zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — a thought provocation ]
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Poison tree

Strange fruit:

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Fruit of the poisonous tree is an American legal doctrine:

This doctrine holds that evidence gathered with the assistance of illegally obtained information must be excluded from trial. Thus, if an illegal interrogation leads to the discovery of physical evidence, both the interrogation and the physical evidence may be excluded, the interrogation because of the exclusionary rule, and the physical evidence because it is the “fruit” of the illegal interrogation.

[ by Charles Cameron — jihadist and western video versions of Marcel Proust’s memory of a madeleine ]
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Jihad first, since this is a strategy blog:

The same tale, as told for a soft western audience:

Thank you for your kind attention.

[ by Charles Cameron — utter foolishness in a caption from The Good Wife ]
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It is not Bach, its is Beethoven.

It is not Beethoven, it is a sandwich.

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Do I have nothing better to do?

[ by Charles Cameron — it’s precisely the unanticipated that blindsides us, no? ]
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You know me, I’m very interested by the words “unanticipated” and “blindsided” — and I have the sort of mind that plays with words in the attempt to decode any “unanticipated” meanings they may hide. So for me, what follows is not an argument for or against Bill Kristol or Andrew Bacevich, nor a prescription for action or inaction against IS.

Here, then, is what strikes me as I read Kristol’s single sentence, as quoted by Bacevich, and it would strike me whoever’s sentence it was:

I don’t think there’s much in the way of unanticipated side effects that are going to be bad there.

What Mr Kristol doesn’t think will occur, he doesn’t anticipate will occur n– that'[s what the words mean. And I so might translate his words thus:

I don’t anticipate there’s much in the way of unanticipated side effects that are going to be bad there.

But aren’t unanticipated side effects precisely the ones that aren’t anticipated?

I get ye olde dragon eating its tail feeling.

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I mean, there must be more going on, right?

One person’s unanticipated consequence is another’s predictable outcome..

In any case..

William Blake‘s paintings are very far from accurate by photographic standards, but he seems to have anticipated the human consequences of the “dark satanic mills” of the industrial revolution way ahead of bis contemporaries. Prophecy, in my view, is more a matter of warning of trends that porediction of future states of the system. Success in foresight is a matter precisely of attending to what’s unantipiated by others — because it’s in one of their blindspots.

Every driver on the road should know this!

[by Mark Safranski, a.k.a. “zen“]

President Obama addressed the nation in the wake of the ISIS-inspired terrorism San Bernardino that killed 14 people. You can read a transcript of his speech here. A few quick comments:

It is a positive, albeit small, step toward realism in the White House that the President managed to connect an act with terrorism with radical Islam as a causal factor in public. Furthermore, the recognition that our policies on immigration from states with extremely problematic connections with Islamist extremism and terrorism (i.e. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia) contributed to the massacre is a welcome change. Recall that the administration’s initial reaction was to call the murders “gun violence” -as if the culprits here were some kind of mystery – and for the Attorney-General to make disturbing noises about criminalizing free speech critical of Islam she found objectionable.

The President’s reluctance to get into a large ground war with ISIS in Iraq and Syria is laudable. That does not mean our current actions against ISIS are effective or vigorous. They have been up until Russia’s intervention in Syria, remarkably tepid. It is laudable because at present the administration lacks a strategy for a major ground campaign; would be diplomatically unable, or find unpalatable, coordinating such a campaign with Russia, Iran, the Kurds, the Iraqi government, France and Turkey; and because the Congress and public would not wish to pay for a war of that magnitude. The President’s current strategy of air power, special forces, advice and aid is not bad in principle, but will not likely be effective in crippling ISIS unless ramped up by many orders of magnitude. Even then it would be a process of grinding ISIS down over time. Will this POTUS do that?

The President’s plea for gun control on semi-automatic rifles is a pet partisan issue for liberal Democrats irrelevant to stopping terrorism. It has no chance of passing either House of Congress. He will have no luck either with barring people on the No-Fly list from buying guns until he proposes legislation that specifically accommodates the due process rights of the accused. Nor should he until this happens, given the number of people who have ended up on the unaccountable, secret, No-Fly list out of error, capricious bureaucrats, mistaken identity and for being critical in print or online of the performance of government agencies.

The fact is the POTUS is by this time, a lame duck while 2016 campaigning is well under way. The president has never liked compromise with Republicans or advice from fellow Democrats and has kept counsel with a very small group of advisers in his second term. We are unlikely see much change in policy without a broadening of his inner circle.

What did you think of this speech?