Month: September 2013

If this is as bad as people say, shouldn’t we be doing more than symbolic gestures?

by digby

The Wall Street Journal explains one of the less understood reasons the president is delaying action in Syria:

The delay, in part, reflects a broader U.S. approach rarely discussed publicly but that underpins its decision-making, according to former and current U.S. officials: The Obama administration doesn’t want to tip the balance in favor of the opposition for fear the outcome may be even worse for U.S. interests than the current stalemate.

….The administration’s view can also be seen in White House planning for limited airstrikes—now awaiting congressional review—to punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for his alleged use of chemical weapons. Pentagon planners were instructed not to offer strike options that could help drive Mr. Assad from power: “The big concern is the wrong groups in the opposition would be able to take advantage of it,” a senior military officer said. The CIA declined to comment.

Israeli officials have told their American counterparts they would be happy to see its enemies Iran, the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah and al Qaeda militants fight until they are weakened, giving moderate rebel forces a chance to play a bigger role in Syria’s future. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been particularly outspoken with lawmakers about his concerns that weakening Mr. Assad too much could tip the scales in favor of al Qaeda-linked fighters.

Great. Our leaders are out there calling Assad Hitler and saying we have a Munich Moment, but he’s better than the alternative. Does this strike anyone as a tenable proposition? All the chest beating and hand wringing over the horrors of chemical weapons and the humanitarian crisis sounds just a little bit hollow when the only thing you are prepared to do is lob some missiles and call it a day.

The humanitarian crisis is horrifying. But if our consciences are so aroused that we feel the US must take action, but we can’t really change anything on the ground, then perhaps we should consider other alternatives, like arranging for refugees to come to the United States and other Western countries. And maybe we should think about how we could spend the money that we’re thinking of spending on military to fund it.

My maxim in these situations is: if it’s not obvious that violence is the only answer then it’s not the answer.

Update: And Haaretz reports this, although it’s very hard for me to imagine that the US Military really is so strapped it can’t carry out an allegedly limited operation like this. (If it is, we need to do an audit immediately because the taxpayers need to know where those billions have gone)

U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision to delay a planned military operation against Syria until the end of the congressional debates was preceded by a warning from the commander of the United States Air Force that a budget cutback in the Pentagon had severely affected the Air Force’s combat preparedness. The commander, General Mark Welsh, issued the warning publicly, in meetings with troops at Air Force bases in Japan and in an interview with Air Force Magazine, the online journal of the Air Force Association.

By promising that the operation would not involve prolonged involvement of ground forces, Obama put most of the burden on the aircraft and missile arrays of the Air Force and the Navy. Welsh’s warning shows that Obama’s reasons for delaying the operation were as much military in nature, as political and international.

Update II:

Q: Do you want to compare this to the Holocaust?

Pelosi: “No … I think more like Rwanda”

Oh please. A lot of people have been mau-mauing anyone who compares this to the run-up to the Iraq war. And it is different, to be sure. But it’s hardly comparable to the Holocaust or Rwanda either. Yes, there was a lot of killing going on in Rwanda and there’s a lot of killing going on in Syria. But the world dithered on Rwanda because nobody really gave a damn about a tribal war, not because they were afraid that Islamic terrorists would take over a Middle East military power or draw others into the battle.

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If ever there were a time to call your Congressmember…

by David Atkins

It’s one of the oldest adages in activist politics: if you want to have a voice, call your legislator. To a certain extent this really does work: if legislators get flooded with calls about a certain thing, they’ll be somewhat more likely to follow the will the people calling them–assuming it’s not on behalf of or astroturfed by some organization that would never support that politician, anyway.

Of course, most of us also know that directly contacting legislators only does so much good: the real power to sway decisions is usually exercised at much higher levels.

That having been said, the more fraught, difficult and urgent an issue, the more popular input really can make a difference.

On Syria, there is no question but what a large number of Congressmembers are plain and simply undecided on this one. Many of them truly don’t know yet how they will vote. And many of them really would value some input from their constituents in terms of how they feel about it.

It’s a tough decision. Morally speaking, the world should put an end to Bashar Al-Assad’s murderous rampage, and international protocols concerning chemical weapons should be enforced somehow. Pragmatically speaking, it’s not at all clear how missile strikes will help accomplish any goals, humanitarian or otherwise. They’re likely to make the situation worse.

Congressmembers are on the fence here. If you feel strongly about this issue one way or another, there has rarely been a better time to call your legislator and let them know your views as a constituent.

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The one unalloyed, positive in this awful situation

by digby

It has come to my attention that I haven’t sufficiently praised the president for taking the wholly unexpected step of consulting congress on Syria. And I haven’t. But I should. This piece by Walter Shapiro puts it into historical perspective and it really is a big deal. Going back to Truman, presidents have been incrementally seizing the power to wage war completely on their own terms. It’s getting to the point of absurdity. Obama stepping back is a very good move:

Every time a president employs questionable legal arguments to wage war, it becomes a valuable tool for the next Commander in Chief impatient with the constitutional requirement to work through Congress. That’s why it would have been so dangerous for Obama to go forward in Syria without a congressional vote or the support of the UN or NATO. It is as much of a slippery slope argument as the contention that Iran, say, would be emboldened with its nuclear program if America did not punish Assad’s chemical attacks.

Assuming Obama wins congressional approval, America’s coming attack on Syria is designed to set a lasting precedent: No government can ever again use chemical, biological – let alone nuclear – weapons without facing devastating consequences. As Obama asked rhetorically in his Saturday Rose Garden statement, “What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price?”

But Obama’s decision to seek congressional approval may prove to be an even more important precedent. Future presidents – as they consider unilateral military action without American security hanging in the balance – will have to answer, “Why didn’t you go to Congress like Obama did over Syria?”

As I’ve said, I don’t think going to congress is the be all and end all of this issue. Yes, it will at least allow for a democratic congressional debate on the subject, but if they vote for it (as is likely) it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bad idea. Still, this won’t be the last time our leaders will be confronted with the question of when to intervene militarily and it would be a huge step in the right direction if this led to future presidents allowing a democratic process to constitutionally validate (or maybe invalidate) their decision.

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If you want to understand what’s happening in Syria …

by digby

Please read this important post byJames Fallows:

Many times I’ve mentioned the foreign-policy assessments of William R. Polk, at right, who first wrote for the Atlantic (about Iraq) during Dwight Eisenhower’s administration, back in 1958, and served on the State Department’s Policy Planning staff during the Kennedy years. He now has sent in a detailed analysis about Syria.

Polk wrote this just before President Obama switched from his go-it-alone policy and decided to seek Congressional approval for a Syrian strike. It remains relevant for the choices Congress, the public, and the president have to make. It is very long, but it is systematically laid out as a series of 13 questions, with answers. If you’re in a rush, you could skip ahead to question #7, on the history and use of chemical weapons. But please consider the whole thing when you have the time to sit down for a real immersion in the implications of Congress’s upcoming decision. It wouldn’t hurt if Senators and Representatives read it too.

Read the whole thing here. It is the most cogent recitation and analysis of the Syrian crisis that I’ve seen. While my opposition to this intervention is rooted in global concerns which are unrelated to this set of circumstances, these particulars bolster my instincts and my fundamental skepticism about the wisdom of this action.

Here’s just one interesting insight that should make us all step back and ask ourselves whether our long term interest might be better served by concentrating on a different issue that really does require American “intervention”:

Syria has been convulsed by civil war since climate change came to Syria with a vengeance. Drought devastated the country from 2006 to 2011. Rainfall in most of the country fell below eight inches (20 cm) a year, the absolute minimum needed to sustain un-irrigated farming. Desperate for water, farmers began to tap aquifers with tens of thousands of new well. But, as they did, the water table quickly dropped to a level below which their pumps could lift it.

In some areas, all agriculture ceased. In others crop failures reached 75%. And generally as much as 85% of livestock died of thirst or hunger. Hundreds of thousands of Syria’s farmers gave up, abandoned their farms and fled to the cities and towns in search of almost non-existent jobs and severely short food supplies. Outside observers including UN experts estimated that between 2 and 3 million of Syria’s 10 million rural inhabitants were reduced to “extreme poverty.”

The domestic Syrian refugees immediately found that they had to compete not only with one another for scarce food, water and jobs, but also with the already existing foreign refugee population. Syria already was a refuge for quarter of a million Palestinians and about a hundred thousand people who had fled the war and occupation of Iraq. Formerly prosperous farmers were lucky to get jobs as hawkers or street sweepers. And in the desperation of the times, hostilities erupted among groups that were competing just to survive.

Survival was the key issue. The senior UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) representative in Syria turned to the USAID program for help. Terming the situation “a perfect storm,” in November 2008, he warned that Syria faced “social destruction.” He noted that the Syrian Minister of Agriculture had “stated publicly that [the] economic and social fallout from the drought was ‘beyond our capacity as a country to deal with.’” But, his appeal fell on deaf ears: the USAID director commented that “we question whether limited USG resources should be directed toward this appeal at this time.” (reported on November 26, 2008 in cable 08DAMASCUS847_a to Washington and “leaked” to Wikileaks )

Whether or not this was a wise decision, we now know that the Syrian government made the situation much worse by its next action. Lured by the high price of wheat on the world market, it sold its reserves. In 2006, according to the US Department of Agriculture, it sold 1,500,000 metric tons or twice as much as in the previous year. The next year it had little left to export; in 2008 and for the rest of the drought years it had to import enough wheat to keep its citizens alive.

So tens of thousands of frightened, angry, hungry and impoverished former farmers flooded constituted a “tinder” that was ready to catch fire. The spark was struck on March 15, 2011 when a relatively small group gathered in the town of Daraa to protest against government failure to help them. Instead of meeting with the protestors and at least hearing their complaints, the government cracked down on them as subversives. The Assads, who had ruled the country since 1971, were not known for political openness or popular sensitivity. And their action backfired. Riots broke out all over the country, and as they did, the Assads attempted to quell them with military force. They failed to do so and, as outside help – money from the Gulf states and Muslim “freedom fighters” from the rest of the world – poured into the country, the government lost control of over 30% of the country’s rural areas and perhaps half of its population. By the spring of 2013, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), upwards of 100,000 people had been killed in the fighting, perhaps 2 million have lost their homes and upwards of 2 million have fled abroad. Additionally, vast amounts of infrastructure, virtually whole cities like Aleppo, have been destroyed.

If that doesn’t sound like a premonition of many more crises to come, I don’t know what does. Perhaps we should stop blowing things up for a little while and concentrate on being a global leader on the real existential crisis of our time: climate change. Tomahawk missiles aren’t going to solve it, that’s for sure.

I know it’s long but please read this entire article. If you are persuaded, send it to your Representative, particularly if he or she is a progressive Democrat who is likely to be arm twisted by the Syria hawks in the Democratic leadership. It’s vitally important that we break this cycle of military intervention to solve problems that can’t be solved by military intervention. There are much bigger, long term challenges underlying all of this this that are papered over by America’s status as the world’s policeman and it’s not serving any of us well.

It’s not that the US has no leading role to play in the world. It’s just that we are playing the wrong one.

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What will the congress say and what will it do? If past is prologue it’s not hard to guess

by digby

The Fix lines out the congressional battle lines (at the moment) on a potential Syrian military intervention. This sounds about right to me:

The “do it now, already” caucus:

This group includes Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

In a strongly-worded statement, Nelson said Saturday that “I support the president’s decision. But as far as I’m concerned, we should strike in Syria today. The use of chemical weapons was inhumane, and those responsible should be forced to suffer the consequences.”

The “want bigger military action” caucus:

This group is much smaller and is led by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who said Saturday that they agree with Obama that a military response is necessary and that Congress should act as soon as possible.

But then they went a step further: “We cannot in good conscience support isolated military strikes in Syria that are not part of an overall strategy that can change the momentum on the battlefield, achieve the president’s stated goal of Assad’s removal from power, and bring an end to this conflict, which is a growing threat to our national security interests.”[…]

The “happy to debate the issue, reserving judgment” caucus:

This is the largest caucus. Most lawmakers in this group, including Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.) and Rep. Trey Radel (R-Fla.), agree that the Syrian government’s action are deplorable, but that they will withhold judgment until the debate begins in earnest.

“I will review the evidence and arguments with great care before deciding how I will vote on this difficult and important issue,” Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said Saturday.[…]

The skeptical caucus:

A fair number of Republicans and Democrats in both chambers sit with this group.
Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W. Va.) expressed a view Saturday that sums up the feelings of many congressional Democrats. “After over a decade of war in the Middle East, there needs to be compelling evidence that there is an imminent threat to the security of the American people or our allies before any military action is taken,” he said. “I do not believe that this situation meets that threshold.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) pointedly said Saturday that “The United States should only engage militarily when it is pursuing a clear and attainable national security goal. Military action taken simply to send a message or save face does not meet that standard.”[…]

The anti-military action caucus:

This group stitches together an unlikely alliance of tea party conservatives and veteran liberal doves, many of whom still remember the consequences of the Iraq war debate.

Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) is a leading GOP “no” vote, who has spent much of the weekend sharing his views on Twitter.

In an interview Sunday on PostTV’s “In Play,” Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.) said that “I do have a bias against” supporting military action. “If I had to vote today, I would vote no. But I also expect to learn from the debate.”[…]

The doves in that piece were represented by Charlie Rangel proposing to reinstate the draft.

The two biggest factions at the moment are “happy to debate the issue” and “skeptics.” I’m going to guess that the Democrats in both of those categories will pretty easily be persuaded to authorize strikes once they’ve been able to pretend that they are watering down the president’s proposal. (I’m fairly sure that was worked out in advance.) I would love to think I’m wrong about this but recent experience shows that the president’s party almost always backs the president on these things and depending on the political climate, a fairly substantial faction of the opposition balks. Both parties are extremely hypocritical in these matters.

Recall the GOP Iraq war hawks who has just a few years before gave thundering speeches on the floor of the congress that could have been given by Dennis Kucinich. The Democrats pounded their chests in favor. And just four years later the argument was completely reversed with Iraq. It’s true that there were major differences in the operations at issue, but the rhetoric was remarkably the same: the war hawks always make the emotional case for war by proclaiming their identification with the innocents and insisting that the US has the responsibility to step in and save them. The doves question the US right and responsibility to lead the way with violence and an uncertain outcome. And both sides are more than willing to make the case that US “credibility” and “moral authority” is on the line in one situation but not the other while the necessity (and efficacy) of “signal sending” becomes paramount depending on your side of the issue. Meanwhile the public hears exactly the same reasoning for and against, regardless.

You can’t blame them for not knowing or caring who the various players are. After all, we always drop the bombs no matter what. With the parties speaking out of both sides of their mouths, depending on the politics, the average citizen is cynical and skeptical. After Gulf War I and Kosovo, they figured we’d cruise to an easy, (American) casualty-free victory in Afghanistan and Iraq and all would be well in short shrift. After Afghanistan and Iraq (plus, I would argue, Libya) not so much. All of this has happened in the last 20 years, a blink of an eye in historical terms.

I think people can be forgiven for failing to see the nuances in these various arguments — from afar it just looks like a debate that always ends up the same way: bombs explode in some far off land, and America foots the bill, if not always in blood, always in treasure. And the world remains a mess.

Perhaps it’s a good time to back up and question this whole notion of American bombing campaigns to save the children and ask ourselves if maybe it’s not working. Of the two big victories, only Kosovo has held up, and perhaps we should acknowledge that it might be because it took place in Europe rather than the middle east, which is infinitely less complicated and volatile. .

Age is a state of mind

by digby

… although being a world class athlete is probably helpful:

U.S. endurance swimmer Diana Nyad told supporters on a Key West beach that they should never ever give up.

Nyad made the comment Monday shortly after she became the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without the help of a shark cage.

Nyad looked dazed and sunburned and her lips were swollen. She arrived at the beach just before 2 p.m. EDT, about 53 hours after she began her swim in Havana on Saturday.

She tried and failed when she was 29 years old and gave up swimming for 30 years. She took it up again at 60 and succeeded at 64 years old. Now that’s inspiring.

And she’s not the first woman to do this. She’s the first person to do it.

Update: 

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Good reads for your special day of rest

by digby

There are a huge number of really good labor day reads out there and it struck me that I don’t think I’ve ever seen such passionate and heartfelt articles before, even on the designated day for them. Maybe I just missed it before but I don’t think so.  It feels as though there’s been an uptick in the left’s emotional connection to labor since the economic meltdown and I imagine that gives writers and commentators who have always been sympathetic to the cause a bit more energy as well.

Anyway, here’s a sampling of the good stuff I’ve had the pleasure to read on the subject this morning. I’ll add to it as I come across more today:

Ed Kilgore on the dignity of labor

Robert Kuttner on the fast food workers’ strikes leading to a revitalized labor movement. 

Harold Meyerson: The Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy: a new model for American Liberalism (Amazing, hopeful story.)

Merrill Goozner on the Medicaid expansion’s positive effect on lower wage workers.

Jared Bernstein on how to talk to you pesky, Fox loving brother-in-law about the minimum wage.

Tom Schaller on 21st century America’s low wage workaholism.

Krugman on the history of labor day and the disgusting disrespect the right has adopted toward working people  (also known as “parasites.”)

A fascinating story of a unionized strip club from Lily Burana in The Atlantic.

Update: Dean Baker: The US is the only wealthy country in the world where workers are not guaranteed paid leave.
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They don’t call it wage slavery for nothing


by digby

So it turns out that when bosses can spy on their employees the employees steal less and are more “diligent” about their work. And that leads to greater productivity, which in these days of high unemployment makes for an extremely good return for the most productive members of society: the owners.

Scrutiny works in mysterious ways. The knowledge that your industry (or state, or macroeconomy) is under siege makes workers feel watched. But what about workers who are, quite literally, being watched?

That was the subject of another recent paper on software that watches workers to make sure they don’t steal stuff: Cleaning House: The Impact of Information Technology Monitoring on Employee Theft and Productivity. The New York Times unpacks:

The researchers measured the impact of software that monitors employee-level theft and sales transactions, before and after the technology was installed, at 392 restaurants in 39 states … The savings from the theft alerts themselves were modest, $108 a week per restaurant. However, after installing the monitoring software, the revenue per restaurant increased by an average of $2,982 a week, or about 7 percent.

What happened here? Yes, theft declined. That’s to be expected. But also, revenue spiked. Productivity increased. Turning casual-dining restaurants into casual-dining panopticons made everybody work harder, perhaps by cutting down on procrastination or encouraging waiters to sell more drinks and appetizers to customers.

And the good news for the owners is that they also get to pocket every cent of added profit because they don’t have to “trickle down” any of it to the workers as long as unemployment remains high. It’s win-win. The drones just have to adapt to the bosses being able to crack the metaphorical whip whenever they see them slacking — which is all the time. They don’t call it wage slavery for nothing.

By the way, the article does point out that there is research showing that employees are more creative and innovative in freerer environments. But those profits don’t show up on the bottom line in the near term, so I’m going to guess the corporate version of Total Information Awareness will be the preferred take-away.

Happy labor day everyone.
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So wrong in so many ways

by digby

Fools Rush In 

by  tristero

When it comes to the politics of war, the US is a bad teenage garage band that can’t count to 4; the rock stars are the government and factions in the Middle East.

This article is not to be missed:

The best interim solution could be a UN-monitored ceasefire as briefly occurred under the Kofi Annan plan in 2012. All sides are dependent on outside backers, and even those who most want to fight need weapons, ammunition and money. Heavy pressure could be put on them to agree to a peace conference and a temporary ceasefire. 

This would be a Lebanese-style truce – unsatisfactory but better than full-scale war. A peace conference on this basis could be the political and diplomatic counterpart to the limited US military strike President Obama is contemplating. In practice there has been a stalemate in most of Syria for the last year. If the Syrian army did use poison gas, it shows it does not have the strength to retake even the inner rebel-held suburbs of Damascus. It is better therefore for the battle lines to be frozen under some form of UN supervision. Long-term solutions will only begin to be feasible when Syrians are no longer at the mercy of what Northern Ireland politicians used to call “the politics of the last atrocity”.