Far East Cynic

Well, things have slowly returned to normal after dispatching our Israeli guests back to the land of milk and honey-in order to allow them to celebrate Pesach. 

You know it as Passover.

And Holy Week.

Nonetheless it was a productive week if at the same time a very frustrating one. Israelis can be very difficult especially when you have to tell them no-several times.

Like spoiled children, however, you still have to love them-even if you don't always like them.

We got a lot done-and now I am in the middle of "meeting cleanup"-producing notes, sending out PPT's and wishing I was on a plane to Israel. ( Or anywhere else for that matter). Damn you sequester!

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While I was out, Britain passed a new press law. This, in reaction to the clear cut crossing of the line that the Rupert Murdoch controlled print media accomplished through the phone hacking scandal. One of the most interesting phenomena was the complete over-reaction to the news by uber conservatives and their designated propaganda outlets.Particularly telling was the depth of the over reaction by those who are the worst offenders when it comes to media responsibility and their supporters in the blogosphere. To say that kind of reaction is overwrought, is slightly something of an understatement..

For starters, there are limits beyond which a responsible media should not go. The principle enforcers of that are supposed to be libel laws that demand irresponsible media players ( such as Murdoch and his clone Fox News) pay a pecuniary price for their irresponsibility. That is what Britain is trying to accomplish- with a media that is far less constrained than American media ( although the Americans are doing their best to be just like their British counterparts). The paranoid amongst us-decided to maintain that it was threat to freedom of the press and freedom of speech. In reality neither was the case -and British media coverage ( which I get through my satellite coverage) was much less hysterical. When it was pointed out that there was a large number of folks in the UK who had decided that enough was enough-and that it was time to put a halt to London's being the libel capitol of the world-the responses in general represented the basic level of American stupidity. The "Oh yea! What about MSNBC?" line of thinking gets really tiresome and old. And validates for me, again, the basic stupidity of a large segment of the US population.

For one thing-it ignores the fundamental illogic of Phibians argument. When someone tries to defend the British government and point out that something, somewhere has to be done about the increasing inability of the news media to police themselves-the contrarian arguments come out. "What about Dan Rather?" " What about Andrea Mitchell?" "MSNBC is liberal"…and so on and so forth. "Its impinging on free speech". They completely miss the point. Which is, that they are in effect arguing in favor of those shameful media practices-for the sole purpose of avoiding detailed scrutiny of equally egregious conduct by their darlings: Fox News and the right wing blogosphere.  That's crazy.

There is no impingement of free speech. There is a recognition however, when you just tell out right lies, or publish recklessly-there is a price to be paid. I have been following most of the British coverage of the debate leading up to this law-and the previous 18 months that led up to it. The simple truth is that the Murdoch organizations crossed a line-going into an area they had no business going into, and ruined a lot of good people in the process. There is a difference between printing a dissenting opinion, and publishing an blatant lie with malice aforethought. All they are trying to do is put teeth into their libel laws-something that used to be present in the United States. If we enforced our libel laws it would put slime like Hinderaker and Malkin out of business. Besides, it may not survive a court challenge in the UK, something that "fair and balanced" news outlets in the US neglected to report.

It is always interesting the things our Galtian overlords get bent out of shape about. They are perfectly OK with strangling rights to live one's life in peace, have access to decent health care, the right to have sex as much as they want-and not be told what to do with their own bodies vis a vis reproduction. But take away the non existent right of the Breitbart children or Michelle Malkin or Hindrocket to lie with impunity? That gets their panties in a bunch.

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And finally I think its important to recognize the anniversary that occurred this week, the 10 th anniversary of the worst foreign policy decision made by the United States in the last 40 years. No Phib, on this issue you are completely wrong again. You can cling to your flawed beliefs and be a surgeaholic-but the war was not worth it, it created more problems for the United States than it solved and most importantly-needlessly sacrificed thousands of American lives.

Lets turn it over to some more objective observers shall we?

This, obviously, was all a fever dream. There were no biological or nuclear weapons; there may have been a few rusty chemical shells lying around, just as there had been for decades. Iraq was not an important sponsor of Islamicist terrorism. Islamicist terrorism was fueled not by fascist dictatorships such as Iraq, but by non-state actors in failed states such as Afghanistan and Somalia; and our invasion of Iraq promptly turned it into precisely the sort of failed-state sectarian war zone that does fuel terrorism. Thousands of American soldiers died in a war in Iraq that only exacerbated the danger of anti-American terrorism. Thousands of Iraqi soldiers died as well, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians died in the resulting civil war, most killed by the Iraqi militias who emerged in the power vacuum the US invasion created, but many killed by US armed forces themselves. In the name of pre-empting a non-existent threat, America killed tens of thousands of people and turned Iraq into a breeding ground for terrorism. And we spent a trillion dollars to do it.

How did America's policymaking community ever commit itself to such a catastrophic delusion? I don't truly understand it now, and I didn't understand it then.  ( SS note-emphasis added).  I found the developing consensus for an unprovoked attack on Iraq in late 2002 absurd. But I had an advantage: I wasn't living in America at the time. Viewed from the defamiliarising distance of West Africa, the American polity's effort to talk itself into invading a country that hadn't attacked it was baffling and disturbing. That reaction was widely shared in the country where I was living among locals and expats, Americans included.

My opposition to the war began the day I was shown plans for the deployment of five carriers to the Gulf in 2002. Among many others we asked two specific questions: "Why do we need 5 CV's especially since it will force you to keep 2 of them on cruise for over 9 months?" ( The Lincoln was kept on Cruise for 11 months-all to ensure the F-18 E's and F's she carried did not miss the conflict). That was an irresponsible decision then-and I remain so convinced today. And the second question was, "Why now?" Why not finish one war before starting a second one?" That too,  is still a pertinent question to ask.

Being still in the Navy at the time-I got a first hand view of the cascading effects of that one mistake over and over again. I have written about my disdain for the war, and the American military's pursuit of it a lot since I started this blog in 2005. It was NOT "the right war, fought imperfectly through three of four phases. No one can see alternative presents, but my bet is that both we and Iraq are better because of it. ". No-it was a colossal mistake, a huge waste of time , resources and lives and it was built on a foundation of lies and deception.. To paraphrase Herman Wouk, victory only has meaning in its effects on the politics that occur after the war-and more importantly should be waged with an eye towards what is solely in the national interest. US interests-not those of Arabs living in Iraq.  

There is a new book out, by Toby Dodge called "Iraq: From War to a New Authoritarianism".  

Iraq was Chinatown, an unknowable entity where it was unwise to linger. As a result, contemporary Iraq, a very different creation from what America’s occupation had intended, has been poorly chronicled. The best recent books in English have been military histories, aimed at showing how America’s generals performed. Few have explained what happened to Iraq itself.

Toby Dodge, who teaches at the London School of Economics, does much to fill that gap in his new book, published under the auspices of the nearby International Institute for Strategic Studies. It is a short academic work and makes no effort to present the human side of a generally bleak picture. But Mr Dodge is clear, concise and unsparing about the country’s ongoing agony. For anyone who wants to know how Iraq arrived at its current state, and wonders what might happen next, this is an excellent place to begin.

Mr.  Dodge helps set to rest this myth that neo-conservatives continue to believe that we "won the war"-and all it took was new leadership. The facts simply do not support that assertion-and the surge in both foresight and hindsight was as much of a mistake as starting the war was. By its own benchmarks the surge failed-because whatever time it bought the Iraqis to solve its political differences, the Iraqis simply screwed away.

When people say it was worth it, they have to force themselves to dance around some annoying facts. There will of course, be some inconvenient truths that will need to be danced around:

Annoying fact #1: The Iraqi government is still worthless.

Annoying fact #2: Violence in all of Iraq is not reduced as it is supposed to be. 

What is clear to any objective observer is that the only winners were the Chinese and the Iranians. By any objective standard-from the standpoint of advancing US interests in the world-Iraq was a complete and total failure.

Just about all of the current economic troubles-particularly the size of the deficit can be laid at the feet of the war. The inability of the US to influence events in other lands-e.g., get Europeans to pay more for their own defense-due to the war. The rise of the Chinese in Africa-due to the war. Higher energy prices-due to the war.

It was all a colossal waste.

What is Spanish for, " Suck on this you Latin bastards?"

Of 1,517 votes cast in the two-day referendum – on a turnout of more than 90% – 1,513 were in favour, while just three votes were against.

It follows pressure from Argentina over its claims to the islands, 31 years after the Falklands War with the UK.

The UK government welcomed the result and urged "all countries" to accept it and respect the islanders' wishes.

The referendum had asked: "Do you wish the Falkland Islands to retain their current political status as an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom?"

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner , here's a little music to cry yourself to sleep by:

Can we put that Las Malvinas bullshit to bed forever now?

"The issue at Tailhook is not that we took a few liberties with our female party guests. We did."

Just have to do one more Petraeus post.

And its not to condemn him for slicing off what appears to be a fine hunk of tuna. I don't condemn him for that at all. Actually applaud him for getting laid. And laid well-by all appearances. If American sexual mores were not all screwed up-he'd be getting a pat on the back instead of a kick in the ass.

As my Canadian Counterpart points out:

But there's one important fact that I think everyone is overlooking in this tawdry tale. Paula Broadwell is pretty fucking hot, especially for a 40-year-old Army chick. I'd most assuredly hit it, and I think that's really the most important thing to remember here.

Except…………..

The real problem with Petreaus is not his sexual proclivities. I think I have made it clear that I think there are two sides to every story and until I know the other side I will reserve any judgment on that. However-and long time followers of this blog will know this-I am no fan of King David. The real crimes of General Petreaus happened long before he joined the CIA.

What I’d like to propose, I guess, is that none of these perspectives quite captures reality. That’s the thing about Petraeus. He isn’t some sort of paragon of virtue as people on the right want to claim, nor is he just business as usual in his abuse of power and position as some on the left seem to believe. There is something unique about him and what he’s done, and I just wish people would look at the situation essentially sui generis rather than as confirmation of one worldview or another.

Let me make one more note on the seksytime issue. There is a perception, I think, that general officers are  swinging dick, alpha-males, screwing, boozing, and brawling their way through life. And sure, there are some like that, but in my experience, general officers are about as far from that stereotype as possible. They are usually driven, hard-working, introspective, and bookish. Whether they went to the service academies or ROTC, they rarely had time to party even as undergrads. They often marry young, have kids young, and spend much of their time either deployed or struggling to pay attention to their families when they are home.  They are, in short, often nerds (in a good way), and they are not always well-equipped emotionally to deal with the kind of attention they begin to attract as they rise in rank, and particularly as they pin on stars. General Allen, for instance, has a reputation as a serious, bookish guy. Now maybe he’s a serial cheater, and Jill Kelley was just another actual or potential conquest, but more likely, in my estimation, is that he just didn’t quite know how to handle her attention. I dunno, but I think it worth keeping in mind that possibility.

A good point and it reinforces my current opinion of Navy flags too. The daring do-the guys who led from the front in the cockpit and the bar-those guys have been thrown on the scrap heap a long time ago. What's left is not so great.

But that's not what makes the story of Petreaus so sad. Not at all. What the real problem is with Petreaus started in 2004 if not sooner:

But the warning signs about Petraeus’ core dishonesty have been around for years. Here's a brief summary: We can start with the persistent questions critics have raised about his Bronze Star for Valor. Or that, in 2004, during the middle of a presidential election, Petraeus wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post supporting President Bush and saying that the Iraq policy was working. The policy wasn’t working, but Bush repaid the general’s political advocacy by giving him the top job in the war three years later.

There’s his war record in Iraq, starting when he headed up the Iraqi security force training program in 2004. He’s more or less skated on that, including all the weapons he lost, the insane corruption, and the fact that he essentially armed and trained what later became known as “Iraqi death squads.” On his final Iraq tour, during the so-called "surge," he pulled off what is perhaps the most impressive con job in recent American history. He convinced the entire Washington establishment that we won the war.

He did it by papering over what the surge actually was: We took the Shiites' side in a civil war, armed them to the teeth, and suckered the Sunnis into thinking we’d help them out too. It was a brutal enterprise — over 800 Americans died during the surge, while hundreds of thousands of Iraqis lost their lives during a sectarian conflict that Petraeus’ policies fueled. Then he popped smoke and left the members of the Sunni Awakening to fend for themselves. A journalist friend told me a story of an Awakening member, exiled in Amman, whom Petraeus personally assured he would never abandon. The former insurgent had a picture of Petraeus on his wall, but was a little hurt that the general no longer returned his calls.

MoveOn may have been ill-advised to attack the general as "Betray Us" in Washington, but there was little doubt that many in the Awakening felt betrayed.

Petraeus was so convincing on Baghdad that he manipulated President Obama into trying the same thing in Kabul. In Afghanistan, he first underhandedly pushed the White House into escalating the war in September 2009 (calling up columnists to “box” the president in) and waged a full-on leak campaign to undermine the White House policy process. Petraeus famously warned his staff that the White House was “fucking” with the wrong guy.

The doomed Afghanistan surge would come back to bite him in the ass, however. A year after getting the war he wanted, P4 got stuck having to fight it himself. After Petraeus frenemy General Stanley McChrystal got fired for trashing the White House in a story I published in Rolling Stone, the warrior-scholar had to deploy yet again.

The Afghan war was a loser, always was, and always would be — Petraeus made horrible deals with guys like Abdul Razzik and the other Afghan gangsters and killed a bunch of people who didn’t need to be killed. And none of it mattered, or made a dent in his reputation. This was the tour where Broadwell joined him at headquarters, and it’s not so shocking that he’d need to find some solace, somewhere, to get that daily horror show out of his mind.

Basically, a 21'st century version of MacArthur. A General who also became a political force. He became the icon of the surge-a holics in 2007, leading the country into an even greater butcher's bill and accomplishing very little for the United States in the long run-except for prolonging our agony in Iraq by almost 5 years.

But Petraeus’ crash is more significant than the latest nonsense sex scandal. As President Obama says, our decade of war is coming to an end. The reputations of the men who were intimately involved in these years of foreign misadventure, where we tortured and supported torture, armed death squads, conducted nightly assassinations, killed innocents, and enabled corruption on an unbelievable scale, lie in tatters. McChrystal, Caldwell, and now Petraeus — the era of the celebrity general is over. Everyone is paying for their sins. (And before we should shed too many tears for the plight of King David and his men, remember, they’ll be taken care of with speaking fees and corporate board memberships, rewarded as instant millionaires by the same defense establishment they served so well.)

 Before Dave fell for Paula, we fell for Dave. He tried to convince us that heroes aren’t human. They are human, like us, and sometimes worse.

An end to the celebrity general? Who can talk an entire nation into a pointless conflict based on a concept that has been adequately discredited? That may be the best service David Petreaus performed for his country.  That we might be able to return to the more normal civil military relationship-along with a long overdue acknowledgement that wars without end are no way to run a foreign policy-the United States might actually start down a long road to recovery.

 I want write about the abomination that is the Romney campaign-and the failed dirt digging that is the Liars Club and their reaction to a reasonable statement. John Cole framed it well when he voiced the same sentiment I have:

What a crazy position for an American President to take- to actually focus on American security concerns and American foreign policy goals. It’s almost like Obama understands we are not an Israeli client state.

Call me an anti-Semite, but I guess I just have no problem with my President looking out for US foreign policy goals. Crazy, that.

Five trips to Israel in the last year have convinced me of a couple of things: 1) Israel is a vital ally of the United States and will remain so, and nothing this President has done has effectively denied that fact. In fact he's worked steadily and privately to strengthen the United States support for Israel. 2) Israelis are among the most obstinate and unreasonable people on the earth. I know that will offend some people-but its the truth. Yes there is a historical background for it-but time has marched on, and despite what the religious right believes, Jerusalem is not at the center of the world vortex right now.  Americans, as a whole, do not understand what Israel is really like-rather they have a preconceived idea of what they think it is like.

Finally, Israel's interests and ours are not in complete alignment. No nations is-but particularly the interest of a nation that is founded, rightly or wrongly, as a religious state. Or the secular representation of a particular religion. It is natural, that in the course of events-Israel and the US will disagree.  That does not make the US any less of a friend nor does it make the Israeli whining about certain matters nothing more than noise on particular issues. The President was right to say that and the folks over at the Weekly Standard can just go suck eggs. There is more to foreign policy than the views of AIPAC.

William Kristol and Benjamin Netenyahu should both realize that.

There! I feel better for having gotten that off of my chest. There are others who agree with me.

And here we see the perils of believing your own hype — apparently Bibi and friends actuallybelieved the idea of the all-powerful Israel Lobby. Whether through Romney's bald-faced pandering to that perceived lobby with his ugly comments about the cultural inferiority of Palestinians or, more shockingly, through Netanyahu's decision to take sides in the 2012 presidential campaign, they seem to think that if they can portray Obama as "weak on Israel" they will materially advance their own causes. It's worth noting, of course, that those interests are different. For Romney, the approach only works if it undermines Obama in key states, notably Florida. For Netanyahu, it would work if the fear of losing Jewish support pushed Obama to get visibly tougher on Iran, to accept, for example, the Israeli leader's call for clearly demarked and more aggressive "red lines" with Iran.

I have been watching with considerable interest, the generally unhinged reaction of many prominent mil-blogs and other commentaries about President Obama’s speech last Thursday regarding Israel and the Palestinians. It would be funny, if the consequences were not so serious.

The most unhinged reactions I have read to date-have come from several sources, retired military officers ( many of whom ought to know their history better), hysterical Fox News commentators,  and today’s outraged column in the Wall Street Journal. Obama hates Israel. Obama is picking on poor little beleaguered Israel. The Palestinians are thugs and terrorists and have no right to settle in the holy land of Zion. Why can’t Obama just leave Israel alone?

This of course leads, in the American context, to the not so subtle innuendo’s from all of the usual suspects. Obama must be a Muslim not to support America’s best buddy in the whole world, he’s obviously arrogant, and he’s throwing Israel under the bus.  Israel, in their eyes, has done nothing wrong. Those settlements in the West Bank?  Just good business-not colonization of in support of the goal of Yeretz Israel. Don’t even think about calling it an occupation! Bibi says so.  Israeli-and more specifically Likud obstructionism to any settlement with the Palestinians? Just plain good faith diplomacy.

Now I will put my cards on the table-if I had my way, a third party along the lines of the British (preferably Britain) and their mandate would administer Palestine-just as was done in the years prior to World War II. I base that wish on the fact that for the long term I: 1) Do not believe a Palestinian state is viable along the West Bank and 2) I don’t think that Israel wants or can, come to a long term settlement with Palestinian authority.

Of course that is just nostalgic and wishful thinking on my part. It’s not going to happen-nor is it representative of what the current situation on the ground,  its sheer historical fantasy on my part.

And fantasy is what it seems Americans love to indulge in when it comes to Israel. Commentators over at OPFOR-when they are not attacking anyone who supports Obama’s speech as a raging anti-semite, are indulging in some historical fantasies of their own.

Fantasy #1.

Obama’s statements differ from previous US presidents. Flash traffic sports fans-they don’t.

But on substance, what did we learn yesterday? Certainly not that a Palestinian state must be “based on” the 1967 borders. Why this has been described as some kind of radical betrayal of Israel (“thrown under the bus”, in Mitt Romney’s words), is utterly beyond me. When Bill Clinton pushed the same thing, Aaron David Miller said America was acting as “Israel’s lawyer”. George W. Bush, whom Israelis saw as a staunch supporter, said the same. According to my colleague in Jerusalem, the innovation seems to have been the invocation of “1967″ in so many words. Why this is substantial is a mystery to me.

As the same colleague also mentions, there was an innovation, one not of substance but of sequencing—always close to the heart of these negotiations, since everyone knows what the substance must be. Mr Obama talked about settling borders and security first, and refugees and Jerusalem later. The more intransigent Israelis and their American supporters dislike this; they want a comprehensive settlement or nothing. But it’s not clear to me why this is the best option, even from their point of view. Israel is going to give up most of the West Bank in any settlement, and will and must only do so with security guarantees, as Mr Obama reiterated today. Land-for-peace would be most of what Israel wants. Meanwhile the status quo on refugees and Jerusalem favour Israel, which has its way on both at the moment.

Fantasy#2

The 1967 borders are indefensible. First of all-this statement presumes that Israel will actually end up back at the 67 borders. The odds of that happening are slim to none. For one thing-there is no way on God’s green earth that Israel will ever give up East Jerusalem, and there is no opposing Army that would even have the gumption to try. What part of “mutually agreed land swaps” did you not understand? ( or care to listen to). Since most folks are learning impaired when it comes to Israel, let me show you a visual aid that will show you why the 67 borders have to be the starting point for a final settlement:

If you have ever been to Israel and to the West Bank, as I have, you will know right away why Israel has the land to the East in the West Bank-that’s where the flat farmland is. The territory rises in elevation as you head west towards Jerusalem. Furthermore, the big takeaway from that graphic is that “Palestinian living space”, such as it is-is an archipelago of distinct ghettos. I guess I am the only person who appreciates the irony of a state that was formed as a result of outrage about rounding people up into ghettos and placing movement restrictions on them-doing the same thing to other people 40+ years later. The reason the territory is so chopped up? Jewish settlements that Israel was never supposed to allow in the first place, but did as a way to appease its orthodox population.”The settler movement could put down settlements in much of the sparsely populated south of Israel proper with no problem. Instead, they insist on taking Palestinian land. They are not colonizing the West Bank only to make it more ‘secure’ (they are making it less so), but rather out of greed, ambition, and expansionism. It is not about defense, it is about offense.”  (and water availability).

Those orange spots are not a way to create a viable state-and Netanyahu knows it. And that’s perfectly fine with him. But it shouldn’t be for any thinking American. The 1967 lines dividing Israel from the West Bank and from Gaza have always  been Washington’s point of departure for a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But now, for the first time, the four digits have become formal American policy.

Now that position has a pretty firm basis in international law-but this is where the irrational factor comes into play with American supporters of Israel. They don’t care-they just want the Palestinians to go away and die. After all, in the eyes of some wild eyed conservatives-they are all terrorist savages anyway.

There are only a couple of problems I can think of with this line of thinking. 1) They are not going away and dying-they are breeding like rabbits. and 2) they have no place to go. Any chance for them to go someplace else evaporated in 1988 when Jordan ceded its claim to the West Bank to the PLO.  The Oslo accords formalize that by paving the way to a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. That peace treaty recognized the Mandate border between Palestine and Jordan, but specifically makes note that the treaty does no prejudice the status of the territories occupied( there is that pesky word again) by the Israeli military. Don’t forget too, that in 1987, Jordan and Israel actually tried to negotiate giving the West Bank ( but not East Jerusalem) back to Jordan, but the deal was nixed by Yitzak Shamir. So like it or not-Jordan is not a part of this picture anymore.

Fantasy #3

‘Jordan is Palestine’. Good luck with that. King Abdullah is not that stupid-and it also ignores the reason Britain broke Jordan away from the Palestine to begin with.  See Fantasy 2 above.

Fantasy #4

Israel is ringed by enemies on all sides, so it has to take drastic action to defend itself. Oh really? Those peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt don’t mean anything? And last time I checked-the Syrian military is a little busy right now trying to keep Al Asad in power. A better way to describe the situation is “Israel is ringing a lot of really pissed off people with no place to go“. And why not? Half of Palestinians in Gaza are unemployed and Israel will not allow them to export what they produce  and deeply restricts imports.  Restrictions within the West Bank make it difficult for Palestinians to commute to their places of employment and for goods to be transported to where they are needed. This has increased the costs of transportation and has thus led to lower profits for companies operating in the territories. Any wonder they are all pissed off?

It’s probably also a great time to point out that Israel is the only nation in the Levant with nuclear weapons and a military that outclasses any military,  with the sole exception of the United States.

However-Israel’s security rests on achieving a deal with the Palestinians. Because right now they are facing two ticking time bombs they can’t control. One is the “Arab Spring”:

Netanyahu ignored a very important historical reality on Friday in Washington, that Israel’s intractable enemies are always replaced with something worse. The PLO was replaced with Hezbollah in Lebanon and supplanted by Hamas in Gaza. There is a very real possibility that Hamas could be overtaken by an al-Qaeda inspired or affiliated group in the near future. Waiting for a more agreeable negotiating partner is an exercise in folly, if only because one has never appeared before.

On the other hand, I could be wrong. Problematically, that could be even worse for Israel. That would be widespread blooming of democracy in the Arab world. There is no reason to believe that democratic Arab governments would demand anything less than their autocratic ones do now. But they would have a great deal more credibility with the international community generally, and the United States in particular.

It should be remembered that America’s great democratic ally, Iraq, does not recognize Israel, nor does it denounce Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations. There is no reason to believe that any other democratic Arab government would behave any differently, but their positions might seem a tad more reasonable when unattached to names like Bashir Assad or Saddam Hussein.

Add to that the possibility that the Palestinians might have learned from their mistakes and come to understand that violent resistance isn’t going to get them anywhere. A peaceful intifada might be an irresistible force in the international community and could very well isolate Israel, especially an Israel with a hardline Likud government. There’s no way of knowing how even Israeli public opinion would react to demonstrations like the ones in Tahrir square, but it’s virtually certain that the American consensus in support of Israel would fracture.

 

 

 

 

The other is, the fact that for a population that hates sex-Palestinians sure seem to f*ck a lot:

The most likely outcome of Israel’s present course is a one state solution, achieved over decades, with much heartbreak and violence and ruined lives in the meantime. The Jews of Israel will likely end up like the Maronite Christians of Lebanon. France created Lebanon in 1920 for a then Christian majority, but Christian out-migration and rapid Muslim population growth reduced the Maronites to only about 22 percent of the population today if we count children. Likewise, Israeli Jews have already lost their majority among first-graders in what was Mandate Palestine in favor of Palestinians and Palestinian-Israelis. Current demographic trends will likely produce an Israel that is a third Arab by 2030 and that is not even counting the Occupied Territories. The instability in the Arab world and the Greater Middle East, which is growing, could well over time increase Jewish out-migration (out of sheer nervousness) so that it outstrips in-migration of Jews. I can’t see a way for Israel to escape this demographic and geopolitical fate and remain viable as a nation-state. Plans on the Israeli right to denaturalize and expel the 1.5 million Palestinian-Israelis are unrealistic and do not reckon with the likely backlash from the Arab world, which won’t remain weak and abject forever.

In summary-a whole lot of Americans would do well to look at Israel as it really is-not as they think it is. It’s not a Jewish version of America. It is a complicated society with some very unique things foisted upon because its foundation based on a religious basis and not a national one. More importantly, Israeli and American interests are not always aligned. None of this is to suggest that Washington should turn its back on the Jewish state. But this is also a time when a more evenhanded position on the conflict is desperately needed. That’s what Obama is trying to do-and if he has to kick Bibi in the nuts to do it-well I won’t cry salt tears. You know who told me that? David Petreaus:

“Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples [in the region].” His statement provoked controversy in Washington, but ask any seasoned Middle East observer and you’d be hard-pressed to find one who disagrees with the general’s assessment. It is not Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya which is the greatest source of anti-American attitudes in the Arab world — it is the continued lack of resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the view of many in the region that the United States has its thumb on the scale in favor of Israel.

At some point, you have to ask yourself the legitimate question of who is looking out not for Israel’s interests, but America’s. It certainly wasn’t the slobbering idiots on the floor of the US Congress today.

When you make changes in haste-they seldom turn out to be good ones. What I am about to chronicle in this post is an example of a change made by these guys-that is 100% at odds with what they supposedly want from those they inflicted it on.

In their haste to show their rotund and ill-informed followers how manly they could be about cutting the federal budget, several really stupid cuts were made-that will end up costing the government more in the long run. The Reed Amendment to HR1 would do away with compatibility pay matches for Foreign Service officers serving overseas. Reed , an asshole Congressmen from New York’s 29th district proposed this as stopping “an automatic pay raise” to FSO’s when they leave DC and move to their posts overseas. Besides the obvious grandstanding of a cut that is in fact not a cut-it is a bad idea and counterproductive to getting the kind of people America wants in its foreign service.

The Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act of 1990 was adopted as a way to reduce the government-wide disparity between the public and private sectors and is a basic component of salary for all civilian Federal employees, based on annual survey data collected by the Department of Labor. As a result of this law, every federal government employee working in the United States received “locality pay” as part of their salary. Until 2009, the only United States government civilian employees who did not receive this part of their salary were entry-level and mid-level Foreign Service personnel serving their country overseas. All others, including senior level State Department officers, and other agencies represented overseas, such as CIA officers under State Department cover, DOJ and DHS, have locality pay factored into their base salary.

Locality pay for Foreign Service personnel and other federal employees serving in Washington, D.C. is now approximately 25%.  Under the law prior to 2009, Foreign Service personnel serving abroad sacrificed this part of their salaries and took large pay cuts to their base salaries.  Those posted in Washington earned more money than colleagues posted in Pakistan, Yemen, and Beirut to name a few.  As a result, because retirement packages are based upon base pay (including “locality pay”), Foreign Service officers representing their country abroad received smaller retirement packages than their colleagues who stayed in Washington. This was not sustainable and in 2009 a bi-partisan solution was found to correct this policy problem. Closing the pay gap is not a pay raise — it is a correction of a 17- year-old unintended inequity in the worldwide Foreign Service pay schedule—an inequity that grew every year.

Today thousands of Foreign Service employees serve in hardship assignments around the globe, which now constitute nearly 60% of all posts thanks to: the fact that there are too many nations and a lot of them are basket cases and because that was what was stated as a goal for the state department. One of the persistent raps against the state department is that they are doing enough to support the War on Terror.  As business model-handing someone a 24% percent pay cut when they complete FSO training is a bad way to encourage that behavior. There has been strong bipartisan recognition that it is time to invest in diplomacy and development.  Penalizing Foreign Service employees – specifically those of us at the junior and mid-level – whose mission is to serve overseas to advance and protect our national interests by cutting their base pay undervalues the importance of the Foreign Service.

Now I have personal experience with folks who work with and in US Embassies. As a part of my stint in Romania last year-I was embedded in the Embassy splitting my time between it and the Romanian Ministry of Defense. The State Department personnel I worked with were very professional-put in some pretty decent hours and were always courteous and helpful to the things that I needed to get done.

I also have another kind of experience with Foreign Service Officers-the kind I think guys like Reed just don’t appreciate.

When my sister was killed in Panama back in 1997-it was a Consular Officer, working in American Citizen services in the Panamanian Embassy who helped our family get through a very rough time. He went above and beyond what he was required to do-to make sure all of the logistical arrangements and the other ancillary things that happen in an incident of that kind were handled with grace and dignity. As result-I did not have to get on a plane and fly down there, such was the totality of the work that he did. He has our undying gratitude-and he certainly earned every penny of his salary that month.

And in the end -it really does not save a whole lot of money, especially when you hold it up to the amount we are wasting supporting three wars in places we have no business being.

I have written my Senators and asked them to ensure this gets deleted from the continuing resolution. You should too.  America gets talented people to apply for the Foreign Service, the selection process is long and competitive, and contrary to popular belief-they do not all start out as fresh college graduates. Some actually transition from other careers later in life-usually taking a pay cut to do so because they want to serve their country. The country should incentivize the service-and enjoy the results. You get what you pay for.

The S.O. and I went to see this movie this past weekend. Believe it or not we had a hard time getting two seats together-so crowded was the theater.

We both loved the movie-even if it did take more than a couple of liberties with history. Me, because I like any movie that talks about that time when the world was as its should be- with the British Empire ruling  25% of the world’s population. ( India of course,  being as it should be with the Union Jack flying over Dehli and Gandhi just an annoying fakir). I sometimes wonder if that was the age I was meant to live in. Of course it would have been a dicey thing-in that I would have to be coming of age in 1919 so as to be old enough not to get sucked into World War II downstream. ( Impossible-no matter how many times I think it out, since being in the Royal Navy is always a part of these scenarios-I would have been in the thick of the second conflict. ) And of course, then there’s the need to be rich enough to be of the right class……….

But I digress.

Nonetheless, the movie is good story telling-and very well done. Edward VIII comes out like a real louse and Wallis Simpson gets a thorough going over , being portrayed as a real shrew. Afterwards I went back and researched a bit-it would seem they may have gotten this bit right. I’ve often wondered if later on in life, Edward did not sit out on the veranda in France and wonder what might have been…………….

Sometimes, I think I know how he must have felt.

A theme I have harped on consistently, is that the world we live in is changing. We no longer have the luxury of doing "business as usual". It is why I have so little patience with climate change deniers, or those who think that every attempt to restore balance with nature is some sort of "conspiracy" to steal wealth. This little video from National Geographic highlights the challenges the world faces and the fact that if we don't find a way to change-we will placed in an untenable position economically and otherwise. Pay particular attention to our numbers versus how much of the world's resources we consume. It may have been fine in the pre-globalization world, its not workable now. The amount of competitors has increased 100 fold. So, our tri-corner hat wearing friends can continue to whine about their "rights" all they want. Change is coming whether they like it or not.

And acknowledging an inconsistency the Tea Party needs to get its arms around. Take it away Ron Paul:

As many frustrated Americans who have joined the Tea Party realize, we cannot stand against big government at home while supporting it abroad. We cannot talk about fiscal responsibility while spending trillions on occupying and bullying the rest of the world. We cannot talk about the budget deficit and spiraling domestic spending without looking at the costs of maintaining an American empire of more than 700 military bases in more than 120 foreign countries. We cannot pat ourselves on the back for cutting a few thousand dollars from a nature preserve or an inner-city swimming pool at home while turning a blind eye to a Pentagon budget that nearly equals those of the rest of the world combined.

 Our foreign policy is based on an illusion: that we are actually paying for it. What we are doing is borrowing and printing money to maintain our presence overseas. Americans are seeing the cost of this irresponsible approach as their own communities crumble and our economic decline continues. 

I was in Japan on Memorial Day-and while I remembered the day in my mind-I also did little in the way of observing it. Certainly did not go to any ceremonies or the like. AFN had a bit about Memorial Services at the respective bases in Japan and ran the usual war movies.

A good number of bloggers ran poignant pieces about the cost in human lives that the nations 200+ year history has taken to maintain. Regardless of when they served, all the veterans interred in our  cemeteries sacrificed the comforts of home and absented themselves from the warmth and affection of loved ones. Since 1776, more than 1.5 million Americans have lost their lives while in uniform. Their sacrifices need to be honored, if for no other reason than that it reminds us of our history and the great price that has been paid for all Americans.

However there is a nagging voice of doubt in the back of my head, that points out that much of the words written-while dutiful and laudatory-miss an important point. Namely that the world has failed to keep its part of the bargain these men ( and women) made when they went off to war in the first place. Namely that the world was supposed to improve itself so that their sons and daughters would never have to make the same sacrifice that they had to make.

I find it exceedingly troubling that in our current time-we have pretty much come to accept continuous warfare as a fact of life. For just about all of the 29 years I served on active duty in the Navy-American forces were in combat somewhere in the world.  The last decade has seen the armed forces at war for the entire time. The odds are pretty good that they will be fighting for the next decade as well. And there seems to be a begrudging acceptance of this, as the way it was and will ever be.

This is progress?

That was never supposed to be the deal. In two world wars alone-75 million people died world wide. The world was supposed to find a saner way to run the planet. And yet, now after 6000 years of civilization’s history-we still try to solve problems through the clash of arms. This has to change. To paraphrase Herman Wouk:

[These events] stand as a monument to the subhuman stupidity of
warfare in our age of science and industry. War has always been a violent blind man’s bluff played with soldiers lives and nations resources. But the time for it is over. As the race has outgrown human sacrifice, human slavery, and dueling, it has to outgrow war…..The silliness of it all would be slapstick if it were not so
tragic.

The living have failed the dead. They broke the covenant-namely that their sacrifice was supposed to mean something and leave behind a better world for the generations that would follow. If anything, despite all our technology, the world is worse off today.

But what of the advances and the liberated peoples you ask? The liberation only has meaning if it brings material improvements in their lives. In so many places, that simply is not happening-if anything a lot of people are losing ground not gaining it.

If the sacrifices of our Soldiers and Sailors, Airman and Marines is to truly have meaning, we have to show improvements in this world. Not just in our own nation but in the other nations as a whole. That improvement was what they were really fighting for-we dishonor their memory by not taking that aim to heart.

Wouk’s admonition remains germane-Either war is finished, or we are.

Our trip started in Bonn after we arrived in Frankfurt. We rented the car at the airport- I thought I had a BMW reserved, but when I asked them for a navigation system, it threw them for a loop. After some scrambling, we ended up with a KIA Sonata-which was a tad bit too big for the places we were going.

“It is an automatic, right?”

“Ja, Ja”.

Well it wasn’t,  which meant I was going to be doing all of the driving. The S.O. can’t even spell manual transmission-much less drive one.

However as the trip went on the car performed very well-and the navigation system worked great- saving us from arguments. The S.O. has no sense of direction-but like most women will not admit that is the case. Also, for someone who lived in Tokyo-she also could be curiously unaware of her surroundings at times-I had to grab her on three different occasions to keep her from walking out into the street in front of cars she did not seem to know where there.

Why Bonn? I asked the same question. Because the S.O. had seen a travel program that featured Beethoven and he was Born in Bonn. I actually liked the place once we got there-the S.O. seemed underwhelmed. But it was nice. Our hotel:

Which had an added bonus of having a bier garden in the basement. It called itself an Irish pub-but it was more of a German bar then Irish. Still, it was popular on a Saturday night with the UN crowd. ( The UN has some sort of headquarters in Bonn).

We went off to explore the Christmas market though:

Where they had interesting, albeit expensive, things for sale:

The ice rink was not quite ready:

We did get some pictures of the Rhine right before sunset:

And the river itself:

And we walked back through the university where we met this guy:

I’ll bet its nice here in the spring.

And finally, it was back to the Christmas market for beer and sausage bread. Where we just happened to meet these guys:

They moved and sang in German.

The Weinachtsmarkt was open for its first night when we got there-and doing a brisk business. I have often wondered why this little tradition did not emigrate here to the US with all of the German immigrants who settled in Shopping Mall and other towns. Oh yea-because we don’t have vibrant downtown shopping districts like they do in Europe!

We got back last night with very few difficulties-even while passing through the zoo that is Ohare Airport on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The cat survived-but was most decidedly pissed off with us. He took it out on us by deciding that 5am would be a good time to start meowing-loudly. Throwing him off the bed only seemed to heighten his fervor to wake up us up.

Thus I am awake and writing this post. S.O. is back asleep. It is just as well for today is going to suck at work-lots to get dug out from and I have not checked my work e-mail in over 9 days. Plus I have to give a presentation tomorrow. Its done-but I actually need to review sometime during the busy day today.

I really did not pay so much attention the news while we were over there-save from occasionally watching CNN and the German news broadcasts. Col Gundel would be proud-it appears I actually learned something in his classes. because I understood them and the newspapers well enough. Germans did not seem to understand me th0ugh-seems my accent on the words is too profoundly American.

I did note with interest the Swiss referendum on minarets-good for them. One of the most jarring things to me while walking on the shopping streets in Belgium was the number of women wearing hijabs ( scarves). That had increased a lot from the last time I was in Brussels-and I found it troubling.

Not because I one of those zenophobes who laments the loss of old “Europe”-the immigration that occurred was a concious choice by those countries and a lot of the labor these immigrants do is not being done by Europeans ( which is a whole another post). Rather the issue I take with the hijab is that it is such an “in your face” refusal by European Muslims to assimilate and blend into the country’s culture. By the end of our trip, I wanted to reach out and rip the damn scarves off these women.  If the women were not wearing the damn things, they would have most probably been just another slightly overweight woman walking on Brussels streets. The Muslim men-well they don’t wear anything that distinguishes them-they just look very criminal when you see them hanging around Donner kebab places. But it seems to me that if I were a European, seeing the scarves would just make me even angrier at what had happened with immigration over the past decade and a half. And make me vote oui or ja on a referendum like that in Switzerland. The Muslim women-and their native European citizens would be better served if they were not wearing them.

So count me in the camp of those in France who want to ban the hijab. Because it should be.

On other items, I’ve got 387 pictures to upload to my machine today. I’m thinking about getting a Flicker account and putting them there. I’ll let you know how that goes.

And now its time to go shave and shower and begin the day’s toil. Man it sure was nice being overseas!

Not that anyone will listen to  him-but from a purely American interests standpoint-he may be right:

U.S. forces are being increased by 21,000 to 68,000, bringing the coalition total to 110,000. About 9,000 are from Britain, where support for the war is waning. Counterinsurgency theory concerning the time and the ratio of forces required to protect the population indicates that, nationwide, Afghanistan would need hundreds of thousands of coalition troops, perhaps for a decade or more. That is inconceivable.

So, instead, forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent special forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.

Genius, said de Gaulle, recalling Bismarck’s decision to halt German forces short of Paris in 1870, sometimes consists of knowing when to stop. Genius is not required to recognize that in Afghanistan, when means now, before more American valor, such as Allen’s, is squandered.

Sadly though, given the political pressures at home-and the perceived pressure not to look like a wimp that will come from those who are quite willing to pay for Paul’s war while robbing Peter’s cookie jar-we are not going anywhere anytime soon.

Exactly who won the Afghan election anyway?

That’s an idea I have always agreed with. Hell, if I had my way, most of Africa would still be colonies. And we would be discussing outsourcing of jobs to India with the Viceroy. Since that’s not happening anytime soon, check out what we could do.

While Michelle Malkin was on TV yesterday, whining and moaning about who moved her cheese, she-and a lot of other Americans-missed the fact that Cory Aquino passed away this weekend. Not that Malkin would care-she scarcely pays attention to the details of her ancestry-instead behaving like the assimilated American bitch woman she has morphed into.

She would do well to remember, however, the literally tens of thousands of her distant cousins who have far starker choices thrust in front of them each week. How to make do on the meager 482 dollars a month paid to them while working for some nasty Chinese family that only allows them out once a week. Or the other woman of her same ancestry, who after dispatching money back to the homeland, decides to wander down to the New Makati on a Sunday afternoon-there to meet a guy like me who can double her income in the course of an evening’s roll  between the sheets.

It has been 23 years since Aquino reluctantly stepped into the shoes of her assassinated husband, and challenged Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 through her "People Power" movement:

When Marcos called for a presidential election in February 1986, Mrs. Aquino became the unified opposition’s candidate. Although she was officially reported to have lost the election to Marcos, Aquino and her supporters challenged the results, charging widespread voting fraud.

High officials in the Philippine military soon publicly renounced Marcos’ continued rule and proclaimed Aquino the Philippines rightful president.

On Feb. 25, 1986, both Aquino and Marcos were inaugurated as president by their respective supporters but that same day Marcos fled the country.

In March 1986 then president Aquino appointed a commission that would rewrite the Constitution.

The revised Charter was ratified by a landslide vote in February 1987.

 Having won the war as it were, she proceeded to lose the peace. James Fallows has penned an interesting article from Filipino sources that he knows-that verify what anyone who has spent time in Asia knows all too well:

"A lot has changed. Nothing has gotten better."

  Sure, democracy returned to the Philippines-but in the end how did the ordinary Filipino benefit? Very little it would appear:

Here is a land in which few are spectacularly rich, while the masses remain abjectly poor…" It’s 2009! [The quote is from Ninoy Aquino about the Philippines under Marcos.]

The cockfighting is still the same. There are still "villages" with high walls and razor wire. But now there are SuperMalls settled in next to tin-and-cardboard squats and internet cafes littering even the most destitute parts of town, with some barrios even siphoning power from the local mainlines.

From my perspective (and my father’s) Filipinos are very much about symbolism, less about concreteness. There’s this idea, as you mention in your Cory Aquino article, that while a regime change in 1986 may have been a monumental symbol for the country, it has still struggled to make concrete, fundamental cultural changes for the overwhelming better ever since. As you mention, it might be a nationalized codependency issue. My father thinks it’s actually a mix of that cultural "neutering" and an overdependence on the Catholic faith to carry people through. The churches are standing-room only, yet there is still a sense of self-protection and insularity that seems to dam the notion of brotherly love and supporting one another, at least in my observation. People will still cheat the meter, officials still take bribes and see prostitutes, and people feel like that’s just the way it’s done. My dad thinks he even got scammed at the cockpits yesterday. However, the pomp and circumstance of this weekend’s coverage has been inspiring to me, personally. I’d like to see how it might affect my outlook or my art. I do admire Ninoy and Corazon Aquino for their integrity and heroics to promote what was right about democracy. I’d like to see how their legacy of determined nationalism affects the Filipino people from here on out. Or is this just another symbol to savor, but then move on with life?

During Aquino’s reign, she allowed the Filipino Senate, in a childish fit of stupid nationalism, ejected US bases, a large source of quality jobs for a lot of Filipinos and a source of foreign capital. While Angeles city has recovered-sort of-from that economic disaster, Subic Bay has not.  FEDEX jumped ship for Guangzuao two years ago-it should have been a sweetheart deal for them and their pilots. And Angeles has had to rely on its appeal as "discount" sex tourist destination for Americans, Australians, Hong Konger’s, Japanese and Chinese to achieve whatever recovery it has achieved.

The Aquino administration faced a series of natural disasters during its last two years in office. The 1990 Luzon earthquake left around 1,600 dead, with around a thousand of the fatalities in Baguio City. The 1991 eruption of the long-dormant Mount Pinatubo was the second largest terrestrial eruption of the 20th century, killing around 300 people and causing widespread long-term devastation of agricultural lands in Central Luzon.

Since she left the office of President, it hasn’t gotten any better-certainly Gloria Arroyo has done nothing of consequence in her two terms in office. It is estimated that 1.52 million Filipinos work overseas around the world sending home over 12.5 billion dollars to the homeland each year. That number has increased since Aquino was in office. The Philippine’s two biggest exports are laborers and sex. Not exactly a portfolio for growth.

Did Aquino do anything to really fix that? Not that I can see. Which , while it benefits gadfly’s such as myself on my visits to Wanchai and Singapore, does little to improve the overall lot of Filipinos or the rest of Asia for that matter. Or the Middle East either. As long as richer societies can exploit the crushing poverty of the Philippines-they will never fix their own economic problems. Its so bad that there are Chinese in Hong Kong who behave as if denying decent wages and time off to maids is nothing short of a God given right.

Which is more than a little perplexing given the industry that I have seen Filipinos apply to a wide variety of tasks. It makes wonder if Fallows might have been very correct, when he wrote that , the Philippines is a damaged culture.

There is a lot to admire about Filipino culture. There is also a lot to not be so fond of-especially when one has seen the coarser aspects at work in the confines of other societies. The jokes about the Filipino mafia are no joke. A lot of Navy personnel from my generation can remember when MS rating exams ( MS being a rate with a lot of Filipinos in it) were more carefully guarded than SECRET material. ( For good reason-there were several cheating scandals in the late 1970′s)

Aquino had a chance to jump start a move away from all that. The Philippines has a lot of potential and properly governed-I believe-could be an economic powerhouse as good as any other in Asia. The results might have been starting to be seen by now-its been one generation.

Sadly though-things are the same as they ever were. So what good was People Power-if you are not going to do anything with it?