View 788 Wednesday, September 04, 2013

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barrack Obama, January 31, 2009

Never do any enemy a small injury.

Niccolò Machiavelli

“Congress is now the dog that caught the car.”

David Axelrod on President Obama’s Syria decision, August 2013

Syria:

Succinct and on point: http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/syria/articles/20130903.aspx#startofcomments

David Couvillon

Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Retired.; Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq; Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of the time; Distinguished Expert, TV remote control; Chef de Hot Dog Excellance; Avoider of Yard Work

Who should we support?  Or we can break things and kill people.  Who should we kill?

Jerry Pournelle
Chaos Manor

We should support the Turks, the Iraqis, the Jordanians, the Israelis, the Lebanese (I know, I know… which ones…), and the French. Our only interest is AFTER the situation in Syria is decided – one way or the other. ‘Til then… hands off.

David Couvillon

Which is pretty close to my sentiment. We have allies. We support them, with trade, ammunition, whatever we think they need that is within our interest. Choosing a side in Lebanon isn’t as difficult as it looks: the old Christian-Druze-moderate Islam coalition that seeks independence from Syria still exists and could use our help – including our intervention when Israel gets unhappy with their inability to control border areas. It’s tricky, it’s not easy, but it’s sure easier than choosing a side in an active civil war.

Libya-Syria

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/special-report-we-all-thought-libya-had-moved-on–it-has-but-into-lawlessness-and-ruin-8797041.html

“A little under two years ago, Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, urged British businessmen to begin “packing their suitcases” and to fly to Libya to share in the reconstruction of the country and exploit an anticipated boom in natural resources.

“Yet now Libya has almost entirely stopped producing oil as the government loses control of much of the country to militia fighters.

“Mutinying security men have taken over oil ports on the Mediterranean and are seeking to sell crude oil on the black market. Ali Zeidan, Libya’s Prime Minister, has threatened to “bomb from the air and the sea” any oil tanker trying to pick up the illicit oil from the oil terminal guards, who are mostly former rebels who overthrew Muammar Gaddafi and have been on strike over low pay and alleged government corruption since July.

“As world attention focused on the coup in Egypt and the poison gas attack in Syria over the past two months, Libya has plunged unnoticed into its worst political and economic crisis since the defeat of Gaddafi two years ago. Government authority is disintegrating in all parts of the country putting in doubt claims by American, British and French politicians that Nato’s military action in Libya in 2011 was an outstanding example of a successful foreign military intervention which should be repeated in Syria.”

We did this by spending treasure in Libya. We have the opportunity to do this in Syria without spending treasure…

David Couvillon

Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Retired.; Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq; Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of the time; Distinguished Expert, TV remote control; Chef de Hot Dog Excellance; Avoider of Yard Work

Libya was colonized by Italy during the colonial era before World War One, and as a victor in the Great War Italy got to keep its colonial assets while the British and French grabbed Mesopotamia, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Arabia, and other territories torn from the grasp of the dying Ottoman Empire. The Turks had never attempted to consolidate Iraq into a single province, and they kept the peace between the Palestinian Arabs and the incoming Zionist Israelis with difficulty. The Turks wanted out of the empire business, and being defeated by Imperialists got their wish.

Britain kept Egypt and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, France got Lebanon and Syria, Ibn Saud got Arabia having displaced the Hashemites who had been legitimate Protectors of Mecca since the days of the Prophet, so the Hashemite brothers got Iraq and Jordan under a British protectorate agreement. France kept Algeria and its protectorates in the western Mediterranean.

Libya was not a united kingdom: it was an artificial entity of various tribes occupying the regions of Tripoli, Cyrenaica, and the interior with Tauregs and Berbers and others, and it was not unified until Mussolini decided he had enough of Libyan independence movements and forcibly pacified the Italian colonies, then incorporated the whole mess into metropolitan Italy—as the French had done with Algeria. There’s more, of course, since Italy joined the Allies after the King dismissed Mussolini and confined him to a fortress, and Skorzeny rescued him in a Storch, and no I am not making any of this up. The upshot was that an artificial state composed of warring tribes which had oil in Cyrenaica, fierce tribes in the Fezzan, and the remnants of an Italian culture in the West was created and consolidated by force, and held together by Khadafy. Civil war was likely at some point, and establishment of a liberal democracy encompassing the entire region was highly improbable if for no other reason than Cyrenaica has no motive to share oil revenue with Tripoli and the Fezzan, and neither Tripoli nor Fezzan has much of the makings of a stable middle class democracy or for that matter a viable economy.

As Colonel Couvillon observes, we achieved the unsatisfactory results existing at present in Libya by expending treasure; we have the opportunity to achieve similar results in Syria by doing nothing.

One, many years ago, a wise man told me in an appropriate situation, “Son, if you want to win a horse race, you have to have a horse.” Similar observations apply to both Libya and Syria: do we have a horse in either race? The British, French, Italians, Turks, Israelis, Jordanians, and Egyptians have strong interests in the Middle East. Our only real interest is oil – and we have it in our power to make Middle Eastern oil irrelevant to America by adopting our own resources – and development will create jobs here while costing less than war.

I recall that the invasion of Iraq was to cost $300 Billion. I said at the time that for that sum I could make the US pretty well energy independent and let the Arabs drink their oil. The costs have changed, but it’s still true. War is Hell, Sherman said. It is also expensive. Gold cannot get you good soldiers, but good soldiers can get you gold – except that we have foresworn any advantage we might gain from successful conquest. We get the expenses and the Hell, but none of the fruits of war. So it goes.

As to whether the United States has the physical, economic, and military ability to be the world policeman as we implant liberal democracy throughout the world – remember the End of History? – we don’t know because it’s a moot question: we don’t have the political stamina to try. We are not ruthless enough to have a policy of competent empire, and we are not rich enough to afford incompetent empire. If we wish to spread republican government we once knew how: we were the shining example of just how rich you could get as a nation of states: as the land of the free. Now we transform ourselves into something else.

The Congress should state it clearly: the President is authorized to take any military action in Syria that he deems necessary to protect the vital national interests of the United States. If he has further designs for the region he should state them and obtain a new authorization from Congress. This Congress supports the interests of the people of the United States and calls upon the President to protect them in the Syrian situation.

The costs of security:

Roland found this account: “We’re not detaining you. You just can’t leave.” Or Why a Hindu must not fly during Ramadan.

http://varnull.adityamukerjee.net/post/59021412512/dont-fly-during-ramadan

I intend to write considerably more on this, but it is taking time to gather and evaluate the data. It’s still important to keep in mind

Fifteen Years After Autism Panic, a Plague of Measles Erupts

Legions spurned a long-proven vaccine, putting a generation at risk

PORT TALBOT, Wales—When the telltale rash appeared behind Aleshia Jenkins’s ears, her grandmother knew exactly what caused it: a decision she’d made 15 years earlier.

Ms. Jenkins was an infant in 1998, when this region of southwest Wales was a hotbed of resistance to a vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. Many here refused the vaccine for their children after a British doctor, Andrew Wakefield, suggested it might cause autism and a local newspaper heavily covered the fears. Resistance continued even after the autism link was disproved.

The bill has now come due.

A measles outbreak infected 1,219 people in southwest Wales between November 2012 and early July, compared with 105 cases in all of Wales in 2011.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323300004578555453881252798.html

There is considerably more to the story, of course. It is a matter of evaluations of risk: vaccinations can – indeed must if they are going to work – cause stress to the immune system. We have plenty of evidence regarding smallpox, polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus – DPT shots were universal when I was a lad, all three at once – to know that the benefits far outweigh the risks.  We have plenty on measles and mumps.  It’s not quite so clear when you add rubella to the measles and mumps package. The consequences of overstressing the immune system in young children is still under study. The evidence is that in vast majorities the bad effects are small and the benefits large, but there remain doubts about just how many have suffered what bad side effects. At some point we’ll address this, but it has turned out to be more complex than it at first appears.

View 788 Tuesday, September 03, 2013

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barrack Obama, January 31, 2009

 

Never do any enemy a small injury.

Niccolò Machiavelli

 

“Congress is now the dog that caught the car.”

David Axelrod on President Obama’s Syria decision, August 2013

“From the start of the Syrian uprising, these columns have called for Mr. Obama to mobilize a coalition to support the moderate rebels.

This would depose an enemy of the U.S. and deal a major blow to Iran’s ambition to dominate the region.”

Wall Street Journal Editorial, September 3, 2013

Terrific advice. Of course it requires that we identify a group of moderate rebels, and there seems to be a problem finding any who haven’t headed for the border. The only regions where Christians, Druse, atheists including Baathist socialists, and moderate Muslims are relatively safe are in the areas securely held by Bashar al-Assad’s Alawites. (For what it’s worth, the French, who ruled Syria and Lebanon under a League of Nations mandate after The Great War, considered the Alawites and Druze to be the only warlike people in their mandate.)

Prior to going into Iraq the United States was given to understand that that US troops would be greeted as liberators, and we would ride in triumph to Baghdad where we would install a government made up of moderate Muslims, many of them Iraqi exiles who would accompany our Abrams tanks (although probably riding in open limousines rather than armored vehicles). That didn’t work very well. There was a period after the initial US military victory in which we might have built a government from among Saddam’s generals who had been promised “an honorable role” in the reconstruction of Iraq. The problem was that the exiles couldn’t agree amongst themselves on a government, and the Iraqi people didn’t exactly welcome the returning exiles. And into this mess the State Department send the most incompetent pro-consul to serve in the region since Roman times.

The President asserts that he has the authority to order “punishment” of the Assad regime for its use of Sarin gas in Damascus, and the Secretary of State has made it clear that he has no doubt that the Assad government was responsible for this; thus it is clear what Congress must do. ““I can’t contemplate that the Congress would turn its back on all of that responsibility and the fact that we would have, in fact, granted impunity to a ruthless dictator to continue to gas his people,” Kerry said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Those are the stakes.”

Which has prompted the President’s political advisor David Axelrod to say that “Congress is now the dog that caught the car,” which is a good indication of the White House view of the nature of this issue: it’s political, and the important thing is not to waste a crisis.

What we do not have is any indication of just who we ought to be helping in Syria. Which side would we like to see winning?

Bashar al-Assad is winning at the moment, and he was winning before the use of Sarin. He didn’t need to use war gasses in his capital: if he wanted to exterminate the population in that neighborhood, gunpowder isn’t as efficient as Sarin, but it will do the job. As would bayonets.

The Wall Street Journal has proclaimed the Syrian issue vital to the United States: “A defeat in Congress would signal to Bashar Assad and the world’s other thugs that the U.S. has retired as the enforcer of any kind of world order.”

There are those who do not believe that the U.S. was ever the enforcer of world order – particularly when the nature of that order is obscure. Secretary Kerry is infuriated that 426 children were killed by Sarin. It is a scene of horror but we are used to scenes of horror, in the Middle East and in Africa. There is no world order to be enforced. If there were, the United Nations would be more effective. The world is not universally civilized. The regions of civil order grow and ebb. The British Empire attempted an experiment in world order. They had neither the strength nor the will to continue. There is an honorable heritage of the British Raj, but there are also bitter memories.

We are the friends of liberty everywhere. We are the guardians only of our own. Thomas Jefferson and both Presidents Adams said this at a time when the strength of the United States made it a bold but limited foreign policy. John Quincy Adams, President when the strength of the United States was growing, said “America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”

When Congress debates what to do about Syria, it should be very specific in what objectives it authorizes. Congress does not need permission to start a war. It has the constitutional authority to make war on anyone it likes (as did the Crown in England, at least until recently). The President has asserted his right to make war on Syria because there is a threat to US interests, and he has the authority to send in the missiles under the War Powers Act. Congress is not likely to repeal that. The President must make the case that it is vital to the security of the United States that we break things and kill people in Syria. Congress need not make the case for him, but it should not prevent his acting once he determines that it is made.

No battle plan survives contract with the enemy.

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

Killing children with chemical weapons…

As I understand it, Mr. Obama said:

What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price? What’s the purpose of the international system that we’ve built if a prohibition on the use of chemical weapons that has been agreed to by the governments of 98 percent of the world’s people and approved overwhelmingly by the Congress of the United States is not enforced?

Make that dozens of children instead of hundreds, and you have Waco. And at Waco there is no uncertainty as to who did the gassing. It is my understanding that Texas has no statute of limitations with respect to manslaughter, murder, and capital murder.

Charles Brumbelow

I had my say about the Waco massacre several times over the years, with a summary in The Grand Inquest of the Nation http://www.jerrypournelle.com/other/inquest.html .  That essay was published in Intellectual Capital http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/intellectual/intcap3.html.  The entire Intellectual Capital essay series remains on line.  It was mostly a series of warnings on how we have sown the wind, and alas, most of these essays need no revision.  Now they are no longer prophetic: they are a sort of I told you so.

I also ran across my essay Breaking Things and Killing People http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/intellectual/intcap1.html#4 written in Spring of 1998. I was, thankfully, wrong about how quickly the nuclear club would grow – we can thanks the Israelis for much of that – but I had a lot of other things right.

Succinct and on point: http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/syria/articles/20130903.aspx#startofcomments

David Couvillon

Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Retired.; Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq; Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of the time; Distinguished Expert, TV remote control; Chef de Hot Dog Excellance; Avoider of Yard Work

Who should we support?  Or we can break things and kill people.  Who should we kill?

Outrage is not a strategy

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Michael Yon hits the nail on the head, in my opinion. I honestly believe he’s this generation’s Ernie Pyle.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/syria-outrage-is-not-a-strategy.htm

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Never do any enemy a small injury. Declare war with a stated war aim, or stay out.  Bombarding ports is a small injury.

View 788 Monday, September 02, 2013

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barrack Obama, January 31, 2009

It has been a pleasant day to spend with family and friends. The end of summer. Time to put away my white pants – which I guess I never wore this year. Sable is still happy most of the time, and we had a pleasant walk in the evening just before sundown. And Time Warner made peace with CBS so I don’t have to make a change in cable companies or worry about getting a better antenna…

Fred Pohl, RIP

Fred was one of the first of the legendary writers I met after I started hanging around science fiction conventions in the 1960’s, and one of the first to befriend me when I turned pro. He had an intuitive grasp of science, and no actual education. This was generally more than good enough, and in fact his lack of formal education allowed him a free reign of imagination that many can’t have, but it also led him to make some pretty dreadful scientific mistakes that marred otherwise really great works. It also led him to believe some strange misconceptions about the world of war, and we quarreled over several of those. What we didn’t quarrel about was the writing profession. Fred was scrupulously honest his opinions, and could and did change his views when presented with the right evidence. It just took patience. And I suspect he understood QED better than I did.

When I left office as President of SFWA one of my tasks was to insure that the outfit would be headed by conscientious writers who understood the professional aspects of a writer’s life. That made the decision simple: I talked Fred into running for the office. He accepted on the condition that I would continue to do certain tasks I had undertaken as president, and we worked together splendidly. I always looked forward to seeing Fred at conventions and at the annual get together put on by the Writers of the Future, and I was sad when his health got bad enough that he stopped coming to them; and of course neither of us have gone to many conventions in this millennium, so we have seldom seen each other for a decade and more. But I’ll damned well miss him. He was one of the giants.

http://io9.com/rip-frederik-pohl-the-man-who-transformed-science-fict-1241405614