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[ by Charles Cameron — who like Ryan Evans has more questions than answers ]
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This, for the use of the DoubleQuotes format:

SecState Tillerson and NSA McMaster just gave two conflicting statements on Syria strikes. Message discipline sorely needed right now. pic.twitter.com/6cPRrCEgsI

— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) April 7, 2017

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Okay, undeclared warfare has clearly been declared, if it hadn’t been already: maybe someone should tell Congress —

The President must get Congressional approval before attacking Syria-big mistake if he does not!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2013

In the meantime, consider:

Now that Trump has directly struck and taken out an Assad regime air base, the regime to watch for reaction isn't Russia's but Iran's.

— ?yad el-Baghdadi (@iyad_elbaghdadi) April 7, 2017

together with:

It's worth pausing to think about the Chinese angle here, too. What do they make of this happening during Xi's visit?

— Howard French (@hofrench) April 7, 2017

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Reaction from the furthest right in two tweets:

Bannon out. Nunes out. Flynn out. Sessions recused. We won WH & both houses! Imagine if we lost. GOP would be picking up Dems dry cleaning.

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) April 6, 2017

together with:

If Bannon does not resign, I will have lost a tremendous amount of respect for him. #NoWarInSyria

— Richard ? Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) April 7, 2017

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And just for the sheer fun of it — no DoubleQuote here!

One Syrian tells me the new nom de guerre for President Trump on the ground in Northern Syria is Abu Ivanka al Amriki. #syria

— Clarissa Ward (@clarissaward) April 7, 2017

[ by Charles Cameron –the key question arises from the final quote ]
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[source page unavailable ]

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Mark Gilchrist, the Australian serving officer who brought us Why Thucydides Still Matters, has a new post — the first of three — up at Strategy Bridge in which he explores The Twilight Between Knowing and Not Knowing — an appropriately liminal title — specifically, the difficulties involved in recognizing genocide. It’s a fascinating if harrowing article, and I’m going to cherry-pick some quotes for your attention..

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the world’s diplomats were accustomed to dealing with wars – they were not, and did not try to become, accustomed to the requirements of dealing with genocide.

So, between politics and (its continuation) war, at least ne liminal condiciton: genocide.

You’ve got to sow the seeds of hysteria in the population, and that takes time…

How far back can we date the current wave of hysteria in the population — from a liberal and from a conservative perspective, or other?

Dallaire deployed without knowledge of the history and culture of Rwanda or relevant intelligence about the stakeholders, agendas or general situation on the ground. This inhibited his ability to understand the massacres that occurred

Ooh, anthropology, and — dare we say it — (dark) religion.

it failed to recognise the importance of the rise in anti-Tutsi rhetoric in the Rwandan media, which was instrumental in furthering the extremists’ genocidal aims through the psychological preparation of the Hutu population.

Are we monitoring the rise of anti-x rhetoric (foreign and domestic)? How’s it going?

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Here’s the stunning cognitive takeaway!!

The scale of the barbarity was almost incomprehensible to Western observers – UNAMIR troops included – which resulted in eyewitnesses often finding themselves in denial about what was unfolding around them. The troops made themselves believe that high-pitched screams were gusts of wind, that the rabid packs of dogs were feeding on animal remains and not human carcasses, that the smells enveloping them emanated from spoiled food and not decomposing bodies. Barnett argues that this fantasy is reminiscent of Primo Levi’s observation about the Holocaust that ‘things whose existence is not morally comprehensible cannot exist.’ This is particularly so for Western troops who are trained to think and act within the bounds of a moral and ethical behavioural framework that can obscure their ability to recognise the evil that others may be capable of.

Blindness, denial. The grand question raised by this article and by the Rwandan experience goes way beyon Rwanda to our cognitive incapacities and their potentially disastrous repercussions in general.

No worries, ma — it’s only a gust of wind.

[ by Charles Cameron — two brief surface readings in Talmud, with a request for deeper understanding ]
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As someone brought up with more of a focus on the Beatitudes than the Torah (I know, a huge question with many potential shades of answer opens up when I say that), I was not familiar with this Talmudic aphorism until the drone strikes that killed Anwar al-Awlaki and shortly thereafter his son Abdulrahman brought it to my attention:

Ha-Ba le-Horgekha Hashkem le-Horgo is a teaching of increasing popularity among Israelis. Taken from the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 72:1, its most precise translation is: ‘If someone comes to kill you, get up early to kill him first.’

I imagine it also has relevance to the (presumed) Israeli targeted killing of (eg) Imad Mughniyah..

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Yesterday I came across a second such Talmudic phrase, based on Genesis 50:

The sages derived a principle from this text. Mutar le-shanot mipnei ha-shalom: “It is permitted to tell an untruth (literally, “to change” the facts) for the sake of peace.” A white lie is permitted in Jewish law.

This aphorism may be of interest to bear in mind in the context of Israeli peace negotiations — but more directly (and literally) “it is permitted to change the facts” carries a sidelong resemblance to the concepts of alt-facts & faux news currently infesting our politicians and media…

Sources:

Jewish Quarterly, Kill him first

Rabbi Sacks, When is it Permitted to Tell a Lie?

^^

Knowing the Talmud to be deeper and richer than my own understanding by many orders of magnitude, I’d like to invite commentary on these or other aspects of Talmudic thought that may play, directly or indirectly, into national security issues.

[ by Charles Cameron — concerted: in which a single voice should be heard in contrast with others ]
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Having said all that I did about bridge-building, and respectfully hearing and annotatimg both sides in a highly divisive environment, I have another issue, another question.

When is it time for the peace-maker to take a side?

What if Jay Rosen is correct in A few notes on unbuilding a key part of the presidency? Should we be terrified at the very idea of one man having control of the nuclear arsenal?

Since the start of the Cold War some 70 years ago, Americans have been aware of a crazy thing about the holder of the Presidency. That person could blow up the world. The possibility of nuclear annihilation changed the institution by introducing new psychological facts to the relationship between the American people and the occupant of the White House. And, we should add, between the publics of other nations and the American President. For this was a terrible power to invest in one man.

And taking things a step further — is the world at serious risk of major nuclear war with Donald Trump in the Presidency? If so, should the peace-makers and bridge-makers take issue with him? And how? With what stratagems? And in what tone of voice?

[ by Charles Cameron — query re his quote on an American dictatorship ]
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Can anyone give me a source for this quote from Donald Atwell Zoll?

One of the reasons why many Americans do not fear a domestic dictatorship is that they assume dictatorship would take some exotic form similar to those they have observed in Germany, Japan, or Russia, and they cannot imagine such conditions as an indigenous set of arrangements and customs. An American dictatorship would be no more like Nazi Germany in style than it would resemble the Zulu empire of Chaka — it would be dictatorship American plan, complete with George Washington, Valley Forge, the Stars and Stripes, the “home of the brave,” the World Series, Captain Kangaroo, and Mother’s insipid apple pie. It would appear to be the apotheosis of democracy — and, of course, in a sense, it would be.