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
Monday, August 15, 2016
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.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
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.
Friday, February 19, 2016
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.
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
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
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.
Friday, February 12, 2016
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.
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