What with all the travelling I’ve been doing the last few days (I was working on the coast Wednesday and Thursday, drove to Memphis Friday, drove back yesterday), I’m just now getting to Charles Krauthammer’s column from late last week.
I liked his analogy:
The war in Syria, started by locals, is now a regional conflict, the meeting ground of two warring blocs. On one side, the radical Shiite bloc led by Iran, which overflies Iraq to supply Bashar al-Assad and sends Hezbollah to fight for him. Behind them lies Russia, which has stationed ships offshore, provided the regime with tons of weaponry and essentially claimed Syria as a Russian protectorate.
And on the other side are the Sunni Gulf states terrified of Iranian hegemony (territorial and soon nuclear); non-Arab Turkey, now convulsed by an internal uprising; and fragile Jordan, dragged in by geography.
And behind them? No one. It’s the Spanish Civil War except that only one side — the fascists — showed up. The natural ally of what began as a spontaneous, secular, liberationist uprising in Syria was the United States. For two years, it did nothing….
As will not surprise you, he is not satisfied with President Obama’s belated decision to help the rebels with nothing more than small arms and ammo.
He gets way harsh on the pres with regard to Iraq:
The tragedy is that we once had a counterweight and Obama threw it away. Obama still thinks the total evacuation of Iraq is a foreign policy triumph. In fact, his inability — unwillingness? — to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement that would have left behind a small but powerful residual force in Iraq is precisely what compels him today to re-create in Jordan a pale facsimile of that regional presence…
We had a golden opportunity to reap the rewards of this too-bloody war by establishing a strategic relationship with an Iraq that was still under American sway. Iraqi airspace, for example, was under U.S. control as we prepared to advise and rebuild Iraq’s nonexistent air force.
With our evacuation, however, Iraqi airspace today effectively belongs to Iran — over which it is flying weapons, troops and advisers to turn the tide in Syria. The U.S. air bases, the vast military equipment, the intelligence sources available in Iraq were all abandoned. Gratis…
I wasn’t watching the news all that closely yesterday, so, as sometimes happens with Twitter, I saw the jokes about John McCain sneaking into Syria to talk to the rebels before I knew he had gone. Here’s the first I saw:
Best wishes to @SenJohnMcCain in Syria today. If he doesn’t make it back calling dibs on his office.
Anyway, no doubt to Graham’s chagrin, McCain apparently made it back out of Syria OK (at least, that’s how I read this reference to Yemen). The White House has said today that yeah, they knew he was going, and no, they don’t have anything else to say about it, but look forward to hearing from the senator about his trip.
WASHINGTON—A key Senate committee overwhelmingly approved legislation Tuesday that calls for the U.S. to provide small arms to moderate Syrian opposition groups fighting strongman Bashar al-Assad, underscoring growing sentiment among lawmakers for a change in the U.S. approach to the conflict.
The 15-3 vote by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee showed broad support from both Democrats and Republicans for arming the rebels, though some lawmakers from each party voiced concern over the difficulty of ensuring the weapons aren’t misused and won’t slip into the hands of radical Islamists aligned with al Qaeda….
Sometimes it appears that the president is the only person in Washington who does not want to arm Syrian rebels. If you’ll recall, his national security team was all for it last year, but he said no.
I don’t just dismiss the concerns of Rand Paul, et al., about weapons falling into the wrong hands and other unintended consequences. I realize that the mujahideen we backed in Afghanistan provided a training ground for Osama bin Laden.
But given the alternatives of a) Assad prevailing and b) affiliates of al Qaeda coming out on top, it seems we ought to be doing something to try to tilt things in another direction.
Given that the president keeps getting closer and closer to his own “red line” (see the BBC’s story last week, “US has seen Syria chemical weapons evidence, says Obama“), maybe even he will be on board with that ere long.
I don’t think for a moment that any options are attractive in this situation. But in the real, messy world of shooting wars out there, options seldom are.
A digression…
The president and his “red line” remind me of a brief lesson my Algebra II teacher gave us on the concept of “limits.” I don’t know how it came up, since it was way beyond the level of that particular class, but I remember it because it was a much more vivid explanation than anything I later heard in calculus classes.
He stood facing the wall, and then stepped halfway to the wall. Then moved to half of the remaining distance to the wall. Then he did it again. Then he said, imagine that operation repeated infinitely. You would forever get closer to the wall, but never reach it. That’s a limit.
I found it kind of a mind-blowing concept. Forever moving toward something, and never reaching it…
There’s been a lot of overwrought reaction to Lindsey Graham’s suggestion that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be tried by military tribunal rather than under our criminal system.
For instance, there was this writer over at Forbes who moaned, “Why is it that those who spend an inordinate amount of time professing their dedication and fealty to the United States Constitution seem to always be among the first to toss our founding document out the window the moment it becomes inconvenient to their desires?”
Which is a grossly unfair mischaracterization of Lindsey Graham and what he said.
The reason you see some repetition in those Tweets is that Graham was responding to comments by others, and reiterating points.
As it happened, so far Graham’s wishes have been followed — the prisoner has not been Mirandized, and apparently has been interrogated to the extent that his wounds (he was shot in the throat) will allow. It is not necessary to consider him an “enemy combatant” to withhold the Miranda warnings, under the public safety exemption — in other words, to gather the intelligence that Sen. Graham values.
As to his being considered an “enemy combatant” — well that’s a war of words that Republicans have been carrying on with Democrats for 12 years now. Republicans prefer the rules of war; Democrats prefer to treat terrorism as a cops-and-robbers thing.
This case seems to be to dwell in sort of a twilight area — and arguments to treat it as war and as crime both seem to have some legitimacy.
Tsarnaev — the one who still lives — is a citizen. And not a citizen off in Yemen somewhere working with al Qaeda, whom President Obama might kill with a drone (just to help us remember that Democrats, too, have gone far beyond the bounds of due process in pursuing what can only be called a war — else there’s no justification for such actions). He’s a citizen who went bad like the Columbine killers.
His brother’s recent fascination with radical Islamism does suggest something that fits within the “War on Terror,” but I think we need to see more evidence that these attacks were somehow coordinated with a hostile foreign organization before we consider this something other than a mass murder. Perhaps such evidence will emerge.
When he is criminally prosecuted on state and federal charges, I wonder if there will be a charge — along with multiple counts of murder and many more of attempted murder — having to do with bringing Boston to a halt? I wonder what that cost, in terms of lost economic activity. This is on my mind after reading about the guy who we are told ran off naked on acid, and all the resources devoted to trying to find him. How much more did the Tsarnaev brothers cost the city, state and federal governments, plus untold thousands of businesses?
But I digress. By the way, while I was traveling over the weekend — driving to Memphis and back for a wedding — Bryan Caskey already did a post on this subject, which you might want to check out.
The Central Intelligence Agency is expanding its role in the campaign against the Syrian regime by feeding intelligence to select rebel fighters to use against government forces, current and former U.S. officials said.
The move is part of a U.S. effort to stem the rise of Islamist extremists in Syria by aiding secular forces, U.S. officials said, amid fears that the fall of President Bashar al-Assad would enable al Qaeda to flourish in Syria.
The expanded CIA role bolsters an effort by Western intelligence agencies to support the Syrian opposition with training in areas including weapons use, urban combat and countering spying by the regime.
The move comes as the al Nusra Front, the main al Qaeda-linked group operating in Syria, is deepening its ties to the terrorist organization’s central leadership in Pakistan, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials. ..
Maybe we can’t prevent a bad outcome there. The al Qaeda types could win out in the end. But we should be doing something to put our thumb on the scales and try to tip them toward a better outcome.
And this seems like a better role, to me, for the CIA than running our drone program. We haven’t really had a discussion about the proposal to move that to the Pentagon, but I think it’s probably the right thing to do. Y’all?
KABUL—Afghanistan’s fraying ties with the U.S. hit a new low on Sunday, as President Hamid Karzai said before meeting the new U.S. defense secretary that the Taliban kill Afghan civilians “in the service of America.”
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is visiting Kabul to discuss ways of ending America’s longest foreign war. On Saturday, Mr. Hagel’s first full day in Afghanistan, Taliban suicide bombers killed at least 18 people outside the Afghan Ministry of Defense in Kabul and in the eastern province of Khost.
In a televised speech Sunday, the Afghan president said the U.S. doesn’t really see the Taliban as an enemy, doesn’t want to leave the country after the coalition’s mandate ends at the end of 2014, and is engaged in negotiations with Taliban leaders behind his back.
“Taliban are every day in talks with America, but in Kabul and Khost they set off bombs to show strength to America,” Mr. Karzai said. “The bombs that went off in Kabul and Khost yesterday were not a show of power to America, but were in service to America… It was in the service of foreigners not withdrawing from Afghanistan.”…
I don’t even know what to say about this (gimme time; I’m thinking), but I thought y’all might…
This morning around 4:30, as I often do at about that time, I woke up. My allergies were bothering me. I took one of those little white, generic antihistamine/decongestant pills I get from Walmart, and went over to push the button on my iPhone so I could note the time.
As the lock screen lit up, I saw this alert from the AP:
March 07, 4:19AM: Ahead of U.N. sanctions vote, North Korea vows pre-emptive nuclear strikes against U.S.
Yeah, right, OK. I went back to bed sort of muttering the way Rob in “High Fidelity” did after, in a fantasy sequence, throwing the insufferable Ian out of his shop: That dumb mother…
Thinking, of course of Kim Jong-un.
I mean, who does that? Who actually threatens a nuclear attack against the United States? Real countries don’t do that. The Soviet Union never did that, in so many words. We knew they had the capability to do so, the real, existential threat was always there. But they were never so uncool, so nekulturny, as to say it.
Only the sort of ridiculous loser who keeps his people literally in the dark, the country is so far behind — who develops nukes instead of anything useful? — blusters like that. (OK, technically his father did that, but I sort of look at them as one administration.)
I went back to sleep, and didn’t think about it again until mid-morning. When I tried to look it up, I found it on my Washington Post app, as the seventh headline on the screen: “N. Korea threatens nuclear strike,” two items below “Obama invites Paul Ryan to lunch.”
Of course, maybe The Washington Post and I are wrong to be dismissive. Maybe it’s the crazy blusterer, rather than a superpower with full MAD capability, that we need to worry about. But it just doesn’t feel like, say, a Cuban Missile Crisis.
(Washington, DC) – House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel Chairman Joe Wilson (SC-02) and 48 other members of the House of Representatives today sent a bipartisan letter to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. The subject of the letter was the Department of Defense’s recent decision to create the new Distinguished Warfare Medal (DWM) and place it above the Bronze Star and Purple Heart in the order of precedence. Recipients of the DWM are recognized for their extraordinary service that directly impacts combat operations, while not being physically present in a combat zone.
“The brave men and women in our Armed Forces dedicate their lives to serve this great nation and often times put themselves in harms way to protect the freedoms and liberties all Americans are able to enjoy.The recent Department of Defense decision to rank the Distinguished Warfare Medal higher in precedence than the Bronze Star and Purple Heart does a disservice to our service members and veterans who have severed overseas in hostile and austere conditions. It is my hope that Secretary Hagel will change the Department’s decision so that our veterans who have earned the Bronze Star and Purple Heart will receive the appropriate recognition they deserve.”
WASHINGTON — Critics have dubbed it “the Nintendo medal” and “the Purple Buttocks.” Veterans groups are lobbying the White House against it. Lawmakers are working to downgrade it.
Pentagon officials, ignoring the criticism, are moving ahead with the new Distinguished Warfare Medal, designed to honor “extraordinary actions” of drone pilots and other off-site troops performing noteworthy deeds on far-away battlefields.
It’s months away from being awarded. The military has to mint the new awards, establish guidelines for processing nominations and find heroic operators to receive the honor.
That gives detractors time to wage their own war against the “distant warfare medal,” inside top military offices and from remote locations outside the Pentagon.
It will be a tough fight.
“This Pentagon, they’ve been immovable on fixes and mistakes in the awards system,” said Doug Sterner, military medals expert and archivist for the Hall of Valor awards database. “They’re closed-minded when it comes to outside criticism. They’re going to do what they’re going to do.”…
My Dad wasn’t as dismissive as those critics the Stars and Stripes cites. But, as a recipient (more than once) of the Bronze Star for his actions under enemy fire in the Rung Sat Special Zone (a.k.a. “Forest of Assassins”) in Vietnam, he was at least taken aback by this development.
Surely, drone operators employ their skills in performing a war-fighting function that is increasingly central to our nation’s defense policy. And thousands have received medals for far less martial contributions.
But placing that honor above those for valor under actual enemy fire is just bizarre, and sort of turns on its head our traditional definition of heroism. Which is what medals are supposed to be for, right?
The Wall Street Journal editorial board has been upset with U.S. senators Feinstein, Levin and McCain for criticizing the makers of “Zero Dark Thirty” for making it look like torture was essential to getting Osama bin Laden.
Now, the editors blame the senators for the movie’s poor showing at the Oscars:
As no one should forget, Senators Dianne Feinstein, Carl Levin and John McCain wrote letters to Sony Pictures and the CIA charging that “Zero Dark Thirty” was a “grossly inaccurate and misleading” portrayal of the interrogation of al Qaeda detainees. Ms. Feinstein’s intelligence committee opened an inquiry into what the CIA told the filmmakers, and the letters coincided with a media attack led by those great believers in artistic free expression at the New Yorker magazine.
Well, mission accomplished. The film was among the best reviewed of 2012 and has done well at the box office. But the attacks had their desired effect of intimidating Hollywood. Director Kathryn Bigelow was denied an Oscar nomination and the film won only a single (shared) award for sound editing. The Oscar ceremonies were Sunday night.
A day later, Reuters reported that the Senate is dropping its investigation of the film and CIA cooperation with the filmmakers…
The WSJ’s reasoning seems to go like this: Feinstein and Levin are liberals (McCain and his experienced-based objections to torture are conveniently forgotten). Hollywood is full of liberals. So Hollywood was cowed into stiffing ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ by fear of straying from liberal orthodoxy. Or something.
But the editors are ignoring something: “Zero Dark Thirty” didn’t deserve Best Picture honors, or Best Director. It was good, even important (important enough that I don’t blame senators at all for taking a political stand on it). But Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker,” which did win the Best Picture honor in 2009, was a more impressive, highly original film.
And the torture scenes? Speaking artistically and not politically, they went on too long. Long enough that it’s perfectly understandable that someone who doesn’t want our national defense to depend on the mistreatment of prisoners to think a political point was being made, and to object to that point. If this had been a work of fiction, devoid of political content, I think most critics would say the interrogations scenes were a drag on the storytelling.
I actually think the point being made by the filmmakers was neutral. I don’t think they were saying torture is good or necessary. I thought they were just saying (oversaying), it happened. And it sorta kinda maybe helped find bin Laden. It’s something to throw into the mix of how we feel about all that. War, including asymmetrical war, is filled with moral ambiguities.
I think they thought it would have been dishonest to leave out that part. Maybe they were right. In any case, they did not make this year’s best picture. Not this time.
Now, changing the subject slightly — what should have been Best Picture? Well, I can’t judge that, because I haven’t seen “Argo.” But I can say with all confidence that I wouldn’t have given it to “Zero Dark Thirty” in the same year that “Lincoln” came out. And if a director was slighted this year, it was Steven Spielberg.
At least, I think that’s accurate. This WashPost story doesn’t actually mention Lindsey Graham, which surprised me:
Senate Republicans blocked a vote on Chuck Hagel’s nomination as secretary of defense on Thursday, launching a filibuster whild demanding more information and more time to study their former colleague’s speeches and finances after he left the Senate in late 2008.
Falling one vote shy of the 60 needed to move forward on the nomination, the Hagel filibuster brought stark condemnations from President Obama and Senate Democrats for its precedent-setting nature — the first time a defense secretary nominee had been filibustered. The setback came during what many believe is a critical period for the Pentagon as it winds down troops from Afghanistan and implements costly budget cuts.
Republicans predicted they would relent to a simple majority vote, guaranteeing confirmation, later this month — but only if they see more information about Hagel’s post-Senate foreign policy speeches and his work in private investment groups. Senior Republicans initially scoffed at those demands, first raised by freshman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), as unnecessary, but now party leaders hold them up as the main cause for delay…
But it made it clear that all Republicans except for three — and none of the three (no surprise here) is Graham — are standing against an early vote on the Hagel nomination. And a WashPost blog post earlier in the day — when it was believed the vote would not come on Friday, before the Democrats made the tactical mistake of trying to move it up — had made clear what I was pretty sure I already knew about Graham’s central role in the delay-Hagel movement:
At the center of this drama are Graham and McCain. McCain is likely to support his “amigo” Graham if Graham feels he is still getting stiffed by the White House. Graham has every reason to hold out for the information and to further endear himself to conservatives whose support he will need in his reelection bid. Once we see how Graham and McCain are leaning, we’ll know which way the vote is going to go on Friday.
Anyway, we have a bit of an impasse here. Democrats are understandably upset, although their claims that this delay puts the nation’s security in danger are a bit overwrought. When Harry Reid said:
“This isn’t high school, getting ready for a football game or some play that’s being produced at high school,” Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said during an angry floor speech Thursday morning. “This is – we’re trying to confirm somebody to run the defense of our country, the military of our country.”
I thought, Exactly. And if one has sincere doubts about the nominee’s fitness — which I believe Graham and McCain do — it’s not responsible to rush into confirming him.
Yeah, I know, a lot of my friends here on the blog are sick of Graham and McCain and all their doings. Well, to them I say that it’s not like they are alone on this. Moderate Republicans who are less likely to preen on the national talk shows on this subject are also reluctant to be rushed on this. Such as my old Tennessee source Lamar Alexander:
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) told reporters that cutting off debate is “premature.”
“When we come back from the recess 10 days from now, senators should have had sufficient time to consider Senator Hagel’s nomination, and I will vote to have an up-or-down vote,” Alexander said. “I know of many of my colleagues who think that’s enough time. It would be better for the institution and the country if we had enough time to consider Senator Hagel and then have an up-or-down vote, so we don’t get into a habit of making it look like we’re suing the filibuster to block Cabinet nominees. That’s not the case here.”
Anyway, I think a delay is worthwhile. For the very reason that, as Sen. Reid says, this decision is crucial to the nation’s security, I don’t think we need to be doing this on a party-line vote, when by waiting a few days we might get something closer to consensus. What do y’all think?
My favorite part is when he tells us that as a former paratrooper in the IDF, he’s not as naive as he may seem (he’s also not as young as he seems; he’s 41). I get the impression that he understands that none of this has made Ahmadinejad’s push to develop nuclear weapons go away or anything.
But he figures that getting some good vibes going between everyday folks in Israel and Iran couldn’t hurt.
The most impressive part of the story is when he says that, for a day, the top Google result for “Israel” showed images from his campaign…
As Hollywood depicted it — an image from “Zero Dark Thirty.”
I don’t have time to read it all right now, but in case you do, I thought I’d share this extraordinary piece of long-form journalism provided by Esquire and the Center for Investigative Reporting.
It’s an intimate portrait of the man who fired the shots that killed Osama bin Laden. The critical moment described first-hand:
I had my hand on the point man’s shoulder and squeezed, a signal to go. The two of us went up. On the third floor, he tackled the two women in the hallway right outside the first door on the right, moving them past it just enough. He thought he was going to absorb the blast of suicide vests; he was going to kill himself so I could get the shot. It was the most heroic thing I’ve ever seen. I rolled past him into the room, just inside the doorway.
There was bin Laden standing there. He had his hands on a woman’s shoulders, pushing her ahead, not exactly toward me but by me, in the direction of the hallway commotion. … I’m just looking at him …. He’s got a gun on a shelf right there, the short AK he’s famous for. And he’s moving forward. I don’t know if she’s got a vest and she’s being pushed to martyr them both. He’s got a gun within reach. He’s a threat. I need to get a head shot so he won’t have a chance to clack himself off [blow himself up].
In that second, I shot him, two times in the forehead. Bap! Bap! The second time as he’s going down. He crumpled onto the floor in front of his bed and I hit him again, Bap! same place. That time I used my EOTech red-dot holo sight. He was dead. Not moving. His tongue was out. I watched him take his last breaths, just a reflex breath.
And I remember as I watched him breathe out the last part of air, I thought: Is this the best thing I’ve ever done, or the worst thing I’ve ever done? This is real and that’s him. Holy shit.
The piece goes on to say that now that this man is leaving the Navy, his future is cloudy because he has no pension, and no health benefits. (As I said, I haven’t read it all, but I’m supposing that’s because he was in less than 20 years.) As the report says:
But the Shooter will discover soon enough that when he leaves after sixteen years in the Navy, his body filled with scar tissue, arthritis, tendonitis, eye damage, and blown disks, here is what he gets from his employer and a grateful nation:
Nothing. No pension, no health care, and no protection for himself or his family.
Well, now I don’t have to wonder, because he wrote what he thinks of the latest development in The Wall Street Journal today.
The general thrust of his piece is that the great flaw in the current administration’s justification for its drone program is that it’s based not in the assumption that we are at war with al Qaeda, but on the assumption of so many on the antiwar left that terrorism should be treated as a crime. As he puts it, “the Obama administration is trying to dilute the normal practice of war with law-enforcement methods.” Which means you have to go through extra gyrations of rationalization to order a drone strike.
I’ll let others argue over that. What intrigued me was the ethical question Yoo raised at the very end of his piece:
Rather than capture terrorists—which produces the most valuable intelligence on al Qaeda—Mr. Obama has relied almost exclusively on drone attacks, and he has thereby been able to dodge difficult questions over detention. But those deaths from the sky violate personal liberty far more than the waterboarding of three al Qaeda leaders ever did.
That’s something else I’ve been thinking about: Which is worse, taking someone captive and mistreating him, or killing him?
There’s the related question: Is the killing of our enemies with essentially a deus ex machina from the sky, with no risk to Americans, rather than facing them in battle, the morally preferable course? OK, most Americans would probably say “yes,” to that one, but let’s address the first question: Is killing preferable, morally and ethically, to capturing and torturing?
And no, those aren’t the only two options we have. But that’s the question Yoo posed, and I find it an interesting one.
I knew all these things from following the news, but I was impressed to see them listed together in a WSJ editorial this morning challenging the nomination of Chuck Hagel as SecDef:
In the week since President Obama declared “a decade of war is now ending” at his inauguration, a few things happened.
• Israeli warplanes on Wednesday struck a truck convoy outside Damascus and headed to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, according to news reports, amid concern about the spread of chemical and advanced antiaircraft weapons from convulsive Syria.
• The U.S. commander in Kabul predicted a tough spring of fighting and “an uncertain future” for Afghanistan.
• The French retook northern Mali from Islamist militias.
• Egypt’s military chief warned of the “collapse” of the Arab world’s largest nation.
• China moved ahead with naval exercises around Pacific islands disputed with Japan.
• And the Pentagon announced plans to boost American cyber defenses and set up an air base in north Africa (near Mali, Libya, Algeria, etc.)….
The Journal’s point was to wonder whether Mr. Hagel would be supportive of President Obama’s plans to cut defense spending to a percentage of the U.S. budget not seen since before Pearl Harbor (2.7 percent by 2021, compared to the current 4 percent).
By the way, Hagel’s confirmation hearing has begun, and you can watch it live here. The NYT’s report on the proceedings thus far make it sound like the nominee is doing his best to assuage concerns such as those expressed in the editorial quoted above:
WASHINGTON — Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee to be secretary of defense, on Thursday morning said that the United States must lead other nations in confronting threats, use all tools of American power in protecting its people and “maintain the strongest military in the world.”
In an opening statement at his Senate confirmation hearing, Mr. Hagel presented a broad, forceful endorsement of American military power aimed at answering critics who say he would weaken the United States. He offered strong support for Israel, said he was fully committed to the president’s goal of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and said he would keep up pressure — through Special Operations forces and drones — on terrorist groups in Yemen, Somalia and North Africa.
“I believe, and always have, that America must engage — not retreat — in the world,” Mr. Hagel told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee….
But he’s facing some tough questions, such as one from Sen. Inhofe asking why his nomination has been endorsed by the Iranian foreign ministry:
“I have a difficult enough time with American politics,” Hagel says. “I have no idea.”
As I said before, I didn’t catch all of the president’s speech yesterday, and something rather important got by me:
The WTF moment for me in Obama’s second inaugural address, delivered Monday at noon, was his use of the phrase “peace in our time.” This came during his discussion of foreign policy, and in such circles, that phrase is a synonym for appeasement, especially of Hitler by Neville Chamberlain in September 1938. What signal does his using it send to Iran? I hope he was just using it to jerk Netanyahu’s chain.
I also simply didn’t understand what he meant by “a world without boundaries.” But my immediate thought was, No, right now we need boundaries — like those meant to keep Iran out of Syria and Pakistan out of Afghanistan…
Yikes. You know, there are certain phrases that anyone with an understanding of history would be careful to avoid. Such as “Mistakes were made.” “I am not a crook.” “It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”
And of course, “peace in our time.” What was the thinking on that? Did the president think that his base would like the sound of it, and not understand the profoundly disturbing historical allusion? Hey, it was politically popular when Chamberlain said it, although Britain woke up later.
I just don’t see how a line like that appears in such a formal speech by accident. And no other explanation is excusable.
That’s an association you don’t want. And for another thing, it doesn’t fit well with the president’s ongoing aggressive drone war. That suggests cynicism. As in, the president gave the gift of peace to four al Qaeda militants on Monday…
Oh, and another thing… since when did people who right for Foreign Policy start using such expressions as “WTF”?
As Washington media gather the soundbites on the Obama administration’s nomination of Republican Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense, one of the first gathered is Lindsey Graham’s:
“This is an in-your-face nomination by the president. And it looks like the second term of Barack Obama is going to be an in-your-face term.”
“Chuck Hagel, if confirmed to be the secretary of defense, would be the most antagonistic secretary of defense toward the state of Israel in our nation’s history,” Graham said. “Not only has he said you should directly negotiate with Iran, sanctions won’t work, that Israel should directly negotiate with the Hamas organization, a terrorist group that lobs thousands of rockets into Israel. He also was one of 12 senators who refused to sign a letter to the European Union that Hezbollah should be designated as a terrorist organization.”
Beyond Graham, those Republican senators vocalizing opposition to Hagel include Roger Wicker of Mississippi, John Cornyn of Texas, Ted Cruz of Texas, David Vitter of Louisiana, and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
In the plus column are Democrats Carl Levin of Michigan, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Dianne Feinstein of California, and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia.
After the attack on American diplomats in Benghazi last month, President Obama vowed to hunt down the killers and bring them to justice. There is a good chance that this means that they will be incinerated by missiles fired from drones. If so, the United States will have used drones to kill members of al-Qaida and affiliated groups in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and Libya—six countries in just a few years. Mali may take its turn as the seventh. This startlingly fast spread of drone warfare signifies a revolution in foreign affairs. And, for good or for ill, in an unprecedented way it has transformed the U.S. presidency into the most powerful national office in at least half a century.
A MQ-9 Reaper flies above Creech AFB during a local training mission. (from Wikipedia)
In the past, presidents faced two major obstacles when trying to use force abroad. The first was technological. The available options—troops, naval vessels, or air power—posed significant risks to American military personnel, cost a lot of money, proved effective only under limited conditions, or all of the above. Dead and maimed soldiers, hostages, the massive expense of a large-scale military operation, and backlash from civilian casualties can destroy a presidency, as Vietnam and Iraq showed.
The second obstacle was constitutional. The Constitution includes a clause that gives Congress the power to declare war. Presidents have been able to evade this clause for small wars—those involving only naval or air power, or a small number of troops for a limited period of time. They have mostly felt compelled to seek congressional authorization for large wars, no doubt in part so that they could spread the blame if something went awry.
But drones have changed the calculus. Because they are cheap and do not risk the lives of American soldiers, these weapons remove the technological obstacle to the use of force. And because drone strikes resemble limited air attacks, they seem to fall into the de facto “small wars” exception to the Constitution’s declare-war requirement. Unlike large wars, drone actions do not provoke congressional attention or even much political debate…
The thing is, this isn’t theoretical. This is power that this president is regularly using (in keeping with my thesis that Bush was Sonny Corleone, Obama is Michael).
When was the last time we killed people in six or seven different countries in one year? WWII? Then, even?
And now it’s with no muss, no fuss. Seriously, how many of you could even have named, without prompting, all those countries where we’ve engaged in this kind of warfare? Sort of makes our continuing arguments over the Iraq invasion and Vietnam seem quaint, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s good I look like someone out of the Regency Period while I address such subjects…
Well, Lockheed had another one on USS Yorktown in Charleston, and they managed to wow Rep. Tim Scott:
U.S. REP. TIM SCOTT FLIES F-35 COCKPIT DEMONSTRATOR DURING USS YORKTOWN VISIT
F-35 will serve as a cornerstone of global security and create South Carolina jobs
CHARLESTON, S.C., October 18 – U.S. Rep. Tim Scott, (R-S.C.), today joined local elected officials and community leaders on the USS Yorktown at Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum to receive an update on the Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] F-35 Lightning II program and hear about its contribution to South Carolina, national security, and the U.S. economy.
During his visit, Scott “flew” the F-35 cockpit demonstrator to experience firsthand how advanced stealth, fighter agility and integrated information systems make the F-35 the most capable multi-role fighter in the world. The cockpit is visually and audibly interactive and provides a realistic look at the F- 35’s performance, air-to-air and air-to-ground capabilities, sophisticated sensor fusion and advanced computational capabilities.
“Coming from a military family, I understand and appreciate that American men and women serving in uniform deserve the best technology that this nation can provide. Those that threaten our country are evolving everyday, and it is essential we stay ahead of them.” Scott said. “There is no doubt the fifth generation, multi-role F-35 Lightning II’s ability to defeat sophisticated surface-to-air missiles and enemy fighters in the air and on the ground will allow us to do just that.
“Our military leadership associated with Beaufort Air Station, McEntire Joint National Guard Base, and Shaw Air Force Base has told me clearly and convincingly that these capabilities are critical to defending our freedoms,” Scott added.
Lockheed officials noted that even at its current low rate of production, the F-35 program supports a broad industrial base of more than 1,300 suppliers in 45 states, contributing to more than 133,000 direct and indirect U.S. jobs and over $17.7 billion in direct and indirect annual economic impact. Those numbers are expected to grow as the program ramps up to full rate production over the next few years.
In South Carolina, the F-35 program generates nearly 123 jobs and more than $5 million annually in direct and indirect economic impact. Currently, there are four South Carolina companies supporting the program.
The F-35 is a supersonic multi-role fighter designed to replace a wide range of aging fighter and strike aircraft. Three variants derived from a common design will ensure the F-35 achieves its security mission while staying within strict affordability targets.
Lockheed Martin is developing the F-35 in conjunction with its principal partners, Northrop Grumman [NYSE: NOC] and BAE Systems, and Pratt & Whitney. Among the aircraft F-35 will replace are the A- 10, AV-8B Harrier, F-16, F/A-18, and the United Kingdom’s Harrier GR-7 and Sea Harrier.
Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs about 123,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The Corporation’s net sales for 2011 were $46.5 billion.
The USS Yorktown was commissioned on April 15, 1943, and was one of the preeminent aircraft carriers to serve in the Pacific theater of operations during World War II. In the 1950’s, Yorktown was modified with the addition of an angled deck to better operate jet aircraft. In 1958, the ship was designated an anti-submarine aircraft carrier, and served admirably during the Vietnam conflict. Yorktown was decommissioned in 1970 and placed in reserve. In 1975, the ship was towed from Bayonne, N.J. to Charleston to become the centerpiece of Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum.
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Hey, if I’d had a chance to go try it out, I’d probably think it was pretty cool, too. At a projected $323 billion, this is “the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons program.” In a budget like that, they ought to be able to come up with something better than my old Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator.
Well, my heart beat a bit faster when I saw this headline on an email:
MEDIA ADVISORY – LOCKHEED MARTIN TO DEMONSTRATE F-35 LIGHTNING II CAPABILITIES AT THE CAROLINAS AVIATION MUSEUM; REPORTERS INVITED TO ‘FLY’ THE F-35
… even though I saw the quote marks around “FLY.”
Sure enough, the release says:
Still. I bet that’s a pretty awesome simulator. Way better than my old copy of Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator that I can’t even get to run on Windows 7.
I have to smile, though, at the come-on, given that there will never come a time, in the history of this planet, when anyone would be insane enough to let a reporter — even one who had once been a jet pilot — actually fly an F-35.
If they did, that would be one quick, albeit creative, way of making a $168 million smoking hole in the ground.
I base that on Wikipedia’s estimate of the per-unit cost of the airplane over the life of the program — which it calls “the most expensive defense program ever.” Which is really saying something.
I don’t know about you, but as my Wichita colleague Dennis Boone used to say of such sums, that’s more than I make in a year.
At some point I’ll post something serious today, but I just had to share this, too:
The video shows Ron Bronstein, an enlistee in the Israel Air Force, “shuffling” through the basic training process to the tune of LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem.
In the video, Bronstein dances in the midst of many mundane basic training backdrops that are all too familiar to Israelis who have done military service.
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