ISIS POLICY BY AMERICA

My thought is that Obama is feeling for the minimum U.S. exposure to ISIS territory to accomplish its elimination.  He also insists that the locals participate in the erosion of ISIS.  I agree with this. ISIS seems to be steadily losing ground in Iraq with estimates of 20% loss in Syria.

He is also delaying a major move against Assad until some agreement is reached on a replacement for him.  We didn't do this in Libya with chaos resulting and two governments.  There are some encouraging signs of the two governments merging, however, and both dislike ISIS.  I am surprised that Republicans want to repeat the Libya experience in Syria where ISIS would almost certainly win in the short term.

With the recent election in Afghanistan, I think we got the best government one could hope for as both candidates have excellent credentials.  If they can't make it work, then I think there is really no hope.  Obama is raising the number of residual forces to be left in Afghanistan to help out, but again, the Afghans must do the heavy lifting.  Otherwise we are just another occupying force.

Tom Cotton (U.S. Senator, Arkansas) feels that we should have jumped to the final solution.  He must mean a surge, a large invading force.  A problem with this is that locals aren't participating plus our military has been at war for 15 yrs with surges in both Iraq and Afghanistan (one by Obama).

I agreed with the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan no matter how it came out.   We had to do something after 9/11. Iraq was diffenent and it put us in a quagmire of nation building.  As H.R. Haldeman said (by memory), "When the toothpaste gets out of the tube, it is very difficult to put it back in again."  What a mess!

WHAT DOES "LEADING FROM BEHIND" MEAN?

Nelson Mandela seems to be the source of the phrase "Leading From Behind.".  Leading From Behnd in our political environmet is attributed to President Obama on our involvement in Libya and is usually said in a derogatory way by Republicans; however, in the rest of life, the term is usually viewed very favorably.

I imagine the phrase means "quietly getting someone to do something but let them take the credit," i.e "You can accomplish much if you don't care who gets the credit.** (Ronald Reagan)

In the short term, the governing of Libya is in chaos by any measure.***  It should give pause to simply overthrowing Assad in Syria, though this doesn't seem to bother some politicians.  Hillary Clinton speculates that the governing problem in Libya will sort in self out in time (years).  Only time will tell.

* http://smallbusiness.chron.com/theory-leading-behind-76457.html; http://www.companyfounder.com/2011/07/leadership-great-leaders-often-lead-from-behind/
** http://www.quotes.net/quote/8259; http://smallbusiness.chron.com/theory-leading-behind-76457.html:
The theory of leading from behind is one proposed and championed by Linda Hill of the Harvard Business School. The professor had the idea when reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, in which he likens leaders to shepherds directing flocks from behind. Some sheep will move ahead, the flock following these trailblazers, but actually, it is the shepherd who oversees the flock. Hill says that today’s business climate requires leaders who act similarly, allowing their charges to emerge, lead and innovate. The manager, meanwhile, supports these initiatives, yet stays ever mindful of the bigger picture and direction.
*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libya

SOME MYTHS HELD BY CONSERVATIVES

Perhaps the biggest myth held by conservatives is that denigrating  Muhammad was not the trigger for the diplomatic outpost attack in Benghazi even though there were demonstrations throughout Islamic nations.  We have had two 9/11s since Benghazi that appear to have been peaceful.  Where are the embassy attacks since Benghazi?  Besides, the sainted President Reagan had two embassy attacks, both worse than Benghazi and also had the Marine Barracks disaster to boot; yet conservatives forgive him for these.

Another myth is that if we had left 10,000 or 15,000 troops in Iraq everything would be fine there.  They are apparently unaware that President Bush did exactly that in Afghanistan when he pivoted to war in Iraq.  The Taliban had been pushed into Pakistan where they regrouped and came back stronger than ever.  Only a brutal dictator can keep Iraq together.

Then there is the Red Line in Syria over poison gas.  When Obama drew the Red Line in Syria if Assad didn't comply he would bomb Assad's retreat.  Assad offered to give up his poisons weapons in exchange for not bombing him and Obama accepted it.  If conservatives wanted to say that just getting rid of the poisonous gases was insufficient, they would have a valid point, but they feel that bombing Assad would gotten rid of him.  Though undoubtedly we could have destroyed many buildings, killing Assad was unlikely.  He undoubtedly would have been in a bunker  And if we did kill Assad, wouldn't ISIS take over?  We have the example in Libya of what happens if we aid a mob in helping take out a brutal dictator.  At best you have chaos and ISIS sympathizers seem to be taking over Libya.  President George H.W. Bush realized this when he had Saddam's troops on the run in Iraq in the Kuwait War and stopped the U.S. advance.

It could be that conservatives actually know all the above and are just using their arguments for political purposes, but I suspect many really believe these myths.

WHO WILL SUPPLY BOOTS ON THE GROUND?

What a lot of people don't do is review what has happened in Libya.  When we supplied air cover for the the mob there, we had all the ducks in a row.  Everyone was lined up, including the Arab League.  Well the mob won with our help, and we now see that a mob doesn't necessarily result in a going government.  Libya is a mess and as nearly as I can tell the Muslim religious right is gaining ground there.

But ISIS is more complicated than Libya.  We want to get rid of ISIS and so does Iran and presumably dictator Assad of Syria.  Sounds good doesn't it, except we are not really friendly with Iran because we think they want to get THE BOMB.  We also have said that Assad must go.  We must proceed without appearing to support either Iran and Assad.

As for Iraq, we have given air support to the Kurds who have long appeared friendly to us and are willing to fight (and we have also given air support to them before.).  I am less certain about the Shiites, but some of their forces do seem to respond if we supply the air cover.  I assume that a lot of the Sunnis in Iraq are getting fed up with the brutality of ISIS, but their resistance may be half heated unless there is an Iraq government that will share power with them.  We did give some air support for Iraq forces in Anbar Province, a Sunni province.

On Morning Joe this morning, Joe Scarborough indicated that the Arab League seems to have come on board with regards to ISIS.  Obama has also gotten quite a few other countries lined up so I guess he feels he can now proceed.  I had thought that Assad in Syria had seriously depleted the Free Syrian Army that I guess we can support; however, I heard one report of recent Free Syrian Army victories over ISIS.  These poor guys are having to fight on two fronts, but Obama indicates they are the ally of choice to supply the boots on the ground in Syria.  Perhaps if we help arm them and give them air cover they can do better and increase in size but others need to help in both Iraq and Syria.

SYRIA VS LIBYA

One hears of dreams that if only we had supported the mob in Syria in the beginning, Assad (a bad dictator to be sure) would have been overthrown and all would be beautiful.

Well, we did provide air cover to the mob in Libya that overthrew Gaddafi and look how things are today - a real mess.  In this case we had most everyone in our favor, the Brits, the Arab league, etc.  Now it looks like rival groups are at war with each other, and we have abandoned our embassy there.  Not quite what we hoped for although Libyans seem to have a high regard for the U.S. (54% in a 2012 Gallop poll).*

We did give at least moral support to the mob that overthrew Mubarak (a U.S. supporter by the way).  Is Egypt now much better off than with Mubarak?  You be the judge.  It may be that Egypt will eventually move toward a real democracy, but there sure are "slips twixt cup and lip."

I'm reminded that, in the Desert Storm war against Saddam Hussein to push him out of Kuwait at the request of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, President G.H.W. Bush did not press the battle to overthrow Saddam because you don't know who will take over.  It could be someone even worse.  True we did sort of think that the generals would push him out.  But the religious and ethnic complexity of Iraq may defy solution without a ruthless dictator.  I guess I belong to a growing number of people who feel we should let Iraq split into their more natural constituencies.  But if we should allow this, I suspect that the Sunni's and Kurds would push ISIL out of their areas.  Whether the Shia could do the same for their area remains to be seen.

And is Mali much better which has been hit by the rebound of the Arab Spring?**  Only Tunisia where the Arab Spring started seems to have some sort of order.***


* I find it a bit disturbing that Gaddafi promised to give up weapons of mass destruction if we stopped working to overthrow him.  He gave up weapons of mass destruction, but we helped overthrow him anyway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring
*** http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arezo-yazd/turning-the-tide-three-ye_b_4610148.html

WIRING OF THE BRAIN

Particularly since my wife died, I have been reading quite a bit about how the brain works and how you can change it.  But even in the case of Noah who has had one side of his brain removed, who is a good example of this, in which actions and thought usually done by the right brain are now done by the left (or is it vice versa, no matter).  In my wife's case, I think she could have recovered from her first stroke except something happened to destroy her will to fight her condition which makes it very hard when all the initiative had to come from someone else.  She really had to want to get better, but couldn't manage it.

But it occurs to me that one reason we don't understand Muslims, especially conservative Muslims, is that their brains are wired differently from ours and some may even believe in martyrs getting 72"virgins" ( apparently wives actually in heaven).*  Do female martyrs get 72 virginal men (husbands)?

And it is the same in the U.S. where the religious right is able to maintain all sorts of screwy ideas like raped women don't get pregnant and are obsessed with controlling women's bodies almost as much as Muslims.  And conservative Republicans really believe that all poor people are lazy, the government is coming to get their guns, and reducing taxes and getting rid of regulations will always improve the economy.    No showing of the facts will dissuade them as their brains are wired to believe this sort of thing. (Though personal income taxes were greatly reduced as were regulations under George W. Bush, we had economic disaster..  Both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton raised taxes a lot and we had the best economic climate of my long lifetime.)

We are also witnessing in this country a significant part of the government that is quite willing to go against the will of the people, even their own constituencies, on issue after issue: on background checks for gun purchases, on the minimum wage, and on a track to citizenship for long-term illegal immigrants, just to name a few,

It is even true on a national basis.   For some reason as a nation, our brains are wired to root for the mob (presumably the underdog).  We have done this with Egypt, with Libya (even giving air cover to the mob), with the Ukraine.  We actually also did this with the Taliban against the Russians.  When we don't like the mob, we will enter into nation building as we did with Iraq and are doing with Afghanistan.  And we have learned, or I hope we have, that the road to democracy is extremely difficult for people who have no history of democracy or suffered under a long-time dictatorship.  I wonder how you could have a real democracy in Iraq when 80% of the people are of one religion (Shiite) and 20% of another (Sunni) who hate each other.  Even in the U.S., a lot of people believe that a Muslim, say, cannot be president though there is nothing in the constitution that says that presidents must be Christians.

As I have said in a recent post to my blog, I think eventually we will look on Guantanamo Bay as a dark period in American history: http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/06/guantonimo-

and-franz-kafka.html.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houri

WHY WE ARE CAREFUL IN SYRIA

There are numerous examples now of the difficulty in conversion of nations that have long been under dictatorships to any sort of democracy.  Certainly Egypt is a good example where they have elections and then in maybe six months have the winning party overthrown by the mob.  Certainly a part of the problem is in the poor economics of these countries, including Egypt.  Recall that the original mob overthrow of a dictator had American sympathies (West friendly Hosni Mubarabk), but is the country really better off?

We did even more in backing the mob to overthrow Qaddafi in Libya, after we had promised not to try to overthrow him if he gave up nuclear weapons, which he did.  We did not put "boots on the ground" in Libya, so far as I know, except for "trainers," but we did give the mob air cover as well as training and other war materiel.  The problems of Libya are much more than the Benghazi incident,* much loved by some American politicians.

This increased engagement has come at a continuing cost. When the US and other allies intervened in 2011 to aid in the ouster of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, for instance, it helped set off a chain reaction that led to a security vacuum destabilizing that country as well as neighboring Mali. The latter saw its elected government overthrown by a US-trained officer. The former never recovered and has tottered toward failed-state status ever since. Local militias have been carving out fiefdoms, while killing untold numbers of Libyans—as well, of course, as US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in a September 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, the “cradle” of the Libyan revolution, whose forces the US had aided with training, materiel and military might.**

Another case where we have supported the mob against the government is, of course, the Ukraine where there have been two revolutions within 10 yrs, ousting legitimately elected leaders.  The Ukraine might have done better if they had broken into two counties like Czechoslovakia did as voting patterns in the Ukraine elections are quite clear.  But as in Egypt, a large part of the problem is in the poor economics of the Ukraine.

Thus I think we have been wise in Syria not to precipitously support the revolutionary parties (note plural) against the dictatorial government.   Should they overthrow Assad, then the real civil war would start between the islamists and the secularists.  As the islamists have more fervor, it is supposed that they would win resulting in another Iran type government, though the Iran government may be slowly evolving into a more democratic government representative of the people.

* In response to trying to prevent more diplomatic attacks, we have finally, quietly, developed rapid response teams in the military to counter extremist and al Qaeda attacks on our diplomatic posts:
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/05/african-war-on-terror.html
** http://www.thenation.com/article/179883/how-benghazi-birthed-new-normal-africa?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=email_nation&utm_campaign=Email%20Nation%20%28NEW%29%2020140515&newsletter=email_nation_tuesday

BENGHAZI, THE IRS, & THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ISSA's ISSUE Frankly, I can't get excited about the endless attacks about what the Benghazi disaster was called for several days or a week after it happened.  I think that calling it a terrorist attack or a violent demonstration is a fine point.  Attacks on U.S. Embassies and Consulates have gone on for a long time, including 7 during the presidency of George W. Bush with many deaths and injuries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Benghazi_attack)  I suspect that terrorists are laughing themselves silly about how this small attack in a backwater of Libya is tying our government into knots.  What appears to be a good, almost blow by blow account of the Benghazi disaster, appears at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Benghazi_attack for those interested.  It may even come as a surprise that 6 state department members were rescued and 30 other Americans evacuated.

Now, I would like to see an early assessment how the 29 State Department security improvement recommendations are coming along.  Granted it is early days being less than five months since the recommendations were made, but some recommendations were probably easy to implement but others take a long time.  "The Marine Corps, for example, has said it would take years to assign more  of its troops to embassy and consulate staffs." (http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/may/12/tp-gop-skeptical-about-diplomatic-security-efforts/)

THE IRS and 501.C4  ORGANIZATIONS This item concerns the IRS review of the qualifications of 501.C4 organizations with the words Tea Party of Liberty in their title.  Since the Supreme Court ruling that companies are people in the Citizens United case,  a plethora of organizations have applied for 501.C4 status.  This status is for Civic Leagues, Social Welfare Organizations, and Local Associations of Employees.  Perhaps the most famous 501.C4 organization is the American Civil Liberties Union or ACLU.  Though these organizations must be non-profit, donors cannot take a tax deduction for donations to them.  These organizations can participate in political actions (e.g. TV ads) and lobbying, as long as the main business of the organization is for social welfare, but any advocacy of a political candidate is taxable.  A main attraction of the new organizations for this status appears to be that the names of donors need not be revealed.  Apparently these organizations do not have to have pre-approval by the IRS  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501(c)_organization#501.28c.29.284.29)

It is easy to believe that the 501.C4 status is abused.  Recently it was admitted that the IRS was investigating "harassing" new organizations with Tea Party and Liberty in their titles though most applicants were eventually granted.  There is a claim that the investigations of conservative groups went much farther than these two titles (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/13/irs-scrutiny-went-beyond-tea-party-criteria-broader-than-thought/)  Although I feel that every administration does this sort of thing, I think it is not right, and it would be good if somehow something could be done to do away with targeting of political organizations for harassment.  Though I don't view this with the righteous indignation of many politicians, current thought is that this may be the most serious action of the three items considered here.

 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (AP) PHONE RECORDS  Personally, I think that the case of the subpoenas of reporter's work and home phone records is the most serious item in view that it seems to violate the DOJ's own guidelines.  (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/ap-phone-record-scandal-justice-department-law.html).  Though this may not be as bad as wire tapping without a warrant (which is allowed in some cases by the Patriot Act.*), it is pretty close.  We will have to see how this plays out, but I'm not very sympathetic about such intimidation of news sources.  There have been cases of reporters going to jail to protect their sources.

Because of my contact with Soviet scientists in the early and mid 1970s, I assumed that my phone was being tapped for many years, and I don't know what else.  If so, I doubt they found anything of interest.  In fact I felt much better when detente was over, and we were no longer sort of friends again with the Soviet Union.

* http://www.aclu.org/national-security/surveillance-under-usa-patriot-act

WOULD MC CAIN HAVE BEEN A BETTER PRESIDENT?

I ‘ve had another comment (#55) published by the NY Times on the op-ed by Ross Douthat, "Dreams Of a McCain Presidency: Would the country have been better off with McCain in the White House? "

John McCain's time to run for president was the 2000 election. The trouble is that John McCain was senile by the time of the 2008 election. He kept saying things like the Iranians (Shiites) were training the insurgents (Sunnis), and he is a bigger war monger than Obama. He doesn't want to reduce troops in Afghanistan, he wanted a bigger effort in Libya, and seemingly wanted to go to war over the country Georgia being disciplined by Russia. The surprise was that he did as well as he did in the election. It is fruitless to speculate on what he might have done as president. It could have been a horror.

What we had was a not well-qualified candidate against a senile candidate. I think the electorate chose the right person who I believe will go down as the Best One Term President Ever!: http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/08/best-one-term-president-ever.html

LIBYA: WHY ARE WE THERE?

Recently I wrote a piece called Snake Bit in which I wrote that I hoped Presidnet Obama would pull an Eisenhower - i.e. After fomenting the Hungarian uprising, just walk away from it (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/03/snake-bit.html). Pulling an Eisenhower, however, was more difficult because President Obama said that Qaddafi must go. To quote from Snake Bit: I think that it was criticism of our president for not taking sides earlier in the Egypt rebellion that got him to say that Qaddafi must go. And the Tunisian uprising was successful also.

It seems to me that Qaddafi has been behaving himself pretty well in recent years. He gave up trying to get nuclear armaments after a promise that we would not seek regime change in Libya. I haven't heard that he had been playing cute with oil. Should we be surprised that he wanted to put down an armed insurrection in his country?

The main excuse for going into Libya with airpower is to save lives of those in East Libya. Though it is uneven, liberals do have a feeling for helping revolutionaries against dictatorial regimes - witness what was an unpopular Kosovo War by President Clinton. Although it is tempting to think that oil has something to do with our participation in the Libyan War, it very well could be that humanitarian considerations are responsible. After all, oil matters were not a consideration in the Kosovo War.

The Kosovo War is also interesting in that it is the only war I know about that was won by air power alone, without American casualties, and perhaps Obama was led to believe the same can be done in Libya. After all, Sec. Clinton is in the Obama administration. There is a difference, however. In Kosovo there was a no fly zone, and, in addition, we set about destroying the infrastructure of the county, in particular destroying bridges to prevent the advance of tanks while also harming communication of all types throughout Serbia. But is the terrain in Libya conducive to regime change by destroying infrastructure? There was some inkling that this may be the approach because of news about the destruction oil depot.

Our involvement in the Libyan war seems to be cemented because President Obama reiterated that Qaddafi must go. Now it would appear that we are in it to the end, apparently doing whatever it takes to depose the dictator. But even if we were in it to protect the East Libyan revolutionaries from the Qaddafi regime, it would appear we, or someone, would be involved for a long time. Sort of like the Clinton low-level war in Iraq in the 1990s with a no fly zone to protect the Kurds from the Iraqi dictatorship (and what was called by some "fly by shootings") In theory the long involvement need not necessarily be us but might be some combination of the Brutish and French.

Though at present we do not know the outcome of the Libyan War, one hopes it does not do for Obama what the failed rescue in the desert (Operation Iron Claw) did for President Carter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw) by participating in his defeat for reelection. On the other hand, Bush-43 never paid a political price for neither capturing or killing Osama bin Laden as he promised to do. I guess we will just have to see.