Tag: war

National Defense

American military strength (an important aspect of our national security) depends on the size, training, and equipment (weapons) of our military, which is very much dependent on the size and efficiency of our economy, which pays for it.  Devoting more of our productive capacity to the military reduces our economic capacity. Getting the balance right between military and nonmilitary uses of our resources is very important.  Knowing what military capacity we need to insure our defense requires assessing the sources of threats to our national security and what motivates their deployment.

The cold war was a confrontation with international communism, most heavily concentrated in the Soviet Union. This was an ideological enemy of free market, capitalist countries, whose goal was to spread its ideology to the entire world. There is no such ideological enemy today. The Chinese government wants to be strong and prosperous and doesn’t care whether anyone else follows their model or not. They do want the rules for global trade and interactions to permit their own domestic model. We need to engage China fairly in establishing international rules that serve everone.

Historically wars were generally about territory and political control, usually about moving boarders a bit this way or that.  The Mogul, Roman, Persian, British, Ottoman and other empires existed largely to extract economic gain from the territories they ruled, something more peacefully enjoyed today via free (or freer) trade.  The mere threat of war and the creation and maintenance of potential enemies is also a useful device for rallying countries around their leaders and for keeping the money flowing to their “defense” industries–think of Mr. Putin, Xi Jinping and the U.S. military/industrial complex.

American defense today requires military strength sufficient to deter any country from successfully attacking the United States. It does not require the 800 military bases that we maintain around the world.  It did not require and was not enhanced by our many wars that followed the infamous and very damaging Viet Nam war (Lebanon 1982-4, Grenada 1983, Panama 1989-90, Gulf War 1990-91, Somali 1992-5, Bosnia 1992-5, Haiti 1994-5, Kosovo 1998-9, Afghanistan 2001-date, Iraq 2003-11, 2014-date, Somali 2007-21, Libya 2011, 2015-20, Syria 2014-date, War on Terror in various places). War with China would be quite a different matter. “The delusions of high tech warfare”

Fareed Zakaria unloaded on our war industry last month: “Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin outlined his key concern. ‘China is our pacing threat,’ he said. He explained that for the past 20 years, the United States had been focused on the Middle East while China had been modernizing its military. ‘We still maintain the edge,’ he noted, ‘and we’re going to increase the edge going forward.’ Welcome to the new age of bloated Pentagon budgets, all to be justified by the great Chinese threat.

“What Austin calls America’s ‘edge’ over China is more like a chasm. The United States has about 20 times the number of nuclear warheads as China. It has twice the tonnage of warships at sea, including 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers compared with China’s two carriers (which are much less advanced). Washington has more than 2,000 modern fighter jets compared with Beijing’s roughly 600, according to national security analyst Sebastien Roblin. And the United States deploys this power using a vast network of some 800 overseas bases. China has three. China spends around $250 billion on its military, a third as much as the United States.”  “The Pentagon is using China as an excuse for huge new budgets”  As noted above, over-investing in the military results in a smaller economy overall.

The latest debate is whether we should make our commitment to go to war with China to defend the independence of Taiwan explicit or leave it implied and ambiguous. In 1979 the U.S. recognized the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China and acknowledged that Taiwan was part of China (slightly fuzzy diplomatic language). So would American national security be enhanced by an explicit credible commitment to go to war with China, if necessary, to preserve the independence of Taiwan? China is a nuclear power. Going to war with China (World War III if we could get anyone else to join us) would inflect enormous damage on the U.S. whether it became nuclear or not, even if we won. In my opinion it would be simply insane to take such risks.

Would the U.S. deter China by being tough enough?  As Doug Bandow put it: “America’s antagonists saw something very different than weakness…. Stupidity and arrogance. Poor judgment. Refusal to admit mistakes. An almost demented willingness to sacrifice America’s future in a desperate attempt to redeem the nation’s tragic past. A better way not to show weakness would be to stop doing ‘stupid shit,’ as Obama suggested.

“China’s Xi Jinping and his colleagues in Zhongnanhai likely have a far more objective and practical take on U.S. policy: Endless wars by Washington are good for Beijing. The Chinese would love to see the US pour trillions more dollars and thousands more lives into new conflicts. Invade Iran? Please! Maybe occupy Syria too? Lebanon also needs fixing. Don’t forget the need to redeem Afghanistan. Then there is the problem of Russia in Ukraine, Syria, and elsewhere: go for it!”  https://original.antiwar.com/doug-bandow/2021/03/23/the-failure-of-huff-and-puff-foreign-policy/

But China (and Russia in Ukraine) has been behaving badly–claiming this little island in the China Sea and that one as its own, not to mention the ever-present risk of invading Taiwan. Even if the forced takeover of Taiwan by the PRC would not threaten our national defense, shouldn’t we care? Shouldn’t we care about the abhorrent genocide by the Chinese government against its Uighur Muslim minority in its western province of Xinjiang? Of course, we should, but we should reject the presumption of our neocon friends and the military/industrial complex we keep fat and rich that these and other interests can only be addressed militarily. See my experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan: “My Travels to Baghdad”

The creation of the United Nations and Bretton Woods institutions and other international cooperative agreements and institutions after World War II were meant to provide dispute resolution mechanisms other than wars. President Biden is committed to rebuilding these neglected institutions and strengthening and reenergizing our diplomatic institutions and initiatives. We can confront China more effectively and more realistically together with most of the rest of the world using the tools of diplomacy rather than of war. If the people of Taiwan chose to integrate their governance more fully with that of the PRC, that is their choice and their business. But if China invades Taiwan or otherwise forces such an integration, China should know the economic and political price they would pay. In my opinion, such a declaration would be far more effective in deterring such behavior by China than a fuzzy uncertain threat of war. It is encouraging that Congress seems on the verge of reclaiming its War Powers provided by the Constitution.

It is worth remembering the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. against our war in Vietnam delivered April 4, 1967. https://kingandbreakingsilence.org/

Nation Building in Afghanistan

Ambassador Crocker rightly calls the American role in “rebuilding” Afghanistan, “complicated.”  “I-served-in-Afghanistan-no-its-not-another-Vietnam”  I first met Ambassador Crocker in January 2002 when he was servicing as America’s chargé d’affaires to Afghanistan. We met in the American Embassy that had just been reopened after a decade or so of abandonment.  A decade’s worth of dust still covered the embassy floor several inches deep. Its newly returning employees were sleeping in cots along the hallways.

Following al-Qaeda’ 9/11 attacks in the U.S., I supported NATO’s UN sanctioned attack on Afghanistan’s Taliban regime as a necessary measure to deprive al-Qaeda of its sanctuary there. I wept when we abandoned that objective unfinished in order to pursue another war in Iraq, which I strongly opposed. The Washington Post just published Defense Department documents evaluating America’s 18-year war in Afghanistan and finding it a costly failure. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-nation-building/

“Former defense secretary Jim Mattis defended American efforts to rebuild Afghanistan as part of the 18-year-old U.S. war there, saying Friday that ‘we had to try to do something in nation-building, as much as some people condemn it, and we probably weren’t that good at it.’  Speaking to journalists at The Washington Post, he cited an increase in the number of Afghan women who are educated, the development of Afghan diplomats and the inoculation of civilians against disease.

“Mattis, who oversaw the war as the four-star head of U.S. Central Command from 2010 to 2013, said violence in Afghanistan is ‘so heartbreaking that it can blind you to the progress,’ and he acknowledged that the United States made a strategic mistake by not paying enough attention to the country as the administration of George W. Bush launched the war in Iraq in 2003.  ‘That we didn’t do things right, I mean, I’m an example of it,’ Mattis said, recalling that as a one-star general, he was pulled out of Afghanistan in the spring of 2002, promoted and told to prepare for war in Iraq.

“’I was dumbfounded,’ he said. ‘But we took our eye off of there.’” “Mattis-Afghanistan-papers-we-probably-werent-that-good-nation-building”

But should we have remained as military occupiers and then as peace guarantors for another 18 years and counting?  I have spent a lot of time in Afghanistan over those 18 years, most intensively as a member of the IMF team addressing the Kabul Bank scandal from 2010-14 (22 visits after that first one in January, 2002).   “The Kabulbank Scandal–Part I” Cayman Financial Review, January 2015  “The Kabulbank Scandal–Part-II” Cayman Financial Review, April 2015  “The Kabulbank scandal–Part-III” Cayman Financial Review, July 2015

I have worked with many wonderful, mainly young, patriotic Afghans and have grown to care a great deal about their conditions and their future. We (the U.S., IMF, World Bank, EU) have a lot to teach them about the institutions of capitalism and they have been very eager to learn. However, the United States has rarely been very good at “building” modern nations that it conquered militarily.  Our Generals and Ambassadors, who rotate in and out every two to three years, rarely understand the cultures and histories they are trying to deal with.  With our military on the ground it is too easy to attempt to impose our institutions on societies unfamiliar with them without more patiently growing more modern institutions from what is in place that are thus better adapted to their traditions and thus more likely to function successfully.

Nation building at the point of a gun has not and is unlikely ever to work for us or for them. https://wcoats.blog/2009/11/16/afghan-national-army/.  https://wcoats.blog/2012/10/23/our-unsupportable-empire/.

My hope for the future of Afghanistan rests with its young, dedicated and increasingly well-educated young people. Our advice can be valuable, especially if filtered and adapted by Afghans themselves. After centuries of relative isolation, the modern world of the Internet, offers them the knowledge of the world. We need to get our troops and our billions of corrupting dollars out of their way.

Our dysfunctional Congress

Congress is failing to do its job. It sometimes overrides states’ laws when it shouldn’t. At other times it fails to exercise its authority over the Executive branch, which then exceeds its constitutional authority. For many years it has failed to build broad consensus for important public policies resulting in laws with narrow partisan support or no action at all. This rather long note examines several examples of the above.

The rule of law requires that properly adopted laws be enforced. I favor states’ rights to the maximum extent consistent with the Constitution, such as the overriding federal principle of equal protection of the law for everyone. In particular, I favor the right of each state to determine whether growing, selling and consuming marijuana is legal within that state. Federal law has made dealing with pot illegal. The conflict is untenable and the dominant jurisdiction of laws on pot should be clarified. I favor the states’ right to determine the law in this area.

With regard to national laws, I favor legalizing the residency status of immigrants brought to the United States illegally when they were children (the Dream Act) as well as broad immigration reforms. Currently there is no such law and what to do with and about the rest of those here illegally remains highly controversial.

I also (sort of) support Attorney General Session’s move to rescind the Obama Administration’s enforcement guidelines for the federal enforcement of its anti marijuana laws. “Those guidelines had finessed the state-federal conflict by saying, in effect, that federal prosecutors wouldn’t go after people who complied with state laws, but would instead concentrate on drug cartels, money laundering and other high-priority targets…. In a memo, [Session] said the federal pot statutes “reflect Congress’s determination that marijuana is a dangerous drug and that marijuana activity is a serious crime.” “Is this stuff legal? federal-position-on-pot-makes-situation-foggy-draws-pushback” However, given that resources are always limited, law enforcement agencies must prioritize their law enforcement efforts. With or without DOJ guidelines they are likely to adhere to the priorities suggested by the Obama Administration.

And I strongly support President Trump’s rescinding of Obama’s executive order halting the deportation of those who came to the U.S. illegally as children.

In this note I want to explain why I hold these seemingly contradictory views—pro legalization of pot and dreamers and pro rescinding the executive orders that accomplished each of those. More broadly I want to appeal to our dysfunctional legislative branch to shape up and do its job for the citizens and residents of this country.

Immigration Policy

The history of our immigration laws is complex reflecting compromises between interests with very different motives and objectives. It is currently a mess that does not serve the broad interests of the country very well. As Ilya Shapiro put it: “Immigration is quite possibly the most feckless part of the federal government. More than advancing bad policy, our immigration system consists of schizophrenic laws that don’t advance any particular goal.  If you tried to draw up rules for how foreigners enter a country, how long they can stay, and what they can do here, you’d be hard-pressed to come up with anything worse than our hodge-podge of conflicting regulations. This immigration non-policy serves nobody’s interest, except perhaps lawyers and bureaucrats. And yet Congress has shamelessly refused to fix it.“ President Obama’s DAPA order oversteps his Immigration Powers

The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act expanded the annual number of permitted immigrants and extended the preference given to members of nuclear families (spouses and underage children) to extended family members (aunts and grandmothers, etc.). Extended family members now take the majority of slots allowed annually—so called chain migration. In my opinion, the preference for extended family members should be rolled back to the nuclear family and preference given to those with the skills and education demanded in the labor market. We must not lose the enormous benefits we have enjoyed from our immigrants. See: A nation of immigrants

A particularly contentious issue concerns what to do with the 11 or so million people who are here illegally, often by overstaying their visas. Deporting them would disrupt their lives as well as the enterprises that depend on their labor. But letting them stay seems unfair to those waiting patiently to enter legally. Jeb Bush and Clint Bolick provide an excellent discussion of these issues in their book: Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution. See also my earlier blog on: Illegal-aliens.

Early on broad, across the aisle, agreement was reached to single out those who were brought into the country as minors and remain illegally, while continuing the debate about what to do with the rest. These illegal residents did not knowingly break the law on their own and many cannot even remember their earlier lives abroad.

Legislation to grant this group conditional residency leading eventually to permanent residency and maybe citizenship, which later became known as the Dream Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act) was first introduced in 2001 but failed to received the required 60% in the Senate needed to avoid a filibuster. Over the succeeding years it was reintroduced, some times as part of broader immigration reforms, on a number of occasions without success. The 2011 attempt added stronger enforcement provisions against illegal alien workers by requiring employers to verify the legality of each worker in the government’s E-Verify database, the government’s Internet-based work eligibility verification system. But even with this compromise it again fell short of the 60% favorable votes needed in the Senate.

Giving up on Congress, President Obama announced on June 15, 2012 that the government would stop deporting undocumented immigrates matching the criteria covered by the failed DREAM Act. His executive order was called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

A year earlier President Obama had said:  “America is a nation of laws, which means I am obligated to enforce the law…With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that’s just not the case…There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply through executive order ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as President.” (March 28, 2011)

Though I sympathize with the President’s impatience with Congress, his reversal of his earlier understanding of his executive powers is more than a stretch. In recognition of this stretch, DACA only granted temporary residency and work authorization, which would have to be reauthorized from time to time. This is not a very satisfactory solution, even if legal, which is very questionable.

On November 14, 2014 President Obama issued another executive order “offering temporary legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, along with an indefinite reprieve from deportation called the Deferred Action for Parents of Citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) policy.

The executive action would have two key components:

  1. “It would offer a legal reprieve to the undocumented parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents who’ve resided in the country for at least five years. This would remove the constant threat of deportation. Many could also receive work permits.
  2. “It would expand the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that allowed young immigrants, under 30 years old, who arrived as children to apply for a deportation deferral and who are now here legally. Immigrants older than 30 now qualify, as do more recent arrivals.

“People in both groups will have to reapply every three years.“ WashPost complete guide to Obama’s immigration-order

DAPA not only protected five million undocumented immigrants from being expelled, but also permitted them to have work permits. This order was blocked in the courts—ultimately by a divided Supreme Court. In Mr. Shapiro’s and the Cato Institute’s view, DAPA was good policy, bad law, and terrible precedent.

In September of last year the Trump administration also withdrew DACA. In making the announcement to rescind DACA Attorney General Jeff Sessions said:  ‘The program, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, put a temporary halt to the deportation of immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children and who have grown up in the country going to school or working.

“We are a people of compassion and we are a people of law. But there is nothing compassionate about the failure to enforce immigration laws,”

Homeland Security Acting Secretary Elaine Duke said the decision was not taken lightly, but was an attempt to reconcile the program with existing law.

“As a result of recent litigation, we were faced with two options: wind the program down in an orderly fashion that protects beneficiaries in the near-term while working with Congress to pass legislation; or allow the judiciary to potentially shut the program down completely and immediately,” Duke said in a statement. “We chose the least disruptive option.”

The Trump administration said no current beneficiaries would be impacted before March 5, 2018, giving Congress time to act.” Session terminates Obama’s immigration executive order

In my opinion Trump/Sessions did the right thing in terms of the law and of the desirability of finding a more permanent determination of the status of DREAMers, which can only be provided by Congress. Now it is Congress’ turn to finally fix this.

While they are at it (but without holding up the Dream Act) they should fix as much of the immigration mess as possible. For example, the Immigration Act of 1990 allows the Attorney General to provide temporary protected status (TPS) to immigrants in the United States who are temporarily unable to safely return to their home country because of ongoing armed conflict, an environmental disaster, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions in their home country. This authority was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security last October.

The TPS program currently covers about 300,000 people from ten countries, namely El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Liberia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. The DHS recently announced the termination of TPS status for about 2,500 immigrants from Nicaragua and 45,000 Haitians and most recently 200,000 Salvadorians. They will all have about two years to find a new status or pack up and leave. Most of them have been here since devastating earthquakes struck Central America in 2001. Some 192,000 U.S.-born children, who are therefore U.S. citizens, have at least one Salvadoran parent who holds TPS. In my opinion, children born in the U.S. to nonpermanent residents should not automatically receive citizenship. But a compassionate and realistic treatment of TPS residents requires ignoring existing laws. The rule of law requires that laws be enforced. But then we need to be sure that we only have laws we want enforced. This is a dilemma with an obvious solution, which has not been easy to achieve.

Marijuana and States’ Rights

In the case of the legalizing marijuana, the issue is the rights of state versus federal law. Racial discrimination allowed and/or promoted by some state laws in the past tarnished the image of states’ rights. The constitution (XIV Amendment) and related federal laws appropriately deal with such discrimination in the market place, though the poison in some hearts remains a problem that only education and public debate and good will can address. States should be given the maximum latitude possible to regulate their own affairs. Bad ideas and approaches will be exposed through their experience and good ones demonstrated and copied by other states. Congress should rescind any laws that label marijuana a dangerous or restricted substance.

I support shifting more responsibility to the states for fashioning the details of medicaid within each state.

War powers and the eternal war on terror

In other instances Congress has given away powers that should only belong to it. We should not fight abroad unless Congress approves it. Yet at the moment the U.S. military is involved directly or indirectly in our “Global war on Terror” in 76 countries largely without explicit congressional approval. “Seeing_our_wars_for_the_first_time”.

Congress has not declared war since World War II. It has authorized military engagements on a number of occasions since then without actually declaring war on anyone. The Korean War was dubbed a police action and undertaken under a UN Security Council Resolution. The Vietnam and related wars were fought under the authorization of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of Aug 7, 1964. The Persian Gulf War with Iraq (remember that) was authorized by the UN and by our Congress in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of January 12, 1991.

Three days after the 9/11 attach on New York and Washington DC, Congress enacted the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). The law provided that: That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

The law was passed one vote short of unanimously. “The lone dissenter, Representative Barbara Lee, warned that the resolution gave a “blank check to the president to attack anyone involved in the Sept. 11 events — anywhere, in any country, without regard to our nation’s long-term foreign policy, economic and national security interests, and without time limit.” Rome’s empire without end and the endless U.S. war on terror. This law provides the continuing authority under which the U.S. and a few other countries attacked and still fight in Afghanistan as well as in Yemen, Somalia, Philippines, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, and Syria.

President George W Bush signed the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution on Oct 16, 2003.

Individual liberty takes second place to security in times of war. But we now live in an era of permanent war and we are not escaping its price.

“The Committee for Responsible Foreign Policy – a bipartisan initiative designed to advocate for more oversight of U.S. military intervention abroad – commissioned research on U.S. citizens’ positions on war intervention. The coalition announced [recently] that the results prove a majority of Americans are mostly skeptical of the benefits of military intervention overseas and military aid in the form of funds or equipment…. The research showed that 67.4% of American voters disapprove of Congressional leadership allowing our involvement in conflict overseas without formally approving military action – or even allowing a debate.” http://responsibleforeignpolicy.org  “A November poll from J. Wallin Opinion Research showed the vast majority of Americans, over 70%, want Congress to impose at least some specific limits on overseas conflicts and exercise more direct oversight.” “Yemen-proves-US-needs-get-handle-war-making-powers”

Our polarized Congress

In the latest Gallup poll (Dec 4-11, 2017) 78% of those responding “disapproved of the way Congress was handling its job.” Congress’ failure to build broad inter party consensus on important public issues such as immigration, medical care and insurance, taxation, use of our military, marijuana and states rights more generally, has led the executive branch to over reach its proper authority, state and federal law to conflict as the Federal government extends its reach, the failure of Congress to resolve dysfunctional laws such as immigration, and the failure of Congress to agree on budget priorities that would arrest the upward march of our national indebtedness.

There are many reasons for Congress’ dysfunction and the deepening division of public attitudes toward our government and fellow citizens. The gerrymandering of congressional districts into safe Republican and safe Democratic districts has encouraged the selection in primary elections of each party’s more extreme candidates. I place considerable fault on the extent to which government has grown and dictates more and more aspects of our lives. This forces us to take public positions on one side or the other of issues that we used to be able to deal with (or ignore) privately allowing a more live and let live environment. Our sources of news have also become more siloed making it more difficult to confront all of the pros and cons of public policy issues.

What can we do? To name but a few ideas, we should each strive to restore civil public discussion. We should each commit to regularly consulting at least two sources of news from reputable sources coming from different sides of each debate. For example, I read the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal every day. We must open our ears and minds and listen to what others say. Check out the following from what I bet is a different (and I think refreshing) side of the sexual harassment issue: “Catherine Deneuve denounces #metoo”. I will do my best to convince you that a more limited government will promote greater social harmony, individual freedom, and economic prosperity. And I will demand (if the courts don’t do it first) that my crazy congressional district (Maryland’s 6th congressional district—look it up and be amazed) be redrawn more sensibly. Even-a-gerrymandering-ban-cant-keep-politicians-from-trying-to-shape-their-districts

Economic Sanctions

Economic sanctions can be a political tool to punish and hopefully stop or deter bad behavior by another country, group, firm, or individual. However, sanctions are rarely effective, often hurting the wrong people. Robert Pape’s examination of past sanctions on countries found that only 4% were clearly effective. Their virtue is that they tangibly register disapproval of bad behavior without going to war. An important policy question is when to use them. In my opinion sanctions should be used very rarely against countries when there is a broad global consensus that the behavior of the country is significantly and unacceptably at variance with established international norms. This is both because they are rarely effective, in part because they often hurt the general public rather than the leaders responsible for the bad behavior, and because it should generally not be the business of our government to dictate how other governments behave unless that behavior is directly against us. What that means, for example, is that sanctions should not generally be used against countries whose human rights behavior we disapprove of.

Under what circumstances might the use of economic sanctions be justified and effective? The effectiveness of economic sanctions varies greatly with their nature and the circumstances in which they are applied. In what follows I very briefly illustrate the range of experience and possibilities.

Cuba

Clearly the sanctions of one country against another, such as outlawing trade in certain products or outlawing trade and financial transactions of any sort, are of very limited effectiveness as the sanctioned country can simply trade with others instead. Cuba illustrates this point. First imposed over 50 years ago by President John F. Kennedy and now enforced through six different statutes, the United States forbids most trade with Cuba by its citizens or companies. President Bill Clinton extended and stretched the reach of this embargo to apply to the foreign subsidiaries of American companies as well. The purpose of this embargo as stated in the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 is to encourage the Cuban government to move toward “democratization and greater respect for human rights”.

Though the U.S. has put a lot of pressure on other countries to restrict their own trade with and travel to Cuba, it has been largely ignored. The U.S. pretty much stands alone. The cost of the embargo has fallen more on the U.S. than on Cuba. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates the cost to the U.S. economy at $1.2 billion per year in lost sales and exports. More over it has not improved governance in Cuba nor led to regime change. In 2009, Daniel Griswold, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Trade Policy Studies, criticized the embargo by stating:

“The embargo has been a failure by every measure. It has not changed the course or nature of the Cuban government. It has not liberated a single Cuban citizen. In fact, the embargo has made the Cuban people a bit more impoverished, without making them one bit more free. At the same time, it has deprived Americans of their freedom to travel and has cost US farmers and other producers billions of dollars of potential exports.” Former Secretary of State George P Schultz called the embargo “insane.”

Cuba is a mess not because of U.S. sanctions but because of the highly repressive Marxist regime in control for the last 52 years. The American embargo has given the Castro government an escape goat for its own failures—and the Castro government still rules. President Obama recently reestablished diplomatic relations with Cuba but the embargoes will remain until Congress amends or removes them. The President has been criticized for not getting enough in return for reestablishing relations and its link with Cuba’s freeing of American spy Alan P. Gross is certainly unfortunate, but the U.S.’s diplomatic recognition of a country should have nothing to do with whether we approve of its government and its approach to governing. The 50 plus year-old embargo has totally failed in its objectives as well, which were not justified in any event. It should finally be lifted and we, and our government, should continue to criticize the Cuban government’s oppressive and destructive policies.

Iran

Economic and financial sanctions against Iran have been more successful. Though the U.S. initially imposed limited sanctions following the Iranian revolution in 1979, international sanctions were imposed by the U.N. Security Council in 2006 and later by the EU in response to Iran’s refusal to suspend its uranium enrichment program. These sanctions banned supplying Iran with nuclear-related materials and technology, and froze the assets of key individuals and companies related to the program. In the following years these sanctions were expanded to include an arms embargo and broader freezes on assets held abroad and monitoring the activities of Iranian banks, and inspecting Iranian ships and aircraft.

These sanctions have reduced Iran’s export (largely oil) revenue and sharply restricted its imports of materials needed for its uranium enrichment program. The international arms embargo has negatively impacted Iran’s military capacity as it is now reliant on Russian and Chinese military assistance. The U.S./EU embargo on oil shipments was made more effective when the EU extended its embargo to ship insurance resulting in most supertankers refusing to load Iranian oil. Excluding Iran from international payments via SWIFT has significantly complicated such payments. The value of Iranian rial plunged by 80% and the standard of living is suffering.

While smuggling has allowed wide spread evasion of many restrictions, they significantly raise the cost of, and thus reduce the gains from, trade. In the list of unintended consequences, Fareed Zakaria argues that sanctions have strengthened the state relative to civil society because in Iran the market for imports is dominated by state enterprises and state-friendly enterprises, thus smuggling requires strong connections with the government.

While it is difficult to assess the impact of sanctions on public attitudes, they seem to be succeeding in increasing pressure on the government to reach an agreement with the U.S. and EU to reign in its uranium enrichment program. This qualified success reflects the broadly accepted purpose for the sanctions (thwarting Iran’s nuclear weapons potential), and hence broad (but not universal) enforcement of such sanctions.

Islamic State — Da’ish

Da’ish is not a recognized state but is so widely seen as an evil pariah that it constitutes an entity and cause for which sanctions should have their maximum impact. Moreover it is being resisted and attacked militarily as well. While direct U.S. military engagement would be counterproductive in the long run (it is their region and interest, not ours), logistical and weapons support to the government of Iraq and close coordination with Iraq’s neighbors has been and will be helpful. Blocking every possible source of income, payments, and weapons procurement by Da’ish will gradually degrade its ability to fight and to hold on to the territory it needs to fulfill its Islamic caliphate objective.

When virtually the whole world is behind sanctions, we have many tools and capability to make them effective. But even in this most obvious and potentially effective case, there are challenges. While strongly and rightly defending the right of anyone to offend the Prophet or anyone else we can hardly forbid public statements in support of Da’ish. The British “human rights group” CAGE, for example, is under attack for calling Jihadist John “a beautiful young man.” The group, led by former Guantanamo Bay inmate Moazzam Begg, is being attacked by both public and private groups in the UK for its jihadist sympathies. Similar issues exist in the U.S. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2972757/Fury-charities-fund-ISIS-Jihadi-John-apologists.html and http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-31657333

But what about financial support to terrorist groups from their sympathizers? Striking the right balance between fighting terrorists and freedom of expression will require care. Who of my generation can forget the controversies raised in the 1970s and 80s over the financial contributions of Irish Americans and their charities to the Irish Republican Army (officially a terrorist group)?

Russia

In general, the modern world is blessed with many positive incentives for people and countries to behave well. The broadly embraced values of the Enlightenment, and classical liberalism’s respect for each individual and his and her rights has established a presumption against force and coercion and hence against war. It is far more profitable (for both sides) to buy what we want than to try to take it (trade vs war). But unfortunately this has not always been enough to deter bad behavior necessitating consideration of deterrents. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, whose behavior I can only understand as that of a self enriching gangster who is happy to exploit the fears and paranoia of the average Russian to enhance his power and control, but who cares little for the future well being of his country, is grossly violating post Westphalian principals of sovereignty. Our interest in Ukraine is marginal and Putin’s is intense for reasons of Russian history and its emotional value for Russian support of its new autocrat. U.S. intervention of any sort in Ukraine would likely precipitate intensified interference by Russia. Where and when would the escalation on each side end? Would Russia’s bankruptcy end the fighting before reaching the nuclear level? We should not try to find out. Whether we should provide the pro west Ukraine government with defensive arms is a more difficult question, but would risk ill-advised escalation by Ukraine, a risk we should not take. This leaves us with economic sanctions as the most appropriate deterrent of Russia’s bad behavior.

Interestingly and frustratingly the vary interdependencies that develop with trade also create weapons that can be used by either side to promote a country’s aims. Da’ish is not in a position to deprive us of anything in retaliation to sanctions we impose on it. Even shutting down all exports of oil in the territories it controls or is likely to control would be barely noticed. On the other hand, Russian threats to shut off the flow of oil and gas to Europe and especially Germany, which receives 40% of its oil from Russia, must be taken very seriously. All of the natural gas consumed in Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Macedonia comes from Russia as does over 50% in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey, and Ukraine. A Russian cut off of gas and to a lesser extent of oil would be devastating to Europe. On the other hand, the loss of that revenue would be devastating to Russia. This is the two-sided nature of trade. It introduces caution into measures to harm trading partners.

Russia’s recent deal to supply oil and gas to China will reduce its reliance on its European market and hopefully Europe will also take steps to reduce its reliance on Russia. However, the U.S. has moved slowly if at all to increase its capacity to ship gas and oil to Europe, which is currently heavily dependent on existing pipelines from Russia. Russia has spent billions of dollars in Europe through environmental groups and others to discourage the development of Europe’s oil shale potential and to encourage the reduction of its use of nuclear energy. http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/18546-nato-head-russia-is-funding-anti-fracking-movement http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/2/richard-rahn-vladimir-putin-funding-opposition-to-/

Sanctions so far have been carefully (and wisely) targeted to a few specific individuals and companies. It is difficult to determine whether they are having any effect on Putin’s behavior. If they are increased, the risk of Russian retaliation will increase as well, the burden of which would fall on Europe, not the U.S. Russia has cut off the flow of its gas and oil to Europe before for relatively short periods but has resisted doing so for the last few years. Putin is now threatening it again: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/putin-threatens-to-cut-gas-to-ukraine-as-showdowns-shift-to-economy/2015/02/25/b0d709de-bcf6-11e4-9dfb-03366e719af8_story.html.

Putin’s behavior justifies increasing sanctions but they should remain well targeted. A total blockade of Russia, which would be extremely difficult for Europe, would lead to a collapse of the Russian economy with unpredictable political consequences. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 following the end of the cold war in December 8, 1987, with the signing of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty launched the transition (for a while) to a more liberal regime. It was the most dramatic and totally peaceful regime change the world has ever seen, but it took 70 years of patience to achieve. In a letter to this week’s Economist former British Ambassador to Russia Sir Tony Brenton said: “The solution to the Russia problem is not to sanction and isolate, but to hug close and thus, eventually, subvert.” We have a strong interest in an orderly political transition in nuclear-armed Russia.

Israel

Ironically the opposite side of the page of the Washington Post story on Russia linked above reported on the very disturbing use of economic sanctions by Israel against the Palestinians living in the West Bank. Israel refused to turn on the promised water to a new upscale city (residences, shopping mall, theater complex, sports club, school, etc.) being built on a West Bank mountaintop. “Before granting water access to the planned city of Rawabi, Israel — which controls the area that the water pipe would run through — wants Palestinian Authority officials to return to an Israeli-Palestinian Joint Water Committee. The Palestinians abandoned the group in 2010 because they don’t want to approve water projects to Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are built on land that Palestinians want for a future state — and which still get plenty of water.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/new-palestinian-city-has-condos-a-mall-and-a-sports-club–but-no-water/2015/02/24/d5a28dcc-b92e-11e4-a200-c008a01a6692_story.html

After driving Palestinians from their homes in the war of 1948 that established the Jewish state of Israel, the new state of Israel and the international community accepted boundaries between Israel and the rest of Palestine that were somewhat enlarged from the UN approved partition of Palestine into Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The right of the 700,000 displaced Palestinians to return to their homes remain one of the unresolved issues in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. The Jewish settlements referred to above are in the West Bank and have been ruled illegal in a number of UN resolutions and U.S. State Department opinions. http://works.bepress.com/warren_coats/26/

On several occasions Israel has also withheld the import tariffs that it collects on behalf of the WBG government (the Palestinian Authority) in order to pressure the PA not to challenge the construction of additional illegal settlements in the West Bank. “To protest the Palestinian Authority’s move this year to join the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Israel has also withheld for three months the transfer of $381 million in custom duties Israel collects on Palestinians’ behalf.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israel-to-let-water-flow-to-west-bank-development-at-center-of-political-feud/2015/02/27/d1b598de-be84-11e4-bdfa-b8e8f594e6ee_story.html

These are examples of a country’s use of “sanctions” to achieve its own, not widely shared, political ends. In the New York Times Nicholas Kristof said: “The reason to oppose settlements is not just that they are bad for Israel and America, but also that this nibbling of Arab land is just plain wrong. It’s a land grab.” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/26/opinion/nicholas-kristof-the-human-stain.html?_r=0 The same can be said of Russia’s land grab in Ukraine.

Fortunately in the case of Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu intervened on February 27 and approved turning on the water before traveling to the U.S., presumably worried about bad press from Israel’s behavior, something President Putin unfortunately but predictably doesn’t seem to care about.

Should the U.S. help finance Ukrainian weapons?

Ukraine is much more important to Russia than to the U.S. It borders Russia, was part of the Soviet Union, and much of what is now Ukraine, including Kiev, has been part of Russia from time to time for as long as the United States has existed. Ukraine’s importance to the U. S. is, however, more academic. It is reasonable to assume that as long as it is economically able Russia will counter any increase in Ukraine’s military capacity and activity in eastern Ukraine (the part bordering Russia) with equal or greater military force. If we increase our support and Ukraine elevates its military activities in the east, so will Russia. The Russian economy is suffering from years of exploitation by Putin and his friends as well as inadequate investment and is now suffering from the sharp fall in the prices of its primary exports– oil and gas. Russia will presumably only stop matching escalations from the West when it is no longer economically able to do so. Do we have a national security interest in escalating that far?

Our interest in Ukraine is humanitarian– not military out of a concern for our own security. We would like to see the people of every country enjoy the freedom and prosperity that we have. Moreover, most of us have long believed that healthy, prosperous, well-governed countries make better neighbors and a more peaceful and prosperous world. So it serves that interest and our humanitarian natures to encourage and financially support the new Ukrainian government’s efforts to reduce the corruption their country has long suffered from. Military aid is an entirely different matter.

Both we and Ukraine’s government in Kiev must accept and come to reasonable terms with Russia’s dominance in the area and its determination to remain in Eastern Ukraine as it has in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The alternative, which would likely follow the injection of western arms into the conflict, would be a continued escalation of fighting with unknown consequences and an unknown end point. We don’t like to give in, and wouldn’t and shouldn’t whenever our national security is truly at stake, but this is not our war. What, after all, did our “victory” in Iraq (one of the most insane and ill-advised wars we have ever launched) gain us? ISIS!!

Let’s help Ukraine financially, which it desperately needs, as long as its government continues to seriously fight the corruption that has characterized it for so long (easier said than done). Ukrainian offensives in “rebel”/Russian dominated areas of the East are futile and we should not encourage them by providing the weapons that make them possible. Freeze the status quo until Russia comes to its senses (which we should encourage in every possible way) or collapses economically (which we should not hope for).

War – Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, ??

Current developments in Iraq are depressing but follow the pattern of America’s well meaning but misguided attempts to remake the world in our own image. “Chaos in Iraq prompts soul searching among military veterans” WP /2014/06/18/ For my friends in Iraq the advances of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters is alarming and dangerous. I am truly sorry for them that they have not yet sorted out their internal sectarian (Shia and Sunni Muslims) and ethnic (Kurds and Arabs) issues. However, these developments do not constitute a serious risk to the United States, though reengaging militarily in Iraq to support the terrible al-Maliki government would. I hope that President Obama sticks to his current resolve not to. Our attack of far away Iraq ten years ago was a disastrous mistake foisted upon us by misguided neocon warmongers. See my account of my work and life in Baghdad in 2004: “My Travels to Baghdad”. And Senator McCain would you please shut up before I loose all respect.

For over twenty years I have worked in transition economies (Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova) and post conflict economies (Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, South Sudan and West Bank and Gaza) to help them develop central banks capable of supplying a stable currency and overseeing a sound banking system. I have made many wonderful friends along the way and am thankful for the opportunity given me by the International Monetary Fund to have these experiences. My primary motivation, which I think I share with most people, has been the desire to help make the world a better place by sharing the knowledge and expertise I have developed in my field (monetary policy). Often working alongside or with the U.S. military, which is I am sure the finest that ever existed, has convinced me that the neocon dream of forced democracy at the point of a gun is a dangerous delusion. Our post cold war military adventures have weakened our national security, weakened our liberties at home as part of a mad war on terror, and failed to establish better governments in the countries we attacked. We need to engage the rest of the world cooperatively to help build a peaceful, productive, and just world based on the rule of law. Our Army should stay at home to defend our territory.

My longest engagement has been in Afghanistan, starting with a visit in January 2002 and lasting through this last December. I have watched bright and dedicated young Afghans (some still in their twenties) grow up into outstanding leaders in Afghanistan’s central bank (Da Afghanistan Bank). I admire and respect them and have been privileged to enjoy their company. If Afghanistan succeeds in becoming a viable country, it will be because of them and other young Afghans like them. I pray for it to happen. It cannot be made to happen by the U.S. military and President Obama is right to finally bring them home. The rest of the world and its international organizations such as the IMF and World Bank should remain engaged with Afghanistan, sharing its advice and resources. But only Afghans can sort out the country’s ethnic, corruption and governance problems.

A full transition to a truly democratic country based on the rule of law, something badly wanted by the younger generation I have been working with, will take decades of hard work by Afghans. Significant progress has been made. Both candidates for President in Afghanistan’s run off election this past week are capable people who should be able to put together and run a successful government. Success of the election and Afghanistan’s continued progress toward becoming a modern, effectively governed country depends, in my view, more on the Afghan peoples’ broad acceptance of the outcome of the election rather than on who wins. Thus I am saddened (appalled actually) by the behavior of Abdullah Abdullah, one of the two candidates. Today’s Washington Post reports that he “is calling the government’s vote-counting process illegitimate, laying the groundwork for a protracted dispute that could destabilize the country.” This risks sabotaging Afghanistan’s future. “Afghan-presidential-election-thrown-into-question-as-abdullah-disputes-vote-counting”

More on Syria

My high school and college friend, Bill Hulsy, now living in Southern California, offers his analysis of Obama’s justification for attaching Syria:

Dear Friends:

This e-mail will discuss the various flaws in the arguments provided by the Obama Administration for an attack on Syria.  There are seven major flaws in the argument, to wit:  1) the predicate proof is unsatisfactory and unpersuasive, 2) the action is illegal under our law and international law, 3) the Chemical Weapons Convention does not provide a legal basis for this action, 4) the ostensible beneficiaries and cheerleaders of this action are bad actors, 5) this action is a pretext for War with Iran, 6) the United States has no moral standing since we have both used and aided and abetted the use of chemical weapons, and 7) U.S. loss of face is the problem of Obama himself, and a lesser alternative to bad policy.

This proposed action is predicated on alleged use of chemical gas by the government of Syria.  This contention is illogical as the Syrian government was winning the civil war, and the use of chemical agents is an act of desperation.  Much of Syria has been overrun by the rebels and they have captured many munitions and that includes chemical agents.  The Internet is full of pictures and stories showing that the Syrian rebels have chemical agents.  Logic suggests their use of the gas as a “false flag” operation.

The whole post-WWII peace process has been based on the use of the United Nations.  The United Nations Charter was adopted and ratified by the United States in 1945.  It is a treaty and is United States law.  Article 42 provides that force may be used individually or collectively by signators only if approved by the Security Council.  The only exception is the right of “self defense.” which is permitted under Article 51.  There is no special exception for chemical warfare.

The Chemical Weapons Convention was adopted in 1993.  Syria is not a signatory.  That convention has no enforcement mechanism.  Hence, there is no right to wage war or commit acts of war (such as proposed) pursuant to some “norm” of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

The rebels in Syria are Sunni jihadis.  These are the same people who attacked the United States on 9/11.  Syria is a secular, not a religious state.  The Christians (numbering 2 million souls) make up 10% of the population.  The government protects the interests of the minorities in Syria of which the Christians are one.  The Sunni jihadis want to commit a sectarian cleansing, driving the Syrian Christians into Lebanon.  For a look at what a Sunni jihadi victory would look like, from a religious point of view, see what happened to the Christian community in Iraq after the Iraq War.

This attack is nothing but a pretext for a War with Iran.  This attack will provoke counter-measures by Syria’s allies.  Either an agent of Iran (or one of our agents operating in Iran) will fire a missile at a U.S. ship or tanker and, then, immediately we will attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and the war will be on.  Israel will attack Hezbolla in Lebanon, reactively or pre-emptively,  Russia will cut off oil supplies to Europe.  United States assets all over Arabia and the Moslem world will be at risk.  I believe that is the real reason for the attack on Syria–to promote war with Iran.  It is the American Way.

Not only does the United States have no legal standing for this attack, but, also it has no moral standing to attack Syria.  We used Agent Orange in Vietnam, which was a chemical agent.  We used phosphorus in Fallouja, and we aided and abetted Iraq in its use of gas in warfare in its war with Iran.  We provided the intelligence for where the gas was to be placed to devastate the Iranians where they were massing troops.

It is said that America will lose face if Congress does not approve an attack.  Well, even if that is true, the fault will be Obama’s since lacked any legal or moral power to draw “red lines” regarding the conduct and internal affairs of independent states.  The alternative to the “loss of face” is much worse.  Mr. Obama styles himself a Constitutional Scholar.  He should have known better.

William S. Hulsy
Attorney at Law

Syria and the Red Line

On August 21, 2013, a chemical weapons attack killed 1,429 men, women and children on the outskirts of Damascus. President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry attribute the horrifying attack to the Assad government. The Geneva Protocol of 1925, the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, and the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 forbid the use of chemical weapons. The use of force to punish violators of the ban may be authorized by the UN Security Council. The United States is not unilaterally authorized under international law to do so.

President Obama continues to surprise me. Despite over a 100,000 casualties in Syria’s two-year plus civil war, he has wisely resisted direct involvement in a conflict that the U.S. has no obvious self-interest in. We have no real control over the unfolding events and outcome of the struggle underway there. Unfortunately, there is no plausible outcome that serves our interest in peace and democracy in the region much less in having a friendly regime. There is no obvious successor to Assad’s regime, though radical Islamism (al Qaeda) forces seem to currently dominate the anti-government forces. Edward Luttwak argues in a NY Times op-ed that a stalemate is the least bad of bad options. “In-Syria America Loses if Either Side Wins”

Obama then foolishly drew a red line against the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons. It now seems very likely that Assad has crossed it in a big way. If the U.S. does not act decisively it will lose credibility and its red lines will become meaningless. If it acts, as Obama has suggested, in a limited, “surgical” manner that does not tip the balance of Syria’s civil war, will it have “taught” Assad a lesson that will detour him from using chemical weapons in the future? More likely it will affirm U.S. powerlessness in the area. And what about the inevitable collateral damage even if our rockets hit their intended targets and Syria’s unpredictable countermeasures? In a statement released September 1, the International Crisis Group stated that: “To precisely gauge in advance the impact of a U.S. military attack, regardless of its scope and of efforts to carefully calibrate it, by definition is a fool’s errand…. Consequences almost certainly will be unpredictable.” “Syria Statement”

In a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee last month, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated that: “As we weigh our options, we should be able to conclude with some confidence that use of force will move us toward the intended outcome. Once we take action, we should be prepared for what comes next. Deeper involvement is hard to avoid.” More recently he added that: “Simply the application of force rarely produces and, in fact, maybe never produce the outcome we seek.” According to Daniel Byman of Brookings Institute “A limited bombing campaign against Syria’s chemical weapons infrastructure is likely to produce the worst of all worlds: raising expectations and further involving the United States in the Syrian civil war without significantly altering the balance of forces on the ground.” “Syria Crisis-Military Action”

Syria’s use of chemical weapons without consequences could render their prohibition toothless. However, not only is the US not legally authorized to police world agreements, it can’t afford to go into another war and still remain economically and militarily strong. Given Russian and Chinese opposition, the UN Security Council will not authorize the use of force. A U.S. attack on Syria would violate international law every bit as much as Syria’s apparent use of chemical weapons has. That does not mean that nothing can be done within the framework of the law in reaction to the use of chemical weapons. If we continue to disregard international law, why would we expect others to abide by it? Globalization, which has dramatically reduced poverty around the world, would suffer. We would be left to police the world by military force (and how has that been working for us?) until we burned ourselves out.

In his rose garden address to the nation Saturday the President said that: “I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets….  And I’m prepared to give that order.” His surprise, however, was his promise to seek Congress’s authorization, something he had not considered necessary for Libya. “But having made my decision as Commander-in-Chief based on what I am convinced is our national security interests,… I will seek authorization for the use of force from the American people’s representatives in Congress.” Regrettably he did not seem to seek this authorization as a legal requirement of the constitution but rather as a pragmatic way to build public support. What ever his reason the step is welcomed.

Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith reviewed the legal arguments over the President’s war powers in a recent New York Times article: “What Happened to the Rule of Law?”  The Obama administration has pushed Presidential authority further than any previous administration. A return to the rule of law, domestically and internationally, is America’s best chance of survival in a dramatically changing world.

Congress should say no to Obama’s request for an illegal and unpromising attack on Syria. But we can thank him for asking.

Government Surveillance and the Right to Privacy

We will be discussing Edward Snowden and his revelations for some time (I hope).  His observations are worth serious thought. As quoted in the Washington Post by Barton Gellman “Man who leaked NSA secrets steps forward” /2013/06/09  ‘“I believe that at this point in history, the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life comes from the reasonable fear of omniscient State powers kept in check by nothing more than policy documents.” The steady expansion of surveillance powers, he wrote, is “such a direct threat to democratic governance that I have risked my life and family for it….” “We managed to survive greater threats in our history . . . than a few disorganized terrorist groups and rogue states without resorting to these sorts of programs,” he wrote. “It is not that I do not value intelligence, but that I oppose . . . omniscient, automatic, mass surveillance. . . . That seems to me a greater threat to the institutions of free society than missed intelligence reports, and unworthy of the costs…”  “Analysts (and government in general) aren’t bad guys, and they don’t want to think of themselves as such,” he replied. But he said they labored under a false premise that “if a surveillance program produces information of value, it legitimizes it. . . . In one step, we’ve managed to justify the operation of the Panopticon” — an 18th-century design by British philosopher Jeremy Bentham for comprehensive surveillance of a prison population.”’

It is not generally acceptable for individuals to decide whether it is OK to violate a law we don’t like (though we all do it all the time), but there can be circumstances that are sufficiently serious that our conscience may dictate that we must.  Snowden made that determination and is prepared to accept the consequences. The courts will determine what those are. In my opinion his motives are above question.

I hope, however, as does Snowden, that the public discussion will focus on the issue of the proper balance between government’s desire to protect us from harm and invading our privacy, a favorite tool of totalitarian regimes, rather than on whether Snowden was justified in breaching his confidentiality commitment or not. The very nature of government is that of a slippery slope toward ever larger activities and powers. These risks, of course. were very well-known by our founding fathers who did their best to introduce limits and checks and balances on government power.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, called PRISM “deeply concerning,” stating that: “Unwarranted government surveillance is an intrusion on basic human rights that threatens the very foundations of a democratic society. I call on all Web users to demand better legal protection and due process safeguards for the privacy of their online communications, including their right to be informed when someone requests or stores their data. A store of this information about each person is a huge liability: Whom would you trust to decide when to access it, or even to keep it secure?”

Contrary to his promises, President Obama has not reversed the dangerous excesses of the eternal War on Terror and other political abuses promoted by Bush/Chaney. Examples are the IRS anti-tea party abuses, and the administration’s frightening attack on the press: “The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press.” govt-obtains-wide-ap-phone-records-probe. But these pale compared to Obama’s expansion of our secret, undeclared wars in Somalia and Yemen and elsewhere in the form of assassinations of “bad guys.”

The most deeply disturbing of these was the assassination of Anwar al Awlaki, an American citizen who had lost faith in the intentions behind the American government’s attacks on Muslims around the world. Anwar, an initially moderate Muslim Imam,frequently interviewed by the American press following 9/11, ultimately became sharply critical of U.S. behavior and moved from Falls Church Va. back to his native Yemen to rejoin his parents. U.S. authorities came to believe that his blogs and sermons were influencing others to take violent acts against Americans. President Obama authorized his death without formal charges and without any convincing evidence of crimes other than the exercise of his free speech, which had become embarrassingly critical (and is not yet a crime). Our government claimed that he had become an al Qaeda leader but presented no evidence of any connection at all.

The day Awlaki’s death was announced  (September 30, 2011) syndicated columnist Glenn Greenwald stated: “Remember that there was great controversy that George Bush asserted the power simply to detain American citizens without due process or simply to eavesdrop on their conversation without warrant. Here you have something much more severe. Not eavesdropping on American citizens, not detaining them without due process, but killing them without due process.” Former Bush CIA director Michael Hayden stated: “We needed a court order to eavesdrop on [Awlaki], but we didn’t need a court order to kill him. Isn’t that something?” (Both of these quotes are taken from Jeremy Scahill’s shocking book “Dirty Wars; The World is a Battlefield”)

If you are not alarmed by our President ordering the death of Americans without due process, you will surely be sicken that our secretive special forces killed Awlaki’s 16 year old son Abdulrahman two weeks later. The government has never explained whether his death was another of their many accidents or had been deliberate and if so why. He was also an American, born in Denver Colorado on August 26, 1995 (https://www.facebook.com/abdulrahman.14.10.2011). Soon thereafter Robert Gibbs, Obama’s former White House press secretary, was asked: ‘“It’s an American citizen that is being targeted without due process of law, without trial. And, he’s underage. He’s a minor,” reporter Sierra Adamson told Gibbs. Gibbs shot back: “I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well-being of their children. I don’t think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business.”’ (Dirty Wars)  Gibbs should be publicly whipped (if we did that sort of thing) or at least banished from polite society. How disgusting.

I am proud of the principles of individual dignity and rights upon which my country is based. I am proud of what many of my countrymen have accomplished and contributed to the world. I am tired of being ashamed of many of the self-destructive things my government has increasingly been doing in the misguided name of my security.  Why do you think Muslims in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere wish to attack the United States rather than (or in addition to) fighting each other for one reason or another? Because many of them have been killed or injured by our global campaign of assassinations and/or outright wars, which they see as an American attack on Islam. They are fighting to defend themselves just as we would (or say that we are). We need to leave them alone. They will have no interest in attacking us if we stay out of their homelands.

I am hoping the current revelations of some of our government’s abuses of its powers and our liberties will bring them to an end.  It is, as I have noted so many times before, the nature of government to want to grow in scope and power. As we all know, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. The pendulum of potentially coercive government power has swung too far in the false name of defending our safety against foreign (and now domestic) enemies. I hope that the current revelations will shock us into sending the pendulum back the other way.

Several weeks ago, on Memorial Day, my friend Lou Cordia sent the following from President Reagan’s Memorial Day Proclamation for May 25, 1981 as a reminder of what we properly aspire to:

Over one hundred years ago, Memorial Day was established to commemorate those who died in the defense of our national ideals. Our ideals of freedom, justice, and equal rights for all have been challenged many times since then, and thousands of Americans have given their lives in many parts of the world to secure those same ideals and insure for their children a lasting peace. Their sacrifice demands that we, the living, continue to promote the cause of peace and the ideals for which they so valiantly gave of themselves.

Today, the United States stands as a beacon of liberty and democratic strength before the community of nations. We are resolved to stand firm against those who would destroy the freedoms we cherish. We are determined to achieve an enduring peace — a peace with liberty and with honor. This determination, this resolve, is the highest tribute we can pay to the many who have fallen in the service of our Nation.

Comments on Libya and Greece

As usual, some of my friends have strong views of their own and interesting observations to add. Here are a few comments mainly on my Greek referendum blog.

Thanks, Warren

I totally agree with you regarding Greece.  I wonder if a similar referendum might be a good thing for the U.S., with the implication that if the majority of the population does not wish to cut spending and unsustainable entitlements, then the Federal Reserve will be mandated to expand the money supply to cover the shortage by inflation.  Actually, a referendum should put the choice that starkly.

Alternatively, we could rerun the election of 1896  — Fiscal conservative William McKinley versus Inflationist William Jennings Bryan (“free monetization of silver”)…  Then Bryan lost  — I wonder if he would win today.

Obama seems in many ways like another Bryan (without the Bible belt), but where is McKinley when we need him?

Ron [Bird, Virginia]

*******************

I am not that keen on this referendum… It Will take 2 more months to have an answer and as you know, Time is money. Moreover they Will say no, do you know a kid who say yes when his father tell him at a party “do you want to go to Sleep”? They are not masochistic as far as I know.

Finally, it s a complete lack of balls from the politicians who are afraid to take strong decisions. However, that s what they were elected for!

Hugo [Gervais, Paris]

********************

Warren is smoking crack.

He writes, “If they accept it and embrace and stand behind the reforms

needed, the crisis for Greece will be over.”

And I say that if I grow 10 inches overnight and learn to play

basketball, I’ll be in the NBA.

The only difference between our two statements is that mine has a

.000000000001 chance of happening.

Dan [Mitchell, Washington DC]

***********************

Greetings, Warren

I’m surprised that no one seems as yet to have noticed the irony that the country that invented democracy, and coined the term for it, is the first to be rounded on by a supra-governmental gang of unelected ideologues. I agree with you that the referendum is a good thing but not quite for the same reason you suggest. A ‘yes’ vote might give the Greek government enough political clout to clear out some of the Augean stables. But a ‘no’ vote would be even more fun: it would mean no bailout and lead to default and the exit of Greece from the euro and thus begin the unraveling of the entire misbegotten enterprise. The current prevailing message from the europhiliacs is that the eurozone must not be allowed to fragment, but there may come a time when they see the costs of a no-exit policy as too high and will then ditch the Greeks (and then the Portuguese? and then?) so as to save the currency for the handful of fiscally continent countries still left.

And I’m appalled by the fact that none of the commentators I’ve read has thrown up any hands at the suggestions of ‘closer fiscal union’ as a way of safeguarding the euro. That means, very clearly, taxation without representation, and from there it’s only a small step to tyranny. So the sooner Greece buggers the euro in the grand manner, the better for us all.

Cheers

Martin [Anderson, London]

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hi Warren,

Thanks for sending these.. though I disagree with both. On Libya: it’s way too early to count our chickens. But as I see it, the US got dragged into this by the French and the British on spurious grounds and then overthrew a dictator by force, which was nowhere in the UN mandate, however nasty that dictator was to his own people (for over 40 years, I might add, although we choose to overthrow him only now, and only after he gave up all his nasty weapons and was, so far as anyone could tell, no threat whatsoever to us).

On the Greeks, I’m dumbfounded by the referendum move. Your case makes nice sense in theory but hardly on the ground. How is it possible that Papandraeou, who has been negotiating on a more or less hourly basis with his European counterparts for at least the past six months, could pull off such a surprise? What is really going on? It suggests, at least to me, that the EU is so dysfunctional that there’s nothing to hope for at all. The Greeks voted to join the EU and then the euro. Now is not the time–particularly during the peak of a crisis right after a major negotiation–to second guess that by referendum in the name of validating an EU-wide decision. The EU is not the US but we did away with the doctrine of nullification a long time ago and I suggest the same holds for the EU. This referendum is essentially asking the Greeks to decide to pull out, and if they do it, anyone else can. It’s mad.

Ken [Weisbrode, Boston]

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Ken,

 On Libya, I was saying almost the same thing (see my five earlier warning blogs against getting involved: https://wcoats.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/libya-and-the-drums-of-war/, https://wcoats.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/libya-lets-not-make-it-our-war/, https://wcoats.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/another-long-war/,   https://wcoats.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/libya-further-down-the-slippery-slope/,  https://wcoats.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/libya-part-ii/ ). I am not optimistic about Chapter 2 now starting and glad that we have some chance of staying out of it (though I am worried about that too).

Warren

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Warren

All forms of brinksmanship are pretty much welcome at this point. If you think, like I do, that the problem in Greece and Italy is fundamentally a price competitiveness issue, and not a financing one, then things have to get much worse before people change their ways, start cooperating and stop fighting each other.

It will probably not work out, but hey, that’s cheaper holidays in Italy!

Sahil [Mahtani, Jakarta]

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Dear Warren,

I liked your Greek piece.  Insufferable fools.  They’d trade simple (but not so simple…) bankruptcy for a 50% write down and a road back to prosperity.  I’m going to write about it for my column next week.  I wonder how much looking up at Parthenon makes them still think they’re special? The DNA now is mostly Turkish anyway.

I’ll be back in Manila in time for my book launch with ex-president Ramos in a couple of weeks.  I am starting new quickie the Manila publishers want, “For love of a country: 40 years in and out of the Philippines,” which I can write in my sleep.  Though it is amazing how much comes back one had forgotten. Sometimes it’s just hard to believe we’ve been at this game for over 40 years.

I feel my whole life has been a study of empires falling (UK, now USA), new ones emerging (and in Asia no less).  Obama understands…as you pointed out he did the right thing in Libya.  And isn’t it wonderful to say, let the Europeans do this and that, not coming to us with a begging bowl.  A true silver lining to loss of empire.  George W Bush merely hastened the decline.

Scott [Thompson, Bali]