Leonard Pitts calls for a war on "ifs."
If.
Two letters long, it is arguably the most fruitless word in the English language, an evocation of paths not taken, possibilities foreclosed, regrets stacked high — and it lies like a pall of smoke over President Obama’s Wednesday-night announcement that this country is returning to war, albeit with air strikes only, in a place we just left behind in 2011 after spending almost nine years, over a trillion dollars and 4,425 lives. ...
If.
As in, if President Bush had concentrated on toppling the Taliban in Afghanistan, which harbored the authors of the terrorist strike we suffered 13 years ago last week, if he had not rushed to judgment, convincing himself Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was behind the attack, if his administration had not used suspect intelligence to claim Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, if we had not bought into the fantasy that we could impose a Jeffersonian democracy on another nation and have them thank us for it, if we had not destabilized the region, if we had never kicked this hornet’s nest, would we now find ourselves obliged to confront the criminal gang that calls itself the Islamic State?
It’s doubtful, to say the least.
Read the rest of Pitt's piece.
The New York Times thinks that there's no easy solution to boots on the ground when it comes to ISIS.
President Obama’s new strategy for routing ISIS, the extremist Sunni group that controls large areas of Iraq and Syria, rests substantially and precariously on having rebels in Syria fight ISIS, even as they battle the forces of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. The plan is full of hope and fraught with obstacles. ...
Groups identified by Western intelligence agencies as the moderate opposition — those that might support democracy and respect human rights — have been weak, divided and without coherent plans or sustained command structures capable of toppling the Assad regime. Today, those so-called moderates are even weaker and more divided; in some cases, their best fighters are hard-line Islamists.
In ruling out sending American combat troops into yet another Muslim country, Mr. Obama’s plan relies on these rebels to serve as ground forces to defend and seize territory after American airstrikes in Syria, for which he needs to seek congressional approval. But training and equipping them will be complicated and risky, and will take months, if not longer. ISIS, which the C.I.A. said Thursday has as many as 31,500 fighters in Iraq and Syria, is already well-equipped and has proved to be stunningly skillful at waging war and seizing territory in both Iraq and Syria.
Note that the Iraqi Army still has over 200,000 men, and just this summer the CIA attributed a similar number to other Shiite forces that had swarmed into the area. The problem is getting those mostly Shiite forces to fight in the mostly Sunni regions where the Sunni ISIS holds its collection of towns and enjoys a measure of local support.
Come inside for other pundits and even other topics...
Colbert King expects Congress to talk tough, and have feet of clay.
President Obama had better take care in his consultations with Congress on plans to combat the Islamic State. Secretary of State John Kerry may be able to assemble a durable coalition of overseas partners to join with U.S. forces. But any congressional buy-in to Obama’s strategy is likely to come in the form of a short-term loan that will get called if the going gets rough.
In tackling the Islamic State, Congress is confronted with two incompatible goals: eliminating the terror group as a threat to U.S. national security and avoiding another major military commitment in the Middle East. Satisfying those opposing imperatives will be Congress’s preoccupation.
The likely stratagem for responding to Obama? A legislative maneuver honed over years: Have it both ways.
Ruth Marcus urges the clay-footers not to duck.
Congress has a duty — to itself and the country — to debate and authorize President Obama’s military campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Failing to do so would be bad practice and a worse precedent.
One long year ago, the president, having announced his intention — and asserted his unilateral authority — to conduct airstrikes against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over his use of chemical weapons, suddenly decided to seek congressional approval after all.
Of course, Obama was promptly rebuffed, saved from humiliation only by the intervention of Russian President Vladimir Putin to broker a deal with Assad. If Obama is now skittish about seeking a congressional okay — well, that’s understandable, if not exactly the high-minded “I’m the president of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy” talk we heard a year ago.
No one ever seems to mention this vote when Congressional leaders are complaining about the speed with which the President has moved.
Anna Fels asks if we all need to do a bit of brain chemistry alternation.
The idea of putting a mind-altering drug in the drinking water is the stuff of sci-fi, terrorist plots and totalitarian governments. Considering the outcry that occurred when putting fluoride in the water was first proposed, one can only imagine the furor that would ensue if such a thing were ever suggested.
The debate, however, is moot. It’s a done deal. Mother Nature has already put a psychotropic drug in the drinking water, and that drug is lithium. Although this fact has been largely ignored for over half a century, it appears to have important medical implications.
... Evidence is slowly accumulating that relatively tiny doses of lithium can have beneficial effects. They appear to decrease suicide rates significantly and may even promote brain health and improve mood.
Lithium shortage may be the scurvy of the mind.
Dana Milbank says that Ferguson has lifted the curtain on a rigged game.
What happened in Ferguson, Mo., last month was a tragedy. What’s on course to happen there next month will be a farce.
October is when a grand jury is expected to decide whether to indict the white police officer, Darren Wilson, who killed an unarmed black teenager by firing at least six bullets into him. It’s a good bet the grand jurors won’t charge him, because all signs indicate that the St. Louis County prosecutor, Robert McCulloch, doesn’t want them to.
The latest evidence that the fix is in came this week from The Post’s Kimberly Kindy and Carol Leonnig, who discovered that McCulloch’s office has declined so far to recommend any charges to the grand jury. Instead, McCulloch’s prosecutors handling the case are taking the highly unusual course of dumping all evidence on the jurors and leaving them to make sense of it.
Ferguson... will not go away if they do this.
Richard Coniff on how we treat the other beings that share our world.
I mostly write about wildlife. So here is how it typically happens for me: A study comes out indicating that species x, y and z are in imminent danger of extinction, or that some major bioregion of the planet is being sucked down into the abyss. And it’s my job to convince people that they should care, even as they are racing to catch the 7:10 train, or wondering if they’ll be able to pay this month’s (or last month’s) rent.
My usual strategy is to trot out a list of ways even the most obscure species can prove unexpectedly, yes, useful. The first effective treatment that turned H.I.V. from a death sentence into a manageable condition? Inspired by the biochemistry of a nondescript Caribbean sponge. The ACE inhibitors that are currently among our most effective treatments for cardiovascular disease (and which have lately been proposed as a treatment for Ebola)? Developed by studying the venom of the fer-de-lance, a deadly snake found from Mexico to northern South America. The new medical bandage that’s gentle enough for the delicate skin of newborns and the elderly? Modeled on the silk of spider webs.
Every time I begin this line of argument, though, I get the queasy feeling that I am perpetuating a fallacy. It’s not that I’m telling lies; ... Without saying so out loud, the argument also implies that animals matter only because they benefit humans, or because just possibly, at some unknowable point in the future, they might benefit humans.
Well, considering how we often put human beings to a similar "usefulness" test, often by bank account, skin color, or luck of location, it's not surprising we stop with
Homo sapiens.
The New York Times editorial board looks at the pounds and pennies behind Scotland's choice.
The supporters of Scottish independence in Thursday’s referendum argue that breaking away from Britain will give Scotland the “powers it needs to build a more prosperous country and a fairer society.” Indeed, separation from Britain would allow the Scottish government, which is generally more liberal on economic and public policies, to set its own course for a society closer to that of a Scandinavian country.
But Scotland will face significant economic risks if it leaves Britain, which it has been a part of for more than 300 years. This will be particularly true if it keeps using the pound as its currency. ...
Scottish independence leaders say the country will continue using the British pound, even after independence. That would be a terrible idea. The euro crisis provides a vivid example of the dangers of a currency union that is not accompanied by a political union.
A nice review of the economic issues, if you haven't followed that angle of this story.