Category: international affairs

Remember . . . the Maine?

“President Trump warned Thursday that America ‘will not stand’ for Iran shooting down a U.S. drone over the Strait of Hormuz,” a Fox News report summarizes, “while at the same time leaving open the possibility that the attack was unintentional.”

This incident immediately follows the previous week’s apparent provocation, attacks on Japanese oil tankers in the same vicinity — also said by our government to have been caused by the Iranian military. Nearly everyone now regards these events as portending war,* which some see as a long time coming, since American relations with Iran have been antagonistic since the late 1970s, when Shia clerics raised a popular revolt to oust the American-installed thug, er, Shah.

While Mr. Trump was incredulous that the strike on the drone (opposite of a drone strike) could have been intentional, the rest of us can dare doubt even more: Can we really trust the “intelligence” that blames Iran’s military or paramilitary Revolutionary Guard for these puzzlingly dangerous provocations?

Not based on past performance.

The “intelligence” used to justify America’s several wars with Iran’s neighbor, Iraq, seems more disinformation than mere misinformation. And we now know that the Gulf of Tonkin incident enabling U.S. escalation into Vietnam was a lie.

We should even “remember the Maine!” — the questionable rationale for the Spanish-American War.

Lying to start wars is obviously not unheard-of in our history. Indeed, some insiders have itched for war so badly that they have plotted false flag ops against the American people.

The truth of what is happening now may not be known for years . . . by us . . . or even by President Trump.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* According to the New York Times, late yesterday President Trump authorized and then de-authorized a strike against Iran.

PDF for printing

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Tags false flag, Iran, Iraq, lies, war

folly international affairs moral hazard Popular

For Freedom in Venezuela

Venezuela, quagmire, mud, Maduro, socialism,

Last week’s coup in Venezuela flopped, it’s reported. But “coup” isn’t quite right: a popular rebellion failed to spark defections from key military commanders, who have become the end-all and be-all of Nicolás Maduro’s reign-at-rifle-point and rule by decree.

Anyone with open eyes can see the illegitimacy of the Maduro regime. When governments shoot their own people and run over them with tanks or armored personnel carriers, there ceases to be any use in debating the fine points of political philosophies.

Facing the current impasse, opposition leader Juan Guaidó told a CBS News reporter he is “open” to U.S. military intervention, adding: “I want a free election now, no dictatorship, for kids in Venezuela not to starve to death.”

That doesn’t mean the U.S. should intervene, which I think would be a mistake for both us and, ultimately, the people of Venezuela — possibly turning a widely supported uprising into a protracted civil war.

“Before the bombers take off, let’s just answer a few quick questions,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson suggests. “When was the last time we successfully meddled in the political life of another country? Has it ever worked? How are those democracies we set up in Iraq and Libya and Syria and Afghanistan?”

I don’t doubt a sweeping military victory should the U.S. invade Venezuela, but it is getting out that always proves so difficult.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: Last week, a number of Venezuelan soldiers did indeed switch their allegiance from the despot to demonstrators — reminding me of the inspiring pacification of the initial Chinese troops sent to restore “order” in Tiananmen Square some 30 years ago. The head of Maduro’s Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN) also defected.

PDF for printing

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Tags Maduro, mud, quagmire, Venezuela

general freedom international affairs Popular

Bellicose Exclusions

Alex Jones, Paul Joseph Watson, war, MSM, mainstream media,

“Jones and his Infowars nutritional supplement sales empire are having a bit of a rough moment,” wrote Justin Peters last year at Slate, “since the bellicose conspiracist has recently been banned from several social media and podcast platforms due to his hostile and hateful behavior.”

Like much of the commentary on Alex Jones, as well as on his colleague Paul Joseph Watson, there is something . . . off . . . about the characterization.

Bellicose?

Sure, he pushes bizarre accounts of conspiracies,* and on a personal level Alex Jones shouts and yells and blusters and worse.

But there is one way he is not bellicose. Alex Jones is almost consistently against war in general and America’s world-policing in particular.

And so, too, has been Paul Joseph Watson — who along with Jones was kicked off Facebook last week.**

If you are generally against war, being called “bellicose” and “hostile” must be galling, especially when personalities at CNN and MSNBC stand hand-in-hand with most at Fox in their obvious onscreen lust for actual warfare, drone bombings, and “tough choices.”

Yes, I know: Watson has been a withering critic of First World immigration policies and of the illiberalism he sees in Islamic cultures, and he relentlessly mocks Third Wave Feminism. That must be his “hateful” — and “hostile”? — element.

Yet, this seems less about hate and more about ideological disagreement.

More importantly, just whose interests are being served by social media’s current deliberate policy of marginalization?

The biggest cheers for ousting Jones and Watson — outside major media — echo from the left. But how is cheering on the consolidation of the military-industrial complex in leftists’ interest?

The current “war against Internet freedom” looks very bad for . . . dissent.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* One of which he has even confessed to be “psychotic.”

** Others ousted include racial nationalists such as Paul Nehlen and Louis Farrakhan, gay conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, and Laura Loomer. Their stances on military interventionism are less clearly anti-.

PDF for printing

Photo Credit: Tyler Merbler from USA

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Tags Alex Jones, mainstream media, MSM, Paul Joseph Watson, war

international affairs

Victory & Surrender

Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker sums up in a single word the recently announced framework of an agreement between the United States of America and the Taliban: Surrender.

“This current process bears an unfortunate resemblance to the Paris peace talks during the Vietnam War,” writes Crocker in a Washington Post op-ed. “Then, as now, it was clear that by going to the table we were surrendering; we were just negotiating the terms of our surrender.”

He’s not wrong.

It may seem strange that, after successfully toppling the Taliban government, a savage regime that had given safe haven to Al-Qaeda to launch its 911 attacks against us, we would now, nearly two decades later, be anxious to cut a deal with that same Taliban, even possibly bringing them into a power-sharing role.

Anything to get the heck out of Kabul and back to the good ol’ USA. And it is a recognition, right or wrong, that the Afghan government is unsustainable.

The alternative? Keep a significant contingent of U.S. troops in Afghanistan . . . forever. Or until we have fashioned a brand new westernized-Afghanistan that is no possible threat to us.

Yep, forever.

“Winning may not be an available option,” contends a new Rand report, “but losing . . . would be a blow to American credibility, the weakening of deterrence and the value of U.S. reassurance elsewhere, an increased terrorist threat emanating from the Afghan region, and the distinct possibility of a necessary return there under worse conditions.”

The same mistaken reasons we stayed in Vietnam.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Tags caution, Common Sense, compassion, country, courage, duty, fun, honor, individualism, justice, love, mercy, play, strength, victory

international affairs meme Popular too much government

What Kind of Ice Cream Cone?

Post author By Redactor
Post date December 28, 2018
1 Comment on What Kind of Ice Cream Cone?

self licking ice cream, war, foreign policy, government

When I wrote about the Donald’s change of troop positions abroad last week, it was less than completely clear that the US President aimed to withdraw troops from Afghanistan as well as Syria. But multiple reports on the day I posted “Strategic Disengagement” make it clearer: about half of America’s 14,000 troops stationed there are scheduled to exit.

Why not all?

Well, you can see how entrenched foreign intervention is for American leaders. While most of the GOP policy establishment howled at Donald Trump’s betrayal of the cause (whatever that cause is, exactly), so, too, did many of the Democrats. And they seem awfully earnest. More earnest than one has reason to expect from the objectors to “George W. Bush’s wars.”

Even Noam Chomsky came out saying that the U.S. should stay in Syria to save the Kurds, and Howard Dean tweeted that American troops must remain in Afghanistan for the sake of women’s rights.

What we are witnessing are eternal programs that do not ever — and cannot ever — fulfill their basic purpose. No amount of occupation of Syria or Afghanistan or Iraq is going to give us what the neoconservatives promised: freedom and democracy and jubilation in the streets.

Freedom and democracy do not work that way.

There is a term for such impossible-to-win/impossible-to-stop policy messes: “self-licking ice cream cones.”

The term means a “self-perpetuating system that has no purpose other than to sustain itself,” which is just standard operating procedure for domestic bureaucracies.

But in foreign military action?

Awfully cold imagery, and too comic . . . for tragedy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Tags Afghanistan, foreign policy, government, Iraq, self licking ice cream, Syria, war

international affairs Popular too much government

Strategic Disengagement

The policy was announced in a Tweet: President Trump said it was time to pull out of Syria. We won, he explained. “After historic victories against ISIS, it’s time to bring our great young people home!”

There is, of course, much outcry among Republicans, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and pundit Ben Shapiro making the same point: this is, in the senator’s words, “a huge Obama-like mistake.”

But not a few are supportive. “U.S. forces should not be engaged in Syria — or any country,” explained Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich), “without legitimate military justification AND proper congressional authorization.”

And there is no doubt that after pulling out of the region — and yes, it looks like Trump is readying forces for a pull-out of the expensive and ridiculous Afghanistan occupation — there will be outrageous horrors. But are they America’s?

Should they be?

The problem with trying to solve every worldwide conflict is clear: by intervening, we make those conflicts ours.

The idea that the American military can successfully micromanage conflicts around the world seems implausible. And increasingly counter-factual.

The same logic against intervening in the domestic economy to “wisely” promote some businesses and demote others also applies against most foreign military intervention: “unintended” consequences get conjured up, and even blowback.

Also, somehow, almost no one ever consults Just War theory to test various proposed interventions. Instead, military interventionism is all audacious hope and lofty language.

No realism, despite “Mad Dog” Mattis’s protests to the contrary.

Foreign policy scholar Earl Ravenel had the perfect term for what Trump may be and should be doing: strategic disengagement. We have much to gain from a more restrained — and constitutional — foreign policy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing