zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — Benjamin Wittes twice, also a pointer to Clint Watts ]
.

Benjamin Wittes and Quinta Jurecic at the Lawfare blog have an above-my-unpaid-grade examination of the Presidential oath of office — and what happens when, in the case of a given President, it falls into widespread disrepute: What Happens When We Don’t Believe the President’s Oath? Just the fact that this question is being raised is remarkable. For my purposes, though, it’s the mention of leaks about leaking — a serpent bites tail concept, and hence a signal of potential significance — that I want to capture in passing:

All this culminated rather comically in a recent State Department memo by acting legal advisor Richard Visek condemning leaks and advocating that department employees instead make use of State’s internal dissent channel—a memo which itself promptly leaked to the press. Similarly, when press secretary Sean Spicer demanded to examine the phones of White House staffers to check for leaking and ordered staffers not to speak to the press about the meeting, Politico quickly got hold of the story.

I’d been meaning to find a suitable leak about leaking serpent for a while now, and Wittes’ article affords me this opportunity.

Once again, the self-reflexive form is, as Doug Hofstadter showed us in Gödel, Escher, Bach, a signal of likely special interest. In this regard it resembles such other forms as chiasmus (mirroring, eg “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth”).

O happy day, here’s a chiasmus from Aeschylus, entirely apt to Wittes’ post:

It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.

Wittes has a follow-up post, Ten Questions for President Trump, today. Also of note, Clint Watts‘ tweet-streak today beginning here:

1- this may be the single dumbest thing a sitting President has done https://t.co/aFYVW8f1kX

— Clint Watts (@selectedwisdom) March 4, 2017

[ by Charles Cameron — from Abu A and Abu B to Steve and Donnie ]
.

Karl Sharro is a Middle Eastern architect and satirist based in London, whose two modes of “simply” explaining the Middle East I presented a while back. His third view envisions ISIS as a board game, and asks Who can devise the most convoluted way to wipe out the Islamic State?

**

Anyway, KarlreMarx has two jihadist ezxtremists he’s been tracking for some while — Abu A and Abu B:

Outside Sharro’s fevered imagination, ISIS does indeed have an air force — of weaponized drones.

Suicide? No, martydom — and individual ISIS members are as expendable as their goals are lofty:

Sometimes, to be honest, those goals make little sense..

— and besides, eclipses are signs of impending apocalypse..

**

Time rolls on, however — and Sharro has shifted his target. As he put it in a tweet today, “I decided to retire Abu A and Abu B and replace them with another radicalised pair”:

Steve and Donnie — two’s company.

We shall see what we shall see..

[ by Charles Cameron — a meditation on grief, politics and the raid in Yemen ]
.

That long moment with SEAL William “Ryan” Owens‘ widow, Carryn Owens, was the central human moment of President Trump‘s speech to the Joint session of the United States Congress today.

**

My emotions were varied and braided. The widow’s grief was obvious, and I felt and grieved for her, as I’m sure we all did.

What the President did w Owen's widow was capital P Presidential. It was the single most extraordinary moment I've seen from Trump – by far.

— Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) March 1, 2017

At the same time, the President featuring it in his speech seemed manipulative and, in the worst sense, political:

It was by far the grossest thing Trump has done and reporters are bizarrely intoxicated by it https://t.co/fGG0Ap3627

— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) March 1, 2017

As I say, my emotions were varied and braided.

**

Nor let us forget the father’s grief, which expressed itself in an angry, anguished question —

— nor, finally, the grief of the Awlaki family at the loss in that same raid of Nawar Anwar Al-Awlaki, Sheikh Anwar Awlaki‘s 8-year-old daughter — an American girl among the civilian casualties.

I grieve again.

[ by Charles Cameron — Geert Wilders, that is, and Donald Trump? ]
.

Consider:

**

Sources:

New York Times, Geert Wilders, Reclusive Provocateur, Rises Before Dutch Vote

Washington Times, Donald Trump draws boos from conservative crowd

[ by Charles Cameron — Trump, Assad and Trump ]
.

The first way, which is drawing a lot of fire these days, is via the Trump “Muslim ban” —

— but it ain’t the only way: angering al-Assad can also do the trick.

**

An alternative example of the first kind would give us this —

— in some ways it’s a closer match, since both Russo and Khatib were traveling to significant events where their work would be highlighted. On the other hand, the Muhammad Ali Jr instance is powerful by reason of the issue of his religion coming up..

**

Sources:

Guardian, US border agents ask Muhammad Ali’s son: ‘Are you a Muslim?’

Vox, The White Helmets cinematographer Khaled Khatib was coming to the Oscars

Guardian, Leading French academic threatened with deportation at Houston airport

**

But then we could also juxtapose the alternative first examples with one another, making a DoubleQuote of two instances of problems with US border agents —

— and yes, much of the world is looking on.