Month: August 2012

President Obama this week defined his “red line” for the Syria conflict, warning that if the Syrian government’s chemical and biological weapons are moved around or utilized, this would “change” his “calculus,” which has so far been to abstain from any direct military intervention inside Syria. But the administration’s current interventions are already unwarranted…at least those we know about.

This “red line” announcement was probably more bluster than actual policy for two reasons. First, as the New York Times pointed out yesterday, “Obama did not explicitly threaten a military response in the event of a chemical weapons attack.” But also, the Assad regime is extremely unlikely to use any of these kind of WMD weapons: the Syrian Foreign Ministry vowed in late July that its stockpile of chemical weapons would only be used against armies attempting to invade or intervene to topple the regime. They said they would “never, never be used against the Syrian people or civilians during this crisis, under any circumstances.” Their word counts for something in this case, since the regime’s aim is to quell and mollify the conflict while retaining power, not to worsen it and broaden the international appeal for intervention and thereby undermine the regime’s hold on power.

But the same factors that have convinced the Obama administration to hold off on a bombing campaign or military invasion would still hold even in the unlikely event that Obama’s “red line” is crossed. New York Times:

Despite President Obama’s warning to Syria not to use its arsenal of chemical weapons or allow them to fall into the hands of extremists, the administration’s options for intervening remain limited by what its officials have described as a simple calculus: It would make the conflict even worse.

American military operations against Syria, officials reiterated on Tuesday, would risk drawing in Syria’s patrons, principally Iran and Russia, at a much greater level than they already are involved. It would allow Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, to rally popular sentiment against the West and embolden Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups now fighting the Assad government to turn their attention to what they would see as another American crusade in the Arab world.

…The administration has also ruled out providing arms to the rebels for broadly the same reason: more weapons, the officials say, would probably make the war only worse.

First of all, the Obama administration has sidestepped responsibility for arming the rebels by inducing weapons deliveries from client states like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey. This is an age-old trick. When the Reagan administration armed Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in its 1980s conflict with Iran, they prevailed upon allies in France, Italy, and the Gulf Arab states to do the direct arming – even though it was mostly with American-made arms. It’s true that Obama has all but ruled out direct intervention with the US military – and everyone is better off because of it – but to say he isn’t arming the rebels is to ignore the obvious. For all the administration’s cautious reluctance for another US war in the Middle East, they’re actively engaging in behavior they themselves warn against in the pages of the New York Times.

Secondly, my own view is that the Obama administration probably has an expansive covert policy on Syria in place. Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, agrees that “Covert ops [are] ongoing.” This is one of the most secretive administrations in recent memory and the situation in Syria is extraordinarily sensitive and precarious. The notion that Obama is holding off in the clandestine realm of policy is not really credible. Again, this has all the reasons for not intervening attached to it, but if it’s done in secret, the administration can avoid taking responsibility for its actions.

In the wake of the Sikh temple massacre by a US Army soldier earlier this month, news that warrior racists are infiltrating America’s armed forces:

They call it ‘rahowa’ – short for racial holy war – and they are preparing for it by joining the ranks of the world’s fiercest fighting machine, the U.S. military.

White supremacists, neo-Nazis and skinhead groups encourage followers to enlist in the Army and Marine Corps to acquire the skills to overthrow what some call the ZOG – the Zionist Occupation Government. Get in, get trained and get out to brace for the coming race war.

…A 2008 report commissioned by the Justice Department found half of all right-wing extremists in the United States had military experience.

This should at least slightly alter America’s collective ideology of soldier worship. While the populace fiercely retains notions that US soldiers are fundamentally good, deserve automatic praise and sympathy, and are fighting for liberty and democracy – the reality appears much different.

Instead of joining the military to spread benevolent doctrines of freedom and human rights, many are joining in order to carry out what they themselves apparently refer to as a “racial holy war” to fight non-white minorities and Jews. “I went into the Marine Corps for one specific reason: I would learn how shoot,’ former Marine T.J. Leyden, who openly supports neo-nazi groups and used to hang a giant swastika from his locker, told Reuters. “I also learned how to use C-4 [explosives], blow things up.”

Leyden and Wade Page, who shot up the Sikh temple, are not likely representative of most of the military, but their examples certainly poke holes in how Americans are supposed to feel about their brave men and women in uniform. Recent FBI investigations found that “Gang members have been reported in every branch of the U.S. military,” constituting “a significant criminal threat.” As of April 2011, the FBI has “identified members of at least 53 gangs whose members have served in or are affiliated with U.S. military,” including the Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings, MS-13, the Aryan Brotherhood, and many more.

Other ugly facts about those in the military, other than the fact that they make a commitment to kill on the orders of politicians in Washington, like the rampant sexual abuse taking place of late, tend to get in the way of Americans’ white-washed view of Washington’s freedom fighters. In 2008, an estimated 41 percent of all the women serving in the military were victims of sexual assault, a problem Rep. Jane Harman called “an epidemic.” In a January 2012 Pentagon report on “rape, sexual assault, and forcible sodomy” in the military, it was found that these crimes have increased 64 percent since 2006, although most of them go unreported. Sexual assault and rape are among the most derided crimes in society, but Americans seem to view criticizing soldiers or the army as a whole as a higher crime.

“Since the disappearance of the Soviet Union,” writes James Dobbins at RAND Corp., “China has become America’s default adversary, the power against which the United States measures itself militarily, at least when there is no more proximate enemy in sight.”

I know what you’re thinking: What has China ever done to us? What villainous offense have they committed to our well-being or our interests? It can’t possibly be the case that China is our “default adversary” just because the Soviet Union is gone, can it?

Well, yes it can. As Colin Powell, former Secretary of State and retired four-star general, said about the fall of the Soviet Union, Washington was remorseful that we “lost our best enemy.” The system – the “whole structure,” Powell explained, “depended on there being a Soviet Union that might attack us.” He said Mikhail Gorbachev sat across the table from him at the time and said apologetically “Ah, General, I’m sorry, you’ll have to find a new enemy.”

When people in Washington and their surrogates in the mass media punditry crow about our other trumped up threat, they at least have a laundry list of alleged transgressions. You know the list: they support terrorism, they want to wipe Israel off the map, they’re secretly building nuclear weapons, they killed US soldiers invading and occupying neighboring Iraq, etc. With China, there is no such list. China’s mere existence as anything other than a vassal state is the major transgression. As James Holmes has written in the National Interest, China “presents the sternest ‘anti-access’ challenge of any prospective antagonist.” In other words, they resist US interventionism and military presence. China is gaining power and influence, which ought to be solely American prerogatives, as far as Washington is concerned.

This is the reasoning behind President Obama’s strategic shift into Asia-Pacific, announced by the administration last year. This so-called ‘Asia pivot’ is an aggressive policy that involves surging American military presence throughout the region – in the Philippines, Japan, Australia, Guam, South Korea, Singapore, etc. – and backing basically all of China’s rivals.

More than that, the Pentagon is drawing up new plans to prepare for an air and sea war in Asia. “As part of the Air-Sea Battle concept,” reports Military.com, the US is refurbishing old WWII bases, looking “to disperse its air forces stationed at its handful of major bases in the western Pacific in the event of a major conflict with China.”

The idea is to have enough US bases peppered throughout the region so that China would be too surrounded to safely attack. “Doing so would make it more difficult for China to wipe out entire squadrons sitting on the ground with surprise attacks from its long range ballistic missiles.”

Chinese officials have not appreciated this unprovoked bellicosity. In May the Chinese Defense Ministry accused the Pentagon of hyping a Chinese military threat out of thin air. Others have said these Pentagon moves could start an arms race. “If the U.S. military develops Air-Sea Battle to deal with the [People’s Liberation Army], the PLA will be forced to develop anti-Air-Sea Battle,” one officer, Col. Gaoyue Fan, said last year in a debate sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Some Asia analysts worry that conventional strikes aimed at China could spark a nuclear war,” according to the Washington Post. Other “critics see a dangerous tendency toward alarmism that is exaggerating the China threat to drive up defense spending.”

“While China’s overall military capabilities will not equal those of the United States anytime soon,” Dobbins puzzlingly warns, “it will more quickly achieve local superiority in its immediate neighborhood, first in and around Taiwan and then at somewhat greater distances.”

In consequence, the direct defense of contested assets in that region will become progressively more difficult, eventually approaching impossible. The United States will therefore become increasingly dependent on escalatory options for defense and retaliatory capabilities for deterrence. American nuclear superiority is not likely to be much help in this regard, both because China will retain a second-strike capability and because the issues at stake in most potential crises are not of vital consequence to the United States.

So, even though China’s “local superiority” has effects that “are not of vital consequence to the United States,” it’s important that we rely on “escalatory” military options to prevent it from happening? Dobbins then suggests strategies, which are already being carried out:

One means of improving the prospects for direct defense and reducing the risk of escalation is for the United States to enable the capabilities and buttress the resolve of China’s neighbors. Such a strategy should not be—or be seen—as a U.S. attempt to encircle or align the region against China, lest it produce greater Chinese hostility.

Except that it is producing greater hostility from China. A recent report from the CSIS predicted that next year “could see a shift in Chinese foreign policy based on the new leadership’s judgment that it must respond to a US strategy that seeks to prevent China’s reemergence as a great power.”

“Signs of a potential harsh reaction are already detectable,” the report said. “The US Asia pivot has triggered an outpouring of anti-American sentiment in China that will increase pressure on China’s incoming leadership to stand up to the United States. Nationalistic voices are calling for military countermeasures to the bolstering of America’s military posture in the region and the new US defense strategic guidelines.”

There is no reason to pick a fight with China, whether it induces conventional warfare or a new Cold War. China hasn’t harmed our interests or our security. Washington just wants to flex its muscles and prove that it still represents the greatest mafia among all the world’s mafias.

Julian Assange’s successful bid for asylum in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London and the British threats to raid the embassy bring about some interesting questions about the history of being granted asylum inside an embassy.

The 1961 Vienna Convention theoretically renders embassy soil inviolable, while a 1980’s British law allows the British government to attack embassies under certain conditions. This rather odd contradiction is the result of parliament’s reaction to the 1984 killing of Yvonne Fletcher, a British policewoman shot by someone inside the Libyan Embassy who was firing at protesters. British forces surrounded but didn’t raid the embassy, and Libyan forces did the same to the British embassy in Tripoli. The end result was the expulsion of the Libyan embassy staff and the temporary end of diplomatic ties with Libya.

Despite parliament legalizing raids on embassies against the country’s will, such operations haven’t been carried out in this circumstance and the consequences are unclear at best.

The United States doesn’t officially grant in-embassy asylum anymore, but it did in 1956 when Hungarian Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty fled to the embassy after a failed anti-Soviet revolution. Mindszenty lived in the US embassy in Budapest for 15 years, unable to leave the embassy until 1971, when the Vatican compromised with the Communist Hungarian regime and he was allowed to flee into exile.

The asylum grant was a serious hassle for the US embassy, as the Hungarian government refused to allow them to expand during his stay and he reportedly took up considerable space. Other attempts to secure asylum in US embassies, including one high profile effort by a community of Siberian Christians who fled to the Moscow Embassy in 1963, have been rejected and Mindszenty remains a “special case.”

The US State Department insists that the asylum bid has nothing to do with the US and that it doesn’t intend to get involved. Rep. Eliot Engel (D – NY), however, claimed that Ecuador’s granting of asylum to Assange was an effort to spite the United States.

Former British Ambassador Oliver Miles seemed to be citing the Mindszenty stalemate with respect to Assange today when he asked if “Assange and the Ecuadoreans have the stomach for 15 years of co-habitation.”

From Foreign Affairs:

According to UN investigations, in 2011, extremist settlers launched almost 300 attacks on Palestinian property, causing over 100 Palestinian casualties and destroying or damaging about 10,000 trees of Palestinian farmers. The UN has also reported that violent incidents against Palestinians have proliferated, rising from 200 attacks in 2009 to over 400 in 2011. The spike in assaults on Palestinians by settlers has come despite the fact that over the same period, Palestinian terrorism fell dramatically.

…The Israeli government does not support or condone settler violence, but it has failed to adequately combat it. Soldiers have been known to look on as violence occurs, and they sometimes do not aggressively seek the perpetrators after the fact. According to Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization, of 781 incidents of settler abuse monitored since 2005, Israeli authorities closed the cases on over 90 percent of them without indictment.

Perhaps there is an argument to be made that the fact that Israeli authorities systematically ignore and pardon settler violence doesn’t necessarily equate “support” for it. But that is a weak argument. And it’s even weaker when you consider that Israeli policy purposely incentivizes Israelis to live in the West Bank. Under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘s policies over the last three years tens of thousands more Israelis have moved into the West Bank, causing the Jewish population in Palestinian territory to increase by 18 percent to more than 342,000 at the end of 2011. Israeli spending on these illegal settlements has hit a two-decade high of $1.1 billion. This, while Tel Aviv is well aware of the rise in settler violence.

That certainly sounds like support to me.