Month: August 2013

With the Justice Department’s new relaxed attitude about pot, marijuana has entered into a quasi-illegal status at the federal level. I applaud this decision, but I don’t like this ambiguity that I am seeing more and more where the DOJ decides it is going to ignore or simply not enforce the law. We saw it with the refusal to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court; we saw it with the immigrant DREAMers, and we’re seeing it now with marijuana laws.

I agree with these things from outcome point of view, but it shows how are country’s divisions are starting to fray our legal system.

Also, Gitmo.

The Republicans’ allergy to the 50th anniversary of the I Have a Dream speech commemoration, and particularly to the unreconstructed liberals who spoke at the commemoration, really is quite telling. It shows just how far the party has moved away from its 1960’s incarnation. In some abstract way, mainstream Republicans wanted to honor Dr. King’s most magnificent speech, even to the point of falsely claiming King as a member of their party. But, confronted with people who sounded a lot like the speakers who appeared that day fifty years ago, they felt that the whole thing was being politicized. Well, if you don’t like the politics of the Civil Rights Era and it’s leaders and proponents, then why commemorate them? Why not condemn them?

But to ask people to take the politics of social justice out of the commemoration is to try to appropriate to yourself something that doesn’t belong to you.

British Prime Minister David Cameron took his case against the Assad regime to the House of Commons and was met with a rather rude reception.

The UK Parliament will later vote on whether to back the principle of military intervention, but the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Ed Miliband, has said MPs should not have to decide on what he called an “artificial timetable”.

Speaking in the Commons, he insisted any UK action should be based on the principle that “evidence should precede decision; not decision precede evidence”.

“I do not rule out supporting the prime minister,” Mr Miliband added. “But I believe he has to make a better case than he did today on this question.”

The debate in parliament was spirited and skeptical. But the main problem was the lack of evidence, with Cameron conceding, “Let’s not pretend there is one smoking piece of intelligence that can solve the whole problem.” Rather than a smoking gun, Cameron laid out a circumstantial case based on the Joint Intelligence Committee’s assessment (pdf). And, to put it bluntly, the assessment was poorly supported and relied on what we call in philosophy a logical fallacy called “begging the question.”

Here, the question is “who perpetrated the chemical attack on August 21st?” Cameron spent considerable time trying to prove that any attack had occurred at all, pointing to the plethora of YouTube evidence and the testimony of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) that thousands of people were treated who exhibited symptoms consistent with a chemical attack.

He argued the scale of the attack was large, that the regime had carried out 14 previous small-scale chemical attacks (who knew?), that we know that the regime has chemical weapons, and that we have no evidence that the rebels do. He argued that the fact the regime was attacking the area with conventional weapons at the time is evidence that they must be responsible for the non-conventional weapons. Finally, he relied on the following excerpt from the assessment:

It is being claimed, including by the regime, that the attacks were either faked or undertaken by the Syrian Armed Opposition. We have tested this assertion using a wide range of intelligence and open sources, and invited HMG and outside experts to help us establish whether such a thing is possible. There is no credible intelligence or other evidence to substantiate the claims or the possession of CW by the opposition. The JIC has therefore concluded that there are no plausible alternative scenarios to regime responsibility.

We also have a limited but growing body of intelligence which supports the judgement that the regime was responsible for the attacks and that they were conducted to help clear the Opposition from strategic parts of Damascus. Some of this intelligence is highly sensitive but you have had access to it all.

This is not enough. It begs the question.

It argues that the rebels did not carry out the attack because they could not have carried out the attack. But their argument is limited to the fact that they have no evidence that the rebels had access to a chemical agent that hasn’t even been positively identified, yet.

The problem is that the rebels quite possibly did have access to chemical weapons (including, potentially, sarin), as the Russians have alleged for months, an allegation made even more likely by revelations reported by the BBC in June that al-Qaeda in Iraq was making chemical weapons. In any case, the world is asking a question, and the response is that there is no question.

Furthermore, the question of motive is not addressed. The rebels had the motive, but the regime did not. If this were a murder case, we’d be prosecutors who have no murder weapon and no motive, who are relying simply on opportunity (the suspect could have done it) and a process of elimination that hasn’t eliminated another prime suspect who did have a motive.

Granted, they wave classified information in front of us as buttressing their case, but they won’t let the public see it.

This is not even close to good enough.

British Prime Minister David Cameron took his case against the Assad regime to the House of Parliament and was met with a rather rude reception.

The UK Parliament will later vote on whether to back the principle of military intervention, but the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Ed Miliband, has said MPs should not have to decide on what he called an “artificial timetable”.

Speaking in the Commons, he insisted any UK action should be based on the principle that “evidence should precede decision; not decision precede evidence”.

“I do not rule out supporting the prime minister,” Mr Miliband added. “But I believe he has to make a better case than he did today on this question.”

The debate in parliament was spirited and skeptical. But the main problem was the lack of evidence, with Cameron conceding, “Let’s not pretend there is one smoking piece of intelligence that can solve the whole problem.” Rather than a smoking gun, Cameron laid out a circumstantial case based on the Joint Intelligence Committee’s assessment (pdf). And, to put it bluntly, the assessment was poorly supported and relied on what we call in philosophy a logical fallacy called “begging the question.”

Here, the question is “who perpetrated the chemical attack on August 21st?” Cameron spent considerable time trying to prove that any attack had occurred at all, pointing to the plethora of YouTube evidence and the testimony of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) that thousands of people were treated who exhibited symptoms consistent with a chemical attack.

He argued the scale of the attack was large, that the regime had carried out 14 previous small-scale chemical attacks (who knew?), that we know that the regime has chemical weapons, and that we have no evidence that the rebels do. He argued that the fact the regime was attacking the area with conventional weapons at the time is evidence that they must be responsible for the non-conventional weapons. Finally, he relied on the following excerpt from the assessment:

It is being claimed, including by the regime, that the attacks were either faked or undertaken by the Syrian Armed Opposition. We have tested this assertion using a wide range of intelligence and open sources, and invited HMG and outside experts to help us establish whether such a thing is possible. There is no credible intelligence or other evidence to substantiate the claims or the possession of CW by the opposition. The JIC has therefore concluded that there are no plausible alternative scenarios to regime responsibility.

We also have a limited but growing body of intelligence which supports the judgement that the regime was responsible for the attacks and that they were conducted to help clear the Opposition from strategic parts of Damascus. Some of this intelligence is highly sensitive but you have had access to it all.

This is not enough. It begs the question.

It argues that the rebels did not carry out the attack because they could not have carried out the attack. But their argument is limited to the fact that they have no evidence that the rebels had access to a chemical agent that hasn’t even been positively identified, yet.

The problem is that the rebels quite possibly did have access to chemical weapons, as the Russians have alleged for months.

Tom Corbett has been a terrible governor here in Pennsylvania, but the odd thing is that almost everyone seems willing to acknowledge that he’s been terrible. If you move over to Ohio, John Kasich has been no better, but he at least gets some good press. Not that I hang with too many of them, but I don’t even hear Republicans defending Corbett.

Maybe he’s just not likable, but he hasn’t engendered much loyalty. The polls bear this out, with only 38% of Republicans currently saying that he deserves to be reelected. Considering that only 22% of independents and 7% of Democrats support his reelection, he’s basically a dead parrot. The upcoming shenanigans on the budget and debt ceiling from Washington Republicans are only going to further tarnish the GOP brand in this blue state, so there isn’t any relief for Corbett on the horizon.

In fact, Governor Corbett’s weakness is so stark, that it is enticing more Democrats to consider entering the race. Former State Auditor Jack Wagner, a moderate who got more votes than Obama in 2008, is sensing an opportunity and may make a bid. But, for now, Rep. Allyson Schwartz looks like the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. If elected, she would be the first woman to govern the Keystone State, and the first challenger to beat an incumbent governor since 1974. Also, since 1938, Pennsylvania gubernatorial voters have chosen against the president’s party 18 out of 19 times.

However, none of those statistics carry as much weight as Corbett’s leaden personality.

For obvious reasons, everyone is talking today (on it’s 50th anniversary), about Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech. But I thought you would enjoy an excerpt from a different speech. This speech was delivered at the National Labor Leadership Assembly for Peace in November 1967.

Now what are some of the domestic consequences of the war in Vietnam? It has made the Great Society a myth and replaced it with a troubled and confused society. The war has strengthened domestic reaction. It has given the extreme right, the anti-labor, anti-Negro, and anti-humanistic forces a weapon of spurious patriotism to galvanize its supporters into reaching for power, right up to the White House. It hopes to use national frustration to take control and restore the America of social insecurity and power for the privileged. When a Hollywood performer [ed. Ronald Reagan], lacking distinction even as an actor can become a leading war hawk candidate for the Presidency, only the irrationalities induced by a war psychosis can explain such a melancholy turn of events. [Applause]

The war in Vietnam has produced a shameful order of priorities in which the decay, squalor and pollution of the cities are neglected. And even though 70% of our population now live in them the war has smothered, and nearly extinguished the beginnings of progress toward racial justice. The war has created the bizarre spectacle of armed forces of the United States fighting in ghetto streets in America while they are fighting in jungles in Asia. The war has so increased Negro frustration and despair that urban outbreaks are now an ugly feature of the American scene. How can the Administration, with quivering anger, denounce the violence of ghetto Negroes when it has given an example of violence in Asia that shocks the world. [Applause]

Something to think about.

I wish that I was able to believe anyone on this Syria thing, but the truth is that I trust no one anymore. Who has credibility?

Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari, added a new level of complexity to the issue on Wednesday, announcing that he had submitted evidence of three previously unreported instances of chemical weapons use in Syria, which he asserted had been carried out by Syrian insurgents. Mr. Jaafari said the Syrian government had requested that the United Nations investigators expand their inquiry to include those events as well, which could lengthen their stay in the country.

Mr. Jaafari said the new instances occurred on Aug. 22, 24 and 25, and were also in the Damascus suburbs. He said Syrian soldiers were the targets. The ambassador did not explain why he was only now bringing forth the allegations, which critics were likely to view as a stalling exercise.

Mr. Jaafari repeated the Syrian government’s denials that it had ever used chemical weapons in the conflict and said the accusations were a conspiracy by Western nations acting on Israel’s behalf. He rejected assertions by the United States, Britain and other Western allies that there was persuasive evidence of Syrian government culpability in the use of the banned weapons.

“We are not warmongers,” he told reporters outside the Security Council chambers. “We are a peaceful nation seeking stability. The Syria government is totally innocent of these accusations.”

I don’t believe Mr. Jaafari. But I don’t believe my own government either.

That’s a sad state of affairs.

I take a special satisfaction whenever I see state-level Republicans have to swallow their own b.s. and pass the Medicaid expansion provided for in the Affordable Care Act. The Michigan Senate even had to break their version of the Hastert Rule to get it done. That’s exquisite.

The Arab League isn’t endorsing any kind of military reprisals in Syria, and neither are most Arabs:

The vast majority of Arabs are emotionally opposed to any Western military action in the region no matter how humanitarian the cause, and no Arab nation or leader has publicly endorsed such a step, even in countries like the Persian Gulf monarchies whose diplomats for months have privately urged the West to step in. In the region, only Turkey has pledged to support intervention.

Behind the scenes at least two closely allied Arab heavyweights, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, may be split over which enemy poses the greater immediate threat to their regional interests: the Sunni Islamists who dominate the Syrian rebels, or the Shiite Iranian backers of Mr. Assad.

The Arab League, a regional diplomatic forum that has already expelled Mr. Assad’s government, said in its statement that it holds “the Syrian regime responsible for this heinous crime,” but the statement also appeared to suggest that the specific “perpetrators” were not yet known and should be brought to international justice.

Yup. Not much support for the Do Something Caucus. Not abroad. Not on the left among the president’s supporters. Not with the public at large.

I can’t believe how stupid our foreign policy elites really are. I’m not going to argue that they have any good or easy choices, but Jesus:

A wide range of officials characterized the action under consideration as “limited,” perhaps lasting no more than one or two days. The attacks, which are expected to involve scores of Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from American destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, would not be focused on chemical weapons storage sites, which would risk an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe and could open up the sites to raids by militants, officials said.

Yes, definitely wise not to explode a bunch of chemical weapons to prevent the explosion of a bunch of chemical weapons. Kudos for that. But “scores” of tomahawk missiles over, at most, two days, is going to do what? We even know, roughly, the upper limit of how many missiles we can fire. We have four destroyers in the region along with an unknown number of nuclear submarines. Each destroyer has about 24 tomahawks. The submarines carry a couple more. So, we’re probably talking about 100 strikes overall. How much firepower is that?

Weapons experts said that Tomahawk missile strikes, while politically and psychologically significant, could have a limited tactical effect. The weapons are largely fuel and guidance systems and carry relatively small high-explosive warheads. One conventional version contains about 260 pounds of explosives and another version carries about 370 pounds. Each is less than the explosive power of a single 1,000-pound air-dropped bomb.

We’re talking about spending about 100 million dollars in ordinance alone to make 100 small explosions, and what do we hope to accomplish with those 100 small explosions?

The strikes would instead be aimed at military units that have carried out chemical attacks, the headquarters overseeing the effort and the rockets and artillery that have launched the attacks, according to the options being reviewed within the administration.

An American official said that the initial target lists included fewer than 50 sites, including air bases where Syria’s Russian-made attack helicopters are deployed. The list includes command and control centers as well as a variety of conventional military targets.

So, now we not only know that the Assad regime definitely carried out the chemical attacks, but we know which units are responsible. If true, can the NSA or whoever please provide some concrete evidence? If they’re targeting approximately 50 targets, they have basically two missiles per target. That’s not enough targets to do anything about artillery and it’s not enough missiles per target to take out an airfield filled with attack helicopters or destroy a military compound.

So, we hit them with this ticky-tack tomahawk onslaught that does basically nothing to their ability to use chemical weapons, does almost nothing to ground their air capability, does nothing to turn the tide of the war, and then we sit back and do what?

Does it ever occur to anyone that when your official policy is regime change and you are openly weaponizing the opposition, that you can’t plausibly, or sanely, fire 100 missiles at a country and then just stop? Or that, if the problem is a willingness and capability and record of using chemical weapons, you have to at least eliminate the problem before you stop? Or that attacking the regime without significantly setting back the regime’s standing in the war will allow the regime to boast about standing up to a great power and actually embolden them to be more defiant? Or that we don’t gain more loyal allies by making ineffectual symbolic statements to promote human rights that they don’t care about and that don’t actually help them?

This is the problem with the Do Something Caucus. They don’t want to do anything for a very good reason, but they still feel like something must be done. So they are going to do something stupid that will probably make things worse and quickly force us to do what we quite wisely didn’t want to do in the first place.

But, okay, you’re going to do something. You only have 100 small bombs to do it with. I say, blow up 100 houses belonging to the Assad family and their highest and most trusted associates. If they’re at home, good. If they’re not at home, well, now they’re homeless. Target the assholes. Destroy their property. Make them pay.

But, first, prove that they did it. Prove that they did it, and realize that, in war, the enemy has the ability to fight back. So, if you’re going to escalate, accomplish your goals. The way we talk about this, it’s like we have a helpless patient tied to a gurney and we can choose any instrument of torture we want to torment them with without worrying for a moment that the patient might find a way to break his bonds and turn us into a corpse.

For the most part, we’ve been following a prudent course with Syria. That is about to change.