Recommended Reading
[by Mark Safranski a.k.a “zen“]
Top Billing! Galrahn If It’s Not “War,” It Sounds Like Checkers
….Words matter, and when they are not allowed to matter in policy, we are not being honest with ourselves. Over the last two days John Kerry described the political object with Syria as “to deter, disrupt, prevent, and degrade the potential for, future uses of chemical weapons or other weapons of mass destruction” by the Assad regime in Syria. The Obama administration has apparently convinced itself that a Desert Fox Part II action in Syria will produce the desired result, apparently ignoring that Desert Fox was in part what led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. I do not know any serious expert who believes the Obama administrations military approach to Syria will achieve a positive political object for the US.
The Obama administrations national security leadership, in Congressional testimony, is promoting a delusion regarding the act of war, and is incapable of admitting they are about to start a war. Most troubling, they are intentionally dismissing consequences and the gravity of such action under the assumption that military superiority translates to strategic success. The United States does not have a strategy that political leaders can articulate publicly on Syria, nor is the Obama administrations national security leadership publicly seeking meaningful military objectives of consequence to conditions in Syria. The United States does not have a coalition of support to provide legitimacy for military action, a coalition that protects the US from escalation or retaliation. John Kerry, in front of Congress, described those who believe it unwise for the US to inject our nation into another nations civil war uninvited, as armchair isolationists. No one knew for certain the intelligence cited by Colin Powell was wrong in 2003. Every human being educated on the definition of war knows John Kerry is wrong in 2013, and no one credible on the topic of war will ever be able to argue otherwise.
War on the Rocks (Usha Sahay) –SYRIA, SIGNALING, AND OPERATION INFINITE REACH
The emphasis on sending a message of resolve may explain why the Clinton administration glossed over spotty intelligence about proposed targets for the cruise missile strikes. The El-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan was targeted because it was thought to be a chemical weapons facility. It soon became clear that El-Shifa was nothing of the sort, and that intelligence reporting had in fact never shown definitively that terrorists were using the plant to manufacture WMDs. Part of the reason for this intelligence oversight was that the administration was searching a priori for targets to strike and, consequently, giving inadequate consideration to their actual relevance. The New Republic later noted that, along with the al-Qaeda training facility in Afghanistan, officials wanted to hit “another country, preferably in Africa, where al Qaeda’s terrorist network enjoyed support. [CIA director George] Tenet’s job was to provide targets” [emphasis added].
The symbolic function of the targets, then, was more important than their strategic relevance. Even the number of targets was determined by aesthetic considerations rather than strategic ones: analysts including Micah Zenko argue that the team wanted to hit exactly two targets in order to mirror the two embassies that al-Qaeda had attacked.
Edward Luttwak – In Syria, America Loses if Either Side Wins
….The war is now being waged by petty warlords and dangerous extremists of every sort: Taliban-style Salafist fanatics who beat and kill even devout Sunnis because they fail to ape their alien ways; Sunni extremists who have been murdering innocent Alawites and Christians merely because of their religion; and jihadis from Iraq and all over the world who have advertised their intention to turn Syria into a base for global jihad aimed at Europe and the United States.
Given this depressing state of affairs, a decisive outcome for either side would be unacceptable for the United States. An Iranian-backed restoration of the Assad regime would increase Iran’s power and status across the entire Middle East, while a victory by the extremist-dominated rebels would inaugurate another wave of Al Qaeda terrorism.
There is only one outcome that the United States can possibly favor: an indefinite draw.
William Lind -THE VIEW FROM OLYMPUS 8: WHITE HOUSE PRESS RELEASE, DECEMBER 7, 2016
President Barack Obama today welcomed to the White House Mr. Ayman al Zawahiri, the leader of al Qaeda, for the formal signing of a pact of alliance between al Qaeda and the United States of America. The new alliance treaty envisions broad-scale cooperation between al Qaeda and the United States in the cause of destroying states. Following the signing of the treaty, President Obama will direct US government agencies, including the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA to work with their al Qaeda counterparts on projects of joint benefit, including generating phony intelligence to justify American military interventions, carrying out pseudo-ops to create humanitarian tragedies that can be blamed on state leaders, and generally spreading anarchy throughout the world.
The Glittering Eye –Is It To Be Isolationists vs. Militarists?
Bill Keller presents a false and vicious dichotomy. Although he’s a bit sheepish about it, he’s ultimately arguing that, if we are to be engaged with the world, it must be at the point of a gun ….
….I see barely a smidgeon of isolationism in contemporary America. There are millions of Americans living and working overseas, we import a huge proportion of our consumer goods and a lot of our food from abroad, and we have a higher proportion of immigrants presently living in the United States than at at all but a very few times in our history.
Who is he, Hideki Tojo? Is the only form of engagement with the world military engagement? That’s militarism.
Outside the Beltway (Matconis) –Are The Russians About To Outsmart Obama And Kerry On Syria?
Chicago Boyz –Georgene Rice Interviews Lex about America 3.0, Review of America 3.0 by Arnold Kling, Daniel Hannan: Channeling America 3.0!, A Plea for America 3.0: “Can we just fast-forward to 2040? Please?”
Not the Singularity (Hynd) –Does The NSA’s General Alexander Have Too Much Power?
Campaign Reboot –What value to a poll? Syria edition
Brad DeLong – “Modern Greats”….
hbd chick –national individualism-collectivism scores
Friend of Zenpundit Fred Leland had his LESC blog ranked # 3 out of all criminal justice related blogs. Congratulations Fred!!!!
That’s it!
September 10th, 2013 at 8:27 am
Thanks for the mention!
September 10th, 2013 at 12:57 pm
“For a time I would feel I belonged still to a world of straightforward facts; but the feeling would not last long. Something would turn up to scare it away. Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast. There wasn’t even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush. It appears the French had one of their wars going on thereabouts. Her ensign dropped limp like a rag; the muzzles of the long eight-inch guns stuck out all over the low hull; the greasy, slimy swell swung her up lazily and let her down, swaying her thin masts. In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent. Pop, would go one of the eight-inch guns; a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech–and nothing happened. Nothing could happen. There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of natives–he called them enemies!—hidden out of sight somewhere.”
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
September 11th, 2013 at 2:16 pm
I love Conrad and he has a point, but lets not forget that the same French owned half of the continent they were shelling. Pointless shelling may have played little or no role in it, but it was part of a much bigger operation. The really interesting part is when its the only thing left…even Conrad would have trouble describing that.