Good Morning!
Sunrise on Topsail Island. March, 2013. Photo by joanneleon.
Sunrise on Topsail Island. March, 2013. Photo by joanneleon.
Sunrise on Topsail Island. March, 2013. Photo by joanneleon.
Sunrise on Topsail Island. March, 2013. Photo by joanneleon.
Barry McGuire - Eve of Destruction
News and Opinion
Obama Marks Iraq War Anniversary with War Summit in Israel
But the limits of American power evidenced in the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan are lost on a president who has overseen the expansion the U.S. drone war from the Swat Valley of Pakistan to the Gulf of Aden and the African Sahel. The man who rode his measured opposition to the Iraq war to the Democratic nomination in 2008 has simply never shown any real aversion to war while serving in the Oval Office. As the president prefers to incessantly intone, “all options are on the table.
It’s thus little wonder to learn that according to “senior American and Israel officials” cited by the Israeli daily Haaretz, “Obama is undergoing a maturation process regarding the possibility that diplomatic efforts aimed at Iran could fail, and he might have to order a strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.” The “U.S. military brass is undergoing a similar process,” the paper adds.
Of course, the Western measure on which diplomacy with Iran is ultimately judged to be a success or not is limited to whether Tehran is brought to its knees. Such a warped view of diplomacy, needless to say, invariably leads to war.
It’s clear, then, that the American defeat in Iraq has done little to deter U.S. imperial dreams in the Middle East. For on a grim anniversary which should have sent the U.S. president on a conciliatory visit to Baghdad with reparations for the Iraqi people, instead sees the president off to Israel to confer with Tel Aviv on the next American war in the Middle East. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
NY Times.
Seeking Lessons From Iraq. But Which Ones?
History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme, Mark Twain once said, and these days Washington is looking for the assonances. The Iraq experience hangs over every major decision Mr. Obama’s foreign policy team grapples with each day. It looms over the daily debate over whether to intervene – with heavy arms or greater covert action – in Syria. And it permeates the discussion about Iran’s nuclear progress, and particularly over whether Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has made a decision to pursue a bomb. (He has not, American intelligence officials said again last week, though the Israelis disagree.)
“We think about Iraq analogies all the time,'’ one senior administration official said. “But I would be lying if I told you there was clear agreement – even inside the administration – about what all those lessons tell you.”
[...]
But the president was willing to tip the balance in favor of the Libyan rebels who were driving Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi from power, over the objections of his former defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, who argued that the United States had no vital national interests in Libya.
Some of Mr. Obama’s current advisers, along with many senior military officers, make a similar argument about Syria, and say the real lesson of Iraq is never to get involved remaking a society that the United States neither understands nor can control.
[...]
But in their more candid moments, some of Mr. Obama’s current and former advisers say they fear “strategic surprise,'’ the discovery that they missed something – a hidden nuclear facility, a decision by political leaders in Iran that they failed to pick up. In short, they fear making the error that worried leaders most before the bitter experience of Iraq.
Andrew Bacevich.
A Letter to Paul Wolfowitz
Although you weren’t going to advertise the point, this unshackling would also contribute to the security of Israel. To Wohlstetter’s five precepts you had added a silent codicil. According to the unwritten sixth precept, Israeli interests and U.S. interests must align. You understood that making Israelis feel safer makes Israel less obstreperous, and that removing the sources of Israeli insecurity makes the harmonizing of U.S. and Israeli policies easier. Israel’s most effective friends are those who work quietly to keep the divergent tendencies in U.S.-Israeli relations from getting out of hand. You have always been such a friend. Preventive war to overthrow an evil dictator was going to elevate the United States to the status of Big Kahuna while also making Israelis feel just a little bit safer. This audacious trifecta describes your conception. And you almost pulled it off.
[...]
What conclusions should we draw from the events that actually occurred, rather than from those you hoped for? In a 2003 Boston Globe interview, Richard Perle called Iraq “the first war that’s been fought in a way that would recognize Albert’s vision for future wars.” So perhaps the problem lies with Albert’s vision.
[...]
Finally, would Albert fail to note that U.S. and Israeli security interests are now rapidly slipping out of sync? The outcome of the Arab Spring remains unknown. But what the United States hopes will emerge from that upheaval in the long run differs considerably from what will serve Israel’s immediate needs.
Given the state of things and our own standing ten years after the start of the Iraq war, what would Albert do? I never met the man (he died in 1997), but my guess is that he wouldn’t flinch from taking on these questions, even if the answers threatened to contradict his own long-held beliefs. Neither should you, Paul. To be sure, whatever you might choose to say, you’ll be vilified, as Robert McNamara was vilified when he broke his long silence and admitted that he’d been “wrong, terribly wrong” about Vietnam. But help us learn the lessons of Iraq so that we might extract from it something of value in return for all the sacrifices made there. Forgive me for saying so, but you owe it to your country.
Yves Smith on Wednesday. She says that the Cypriot threat to leave the Eurozone is not an idle threat. And given the talk about gas deposits and military bases she also speculates about other things that might be a factor, such as Syria.
Cyprus: Will the Mouse That Roared be Gored? (Updated)
Cyprus, as its President Nicos Anastasiades predicted but no one outside Cyprus quite believed would happen, has resoundingly defied the will of the Eurozone in failing to surrender a single Parliamentary vote to a diktat to haircut depositors to save its number two bank, whose failure would in all likelihood bring down Cyprus’s entire banking system. The members of the President’s own party abstained despite his resigned support for the deal. And mind you, this was after the terms revised to allow for deposits under €20,000 to be spared.
The EU was utterly unprepared for this rebellion. [...]
Although I have not seen an official announcement that banks will remain closed beyond their last scheduled opening time of this Thursday, it now appears the new target date is next Tuesday. Cyprus seems to be working on several backup plans in parallel (more on that later): a good bank/bad bank plan, trying to persuade Russia to bail it out, and leaving the Eurozone. Note that it is also working to put capital controls in place; these seem inevitable even if, miraculously, the Russians decide to write a very large check (although those controls might be less restrictive than under other scenarios). But absent a retreat by the Troika (which seems extremely unlikely) or a big Russian bailout (which is also unlikely but less so), it seems difficult to imagine than any other plan could be implemented by next Tuesday (eg, either a bank restructuring or a Euroexit). So considerable dislocation is likely to result, with unknown but potentially serious knock-on effects.
The reaction from Germany was vitriolic. [...] But despite the browbeating, the Germans appear to realize they’ve created a huge problem for themselves. It’s key to understand that this crisis was created by the Troika. Cyprus asked for a bailout nine months ago and the deadline is a bond payment this June. And while it has become fashionable to pin the blame for this mess on Cyprus, the backstory is more complicated.
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And the idea that Cyprus is a hotbed of Russian Mafia money also appears to be exaggerated. This looks to be a combination of a need to scapegoat the latest supplicant to the Trokia plus Anglo-German prejudice against Central and Southern Europe.
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The cynic in me wonders if the crippling Cyprus international banking business is not simply an accidental by-product, but in fact was the motivator for the ambush of the new President. As the Financial Times indicates, legitimate Russian businesses are scrambling to move their deals to other tax haven centers, like Luxembourg. Remember that Russia is funneling arms to Syria. That means paying arms merchants. I would assume it’s harder to move those payments quietly through banking centers in the US or UK banking complexes than one largely outside it (well, you can always use overinvoicing and other tricks, but I assume that is more cumbersome).
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Update 8:30 AM: Ekathimerini apparently reports (the site is busy!) that Russia will buy Laiki for €4 billion. This will put the Troika in an amusing quandary, since they had demanded that Cyprus stump up €5.8 billion but the threat was cutting off Laiki from the ELA. If Russia will now make sure Laiki is solvent, the Troika’s grenade has been disarmed. And for €4 billion plus ongoing support, they might have gotten a handshake on that airbase too. This looks to have been well played, given the circumstances, if the rumor pans out.
Ah, so much for rumors! Like the Gazprom investment story, it has now been denied.
Yves on Thursday morning. Notably, she finds evidence that this seems to have been in the works for months now, maybe six months, and there has been propaganda out there about how Cyrpus = money laundering for Russia, when Cyprus is no more guilty of or vulnerable to money laundering than Germany, for instance. Setting up corporations in Cyprus is akin to setting up corporations in Delaware, apparently. There are laws and treaties that make it favorable. I find the propaganda interesting. Our CIA is not the only Ministry of Truth out there, but it's the gorilla in the room when it comes to international propaganda. Meanwhile our markets don't seem worried about this. Bernanke says it will be "contained". I don't know if he is referring to contagion in Europe or the effect on our system. And if he is referring to Europe, how does he know it will be contained? (unless they plan to open up the banks but lock down any transfers of money between countries, and they might).
ECB to Push Cyprus Over the Brink
During the day yesterday, Eurozone officials made it clear that they would not accept some other ideas that Cyprus had developed to try to shield depositors, such as accessing pensions fund assets, restructuring the two largest banks, and selling its gas rights to Russia. This was deemed unacceptable in that it would increase debt levels. The fallacy, of course, is that the Trokia is unduly obsessed with the numerator of this equation (the borrowings) and not the denominator (the impact on the economy). Cyprus.com estimates the impact of trashing the banking system to be a minimum 20% contraction of GDP in two years. And mind you, this is after Cyprus was a good Eurozone citizen and sent €3 billion to help the Greek government.
The overtures to Russia do not seem to have gone any better. Now it is likely that, since Anastasiades is pro-EU, that the finance minister has only offered up economic assets (the gas field interests and stakes in sick banks) and the Russians have understandably turned up their noses at that as being insufficient relative to the amount of money Cyprus needs to shore up its financial system. And they are no doubt acutely aware of the fact that the Eurozone leaders don’t want Russia involved and could retrade their contribution if Russia provided meaningful support. Prime minister Medvedev took the unusual step of convening a meeting with journalists to express Russia’s unhappiness with how Cyprus had been handled.
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And there are signs the ground for a move against Cyprus was being seeded months ago. [...] In fact, if you look at real money laundering (as opposed to tax avoidance of the sort that Apple, GE, Starbuck, and a horde of multinationals engage in through various jurisdictions), Cyprus gets better marks than Germany from the official Council of Europe body that evaluated anti-money laundering measures (cumbersomely named the Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism, aka MoneyVal). [...] And the propaganda against Cyprus started months ago.
[...]
The people who are behind these articles know better and I noticed this about 6 months ago that the drumbeat of these articles started out of nowhere and just kept repeating “cyprus = money laundering for Russia”.
I'm not sure if this guy writing for Forbes is drawing the conclusion that social democracy doesn't work, or that incompetency is the thing that is destroying Europe's economy. I hope he is only drawing the second conclusion because it's long been known that the design of the EU and the Eurozone was fundamentally flawed.
Cyprus, Russia, And The Decline In Western Competence
[...] From where I sit, unless some visiting EU commissioner becomes patient zero in a global plague, like in Contagion, or if Nicosia is actually where the zombie apocalypse gets started, it’s hard to see how this could have gone any worse. [...]
Perhaps I’m too reductionist in my view of the situation, but I think that “values” were never a very big part of Russia’s attraction to Europe. Rather, what attracted people, was the idea of a materially satisfied, safe, and comfortable life: the sort of life that social democracy seemed uniquely capable of affording. If values were necessary to bring about the wealth, than so be it, but the appeal of Europe was first and foremost a material one.
But now “Europe” is increasingly associated with strangulating austerity, unemployment, and social strife. Even more, it’s associated with basic incompetence of the sort that was recently on display in Cyprus and that has previously been on display in any number of the PIIGS. And this is unfortunate, because even in its weakened and economically stagnant state Europe offers a number of important lessons for a country like Russia, lessons on the rule of law, personal liberties, and the protection of civil rights. But economic performance matters. It matters a lot. While you could very easily get Russians enthused for a European future if “Europe” was functioning properly, it will be very difficult to do so while it is in its presently dysfunctional and economically unstable state.
Senate hearing.
“TIME CHANGE: The Future of Drones in America: Law Enforcement and Privacy Considerations”
Senate Judiciary Committee
Full Committee
DATE: March 20, 2013
TIME: 10:30 AM
ROOM: Dirksen 226
[...]
Witness List
[...]
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 226
10:30 a.m.
Benjamin Miller
Unmanned Aircraft Program Manager, Mesa County Sheriff’s Office
Representative, Airborne Law Enforcement Association
Mesa County, CO
Amie Stepanovich
Director of the Domestic Surveillance Project
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Washington, DC
Michael Toscano
President & CEO
Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International
Arlington, VA
Ryan Calo
Assistant Professor
University of Washington School of Law
Seattle, WA
What Dylan Ratigan is doing...
Putting Our Money Where Our Mouth Is
If you are reading this, you likely know I left a highly-successful, self-titled show at MSNBC last June in search of meaning and purpose in my work and life. I had lost both after 18 years in Manhattan and the chaos surrounding the hollow political debates permeating America's media and politics.
[...]
Since I left MSNBC and Dylanratigan.com last June, I first started working with these inspiring visionary veterans on the phone, and then in person to expand their dream and help turn it into a reality. The process alone has restored meaning and purpose in my life, my health and spirit have taken on a renewed vitality and, because of my time with you, I have had the opportunity and privilege to literally put my money where my mouth is.
Last Fall, I moved from NYC to north San Diego County, just outside of the Camp Pendleton Marine Base, to work full-time with Colin and Karen Archipley at their hydroponic organic farm, "Archi's Acres." After realizing how impressive their ideas and effectiveness are, I decided to invest the money that I earned for writing Greedy Bastards (which when combined with a loan from Whole Foods) to build a 30,000 square foot "farm incubator" that can serve as the prototype for job-creating, water-saving, food-producing, veteran-led hydroponic organic greenhouses nationwide. We've even enlisted Major General Melvin Spiese and his wife Filomena to join us in support of our mission to make this program more diverse and robust enough to build it into a nationwide network.
Our Intention...
Our intention is to create real value and good jobs in countless American communities, by harnessing the power of the 1% of Americans who served in the past decade of war. These high capacity people have already demonstrated their unique ability to be trained and subsequently serve with distinction under most arduous and demanding conditions, and we can leverage those qualities and skills against some of our greatest needs. We have begun redeploying returning veterans and unemployed civilians to US cities, while coordinating with city, state and federal governments to create good jobs providing local, fresh food, reduced energy waste and pollution, improved wellness and rebuild infrastructure.
Moon of Alabama.
Another Syrian Chalabi
Parts of the Syrian exile opposition installed a new leader. That must be the tenth by now. It is again a Muslim Brotherhood guy, but this time one who has not lived in Syria for over 30 years. But that will not matter. His American and Qatari handlers will certainly tell him "what the Syrians want".
Russia believes that the U.S. has gone insane.
What Russia Learned
From the Iraq War
The conclusions drawn by Putin from the situation surrounding Iraq were concerned less with Russian-American relations, and more with general idea of how the world works in the twenty-first century. The strong do what they want: they don't contemplate international law, global reality or the costs incurred by themselves and others. The only rational way of behaving in such a world is to increase one’s own power and capabilities, so that one can fight back and exert pressure, if necessary. Consolidation of potential — in every sense — is the secret of success. One may consider it a coincidence that the case against Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the owner of Russia's largest oil company, Yukos, began immediately after the American intervention in Iraq. There were plenty of clear internal motives, but the external context was conducive to the case. Putin believed that the time had come to take all strategic assets under state control and prevent encroachment by global competitors. (The idea that the Iraq war was waged over oil is commonly accepted in Russia.)
In the 10 years since the Iraq war, Putin's worldview has only strengthened and expanded. Now he believes that the strong not only do what they want, but also fail to understand what they do. From Russian leadership's point of view, the Iraq War now looks like the beginning of the accelerated destruction of regional and global stability, undermining the last principles of sustainable world order. Everything that's happened since — including flirting with Islamists during the Arab Spring, U.S. policies in Libya and its current policies in Syria — serve as evidence of strategic insanity that has taken over the last remaining superpower.
Russia’s persistence on the Syrian issue is the product of this perception. The issue is not sympathy for Syria's dictator, nor commercial interests, nor naval bases in Tartus. Moscow is certain that if continued crushing of secular authoritarian regimes is allowed because America and the West support “democracy,” it will lead to such destabilization that will overwhelm all, including Russia. It's therefore necessary for Russia to resist, especially as the West and the United States themselves experience increasing doubts.
The Iraq War: Who Got It Right
Here are a few of the people who criticized the invasion of Iraq, even as they risked their careers and reputations to do so. (And here are the folks who got it wrong.)
Tyler Drumheller
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Knight Ridder Newspapers
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Al Gore
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Walter Pincus, Dana Milbank and Maureen Dowd
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Jimmy Carter
[more...]
Blog Posts and Tweets of Interest
Evening Blues
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son