Psychopolitik 2.0

Some people have things that they are really into.  I mean REALLY into.  Creepily.  That object of obsession can be anything: shoes, action figures, knives, rubber bands even.  For example, here’s someone who calls himself “Newt” demonstrating his obsession with war:

I believe [former president George W. Bush] was right but in fact could not operationalize what he said. That is, there was an Axis of Evil, Iran, Iraq, North Korea. Well we’re one out of three. And people ought to think about that. If Bush was right in January of 2002 — and by the way virtually the entire Congress gave him a standing ovation when he said it — then why is it that the other two parts of the Axis of Evil are still visibly, cheerfully making nuclear weapons? And it’s because we’ve stood at brink, looked over and thought, “Too big a problem.”

The U.S. is currently involved in two wars, yet this guy wants two more.  Sad, isn’t it?

As if that isn’t bad enough, his delusions are even leading him to consider running for president, just to have the chance to sit in the driver seat of a war himself.  In this advanced stage, “Newt” may already have a Defense secretary in mind.  I’ve obtained footage of one potential candidate, a contemporary military expert, giving a strategy speech:

(* – yes, I know newts technically aren’t lizards, but why insult newts?)

James Fallows at The Atlantic, while talking about the recent Wikileaks release about the war in Afghanistan, reminisces about the Pentagon Papers:

Unlike Marc Ambinder or Alexis Madrigal, neither of whom was alive at the time, I remember when the Pentagon Papers came out. By that point American involvement in Vietnam was “ending” — even though it would be another four years before U.S. troops left the country after the fall of Saigon, and even though many, many  American, Vietnamese, and other people were still to die in the “wind-down” phase. [...] Perhaps the most shocking single document in the papers was the famed “McNaughton Memo” of 1965, which assessed American reasons for staying in Vietnam this way:

1. US aims:
70%–To avoid a humiliating US defeat (to our reputation as a guarantor).

20%–To keep SVN [South Vietnam] (and then adjacent) territory from Chinese hands.

10%–To permit the people of SVN to enjoy a better, freer way of life. Also-To emerge from crisis without unacceptable taint from methods used. Not–To “help a friend,” although it would be hard to stay if asked out.

After pointing out that the latest documentation confirms his skepticism of “doubling down” in Afghanistan as justified, Fallows ponders what a 21st Century McNaughton would say about the reasons for continuing this war. While I’m obviously not the type of person he’s expecting to provide such an answer, some things are just so clear that you don’t need to ask an expert, so here’s my best McNaughton impression:

1%: Remote hope that amid all the chaos US forces will stumble across Bin Laden’s dead body, providing a political boost back home (though by now any such boost would be diluted to virtually nothing).
99%: Fear on the part of the Obama administration of being labeled America-hating hippie defeatists who hate America, despite already being called far worse.

U.S. military documents, via Wikileaks: “Pakistan is playing both sides”

Afghans: “…that shocks you?  Really?”

Found this amusing:

KRAKOW, POLAND  — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday warned that governments around the world are increasingly restricting civil-society groups, and pledged $2 million for a new fund to help the organizations.  “We must be wary of the steel vice in which many governments around the world are slowly crushing civil society and the human spirit,” Clinton told an international meeting of democratic countries in this southern Polish city. [...]

Clinton said 50 countries had increased restrictions on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) over the past six years. A particularly insidious development, she said, was the growing tendency of countries to allow such groups to operate but require that they register and promote the government’s agenda.

Technically speaking, if governments — all of them — stopped restricting non-government organization, what would there be left for government to do?

The Israeli government has been running a blockade on Gaza for a few years.  Recently an attempt by activists to bring aid through it was met with That Thing That Governments Do, and there’s been a lot of reaction to it already.  Here’s an example that really caught my eye, due to the comparison made:

True, Israel’s economy is thriving and North Korea’s is not.  That said, both countries are diplomatically isolated except for their ties to a great power benefactor.   Both countries are pursuing autarkic policies that immiserate millions of people.  The majority of the population in both countries seem blithely unaware of what the rest of the world thinks.  Both countries face hostile regional environments.  Both countries keep getting referred to the United Nations.  And, in the past month, the great power benefactor is finding it more and more difficult to defend their behavior to the rest of the world.

Amy Goodman?  A random al-Jazeera reporter?  Nope, Daniel Drezner.

Radical times…

Considering that the overwhelming bulk of the product all that blood in Mexico is being shed over is destined for the other side of La línea imaginaria que, and they’ve even stopped locking up casual users, it’s reasonable to expect some sort of general shift in the direction of common sense taking hold there.  Sadly…no, not if Felipe Calderon has anything to say about it:

Mexican President Felipe Calderon urged the U.S. Congress Thursday to reinstate a ban on assault weapons to help cut cross-border gun smuggling and reduce drug gang violence for its southern neighbor.In a speech to a joint session of Congress, Calderon described efforts to fight organized crime in Mexico, where 23,000 people have been killed in drug violence since he came to power in late 2006 and launched an army offensive.  Washington is also aiding Mexico’s battle against drug gangs with a 2007 pledge of $1.4 billion for equipment and police training to help fight the cartels that ship some $40 billion worth of illegal drugs north each year. [...]

“There is one issue where Mexico needs your cooperation. And that is stopping the flow of assault weapons and other deadly arms across the border,” Calderon said to a standing ovation from U.S. lawmakers.

The reason for existence of the cartels is the demand for mind-altering substances on the part of US citizens, the satisfaction of which is artificially lucrative thanks to OUR LAWS.  As for the U.S. aid, many of those police forces end up taking Uncle Sucker’s training & then switching sides.  But never mind that!  Yanks that don’t work for the government are walking around with scary looking guns!!  Panic!!!

The other day at U.O., Thoreau took the opportunity to provide about as optimistic a look at Iraq & Afghanistan as any of us yanks have moral standing to do so, and in a way that says a lot both about them & their current occupier.  Read it & you’ll get what I mean by that.

Shorter Hamid Karzai: “You think continuing the war here is pointless NOW?  Oh, I can make it official for you…”

Considering his circumstances, I don’t think this was just mindless bluster.  Clearly his U.S. sponsors have other things on their mind, and these stories aren’t exactly helping the patience of the Afghan public.  Maybe he thinks he’s screwed anyway & is throwing feelers in hopes of future protection?

-The first thing I thought (other than “…wtf?”) about this whole alleged suburban one-woman sleeper cell business was about how casually pro-ethnic-profiling sentiment had spread in regards to terrorism.  I don’t think you could’ve in a million years designed a case as forcefully showing that approach to be inherently ineffective, in addition to merely being bigoted, as this one.   I wonder how long the line of swarthy foreigners getting roto-rootered at airport security would’ve gotten before the plane carrying another Jihad Jane (that’s what she supposedly called herself) blew up.

-Behind many political statements that are taken for granted are implications that, sadly, never get discussed.  Take accusations of Chinese currency manipulation, for example: the claim is that the Yuan is artificially undervalued, giving China an advantage in trade.  If the value were to go up, then U.S. exports would become comparatively cheaper because it would take fewer Yuan to get a dollar worth of goods.  This means that to argue that the Yuan is undervalued is akin to saying the dollar is overvalued.  Note that China happens to hold a particularly large chunk of U.S. government debt, and you see where this is going.

-Y’know, as long as we’re going to have super-wealthy media moguls in this world, it’d be interesting to see what kind of shifts would be initiated in the U.S. media as a result of a Mexican joining the club.

-Joe Biden, while Israel was announcing new construction for East Jerusalem settlers: “progress occurs in the Middle East when everyone knows there is simply no space between the United States and Israel”.  Um, yeah, which is why they’re fighting over the same shit still after all these years.  Speaking of East Jerusalem, here’s how some of the residents celebrate their holidays.  Nice neighbors ya got there…

-The Cheneyite approach to terror suspects, which results in the kind of atrocities that Conor Friedersdorf describes here, among other things, can only be explained by one of two things: vengeful indiscriminate rage (that is, it’s all about expressing “don’t fuck with us!!!” at any and every opportunity that arises, accuracy be damned) or cultural hatred.

Fareed Zakaria, in reference to Sarah Palin claiming that the best thing for Obama’s re-election odds would be to declare war on Iran:

The regime would gain support as ordinary Iranians rally around the flag. The opposition would be forced to support a government under attack from abroad. The regime would foment and fund violence from Afghanistan to Iraq and across the Persian Gulf. The price of oil would skyrocket — which, ironically, would help Tehran pay for all these operations.

It is important to recognize the magnitude of what people like Palin are advocating. The United States is being asked to launch a military invasion of a state that poses no imminent threat to America, without sanction from any international body and with few governments willing to publicly endorse such an action. Al-Qaeda and its ilk would present it as the third American invasion of a Muslim nation in a decade, proof positive that the United States is engaged in a war of civilizations.

Mkay, he beat down that obvious idiocy.  So where does he go from here?

The United States should use the latest IAEA report to bolster a robust containment strategy against Iran, bringing together the moderate Arab states and Israel in a tacit alliance, asking European states to go further in their actions, and pushing Russia and China to endorse sanctions. Former secretary of state James Baker suggested to me on CNN that the United States could extend its nuclear umbrella to Israel, Egypt and the Gulf states — something that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has hinted at as well.

At the same time, Washington should back the “Green Movement” in Iran, which ultimately holds out the greatest hope for a change in the basic orientation of Iran’s foreign policy.  (emphasis mine)

Translation: “Hey, Tehran!  Double-time it on the murders of those activists, wouldja?”

Here’s an alternative proposal: Leave the “green movement” alone because any association with the US is poison.  Meanwhile, drop the idea of sanctions because they don’t actually hurt the regime, since as we’ve already established they could give half a fuck about their people.  As for any pursuit of nukes, remember that the most likely target of any future nukes already has nuclear weapons.