Indians on India

An interesting quote from Fareed Zakaria's email newsletter for 4/5/17, since both he and Nikki Haley are Indian Americans.   India to U.S.: None of Your Business

Thanks, but no thanks. That’s the message India delivered to the Trump administration after U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley suggested the United States would “find its place” in efforts to defuse tensions between India and Pakistan, the Hindustan Times reports. Reiterating India’s position that ties between the two are a bilateral matter, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay reportedly added: “We of course expect the international community and organizations to enforce international mechanisms and mandates concerning terrorism emanating from Pakistan, which continues to be the single biggest threat to peace and stability in our region and beyond.”

Democrats Push War with Russia

The Democrats believe Trump’s political weakness is Russia.  Therefore, they are vilifying Russia to make Trump’s friendliness toward Russia appear to be treason.  At first it looked like they would try to invalidate Trump’s election, but as time goes on that seems less likely.  

They make Putin look more powerful than he is, and they make Putin appear more aggressive and anti-American than he is.   An example is Fareed Zakaria’s CNN special on Putin, characterizing Putin as the most powerful man in the world.  Putin is a remarkable man who has brought Russia back from the trash heap of history to be a player on the world stage, and he has more nuclear weapons than anyone else in the world, including Donald Trump.  But that does not make him the most powerful man in the world; arguably either Trump or Chinese President Xi Jinping may be more powerful because of their economic power in addition to their military power.  In terms of usable power, Germany’s Angela Merkel, the leader of the most powerful country in the EU, may be more powerful than Putin.  This morning on some news show discussing Merkel’s meeting with Trump, the female reporter described Merkel as the most powerful “woman” in the world.  

In any case the Democrats want to make Putin look like a dangerous enemy of the US so that Trump’s failure to condemn him looks treasonous.  In addition, most Jews hate Russia.  Jews as a race lived in Russia for centuries.  While the word “Ashkenazi” means German, as it is used in describing Ashkenazi Jews, most recent Jewish immigrants have come from Russia or Soviet dominated Eastern Europe, and they brought with them a visceral hatred of Russia because of their poor treatment by ethnic Russian Slavs.  For powerful Jews in American politics and the media, vilifying Putin and Russia has a double benefit of weakening a political enemy, Trump, and an ethnic enemy, Russia.  

This campaign resembles the “yellow journalism” of the 1890s which led to the Spanish-American War in the Philippines and Cuba.  The Democrats, the journalists, and the Jews probably don’t want a civilization-ending nuclear war with Russia, but they want sanctions, political pressure, and maybe some smaller wars in Ukraine or the Middle East.  Small wars could be similar to the Afghanistan War that led to the demise of the Soviet Union.  If these efforts succeed in unseating Putin, it’s unclear who would follow him, but whoever it is, they would almost certainly be weaker than Putin, thus putting Americans and Jews in a more dominant position vis-a-vis the Russian Slavs.  

Trump does not seem particularly concerned about the Jewish aspect of the Russia issue.  He has many Jews in his administration.  So far he has not reversed his position on Putin, although he has been somewhat more cautious about praising him.  Even Trump is not insensitive to the steady drumbeat of anti-Putin propaganda.  

Reaction to Andrew Jackson Blog

I don’t think anybody reads this blog, but it looks like they do.  It looks like there were at least two reactions to my last blog on Andrew Jackson.  In addition President Trump decided to visit Andrew Jackson’s home and tomb in Nashville.  

Today on his MSNBC MTP Daily show, Chuck Todd talked about the changing perceptions of Andrew Jackson.  He said that Jackson was one of the founders of the modern Democratic Party, but the Democrats have largely rejected him because he owned slaves.  Meanwhile the Republicans have adopted him because of his representation of the common man against wealthy elitists, a model Donald Trump likes.  

It’s interesting that we find today’s Democrats rejecting a man of the people, while the Republicans adopt him.  Are the parties changing the bases they appeal to?  Only to a certain extent.  The Democrats in 2016 appealed to blacks, Hispanics and Jews, but rejected the lower and middle class white voters, whom they donated to the Republicans as a “basket of deplorables.”  The Republicans accepted the gift and ran with it.  

Also, today the New York Times published an article entitled, “The Fed vs. the Angry Masses,” although later editions changed the headline.  The article pointed out the popular mistrust of the Fed and other central banks.  It raised the question of whether Trump would attack the Fed as Jackson attacked the Second Bank of the US.  

It already looks strange that the Fed has begun what looks like a prolonged period of raising interest rates after years of leaving them at zero only now that a Republican has been elected President.  At least superficially, it looks like Janet Yellen ran the Fed in a partisan way to benefit Obama and the Democrats.  There are legitimate arguments for raising rates now, but it looks suspicious.  

Andrew Jackson and the Jews

I have been reading Jon Meacham’s biography of Andrew Jackson, “American Lion.”  In discussing Jackson’s campaign to close Nicholas Biddle’s Second Bank of the United States, he quotes a paper written by Jackson stating his reasons for closing the bank:

“The divine right of kings and the prerogative authority of rulers have fallen before the intelligence of the age,” Jackson said, continuing:

Standing armies and military chieftains can no longer uphold tyranny against the resistance of public opinion. The mass of the people have more to fear from combinations of the wealthy and professional classes— from an aristocracy which through the influence of riches and talents, insidiously employed, sometimes succeeds in preventing political institutions, however well adjusted, from securing the freedom of the citizen.… The President has felt it his duty to exert the power with which the confidence of his countrymen has clothed him in attempting to purge the government of all sinister influences which have been incorporated with its administration.  (From Meacham, Jon (2008-11-04). American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House (Kindle Locations 5497-5501). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Nicholas Biddle was not Jewish, but I think Jackson’s concern about the aristocracy of wealthy and professional classes applies today.  The majority of this aristocracy is not Jewish, but a disproportionate percentage is.  Jews make up a high percentage of the richest people in the United States and of members of the Senate, for example.  Jews are also disproportionately represented in the government, sometimes as cabinet secretaries, but more often just below the secretaries as deputies, under secretaries, or assistant secretaries.   They are immensely influential in the financial and banking industry.  The chairmen or women of the Federal Reserve Bank have all been Jews since Paul Volcker was appointed in 1979.  It is almost as if there is an ethnicity test to be Fed chair.  

Everybody points out the similarities between Andrew Jackson and Donald Trump  Both were sort of rough hewn outsiders to politics.  Born poor, Jackson broke a line of six genteel Presidents, all connected to the founding of the United States and born in Virginia or Massachusetts, starting with Washington and ending with John Quincy Adams.  

In Jackson's time there were few Jews in America, but there were still bankers who were part of the disliked “aristocracy” or establishment, even then, who were the targets of Jackson’s anger.  Jackson’s main antagonist, Nicholas Biddle, came from an aristocratic Philadelphia family; he had relatives who had distinguished themselves in the Revolutionary War and early American politics.  Jackson felt that the bank was the enemy of the common man, while it had favored the American aristocracy.  Thus, he aimed to destroy the Second Bank of the United States and distribute its assets to smaller banks scattered around the country and presumably more in touch with ordinary people.  

The Bank of the US was more like an ordinary regional bank of today that handled the government’s accounts than today’s Federal Reserve Bank, but also performed some regulatory functions like the Fed.  The Bank of the US issued its own paper money, and stimulated or retarded the economy by loosening or tightening credit.  Prior to Biddle’s administration it was blamed for credit bubbles and recessions.  

Wikipedia says that under Biddle the bank was doing its regulatory job pretty well, but the public still disliked it as an aristocratic institution and still blamed it for past financial problems.  In this, it was not unlike the Fed and Wall Street today, which are perceived as aristocratic institutions oppressing ordinary people.  Today, because of the dominance of Jews in the financial system, from Wall Street, to the US Department of the Treasury, to the Federal Reserve.  Again, it is arguable that they have done a relatively good job of handling the economy, except for the Great Recession 2008 and the huge rise in income inequality in the last few decades.  The fact that no senior bankers were prosecuted for their roles in the Great Recession contributed to the perception that they were part of an aristocracy that was above the law.  Obama’s Democratic administration, which should have represented the common man, instead licked Wall Street’s boots, while the Fed bailed out the big  banks, but did almost nothing for the regular people who lost their houses or their savings.  This unfortunately creates the image that Jews are oppressing ordinary Americans.  America appears to keep humming along, except that the Jews keep getting richer and richer, while ordinary people get poorer, so much poorer that ordinary white people are resorting to opiates to escape the current situation.  

Of course, white people bear a lot of blame for the situation they find themselves in, but because there is a large group of Jews who appear so greedy and heartless, Jews open themselves up to being the target of white discontent.  To characterize all Jews as greedy and heartless is unfair to many ordinary Jews, who are not rich or famous because they are just ordinary people going about ordinary lives.  But because these elite Jews are so easily identifiable, they do a disservice to their fellows by appearing in an unfavorable light.  Einstein was a Jew, but so is most of Wall Street.  And so is Bernie Sanders, who is trying to rein in the excesses of Wall Street, and thus would probably have been an ally of Andrew Jackson in the attack of the Second Bank of the US on behalf of the ordinary citizens of the US.  .    

Trump on Wiretapping

While it's unlikely that Trump's claim that Obama ordered a wiretap on the Trump team in the Trump Tower before or after the election, there may be something to the claim that the US Government was listening in to conversations by Trump people in the tower while Obama was still President.

Former National Security Adviser Flynn had to resign because of intercepted telephone conversations while Trump was President-elect, according to the Washington Post.  So, somebody, for some reason, was listening to Flynn's phone calls while he was working on the team of President-elect Trump.

It seems most likely that the National Security Agency listens in on all calls involving Russian diplomats, although if both ends of the calls are entirely with the United States, then the FBI might be listening, rather than NSA.  I'm not sure who has the lead in this case.  The niceties of whether the call was listened to because it involved the Russians rather than Trump officials may be lost on Trump, who considers any listening in on his teams' conversations a violation of privacy, i.e., a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

The NSA probably routinely picks up many phone calls involving Americans in its huge net of intercepted phone calls.  It had no qualms about intercepting Angela Merkel's phone calls in Germany.  However, all such conversations involving American citizens inside the US are supposed to be highly protected because of the Fourth Amendment.  In this case, these phone calls involving a American citizen, Flynn, were leaked to the press, a violation of the laws dealing with classified information as well as the Fourth Amendment.

It's not surprising that Trump is mad.  He is wrong that Obama ordered a wiretap, but he is correct that his people were tapped by the US Government while Obama was still  President, albeit under procedures that had been in place for years.

A more relevant question might be whether Obama had any knowledge of the leaks about Flynn and looked the other way.  Was this leak really done by somebody in the "deep state" devoted to Hillary Clinton as Obama's successor?  If so, was the Obama administration culpable by looking the other way while such leaks were going on?  The leak was a violation of law, but like the misdeeds of the bankers in 2008, no one is being investigated because of the leak.  

Brooks on Immigration

In his Friday NYT column, David Brooks opines that although automation can replace white people, it cannot replace Hispanics.  The establishment says whites being displaced by automation, not immigration,but we need more hispanic immigrants because they are irreplaceable by machines.  Brooks highlights housing as an area where we need more immigrant laborers.  One possibility he ignores is using more modular housing construction in assembly line factories lending themselves to automation.  NYT columnist David Leonhardt, like Brooks, also believes Hispanic jobs are not responsible for middle class decline.  People think manual labor jobs cannot be automated.  Because immigrants often work illegally, they frequently work for very low, slave wages that eliminate any incentive to automate their jobs.   Therefore, the high tech community has not worked on automating them, with some exceptions, such as driving a car or truck.  Truck drivers may be a threatened species in a few years.  If farm hands become much more expensive, we may see automated fruit and vegetable crop picking begin to be replaced like corn and wheat harvesting.  

Elliott Abrams and the Jewish Lobby

The media claimed that Elliott Abrams was the leading candidate for Deputy Secretary of State, that Tillerson wanted him badly, but then it reported that Trump vetoed Abrams for the job.  I think this whole Elliott Abrams episode was made up by a bunch of Jews who are desperate to get more Jews into the Trump administration.  Abrams was a good candidate because he is a Jewish Republican with foreign policy experience at high levels.  Tillerson may have said he wanted Abrams, but if so, he hardly knew him.  There is no reporting on their having a long relationship.  Influential Jews in State, and in Washington more generally, worked the levers of power to pressure Tillerson to ask for Abrams.

The Jewish-owned New York Times was pressed into this political service and complied with articles about Abrams’ great qualifications and his imminent appointment to the job.  On February 6, the Times ran an article by Gardiner Harris and David Sanger (probably Jewish), “Elliott Abrams, Neoconservative Who Rejected Trump May Serve Him.”   

Then, when Abrams did not get the job, the NYT still praised him, but said in the article, “Trump Overrules Tillerson, Rejecting Elliott Abrams for Deputy Secretary of State,” that the main objection to Abrams was that he had written a highly critical article about Trump in the Weekly Standard, run by the Jewish William Kristol, “When You Can't Stand Your Candidate.”  Interestingly this article deals at length with Abrams’ time working as a staffer for Senator Scoop Jackson, along with another Jackson staffer, Jewish Republican wildman Richard Perle.  Jackson is most famous for the 1974 Jackson-Vanik Amendment, responsible for getting thousands of Jews out of the old Soviet Union.  According to Wikipedia, it was responsible for allowing about 500,000 Jews to emigrate from the old Soviet bloc to the United States and about one million to Israel.

On February 19, the NYT ran a follow-up article, “Trump, an Outsider Demanding Loyalty, Struggles to Fill Top Posts,” that still praised Abrams and still advocated for more Jews in the Trump administration.  The article quotes Richard Haass, a Jewish Republican who is the head of the Council on Foreign Relations, on how hard it will be for Trump to get people to work in his administration.  He said Trump had “ruled out much of an entire generation of Republican public policy types,” but the article added that Haass’ name had been floated for a position.  The article ends with a plea from Abrams encouraging “everybody to go into the government if offered an appropriate position.”  I take this to be a plea mainly to Jews who might not approve of Trump to join his administration if possible.  

Russians Did Not Nominate Trump

The American establishment, particularly the media, has pushed the idea that Russia was responsible for the election of Donald Trump.  Clearly the Russians hacked the DNC, but whether this had any effect on the election is unclear.  Interestingly, no one has claimed that the hackers falsified any of the emails. They published what they found; they did not make up derogatory emails.  It is les clear whether the Russians were involved in fake news.  The fake news seems to have come from all over, from all types of people all over the world.  

It looks like Trump won the Republican nomination on his own without help from the Russians or any other outside influence.  The Russians did not defeat Jeb Bush or John Kasich, darlings of the establishment.  It’s hard for the Democrats and the establishment to prove that he did not win the general election because of the same things that won him the primary.  

The Russian connection to the hacking has made the Democrats and the establishment hate the Russians.  This is a relatively new animosity, since Obama spent much of his administration trying to make nice with the Russians.  Because of the election, Democrats now think Russia is the world’s boogeyman, and are trying to foment conflict with Russia.  Democrats have become the new warmongers.  

Because the Trump administration has not gone along with the Democrats’ warmongering, the Democrats, the establishment, and the media have tried to portray Trump’s openness to Russia as treasonous.  The intelligence community has supported the establishment by leaking anything connecting Trump to Russia, regardless of classification or Fourth Amendment privacy concerns about wiretapping Americans.  The intelligence community has always had strong links to the establishment, and at the moment it looks like the intelligence types are more loyal to the establishment than to the President.  

When I was in the Foreign Service I wanted to be part of the establishment.  I probably did not make it in part because of my Southern roots.  (And maybe I wasn’t smart and smooth enough.)  At one time Southerners like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Woodrow Wilson were the core of the establishment.  But the establishment has moved north to New York and west to San Francisco.  Hillary, the former first lady of Arkansas, expressed the establishment view when she spoke of the “basket of deplorables,” which probably includes me.     

The establishment wants to blame the Russians for Hillary’s defeat, when in fact it was their contempt for at least half of America that was the real cause.  The Democrats have become a party that hates the great men who created it, that has turned its back on American history in order to appeal to new generations of descendants of slaves and immigrants who have no attachment to the history that made America the leader of the free world for a few decades.  

Flynn Leaks

I find 2 things strange about the Flynn leaks:

1) The intel guys always worry about “sources and methods.”  The Flynn leaks remind the Russians that we are listening to every one of their calls. They expect it, but Americans were shocked that we listened to all of Angela Merkel’s calls, too.  Is Russia the enemy, or do we just listen to everybody everywhere?

2) Before 9/11 and the Patriot Act there were very tight restrictions on listening to American citizens.  NSA was forbidden, and if they got an American by accident they had to protect it from distribution.  The FBI could tap Americans, but had to get a court order.  The Patriot Act and the FISA court apparently made it easier for both agencies to listen in on Americans.  .  

But any tapping of Flynn as an American should have been subject to high level review and protection.  The leaking exposes intelligence info to the Russians (presumably aiding the enemy) and probably violates Flynn’s 4th Amendment protection from searches and seizures.  If they prosecute Flynn, this evidence may not be admissible in court, like the confessions obtained by torture at Guantanamo.  Spying is a dirty business.  It’s interesting that the media loves the 1st Amendment, but not the 4th.  

North Korean Missile Test

The main US news shows - CBS, NBC, ABC, etc. - have been going nuts saying the North Korean missile test was timed to take place during Trump’s dinner with Abe.  Fortunately, I have seen former Ambassador Christopher Hill correctly say on BBC and one other show that the main concern for North Korea was testing the missile and that it was unlikely to have been specifically timed to challenge Trump.  

It sounds like this was a new type missile, probably one using solid fuel rather than liquid, and therefore it was not just a rocket North Korea had lying around to launch whenever it wanted to.  The media has played it up to make Trump look like a stupid wimp who doesn’t know how to respond to North Korea.  They made a big deal about the fact that he discussed the launch during dinner and was reading papers by flashlight.  The other interpretation of this incident is that Trump wasn’t panicked by the launch and didn’t let it interrupt his dinner.  Furthermore he was able to consult with Japanese Prime Minister Aba in real time about it.  Abe was much more affected by the launch than Trump, since Japan is much closer to North Korea.  Trump was able to reassure Abe immediately that the US stood firmly with him.  

The incident could well be interpreted as a show of strength rather than weakness, if the media had been so inclined.  Jonathan Karl was almost livid as he falsely described the huge threat represented by the launch and Trump’s amateurish response.  Karl struck me as a coward who was actually afraid.  He should not be allowed to cover military news.   

Trump Immigration Order and Indonesia

It is odd that Democrats and the media have interpreted Trump’s order restricting entry from seven counties as being a ban on all Muslims.  The most populous Muslim nation is Indonesia.  In all the press coverage, I haven’t heard anybody mention Indonesia.  Apparently the Democrats and the media are not interested in moderate, peaceful Muslims.  They are only interested in militant Muslims in countries where the women wear burkas or other extreme head covering.  

How can Trump be accused of imposing a Muslim ban, if his visa order does not affect the nation with the most Muslims, most of which are relatively moderate.  

Trump and Australia

From what I have read about Australian immigration policy, Trump’s telephone tantrum with Australian Prime Minister Turnbull makes no sense.  Trump should be mad with Obama, not Turnbull.  This USA Today article gives some background.  

Australia has been refusing to accept refugees in a way Trump should like.  Australian was being inundated with refugees arriving by boat, many of them from the Middle East.  Australia refused to accept the boats and sent the boat people to islands belonging to Papua New Guinea, where living conditions were poor.  Refugee activists criticized Australia harshly for this policy.  

The details are not clear to me, but it appears that Obama agreed to take some of the refugees that Australia refused to take.  Trump presumably thinks some of the refugees that the US agreed to take are bad people from the Middle East who were trying to escape to Australia.  

Another article that shed some light on the deal was an op-ed by Roger Cohen in the New York Times.  As a Jew writing for the Trump-hating New York Times, Cohen has to make fun of Trump for putting Rex Tillerson at State in such a bad position, but he at least describes it better than most reports about it.  Cohen says the deal was signed in September, but kept secret until after the election, because refugees were such a sensitive issue in the campaign.  He says the Australians told the American negotiators, “We really want to mothball these places,” the island camps, because they had become an acute embarrassment to Australia.  Cohen says he has visited one of the camps to see how bad they were.  

It looks as if Obama was just trying to do Australia a favor, to help Australia close the camps and get rid of some of the bad publicity that they created for Canberra.  Ironically, Australia had refused to take the same refugees that Trump was refusing to take.  The two men agreed on refugee policy, but Trump apparently thought he was getting stuck with the worst of the deal.  Presumably, Australia is still refusing to accept the refugees and is trying to get the US to carry out Obama’s promise to take some of them.  But now Trump doesn’t want them either.  

Sides in Syrian War

Obama has gotten a lot of criticism for failing to support the rebels against Assad, while Putin supported Assad, who had the Syrian military at his disposal.  Many of the rebels opposing Assad were affiliated with al-Qaeda or ISIS.  The few rebels not affiliated with them were very weak.  John McCain’s idea to support the more trustworthy rebels would clearly have benefited Al-Qaeda and ISIS to some extent.  Obama pretty much avoided doing that, to his credit.  But Obama’s potential allies were weak, while Putin’s allies in the Syrian government were stronger.  

People criticize Obama for failing to kill Assad after he crossed Obama’s red line on chemical weapons.  I think Obama did the right thing.  If Obama had killed Assad, or undertaken a massive invasion of Syria to unseat thim, it’s likely that the war would have become even more violent and even more chemical weapons would have been used.  By getting Assad to renounce chemical weapons, Obama significantly reduced their use in the civil war.  

In terms of who will win the civil war, Assad’s opponents have never been close to winning, even with foreign support.  Assad was not strong enough to win quickly, but he was the only participant who had a chance of winning with only a little outside support.  When Russia provided this support, the iide began to turn in Assad’s favor.  

It’s not clear whether the end of the war is near, and if so, what it means.  Hopefully it will mean less violence and death.  It’s possible that Assad will seek revenge against the rebels, continuing the violence and the refugee deluge, but ideally things will be better than they are currently.  

Obama could have lessened the destruction in Syria, by supporting Assad despite his unsavory human rights record.  Obama could not have led the rebels to victory unless he had sent in US troops for a full scale war.  Thus, the easy course of supporting Assad was open to Putin and he took it.  He did not expend much in terms of men and equipment, but it appears to have been enough to turn the tide.  He comes out looking like a strong man by supporting a human rights pariah.  

Fareed Zakaria and Bernard-Henri Levy

Fareed Zakaria has French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy on his Sunday morning program often, but he fails to point out that Levy fomented the European and American invasion of Libya that destroyed the country and left it in a state of chaos.  Gaddafi was a bad man, but the situation Levy created is even worse.  He is a philosopher with a lot of blood on his hands.  Fareed should mention this when he introduces Levy.  

Trump’s Foreign Policy and My Career

When Newt Gingrich and the Republicans took over the House, they made many changes in US foreign policy that affected me personally in an adverse way.  Of course, Clinton and his Democratic administration had to accept these changes, but the main responsibility lay with the Republican Congress.  First, the Republicans refused to continue to fund the joint science cooperation program that I oversaw as Science Counselor at Embassy Warsaw, the Maria Sklodowska-Curie Fund II.  The US signed a five year agreement to fund the program jointly with the Poles, but refused to pay after three years.  Second, on the day that I was scheduled to leave Warsaw for a new position at the American Embassy in Rome, the Republicans shut the government down in 1995.  While I was saying good-byes around 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon with the car packed with all of our belongings, including two dogs. Embassy Rome called and said not to travel because of the government shutdown.  Third, after I got to Rome, the US Congress refused to appropriate money to fund the US share of the US- North Korean agreement that limited North Korea’s nuclear program, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO).  Fourth, a US law barred issuing visas to children of employees of the Italian phone company.  When a phone company executive complained to me about it, I couldn’t believe it, but I confirmed with the head of the consular section that it was true.  

I probably would not have quit in protest, but I was old enough and had enough years of service to retire.  So, I did.  

I sympathize with the Foreign Service officers who are unhappy with the new Trump policies, but I think that you can disagree with policies and yet carry them out.  So far, Trump’s edicts mainly affect consular officers who issue visas.  Other edicts on trade and national security will affect economic and political officers.  I don’t believe that any of Trump’s orders so far are so out of the mainstream that they risk asking diplomats to do anything unlawful.  No one who is not a citizen or permanent resident has any “right” to enter the US, constitutional or otherwise.  US immigration policy over the years has incorporated all kinds of discrimination.  It may be questionable on human rights grounds, but it is not illegal.  In fact, the US has probably engaged in more illegal conduct by not enforcing immigration laws on the books over the years, resulting in millions of “illegal” residents of the US.  Illegality has been the US policy towards immigration for decades.  

While I retired rather than enforce policies that I did not agree with, I don’t blame officers for whatever decision they make: to enforce policy they do not agree with, as long as they are not illegal, or to resign or retire rather than enforce them.  If they don’t leave the service, I don’t think they would criticize the policies publicly, although internal criticism is acceptable.  It is really a part of the normal policy-making process.  Almost every policy is the result of discussion among people who did not completely agree.  In my experience more decisions than most people would expect go to the President for decision, because the various agencies under him cannot agree on a course of action.  

Rating Obama

I’d give Obama a 6 or 7 out of 10.  I would give most of his predecessors a 5 or less.

Trump’s election showed that some of Obama’s greatest successes were his biggest failings.  He saved the US from a 2nd great depression, but failed to prosecute any of the guys who caused the recession.  He ripped off the middle class to help the super-poor and the super-rich.  The poor got welfare and the rich got no jail and low taxes.  Income inequality got worse on his watch, probably because it was the easiest course to keep the economy going, but he failed to help a lot of regular people as the rich got richer.  Unemployment is down, but many people have worse jobs than before 2008.

Obamacare expanded government health care, but it was a mess, purposely so to help the health insurance industry, hospital administrators, doctors, etc.  The real solution was single-payer Medicare of all, and Obama didn’t do it.  I would not be surprised to see him on the boards of some healthcare companies and banks soon or making speeches to them, ala Hillary and Bill.

He also failed to get any kind of gun control; his heart was in the right place, but the NRA beat him.

On foreign policy, he did great keeping us out of new wars.  He was right not to intervene in Ukraine or Syria, but he and the EU made a mess of Libya.  Iraq and Afghanistan are still a mess, and will probably collapse into some kind of chaos if we ever leave entirely.  That’s not all his fault, but he didn’t solve it.  The Iran deal was quite an accomplishment; I hope Trump doesn’t destroy it.  Israel hates Obama, bur should love him; he ended up pitting the Arab states against each other, Sunni v. Shiite, Iran v. Saudi, etc., which meant they couldn’t focus on Israel.  Except for the Palestinians (a problem Israel itself created) Israel is safer than it has been for years.  He was right to try to focus on Asia, but failed.  I think the Israeli lobby would not allow him to turn away from the Middle East.

One of Obama’s strengths was his honesty and decency, keeping corruption at bay.  Because he was such a decent person, he probably didn’t perceive how corrupt Hillary appeared to voters.  For Obama’s main failings it’s useful to look at Bernie’s campaign rather than Hillary’s or Trump’s – health care, inequality, guns….

I’m probably the wrong person to talk about race.  I would give Obama pretty good marks for being evenhanded, especially for being black himself.  But I can see that many blacks think he failed them.

He was a great speaker.  I will really miss that.  I think we have gone from a college level vocabulary to a third grade one.  But I speaking may be overrated.  Some of Obama’s most eloquent speeches were about gun violence, and they made no difference.

Obama’s presidency would have been much better, maybe even great, if the Republican Congress had not stonewalled everything he tried to do.

I like being tough on leakers.  When I was in Brasilia, I had several contacts who used to give me information on Brazil’s nuclear weapons program.  I used to report this pretty straight in secret cables, using their names.  CIA reports like that don’t use names; they have some super secret database that links reports to names.  Their reports say something like, “According to a reliable source with access.”  Only the CIA ops guys know who that really is.  If my old cables had been released, my old contacts would have been in big trouble.  So, I’m unhappy Chelsea/Bradley Manning got released.  

Also, when I worked in DC on missile proliferation, we relied on intelligence to to try to stop transfers to bad countries.  The intel agencies often did not want us to use their intel because it might give away their "sources and methods.”  We were forbidden to use their info until they cleared it, which sometimes took weeks or months.  Several times NYT reporter Michael Gordon called me at home around 10 pm to get me to comment on a story based on leaked intel information about something some bad country was doing.  State was always the dove, saying to wait, while the Pentagon wanted to act and beat up the bad guy.  The leak to Gordon was always correct, sometimes of top secret information, intended to pressure us to act.  I aways did the “refuse to confirm or deny” thing with Gordon, but the leak was clearly from the hawkish Republicans in the Pentagon under the G.H.W. Bush admin, probably from people who worked for then Asst. Sec. Steve Hadley, who went on to be G.W. Bush’s NSC Advisor.  

I would like to think that leaks are a dishonest way to push a policy in Washington and should be punished.  

I also didn’t mention immigration.  My first State job was issuing visas in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  I always felt bad denying a visa, because it probably meant that person would never get to the US, while if a Mexican was denied, they could just sneak across the border.  It was a racist policy favoring those who could walk across the border over those who had to fly.  Immigration laws have been like Prohibition, on the books but totally disregarded.  Now that I’m retired and shopping at a lot of discount stores, I often hear more Spanish spoken than English.  Denver has changed just in the years we’ve been out here.  Obama and the Democrats (and Reagan) refused to enforce the immigration laws.  I think that is dishonest and undermines respect for law in general.  Mexicans are inclined to regard American law as toothless, whether it’s about immigration or drugs.  It’s tough to be a law enforcement officer when your boss, the President, says, “Oh, violating this law is no big deal; let them all go.”  I know Obama deported a lot of people, but as in the financial crisis, he didn’t get the job done in a way that pleased the American public.  

I suppose I was never smart enough or tough enough to win a leak war; so, I didn’t like them.  And it is against the laws on the books.

On Mexican territory (California, Texas, etc.), my view is that we won it fair and square and it’s ours now.  Maybe it’s like Israel’s West Bank.  We’ve created even more than 2,500 settlements on it.  And what about the Indians?  Do they get the whole country back?

I have thought about Mexico and California in connection with Ukraine.  Ukraine used to be part of Russia, i.e., “the Ukraine,” like “the American Mid-West.”  Both have been breadbaskets of the country, and Kiev was really the first capital of what became Russia when Moscow was still a backwater, the 11th or 12th century.  The Russians established a naval base at Sevastopol in 1783.  California did not become part of the US until the 1800s and the San Diego Naval Base was not built until the 1920s.  Arguably, our forcing Russia to give up its base at Sevastopol is like Russia encouraging Mexico to take back San Diego and force the US to remove its naval base.  Not the same, but there are similarities.

On migration, I just worry that our country is changing.  The Hispanics have been in Colorado for hundreds of years.  Senator and Sec. of Interior Salazar was from one of those families.  But in general, Hispanics have no shared history with the British Europeans who founded the US on the East Coast.  Washington and Jefferson have no ancestral connection to them, as European immigrants have.  Plus they come here for economic reasons, not political ones; so, they don’t have any particular reverence for the American form of government.  It’s okay, but they are used to the corruption in Mexico, too.  Countries change, but we could have controlled how it did.  We passed laws on immigration, but they were ignored.  We had a preference, but we ignored it, and just let nature take its course.  It’s not unlike global warming; if you ignore it, the impact sneaks up on you.

So, who represents this historically elite East Coast establishment that I extolled?  Donald Trump, the Europeans’ answer to Barack Obama.  I am hopeful that he will do some good things by instinct, but intellectually he could hardly be farther from the founding fathers.  I don’t think Hillary was the real East Coast heir, because her appeal was to the newly powerful Americans -- Hispanics and blacks, (with the votes) and Jews (with the money).  She was to be the voice of the new America, not the old one.  Now we have the voice of the old one, and it speaks with a third grade vocabulary.  Oh well….

Obama and Inequality

In general Obama has been a good President; however at this moment there appear to be some significant failures.  History may change perceptions, but it appears one of the main reasons his designated successor, Hillary, failed was that Obama failed to deal with income inequality.  

Obama prevented the great recession from becoming a second great depression, but in doing so he rewarded the tycoons who caused the recession, rather than punishing them.  Obama threw his support behind the super wealthy, who will no doubt reward him in retirement, as they did the Clintons.  His decision has exacerbated income inequality to the point where it has become apparent to the population at large, which caused the backlash against him in the last election.  It was certainly one of the most important factors in Trump’s victory.  

The situation was not all Obama’s fault, since it started under Bush.  The Republicans in Congress were strongly in favor of protecting the wealthy.  The Democrats passed Dodd-Frank while they still could, but its limits were prospective, weak and did nothing to punish Wall Street for what it had done to create the 2008 mortgage crisis.  Obama tried to protect the poor, especially Hispanics and blacks by placing the burden of recovering from the recession on the white middle class.  I don’t think he targeted the middle class; it was just the course of least resistance to have them bail out both the lower classes and the super wealthy.  But it highlighted the fact that Democrats didn’t really care about the middle class, which became increasing evident during Hillary’s campaign.  

This is a bad part of Obama’s legacy that the Democrats will have to bear.  

Baltic Tripwire

I am worried that the membership in NATO of the Baltic states - Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania - creates a tripwire that could lead to nuclear war with Russia.  

All three of these Baltic countries are legitimate nations with their own histories, ethnicities, languages, and so on.  Over the years, however, they have often been dominated or annexed by one of their more powerful neighbors, often by Russia, but also by Sweden, Poland, Germany and others.  

Poland’s national poem, Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz, begins, “O Lithuania, my fatherland….”  Wikipedia says that Mickiewicz mean Lithuania to refer to a region and not a country.  In any case, when he wrote the poem, Poland-Lithuania had ceased to exist because it had been divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria.  This is typical of the history of the region.  For NATO to step in and say the borders of the Baltic countries are inviolable is potentially risky.  

We have already seen what happened when Ukraine tried to take away Russia’s Sevastopol seaport in Crimea.  If Ukraine had been a member of NATO, we might have been drawn toward a shooting war with Russia.  Of course a low intensity shooting war has continued in Ukraine, but with no direct participation by NATO.  

While the Baltic states may not have the strategic importance for Russia of the seaport in Crimea, which has been a Russian naval base since 1783, the Baltics have traditionally been influenced by their biggest neighbor, Russia, and if Russia perceived that they constituted a threat, it might react in a similar manner to the Crimean crisis.  

Of course, the West wants the thriving, friendly Baltic states to continue to be independent and free.  However, there is is the military question of whether they are defensible, situated as they are between the Baltic Sea and Russia, only about 100 miles wide.  All of the borders are somewhat artificial, a result of World War II and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.  Poland, which is the next easternmost extension of NATO, is much more defensible.  It is larger and is separated from Russia by non-NATO nations Ukraine and Belarus, except for the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on its border.  

Because the Baltic countries are so small and bounded by the sea, there is little room for military maneuver.  There is even limited territory to accommodate NATO troops and weapons for a war with a large country like Russia.  The Russians defeated both Napoleon and Hitler.  The population of the three Baltic states is only about six million (Estonia - 1,300,000), Latvia - 2,000,000, Lithuania - 2,900,000), less than the population of New York City.  Should we be willing to risk the existence of New York City, and perhaps the United States,  to protect six million people who throughout history have been under the sway of the Russian empire?  Of course, a crisis does not have to lead to nuclear war, but it might.  Was it wise for NATO to take on this obligation?  Of course, when it did, NATO and the US were in the ascendency, and Russia was falling on hard times.  At the moment the US is becoming much more fearful of Russia, except for Donald Trump.  Is the Cold War returning?  Are we returning to the old strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)?  Will we go mad over the Baltics?  

I don’t think so.  But it is a pressure point where NATO might be vulnerable.  

Poland and NATO

When I was assigned to the US embassy in Warsaw, Poland, in the mid-1990s, there was nothing that Poland wanted more than to be a member of NATO.  

As the Science Counselor at Embassy Warsaw, my main job was to oversee the Maria Sladowski Curie II fund, which was set up by the US and Poland after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Communist government of Poland in order to help Polish scientists who were facing financial hardship after the huge  changes in Polish funding for science under the new, poorer government.  Under the Communist government, almost all funding for science and technology had come from the the government.  Under the new, democratic government most scientists had to find funding from the private sector.  The MSC II fund was supposed to help ease the transition for the scientists and engineers for five years from its signature.  

When I arrived in Poland, both the US and Poland were contributing about two million dollars per year to the fund.  But after a year, the Republicans under Newt Gingrich took over the US House and cut off funding for the fund, although the US was obligated to fund it for another three years, at least.  The Science Committee of the US House of Representatives called then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher to testify and several members (perhaps Democrats) raked him over the coals for cutting off the Polish funding; so, he found funding for one more year in funds in the existing State Department budget.  The following year, he did not, and what little money there was in the State Department science budget went to Chinese scientists because the State Department felt that the Chinese needed help more than the Polish scientists.  

As a result, I was called in several times to see the Polish diplomat at the Foreign Ministry who was in charge of relations with the Western Hemisphere.  He was so senior that I would not normally talk to him, but he wanted to express his displeasure at the US failing to meet its obligations under the MSC II cooperation agreement.  He said we were obligated to continue our contributions, which we were, despite the fact that the US House of Representatives refused to approve the payment.  I told him that if he was really upset he should talk to the US Ambassador instead of me, or should tell the Polish Ambassador to complain to an undersecretary in Washington, or even to the Secretary, since had gotten personally involved the previous year.  But the Pole was unwilling to protest to anyone higher ranking, because Poland was not yet a member of NATO, and he did not want to do anything that might injure their chance to join NATO, which was much more important to Poland than the MSC II.  Meanwhile, he said the Poles, whose government was much poorer than America’s, were willing and able to fund their part of the joint agreement.  

I was personally very upset at being accused correctly by the Poles of an American failure to honor its commitments.  I believe that American should be true to its word.  I agree with Gen. Mattas, who recently said regarding the Iran agreement in testimony for his appointment as Defense Secretary, “But when America gives her word, we have to live up to it and work with our allies.” I wish Newt Gingrich and his Republican colleagues had been as honorable as Gen. Mattas is.  

Intelligence Doves vs. Hawks

All the commotion between the Trump team and the intelligence community reminds me of the incoming Reagan administration while I was working on NIE 11-12 on Russian military technology.  I started under the dovish administration led by Jimmy Carter, with Adm. Stansfield Turner.  Under Carter, the military services led by the Defense Intelligence Agency (most recently led by Gen. Flynn) were hawkish, claiming the Soviets had many dangerous new military high tech weapons.  I, joined by the CIA, argued that the intelligence did not support such conclusions; they were working on new weapons, but there was so far no indication they would work well enough to deploy in the field.  I gradually got some language inserted that downplayed the danger to the US. (I think the last 30 or 40 years have proved me right.)  

When Reagan came in with his new CIA chief, Bill Casey, the threat from the Soviet Union (Reagan’s evil empire) got raised again. Turner and his deputy, Adm. Inman, left the CIA.  I would like to think that I got the threat watered down a little bit, but who knows?  

This change of administrations highlights the animosity permeating the intelligence community during this change of administration.  Back then, the Republicans were the hawks worried about the Soviet evil empire.  Today, it’s the Democrats who are worried about the Soviets, joined by some Republicans like John McCain and Marco Rubio.  In general, though, the sides have changed.  The Democrats are afraid of Russia, and the majority of the incoming Republicans are not.  Despite Trump’s views, there are still many old Cold Warriors in the Republican Party; so, it is less likely that the Trump administration will be as dovish toward Russia as Carter was, even with Tillerson at State.