War on the cheap leads to eternal war

By Frank Moraes

As I say quite a lot, in many ways, I am a conservative. There are two kinds of conservatives in the world. Imagine you are trying to sleep and your next door neighbour is having a party. If you are the kind of conservative that has now taken over the Republican Party, you are waiting for the slightest sound so they can make angry phone calls, pound on the neighbour’s door, or call the cops. If you are my kind of conservative you just want to live and let live. And this is not just because I don’t like confrontations. In general, people should be allowed to live their lives unless doing so is really infringing on my doing the same. It is probably not hard to see how I managed to be a libertarian for so long.

Daniel Larison at The American Conservative — like most of the staff there when it comes to foreign policy — is my kind of conservative. He highlighted an interview that John Kasich had with Hugh Hewitt. In it, Kasich says a number of things that are wrong, and dangerous. And they all show that despite his reputation, Kasich is just your typical Republican. Well, just like with conservatives, there are two kinds of Republicans when it comes to foreign policy. There are those who want to go to war everywhere and there are those who just want to fund and supply arms to some faction everywhere in the world.

Larison refers to the first kind of Republicans as “expensive hawks” and the Kasich kind as “cheap hawks.” And I don’t think he means that just in the sense that expensive hawks cost the nation more money than the cheap hawks. There is definitely the sense — which I share — that the cheap hawks get their policy on the cheap. It is easier to make war everywhere if there aren’t dead American soldiers and grieving American families. This is a big problem with drone warfare. There isn’t a political price to pay for this foreign policy adventurism. So I would much rather deal with the expensive hawks, because at least they are being upfront about what they want to do.

One of Larison’s great insights about Kasich — and by extension, all the hawks — is that the policies that he’s for will not further the goals he claims to have. “Kasich wants to create the impression that he wants to maintain stability, but everything he recommends doing here is necessarily destabilizing.” As we knew well before the Iraq War, but should be crystal clear since, overthrowing dictators — while potentially good — is hugely destabilizing. To go back to my party analogy, sending weapons to insurgents is like thinking that you are going to make your neighbor’s party quieter by having a few cases of beer delivered.

Of course, other than being a whole lot smarter and less inclined to go everywhere, the Democratic Party is filled with cheap hawks as well. I have been happy that Obama has limited our engagements. But where he hasn’t — most especially in terms of drone warfare — he is cheap hawk all the way. And we are the worse for it. At least as the Iraq War dragged on, people started talking about it. Almost no one in the mainstream media talks about the drone strikes, except when something “notable” happens like an American getting killed. Drone strikes and funding rebels is a very cheap approach to war indeed.

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)

Republican #47Traitors changing their tune on Iran letter

By Michael J.W. Stickings

First there was defiance (based in cynicism, ideological righteousness, and warmongering gusto):

Angry Democrats on Tuesday excoriated the open letter sent to Iran's leadership warning about a nuclear agreement with President Obama, but the 47 Republicans who signed it remained defiant and unapologetic, saying the president should have seen their opposition coming.

(Yes, that is a problem. Basically, you -- especially if you're the president -- should always assume that Republicans will try to block everything you do, that what is basically the opposition party will really be the party of obstructionism and disloyalty. It's been like that since the beginning. President Obama knows that. At the same time, I'm not sure you can anticipate that Republican opposition will actually be, or at least border on, treason. Then again, maybe you can, and should.)

Then, facing widespread criticism (you know, because treason), there was lots and lots of backpedaling:

Behind the scenes, Republicans are wondering if sending an open letter to Iran's leaders was the best strategy to keep a bad nuclear deal from being negotiated...

[E]ven among Republicans whose offices have signed the letter, there is some trepidation that the Iran letter injects partisanship into the Iran negotiations, shifting the narrative from the content of the deal to whether Republicans are unfairly trying to undercut the president.

And then there were the excuses, specifically this one:

Republican aides were taken aback by what they thought was a light-hearted attempt to signal to Iran and the public that Congress should have a role in the ongoing nuclear discussions. Two GOP aides separately described their letter as a "cheeky" reminder of the Congressional branch's prerogatives.

"The administration has no sense of humor when it comes to how weakly they have been handling these negotiations," said a top GOP Senate aide.

Ha, so cheeky! Undermining the president of the United States in one of the most important foreign policy matters of our time. Basically trying to sabotage negotiations that could finally resolve the long-standing Iranian nuclear issue. (And I'm not letting anti-deal Democrats off the hook either. Their Republican-lite opposition is similarly counter-productive.)

So... fucking... hilarious.

Actually, these are going on simultaneously. The public message is defiance, but the pathetic excuses are coming out as well, like trial balloons, to try to defuse what has become a disastrous episode for Republicans.

Because, you know, treason. Fucking treason.

Which isn't funny. Not funny at all.

Obama's cautious pragmatism is the best approach for dealing with Syria and ISIS

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There's a lot of talk today, the Friday before a long weekend, about President Obama's remark that "we don't have a strategy yet" regarding ISIS and the deteriorating situation in Syria and Iraq. The remark has identified as a "gaffe" by the press, Republicans jumped all over it (because they'll do or say anything to score political points at the president's expense), and the White House has gone into damage-control mode (because of course).

Now, to be sure, it was an inartful way of explaining the situation. The president was clearly talking about what to do about ISIS, not broadly about the region, but that hardly came across clearly. But it makes sense not to know quite what to do at this point. It's easy to be an armchair militarist like John McCain or Bill Kristol, much harder to the one who has to make the tough decisions, decisions that will result in significant loss of life, particularly when there are no clear answers to a problem that in and of itself is difficult to understand. How far do you go in dealing militarily with ISIS? Do you put troops on the ground? Do you rely solely on airstrikes, or on airstrikes with support for allies on the ground? But, then, who are those allies? ISIS is at war with Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime, but that regime is hardly an American ally. Does the U.S. really want to get into yet another protracted war in Iraq, one with no clear outcomes? And what would airstrikes against ISIS accomplish anyway, particularly without clear allies on the ground?

And so on, and so on.

At a time like this, as most times, caution is a virtue, and President Obama's cautiousness, which very much defines who he is and how he governs, stands in stark, pragmatic contrast to the "bomb bomb bomb" recklessness of Republicans. Besides, it's not like the president has been soft on America's enemies -- just consider the extra-judicial drone war that he has been waging against various threats throughout the Middle East. Indeed, as Peter Beinart writes at The Atlantic, and I think he's right on this, President Obama is both a hawk and a dove, or neither, or somewhere in between: 

So was Obama more dovish than Clinton or more hawkish? The answer is both. On the one hand, Obama has shown a deep reluctance to use military force to try to solve Middle Eastern problems that don't directly threaten American lives. He's proved more open to a diplomatic compromise over Iran's nuclear program than many on Capitol Hill because he’s more reticent about going to war with Tehran. He's been reluctant to arm Syria's rebels or bomb Basher al-Assad because he doesn't want to get sucked into that country's civil war. After initially giving David Petraeus and company the yellow light to pursue an expanded counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, he's wound down America's ground war against the Taliban. Even on Libya, he proved more reluctant to intervene than the leaders of Britain and France.

On the other hand, he's proven ferocious about using military force to kill suspected terrorists. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, he's basically adopted the policy Joe Biden proposed at the start of his administration: Don't focus on fighting the Taliban on the ground, since they don't really threaten the United States. Just bomb the hell out al-Qaeda from the air. Compared with George W. Bush, he's dramatically expanded drone strikes, even though they're unilateral, legally dubious, and morally disturbing. And, as promised, he sent special forces to kill Osama bin Laden without Pakistan's permission, even though his vice president and secretary of defense feared the risks were too high. When it comes to the Middle East, in other words, Obama is neither a dove nor a hawk. He's a fierce minimalist.

A minimalist. A cautious pragmatist, I'd say. And therein lies his strategy for dealing with the region, with ISIS, and with other such problems facing the United States, and indeed his strategy for dealing with pretty much everything. It's not good enough for Republicans, but, then, nothing he does is ever good enough for Republicans. And it's not really good enough for the media either, because it's not a clear, simplistic strategy, or, rather, not a clear, simplistic worldview. In contrast to the "bomb first, think later, if ever" approach preferred by McCain, Kristol, and their ilk, as well as to the "America as global hegemon" worldview espoused by Kristol and his neocon ilk and embraced by the likes of Dick Cheney, President Obama's approach is really the only approach that makes sense, and that could actually produce positive, lasting results, given the crazy state of the world today, given the challenges the country faces, given the complexities of the problems in places like Iraq and Syria.

No, you don't get that rush of bloodlust that comes with, and underpins, right-wing militarism, and you don't get that sense of purity that comes with pacifism and/or isolationism, nor the perceived, and self-deceiving, moral clarity that comes with any sort of absolutism, but what you do get is a chance of achieving some sort of success in a world where, given the choices available and outcomes likely, success is awfully hard to come by.

Maybe President Obama's "minimalism" won't work in this case, but it's far more preferable than the alternatives, because at least it recognizes that there are no easy solutions and that missteps could lead to catastrophe. As occasionally frustrating as his cautious pragmatism may be, he knows what he's doing, even when the words don't come out as artfully as desired.

Condi Rice criticizes Obama's leadership, proves she lacks anything resembling self-awareness or perspective

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Condi and Dubya. Sort of.

So Condi Rice is on the anti-Obama bandwagon, just like her pals Cheney and Rummy and rest of the detritus of the Bush II presidency:

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Barack Obama of dramatically weakening the United States' position in the world, drawing a straight line between Obama's ever-yielding foreign policy and the increasing troubles around the world.

"Right now, there's a vacuum," she told a crowd of more than two thousand attending the National Republican Congressional Committee's annual dinner last night in Washington, D.C. "There's a vacuum because we've decided to lower our voice. We've decided to step back. We've decided that if we step back and lower our voice, others will lead, other things will fill that vacuum." Citing Bashar al Assad's slaughter in Syria, Vladimir Putin's aggression in Ukraine, al Qaeda's triumphant return to Fallujah, Iraq, and China's nationalist fervor, she concluded: "When America steps back and there is a vacuum, trouble will fill that vacuum."

Oh, the sheer stupidity of the everything-is-Obama's-fault crowd, which is pretty much the same as the America-as-imperial-global-hegemon crowd, as if the president of the United States, any which one, can just snap his, or her, fingers and make the world bow before America's overwhelming might. That sort of worldview, connected to neoconservative ideological fervor, is as ignorant and childish as it is astoundingly dangerous and self-destructive.

And if you're looking to find fault for weakening America's standing in the world, how about, oh, throwing some blame at those who ignored a pre-9/11 CIA memo called "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US," launched a second war on false pretenses (i.e., lies) while a first was still going on, and grossly mismanaged that second war while ignoring the first, turning Iraq into a chaotic vacuum and failing to do the job in Afghanistan, allowing al Qaeda and others to continue to thrive while also creating the conditions for terrorism as a movement and threat to grow in strength, all the while weakening America's core alliances, thoroughly obliterating its credibility and moral standing in the world as well as its capacity to engage militarily beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, and making the American people even more isolationist than ever.

And by the way, included among those who deserve that blame is not the president who rebuilt America's alliances, credibilty, and moral standing in the world, put an end to the bloody quagmire of a war in Iraq and the going-nowhere war in Afghanistan, shifted America's military resources to target al Qaeda, against enormous risk gave the green light to the operation to take out bin Laden, directly as a result of the new focus on al Qaeda, opened up diplomatic relations with Iran so as to work towards long-term peace and stability in the Middle East and to turn that country away from its nuclear ambitions, helped put an end to the brutal Qaddafi regime in Libya, and has otherwise carefully guided the U.S. through delicate international crises, from the Arab Spring to Syria to the current situation in the Ukraine, at a time when the American people want nothing of intervention and when there's really only so much even the president of the United States can do to achieve America's foreign policy goals.

So you said what, Condi? And you're blaming whom? Huh.

President Obama's cautious, restrained, responsible leadership on the Ukraine situation

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The usual warmongering idiots on the right, from John McCain and Lindsey Graham to Krazy Bill Kristol and anyone else who likes to play partisanism with international relations and world affairs, not to mention many in the "mainstream" media who buy into American hegemonic militarism and dick-wagging, are training their sights as much on the American president as the Russian one, as if somehow the person to blame now is not the guy waving his dick around Crimea but the guy in the Oval Office who apparently isn't waving his dick enough to satisfy domestic American bloodlust.

Yes, all this is somehow Obama's fault, or at least made worse by Obama's supposed inaction, or by his supposed lack of leadership, or by his something, it's not entirely clear. You can find yourselves McCain's spittle-spewing rants, or Kristol's seemingly reasonable but actually utterly insane views, but let's turn here to the non-liberal editorial board of the non-liberal Washington Post, which alone proves that the "liberal media" is anything but, which on Sunday took the liberty of attacking Obama for somehow making the Ukraine/Crimea crisis worse, or enabling Putin, or not being tough enough, or something:

FOR FIVE YEARS, President Obama has led a foreign policy based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality. It was a world in which "the tide of war is receding" and the United States could, without much risk, radically reduce the size of its armed forces. Other leaders, in this vision, would behave rationally and in the interest of their people and the world. Invasions, brute force, great-power games and shifting alliances — these were things of the past.

*****

The urge to pull back — to concentrate on what Mr. Obama calls "nation-building at home" — is nothing new, as former ambassador Stephen Sestanovich recounts in his illuminating history of U.S. foreign policy, "Maximalist." There were similar retrenchments after the Korea and Vietnam wars and when the Soviet Union crumbled. But the United States discovered each time that the world became a more dangerous place without its leadership and that disorder in the world could threaten U.S. prosperity. Each period of retrenchment was followed by more active (though not always wiser) policy. Today Mr. Obama has plenty of company in his impulse, within both parties and as reflected by public opinion. But he's also in part responsible for the national mood: If a president doesn't make the case for global engagement, no one else effectively can.

*****

Military strength, trustworthiness as an ally, staying power in difficult corners of the world such as Afghanistan — these still matter, much as we might wish they did not. While the United States has been retrenching, the tide of democracy in the world, which once seemed inexorable, has been receding. In the long run, that's harmful to U.S. national security, too.  

So... what? Obama is supposed to... ramp up military spending with reckless fiscal abandon, like it's the 1980s all over again and the key is to bankrupt the Soviet Union through a renewed arms race? Or... send toops to Crimea to engage the Russians who are unofficially there? Or... well... just wag his dick around like he owns the fucking world?

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John McCain, hypocrite extraordinaire, freaks out over largely meaningless Obama-Castro handshake

By Michael J.W. Stickings

TPM:

President Obama's handshake with Cuban President Raul Castro on Tuesday was met with a mostly muted reaction from conservatives and Republicans. Invoking memories of the Munich Agreement, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) broke the right's silence with a harsh assessment of the gesture.

"It gives Raul some propaganda to continue to prop up his dictatorial, brutal regime, that's all," McCain said of the handshake between the two world leaders that took place at a memorial service for Nelson Mandela.

When asked if Obama should have extended his hand, McCain was quick to respond.

"Of course not," the senator said. "Why should you shake hands with somebody who's keeping Americans in prison? I mean, what's the point?"

Then, after a slight pause, McCain went there.

"Neville Chamberlain shook hands with Hitler," he added.

Seriously. A fucking handshake. At a memorial service. For Nelson Mandela. It was the mature thing to do, nothing like the childish impetuousness that characterizes Republicans' interactions with pretty much everyone and everything. Maybe it signified a willingness to engage Cuba as a way of opening that country to liberty and democracy (as opposed to isolating it and enabling its totalitarian regime, as Republicans prefer), but maybe it signified nothing. So there.

But while we're here, remind me again who sold arms to Iran, who cozied up to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War, who propped up dictators like Pinochet, Noriega, and the Shah of Iran, who kissed and held hands with Saudi royals, and, oh, who tried to make nice with Gaddafi?

Fucking hypocrite.

Late evening with Col. Qadhafi at his "ranch" in Libya - interesting meeting with an interesting man.
— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) August 15, 2009

Gingrich defends his praise for Mandela

By Richard K. Barry

Having made positive statements about Nelson Mandela upon his passing, Newt Gingrich received significant criticism from fellow conservatives who continue to view Mandela as a terrorist, or something of the kind. A public statement and video appeared on Gingrich's website as a response to his critics.  The full statement is also linked below. 

I'd say Gingrich's response speaks for itself and he deserves credit for saying what he said. I wonder, however, how often the United States has found itself on the wrong side of wars and conflicts for the sake of national liberation, and how easily Gingrich's comments could be applied in those cases as we look back over the course of history.

Gingrich:

Yesterday I issued a heartfelt and personal statement about the passing of President Nelson Mandela. I said that his family and his country would be in my prayers and Callista’s prayers.

I was surprised by the hostility and vehemence of some of the people who reacted to me saying a kind word about a unique historic figure.

So let me say to those conservatives who don’t want to honor Nelson Mandela, what would you have done?

Ali Ezzatyar talking Iran on Al Jazeera

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As some of you may know, one of our contributors at The Reaction is Ali Ezzatyar, a lawyer who is currently the executive director of the Berkeley Program on Entrepreneurship and Democracy in the Middle East. (Yes, he mostly writes about the Middle East for us. His understanding of the region is, needless to say, extensive. For example, back in June he wrote about Turkey's protests and Erdogan's authoritarianism.)

Here is Ali on Al Jazeera America recently discussing the apparent thawing of relations between the U.S. and Iran, as well as the worsening state of the Iranian economy. Suffice it to say, the guy knows what he's talking about.

American hypocrisy on extradition

By Frank Moraes 

Glenn Greenwald wrote a very insightful article the other day on the hypocrisy of the United States government and and media. It circled around this business of Obama calling off the summit with Vladimir Putin. The White House gave a number of reasons for this including the fact that Russia is persecuting homosexuals. But everyone excepts the fact that it is just that Russia was given Edward Snowden temporary asylum.

Since when did the United States government give a flying fuck about the treatment of the powerless anywhere, even in the United States. After all, it was only last year that Obama "evolved" on the issue of gay marriage. As it is, Obama is perfectly fine with locking up cannabis and cocaine users for decades at a time -- even though he has quite publicly admitting to doing the same thing himself. So it's all about Snowden, because if there is one thing that the administration does care about, it is punishing whistleblowers, or as Obama calls them, "people involved in espionage."

Greenwald noted that the United States and Russian do not have an extradition treaty. So Putin isn't doing anything unusual, much less illegal. But guess who the United States does have an extradition treaty with? Italy. And yet, our great nation of laws broke its treaty when the Italian government asked for the extradition of Robert Lady and other CIA operatives who were convicted in absentia of kidnapping for the purpose of torture. And last year, the United States refused to extradite Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada to face genocide charges in Bolivia. And a couple of years before that, we wouldn't extradite terrorist Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela.

But we need to have our priorities. These three examples are only kidnapping for the purpose of torture, genocide, and terrorism. Snowden is accused to leaking potentially embarrassing documents. And let us not forget, these three men only harmed poor and weak people. Snowden annoyed some very powerful people. That's the kind of crime that must be punished!

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The adult in the room

By Carl 

The interesting dynamic that is the relationship between Obama and Putin has a new twist, and it's one we should welcome: 

On Wednesday evening, when U.S. President Obama cancelled his upcoming visit to Moscow, the Russian reaction was perhaps most clear in the way that Vesti, the state's main propaganda TV channel, conveyed it on the channel’s website. Buried about half way down on the page, underneath a story about Russian tourists in Turkey, Vesti announced: "The invitation for Obama stands." Beside that was the somewhat diversionary headline: "Barack Obama will travel to St. Petersburg for the G20 summit." The actual news — that Obama had decided not to meet with his Russian counterpart before, after or during the G20 summit in St. Petersburg next month — was clearly not something the official spin doctors wanted to advertise.

After a year spent honing their anti-American rhetoric — on issues ranging from the adoption of Russian children to missile defense in Europe and the civil war in Syria — the Kremlin message makers were suddenly eager to claim that President Vladimir Putin didn't really mean for things to go this far. "Sure, Putin uses this rhetoric, but it's not so much anti-American as anti-Euro-Atlantic," says Evgeny Minchenko, a Kremlin-connected political strategist. "And keep in mind that he has tried to stop short of a head-on collision."

So, shorter Kremlin: Holy fuck, he's not that idiot Bushy BooshBoosh! 

Indeed, he is not. And he's not going to kowtow to the likes of a tin-plated moron who trades offices like a Southern governor.

Putin has played the U.S. since at least 9/11, using our War on Terror as cover for all kinds of sins in Georgia and Chechnya, and let's not forget the 130 Russians who died in a terrorist standoff in a Moscow theater.

Yes, this is the guy Edward Snowden wants protecting him, but won't give up secrets to. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Keep in mind that, as Bush pursued a unilateral American foreign policy with healthy servings of imperial aggression, without engagement or advisement from what could have been its strongest ally in fighting terrorists, Putin took both offense and advantage of Bush's narrowed focus to become an active player in the Arab and Muslim world, particularly as the development of the Russian natural gas industry saw Russia become a major player in the energy field that previously had been dominated by the OPEC nations.

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Bush 2.0

By Frank Moraes 

(Ed. note: For my take on Obama's "end of the war on terror" speech, see here. I thought it was, in general, a thoughtful, intelligent speech that addressed, without entirely disregarding, my progressive concerns, and I applaud him for presenting a serious understanding of the complexities of the world and America's place in it, as well as for encouraging a broad discussion of national security, but he's got an awful lot to prove after more than four years of continuing, and in some cases worsening, the Bush-Cheney national security state. The rhetoric was there, but, then, the rhetoric's often there with him. The question is where he actually goes from here and whether there will actually be meaningful change, and of course whether that change actually puts an end to endless war and largely unlimited executive power. -- MJWS)

In general, I like caveats. The world is not a simple place. But that can be taken to extremes, especially by supposedly liberal politicians. The best description I've ever heard of Obama is by Roger Hodge in The Mendacity of Hope, "Obama presents a dizzying series of hands -- on the one and then the other, repeatedly, like some hyper-discursive blue-skinned Hindu deity -- in which he discusses the Bill Clinton wing of the Democratic Party (the wing to which he belongs, but he doesn't really come out and tell us that), which embraces the new economy of advancing pools, even though 'a sizable chuck' of the Democratic base resists the agenda." In other words, Obama is a conservative Democrat but he respects the rest of us who aren't.

After President Obama's speech last week, I didn't know what to make of it. As usual, it sounded very nice. He got all the stuff that I didn't like out of the way at first so he could provide me with a soft landing. But I've been hearing pretty words from Obama for five years and I've been disappointed in his actions for four. On economics, I feel more qualified to cut through his bullshit, but I'm none too clear on the War on Terror, regardless of what the current administration wants to call it. So I have to depend upon more knowledgeable people like Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald to clarify what the truth actually is. So I was very eager to hear what Greenwald had to say, especially given his tardiness in weighing in. Finally, yesterday morning he published "Obama's Terrorism Speech: Seeing What You Want to See."

He started out saying what I've long known, although in this case specific to Obama's speech on Thursday:

If one longed to hear that the end of the "war on terror" is imminent, there are several good passages that will be quite satisfactory. If one wanted to hear that the war will continue indefinitely, perhaps even in expanded form, one could easily have found that. And if one wanted to know that the president who has spent almost five years killing people in multiple countries around the world feels personal "anguish" and moral conflict as he does it, because these issues are so very complicated, this speech will be like a gourmet meal.

He then went on to point out the fundamental purpose of the speech was to calm progressives.

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(Not President) McCain goes to Syria (and undermines U.S. policy)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Obviously, the situation in Syria is awful. According to French newspaper Le Monde, a "merciless war" is being waged on the outskirts of Damascus, with the Assad regime using chemical weapons against the rebels.

And, in general, I'm with the rebels. I'd love to see the Assad regime fall and for the Syrian people to be freed from the shackles of that brutal tyranny.

But the question isn't really which side you're on, because obviously most good and decent people want Assad to go, it's how you most appopriately respond to the current situation with the intent of supporting the rebels' goals.

The first question is easy. The second, not so much.

For warmongering conservatives like John McCain, however, it's always all so simple: Where there's a problem, as in Syria, war is the solution, and when some war isn't enough, more, ever more, is always the answer.

When they're in power, war is what we get. And when they're not, like now, they just won't shut up about it.

Yes, McCain has been leading the charge, directed with vengeful venom against the man who beat him for the presidency in 2008, for the U.S. to step up its support for the Syrian rebels as well as to get more directly involved in the conflict. He even made his way to Syria yesterday, meeting with General Salem Idris, the leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, as well as with other rebel leaders.

On the ground yesterday, he was the United States. Or least he and others wanted it to appear that way. "The visit of Senator McCain to Syria is very important and very useful especially at this time," said Idris. "We need American help to have change on the ground; we are now in a very critical situation."

Yes, of course you are, but here's the thing. John McCain is not the president of the United States. And while you may be upset with what you see as lack of support from President Obama, McCain's self-aggrandizing globe-strutting isn't going to help.

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Barack Obama and the end of the War on Terror

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There's a lot to dislike about the way President Obama has handled the so-called war on terror -- the continuation of much of the Bush-Cheney national security state; the kill list and the drone war -- but he showed yesterday in his thoughtful speech at the National Defense University that he understands the nature of the problem -- that is, both the threat to America and the way America responds to that threat -- and recognizes the need for change.

Indeed, as is so often the case with him, what was truly remarkable was not just his intellectual grasp of the enormously complex world beyond America's borders but the maturity with which he was able to explain that complexity to an audience, the broader American and global audience as well as those in attendance, that is demanding answers without really understanding the questions, that is often at odds with itself, and that often wants simplistic solutions. And he laid out a plan for further action that was at once nuanced and crystal clear.

Now, that doesn't mean I agree with all of it. His strenuous defense of the use of drone strikes -- they are effective; they are legal; they save lives -- hardly resolves the matter. The U.S. may be going after terrorists, and Obama may be exercising caution in the use of drones, but the drone war still kills and terrorizes not just those who wish to do America harm but innocents as well, and, of course, there is still the matter of the astonishing amount of power, including over life and death for many -- that has been vested in the office of the president and that Obama has at his disposal. He is certainly right that "[t]o say a military tactic is legal, or even effective, is not to say it is wise or moral in every instance," and that sort of self-reflection is welcome, but it is not clear that the much-ballyhooed "framework" is enough to prevent abuse.

But, look, like this or not, and obviously many on the left do not, Obama said what needed to be said:

America does not take strikes to punish individuals; we act against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people, and when there are no other governments capable of effectively addressing the threat.  And before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured — the highest standard we can set.

Now, this last point is critical, because much of the criticism about drone strikes — both here at home and abroad — understandably centers on reports of civilian casualties. There's a wide gap between U.S. assessments of such casualties and nongovernmental reports. Nevertheless, it is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in every war. And for the families of those civilians, no words or legal construct can justify their loss. For me, and those in my chain of command, those deaths will haunt us as long as we live, just as we are haunted by the civilian casualties that have occurred throughout conventional fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But as Commander-in-Chief, I must weigh these heartbreaking tragedies against the alternatives. To do nothing in the face of terrorist networks would invite far more civilian casualties — not just in our cities at home and our facilities abroad, but also in the very places like Sana'a and Kabul and Mogadishu where terrorists seek a foothold. Remember that the terrorists we are after target civilians, and the death toll from their acts of terrorism against Muslims dwarfs any estimate of civilian casualties from drone strikes. So doing nothing is not an option. 

Again, I'm not saying that this is the end of it, that we should just take him at his word, or that it's all good now. Far from it. But this... this is leadership. Like it or not. Agree with him or not. The world is a crazy place and he's the president of the world's most powerful country. The choices aren't always clear, and there's rarely a clear good and a clear evil. Those who criticize him, as I myself have done, should consider what they would do were they burdened with those reponsibilities -- doing what needs to be done to protect the country and its people, and providing leadership both at home and around the world, while also operating within a democratic system at home that is anything but easy to navigate -- what they would do were they sitting in the Oval Office with the final say on what is done.

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Jeremi Suri calls for war

By Frank Moreas 

Jeremi Suri wrote a remarkable op-ed in The New York Times on Friday, "Bomb North Korea, Before It's Too Late." What I find so interesting is that Suri is not some Fox News shouter. He seems to be more or less a liberal, or at least what passes for one in modern America. He is also a history professor at University of Texas, Austin -- despite what many people seem to think, one of the best schools in the world.

Let me see if I can break down his argument: (1) North Korea is going to launch a missile; (2) we should bomb it first; (3) Obama should state that this attack on a sovereign country is defensive; and (4) we will never have trouble with North Korea again! He also "knows" lots of stuff: "precise satellite reconnaissance" tells us where the missile is; "civilians face serious danger" from North Korea; the strike would "preserve regional stability"; it is "unlikely that Mr. Kim would retaliate by attacking South Korea"; and most shockingly of all, "the Chinese government would do everything it could to prevent" a counter attack from North Korea.

Suri goes on to admit that, well, maybe North Korea would counter attack, just to save face. But then he write -- and this is important -- "Under these unfortunate circumstances, the United States and its allies would still be better off fighting a war with North Korea today, when the conflict could still be confined largely to the Korean Peninsula." You got that? He's offering Bush's great Iraq War justification, "We're fighting them there, so we don't have to fight them here." I am shocked that an otherwise reasonable person would make this argument today.

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The end of American hegemony

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It's the end of the world as we know it:

A new report by the intelligence community projects that the United States will no longer be the world's only superpower by 2030.

"In terms of the indices of overall power – GDP, population size, military spending and technological investment – Asia will surpass North America and Europe combined," the report concludes. 

"Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds" – prepared by the office of the National Intelligence Council of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence – projects that the "unipolar" world that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union will not continue.

"With the rapid rise of other countries, the 'unipolar moment' is over and no country – whether the U.S., China, or any other country – will be a hegemonic power," the report argues.

Needless to say, non-jingoistic American observers and pretty much anyone with any sense all over the world have seen this coming for a long time, and certainly much of the world is eager for the period of American hegemony to come to an end.

But it is cause for rejoicing?

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Here we go

By Carl 

Maybe the Mayans were right after all...

Syrian forces have mixed chemical weapons and added them to bombs in preparation for possible use on President Bashar Assad's own people, Fox News confirms.

A senior U.S. official told Fox News that bombs were loaded with components of sarin gas, a deadly nerve gas. Syrian forces have 60 days to use these bombs until the chemical mixture expires and has to be destroyed.

The nerve agent has been loaded into canisters in aerosol form that can be dropped from planes, Fox said. A Fox reporter spoke with Pentagon officials, who expressed grave concern. Sarin is capable of killing many people in a short time. There is no antidote.

Earlier, Fox reported that U.S. troops were deploying to the Syrian border for defensive purposes.

Any solution to the Syrian conflict that comes before sarin is deployed will be tricky, and the pressure to deploy sarin has been anted up as rebels continue to advance on Damascus.

Already, Russia has warned Turkey about meddling in the internal politics of Syria, a major arms purchaser from Russia. Those differences have been papered over in recent days, but the use of sarin gas would cast a whole new light on the tenuous agreement.

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Apple censors political speech

By Frank Moraes

Here's a question for you. What's worse: killing innocent civilians or reporting on it? If you ask the fascists at Apple, the answer is reporting on it, of course. Apple has turned down the app Drones+ because it is "objectionable and crude."

Let's be clear here: there is nothing objectionable or crude in this app, except that it highlights an objectionable and crude United States government policy. All the application does is search the UK's Bureau of Investigative Journalism database for reports of drone attacks. It then creates an incident on a map. Pretty simple, right? But this is a big deal to some people. You might really care if you want to hide the reality of our drone war from the public.

You might also really care if you have received "$9 million in Pentagon contracts in recent years" as has Apple.

Charles Cooper at CNet explains that Apple's app guideline policy is not public (like so much else about the company). But it was once leaked to the public. And it basically says that they will reject apps that are "over the line." But they can't say what that line is. They just know it when they see it.

Apple's fascistic tendencies have long bothered me, but now this is political. This is important. Come on people: Android is better anyway. Get off the fucking Apple IV drip. It's worse than heroin!

And sign the petition now: Roots Action.

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)

Obama achieves ceasefire in Gaza; Republicans still complain

By Michael J.W. Stickings

ThinkProgress:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Egyptian [Foreign] Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr today announced a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, ending eight days of violence that resulted in nearly 150 dead and more wounded. President Obama dispatched Clinton to the region yesterday and the nation's top diplomat traveled to Jerusalem and Cairo today to help facilitate the deal. 

But in a statement on the Gaza ceasefire today, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) — one day after intelligence officials debunked their attacks on the Obama administration over Benghazi — didn't have any kind words for the president and his team. In fact, the new "Three Amigos" attacked Obama, saying there needs to be "smarter American leadership" in the Middle East. 

Yes, why the hell won't he launch an attack on Iran?! Who the hell does he think he is?!

These clowns are so partisan and so desperate that they can't even give credit where credit is due if it involves the president.

Their interests are their own, not the country's, and with the world looking to the U.S. for leadership (and getting it) in the middle of a bloody powder keg, and with peace a tenuous hope but now, thanks to that leadership, a serious possibility, their comments aren't just stupid, they're foolish, counter-productive, and downright dangerous.

This is a time when unity behind the president, along with the presentation of such unity to the world and especially to the various elements in the Middle East, would go a long way towards resolving this crisis. But that's obviously too much to ask of Republicans these days.

Romney will take us to war

By tmcbpatriot

Terrorism

Mitt Romney, October 22, 2012 (Debate #3): "In the 2000 debates there was no mention of terrorism, for instance. And a year later, 9/11 happened. So we have to make decisions based upon uncertainty. And that means a strong military. I will not cut our military budget."

Al Gore, October 17, 2000 (Debate #3): "I served on the House Intelligence Committee and I worked hard to learn the subject of nuclear arms control and how we can diffuse these tensions and deal with non-proliferation and deal with the problems of terrorism and these new weapons of mass destruction. Look, we're gonna face some serious new challenges in the next four years."

George W. Bush, October 17, 2000 (Debate #3): "Saddam Hussein still is a threat in the Middle East. Our coalition against Saddam is unraveling. Sanctions are loosened. The man who may be developing weapons of mass destruction."

George W. Bush, October 11, 2000 (Debate #2): "We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be or there's going to be a consequence should I be the president."

——

Keepin' the Peace. (Heh. Heh. Heh.)

Mitt Romney, October 22, 2012 (Debate #3): Let me -- let me step back and talk about what I think our mission has to be in the Middle East, and even more broadly, because our purpose is to make sure the world is more -- is peaceful. We want a peaceful planet."

George W. Bush, October 17, 2000 (Debate #3): "You're going to live in a peaceful world. It will be a world of peace because we're going to have a clear sight of foreign policy based upon a strong military and a mission that stands by our friends... I want to have the military keeping the peace... This is a peaceful nation, and I intend to keep the peace."

——

Strengthening Our Military

Mitt Romney, October 22, 2012 (Debate #3): "We don't want to get drawn into a military conflict... I do not want to see a military involvement on the part of -- of our -- of our troops. We need to have as well a strong military. Our military is second to none in the world."

"We're blessed with terrific soldiers and extraordinary technology and intelligence. But the idea of a trillion dollars in cuts through sequestration and budget cuts to the military would change that."

"And our military -- we've got to strengthen our military long-term."

"Look, this, in my view, is the highest responsibility of the president of the United States, which is to maintain the safety of the American people. And I will not cut our military budget by a trillion dollars, which is the combination of the budget cuts that the president has as well as the sequestration cuts. That, in my view, is -- is -- is making our future less certain and less secure. I won't do it. And of course, a military action is the last resort. It is something one would only, only consider if all of the other avenues had been -- had been tried to their full extent."

George W. Bush, October 17, 2000 (Debate #3): "Should I be fortunate enough to earn your confidence, the mission of the United States military will be to be prepared and ready to fight and win war. And therefore prevent war from happening in the first place."

"I want to make sure the equipment for our military is the best it can possibly be, of course. But we have an opportunity -- we have an opportunity to use our research and development capacities, the great technology of the United States, to make our military lighter, harder to find, more lethal. We have an opportunity, really, if you think about it, if we're smart and have got a strategic vision and a leader who understands strategic planning, to make sure that we change the terms of the battlefield of the future so we can keep the peace."

——

Don't vote for this guy, America. You've been warned. Don't be stupid. Okay?

(Cross-posted at Take My Country Back.)

Laugh about it, shout about it -- final 2012 edition

By Mustang Bobby

This will be remembered as the Horses and Bayonets debate, joining Big Bird and binders full of women in the hallowed hall of debate memes. Oh, and teachers. I love teachers!

As I said in my post before the debate, President Obama had an automatic advantage going into this debate simply because he's the president and foreign policy is something he has to deal with every day. He doesn't get to change his views based on which base he's trying to appeal to for re-election; he has to deal with the realities as they come in. On just about every topic, he had the upper hand, from Libya to the economic impact of our dealings with China, and he clearly knew exactly what he was talking about.

Mitt Romney could have blown this debate clear out of the water, and it was surely to his credit that he didn't, but he got awfully close on a couple of occasions, and it was obvious, thanks to the split screen and the bright lights, that he was uncomfortable, even anxious for the ordeal to be over. Maybe that's why he ended up agreeing with Mr. Obama on so many points where he used to — as recently as this weekend — vehemently disagree with him. Maybe he thought that if he just said "Hey, I'm with you" on Syria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, it would all be over sooner and he could go root for the Cardinals to beat the Giants. (Oops.)

If Mr. Romney were a man of principle, he would have been able to come up with a convincing counter-argument for every one of Mr. Obama's foreign policies, including drone attacks and our relationship with Israel. I am sure there are plenty of neocon and Bushite talking points that he could have used. But either he couldn't remember them or he doesn't really believe them, because he seemed to throw in the towel and revert to his stump-speech sound bites, including a clumsy turn to domestic policy points that he fumbled in the last debate. His strategy seemed to be that if he got stuck, return home to your stock answers and try for a mulligan on where he felt safe: the debate points in Denver.

But Mr. Obama was ready for him, wasn't about to let him retreat or repeat, and let Mr. Romney show that he's neither got the foreign policy background or the principles to win the arguments. "Hamana hamana" is not an effective foreign policy, although I think his closing argument tribute to the late George McGovern — "I am a man of peace" — was a nice touch. (That damp thud you heard was John Bolton's head exploding.)

This was a clear win for Barack Obama, even if it wasn't a complete shutout; I'll give Mitt Romney a run for not dripping sweat all over moderator Bob Schieffer. But there was no doubt in anyone's mind that the president knew his stuff. The only consistency in Mr. Romney's record is that he was constantly changing his point of view. But I am glad to know that he loves teachers. Or at least he did last night.

I don’t know if we'll see a massive shift in the polls for Mr. Obama, but I do think that this will solidify his narrow lead, and I hope it is enough to keep him there. 

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)