Dog Day Afternoon

 
And when you turn on the evening news 
Mass confusion is the only thing you see 
Well there's no question that we need a new direction 
Cause we all could use some peace and harmony 
--Love Will Save the Day, 
Whitney Houston

 You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold
You gotta be wiser, you gotta be hard
You gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm
You gotta stay together 
--Ya Gotta Be,
Des'ree
__________________________

There is a choice. One may make a realistic threat assessment prior to taking a discretionary action (Like the Afghan and Iraqi Wars), or one may leap upon the braggadocio of an adversary who may be acting out of a feeling a threat and call it a legitimate casus belli.

The rational player should realize, if you have an insane adversary, to even reply is an insane act.

In the case of NoKo's Kim Jong-Un, a little sabre-rattling is most probably an adequate response. A display of force, like deploying an aircraft carrier group off of his shores, would allow Kim to save face. He may spin it to his people as he wishes. ("You see how important I am? Just look at their response!")

Instead of President George Bush's schoolyard bully reply ("Bring it on!") to Saddam Hussein, the President may instead choose to ignore the prod of inflammatory rhetoric, not chomping at the bit after every word. Like mothers used to advise when dealing with bullies, "Pay him no never-mind!", or "Like water off a duck's back". "Do not go down to his level." Bullies usually act from fear.

The President could act as a hostage negotiator with Kim. If we take his threat as viable, Mr. Kim is taking the NoKo people and the world hostage. It is important to note, the hostage negotiator cares as much for the dignity and survival of the hostage taker as he does for that of the hostages.

When dealing with various threats, politics is often hostage negotiation at an international level.

Bush disallowed Saddam his dignity; there was no way out for either man. In hostage negotiations one never corners the hostage taker. On an international level, especially when dealing with an autocrat -- and especially in the orient -- the leader should be allowed to save his respect. This all part of the game of realpolitik.

President Trump betrays his campaign platform of non-interference when he engages in tit-for-tat inflammatory rhetoric. He should be curtailed from his trash talk; following in the footsteps of GWB is not winning (as Charley Sheen might say.)

At the end of the day, Kim likes his Emmenthaler, American Basketball and Dennis Rodman. He should be satisfied with the opportunity to wallow in a bit of puffery.

Menage a Trois

--Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,
ISIS leader

 Everything becomes and recurs eternally - escape is impossible!

Supposing we could judge value, what follows?
The idea of recurrence as a selective principle,
in the service of strength (and barbarism!!)
--F. Nietzche

(T)he power to cause pain is the only power that matters,
the power to kill and destroy,
because if you can't kill then you are always subject
to those who can, and nothing and no one
will ever save you 
--Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card 

Why the Egyptian, Arabic, Abyssinian, Choctaw?
Well, what tongue does the wind talk?
 What nationality is a storm?
What country do rains come from?
What color is lightning?
Where does thunder go when it dies?” 

 *   *   * 

You can't act if you don't know.
Acting without knowing takes you right off the cliff.
 --Something Wicked This Way Comes, 
Ray Bradbury 
____________________

President Barack Obama is expected to ask Congress tonight to authorize $500 billion to bolster the moderate militants fighting the Syrian government. These supposed moderates will then be used to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). At least that's the plan. 

But how does one gauge "moderation" in a civil war? Beyond the difficulty of deciding who to support, for the first time in United State's history, the nation is proposing a strategy based upon opposing both sides in a war.

For some reason, the U.S. is dedicated to the destruction of the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, while also opposing his major opponent, ISIS. This strategy ignores what happened the last three times the U.S. deposed dictators. The supposed unholy trinity of Libya, Iraq and Egypt are examples of this folly. Realpolitik would suggest the U.S. is better dealing with the devils it knows rather than those it does not. 

Why is the U.S. opposed to Syria, anyway? What threat originates there that would endanger the U.S. homeland? While ISIS is a dangerous organization, what proof exists beyond emotion and hyperbole that this group is a danger to the U.S.? 

The proposed new strategy lacks a clear objective (beyond smashing people and things from the sky), violating the Principles of War in a big way. The destruction of a government or a group is not a strategy, but at best, Phase #1 of a strategy. 

The key point is: what is the purpose and objective to destroying Syria and ISIS? The U.S. strategy lacks a definable end game.

Meanwhile, a half gallon of milk has risen 20% in one week here in Florida. People are now audibly questioning the steep jack in their grocery bill. Most often heard: "Maybe they don't want us to eat."
But they will manage to find money for flyboys to kill more Arabs; hopefully, they will kill the right ones. But there is the rub -- WHO are the right ones, and by whose metric?

Ranger is more consumed with food prices in his hometown than with the mistaken notion of stopping violence and hatred on the far side of the moon.  

Somewhere, General David Petraeus is asking with a wry smile, "So tell me: How does this end?"

Democracy in Descent

Ya' feelin' alright?
I'm not feelin' too good myself
--Feelin' Alright, Joe Cocker

And I guess we're doing fine,
But there's no escaping our
Spectacular failure
--Spectacular Failures, Just Jack

Ranger Question of the Day:
a book club meeting at local coffee shop was studying,
"Having a Real Relationship with God":
How can one have a relationship with something
that is unreal?
________________

The entire Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) has been sold as an effort to democratize the undemocratizable. Simply put, elections are not the guarantors of a liberal democracy. Think Putin, Chavez, Mussolini, Hitler -- any garden-variety fascist.

The essential question regarding United States foreign policy is, does the U.S. favor stability, or the supposed propagation of democracy? In the past, U.S. security trumped the peddling of a democratic agenda, until President Bush thought to channel Jimmy Carter and deliver democracy to the intransigent Afghanistan and Iraq. However, realpolitik seems to have left the building when recent Middle East elections in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria indicate conservative Islamic fundamentalist winners.

In Egypt's example, the U.S. is footing the shift to a more fundamentalist government to the tune of $1.3 billion per year -- and that country is not remotely dancing to the U.S. tune. So why the effort? As The Week stated, "The Egyptian military might be corrupt, but it has to remain strong enough to keep the Islamists in line" (Chaos in Cairo).

As the PWOT enters its 10th anniversary, poster boy Afghanistan remains at the BOTTOM of a recent survey of transparency in governments, beating out shining beacons of corruption North Korea and Somalia for the privilege (Transparency International). [FWIW, the U.S. came in at #24 -- behind Canada and Qatar, but at least we beat France at #25, which is what matters, right? Hey, democracy's messy business.]

What do We the People want our government to accomplish with our foreign policy? Since we can't vote for what we want, as the promises do not actualize, voting -- the crown jewel of a true democracy -- becomes an act of futility in a democracy in descent.

Last Tuesday:

On Tuesday 60 members of the United States Senate voted to preserve a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act—that would be the bill that funds the Pentagon—allowing the U.S. military to pick up and detain, without charges or trial, anyone suspected of terrorism, including American citizens, and to restrict transfers of prisoners out of Guantanamo Bay. Specifically, 60 senators voted against an amendment that would have invalidated the part of the bill which empowers the president and the military to detain anyone they suspect was involved in the 9/11 attacks or supports al-Qaida, the Taliban, or “associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners” (Military Police State).

The 2012 Defense Appropriations bill is an anti-democracy bill proposing giving the Department of Defense jurisdiction over domestic terrorism, to include suspension of habeas corpus to U.S. citizens. Jose Padilla and Anwar al-Awlaki helped pave the way. How can you export what you don't have?

This is an example of the New U.S. Democracy, which aims to level itself with systems that look somewhat less-than democratic. On paper, it will help bring more nations into the democratic fold, and those who trumpet the loudest for the curtailment of our once-sacred rights will say, "What need have I to be worried about the anti-democratic bills -- I'm not doing anything wrong?" Until, like Pastor Niemoller suggested, they come for you.

The 2012 Defense Appropriations bill is exactly what the U.S. fought in Nazism and Japanese militarism, and what we demonized in Communism with its military primacy over civilian interests.

If the bill becomes law, 235 years of U.S. policy and practice will have belly-flopped into the trash heap of history, next to Cold Fusion and The Great Leap Forward.

Cold Wars

They say in heaven love comes first
We'll make heaven a place on earth
Oooh, heaven is a place on earth
--Heaven is a Place on Earth,
Belinda Carlisle

There is no greater hell
than to be a prisoner of fear
--Ben Johnson

The mind is its own place,
and in itself
Can make a heaven of Hell,
a hell of Heaven
--Paradise Lost, John Milton

Actual advertising slogans:

Citibank:
Where Money Lives
[2009 update: Until We Kill It]

Capital One Bank:
What's In Your Wallet?
[2009 update: We'll Take It!]

_______________

The old Cold Warrior, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has put his hat in the ring, betting against the current U.S. "anti-insurgency" program: "That strategy cannot succeed in Afghanistan" (A Strategy for Afghanistan). But he is not about to give up on the fight.

He recognizes that the Afghan people are dedicated to independence writ small -- on the personal or tribal level, not the national, and he concedes that "no foreign conqueror has ever succeeded in occupying Afghanistan." But he never goes the next step, to question the legitimacy of U.S. involvement. Henry doesn't want to be the one to topple America's iconic Apple Pie and John Wayne images.

The stakes are high. Victory for the Taliban in Afghanistan would give a tremendous shot in the arm to jihadism globally -- threatening Pakistan with jihadist takeover and possibly intensifying terrorism in India, which has the world's third-largest Muslim population. Russia, China and Indonesia, which have all been targets of jihadist Islam, could also be at risk.

Kissinger employs the scary bogeyman words with the conviction of fact. That is what it has come to. However, expert analysis does not hinge on non-operative words.

When he says,"The truism that the war is, in effect, a battle for the hearts and minds of the Afghan population is valid enough in concept," it is like Obama saying to his campaign opponent, "You're likable enough, Hillary." It means, "Not," and we are in the tank with that. Since his hedging belies truth, it is clear that the U.S. lost this war seven years ago.

War is a state of belligerency between two nations, and the shoot-em-ups in Iraq and Afghanistan do not fit that definition. Sorry, Henry, but the phony wars are against the populations of the countries that we are supposedly there to help. You can't kill them and buy their hearts and minds at the same time.

Wanting to be on the good foot with General Petraeus and former Secretary of State Rice, Kissinger says, "the 'clear, hold and build' strategy that had success in Iraq is particularly applicable" is the mountainous regions in Afghanistan which Petraeus targets as the origin of most of that country's military threat. That was a Condi Rice construct fabricated without Department of Defense approval, and Ranger questions its efficacy in Iraq.

Kissinger correctly says success is to be measured by "how [the war] will be ended." Half-time scores are irrelevant.

After discussing Pakistan, Kissinger said, "Other countries, especially our NATO allies, face comparable choices. Symbolically, the participation of NATO partners is significant." Again, he concedes support is thin, but suggests Obama's popularity might "modify these attitudes." How did NATO get a horse in this race? NATO is a defensive alliance that is superannuated since the Warsaw pact is OBE. Gone, gone, gone. NATO, like the U.S. is not an international police force.

Kissinger's final statement is most un-realpolitik:

President Obama said Tuesday night that he "will not allow terrorists to plot against the American people from safe havens halfway around the world." Whatever strategy his team selects needs to be pursued with determination. It is not possible to hedge against failure by half-hearted execution.

Kissinger, along with Obama, must realize that he cannot control the world. Terrorists will continue to plot against the U.S. from safe havens around the globe. The U.S. lacks the military or financial resources to control the actions of the world.

Terrorism is a grim reality of 21st century life, best handled by vigilant police and intelligence partnerships, not military invasions.