Let’s Stop Being Terrorized

A year ago we were exhorted to close our borders against Ebola. Some State Governors went ahead and did so, taking action, they said, when President Obama would not.

Then a friend posted this appalling and spurious image. What we should really fear, she thought, is Islam. One in three conservative Republicans already believed President Obama to be a Muslim.

Although fear trumps facts, that particular lie did not have legs. Islam does not allow such behavior and Ayatollah Khomeini, who died a quarter of a century ago, is not the “current leader of Iran.”

Fear is a helpful survival instinct — we’re safer taking automatic fight-or-flight action with intellect engaging only later. But there’s a downside. Because it closes our mind, instilling fear is a powerful way to control us.

Knowing that, politicians are now instilling fear of a much more potent terror, ISIS. They say it is the true face of a religion that commands its followers to kill all others. And some Americans think they know exactly what to do about that nightmare.

Mainstream media eagerly participates in the fear-mongering. Ten days after the recent San Bernardino massacre, the New York Times claimed one of the attackers had years ago publicly committed to terrorism.

The allegation is false, said FBI Director Comey, and the Times provided no evidence, but presidential candidates claimed it as a catastrophic Obama administration failure.

Voters want someone to blame for their struggles, politicians want us to have an enemy because they will get more power if we are fearful, and mainstream media amplifies our fears so we will consume more. Our emotions are being manipulated. We are being misdirected.

As I wrote a year ago, while we cannot eliminate infectious disease, a health care system that encourages all with symptoms to get treatment right away would minimize the spread of disease.

And while San Bernardino was horrific and likely was inspired by ISIS publicity, the odds of being killed by terrorists in America are extremely small. Depending on how you define them, there have been 40 mass shootings since 9/11/2001 but only a few were terrorist attacks.

Mass Shootings Map

We cannot anticipate all future mass shootings or other kinds of massacres. We could not have anticipated Timothy McVeigh killing 168 people with a homemade bomb in Oklahama City twenty years ago, or the drivers who mass murder pedestrians.

We could eliminate many mass shootings, however, including San Bernardino and the massacre in my home town, by removing assault weapons and semi-automatic handguns with high-capacity magazines from our society.

And we could go further. We could start eliminating the future equivalent of this year’s 355 shootings in which four or more were injured or killed, and this year’s 33,000 individual deaths and 80,000 hospitalizations from gunshots.

Police work will not end hatred of blacks, Muslims, our government, fellow workers, shooters’ families or others, desire for fame, other people’s money or ending one’s own life, or just plain foolishness.

But we could start eliminating the easy way to kill by removing not only assault weapons and semi-automatic handguns with high-capacity magazines from our society, but all hand guns. We could even restrict rifles and shotguns.

I do not expect our society will make that choice. I expect our freedom to own a wide range of weapons will continue to outweigh its costs. We will choose to continue having mass shootings.

Perhaps we will get a universal health care system one day because our present approach costs far too much. But our freedom to own guns does not seem something about which we can make conscious choices.

Beset by all these nightmares and more, is there anything we can do as individuals? As this wise Christian leader wrote when we faced immediate nuclear extinction, we can pull ourselves together and meet our fate doing sensible and human things.

Let’s stop being terrorized by politicians and media people. Let’s summon the courage to live in the happily generous American way.

Things we do out of fearfulness with which we’ve been infected frustrate and sadden people like this Muslim family that we would not allow to come on holiday and enrage those in other countries like our own “Overpasses for America” people. That rage is why some want to kill us.

So let’s each of us do the deeply human thing. Let’s learn how to help each other overcome fear.

Apr 21 2015

Beyond the Media Hype: Egypt

Egypt is on the Mediterranean and Red Seas with the Suez canal connecting the two. It borders Libya in the west, the Gaza Strip and Israel in the east and Sudan in the south. It is about the size of Texas plus New Mexico.

Most of Egypt is desert, about two thirds of it part of the sandy and extremely harsh Libyan desert. A more mountainous desert extends from the Nile Valley to the Red Sea. The Sinai Peninsula east of that is also desert. The only agricultural land is in the Nile Valley and Nile Delta.

The Nile runs about 500 miles to its delta from the Aswan Dam near the Sudan border. The dam was built in the 1960s to control flooding, provide irrigation and generate electricity. The annual Nile floods used to wash away crops in high-water years and failed to support them in low-water ones.

The great majority of Egypt’s 88 million people, over half of whom are under 20 years old and 91% of whom are ethnic Egyptians, live near the banks of the Nile, about half of them in urban areas, mostly Cairo, Alexandria and other major Nile Delta cities. The entire Nile Valley and Nile Delta account for about 5.5% of Egypt’s land, and since much of that delta is marshland, 98% of the population lives on only 3% of Egypt’s entire territory.

An estimated 90% of Egyptians are Muslim, 9% Coptic Christian and 1% other Christian denominations. An estimated two thirds of the Muslims are Sunni, 13% are non-denominational, 17% are Egyptian-Sufi, and 3% are Shia. Over 90% of the Christians belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.

Egypt’s known history begins twelve thousand years ago with a grain-grinding culture. When climate changes or overgrazing a couple of thousand years later began to turn the land to desert, the people moved to the Nile Valley. Some of the earliest developments in writing, agriculture, urbanization, organized religion and central government were made there where a unified kingdom was founded five thousand years later and a distinctively Egyptian religious and artistic culture began to flourish. Many of the great pyramids were built in that time.

Christianity arrived in Egypt three thousand years later as its native civilization was fading, then it was conquered by Muslim Arabs in 639–42. They ruled Egypt for the next six centuries and were followed in 1250 by Mamluks, a military caste of Turkic slaves brought by Muslim rulers to Iraq in the 9th century. Although the Mamluk regime was conquered by Ottoman Turks in 1517, they continued to rule semi-autonomously until France invaded in 1798. When they were driven out in 1805, an Ottoman military commander took over. His dynasty ruled until 1952 although they were by then British puppets.

Eight hundred years of benign, oppressive or behind the scenes military rule explains much about Egypt today, along with the results of several hundred years of rule by colonial powers, persistent social injustice and now, a very high percentage of under twenty year-olds.

Egypt’s debt to European banks from its partnership with France to complete the Suez Canal in 1869 was so great that it was soon forced to sell its share to Britain. Expecting great benefit since the canal cut 4,300 miles off the sea distance between Europe and South Asia, Egypt instead got British and French controllers in its cabinet.

When the Ottomans allied with Germany in WW1, Britain replaced Egypt’s anti-British ruler and declared it a Protectorate. The country rose in revolt after the war when Britain exiled leaders of the nationalist movement that won the first election. Britain declared Egypt’s independence in 1922 but retained control and maintained a military presence until 1956.

Opposition to British rule led in 1928 to formation of the Muslim Brotherhood which focused first on education and charity but soon became a political force, too, advocating for the disenfranchised, modernization of Islam, and Egyptian nationalism. During WW2 the Brotherhood sabotaged British forces in Egypt and supported terrorism in British Palestine. In 1945, educated, lower middle class army officers established a secret Free Officers Movement within the Brotherhood. In 1948, the Prime Minister outlawed it and was assassinated by one of its members.

In 1950, Gamal Nasser was chosen to head the still secret Free Officers Movement and began preparing to end British influence once and for all. The military coup d’etat he organized in 1952 was quite peaceful, the Egyptian Republic was declared the following year and he became President in 1956. Although the revolution was supported by the Brotherhood, they were given no role in the government. When a Muslim Brother tried to assassinate Nasser during his 1954 speech celebrating the upcoming British military withdrawal, his response from the podium: “My countrymen, my blood spills for you and for Egypt. I will live for your sake and die for the sake of your freedom and honor” made him a hero. He abolished the Brotherhood and imprisoned thousands of its members.

Nasser went on to became leader not only of Egypt but of many Arabs everywhere. He promoted political unification of all Arabs. All foreign powers would be expelled and Arabs would govern themselves via Arab Socialism, which meant not Communism but eliminating the exploitation of one group of citizens by another.

Nasser’s policy toward the Great Powers was neutral and wary. He saw it as a continuation of British influence when in 1955 Britain, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Turkey, encouraged by the US, formed the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) to counter Russian expansion. After Israel attacked the Egyptian-held Gaza Strip the same year and Egypt’s forces were too weak to respond, he made an arms deal with Czechoslovakia. The US had stopped supplying arms because Egypt was neutral toward the USSR.

In 1956, when the US withdrew funding for the Aswan High Dam, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. France, Britain, and Israel invaded but US President Eisenhower forced them to withdraw. Nasser later got funding for the dam from Russia. He established a Constitution that enabled women to vote and prohibited gender-based discrimination. By the end of the next year he had nationalized all British and French assets as well as other businesses, in total one third of the overall economy.

Pan-Arabism was by this time supported throughout the Arab world and Nasser seemed able to bring it about. He opposed communism but the US saw pan-Arabism as a threat, too, and tried to build up King Saud as a counterweight. When Egypt and Syria formed the United Arab Republic in 1958, absorbed the Gaza Strip and aligned with North Yemen, King Saud’s plan to have Nasser assassinated became instead a triumph when he waved the Saudi check for shooting down his plane to cheering masses in Syria’s capital.

In 1961, Nasser helped establish, along with Burma, Ghana, India, Indonesia and Yugoslavia, the Non-Aligned Movement of developing countries opposed to the Cold War. It now has 120 members. The same year he made Egypt’s leading Sunni institution authorize coeducational schools and declare Shia, Alawaite and Druze no longer heretical.

When civil war broke out in North Yemen in 1962 after a republic was declared, Jordan and Saudi Arabia supplied military aid to the royalists. Nasser supplied troops and weapons to the republican side hoping to go on and expel British forces from South Yemen. The war ended in 1970 in stalemate.

Also in 1962 Nasser introduced another new constitution along with a National Charter that included free universal health care, affordable housing, free education, more women’s rights, a minimum wage, and land reforms that gave tenant farmers security. Government ownership of Egyptian business increased to 51%. The economy came close to collapse by the end of the 1960s.

When Russia told him in 1967 that Israel was about to attack Syria, Nasser deployed troops near Israel’s border, expelled UN peacekeepers and blocked Israel’s access to the Red Sea saying, “our basic objective will be to destroy Israel.” King Hussein, fearing that Israel would seize the West bank, committed Jordan to join Egypt and Syria. Israel quickly captured Sinai and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Russia then resupplied about half of Egypt’s arms and Nasser cut relations with the US.

When Nasser died in 1970 he was succeeded by Anwar Sadat who realigned Egypt from Russia to the United States and launched economic reform. Nasser had suppressed Muslim movements but Sadat hoped to win their support. He freed Muslim Brothers from jail but left the Brotherhood outlawed. Allied with Syria, he launched an attack in 1973 to regain part of the Sinai Israel had captured. That later enabled him to regain all Egypt’s Sinai territory in return for peace with Israel, but after signing a 1979 peace agreement with Israel, he was considered an enemy of Muslims and was assassinated in 1981 by a Muslim extremist.

Hosni Mubarek, an air force commander during the 1973 war, was elected next. He was subsequently elected to three more 6-year terms (but was the only candidate in the first two). Despite mass arrests the Muslim Brotherhood continued to push for more democracy and against Western erosion of Islamic culture, and they continued to gain support, mainly because of their social services.

In 1989, the USA designated Egypt a major non-NATO ally. In 1991, Mubarak began privatizing the economy and passing severe freedom-inhibiting laws. The economy flourished but terrorist attacks increased, too, and parliament had almost no role by the late 1990s. In 2005, although Brotherhood candidates could run only as independents, they won 20% of the parliamentary seats. Two years later, independent candidates were banned and thousands of Brotherhood members were arrested. The Brotherhood boycotted the 2008 election and in 2010 there were more massive arrests and all but one of their candidates lost.

Mubarak ruled Egypt for over thirty years and intended his son to succeed him but widespread protests forced him to resign in 2011. The Egyptian military then reemerged and took over. They legalized the Brotherhood and held an election. The Brotherhood’s newly formed Freedom and Justice Party won almost half the seats and its candidate, Mohamed Morsi, was elected president.

Morsi granted himself unlimited powers and proposed what opponents said was an Islamist constitution, then twenty to thirty million protesters took to the streets. The military stepped back in, removed him and re-outlawed the Brotherhood. The US withdrew military aid to protest the abuse of democracy. Morsi was charged with crimes that include inciting jihad in collaboration with Hezbollah and Hamas. The head of the military, el-Sisi was elected president in early 2014. Today Morsi was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the killing of demonstrators in 2012. Last year, the UN condemned the sentencing to death of 1,200 people in mass trials “rife with procedural irregularities.”

On April 1, 2015 (sic) the US restored $1.3B of military aid to Egypt, our second largest total after Israel. In September 2014, Russia had agreed to a $3.5B arms deal with Egypt and a few months later Egypt had facilitated a Russian arms deal with Libya.

Escalating the Middle East arms race will not end well. Egypt’s relations with Iran are strained by Iran’s rivalry with Saudi Arabia, its relations with Turkey are strained by Turkey’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood, and it is militarily active in Yemen where Saudi Arabia and Iran are amplifying an age-old local conflict being exploited by Al Queda.

Meanwhile, Egypt is riven internally by the conflicting aims of Muslim Brothers, Coptic Christians, secularist and military leaders. And there are no jobs for 39% of the under twenty year-old half of Egypt’s population.

Mar 30 2015

Beyond the Media Hype: Palestine

Why is it harder to “understand” Palestine than Lebanon or other Middle East states? Because Palestine lacks the conceptual framework of statehood. It does not even exist on this map of Middle Eastern states that aims to illustrate the incoherence of our current alliances.

The map’s precise borders suggest stability, too. Although Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen are sunk in civil war, they seem to be unified like currently stable Egypt, Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.

Previous posts in this series have begun to illuminate the deep conflict between long-powerful Iran and recently-wealthy Saudi Arabia, why Yemen has become a proxy in their rivalry, and how Jordan, Lebanon and Syria became independent states. Now we can explore why Palestine did not become one and start to think holistically about what is driving Middle Eastern conflicts.

The region between Egypt, Syria and Arabia known for thousands of years as Palestine was among the world’s first settled agricultural communities. It is a crossroads for commerce, cultures and religions, the place where Judaism and Christianity were born. Controlled over the centuries from Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, Turkey, Britain and more, its boundaries changed constantly.

Today’s Palestine is part of what was Greater Syria under Turkey’s Ottoman Empire. That Syria was the entire region from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates and the Arabian Desert to southern Turkey’s Taurus Mountains. When the Ottomans got control by conquering Egypt in 1517, they subdivided it into administrative districts, some of which correspond to today’s states.

When the Ottoman Empire fell at the end of WW1, the League of Nations granted Britain and France Mandates over the region. Those Mandates placed former German and Turkish colonies under the “tutelage” of Britain and France “until such time as they are able to stand alone.”

Note: If that sounds patronizing, it is worth noting that it is what we are currently trying to do in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Having secretly agreed during WW1 how they would divide it between them, Britain and France established states in their mandated territories. That was when Lebanon and Syria became separate nations. Britain divided its territory into Palestine and Transjordan, which later became Jordan.

Europe’s concept of nation states had come to the Arab world late in the 19th century. It gave rise everywhere to a growing rejection of colonialism and in Greater Syria to the theory of a pluralistic Syrian nationality that supported multiple religions: Sunni and Shia, Christian and Jewish.

The idea of an independent Palestine within Greater Syria arose when Britain established Mandatory Palestine with a modern nation-state boundary. The desire for that independence greatly increased as a result of fast growing Zionist immigration into what is now Israel.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) founded in 1964 to liberate Palestine by armed struggle was secularist then like Greater Syria even though about 90% of Palestinians are Sunni.

Islam only became significant in Palestinian politics with the 1980s rise of the Hamas offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood founded in Egypt in 1928 as a religious, political, and social movement.

But let’s take a step back. How did Ottoman Greater Syria become home to diverse people and religions, and what is the specific history of today’s Palestinian State?

The Roman Empire began converting to Christianity when it was reunified by emperor Constantine. His mother brought Christianity to Jerusalem in 326 and Palestine grew to become a center of Christianity. Although Greater Syria was conquered by Muslims in 636, the majority of its population remained Christian until the late 12th century.

Persecution of Christians began growing in the late 10th century during a long series of wars between Egyptian, Central Asian and Persian Empires and Europe’s Crusaders. Then the decline of the eastern remainder of the Roman Empire in the early 13th century dramatically cut Christian influence throughout the region.

In the early 20th century, Zionist settlers began buying land in what is now Israel and evicting Palestinian peasants. At the same time, support began growing in Britain for the establishment there of a Jewish homeland.

Muslim-Christian Associations formed throughout the area in opposition and became a national group that agitated for an independent Palestine. Protests grew as mass Jewish immigration continued. The protests developed into a 1936-1939 mass uprising.

After WW2 in 1947, the UN proposed the partition of Britain’s Mandatory Palestine into an Arab state, a Jewish state and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem.

Palestinian leaders along with those of Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Greece, Cuba and India rejected any such plan of partition saying it violated the UN charter’s principle that people have the right to decide their own destiny.

Although Palestinian and Arab leaders now accept the partition in broad terms as a fait accompli, they continue to consider it unfair.

Jews owned 7% of Mandatory Palestine but were given 56% of it. The area under Jewish control contained 45% of the Palestinian population. Much of the Arab land was unfit for agriculture.

The Negev desert given to the Jewish state was also sparsely populated and unsuitable for agriculture but that area was a “vital land bridge protecting British interests from the Suez Canal to Iraq.”

Note: To understand Palestinians’ reaction, imagine the UN establishing Native American homelands corresponding to where they lived before Columbus and returning 56% of the USA to them.

Civil war broke out. It became an inter-state war when Israel declared independence in May 1948. Forces from Egypt, Jordan Syria and Iraq joined the Palestinians but Israel ended up with both its UN-recommended territory and almost 60% of the proposed Arab state.

Jordan took the rest of the West Bank and Egypt the Gaza Strip. No Palestinian state was created.

During ten months of battles, around 700,000 Palestinians, 60% of all those in Mandatory Palestine in 1947, fled or were driven out. In the following three years, about the same number of Jews immigrated to Israel, 110% of those in Mandatory Palestine in 1947.

Note: Again to put numbers in perspective, imagine 193 million Americans (60% of of 321M) being driven out in less than a year and replaced in the next three years by the same number of Muslim immigrants (who we imagine already make up 15% of our population).

What happened next? In 1967 Israel captured the rest of the former British Mandate of Palestine, taking the West Bank from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt.

In 1973 Syria tried but failed to regain the Golan heights and Egyptian military forces invaded with some success.

Following the case fire, Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt and Egypt became the first Arab country to recognize Israel.

Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1980.

In 1987, a new Palestinian uprising began. The following year Chairman of the PLO Yasser Arafat declared Palestine’s independence.

In 1993, Israel and the PLO agreed to the creation of a Palestinian National Authority (PNA) as the interim self-government body to administer 39% of the West Bank under the PNA’s Fatah faction and the Gaza Strip under its Hamas wing. Further negotiations were to take place but did not.

Israel continued to occupy 61% of the West Bank.

In 2000, another uprising began. That came to an end following the death of Yasser Arafat and Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza strip. Israel retained control of the Gaza Strip air space and coast.

In 2011, the President of the Palestinian Authority and Chairman of the PLO submitted Palestine’s application for membership in the UN.

In 2012, the UN granted de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine. Canada, Israel and the USA voted against the upgrade. President Obama said “genuine peace can only be realised between Israelis and Palestinians themselves … it is Israelis and Palestinians – not us – who must reach an agreement on the issues that divide them.”

The State of Palestine can now join treaties and specialized UN agencies, pursue legal rights over its territorial waters and air space, and bring “crimes against humanity” and war-crimes charges to the International Criminal Court.

What may be the future for Palestinians, and what is indicated for our foreign policy?

A state with the territory of Mandatory Palestine could have become self-supporting. One made up of the land-locked West Bank and the separate Gaza Strip can not.

Jordan’s first king may have been right–a state whose territory included the West Bank as well as today’s Jordan could have been good for Palestinians.

A non-viable but internationally recognized State of Palestine may be a necessary stepping stone for Palestinians and Israelis to make peace but a different arrangement of territories in that region is inevitable.

History shows the absurdity of our belief that the borders of existing nation states just need to be accepted and democratic elections established, then all will be well. Borders make administration possible. Believing people on the other side of the border are intrinsically different breeds fear and makes peace impossible.

Mar 26 2015

Beyond the Media Hype: Lebanon

Lebanon’s location bordering Syria made it a trading hub between the Mediterranean and Arab worlds and resulted in it becoming the most religiously diverse country in the Middle East. Its mountains isolated religious and ethnic groups from each other.

Lebanon is north-south alternating strips of lowland and highland–a coastal plain, a mountain range, a central plateau, then more mountains. Its shoreline is regular, rocky and has no deep harbor. The Beqaa Valley between the mountain ranges is the main agricultural area but fruit and vegetables grow well on the very narrow maritime plain.

The CIA estimates the population to be 40% Christian, 27% Shia, 27% Sunni, and 5% quasi-Shia Druze. The Lebanese Information Center estimates 34% Christians while Statistics Lebanon estimates 46% Christian. The 34% to 46% range for Christians is matched by a 27% to 40% range for Shia.

There are several Christian groups. Maronite Catholics make up 21% of the overall population, Greek Orthodox 8%, Greek Catholic 5%, Protestant 1% and 6% other denominations. When the last census was taken in 1932, Christians were 53% of the total. It was about the same in 1956 but more Christians than Muslims have emigrated since then and the Muslim population has a higher birth rate.

Lebanon has over thousands of years been part of many empires. It became an orthodox Christian center under the Romans. They persecuted an ascetic Christian tradition established near Mount Lebanon in the late 4th century by a hermit named Maron. Most of Lebanon was ruled as a Christian Crusader State from 1109 to 1289.

Most eastern Mediterranean Christian communities swore allegiance to the head of Eastern Christianity in Constantinople, but the Maronites aligned with the Pope in Rome, which led to centuries of support from France and Italy even after Lebanon became part of the Ottoman Empire in 1516.

In 1842, fighting between Maronites and the Druze led to the Mount Lebanon area being separated into a Christian district in the north and a Druze one in the south, both of which reported to the governor of the Sidon district in Beirut. France got the northern district separated entirely from Muslim Syria in 1861 to protect Mount Lebanon’s 80% Christian population

In 1920, after the Ottoman Empire fell, the League of Nations gave Syria and Lebanon to France, and Palestine and Iraq to Britain. France was welcomed by Christians around Mount Lebanon and vehemently rejected by Muslims in Syria. It took until 1923 for France to gain full control.

France added Tripoli, north of which is primarily Sunni, to the former Ottoman district of Mount Lebanon, along with Sidon, south of which is chiefly Shia, and the Bekaa Valley, which has a mix of Muslims, Christians and Druze, and established it in 1926 as the democratic republic of Lebanon.

A political system was established that shares power based on religious communities. There is an unwritten agreement that the president will be Maronite Christian, the speaker of the parliament Shia, the prime minister Sunni and the Deputy Speaker of Parliament and the Deputy Prime Minister Greek Orthodox. The Shia have considered themselves marginalized ever since. They as well as the Maronites were persecuted by the Ottomans.

When France’s puppet government during WW2 allowed Germans through Syria to attack British forces in Iraq, Britain invaded Syria and Lebanon. France then said Lebanon would become independent with France’s ongoing support. But when the newly elected Lebanese government abolished France’s mandate in 1943, France imprisoned them. France was then forced by international pressure to recognize Lebanon as fully independent. France withdrew its troops in 1946.

In 1958, Muslim demands for reunification with Syria led to the brink of civil war and US military intervention when Muslims wanted Lebanon to join the newly formed Egyptian-Syrian United Arab Republic. Tension with Egypt had been growing since 1956 when Lebanon’s Christian president did not break with Israel and the Western powers that attacked Egypt to regain control of the Suez Canal.

Internal tensions continued to grow. In 1975, civil war broke out between a Christian coalition and an alliance of Druze and Muslims with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Syria sent troops, allegedly for peace-keeping, that remained in Lebanon until 2005, long after the end of the war.

The PLO leaders had set up new headquarters in Beirut after they lost the 1970-71 civil war with the Sunni monarchy for control of Jordan. The PLO was founded in 1964 in Jordan where Palestinian refugees from Israel had become the majority population.

Thousands of Palestinian fighters fled to Lebanon after the Syrian civil war, preceded by refugees from Israel and followed by more from Jordan. There are 450,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon now, primarily in the south.

In 1978, Israel invaded southern Lebanon to push PLO forces away from the border.

In 1982, PLO attacks led to a second Israeli invasion through Shia southern Lebanon and a siege of Shia Beirut. The militant Shia political party Hezbollah came into being in the next few years to expel Israel forever and end Shia marginalization.

The civil war ended in 1990 with an agreement to disband all non-governmental Lebanese militias and deploy the Lebanese army on the border with Israel. But Syria’s Shia government, which controlled Lebanon then, with fundamentalist Shia Iran’s support, allowed Hezbollah to continue fighting a guerrilla war against Israel and the South Lebanon Army in Shia areas occupied by Israel until 2000. Many see Hezbollah as a proxy of Syria and Iran.

Hezbollah has continued fighting with reduced intensity since then to liberate Shebaa Farms in the Golan Heights, territory occupied by Israel since 1967. The UN considers Shebaa Farms Syrian territory. Both Syria and Lebanon consider it part of Lebanon. UN resolutions in any case require Israel to withdraw from all occupied territories.

In 2005, a former Prime Minister who worked to end Syrian dominance of Lebanon was assassinated, for which some accused Syria, others Israel. Demonstrators supported by the West demanded the end of what some consider military occupation by Syria and its undue influence on Lebanon’s government. A 1991 treaty made Syria responsible for Lebanon’s protection.

In 2006, Hezbollah launched rocket attacks and raids into Israel. They responded by invading southern Lebanon, and with airstrikes throughout the country that destroyed bridges, ports, power stations, water and sewage treatment plants, schools, hospitals and homes.

The latest threat to Lebanon’s stability is the Syrian civil war. Of Lebanon’s total 5,883,600 population, 450,000 are Palestinian refugees and 1,200,000 are recent Syrian refugees. Refugees make up almost 30% of the population and 20% are very recent arrivals.

Diverse populations are not easily governed even in a democracy.

Most nations in the Middle East are autocracies–Sunni in Saudi Arabia and Jordan, Shia in Iran and Syria, first Sunni now Shia in Iraq. Lebanon is a parliamentary democratic republic a quarter or more of whose population is either Christian, Shia or Sunni citizens, or refugees from Palestine, Jordan and Syria, most them Sunni. That’s a formidable challenge.

And Lebanon’s government was dominated by Syria from 1975 to 2005, while southern Lebanon still is dominated by PLO and Hezbollah forces, which makes it a battle ground with Israel in the quest for a Palestinian nation state.

Lebanon’s future is inextricably tied with Syria, which is in turmoil, Palestine which does not exist as a nation state, and Israel. It seems to have been a mistake to have established Lebanon as an independent nation state and/or not to establish Palestine as one at the same time.

Dec 14 2014

Beyond the Media Hype: Saudi Arabia

Where next to combat my ignorance about the Middle East? Here. We Americans fear and loathe Arabs in general but we imagine Saudis to be our friends.

Saudi Arabia is mostly inhospitable desert that covers 80% of the Arabian Peninsula. The prophet Muhammed united nomadic tribes here in the early 7th century and established an Islamic state that his followers rapidly expanded. The center of the Muslim world soon moved to better lands and most of what is now Saudi Arabia reverted to tribal rule.

In the 16th century, Ottoman rulers of Turkey north of Iraq added the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula to their empire. Their control of the area varied over the next four centuries. In 1916, tribal leaders encouraged by Britain mounted a failed revolt then the Ottoman Empire collapsed at the end of WW I. Ibn Saud, who founded today’s Saudi Arabia and avoided the revolt, continued his three decades long campaign against his regional rivals.

He established the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932 as an absolute monarchy governed under a puritanical form of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabi that is practiced by 85–90% of Saudis. The other 10-15%, who face systematic discrimination, are Shi’a. No faith other than Islam is permitted, conversion by Muslims to other religions is outlawed and so is proselytizing by non-Muslims.

The royal family controls all the kingdom’s important posts. Around 200 of more than 7,000 princes occupy the key ministries and regional governorships. The country in effect belongs to the Ibn Saud family.

Saudi Arabia is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north with Egypt, Israel and Palestine to Jordan’s west. Syria is in the northwest and Iran is a few miles east over the Persian Gulf. These borders were drawn up by the British and French at the end of WW I with little regard for tribal, religious or ethnic realities.

(Map created by Norman Einstein, February 10, 2006)

Saudi Arabia is interesting to two communities. Mecca, the birthplace of Muhammed and the site of his first revelation of the Quran, is Islam’s holiest city. Non-Muslims are prohibited from it and a pilgrimage to it is mandatory for Muslims. That Saudi Arabia is the world’s dominant oil producer and exporter and has the world’s second largest proved petroleum reserves motivates our interest.

Oil was struck in Pennsylvania in 1859, Russia found it in the Caucasus in 1873, then the British found it in Iraq in 1903. They promptly declared they would “regard the establishment of a naval base or a fortified port in the Persian Gulf by any other power as a very grave menace to British interests, and we should certainly resist it with all the means at our disposal.” Five years later, they struck oil in Iran.

Three years after that, the British began converting their navy from coal, of which they had ample supplies, to oil, of which they had none. They landed forces in Iraq in 1914, captured Baghdad and began projecting power from there. More oil was found in the Persian Gulf, starting in Bahrain in 1931 and followed by Kuwait and Qatar. Then in 1933, Americans found oil in Saudi Arabia.

American businessmen were cautiously welcomed by the Saudi king as less threatening than Britain or other colonial powers. He negotiated well with Aramco executives, the business established to export the oil, and later with the US government, trading oil for infrastructure development that transformed Saudi Arabia in a very short time from a medieval fiefdom to a 20th century one that became leader of the petroleum exporters, OPEC.

Saudi Arabia gained control of 20% of Aramco in 1972, full control in 1980 and was by 1976 the largest oil producer in the world. In 1973, Saudi Arabia led an oil boycott against Western countries that supported Israel in its war against Egypt and Syria.

The Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 led Saudi Arabia’s king to fear rebellion by the Shi’a minority in the east where the oil is located, and in the same year protesters against laxity and corruption in his government seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca. These events led to enforcement of much stricter religious observance and a greater role in government for Muslim legal scholars.

The royal family’s relations had been primarily with Aramco leaders until the reign of King Khalid starting in 1975. After 1975 was when Saudi and US foreign policy grew closely aligned.

Saudi Arabia provided $25B to Iraq in its 1980-88 war against Iran, which we supported. It condemned Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait and allowed US and coalition troops to be stationed in Saudi Arabia. But it did not support or participate in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. The US by then no longer seemed a dependable ally.

There is significant opposition in Saudi Arabia both to US influence, and to the absolute monarchy. The strongest opposition comes from Sunni religious leaders who want a stricter form of Islamic rule. Others want the opposite. The Saudi government was rated the 5th most authoritarian government out of 167 in 2012. Women have almost no rights, it’s the only country in the world that bans them from driving. There is also opposition from the Shi’a minority as well as tribal and regional opponents.

The Saudi royal family’s greatest fear, however, until the recent rise of the Islamic State whose stated goal is leadership of an Islamic world, has been Iran’s growing influence. They are more alarmed now the US and Iran seem to be inching closer to a rapprochement.

So the Saudi royal family needs US military support but is at odds with us among other reasons because, like every other nation in the Middle East, they opposed the creation of Israel and are supportive of the Palestinians. They have condemned the Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, but the Saudi royal family is Sunni and Hezbollah are Shi’a.

The royal family must also deal with anti-American feeling among the Saudi people. Osama Bin Laden and fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia and it is widely believed, in former US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s words, that: “Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.”

Very recently, the king criminalized “participating in hostilities outside the kingdom” fearing that Saudis taking part in Syria’s civil war will return knowing how to overthrow a monarchy. Syria now defines terrorism as “calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which this country is based.” One of the groups they have named as a terrorist organization is the Muslim Brotherhood.

Fear of its neighbors motivates Saudi Arabia to spend more than 10% of its GDP on its military, among the highest percentage of military expenditure in the world. The kingdom has a long standing military relationship with Pakistan. Some believe it funded Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and could purchase such weapons from them for itself.

A good representative of what the Saudi government fears is Safar al-Hawali, a scholar who was a leader of the 1991 movement opposing the presence of US troops on the Arabian peninsula and a leader of a 1993 group that was the first to openly challenge the monarchy.

No surprise that al-Hawali is also a critic of the US government.

In 2005, al-Hawali wrote in An Open Letter to President Bush “the Roman Empire claimed to be the symbol of freedom and civilized values, just as you referred to America in your first statement after the incidents of September 11. It was the greatest world power of its day, the heir of Greek civilization. It had a Senate and a façade of democracy. The Roman citizen had freedom of religion and personal behavior. All this made it superior to other Empires throughout the world, and yet history does not speak well of this Empire because of the repulsive crime with which it stained its reputation: the persecution of the Christians.”

Elsewhere, al-Halawi wrote: “Since World War II, America has not been a democratic republic: it has become a military empire after the Roman model … the American way can be discerned and defined in one word: war. America unhesitatingly enters into war anywhere in the world … Thus we notice that America is always seeking an enemy, and if it does not find one it creates one and inflates it using its terrible media to persuade its people’s conscience that the war it has declared is necessary and for a just cause.” (“Inside the Mirage” Thomas A. Lippman, p. 328)

We imagine Saudi Arabia is our friend, but our thirst for oil provokes their memories of colonial powers. Saudis and others in the Middle East don’t understand our unquestioning support for Israel. Their Muslim leaders are as suspicious of American Christians as we are of them. Inside Saudi Arabia the Shi’a minority is oppressed by their Sunni rulers, Wahhabi fundamentalists battle progressives, and nobody except the royal family can have a role in government.

Preconceptions like the ones we and Saudis hold about each other are not a dependable basis for friendship. Instead, they fuel hatred.

Mar 17 2014

Our Sacrosanct Jobs Program

A news article this week brought to mind something British politician Tony Benn said, “I remember setting sail to South Africa for training [as a WW2 RAF pilot] and being part of a war aims meeting. It was the most brilliant political meeting I ever attended. One man spoke of the mass unemployment of the 1930s and said that if we could attain full employment by killing Germans, we could have full employment by building houses, schools and hospitals.”

The article is about a $643M contract with Bath Iron Works (BIW) for which Maine Senators Collins, a Republican, and King, an independent, got funding. They say it will “allow the Navy to send another DDG-51 to sea when the Navy’s fleet needs to preserve important combat capabilities in support of our national defense.” Democratic Representative Pingree said, “this is excellent news for the families who earn their living at BIW.” A shop steward who represents BIW workers said, “the contract brings more stability to the company, which employs about 5,400 people.”

So, my representatives in Washington, the BIW workers and their families, local business owners, everyone around here is happy we’re going to build more of these ships that were “originally designed to defend against Soviet aircraft, cruise missiles and nuclear attack submarines.”

What struck me is, although we don’t think of Defense that way, it has grown into an enormous jobs program. What’s more it’s a program whose rationale and scope we do not question.

President Reagan’s budget director David Stockman has points to make, however. In The Ukraine, The War Party and the Pentagon’s Swamp of Waste he writes, “the $625 billion allocated to DOD this year amounts to a colossal destruction of economic resources for no benefit whatsoever to the safety and security of the American people.”

Stockman is angry, perhaps because “About three decades ago I called the Pentagon a “swamp of waste” during an off-the-record interview that ended-up on the evening news. Presently I ended-up in President Reagan’s woodshed–explaining that, well, yes, I did say that because it was in fact true.” His article is excellent background reading.

I don’t feel emotional about this but I am equally determined to do what I can so we do question how we want to spend that $625B of tax revenue. The current program does have some benefit — it provides a lot of jobs — but as Tony Benn realized, some of them could be different jobs. Some could be jobs without the risk of being killed or maimed.

Defense spending has huge support. There was a bi-partisan agreement to cut (sequester) federal spending this year. Stockman notes that “Had every dime of the $55 billion sequester been implemented, this year’s DOD budget would have been roughly $600 billion … in 1989, the DOD budget was about $475 billion in today’s inflation-adjusted dollars.” Even though DOD spending would have been up 25% from 25 years earlier, when the time came to make the cuts, Congressman Paul Ryan and others said making them would be tantamount to surrender. So the cuts were not made.

What provoked Stockman’s article is, “Contrary to the bombast, jingoism, and shrill moralizing flowing from Washington and the mainstream media, America has no interest in the current spat between Putin and the mobs of Kiev.”

Echoing President Eisenhower’s famous warning when he left office sixty years ago, he says, “The source of the current calamity-howling about Russia is the Warfare State–that is, the existence of vast machinery of military, diplomatic and economic maneuver that is ever on the prowl for missions and mandates and that can mobilize a massive propaganda campaign on the slightest excitement.”

Stockman is outraged that we believe the propaganda and by our hypocrisy: “We have invaded every country to our South–from the Dominican Republic to Guatemala and Panama and assassinated or overthrown dozens of their leaders–all within the 60 year span since Nikita Khrushchev gifted Crimea to his minions in Kiev. So precisely which nearby borders are so sacrosanct and exactly who has done the more egregious violating?”

I’ve written before about our defense spending and military strategy over which “we the people” have no control. President Reagan greatly accelerated spending on what was in fact a spurious rationale, it dropped and stabilized in the next decade, then it was driven to extraordinary new heights by President Bush based on a new spurious rationale. The numbers below show our total defense spending, not just what is presented in the US budget defense line item but also the spending on “overseas contingency operations” i.e., the wars President Bush started in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We might be encouraged by Congress’ refusal to approve President Obama’s recent desire to take military action in Syria except that (A) Congress is currently of a mind to refuse everything he proposes and (B) everyone in Congress always wants more military spending in their district.

Important as it is to make rational changes to our defense spending and decide what kind and size jobs program we want to fund, however, we first need a government that functions, one that could debate such questions, arrive at decisions and take action.

I’m still absorbing research about how we could get such a government and, following a break where I’m hoping for sun and heat, I will report back next month.

Feb 3 2014

Protecting the Opulent Against the Majority

A few days ago, billionaire venture capitalist Tom Perkins wrote that the way progressives are starting to treat the super rich reminds him of how the Nazis treated the Jews. Soon after his letter was published in multi-billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, he had to apologize for his politically incorrect phrasing. He would have done better to quote James Madison, “Father of the Constitution” and author of the Bill of Rights.

When the Federal Convention of 1787 turned to the question “whether the republican form shall be the basis of our government,” Madison pointed out: “In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of the landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place.”

The implication, he continued, is: “If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.” (emphasis added)

A widely held belief has developed that the US Constitution offers protection for all minorities. That was not its intent. Madison’s much more limited aim was to protect the wealthy minority. Whether or not we like the result, we should recognize that our Constitution is working as intended.

How does it work? A republic is where power is held by elected representatives whose actions are bound by a Constitution. People in a republic vote for candidates who promise changes they like. The risk is that a small majority could make changes with unacceptable negative impact on the rest of the population. That’s why a Constitution is necessary, to prevent such changes by defining ‘unacceptable.’

I’m thinking about this because I’m reading Noam Chomsky. His diagnosis of why our government acts as it does, regardless which party is in power, feels spot on. He shows example after example of actions by our government that benefit the opulent minority and work against the interests of the majority here and throughout the world.

But Chomsky’s proposed solution is misguided. His central beliefs are that power corrupts and capitalism concentrates wealth, which, based on long first-hand experience and close study of history, are truths I hold to be self-evident. The question is, would his solution, anarcho-syndicalism, be better? Could it even work?

Anarcho-syndicalists are socialist libertarians. Like capitalist libertarians who enjoy President Reagan’s signature joke: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help'” they oppose central power. The difference is anarcho-syndicalists say the inevitable concentration of wealth by capitalism exploits the majority.

Attractive increases in freedom are promised by both kinds of libertarians. In real life, however, the system does not scale. A libertarian (i.e., unregulated) society cannot protect shared resources or universal needs: local societies often manage local resources (e.g., forests) sustainably but resources managed by non-locals are polluted and/or depleted. And small societies cannot retain freedom: they cannot defend themselves against more powerful exploiters.

It is true that a fundamental problem for large scale enterprises is that central planning cannot work: there’s too much change to comprehend at the center. An ingenious programmer I once hired was directed to model how many tractors Soviet factories should plan to build. He tried combinations of many, many factors without success before at last seeing how to produce results that pleased the planners. How? By plugging the number of tractors that were going to be built, anyway.

Big businesses fail for the same reason – they lose contact with changes in their market.

Another problem is many things that start small seem destined to grow big but central planners too often fail to identify which are worth the investment. Small societies with property managed at the local level would make better choices but they lack the necessary resources. Today’s semiconductor and internet infrastructure, medical technology and etc required enormous investment.

So history tells us that democracies with a constitution tend to be better for people than autocracies, that market-based economies tend to deliver better results than centrally planned ones, and that capitalism seems essential to generate disruptive technology and deploy it on a large scale.

Speaking in Parliament in 1947, not so long after he lost the election following WW2, Winston Churchill famously said: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” The same looks to be true of capitalism in the economic sphere and nation states in the sphere of sovereign entities. They do all tend to concentrate power and wealth but the alternatives are worse.

So, “if these observations be just,” how can the non-opulent minorities who make up the majority get protection? Curtailing the inevitable abuses of power is achieved by incremental legislative changes that adapt Constitutional definitions to changes in society.

Because the fundamental structure of the system results in the wealth and power of the opulent minority always nudging the law’s evolution in their favor, other minorities must speak more loudly.

It is healthy that voices are now speaking loudly enough about too-high and rising inequality to be heard by Perkins and others. It indicates that our system is working as it should.

Sep 8 2013

Chemical Weapons and the Law

Syria is subject to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which makes the recent use of chemical weapons there a crime. UN Weapons investigators analyzing evidence collected in Syria need about another week to establish if the weapons were used by Syrian government forces, if Syria’s leader authorized their use or was informed later, if they were instead used by rebel forces, or if more evidence is required to make a judgment.

President Obama says Syria’s leader is responsible for the crime and proposes unilateral retaliatory military action. Congress is debating whether to authorize that. Its vote is scheduled for two days hence, before the UN team completes its analysis. President Obama says he has the authority to take military action even if Congress votes no.

Unfortunately, US governments always have placed their faith exclusively in military power and refused to accept the rule of international law. President Bush’s UN representative formally excluded the USA from ICC jurisdiction. President Obama, despite his law degree and Nobel Peace Prize, is acting the same way.

Banning chemical weapons has been a long and tortuous challenge. The first attempt was the 1925 Geneva Protocol following the use of poison gas in WW1. Another attempt was initiated following the WW2 Holocaust but was stymied by the Cold War. In 1962 the US and USSR proposed elimination of all such weapons to the UN but between then and 1971 the US sprayed nearly 20 million gallons of chemical weapons in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia which resulted, according to the Vietnam Red Cross, in as many as 400,000 people killed or maimed, and half a million children with birth defects.

We knew Iraqi troops were routinely using chemical weapons against Iran in the early 1980s, and supplied them with a couple of batches each of anthrax and botulism bacteria in 1986. The Senate unanimously passed the Prevention of Genocide Act in 1988, which would have banned any military assistance to Iraq and import of Iraqi oil, but it did not pass in the House. We continued to supply Iraq with equipment we knew was for use in their chemical and nuclear weapons programs until Saddam Hussein misjudged our friendliness and invaded Kuwait.

In 1993, the UN called for destruction of all existing chemical weapons, no more manufacture, and an inspection body. Congress reluctantly ratified that statute in 1997 but then passed legislation so we could refuse inspections.

At last, the genocide in Yugoslavia and Rwanda sparked the UN in 1998 to initiate creation of an International Criminal Court, an enforcement mechanism. The court’s independence and jurisdiction were major issues. Could it be prevented from launching a prosecution by a veto from the US, Russia, China, the UK or France? Would it require approval to prosecute from the country where a crime was committed? Could it prosecute if there was already a court proceeding in that nation? Could it prosecute crimes committed in civil wars? Could it prosecute crimes committed before it was established?

We said we supported the ICC. In fact, we worked hard to emasculate it. We demanded that no US citizen could be indicted without our approval. We required veto power over any indictment. We insisted that the ICC could prosecute crimes only in nations that are a party to the ICC Convention. We said the ICC could have jurisdiction only if national courts failed to act. We demanded that national security and/or a superior’s orders must be accepted as grounds for defense.

Even though those severe constraints were reluctantly accepted, we voted against creation of the court. The vote was 120 in favor, 7 opposed and 21 abstentions. The court would become effective when ratified by the 60th nation. We worked hard to prevent that. In 2001, the Senate passed an act that would have prohibited us from cooperating with the ICC in any way, barred military aid to any country supporting the ICC and required us to use any means to release US citizens held by the court.

When in 2002 the 60th nation ratified the ICC and it came into force, we notified the UN that we refused to be a party to the treaty.

At this time 122 nations have ratified the ICC and 31 more, including Russia, have signed but not ratified the Statute, 3 of which, Israel, Sudan and the US, have withdrawn their signatures. 41 other UN member nations have not signed the Statute, including China and India.

Governments of nations that have refused ICC jurisdiction tend to be engaged in activities the ICC might well prosecute, e.g., Israel’s settlements, India and Pakistan’s activities in Kashmir, China’s in Tibet and Xinjiang, ours in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and etc.

The ICC has so far opened investigations only into 8 situations in Africa. It has indicted 30 people, issued arrest warrants for 21 and has 5 in custody. The atrocities being committed in Syria should be prosecuted by the ICC and we should be insisting that it do so. We should consider other options only if the ICC is barred, e.g., by a veto from Russia, from that investigation.

We should stop telling the world we are its judge and executioner and start supporting the international rule of law.

Jul 24 2013

Traveling In A Dangerous World

I emigrated from the UK to the USA, I’ve traveled on business in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the UK, the USA and more, I’ve traveled to learn in Bhutan, Nepal, Sikkim and Tibet, I’ve traveled for pleasure in – well, I’ve moved around a lot. Here’s what I learned: almost all travel just confirms our preconceptions. We go someplace new, we see something new, we fit that into the concepts we brought with us.

Only by spending long enough in an unfamiliar world with senses and mind truly open can we notice enough detailed differences and similarities to learn from travel.

Senator King (I-ME) recently visited Syria. He’s a good man who was of course horrified by the suffering he saw at first hand. He returned wanting us to end that suffering by intervening militarily in Syria’s civil war. The suffering he saw reinforced the concept he took to Syria. Better he had not gone because military intervention is the wrong concept.

When I came to the USA, we were intervening militarily in Vietnam. One of those who was there long enough to learn, Colin Powell, was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1990/1 war in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. His doctrine, successfully applied in that war was: (1) Clear objectives, (2) Sufficient Force, (3) Exit Strategy, (4) Plan for unintended consequences.

The Powell doctrine was not applied in President Bush’s war in Iraq or President Obama’s in Afghanistan. It was partially applied in Libya where in addition to the objective of killing the nation’s leader there was an exit strategy, just stop, but no plan for the unintended consequence of civil war fought with the ex-government’s weapons that spread into neighboring Mali.

Senator King is right about many things, not about warfare. Here’s something he’s right about: On Facebook today, he links to his press release entitled: “The most serious threat to national security is the United States Congress – Senator King reiterates need for Congress to pass a budget to replace sequestration”.

A nation without a government is on an inevitable path to failure, the people we elected are not governing just arguing. As Senator King says, it’s as if they’re saying: “Have you noticed it’s raining? Yes, you’re right, it is raining” but nobody puts up an umbrella or goes inside.

So far so good. In the 7 minute video linked to from the press release, his sincerity is obvious. He went to Washington to try to get our government working. He’s questioning a defense analyst from the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. They agree health care is the greatest challenge to our national budget. They disagree about tax strategy. The Heritage Foundation is committed to cutting the deficit by spending cuts. Senator King believes there must also be tax increases, chiefly by capping deductions on high incomes.

The press release says: “Senator King, a member of both the Budget and Armed Services Committees, worked with his colleagues earlier this year to develop and pass a FY 2014 Budget Resolution that would not only replace sequestration, but would also pave a credible path toward fiscal stability by promoting economic growth and job creation while responsibly addressing the country’s debt and deficits.” It continues: “Republican objections have stalled the budget process, however, by preventing the appointment of members to a Conference Committee that would be tasked with reconciling the Senate budget with that passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. On May 8th, Senator King called on his colleagues to proceed with the Federal budget process. 122 days have passed the Senate passed its budget.”

Here’s an article on how the budget process is meant to work and what is happening instead: “stalemates in the budget process … predictably result in bad policy outcomes … we are currently stuck with sequestration … a policy designed to be so awful that Congress was expected to go to the lengths necessary avoid it.” The Executive branch, the House and the Senate have all produced budgets but there has been no move toward agreement and little prospect of any this year.

That means sequestration will continue to force cuts in spending while those who signed Grover Norquist’s pledge will continue to block any increase in revenue. Senator King is right about all that.

Here’s where he goes wrong, what he focuses on in his press release is the effect on defense spending: “Sequestration has already resulted in a $37 billion cut in defense spending for Fiscal Year 2013. In Fiscal Year 2014 the Department of Defense is projected to face a $52 billion budget cut due to sequestration, and many high ranking officials, including Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, have stated that the shortfall will severely compromise national security by reducing military readiness and limiting the capacity to respond to crises.”

Senator King’s press release makes no mention of what in the video he correctly identifies as our greatest budget challenge, healthcare spending. He ends his questioning with the following prepared statement, which he also posts to Facebook: “Our country is paying a heavy national security price because of sequestration. We live in the most complex and dangerous world that any of our military and intelligence experts have seen, and at the same time, we are gutting our military and hollowing out our readiness. Like I said at a committee hearing today, I think that’s a tragedy.”

We are not gutting our military. We are not hollowing out our readiness. There is no successor to Soviet Russia that could threaten us today.

We are are also not setting a military strategy. All we’re doing is telling the heads of our defense forces to cut spending to an extent they cannot predict because it is governed by no policy.

I will soon return to the topic of these posts, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and More, Evaluation of War on Terror Strategy and Military Operations Strategy. We have by an enormous margin the world’s greatest defense force, we have by far the world’s greatest warfare industry, and we have since the start of this century had Executive Branch leaders who increased demand for our warfare industry’s products and services with cripplingly expensive wars without clear objectives or exit strategy , and by encouraging ever greater weapons exports, e.g., 84 F-15 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia.

We have not one but three great threats to our national security, only two of which Senator King has identified: Congress, healthcare spending and the military/industrial complex.

May 13 2013

Campaign Finance and Free Speech

Because only bad government is possible until we reform campaign finance, I recently signed a petition supporting House Judiciary Resolution 29 (H.J.Res.29). I asked others to join me or point me to a better approach. It will be a while before I can do the necessary research to find a better approach – if there is one – so in the meantime this is an anchor for comments thus far.

H.J.Res.29 is a proposed Constitutional amendment that would make the rights extended by the Constitution apply only to natural persons and provides a basis for fundamental campaign finance reform. It was introduced in the House of Representatives on February 14, 2013 and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. It reads:

`Section 1. The rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons only. Artificial entities, such as corporations, limited liability companies, and other entities, established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state shall have no rights under this Constitution and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law. The privileges of artificial entities shall be determined by the People, through Federal, State, or local law, and shall not be construed to be inherent or inalienable.

`Section 2. Federal, State and local government shall regulate, limit, or prohibit contributions and expenditures, including a candidate’s own contributions and expenditures, for the purpose of influencing in any way the election of any candidate for public office or any ballot measure. Federal, State and local government shall require that any permissible contributions and expenditures be publicly disclosed. The judiciary shall not construe the spending of money to influence elections to be speech under the First Amendment.

`Section 3. Nothing contained in this amendment shall be construed to abridge the freedom of the press.’.

The intent of Section 1 is to establish that artificial entities such as corporations do not have constitutional rights. The intent of Section 2. is to establish that money is not free speech.

My overall view is:

(1) Our government today is unacceptably bad so we must make a substantial change

(2) A more effective form of democracy is possible, e.g., using social media technologies, that was unimaginable 250 years ago but we’re not going to change the current system

(3) Any legislative change will have negative as well as positive effects so we should make the best change we can, then make more based on future results

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