country as Jerusalem because of international disputes over the legal status of Jerusalem.  The UN resolution creating Israel did not include Jerusalem as part of Israel.  In the years since, Israel has conquered most of East and West Jerusalem, but international law has not recognized the authority that Israel has claimed.  A number of UN resolutions have criticized Israel for its violation of international law.  See http://www.un.org/Depts/dpi/palestine/ch12.pdf  

During the Bush II administration Congress passed a law requiring the State Department to list Israel as the place of birth for people born in Jerusalem it they want it so listed.  Bush signed the law but issued a signing statement saying he would not enforce this provision because it impinged on Presidential power.  

The US has resisted recognizing Jerusalem as part of Israel, because Israel took it in violation of international law.  Jews and Gentiles in Congress who are dependent on Jew money to get elected want the US to ignore international law and recognize Jerusalem as part of Israel. This Supreme Court case is another effort to reach the same result through another path. 

I don't think that the Supreme Court should have taken this case either the first time or the second time.  The District Court was correct.  This is a foreign policy issue, not a domestic legal issue.  To me it indicates that for all Jews, including those on the Supreme Court, Israel is the country that comes first, before the United States.  The expatriate American plaintiffs bringing this case live in Israel, not in America.  Former White House chief of staff Raum Emanuel served in the Israeli army rather than the American army.  Jews are racists at heart, and Supreme Court justices are no exception.  American GIs have largely gotten over Vietnam and gone on with their lives.  Jews are still consumed with World War II, the Holocaust and hatred of Germans, FDR (for not invading Europe sooner), and everything related to them.  

Republicans Hate American Government

The Orbital Sciences launch failure illustrates to me the bankruptcy of the Republican effort to privatize everything that the US Government used to do.  Republicans claim that they love America, but hate the government.  They cite Reagan’s famous saying that “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”  I would reply that closing down the government and contracting out all of its activities to the private sector is an even bigger problem.  Blackwater in Iraq and the absence of any manned space launch capability are only two of the most glaring examples.  Another unfortunate one is ObamaCare, which expanded the private sector insurance model of healthcare insurance rather than expanding government-administered Medicare, the Heritage Foundation and Mitt Romney plan.

You can’t say you love America but hate everything the American government does.  Private industry loves money, and Republicans love money, especially the campaign money that private industry gives Republican politicians to contract out government services to them.  It undermines the civil service act that was supposed to keep outside money away from government service.  In the old days, civil servants were proud of their jobs and did them well because they wanted to see their country succeed.  By abusing government workers and denigrating government service, Republicans have undermined the morale of the civil service.

The revolving door is another problem.  Private sector salaries and regressive income taxes make it impossible for government to compete with the private sector.  A young lawyer can work a year or two at the SEC and then go out and work for Wall Street quadrupling his salary.  A few people who have become obscenely rich will come back and work for government, but they consider their government work as pro bono, unpaid labor, although they are making the highest government salaries.

The result is that in addition to a dysfunctional Congress, we have an almost dysfunctional bureaucracy.  It means the government will do a worse job of enforcing its laws, collecting taxes, protecting the environment, even fighting its wars.  But Republicans like the fact that there is less de facto regulation, less strict enforcement of income tax laws, and they are by and large unwilling to fight in the military.  Even for our military services, they basically contract out the fighting to poor rednecks.  The wealthy don’t fight for America, they hire some else to do it.  Bill O’Reilly’s proposal for a mercenary army is only the most obvious expression of this lack of patriotism.

Roman Holiday 2

I remembered another incident connected with my Foreign Service transfer from Warsaw to Rome during the government shutdown.

When we unexpectedly transferred, my wife did not have a job in Rome.  The political minister of the embassy arrived about the same time as we did, and he offered her a job working as an assistant in the political section.  She was happy to have a job and started off learning the many combinations of the safes in the political section where classified material was stored.  A few days after she had started, the embassy security section informed her that she could not work there because her security clearance had lapsed.

It turned out that someone in Warsaw had forgotten to fill out some security forms that would have extended the security clearance that she had obtained before we left Washington for Warsaw.  As a result, not only did she lose her job, but the political section in Rome had to change all of its combinations because an uncleared person had had access to them.  She felt terrible for inconveniencing them.

Again, this was just another example of government bureaucracy at its worst, but I deeply resented the implication that my wife, and by association myself as well, were security risks.  The embassies in Warsaw and Rome were full of first generation Americans of Polish or Italian ancestry who had managed to get assigned to their family’s home country.  Even the Ambassador was an Italian-American.  It turned out that Amb. Reginald Bartholomew’s original family name was Bartolomeo before they anglicized it.   He remained in Rome after finishing his ambassadorship.  All these people with strong ties to the host government were not security risks, but my wife and I, who were third-, fourth-, fifth- or more generation Americans of British ancestry were risks.

My wife’s security clearance was eventually restored.  She ended up with a job in the embassy security office because she spent so much time there getting the situation straightened out.  By itself the incident would have been just a blip on the radar, but combined with the government shutdown, the failure to provide housing, and the downgrading of my diplomatic title, it created the impression that the State Department was not an honest, reliable employer for whom I wished to continue to work.