If you are calling the Paris attacks “drone strikes with a face,” or
You are talking about other terrorist attacks in Lebanon or Kenya or Iraq, or
You are arguing over whether the Republicans or the Democrats are more to blame for creating this terrorism threat, or
You want to argue about Edward Snowden, or
You are investing your moral firepower to have a meta-conversation about the nature of Islam, or
You think you’ve come up with a plan for killing just the right faction of radicals to stop or deter these kinds of attacks, or
You suggest for a moment that the West doesn’t have the moral legitimacy to defend itself or in any way is getting a measure of justice…
…you need to Shut the Fuck Up, now.
It’s too late to avoid this problem, so the blame game is a diversion of energy. There are lessons to be learned from the past, and they will be learned better by people who aren’t distracted with idiotic efforts to blame them for the decisions of terrorists who shoot up restaurants and concert venues.
This is the result of a civil, sectarian war in the Arab world that cannot be resolved by taking the Sunnis’ side against Assad or taking Assad’s side against the Sunnis. We do not and should not have a preference between Sunnis and Shiites, and we cannot allow our alliances with Sunni nations like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt to lead us into taking a side against the Shiites.
Neither can we just continue to keep this conflict at arm’s length and hope that it can be contained. There is a refugee crisis roiling Europe now, and it just became the mother of all political headaches for European politicians. We can perhaps live with continued bloodshed and chaos in Syria and Iraq (if for no better reason than we have no obvious way of stopping it) but we cannot risk a return to fascism in Europe. If the flood of refugees does not stop, that is exactly what will happen.
If you have no idea what to do, you are not alone. If you’re joining the camp that has no idea what to do but is demanding that something be done, you’re not helping.
If we’re going to solve this, or at least manage it, we’re going to need a coalition of nations committed to resolving the Sunni/Shi’a war, and that’s not the same thing as killing the Sunni fighters in Syria and Iraq. It’s not going to be resolved by toppling Assad or isolating Iran and punishing Russia. This is much more complicated than that.
This is not about drones or imperialism, nor is it about Islam as a religion. Islam isn’t going anywhere, nor is it going to experience some Enlightenment or Reformation next week that will stop the fighting or the flood of refugees. The roughly one billion Muslims who aren’t currently engaged in killing us or each other are part of the solution, not the problem.
What you can do to help is to talk less and listen more. Recognize that our politicians have to take steps to protect the public and to convince the public that these steps are being taken. Recognize that we face a threat not just of terrorism but also of a really right-wing reactionary backlash that could sweep away not just left-wing governments but recognizably conservative ones, too, leaving us with hateful, nationalistic, xenophobic governments both here and in Europe.
Now is not the time to be squabbling over stale political arguments that don’t mean shit in the bigger picture.
Part 3 was worth the wait, thanks.
The refugee thing is now a serious problem in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Slovenia, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, and Serbia. These are 1) the destination countries and 2) the transit countries.
The main issue is the lack of control and checking of any identity documents. That is of course a consequence of Schengen – once you are on EU territory, you are in Schengen, and need no papers.
The Dublin agreement, which was suspended unilaterly by Germany 3 weeks ago, states that the country in which you are a refugee is the first one you register in. Now Germany has reinstated this. And this means that Italy and Greece gets stuck with hundreds of thousands, even millions of refugees. The most southern countries are Montenegro (EU), Italy (EU), and Greece (EU).
Watch the following:
My prediction: Germany is going to have a great reaction over the next week. I predict that Merkel is gone before 2016 shows up. Because in light of the horror in Paris, she has stated, again, that no control on the number of refugees can be placed. And THAT is no longer acceptable.
Nor was it acceptable when she said it. That was just about the dumbest way to handle the situation—just make it worse. She had no idea how Germany would be able to receive and process so many people from a quarter of the way around the world. What was she thinking? It would disappear into thin air, solve itself. Merkel does not run the EU. Her ‘bestet’ friend Junker does. It was their responsibility to protect the Schengen agreement, one of the finest achievements of the EU, not abuse it by hiding behind PC fear and hypocrisy.
What Germany did was put a huge lure out there – unlimited acceptance of migrants, elimination of Dublin restrictions (no need to worry about where you first register), high level of benefits.
Now they have hundreds of thousands, many young men who are now planning on bringing wives and children. Thus, for the 800,000, this may be 2,000,000 after family reunification. In one case, 700 “refugees” were sent to a small town of 125 people.
Since no credentials or passports are checked, we have no idea who is out there. But we have strong evidence that at least one person came through Greece in Oct. If one came, more came.
This is a manmade disaster (in this case woman made). All the EU countries have armies that basically sit on their ass all day long or go out playing war games with US honchos. They could have sent their armies to the outer borders of the Schengen area and have established camps. It’s too late now, I know, so why say it. Well, because the consequences of her incompetence with reverberate for years. This would have discouraged other potential refugees, and the 3 billion euros that will now be poured into the bank accounts of Ankara could have been put to productive purpose inside Europe. All water under the bridge.
Young men who go to Europe because they are fleeing death and danger, but leave their wives and children behind are hardly “men” in my book.
Remittances from wages earned in industrialized countries have played a huge role in the past and continue to do so today for families stuck in dire poverty and need. The strongest, usually young men, are best able to accomplish that are are therefore, the ones designated to go. Of course, labor contractors exploit that intention and many of those men barely earn enough to survive themselves in horrible work/live environments such as exists today in Qatar.
Of course, but we are not told that these are economic refugees. We are told that they fear death and destruction. I cannot conceive of leaving my wife and child behind if there was a a civil war here. If I did, they would be right to forever spit on my name. We all get out or none. In the worse case, they get out but I don’t.
My one great-father on one side and my grandfather on the other came here alone then sent for their families, but their was no fighting back in Italy or Austria. Now, my grandfather was fleeing before the draft, but war had not been declared and he had no reason to think that the fighting was imminent in Hungary and in fact, it never was. The only danger was to him as an eighteen year old male.
You have never had to personally face such a “choice.”
Why do we have to be told that most are fleeing for economic reasons and it’s not simply a matter of saving their own butts by getting out? People get out when they can and when the gates of other countries are less difficult to get through.
As your grandfather fled instead of being drafted, would it be correct to assume that you supported those in the 1960s that fled to Canada?
Yes. In fact I worked with one man who had done that. He had fully intended to live the rest of his life in Canada. Then Jimmy Carter offered amnesty and came back. Another friend was a C.O. and served as a medic, taking chances on getting killed without a weapon. He didn’t want to kill anyone. I never would have done that and regard his courage with awe. Another friend, came here from Italy at age 10 and dropped out of High School. He was drafted as soon as he hit 18 and fought in many battles as a trooper in the 1st Air Cavalry. He rose to Corporal and was busted to Private. After his term of service he threw away his notice to report for the Reserves. I thought of protesting the draft because I beleived it was unconstitutional, but didn’t because I disagreed with those chanting “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh”. So I sat home and waited for the draft letter. It never came because of my lucky birthday.
All different choices. I respect them all. I don’t respect saving one’s skin leaving women and children in danger.
Were you one of the chanters? Well, in those days you wouldn’t be allowed in combat anyway, so it’s moot.
Ho was a good guy. But no — I’m not a chanter. Didn’t participate with my teen peers in screaming and crying over a rock stars either. One should maintain a sense of dignity in either appreciation or opposition.
One thing that got lost in the ’60s is that women, vets, and post-draft age that opposed the war did so out of humanitarian interests. We assumed that our male draft-age peers were fellow travelers. Quite a shock to discover that when it was no longer their butts on the line that they were gung-ho for war.
wrt the draft being unconstitutional. It probably isn’t if everybody had to serve.
Ah, but it wasn’t. Dropouts like my one friend were invariably scooped up. Never heard of the sons on the rich side of our town being drafted either.
Regarding my friend who quit High School and was in heavy fighting with the 1st Air Cav, I saw him at our reunion last year. I knew that he had become a plumber and later started his own shop. He is now retired and doing well. Others from our class, never came home.
Last Wednesday (Veteran’s Day) was tough. I spent it with my brother-in-law who was career and spent three or four tours there. He was having a rough time. Not all the casualties are in a box or wheel chair. A stinking rotten war that didn’t even have the saving grace of ridding a continent of homicidal racists.
they kill the young men of military service age. didn’t you read the story about mother who insists her son leave for Germany because she didn’t want to find him dead on the street in front of her house. he was an archaeology grad student or something
Totally irrelevant. These are SUPPOSED to be fleeing death. But of course they are not. That kid who died and with the picture? The mother couldn’t swim, the family was in a Turkish camp for three years. They are NOT refugees. They were economic migrants. And no one owes economic migrants anything.
And I have NO respect for these Syrian coward men. And don’t get on your fucking high horse about we cannot judge. We can judge. You leave your wife, your mother, your sister in danger, and run like a coward, I have no respect. They all want free education. Well, shit on that shit. ISIS is strong because the Syrian cowards run, run, run.
Syrian means coward to me.
How do you know they aren’t fleeing death? As if being holed up in a refugee camp for years wouldn’t feel like death to many of us.
Considering all the whining by Americans that’s seen when a one-time, one-day natural disaster hits them, it’s the height of arrogance to say that those being subjected to years of bombings and the collapse of prior institutions that made poverty livable and results in being consigned to refugee camps for years should just suck it up and accept their fate.
Other than the natives, those brought here in chains, and the tiny numbers that fled religious prosecution, most Americans today are the descendants of economic migrants. There are also those that collaborated with western colonialists, imperialists, or war machines that did risk death when their patrons lost the effort. However, their collaboration also had an economic element.
You are just wayyyyyy off base. When you are a refugee, you don’t get to choose. And as to the being cooped up in the refugee camp, too fucking bad. Let them get off their lazy coward butts and do something. We don’t have the fucking white man’s burden to wipe their cowardly asses and pat their fucking cowardly noses. It’s pretty fucking arrogant of you to tell us that they are too scared and incompetent to solve their own problems.
God, I simply DESPISE the argument about America. It is stupid, it is arrogant and it is wrong. The Americans got here LEGALLY. They got here when there was a need. This is not the case with the economic migrants in Europe today. So enough with the idiot comments, eh?
60% are not even Syrian. Some are Serbs, like the woman who said her husband beat her, so she was a refugee in Germany. She will be going home, and rightly so. The Afghan whiners are destroying Afghanistan by fleeing.
You should examine your own posts, where you blamed the US for bombing ISIS. You are an apologist for ISIS in a lot of posts.
My ancestors got here without law because Wahunsunacawh and his successors did not have immigration laws.
Bombing DAESH has the unfortunate consequence of also bombing the hostages of DAESH. That should, but apparently does not, make people circumspect about what they desire the US government to do.
When you are a refugee, you are in an international status that is intended to provide refuge from oppression. Consult the UN documents and ICRC documents on refugees.
All of this recent “tough love” shit from liberals is a crock. We used to both know better and behave better before we got greedy and fearful.
Yes, and that is why there are refugee camps in Turkey. The refugees are able to go there. Many have, and the Turks have done what they could.
That kid who was dead and pulled from the surf? His parents had been in a refugee camp. They decided they wanted to go to Canada. At that point, they are not refugees. Refugee status took them to Turkey. Bad judgement took them to the sea, where the wife (now dead) did not want to go as she could not swim. The other kid, also now dead, couldn’t swim either.
No one can stop adults who are economic migrants from making fucking stupid decisions. And that is what is going on – a huge number of people making bad judgements. They are egged on by traffickers, who are making huge money. The traffickers inveigle many to make stupid choices.
Economic migrants, which are a vast majority of the invasion of the EU, have no rights for asylum. Many of them are Serbians, Kosovars, Montenegrans who want German social benefits. Many of the others are Afghans, Iraqis, Nigerians, Eritreans. These do not have refugee status. The Afghans are destroying their country by stripping the adults and young people from the country. This is wrong. The afghans will be going back.
It’s a comforting story about your ancestors. I value mine as well. That has NOTHING to do with today. Today is different. It is not the same as the past. And people who continually bleat about how guilty they are about the crimes of the people they are descended from sound like dingbats, frankly. The past is dead. We live in the present.
Some quotes backing my statements:
From the NYT:
“According to United Nations and European estimates, more than 20 percent of the roughly 500,000 people who have arrived this year via the Mediterranean have been Afghans.”
On the intolerable burden for the Germans (NYT):
“In early October, the district government informed Sumte’s mayor, Christian Fabel, by email that his village of 102 people just over the border in what was once Communist East Germany would take in 1,000 asylum seekers.”
Turkish camps (NYT):
” It is estimated that over 1 million Syrian refugees were being hosted in Turkey as of August 2014, some 217,000 of whom are accommodated in the camps.”
Internal problems in European countries (UNHCR):
“Implementation of the Regional Housing Programme continues in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia, in an attempt to provide sustainable housing for all 74,000 vulnerable refugees, returnees and IDPs from the 1991-1995 conflicts, many of whom continue to reside in inadequate, temporary accommodation or collective centres.” In other words, there are refugees in the FRY countries from 1991-1995 conflict which are still unsettled. Serbs cannot go back to their houses in Croatia, etc. And now Croatia will have to take as many economic migrants? The technical term is “NO FUCKING WAY”.
And since Germany has not reformed its insanely stupid rules about asylum seekers or the granting of free beer to economic migrants, next year there will be just as many. In fact, there will probably be more. And the migrants already here, 80% of which are young men of military age, will want to bring wives, girlfriends, mothers, fathers, and children. The fun has only begun for the Germans.
My guess would be a mix of legit refugees fleeing war/persecution, along with a substantial number of purely economic refugees, with ISIS/AQ no doubt taking advantage of the situation by adding a small percentage of sleeper terrorists.
It’s just too many people fleeing in too short a time frame. So I can understand the concerns of some, not all of them racists and bigots, who fear the massive influx will add to the terrorism problem there and forever change the nature of Europe and not necessarily for the better.
Notice too how our elected officials and high office seekers are rather modest in the numbers they offer (65,000) for refugees to take in here, given the size of our country and the size of our role in creating the crisis. Much more than that, and we’d see a major political firestorm backlash, supplanting the immigration discussion about Mexico.
65K is way too many. Where is Obama getting the money from for these? We don’t owe these folks anything.
What I do support is improving the Turkish refugee camps. I also support a force to stop the hundreds of economic migrant traffickers who are making huge money off human misery. We should set up a trafficker hunting force in Libya, Turkey, Serbia, and Montenegro. A huge number of these economic migrants are encouraged by ridiculous promises of the traffickers.
That Montenegran caught in Bavaria with the car filled with weapons? People like him need to be stopped. I would bet that he is simply a mercenary. Montenegro has a lot of very poor people, Serbia as well, and they are not strongly attuned to the “ethics” of arms or migrant trafficking. They just want the money.
Hopefully the new title “Daesh” for the terrorists will bring clarity in the media in understanding the goals.
I am unclear as to your point. Can you be a little clearer? There are 3 popular acronyms for the group: ISIS, ISIL, DAESH. Why does one improve the situation?
Evidently you haven’t heard of Islamic State.
Yes, ISIS is “Islamic State Syria”. ISIL “Islamic state in the Levant”. Everyone knows that, obviously. Why is DAESH an improvement?
I don’t know. Ask mainsail set, to whom you replied. One name is enough.
First of all, “Daesh” denies their claim to be “Islamic” and to be a “State”. Second, it’s mildly insulting in Arabic.
Daesh actually prohibits people from using the term “Daesh”, which in itself is enough reason to use it.
Well, what does it mean?
Acronym. Islamic Nation of Iraq and (Greater) Syria
Dawlat al-Islāmiyya fī al-Irāq wa’s-Shām
Daesh is an Arabic word meaning ” a group of bigots that impose their will on others”. At least, according to the Internet.
It’s not really new but why do you think it would “bring clarity” as to their goals?
Isis, Isil or Da’ish? What to call militants in Iraq
Sorry, should have been more explicit. Had just read this Vox article and was thinking how useage of the name Daesh instead of ISIL (using ISIL implied ‘state’ and directed us to think of them as a state) actually pisses off the terrorists and better describes who they are. I’m liking that it signals we’re no longer taking their cue for who they are but instead calling them out for what they are.
First, BooMan, condolences on the passing of your brother.
Second, a secular “AMEN!” to this post.
Btw:
The reason I haven’t commented here and at others of my favorite “Libtard” sites, is that I was in the hospital, and then rehab.
Finally, I’m home two months after reconstructive ankle surgery and rehab, and have consistent internet service.
I’ve been reading when I could.
In a lot of pain, still, but healing!
Another two months in a huge metal cast that looks like it was put together by a child with spare Lego parts.
Then, a big boot for 3-4 months.
Then, I can drive again!
YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also, too – thank the FSM for Obamacare and Medicaid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Welcome back to The Pond. Happy to hear you are recuperating. Hope things continue to progress in a positive direction for you.
I hate being ill. I had a rotator cuff done about a year ago, and that is much less that what it sounds like you had. Annoying nonetheless.
Watch the opiates.
I’m glad to you are recovering and feeling better. It is good to see your nym again.
Welcome back, here and at NMMNB, from janicket/Never Ben Better!
It’s great to see you back again!
Thanks, all! ;’-)
As you say the Sunni-Shia conflict must be prioritized before their terrorist proxies are eliminated as virulent threats.
Again, this makes Obama’s (and the P5+1’s) deal with Iran all the more vital. Putting Shia Iran iback nto the forefront of events in the region should clarify Sunni minds in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan.
As Iran’s regional power grows, the Sunni states that have fostered the mostly Sunni extremist terrorist groups that have been attacking the West will have a more urgent target for their power plays.
Paris was just attacked and is talking tough but we are 14 years further down that road and HRC’s admonition during the debate last night (i.e., we have to understand the complexity in the region) is the wisest advice.
Obama’s/Clinton’s/Kerry’s attacks on high-profile terror leaders in Pakistan, Iraq, and Northern Africa is one steady going prong in the best strategy currently available. Getting out of Shia Iran’s way is another prong. And working with allies to forcibly take and create safe zones in the region may be another. But Clinton and Sanders both also made it clear that the Sunni Gulf States (Clinton) and the “Muslim nations” (Bernie) have to be in the forefront of this fight actually fighting the monsters they created.
But whether it’s by Shia aggression or domestic turmoil (or both), corrupt despotic regimes (e.g., the House of Saud, el-Sisi’s dictatorship) eventually have to go. Similarly, over the shortest long-term we can manage, we’ve got to either get the Israelis on the road to peace with the Palestinians or give up unwavering support for what is now an odious apartheid state.
The patience and the long game are key, no matter how much Shock & Awe the simple-minded grifters in the GOTP clamor for.
You sure know how to suck the fun out of a terrorist attack.
I don’t know what has prompted this somewhat intemperate piece. The debate in the US must be going seriously over the top. A repeat of the way over the top response to 9/11?
In Europe I see the response as much more measured. A lot of grief and communal solidarity. A determination not to let ISIS (or whatever you want to call it) set the political agenda or undermine treasured civil liberties.
No doubt there will be an EU wide response in due course…. Greater security cooperation, perhaps a beefing up of Interpol, greater border controls, and controls on refugee numbers.
But hopefully the response will remain measured, humane, rational and practical. We cannot solve the problems of the Middle East, but we can avoid making them worse. There is also no reason why Europe should bear all the fall-out from Middle eastern conflicts, even if we are complicit in the US led wars which have contributed so much to the problems.
In the meantime, improving communal relations within our societies has to be the priority. Lets hope the right wing nationalist extremists can be contained for long enough to allow the situation calm down. No Drama Obama can contribute to this processes. Please keep your GOP extremists at home.
Yeah. 20 more Hungaries.
You write:
In a word?
Yes.
Way over the top.
And it’s headed in that direction in Europe as well.
Watch.
Right wing?
It’s going to be the new centrist.
Watch.
AG
It’s almost as if foreigners had actual agency.
It’s almost as if everything wasn’t blowback.
From time to time I too have had such thoughts… but I lie down, and eventually they pass.
This seems huge and not getting enough attention:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-14/syrian-transition-plan-achieved-by-u-s-allies-kerry-says
Kerry seems to be doing what I’ve been saying: work with Russia and forget about overthrowing Assad. While the US does not appear to be ready to officially forego the goal of overthrowing Assad, they are backburnering it, and working with Russia. Russia, for its part, has been calling for cooperation for weeks. This is a hopeful response.
To be clear, the plan calls for an opposition coalition government, not Assad. But I’m not seeing how the situation lends itself to such a government if Assad, or at least his loyalists, are not included. I therefore think that is in part a fig leaf rather than a plan.
Russia will not agree. Their reputation for supporting their puppets is at stake.
And no, the USA is not equivalent. The USA has a reputation for throwing their puppets under the bus. American foreign policy depends not on standing with their puppets, but on the liberal application of the almighty dollar. The almighty ruble would be a joke.
Now a game where the KGB engineers the assassination of the inconvenient Assad and blames it on ISIS (or the CIA), THAT I could see.
Right now, Russia is sending the message to every tinhorn despot, “Hey! If I play ball with Russia, they will defend me!”
Russia has already agreed to the alliance. They may not agree to replacing Assad, but they would be correct not to, as there is no evidence that any other non-extremist forces are ready to take and hold power. For the record, Russia has stated that they are willing to let Assad go, but I don’t think they mean it or should.
Agreed that the US betrays its allies too readily. The only thing that came of the Egyptian Arab Spring is that the US proved again it will not stand behind its allies. This has consequences that are not obvious, but are quite significant.
“They may not agree to replacing Assad,…”
That was what I meant.
“Already agreed” is right. Russia (former USSR) has been an ally of Syria since 1946, the alliance was made (at first in secret) just BEFORE Syria became an independent country. The Baath Party has been in power since 1963. Hafez al-Assad came to power in a coup in 1970.
I mean they have already agreed to ally with us against ISIS. In fact, they have been calling for this. We have been resisting over Assad.
Because in the US only “lone wolves” assassinate politicians, leaders, and other “inconvenient people” and the CIA and MIC never participate in foreign assassinations (and there’s no “kill list” in the President’s top drawer).
Check, check and check again. No easy answers, except at least getting the US and Russia on the same page, working together to defeat ISIS, per Putin’s recent request, would be a helluva positive step in the right direction. Not only going after ISIS and destroying them, but putting our relations back on a positive footing with the Russkies.
What seems to be holding this up is the Obama admin’s stubborn obsession with ousting Assad. Didn’t we learn anything from ousting strongmen in this region with no good backup plan in place?
Perhaps the Vienna talks will produce a breakthrough in the admin’s stubbornness. Meanwhile that good offer is still out there to work together. And beyond that to destroy ISIS it will likely take a true multinational coalition of troops, not just airpower, and troops from a few countries in the region in addition to Russian, American and western forces. Several hundreds of thousands overall, with the US not in the lead.
Sooner rather than later.
Not really seeing this obsession you refer to.
You’re not?
Really?
Oh.
AG
Where’s the evidence that we’ve done more that give lip service to this idea? That we spent some paltry amount of money on arming rebels? Obsession is a strong word, it’s been clear for years now that neither we nor the Israelis is really too interested in seeing Assad fall to the Daesh.
Where is any so-called “evidence” in this secretive security state in which we now live, Booman?
Yes, “obsession” is a strong word.
What evidence would you accept?
Assad’s ouster?
Who knows why he is still there?
If he were to be toppled, who would know who really pulled the plug?
The Shadow knows.
And he ain’t tellin’.
Bet on it.
it’s classified.
AG
Does any of this mean anything about, like, the real world?
Is anything in this comment in the reality-based discussion?
Or, as the non-late Barney Frank put it, on what planet do you spend the majority of your time?
Both feet on the ground, planet Earth.
Bet on it.
What part of “reality-based” has been the ongoing series of lies that the Obama administration (and the supposedly” part of that administration” SpookWorld in general) has promulgated about its surveillance techniques on innocent U.S. citizens.
What part is the…now that it’s too late…supposed “expose” of how the CIA heroically fought to get the Bush admin to listen to their dire warnings about 9/11 that is hitting the media big time this week?
WTFU.
You “reality-based” world is owned lock, stock and rotten barrel by the controllers.
Get real.
AG
This kind of cockamamie conspiracy nonsense may or may not be true. It has exactly nothing to do with the reality of the last 72 hours. Unless you are stating that the CIA or the Martians or the One-World Fascist Tater Machine pulled off the massacre in Paris?
AG: The American foreign policy sector consists of numerous factions. Some of them are particularly beholden to or enamoured of players that want Assad out. Some of them are not. Obama and Kerry are among the latter, but they have to deal with the former, who are not without influence. And that is kind of how palace politics tends to work here on earth.
Classic narcissism to me. I long ago learned to quickly scan through an AG post dismissing 95% of the phrases regurgitated in every post to get to the fragment of a thought that might be somewhat relevant to the actual subject.
October 2015 Hollande renews call for removing Assad. Not as directly as his September pronouncements, but in line with them and more in line with how Kerry and Obama phrase the goal to oust Assad.
Whaaaaat?
Yes, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head here. We saw the secular regime in Iraq overthrown, leaving a power vacuum for Islamist militants to operate in. Then we saw the secular regime in Libya overthrown, leaving a power vacuum for Islamist militants to operate in. And now we are attempting to overthrow the secular regime in Syria, even though the two dominant factions who will fill the resulting power vacuum are … ISIS and al-Nusra.
Are we a bunch of well-meaning amateurs who through sheer incompetence keep having the misfortune to see our Middle East interventions empower the most extreme elements? Or do we actually want to put those people in power, and it’s all going to plan? What exactly are we trying to do? Do we even know?
A coherent US response to ISIS would begin with an honest discussion around the question: “Why is the United States trying to overthrow the Syrian government, and what US national interest is possibly served by doing that?”
KSA, Qatar, and Israel don’t like Assad for their own and different reasons. As those three as US BFFs, that’s the US interest. Somewhat different “coalition of the willing” that sought the removal of Saddam and Ghaddafi and while what’s been left is worse for most of the people in those countries, it’s better for those that led the charge, although far from the rosy expected outcome.
You left out another very important player that wants Assad out . . . Turkey. I am sure they have been pushing Obama very hard on this.
You write:
Yes.
But…the horses are already well out of the barn; the barn itself is burning ever more fiercely and it threatens to take down the entire village. There is literally nothing that anybody can do that will not in one way or another exacerbate these many interconnected problems.
I know that what iiam about to say is not a popular opinion here, nor is it in most other segments of the political spectrum, but I am going to say it anyway.
If the idea is truly to protect the U.S., the only way to do so is to withdraw from from the fray.
Completely.
Fortress America.
Continued action that resembles the actions of the NATO powers in the Middle East since Bush I invaded Iraq…no matter whether those actions can by some miracle be made both larger and simultaneously more efficient and effective…are simply going to make the current reactions ever larger and more dangerous. Had the U.S. never entered Iraq none of this would be happening now. That effort has torn down our economy, torn down our society and threatens to continue to boil over until it produces a nuclear catastrophe.
The only sane answer to this…given the absolutely clear failure of past tactics…is to stop those tactics!!!
This of course presupposes that the strategic goal behind those tactics was the protection of the U.S. and its allies instead of the ongoing takeover of wealth by elites. I sometimes wonder about that, but no matter either way because the “elites” will have nowhere to hide if a nuclear disaster befalls the world. Even they must be beginning to realize the truth of that statement.
Stop the madness.
Tighten our belts and concentrate of rebuilding the U.S. society and infrastructure.
“Politically impossible,” you say?
Sadly…yes. As long as the media is controlled by Big Corp and Big Corp thinks that it can somehow win an unwinnable war…yes.
Politically impossible.
But it has to be said.
Ross Perot tried to tell us about where neoliberalism was going to take us during the 1992 presidential elections.
He was shouted down.
Ron Paul tried mightily to do the same thing for 20+ years.
He was also shouted down.
And now?
Now? Here we jolly well are, aren’t we.
Cowering under our desks as the world catches fire.
Time for a reboot.
A big one.
Will it happen?
Not under an HRC administration it won’t, nor will it under the administration of anyone else truly in the race on either side. Rand Paul understands but has no position and little talent for the fight. They so non-personed his father that he’s just Nonperson #2. Trump has some good ideas, but he’s an amateur…a demonstrably batshit crazy one in many respects. If he somehow managed to win the presidency the PermaGov pros would eat him up. It’d be like a boastful amateur barfighter going into an MMA cage with 20 highly trained martial artists. They’d eat him up, and all the speeches and rants in the world would make no difference. No chops. No information regarding how to operate the levers of power. None.
So here we are.
I have posted the following several times here recently…an email that I sent to a friend several hours before the Paris attacks…but I am going to post it again because its the only position to which I have been able to come regarding “doing something” about the current state of affairs.
Like I said…be well.
It’s the best that we can do now.
i am about to go out the door to teach some college-level students how to play a difficult musical instrument. Will they have a chance of doing so in the long run? Maybe. Do I have a chance of making it from my Bronx home to downtown Manhattan and back given the current “security issues?’ Yes. Given the ongoing decline of the NYC transportation infrastructure? Yes. But not the same chance(s) that I had 3 or 5 or 10 or 20 or 30 years ago. Not by a long shot. The odds are lengthening. For all of us.
WTFU before it’s too late.
Please.
AG
Now a stand-alone post.
A Modest Proposal: Get The Hell Out Of The Middle East.
Please comment there if you so desire.
AG
I’m looking for that “serious question”. Have I missed something in that long comment?
You write:
Here.
Two.
For starters.
AG
Thanks. Good question.
No, it is not politically impossible, just extremely difficult. There are a lot of debilitating beliefs that covert difficult to impossible.
7, Local politics is not important.
8. There are some public offices that one can ignore voting for. (Katherine Harris comes to mind; so does Kim Davis)
It is impossible only to the extent that we believe that proposition.
But:
1-Money is invincible. Until it’s not. On the evidence of the last several national elections, it has been. Will this change now? Another question.
2-The only way to win an election is through marketing as the society is now set up. Again…on the evidence.
3-“Having the most expensive military in the world is having the the strongest military in the world.” On the evidence of every major war it has fought since WWII? No one really believes that. Those that say they do are either bone-deep stupid or on the hustle. It’s good for slash and burn but in the long run? A failed military.
4-“Bulling your way through is politics.” Very often true. After all, Teddy Roosevelt called the presidency “A bully pulpit,” right? Oh. That’s not what he meant? Oh. Well…we had a bully’s puppet up there during Bush II, right? Close enough. Trump’s bully act is being very successful, especially with the WWE-style “wrestling” crowd. We shall soon see. Won’t we.
5-“Red states mean that everyone within that state is a Republican or should vote Republican so why bother.” This goes to #1. If money is invincible, then it has to be spent wisely to get the most power out of it as possible.
6-“All of life’s choices are between right and wrong and not between right and right and wrong and wrong.” You lost me. Explain, please.
7, “Local politics is not important.” Or…Tip O’Neill’s “All politics is local.” Now that the (
Dis)information age is thoroughly upon us, I’m no longer sure that ol” Tip is still correct.8. “There are some public offices that one can ignore voting for.” Yes indeed. Up to and including the presidency. Given a choice between two PermaGov fronts…why vote?
AG
The purpose of political organizing is to change the evidence. Campaign consultants are not political organizers because they are mostly too lazy and uncreative. Even experience political organizers often get lazy and sell out because political organizing is hard and frustrating; people don’t look for evidence of change, just evidence for not doing anything.
If item #6 is not evident to you, you have either lived a charmed life or you have not perceived most of your mundane decisions accurately. If you want the real long-form version, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics is a great place to start if you have the patience for translated German (or German in the original).
Local politics provides most of the infrastructure services and shapes the commercial environment. Granted, that is much more difficult to deal with in a major city like New York, but for most of the world, it is still true in spite of the information fog.
The greatest possibility for change comes at the local level, which is why, for example, the Koch brothers have targeted local school boards. But in at least two localities, those Koch-fund school boards and the superintendents who rode in with them have been turned out on their ear. Not only is local politics important, it is much easier for organized activists to capture local offices; they are successful to the extent they can maintain people power and their own unity as coalitions.
Choosing between PermaGov fronts is choosing between two sets of PermaGov vetted officials with different temperaments. On lots of important minor items, there will be significant differences that will be important to you as an individual.
It is interesting how much you comment about something you are convinced does not make a difference, AG. What’s with that?
You write:
I think that if enough people realize that their so-called “choices” are indeed not real choices except on a cosmetic level, it will make a difference.
As far as “wrong and wrong”/”right and right” are concerned, I see it more as a continuum from totally right straight on down to totally wrong.
To put it in classic Christian terms…from Heaven to Hell, with all possible stops in between.
This planet is Purgatory. Stuck right smack in the middle. Redemption? Act by act, we climb up the spine of life.
Me?
Born.
Still climbing.
AG
BooMan,
With utmost respect, you acknowledge (and stress) the danger of “really right-wing reactionary backlash that could sweep away not just left-wing governments but recognizably conservative ones, too, leaving us with hateful, nationalistic, xenophobic governments both here and in Europe” — which I applaud your doing — but why don’t you want to regard discussion of American or European culpability as a component of this understanding?
If right-wing Americans (who are among the people you’re concerned with in this plea of yours) can understand the sources of Anti-American and anti-American sentiment in the region (not even condone; just understand), doesn’t that help to diminish their blind, irrational anti-Muslim fury in instances like these?
Those morons can’t even understand who their domestic enemies are and why. Just look at the sickening comments on this sickening puff piece (Warning! It’s an interview with Charles Koch – don’t watch within two hours of eating) http://finance.yahoo.com/news/charles-koch–you-can-call-me–liberal-213100751.html#
I understand, believe me. (It’s a source of constant frustration for me as much as anyone else here.) I’m just bringing it up in the context of BooMan’s admonition at the top of the page.
I mean, I hated George W. Bush as much as anyone else but the one thing he did that legitimately impressed me was when he visited a mosque after 9/11 (and Hillary Clinton just referred to this last night). It was important that he point out that “we’re not at war with Islam.”
By today’s GOP standards that makes him look like Gandhi or Mother Theresa, doesn’t it?
BooMan’s saying that we’re not supposed to talk about what our nations have done to provoke this. And I’m saying, really? Don’t you think we should?
GWB visiting a mosque was a political stunt at home but a signal to his buddies in KSA that he was still on their side and that they should ignore his mention of a crusade.
Agreed, but we’re talking about rhetoric, aren’t we? About gestures?
I mean, there’s an enormous difference between John McCain correcting a woman who said Obama’s a muslim (with, “No, ma’am, no ma’am. He’s a Christian”) and Carly Fiorina in the same situation just shrugging and saying that we’re “going to be making some changes.”
All of these statements are “merely” political. But I was trying to get into BooMan’s argument about constraining the conversation; about how it is or is not appropriate or smart to talk about what it is that makes the Taliban call the Unites States “The Great Satan.”
Bush announced that he would address the nation after 9/11 because “we deserve to know” what’s going on and I had this wild, unreasonable hope that he would actually do that — that he would sit in front of a camera and actually talk about the Saudi royal family and bin Laden and oil and all of it — but, of course, all we got was this fairy tale about how “they hate our freedoms.”
And, the only way to move beyond that is to move beyond it, right? In the public square? Actually discuss what’s really going on without Ted Cruz or BooMan telling us we’re overstepping the bounds of propriety?
The official rhetoric and responses to foreign affairs and terrorist attacks is now as hardened and predictable as what we get with each new US mass shooting. Might as well be “fill in the blank” tweets and official statements. And the public responses are no less derivative or predictable. Although in the US there is the “running off to church” response component that is less prevalent in Europe. Doing anything that’s actually constructive to reduce the frequency and severity of such attacks gets set aside for the rituals and after the rituals, we move on.
Better hope that those bent on mass killings and destruction don’t notice western points of vulnerability during the collective grief stage.
Meant to include that McCain has just a smidgen of old style Republican politician left in his head that correcting that woman fell within his zone of being respectful. Notice the difference in his response and that of Clinton to a question of Obama’s religion. She falls short on conventional, old style Republican respectability and only gets a pass because the new style Republicans are brawlers and never miss an opportunity to attack an opponent regardless of the falsity of a claim.
…but it sounds from this that anyone that’s talking should have shut up. So who are we supposed to listen to? What are we supposed to listen to? Explanations by experts illuminate little, at best. Overall, it’s seemed to me since before Clinton that the one thing the United States (in or out of cooperation with “allies”) has failed to do is less. But according to Martin’s posts here, that isn’t an option either.
So, yeah, I’ll shut the fuck up. I’ll keep reading and listening to the gibberish and ill-informed, shallow analysis and delusions of leaders and pundits echoing back and forth, though they hardly seem qualified they fail so reliably to make progress. Except Hillary of course because not listening to her would be sexist.
Wait for Queen Hillary to tell you what to think.
So basically the sounds of silence?
As the rightwingers everywhere never shut up, silence from others leads to gains by the rightwingers.
I’ve been telling my friends about the other attacks because I want them to understand that the Muslim world is even more victimized by ISIS than the Western world. I want them to understand that the vast majority of refugees are innocent people trying to escape attacks just like this one. How can that possibly be wrong? How can having a clearer understanding of the situation be a bad thing?
Well stated, Booman.
What does BooMan have a blog for if he wants people to shut up?
I think the idea may be this: the blog owner has the choice whether to moderate comments. Of course, moderating comments on a blog that receives a lot of comments would be onerous and endless. Thus I interpret Booman’s remarks as a plea to write thoughtfully, concisely and free of ad hominem attacks. If you cannot respect and go along with those pretty gentle guidelines, then it’s probably time to start your own blog.
I didn’t even take it as applying only to this blog. I understood it as general advice. Good advice, too.
The extra patriotic music for the football games this a.m. gave me additional time to heat my breakfast sandwich in the microwave.
Frank Luntz wants to appropriate “DAESH” (it is an acronym) for his own partisan political uses. Watch for it.
Given its common use outside the US and given its pejorative meaning, I see no reason to calling a political movement a pejorative name. Especially the movement holding Raqaa and Mosul hostage. They are bigots.
Now that that is out of the way, the attack in Paris seems to be a result of successfully containing what June a year ago was a blitzkrieg assault on Iraq. Remember that? But now, the Iraqi army is continuing to clear Ramadi of DAESH fighters. Kurdish forces interdicted the road between Raqaa and Mosul. Shortly before the attack occurred in Paris, US and UK aircraft launched an attack on the compound of the leader of DAESH in Libya (likely in Sirte). Russian and Syrian government action is pushing DAESH eastward out of Aleppo.
DAESH, whose great leap forward was into conventional warfare and state creation has now retreated to asymmetric warfare. There are some concerns with how that unfolds: (1) increased terrorist attacks on the home countries of the countries at the Vienna conference; (2) a relocation of DAESH command from Raqaa and Syria to somewhere else; (3) the use of non-stereotypical special forces (blond-haired, blue-eyed Slavic muslims come to mind) to penetrate Western defenses.
What is apparent is that tens of billions of dollars in IT equipment and systems to capture and store metadata on everyone in the world (supposedly because of encryption) did not provide one actionable warning of an operation originating in Brussels that not only seemingly resulted in the attacck on the TGV train but also in the three teams involved in the Paris attack.
Can we now say, “What a frigging waste of money!”
My own sense after reading a lot of reporting pieces that have surfaced in the past day is that the policy that President Obama put in place and the relationships that he and Secretary of State Kerry developed over the past six months with Iran and Russia are beginning to bear fruit. The naysayers smell potential success and want to scuttle that.
I also think, and maybe it’s just my bias, that the potential Presidential victory of Hillary Clinton concerns enough people to accelerate whatever stabilization was beginning to happen. Someone in the US national security agencies could still throw a spanner, but it seems that Putin (per an interesting secret leak article in Der Spiegel) for one very much wants to get Syria off the table as an issue for the US.
Also, I found this interesting.
Alan Kuperman, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University: Lessons from Libya: How Not to Intervene, September 2013
Our understanding of the role of internet journalism and the hazards of it (thanks Breitbart) have evolved over the past five years. Nonetheless, the internet still seems to be more accurate than the US cable coverage.
Austerity has fueled hyper-nationalistic politics in Europe and the US in a way not seen since the 1930s. The Paris attack excites xenophobia-driven demagogues and the parties that can ride them to election. Le Pen is obvious in France. But it is the European project — remember “Europe whole and free” — that is now being pushed closer to extinction by failing economic policies, devolution (Catalonia, Scotland), and terrorism-driven xenophobia. The failure of the political union represented in the European Union could eventually return armies facing each other within Europe. And all the hopes of the World War II generation for a foundation of peaceful international relationships dies. (And yes, I understand how they sowed the seeds of that destruction in the national security state exactly as they built the external institutions of peace.)
NATO weaponry is interoperable. Isn’t that convenient from a marketing perspective if it ever fractures? Those are some of the consequences of a right-wing reaction that achieves power in US or Europe.
With restraint, reason, and some wisdom, it is possible for the Paris attack to be the closing parenthesis on the era opened by 9/11. Fifteen years is long enough for an era to hang around, isn’t it? And then there’s Afghanistan. There will always be Afghanistan, eh?
Amen to that.
Will the sanctions against Russia now be rescinded?
Ask Vicki Nuland. Likely it’s her call or she goes. Domestic politics can cause strange warping of foreign policy.
Are they still trying to shatter Ukraine?
hasn’t she been de facto demoted already?
If so, it’s temporary. A big promotion in the expect next administration should be expected.
If so, it’s a funny way to demote her by allowing her to keep her position, Asst Secy for Euro etc, and to allow her to testify before Congress recently, where she managed to blame Russia with its entry into the Syrian conflict for the massive recent immigration problem plaguing Europe. She and her cohort one Anne Patterson, probably another neocon leftover from the Bush admin.
Obama needed to clean house at State a long time ago (probably a few other agencies too).
Last I heard (per Stephen Cohen), she and the US Amb to Ukraine were still effectively calling the shots there, almost as if it was a US colony.
do you have a link to the Stephen Cohen? yes, should have cleaned house long ago, but I’m thinking Obama will deal with that situation next.
Nuland was probably discussed in his last John Batchelor appearance. The US colony remark he’s made several times in recent months on that show.
I’m not sure why Obama hasn’t dealt with neocons like Nuland already, unless part of him is simpatico with their views. He no longer has to run for reelection, and is about to enter his final year. It should be clear that Nuland et al have been poisoning the well wrt our relations w/Russia.
But maybe O believes the propaganda. I really don’t understand his attitude. Perhaps he fears a JFK situation …
imo it’s something else; Obama seems to deal out front with one major public crisis at a time and doesn’t fire ppl until the issue is dealt with – for example the Obamacare website. Sebelius “stepped down” immediately after the first enrollment period concluded iirc; Kerry did state that Nuland doesn’t speak for the State Dept [what I referred to as “demoting” her], but Imo it will be sometime in the next months. I accept the interpretation Tarheeldem stated here [maybe it came from Cohen?] that Nuland et al were attempting to derail the direction of Obama’s fp and in my reading of Obama it’s not something he takes lightly, imo destabilizing a region where he’s engaged in constructive negotiations with some of the principals is not Obama’s style at all.
Glenn Greewald
There’s more and it’s a good refresher on how to spot blatant propaganda.
Seems France is giving up on talking and is taking matters on themselves. Airstrikes are underway now in Syria.
Everyone seems to agree ISIS must be defeated. ISIS is straight out of the stone age. How do you defeat that and how much longer does it continue?
Time to set aside differences with Russia and Assad and Iran and defeat the immediate threat.
But bombs dropped by planes, drones, or the guns of boots on the ground, or that bushmaster draped across the chest of some gun nut will stop the young Muslim with a bomb strapped to his body. The terrorist of today has a plan B…they have no intention of being caught alive. They will not be shipped off to Gitmo.
That’s an insult to the Stone Age.
This is the best article I have read on this topic. You are an original thinker, Booman, and I admire your intellect, knowledge, mastery of the writing craft.
○ BREAKING: “12 avions français dont 10 chasseurs ont participé à cette opération en coordination avec Armée US (Défense)”
○ French air force pounds IS group stronghold in Syria, says defence ministry
Posted earlier in my diary – Breaking: Coordinated Paris Terror Attacks Leave 140 Dead.
And now it turns out that there are regional elections in France in 3 weeks. The National Front is going to be very very successful. Right wing parties are going to make big gains in Germany as well. And for this, we have Merkel and her incredible stupidity to thank.
Poland has closed off any cooperation with the resettlement of the economic migrants. Hungary is not cooperating. None of the former communist countries are going to go along with Germany at this point. Denmark is not cooperating. GB is barely on the cooperation side. Sweden has closed off new acceptance of refugees/migrants.
Again, my prediction: Merkel gone by 2016.
Angela Merkel is the only EU leader to demonstrate the ability to respond compassionately to the refugee crisis. This may well reflect her personal history Of living in East Germany. I also wonder how much of Germany’s response reflects the aftermath of the 2nd World War. About 12 to 14 million ethnic Germans were expelled from Central and Eastern European countries between the end of the war and ca. 1950. Most of these people had nothing to do with the Nazi craziness and were from centuries’ old communities. West Germany took in this enormous refugee population.
Yes, I know all that. I had 3rd cousins in that refugee situation, who stayed in DP camps for 10 years, until we met them in W Germany in 1957 or so. I am aware of all that stuff; read “Orderly and Humane” to see a recent discussion of the dreadful mess. Most of those spoke German, most shared values with Germany. I actually believe that it was good for Germany, as it repopulated Germany with huge numbers of people, like my uncle Txx and Fxx who came there in 1944 from Hungary.
That has nothing NOTHING to do with the self-deportation of hundreds of thousands of slackers, free beer lovers, whiners, and other social parasites. There may be a few actual refugees in this human tidal wave of an invasion, but a huge number are simply looking for a better life. That does not make them refugees, and does not make them anyone’s responsibility.
Merkel will be gone. She is trying to have an exit strategy for her career – she wants the Nobel Peace Prize and for that, she is willing to bring the tidal wave of slackers, scum and non-german speaking incompetents to Germany. PEGIDA is growing in strength, and will take over Dresden, Munchen, and many other southern cities pretty soon. Rapes are increasing. Lots of whining from the free beer lovers about how bad the food is, etc.
This is a fucking disaster, and it is Merkel’s fault, along with the ridiculous German guilt complex which I have heard many examples of. They still hold themselves responsible, in at least some places, for WWII. Of course they are, but a guilt complex should not be a suicide pact. German law is currently a pact for national suicide.
“Rapes are increasing. Lots of whining from the free beer lovers about how bad the food is, etc.”
Oh my.
Again, Angela Merkel has been the only EU leader demonstrating compassion for suffering human beings. I guess if that reflects a “ridiculous German guilt complex”, then three cheers for guilt complexes.
Well, in the next 6 months, there are going to be a huge number of bad things happening. In some small towns in Germany of 125, they have been stuck with 700 refugees. The huge costs of this are beginning to sink in. And no one has realized that rents will begin to rise, very quickly, very high. When you have a bunch of slackers taking up all the free apartments, the cost for people who are actually paying money will begin to be much much higher.
Yes, rapes. And more to come.
US, UK, France, Russia from Syria, Quatar, UAE – airstrikes, supposedly on 30-something targets – some reports say in Raqaa area.
Has the International Syria Support Group decided to kill the hostages to get to the kidnappers, or are these airstrikes more focused than that?
The idea of Russia flying in coordination with the US is a major step forward in dealing with DAESH. But Russia (and China) have huge incentives to eliminate the DAESH personnel from their countries now rather than later.
The Paris attacks were personal for me. I spent a sabbatical in France several years ago and have a great fondness for the French people and culture. My family and I once did an apartment swap for 3 weeks with a family living just a few km from the Stade de France, where 3 suicide bombers staged an attack on the 13th. Yes, I know about the unfairness encountered by some French Muslims, but I saw plenty of friendly interactions between white and non-white French in parks and such.
I recommend reading Adam Gopnik’s piece in The New Yorker about the attacks of the 13th. Very thoughtful.
○ Terror Strikes In Paris | The New Yorker |
Sorry for serial comments, but another topic here: refugees.
I am the descendant of Jews who managed to get the hell out of Poland and Ukraine in the early 1920s. My grandparents all had stories of pogroms, marauding armies, and near-starvation. I don’t know if they were officially refugees as opposed to some other class of immigrants, but then I’m not sure that distinction even existed in US law in the early 1920s. From my perspective, my grandparents were certainly refugees.
Anyway, my grandparents’ experience is the reason that I have done volunteer work with refugees in my West Coast city. Specifically, I’ve been an English tutor. It has been rewarding and an eye-opener. My 2nd set of students were all Iraqis, back in 2008. I have no idea which brand of Islam they subscribed to. Nor do I know much about the particulars of how they came to be officially deemed refugees. People in their situation tend to have reasons to be cautious about whom they trust. I do know that one had shrapnel in his body and underwent an operation after getting to the US, another had been shot and wounded by an Iraqi militia of some sort, and all of them had what one might reasonably call PTSD.
I don’t know the details of the benefits that EU countries give to refugees, but in the US, benefits are modest and short-lived. An important task for me as an English tutor to those Iraqis was helping them complete job applications.
I am not blind to the possibility of ISIS smuggling would-be terrorists into Europe or even the US as faux refugees, but I refuse to start demonizing refugees as a class. I’m descended from some.
Finally … archenemies after the Snowden Affair get together to talk geopolitics at the G20 Summit in Antaliya, Turkey. An obvious repeat of the same over two years ago. Both leaders lost in the meantime, moreover so has the option of diplomacy and peace. Fire Vicky Nuland (leftover from VP Cheney) and put Susan Rice on ice!
○ Obama, Putin huddle on Syria | The Hill |
○ Inside the Obama-Putin power huddle | CNN |
Later, the White House released a summary of the Obama-Putin huddle, calling it “constructive” and “centered around ongoing efforts to resolve the conflict in Syria.”
Despite the chasm between them on whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should stay in power, as well as whom Russia should be bombing and not bombing there, the White House said the two agreed “on the need for a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition.” Starting with a ceasefire.
At least Obama isn’t sneering at Putin in that photo. Maybe he’s getting a clue that what Putin’s been saying all along “makes more sense” (one of Obama’s favorite ways to characterize anything he supports) than what the US alliance has been doing.
○ Obama, Putin talk Syria & Ukraine on sidelines of G20 summit | RT |
Obama: “Not the bored kid in the classroom today.” 😉
Syrian as well as all refugees will be welcomed in Europe. Men and families are on the run for terror and war caused by foreign intervention of western powers in the Middle East and turmoil in Africa. Britain at the forefront in war te remove Saddam, Gadaffi and Assad has accepted 126 asykum seekers.
I think its important to pull back and try to get a big picture view of what we’ve been doing in the Obama years. The truth is that our foreign policy is not markedly different from what it was in the Bush years except with a friendlier face.
We are still in the business of regime change and interventions in order to create Western-style governments and Western-style values in societies where they are not yet or ever will be compatible.
You can claim that the WH has not seriously tried to eliminate Assad but you cannot deny that we have helped prolong a civil war and, in doing so, contributed to the refugee crisis.
The only reason that we might actually have some success with the Vienna talks is that Russia decided to step in and save Assad. That singular move blocked years of plotting by the likes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and the neoconservative/R2P elements in the US that dominate foreign policy in both parties.
Now… as far as the Paris attacks go. The example, poor as it may be, is the lesson George Wallace learned in a losing an election in Alabama. No Democrat can afford to be seen as soft or weak on terrorism. This isn’t because Democrats are wrong on the merits but because the media, and their conventional wisdom, generally favor the right-wing narrative. You have to learn to play the game as it is. Elected Democrats know this because they don’t have the luxury of of debating these issues like we do here.
Fingerprints now link the passport to one of the attackers at the Stade. This means that one of the attackers came as a refugee. This is no longer speculative, but definitive. The refugee situation is being used to send attackers to the EU. How many more sleepers are out there?
In your mind, DAESH just won. You would treat all refugees as if they are sleeper cells and discriminate against them because they were muslim and from Syria. That would put no distinction between refugees fleeing DAESH and DAESH, which is the reason they are fleeing — along with fleeing the civil war in Syria. Because there is no distinction in treatment, DAESH can then portray itself as their saving movement or to create despair.
Prior to World War II, there was a refugee ship of Jews that sought asylum. It came to the United States and sailed from New York to Miami without being allowed permission to dock. It returned to Belgium just in time for the Nazi blitzkrieg and transport of Jews to concentration camps.
It is easy to find excuses for not providing relief for refugees. Denying fundamental human rights of thousands is not the way to stop tens of 8-person sleeper cells.
Consider that muslims are essentially ghettoized in Brussels and refugees who go there mix with people who might be as much as third generation and experienced discrimination all their lives. Who radicalizes whom? Who are the trained force from where? Folks are making a whole lot of assumptions, the military and police are making assumptions. You can expect that actions that succeed will fit those assumptions as little as possible.
What has happened is that the Paris attack has succeeded in terror. People are more afraid of refugees in Europe than they are of the risk from the things they most likely will die from.
Equality, prosperity, dignity, and respect turn out to be the best guarantees of safety. It is too bad that politics moves contrary to those principles.
The best way to stop the attacks is to intercept the means and the movement. How do people walk around a city with suicide belts and Kalashnikovs and not get noticed? And what would ordinary people do if the did notice them? These are some hard questions that do not get solved by interning refugees. A number, possibly the majority, of the attackers were not refugees but nationals of Belgium or France, as likely to be native-born as naturalized.
Kind of over the top, eh? No, all refugees need not be stopped. However, all refugees must now be checked. The day of “no papers” to enter Schengen is over, at least I hope so. And the day that the entire population of Nigeria decides that Germany is their preferred locale for free beer consumption is certainly over.
Here is a quote: “Saving Schengen is a race against time and we are determined to win that race. Without effective control on our external borders, the Schengen rules will not survive,” said Donald Tusk (EU President). “Time is running out,” he added later.
And those quotes were prior to the Paris attacks. There will be a much stronger effort to stop arrivals in Greece and Italy. About damn time. If I was in EU, I would set up and arm a trafficker hunting group in Serbia, Libya, and Turkey, and give them a free hand (as free as possible). Because the traffickers are one of the big problems here. People do not get rubber rafts at the Turkish equivalent of 7-11.
“These boys came of age under the disastrous American occupation after 2003, in the chaotic and violent Arab part of Iraq, ruled by the viciously sectarian Shia government of Nouri al-Maliki. Growing up Sunni Arab was no fun…They are children of the occupation, many with missing fathers at crucial periods (through jail, death from execution, or fighting the insurgency), filled with rage against America and their own government.”
http://www.thenation.com/article/what-i-discovered-from-interviewing-isis-prisoners/