The Editorial Board of The New York Times reiterates what we all have known for a long time, Republicans want to be the party of Mindlessly Gutting Food Stamps:
Instead of providing aid for the hungry, House Republicans want to reduce the food stamp program — the most basic part of the social safety net — with $40 billion in cuts across the next decade. A showdown vote over this cruel plan is expected this month. The House majority leader, Eric Cantor, is leading a propaganda drive that invokes reform as its cause while blaming the victims of hunger simply because the food stamp rolls had to double to nearly 48 million people in the crunch of recession.
The Cantor plan would force an estimated four to six million people to lose the food stamps that now sustain them. It would invite state governments to ratchet benefits back further because they could use savings wrenched from the pantries of the poor for various other programs, including tax cuts. The measure’s “work requirements” provide no job training funds yet mandate that able-bodied, childless adults who cannot find at least part-time employment will lose their food stamps after 90 days, even if the local unemployment rate is prohibitively high.
Stephen J. Hadley, one of the so-called "Vulcans" of the George W. Bush administration and the guy whose assertions about Iraqi attempts to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger were among fabrications used to promote the invasion of Iraq writes at the
Washington Post that not bombing Syria is a bad idea because
To stop Iran, Obama must enforce red lines with Assad:
Every American committed to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon should urge Congress to grant President Obama authority to use military force against the Assad regime in Syria.
The inauguration of Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s new president, offers some hope of a diplomatic settlement that eliminates the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. But Rouhani will need the approval of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who has made confrontation with the United States the centerpiece of his rule. Only internal pressure and the threat of U.S. military action will cause Khamenei to accept a nuclear deal. That is why Presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton have emphasized that all options — including the use of military force — are on the table.
William Greider at
The Nation writes—
The New Goliath:
Nobody knows, of course, but it is conceivable this war of confusion could evolve into a stunning historical shift—the moment when militarism and the military-industrial complex begin to lose their iron grip on US politics. The arms industry still dominates the domestic economy and will remain influential when good jobs are still scarce. In past wars, whenever Americans were sent to fight abroad, the people quickly rallied ’round the flag. Popular patriotism soars in wartime. Only after bitter losses accumulate do people begin to turn against the war and want out.
This time feels different. People generally are already antiwar. The high-minded Goliath devoted to defending global peace is now preoccupied with crippling domestic weaknesses. This is new ground for the world’s only superpower—unlike anything that has faced Washington since its triumphant role in World War II. Governing authorities, if they are wise, ought to recognize the longstanding political order is now highly vulnerable and back away before there are explosive reactions. Yet it is not easy for either the president or Congress to accept strategic retreat from the nation’s bloated ambition to run the world. Ultimately, these adjustments cannot be avoided but they can also not be achieved without producing humiliation and recrimination for the country.
Peter Galbraith, former ambassador to Croatia, one of the revealers of Saddam Hussein's gassing of Iraqi Kurds and an advocate of a partitioned Iraq and Kurdish independence, writes at the
Los Angeles Times A dilemma for Syria's minorities:
Twenty-five years ago this month, I led a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff mission that went along the entire Iraqi-Turkish border documenting the use of chemical weapons against Iraq's Kurds. These are horrific weapons, and their use demands a response.
But the United States should be cautious about a strategy involving military support, including airstrikes and arms supplies, to a Syrian opposition that has neither the ability nor the inclination to reach out to Syria's minorities. Such a strategy is not likely to succeed and, more important, we may not want it to succeed.
The Editorial Board of Haaretz writes
The impure alliance between officials and settlement construction:
The world views the construction of settlements, the expansion of existing settlements and the establishment of illegal outposts as violations of international law and deserving of punishment. The European Union’s formal resolutions against products originating in the settlements, together with the decisions of private companies in Europe not to participate in Israeli projects in the territories, including East Jerusalem, are evidence of a new trend that could damage the Israeli economy within the Green Line as well. But while the settlements stand as a visible bulwark against any peace agreement, the symbiotic relationship between the government and the “producers of the settlements” on the ground, and the manner in which decisions for their expansion are made, remains hidden.
Brian Beutler at
Salon writes—
Stop pretending you know how Congress will vote on Syria!:
The real numbers are actually only slightly “better” — if you tally up the “nos” and “lean nos,” we’re right at the cusp of 218 — the magic number war opponents need to hit to kill the authorization.
But here are a couple of caveats:
1) Lumping those numbers together is a clever way to create the illusion that the authorization is doomed before it’s been finalized — but it’s also BS.
2) Even if you ignore the inflationary effect of lumping like this, unofficial whip counts are a very poor way to determine what Congress will do, wants to do, can do or will attempt.
If outside whip counts had much merit, every Obamacare exchange in the country would feature a public option today.
John Judis at
The New Republic writes—
John Kerry Says Syria's Moderate Rebels Are Rising. Here Is Why You Should Be Skeptical:
I think that anyone reading these different accounts has to admit to confusion and to be skeptical of the administration’s contention that “the opposition has increasingly become more defined by its moderation.” If the administration to going to make its case over the next days for a military strike, it needs to take this into account. If it is going to argue that its purpose is not only to enforce a norm against the use of chemical weapons, but to aid in Assad’s overthrow, it has to lay out a credible scenario by which that could happen without ceding parts of Syria to groups allied to the perpetrators of September 11. They have yet to do so.
Stephen R. Weissmann at
In These Times writes—
We Don’t Have to Bomb Syria—Believe it or not, there are other options for dealing with the current crisis.:
The only positive in the planned strikes is that they may make the Syrian regime and others think twice before launching any new chemical attacks—at least until they reach a stage of military desperation. But there are alternative diplomatic steps that, taken together, would be more effective in preventing Syrians (including rebel extremists) and others from using chemical weapons. These steps also have a better chance than air strikes of advancing the United States' prime security interests: dampening down the spreading extremist violence in the region, diminishing the chemical weapons threat and improving U.S. relations with the new Iranian leadership and President Putin’s Russia. They even chart a path to bringing the terrible conflict in the region to an end.
Binoy Kampmark at
Dissident Voice writes—
Munich, Syria, and Intervention:
Kerry suggests that to not intervene would be worse than doing so. He uses the imagery of the cartoon gangster, coupled with historical bad men who are animated by similar traits. After all, he has compared Syria’s Bashar al-Assad with Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler, suggesting that three is not a crowd in the manner chemical weapons were used.
He does not give a sense about what that would mean for the UN system, presumably on the premise that the policeman’s self-appointed duties must be discharged, and that they do not lie in the remit of the Security Council. Furthermore, Chapter VII of the Charter, one that gives the Security Council the authority to conduct such interventions, is a dead letter when it comes to the occasional humanitarian apoplexy the U.S.-led political establishment feels. At the heart of many a vigilante is the desire to be noble. Besides, that vigilante’s citizens won’t suffer too much – there will be no “boots on the ground”.
Lawrence Kudlow at the
New York Sun writes—
A No Vote on Syria May Cripple Obama's Domestic Agenda Too:
A congressional defeat on Syria might well be catastrophic for American credibility, as Sens. John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham suggest and as Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor echo in the House. Everybody seems to know this except the president.
It's a very bad situation in and of itself. But spillover effects into economic and fiscal affairs will make it worse.
For example, take Friday's jobs report. It came in well below expectations. In fact, it looks like the pace of job creation is slowing, meaning there will be no second-half economic upturn.